Wow thats even more crazy like here..
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Maybe it could depend of the kind of Credit Card/way of payment, to be sure the they really got the money?
They need to lower the prices on some of the items, I do agree here.
Lets take a soulstone for an example. Currently in game on Atlantic as I write this I can buy a soulstone token for 55 million gold or I could use the new Ultima Store to buy the same item for real money @ $9.99.
I could buy gold from another "naughty" website for about $0.13 a million (at the time of writing) which means to get my soulstone this way it would cost me $7.15 (cheaper than the official store).
Transfer tokens I would save even more. These are $19.99 or 70m in game gold. Buy the gold from a 3rd party and it works out at just over $9.
This is what they need to be trying to combat in my opinion.
Lets take a soulstone for an example. Currently in game on Atlantic as I write this I can buy a soulstone token for 55 million gold or I could use the new Ultima Store to buy the same item for real money @ $9.99.
I could buy gold from another "naughty" website for about $0.13 a million (at the time of writing) which means to get my soulstone this way it would cost me $7.15 (cheaper than the official store).
Transfer tokens I would save even more. These are $19.99 or 70m in game gold. Buy the gold from a 3rd party and it works out at just over $9.
This is what they need to be trying to combat in my opinion.
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Bought 5,000 applied the code and they were there instantly. I think what you might be hearing is a problem I had when I used a different credit card on my origin acct and it did take 48 hours to get the tokens I had ordered. I think that is part of the security of the origin store and has been in place for a while. Since I wanted to xfr right away I used the credit card I usually use and the tokens were insta delivered. That has been a few months back but my guess is it is still the same deal there.
Or you could buy the transfer from the other "Naughty" site for $50 for 5 or $12.00 per
I fully agree. Whilst dodgy websites are cheaper people will continue to use those. There needs to be an incentive to use the ingame store. That means lower prices than the dodgy websites.
I wonder what would happen if they created a small window (say 1 week) where the new ingame store would buy back gold at a given rate... Say .13 per million.
We would trade one digital currency for another, but the real value would be the elimination of (hopefully) a very large chunk of gold from circulation. Might be a way to realign the ingame economy. Food for thought...
We would trade one digital currency for another, but the real value would be the elimination of (hopefully) a very large chunk of gold from circulation. Might be a way to realign the ingame economy. Food for thought...
How do you think that 'dodgy websites' are able to sell these items for less than what EA/BS are charging?
I see only three possibilities:
1) They stockpiled on a lot of low-priced codes during sales on the Origin store (not likely to generate a consistent supply though)
2) They didn't pay for the items, i.e. they stole the codes from the Origin store with credit card fraud or some other illicit method
3) Duping
If 2 or 3 is true, EA/BS cannot run the 'dodgy websites' out of business just by lowering prices. The 'dodgy websites' will simply lower their prices further - whatever they charge, they're still making a profit over their expenses of zero...
The flaw in your logic is we are talking about a virtual item... EA cost is also zero.
There's no expense involved for EA. The cost of the artwork for the item being sold has been recouped many times over. It is the price it is because EA is a greedy corp who cares not about doing anything for those who are playing their old cash cow, err, I mean games. You proved the point when you said the duped could be made cheaper than the official ones...if thats the case, EA needs to start duping their own crap and giving us a pricebreak
I also have a bit of offense at the term "dodgy website" as the one I deal with, I went to after repeated, repeated!, problems with the 'official store'. The dodgy website as you call it, can deliver me goods almost immediately, and in any quantity I desire. I have never ever had an issue with them. And they do it with people who speak English that a southern US citizen can understand.
The existence of these websites can be blamed solely on EA/Origin?Mythic/Broadsword/<insert upcoming name here>'s sorry half-assed customer service. You see, you don't really HAVE to build a better mousetrap, you can sell the same ones, and if you do it better and more efficiently you will have plenty of customers.
I think it would be a logistical and legal nightmare and definitely would not be worth the hassle for doing it for a small window of time.
Here's a thread I posted regarding the possibility about a year ago: Do FinCEN Regulations Mean EA or Broadsword Will Likely Never Sell UO Gold?
Also, a more recent discussion on a game dev website: What makes MMOs with real-money economies legal?
Edited to add: Also, there's the whole question of where EA or BS would get the money to buy back the gold from players. What aspect of the game would they neglect or eliminate to keep the UO budget in balance?
Can I transfer Sovereigns?
Sovereigns are available to any Ultima Online subscription account that is linked to your master account wallet. You cannot transfer Sovereigns between master account wallets.
You both missed my point. Sure, several items are overpriced, and EA should cut their own prices to increase their own sales and profits.There's no expense involved for EA. The cost of the artwork for the item being sold has been recouped many times over. It is the price it is because EA is a greedy corp who cares not about doing anything for those who are playing their old cash cow, err, I mean games. You proved the point when you said the duped could be made cheaper than the official ones...if thats the case, EA needs to start duping their own crap and giving us a pricebreak
But this doesn't change the fact that - no matter how much EA drops their prices - dupers will always be able to charge less than EA.
The only way for EA to drive dupers out of business is to lower the prices so much that the dupers will just say 'why bother' - but if the prices become so low, what do you think will happen? EA will also say 'why bother' and stop selling the items...
I took 'dodgy website' from Morbeous's post I was replying to. But point taken about the offense; from now on I'll refer to them as 'third-party resellers'.
This is an entirely different point. You claim that you use third-party resellers because they offer a better customer service than the official website, and that is a valid complaint with which I agree. But I wasn't discussing quality of customer service, I was talking about the prices.
UO is now selling an in-game currency for real $$. To take that one step further and swap one in-game currency for another in-game currency would hardly be a legal issue.
Yes, it would mean for a short time, sales of some of those items would drop. But unlike gold, which just changes hands, many of the new store options are consumables. Basic economics would say that period is not as long as you might think... for a while those items would be "cheaper" which would lead to more people using them.
Which rules out duping, but kinda proves my other point that this third-party seller must be able to get codes from the Origin store using 'creative' financial methods...
Not Necessarily. They may be taking a small loss on sovereigns to bring traffic in.
Pretty common practice among competitors.
Ok, so how are they selling Sovereigns when they're supposedly Master Mythic account bound ? I haven't bought anything yet, and assumed you purchase them while logged into your master mythic account and it binds them to that account. Or are we still talking codes ?
The code to enter into the master account is not master account bound
As far as taking a small loss........ I have found 2 sites selling codes for sovs for half of what Origin is in the last 5 minutes.
Which would lead me to believe either stolen credit cards or someone that can create codes with in origin running some side business.
Which would lead me to believe either stolen credit cards or someone that can create codes with in origin running some side business.
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The third party vendors of Ultima Online codes are not authorized, approved, or backed by Broadsword or EA. You purchase from said sites at your own risk. I must remind you all that it is against Stratics rules to advertise these sites. Please do not direct traffic their way from Stratics.
If you want to support official UO, that means supporting Broadsword, not an unauthorized third party. I suggest you consider long and hard about how a third party could be selling these items at half cost a single day after they go live before opening your wallet to them.
If you want to support official UO, that means supporting Broadsword, not an unauthorized third party. I suggest you consider long and hard about how a third party could be selling these items at half cost a single day after they go live before opening your wallet to them.
Thing is these third party sites have been around for years at much cheaper prices than the official ones. Its probably these keeping UO running.
From what i can tell:
1. The store still doesnt even compare to "other means" of getting these items price wise.
2. The store is still going to have a lot of difficulty with Credit cards.
3. The store is misleading with some of the graphics it uses
4. the store still has a code problem.
Sounds like the store has moved its problems from a website to in game. But hey its progress i guess...
Things id like to see
1. Be able to use gold/plat to buy things from the store. Perhaps not all things but anything to get a real gold sink going. perhaps only items that decay over time so what you buy doesnt last. Like pet bonding potions.
2. new items. Who in their right mind realeases this new awesome thing and then 1. releases it with problems and then 2. releases it with out anything new added? again UO needs PR bad.
3. graphics fixed to match exactly what you get.
4. Can we seriously get the code thing right? all we as customers want to do is copy and paste the code we get. Is it really that hard?
5. compare your prices.... you arent the only ones selling this stuff. put the other guys out of business.
Its a start. Not necessarily a great one, but its definitely on the right track. Really wish the staff would of taken a bit more time and released something full proof for once. I guess thats just not possible.
1. The store still doesnt even compare to "other means" of getting these items price wise.
2. The store is still going to have a lot of difficulty with Credit cards.
3. The store is misleading with some of the graphics it uses
4. the store still has a code problem.
Sounds like the store has moved its problems from a website to in game. But hey its progress i guess...
Things id like to see
1. Be able to use gold/plat to buy things from the store. Perhaps not all things but anything to get a real gold sink going. perhaps only items that decay over time so what you buy doesnt last. Like pet bonding potions.
2. new items. Who in their right mind realeases this new awesome thing and then 1. releases it with problems and then 2. releases it with out anything new added? again UO needs PR bad.
3. graphics fixed to match exactly what you get.
4. Can we seriously get the code thing right? all we as customers want to do is copy and paste the code we get. Is it really that hard?
5. compare your prices.... you arent the only ones selling this stuff. put the other guys out of business.
Its a start. Not necessarily a great one, but its definitely on the right track. Really wish the staff would of taken a bit more time and released something full proof for once. I guess thats just not possible.
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There's a problem with dashes? Given access to the source code and programming tools, any competent programmer could fix that. Is that source code out of reach of the programmers? Or is it compiled with a compiler that no longer works? Or both?
There's a problem with dashes? Given access to the source code and programming tools, any competent programmer could fix that. Is that source code out of reach of the programmers? Or is it compiled with a compiler that no longer works? Or both?
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Went to one of the "sites" to see what was up.. you click on their page to buy sovereigns and you are redirected to the legit UO store to purchase them at the same price as normal. So.. that site is just kinda piggybacking ya to see the numbers that are entered... yea... that's legit there...
Add a 100% price increase for certain regions and having even more expansions disappear from the store.
So yeah, any Brazilian ask me where to buy Stygian Abyss or High Seas, I will point them to third party stores, thank you.
How about posting a LINK to all those hype posts you are talking about, oh wait you can't because UO never posted any hype. The only hype that waqs posted was from people like you and now you are just whining. Nobody promised you a Ferrari so please stop.
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Hey I posted no hype whatsoever. Just dissapointed with the store. Compared to other online games with online stores it is pretty pants to be honest.
No offense but a dodgy website is a dodgy website, why call it anything else?
Many years ago Jeremy said something about stolen credit cards was often used by the shady people. I would assume that that is one way the dodgy websites stock their "shelves"...
4. They bought them off vendors with gold and flipped for cash.
Those two particular sites I would not trust with used toilet paper
And I only use the trusted 3rd party sites when Origin determines I have spent to much and won't let me buy anything else from the official site.
Thank you clarifying that. Gotta remember that we were the ones complaining about the origin store rejecting credit cards that made multiple purchases and cried out to the team to come up with an alternative - so this is it, sigh. The result is that, yes, you can buy multiples of the same item, and it's pretty to look at. But now the whole process is much more time consuming and complicated for current players and another thing for a new player to encounter and say WTF?! But who's to blame? *points at us*
There is no way in hades that enough people sold these items on vendors to have those 3rd party sites so well stocked.
to be honest... i have too much to say.
i specialize in ecommerce, purchasing systems, marketing and coding stuff like this - is what i do - and why am going back to school for the MBA.... and this... *sigh*
moma told me if i don't have enough to balance between good and bad, best not say anything at all.
I think will go slay some demons in diablo.
i specialize in ecommerce, purchasing systems, marketing and coding stuff like this - is what i do - and why am going back to school for the MBA.... and this... *sigh*
moma told me if i don't have enough to balance between good and bad, best not say anything at all.
I think will go slay some demons in diablo.
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I know how the 3rd party sites got the sovereigns, and it's the same way they get an unlimited stock of transfer tokens and every other item that UO sells for real money. It is definitely illegal, costs them absolutely nothing and is surprisingly easy to do.
It also happens to be the same reason why people sometimes get the "sorry this code has already been used" message when buying gametime codes.
I won't post the specifics of course, but essentially they are hijacking legitimate codes from the store and using them to get free items. Since the store does not realize the code has been hijacked and used, someone buys a 1 month gametime code or something, and the store unknowingly gives them the code that has already been used by the thief.
This has been going on for years, and has made certain people literally tens of thousands of dollars in real life.
Since the codes are acquired for free, the websites can easily sell them for steeply reduced prices since they are making 100% profit anyway no matter what the price is.
It also happens to be the same reason why people sometimes get the "sorry this code has already been used" message when buying gametime codes.
I won't post the specifics of course, but essentially they are hijacking legitimate codes from the store and using them to get free items. Since the store does not realize the code has been hijacked and used, someone buys a 1 month gametime code or something, and the store unknowingly gives them the code that has already been used by the thief.
This has been going on for years, and has made certain people literally tens of thousands of dollars in real life.
Since the codes are acquired for free, the websites can easily sell them for steeply reduced prices since they are making 100% profit anyway no matter what the price is.
It's how they have always done it. And it hurts us more than many realize... in more ways than folk can imagine.
But sadly as long as its profitable they will continue to do it.
Except the stratics posters already posted a long and detailed list in these forums outlining all of the different flavours that they would like to buy. So no ... I don't get the idea.Devs: Who wants Ice Cream?
Stratics Poster 1: I DO!
Stratics Poster 2: I DO!
Stratics Poster 3: Me too
**continue to**
Stratics Poster 152: Sounds great!
Devs: Here is your ice cream!
Stratics Poster 1: WTH?!?!?! Only one flavor?
Statics Poster 2: I wanted Chocolate!!
Stratics Poster 3: Why is it in a paper cup??? I wanted a crystal bowl...
Ya get the idea...
I've bought from third party sellers before and my reasons for doing so are simple. The third party sites offer the exact same items, actually more items, at a cheaper price and have an easy to use account system which works flawlessly every time along with a professional courteous fast efficient system in obtaining your items. In short they offer great customer service. And they offer a loyalty rewards scheme so you get free stuff!!
Why the hell would I want to forgo all of that and pay more through a poorer interface with little to no customer service?
I don't buy the "supporting Official UO" line as we all know that the cash just goes into EAs back pocket to be used elsewhere. UO benefits not one jot from any purchases.
Yeah, I can just imagine their planning dialogue.
"Our customers have told us they'd love to buy the Neapolitan, Rocky Road, and Chocolate Almond ice cream flavors, by far their favorite choices! So lets sell Vanilla, Toffee flavored, and Funky Fruit flavors, we'll sell tons of them and make a fortune!!! Muahahaha!!!
Fantastic Idea!
Makes no sense. Sorry.
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Of course ya don't....
However, I don't remember the Devs soliciting opinions on what the community wanted in the initial roll out of the store. Do you? I remember them mentioning it as being something that was coming and the community making a "wish list". But last I checked.. which was Christmas as a child.. "Wish lists" are just that.. wish. Not saying they will not possibly implement some of the wishes in the future.. *shrugs*
If I understand this "Process" right, they FIRST needed to switch the whole sales-issue to ingame, except certain products. Then they and we got warm with the system and there will be some troubleshooting. After a certain period of time when devs and players have gathered experiences with the new system, the SECOND phase begins, where they will sell new stuff from our wishlist such as vanity items.
I have no problems with this procedure, I just would have wishes that...
...the codes had worked without the dash-problem
...the prices had been a bit lower
...and we got at least 1-2 new teaser items for the start.
I am and have never ever been a crybaby and BS got my 99.9 % support, but the release is a little bit dissapointing even to me. HOWEVER, if I take into account that we got a new monetary system in recent time (no gold checks anymore), a new website, new newsletters, a new landmass with new quests and masteries and stuff AND this new ingame shop, I am ABSOLUTELY content with the state of UO at this very moment. They did things many of us NEVER had expected. We are NOT in a maintenance mode, the game develops further and there are MANY important improvements. We got an expansion and a new shop system - I think some of us simply dont manage to admit, that these are improvements - despite of all problems.
There are always problems and issues when new stuff comes. Even the most renowned car labels sometimes build cars that have to be called back into factory for a revamp. Thats business. A perfect world does not exist, because mankind is not perfect. Period.
I have no problems with this procedure, I just would have wishes that...
...the codes had worked without the dash-problem
...the prices had been a bit lower
...and we got at least 1-2 new teaser items for the start.
I am and have never ever been a crybaby and BS got my 99.9 % support, but the release is a little bit dissapointing even to me. HOWEVER, if I take into account that we got a new monetary system in recent time (no gold checks anymore), a new website, new newsletters, a new landmass with new quests and masteries and stuff AND this new ingame shop, I am ABSOLUTELY content with the state of UO at this very moment. They did things many of us NEVER had expected. We are NOT in a maintenance mode, the game develops further and there are MANY important improvements. We got an expansion and a new shop system - I think some of us simply dont manage to admit, that these are improvements - despite of all problems.
There are always problems and issues when new stuff comes. Even the most renowned car labels sometimes build cars that have to be called back into factory for a revamp. Thats business. A perfect world does not exist, because mankind is not perfect. Period.
I'm not sure BS give a rats ass about what goes into the store to be honest. They were probably tasked by EA to create the in game store and they've done as asked. Job done. It's EA who are missing a trick and who should be providing what the player base wants, within reason. BS probably have no say whatsoever in what is sold.
I'm still convinced that the in game store is nothing more than a prelude to F2P. UO now has a tried and tested model working in-game for micro purchases, selling a single currency through their website.
I'm not saying that the existing shards will necessarily go F2P but creating new shards and expanding the store inventory to run a F2P model is now a very simple thing to do.
It's possible EA could make UO Fee 2 Play. If they decide they might make more money with UO becoming fee 2 play, they may decide it's worth doing. Time will tell. *shrugs*