For everybody who posts here about not liking the idea, keep in mind that you are helping to keep this thread at the top of this forum. So lets ignore it and let it go away.

This, this is very annoying. Very rude and will probably be where many will simply get stuck. I almost did. Was able to pick off a few from the other guy by grabing one that might spawn just a second after he went for the first. But it was really a matter of getting lucky with the timing and the fact that there was only one like him where I was. If there were two vets farming I would have been screwed. Perhaps make a handful of of special spawn drones that only show for those who have the tutorial. Or spawn a group of distinctly named drones for the mission that don't drop any loot so vets wont bother with them.

But this digresses from the point of the thread.

Definitely do more videos. I mentioned the game to a friend and the first thing he did was go to the website to find a video. Your launch trailer is great.

Its amazing what you can get when you combined some of funding with a great idea and a dozen very creative geeks. And I use that terms with the all respect that it should carry. It is great to see how geek culture transcends boarders. Keep up the good work.

Oh, and you should annotate the photo. Who is who and what do they do?

EQ2, They have had a item shop since long before extended. And other game come very close. WoW essentially has an item shop now with selling pets and the sparkle pony. You can buy pets in Aion now as well. I think the difference you may be in that they mostly sell fluff items though in EQ2 you can get exp boosting potions.

The question is, does it effect game play. The problem is, lots of things effect game play, how much are you willing to tolerate. Vanity pets, purely cosmetic clothing, dyes and furniture for housing surely falls into the category of not effecting game play. But it never stops there. What about mounts? That effects the game but only really in terms of being a convenience. So you can move around faster in the game with out paying for it in game. Not that big a thing. What about an exp boost potion? in a game like WoW or EQ2 I would say, not a big deal. Everybody hits max level within a few months anyway so it really only changes the time frame of when that happens. The real end game competition happens after level cap there. In a game like Perpetuum or EVE, you never get to a level cap so arguably anything that effects skill gain effects the end game.

EQ2 should be seen as a cautionary tail in terms of P2P games and items stores. All there stuff started off as fluff and 95% of it still is. But now you can also get mounts with stats, cloaks with stats and special abilities and exp potions. Did they cross the line? Did they go too far? Don't know, it is hard to say, for some they did and they don't play any more.

All I would say to avatar creations at this point would be, be careful. You cannot put the genie back into the bottle once it is out and you do have the opportunity, right now, to stay out of the item shop craze as a matter of principle. You also stand to earn some of your customers on the basis of sticking to that principle if you do. Especially if CCP ends up going "to far" with there item shop.

You just became my hero. But this means we will hold you to it.

True, this definitely helps and I think it will be an adequate solution. I would simply rather see rewards balanced (nerfed) and have the "Tax" more directly impact what people are trying to get from this exploit.

From the perspective that things are not moving along very fast, yeah, it would seem to be a hardcore game. That really just depends on how much you want how fast. And as has been pointed out, this is the slow build up period for the economy.

Still, I think the basic design of EP (and SP for EVE) is a very good one for the casual players. You may get behind in economic terms, which is no small thing but at least you don't get behind in character development. If you want to play only 2 hrs a night you will still progress in your skill at the same rate as the hardcore guy. He just may be richer.

Any game that involves competition will encourage the competitive to put in high levels of effort. That is something that cannot ever be entirely avoided. Unless you are willing to have no development over time in your game and then it wouldn't be an MMO.