Would you buy an advanced character?

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For many years, Ultima Online has offered an advanced character microtransaction. Well, the term "microtransaction" may be stretching it -- originally priced at $30 a pop, it's more like a macrotransaction. The advanced character token allows you to boost the skills and stats of a single character according to a preset template. It won't give you a capped Bard, Treasure Hunter, or Animal Tamer overnight, but it will get you a big chunk of the way there. And for skills that are notoriously hard to train .1 by .1 all the way to 100 or 120, advanced character tokens can be a huge boon to players who've been there and done that and just want to skip the early grind.

UO's not alone in this; other games, such as Dark Age of Camelot, allow players to jump past some of the early game on their alts once they've capped a toon and proven they know the ropes of the game. Of course, those games aren't charging for the pleasure. So what do you think: Would you buy an advanced character from a game company? Or do you think you're cheating yourself and those around you by not grinding up the old-fashioned way?

TH

I am not sure about paying for it, but I think if u got a toon capped, the next one should at least be able to receive like 50% more xp and the next one another 25% on top and so on. I might consider paying if the price for such a bonus is right, lets say 5-8$ per toon after the first one.

Aqura wrote:I am not sure about paying for it, but I think if u got a toon capped, the next one should at least be able to receive like 50% more xp and the next one another 25% on top and so on. I might consider paying if the price for such a bonus is right, lets say 5-8$ per toon after the first one.

Yeah but what about the story, it completely ruins the levelling speed. I wouldn't mind I suppose if you could do it optionally, even then though I don't think it should ever be easy to hit 50, and just ruins the content if you can get straight back to the boring 50 grind with another character in seconds.

TH