No micro-transactions for Guild Wars

By Robert Purchese Published 21 April, 2008

NCsoft explains its NCcoin invention.

NCsoft has told Eurogamer that it has no plans to force its freshly-invented NCcoin system into MMOs with an incompatible business model, like Guild Wars.

NCcoins are paid for with real money and let you buy special items and equipment. Currently they're only available in MMO Exteel, but the publisher is looking to include it in as many other games as possible.

"Currently there are no plans to use the NCcoin system in Guild Wars," a spokesperson for NCsoft told Eurogamer. "NCcoin will not be retrofitted in games that have business models that do not work with a micro-transaction system.

"We will, however, work to have NCcoin incorporated in as many of our games as possible. What role NCcoin will play in our future console offerings is yet to be determined."

NCcoins are available in 100, 500, 1000 and 2000 denominations (USD 1, USD 5, USD 10 and USD 20, respectively). NCsoft claims it developed the system to offer you a variety of business models, and not simply to battle gold farming and real-world trading.

"The bottom line for NCsoft is that we want to be able to offer a variety of business models to meet the needs of the different customers out there," added the spokesperson.

"We have grown to the point where if you are an MMO player and you like the traditional subscription-based games, then we have those. If you are an MMO player seeking a free to play and downloadable games with micro-transactions, then we have those. And if you just want to pay for software and have a lifetime of play, then we have that too."

So far the items on offer are weapons and equipment, and NCsoft has "no plans" to introduce any speed levelling upgrades for now.

NCcoin is also only available in US dollars for the time being.

Pop over to the NCcoin website to find out more.

Picture of Robert.

About Robert Purchese

Bertie is Eurogamer's Senior Staff Writer. When he's not hunting down news stories he's often found playing with his kids or gabbling about fantasy games and strange online worlds.

Read more articles from Robert by visiting the Robert Purchese archive page.

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Comments (12) Latest comment 4 years ago

Comments threads automatically close after 30 days, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • Dizzy #1 4 years ago

    NCsoft is dead to me. They can keep their NCcoins.

  • DFawkes #2 4 years ago

    @Dizzy

    Why? Only asking because I'm nossy/curious.

  • MrChuckles #3 4 years ago

    As long as you can still earn the stuff you can buy, i have no problems with this. It is just for people who want to cheat the system which they can do on any other game anyway. Personally, i'd never 'buy' anything with real money, just admitting you are rubbish and need to cheat.

  • Chufty #4 4 years ago

    Dead? Interesting. Guild Wars is teh prawn.

  • BigJonno #5 4 years ago

    Obviously trying an alternative business model which allows you to provide a game for free is teh ebil.

  • WinterSnowblind #6 4 years ago

    I prefer the idea of paying for some of the content in the game, rather than paying a monthly fee. Assuming they don't take it too far. That way you're only paying for content that you need or want, rather than paying constantly for things you're not using, even if you're not even playing the game for a while.

    I'm glad they're not implementing this for Guild Wars, it would be a cheap way to make people continue paying while still claiming it's f2p.

  • Azazel #7 4 years ago

    Guild Wars wins again.

  • Dizzy #8 4 years ago

    >Why? Only asking because I'm nossy/curious.

    Various reasons. They lost the devs of CoX... so most players will leave for Champions Online when that comes out. Now ads in CoX??? And NCCoins? They lost the plot.

    Never played GW BTW.
    Edited by 2 at 21/04/08 @ 21:36

  • Vandrius #9 4 years ago

    Its not that bad an idea. Given how rife gold farming is in the vast majority of online games, by providing a legal way of buying money they not only remove the power of gold farmers, they redirct that money into their own coffers - which can then be spent on their game development (or team drinks).

    The key is making sure that the use of nccoins is not a *requirement* to get the 'uber' gear, which I doubt will be the case.

    Alot of people bag NCsoft, but they actually have such a wide range of MMO formats that they are in the ideal position to test stuff like this. As big as WoW may be, its a single, stand-alone flagship. NCsoft has a bunch of million+ mmo's they can play with.

    Personally, I'm glad one of the MMO publishers has finally had the balls to do something pro-active to neuter gold farming. Take WoW as an example... Blizzard tries to be 'tough' on it, and fails miserably. It'll be interesting to see how NCcoins fare - my bet is: well.

  • dk_rare #10 4 years ago

    Let me guess, users who choose to play for free cannot communicate with other players, cannot use advanced armor or weapons, cannot join a guild and they aren't allowed to use the "run" option while moving around.

    Sounds fair to me.

  • actionfitz #11 4 years ago

    paying for stuff is fine if what you're buying is just fluff - like the trading card items in wow:
    fancy tabards, in game pets and hilarious but not very useful 'walking speed' turtle mounts...
    once you are buying stuff with stats that boost gameplay, bigger inventories or consumables... the game is dead imo.
    If you have to flex your wallet to succeed in a game then thats one game I wont be going near.

  • gmmonkey #12 4 years ago

    I can't stand this. Micro transactions and real life money to virtual money are crap. They better not put it in subscription games. The problems with selling virtual money is it causes inflation and ruins the game. Everything inflates in price and then it becomes a necessity to buy virtual money of ncsoft to buy stuff as the quests etc still give out the same rewards. EVE online has probably the best way of dealing with gold farmers and people that want to buy in game money. They allow people to buy game time cards which you can sell to other players in game for virtual money. The cool thing about this is, no new items or money has been generated into the economy. It's a shifting of wealth. So it helps people that cant afford the subscription, reduces gold farmers and provides customers that want a way to buy in game money without affecting the in game economy. Downside is it still has people buying virtual money so they can get ahead in game. But, it's not as a big deal in eve as it is in other mmorpgs as everyones assets can be destroyed by other players unlike world of warcraft etc.
    Edited by 1 at 22/04/08 @ 12:53