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Cast your mind back to the heady days of 2012, when a plucky underdog by the name of Diablo 3 emerged on the scene. Despite being well received in some ways, it fell down with the extremely controversial inclusion of an auction house which let players buy gear and gold with real money. That’s since been removed but another contender is stepping up to try it again – the upcoming MMO Throne and Liberty.
Despite a long and troubled history that nearly saw it disappear altogether, Throne and Liberty is on the verge of finally releasing in the west. As it’s a free PC game, players have been wondering how the game’s monetization will work and a recent post has dived into what fans can expect. For the most part there’s some good stuff in how Amazon and NCSoft are setting out the stall for the game but there’s one inclusion about an auction house that has caused a backlash.
The issue revolves around a particular currency; Lucent. Players will be able to earn this in-game but it’ll also be purchasable via real money transactions. That in itself doesn’t raise any particular eyebrows but it’s what Lucent is used for which may cause some problems. The only currency players will be able to use on the in-game auction house is Lucent. While you won’t necessarily have to buy Lucent with real money, it means you can skip the queue and grab some gear from an auction, all for hard cash.
It’s been known for a while that this system will make an appearance in Throne and Liberty but the detailed rundown from the developer has stirred up the conversation about it again. “All of this just to say “P2W”,” reads one reply on X to the developer. “Being able to buy lucent for Dollars enables people to just purchase the best gear from the auction House giving them a HUGE advantage over f2p Gamer. Very Bad idea,” reads another.
The update on monetization also details how early access will work for the game. Players who purchase an Early Access Pack will be able to hop into Throne and Liberty five days earlier than everyone else, As the game is primarily PvP focused this could cause some players to get an unfair advantage over others. To resolve this they will only be able to play on specific dedicated early access servers – when the game’s fully out launch servers will appear, with everyone then having the choice over where to create characters. The game’s auction house will also not span between these types of servers, meaning it won’t be possible to go on a launch server on day one and buy endgame gear for real money.
It appears to be a real mixed bag of news for potential fans, with some expressing reservations over the game’s auction house and others welcoming the plans for early access servers. You can make up your own mind by checking out the full blog post from the developer here.
Throne and Liberty will launch officially on Tuesday September 17 and you can add it to your wishlist on Steam. If you’d like to know more before you head over, our Throne and Liberty preview will get you up to speed on the game.
You can also take a peek at our guide to the best MMORPGs you can play, as well as our picks for the best single-player MMOs on PC in 2024.
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