WAR, RMT and GUH?

Rog over at NecroRogIcon finds Mythic's latest push for the Recruit-a-Friend program upsetting, going so far as to link it to RMT -- spending money to get bonuses in the game.  His quick post makes a second point, that these are features that Mythic should've included in WAR in the first place, but now we're being made to work for them (and have friends pay).

On one hand, it's kind of puzzling why this would set him off (pushing aside the "he doesn't play WAR right now anyway" issue) -- why shouldn't Mythic, or any other MMO companies, try to incentivize their playerbase into helping them recruit more subscriptions?  Yeah, in an ideal world, we would all be telling our friends anyway, out of the goodness of our heart and a desire to share our passion, but we're also pretty lazy as well.  I like WAR, but I don't actively pursue my friends and family to get them to try it.  Now, I have a reason -- it's selfish, to be sure, but it's the same sort of motivating factor that used to get me to sell those crappy magazines or candy bars when I was a kid for school, because they'd dangle shiny toys in front of our face for the best sellers.  We're doing a bit of extra work on Mythic's behalf, so I'm okay with getting rewarded for it.

Besides, the incentives are pretty tempting across the board, you have to admit.  30 days free game time?  That's $15 in my pocket for just handing out a free trial and hoping they'll sign up.  In game pets?   Something we've been clamoring for, and now there's a way to get them.  Perhaps the last item -- the "get 4 subs and we give you this" item -- is the most controversial in terms of what it gives you: XP and renown bumps, plus the ability to jack a friend up near to your level so you can play together.

I don't think this qualifies as RMT, exactly, because I'm not spending any extra money, nor is my friend, really -- they're getting the full value out of the subscription.  But I'll concede that Rog might have a point with the second thing there.  Should there be more in game pets than just these two dogs?  Oh, most definitely.  I know they've been dismissed as "fluff" from day one, but Mythic's not dumb, and they've seen such a strong reaction to other fluff rewards (trophies, titles, etc.) so far that non-combat vanity pets have to be put back into the discussion.  Even if they added other non-com pets into the game, these two dogs would still be unique prizes, so I don't think adding more would take away from their special nature too much.

The magic XP/renown/temporary level boosting item carries with it some sour grapes, I'm sure.  Players are pretty sensitive to others getting an "unfair" advantage over them in terms of leveling speed and whatnot.  I'm still kicking myself for accidentally selecting the wrong epic jewelry for Syp with the last event (I thought they were all +5% renown, and got the +5% gold one instead because of the stats), but this does carry a whiff of unfairness with it.  Of course, every new player I create gets two items that give them a time-limited XP bump, so it's not like we haven't seen this in the game so far -- and it really isn't that game-breaking.

Where I'm prepared to concede Rog's rant is that if this item really does allow a pseudo-Sidekicking feature, then it really should be in the game as standard -- or at least attainable to everyone in the game (perhaps to anyone who's achieved rank 40 or something).  It's not terribly difficult to level in WAR, but the concrete barriers of the tier system do fracture guilds and friends who would otherwise play together.  Temporary level boosting could allay that -- EverQuest 2 and City of Heroes has already demonstrated that this is both a desired and functional system. 

I guess this is a long response to a very short post, but these things bear thinking through, and I'm interested to see if (a) this will really boost people's efforts to recruit friends, (b) if the magic item will be so desired as to cause frustration for those who don't have it, and (c) if we'll be seeing other vanity pets in the game than just these two dogs.

That reminds me -- I still have 6 trial accounts to hand out!  E-mail me at bigbanana [at] hotmail [dot] com to request yours.  I'm shameless that way.