Paying Real Life money to run mercs??

[Brano11]

In case you missed them, here is an excerpt taken from the Test patch notes:

*** Mercenaries ***

Many changes behind the scenes enable easier maintenance/updating of mercenary AI. The AI should behave the same as before. Let us know if there are any new incorrect behaviors.
Mercenaries can now be maintained with Bayle Marks (an alternate currency). These will eventually be available on the marketplace, but not with this patch. We may put an NPC in to distribute these for testing purposes at a later time.
Does this mean, well, not sure what it mean

I really hope this is setting up for an april fools joke =/

Taking from : http://forums.station.sony.com/eq/posts/list.m?topic_id=161297

 

[JimJohnson]

Its a step to eliminate plat farmers. One of the biggest plat expense is the upkeep of mercs / buying new mercs. I wouldn't be surprised if you can buy raid items / AA / levels within the next few expansions.

 

[aCunningGnome]

not... helping.. their.. image...

 

[hankdean]

HA

i called that shit months ago......it was only a matter of time...not sure if its so much a plan to eliminate pp farmers as much as it is for them to make a buck....it was obvious when mercs were introduced that this would happen....whatev lmao go to eqplugins and let that shit run over night.....enjoy

 

[kirbanmanaburn]

I'll be interested to see how the alt currency price stacks up against current going rates for PP. It might be a hint toward SOE's intentions.

 

[RageATM0998]

Mercenaries can now be maintained with Bayle Marks (an alternate currency).

I read it as saying that they're adding another form that you can pay for them. Like, if you don't have plat, you can still buy Bayle Marks and use them to keep your merc going. Like maybe you have to pay either the 90plat upkeep cost, or 1 Bayle Mark every 15 mins, or something like that.

 

[zdozbou]

I read it as saying that they're adding another form that you can pay for them. Like, if you don't have plat, you can still buy Bayle Marks and use them to keep your merc going. Like maybe you have to pay either the 90plat upkeep cost, or 1 Bayle Mark every 15 mins, or something like that.

This is exactly right.

 

[hawthorne]

Mercenaries can now be maintained with Bayle Marks (an alternate currency). These will eventually be available on the marketplace, but not with this patch.

Pretty sure they are referring to this line rage and zdoz.

Very interested in seeing what they price the Bayle Marks for in the marketplace.

 

[RageATM0998]

Yeah I understand the idea. But the impression got was that it would be another way to pay for your merc, if you wanted to use it instead of spending PP. I understand that they plan to sell them in the marketplace, which costs RL cash. However, I don't get the impression that they are going to convert mercs over to ONLY accept this currency. So for people who want to keep paying them with plat, nothing should change.

I'll be interested to see the conversion rate they come up with too, and see how it compares to plat rates. I just don't think that this is as big of a deal as some seem to think it is.

 

[Quatarian]

My SWAG (super wild-ass guess) is that if you ran a merc full time for several hours a day the cost would come to just short of $14.99... if you catch my drift.

 

[cadman]

My SWAG is that it's going to be far more. FFS, 4 hour 1.5* exp potion for a group is what, 25 bucks or something? Smeds has figured out that a lot of ppl who played eq in the beginning as 15k/yr teenagers are now earning 100k/yr and have the mentality "My time is worth way more than it costs to make platinum".

Marketplace is working for getting the bottom line up a fair amount in eq. Probably all that's keeping eq afloat. For all we know the Sony bigwigs have told Smeds that he has to increase microtransaction revenue or they will pull all the devs from it for free realms or something.