If that article was created so recently... why doesnt it mention the common armor/weapons as a great way to save adena at lower levels? or the ingame events and their impact on the economic state of lineage; perhaps seven signs and its resultant impact on the economic state of lineage... not much great info but so long as people are writing about lineage 2 i could care less if its complete.... that is as long as it gets people interested in playing ;)
I was actually hopeing that a marketing major would have helped in the writing of this and more of an indepth analysis like compairing server to server, maybe looking at the % of bots in the open, the effects before and after common items as drops, the change that came about after low level spell books and amulets were put into stores, the cubics change in the scroll markets, the +6 armor addition.
No, all in all, a quick snapshot of the market with the need to include adena prices but no compairative of what those prices have been or general trend analysis of where they are going.
glad someone got published but not much there to get your mind around.
Aside from the pretty worthless article, everyone is stuck on the ideas from other games that L2 could "use," like the auction house. I spent 2 years criticizing Lineage 2 for its downfalls IN COMPARISON mostly to World of Warcraft. After those 2 years of Lineage 2 I went to play World of Warcraft for a year, and in 6 months I made it into the top guild, raided every end game instance, and ended up getting the server first kill on Kil'Jaeden, boss of Sunwell Plateau.
Now, You'll get frustrated at how much time you waste on the game, but there's a reason I returned to L2 after this time, probably the same reason most players return. The system is unique, and yes, it sometimes is annoying. But the game overall is the best around. No other game will get your heart racing like L2, whether you wanna flame me for this for saying or not. I could run around in WoW and could care less if i die, run back to corpse womp womp... L2 there is always something at stake, whether exp loss or potential item loss while red or failing your craft for an S Grade Weapon. NOTHING BEATS THAT RUSH.
All this ties into the economy. While crafting 60% is sometimes a let down, who wants to sit in the same dungeon all day and farm for a drop that you may not even get. I spent those 6 months raiding every week the same place, 2-4 hours in the same dungeon, only to be disappointed every time to not see my item drop. While these Bind on Pickup Epic items may seem free, my time is NOT. It's important to recognize this big difference between having Bind on Pickup raid items and the items that appear in your L2 inventory. While L2 items come with a high in-game-currency price tag, WoW items come with just as high of a price tag. I wouldn't say the L2 economy/high prices of armor/weapons is any sort of a challenge that any player couldn't overcome.
Giran has has done a good job mimicking a real situation selling zone. Buyers and Sellers all convene and at a location and do their thing. An auction house is gravy, but the economy would be much more inflated if everyone was able to sell anything they want at any time. Imagine how flooded the market would be with items. If youre the only one in town with that +3 S Weapon 150 element for sale, you're holding the monopoly of that item for that time. The power is in the player's hand, allowing him/her to set the prices and bargain at his/her will. Add the auction house into that mix, you're gonna see everyone's S weapon up there for probably outrageous prices; if not outrageous prices, there will be plenty of that item so that you can never have a monopoly on that item again.
Lineage 2 is what the community makes of it. There shouldn't be any complaining of high prices. Common Weapons/Armor are EASILY earnable and can serve you well into your 70s. Spend a day in Giran and the earning is exponential. Spend an hour to craft something and sell it, or buy low and sell high. I think the main point I am trying to say is, Lineage 2 is definitely not for the weak hearted. For those 13 and under WoW is definitely more appealing, but I am glad that Lineage 2 has a high level of difficulty which has weeded out the immature underage mmo-players. Spend 2 months playing WoW, you'll see what I mean by the 13 year olds...Pats on the back to NCSoft, may have taken 4-5 years of confusing patches of seemingly meaningless game content, but it's definitely come together very nicely. And don't complain about the long post, 5 years of everyone's complaining is much longer than my post.
unfortunately the article is not good journalism and does not offer proper money making techniques as well as stating the bad side of things.
its amazing really, people with enchanted S80 already in L2NA selling for billions upon billions of adena. then theres joe casual who looks at his set of Tallum heavy with disdain as he cannot afford the 150m asking price for a sealed set.
there are good legitimate ways of making adena in L2, in vast gobs at that. but the article makes no mention of how easy it is to make the money required for such expensive gear.
You make a very good point about the article, but I think the article is meant as a [negative] oversite of the economy, and not so much a How-To Guide. Heres how I feel: I dont think anyone should rely on an article, nor the game company to make things easier for them, or tell them "how to play the game" by telling the secrets of making adena. As a player, it's up to you to figure out the quirks of the game, and find your niche in the market where you can sit and make money, if that's what you're going for. All the ebayers are simply too reliant on the ol' Game Genie to give all the hacks n cheats, GOD MODE, unlimited moneys etc. So they turn to the next best option which is buying adena and "cheating" their way to that "God Status."
I think most of these problems in the game would be solved by a disclaimer mentioning "This game is intended for mature audiences only." This would help some of the upset when it comes to deciding what game to buy, since you know going into it that this game will probably not be best for the younger people.
I just took a marketing class, which is why L2 makes total sense to me now, and the types of considerations NCSoft must take when deciding whether or not to implement different things into the game. I think if everyone would quit thinking of WHY THEY ARE NOT RICH, and spend more time thinking HOW CAN I BECOME RICH (and then go do it), everyone would be much happier :)
well, all good articles are objective. this article is not objective. it exampines specific details and sheds a negative view. a good article would have shown (if not given gory details) that there are multitudes of ways to earn the cash required, and if such cash cannot be made there is the method of earning items called Crafting.
the fact that even crafting is mentioned as a 60% success rate in the article in a bad way denotes again its bad journalistic approach to Lineage2.
MMORPG.com was not ever one to praise anything other than wow, though, so i never expect anything good from its articles for anything but wow.
well, all good articles are objective. this article is not objective. it exampines specific details and sheds a negative view. a good article would have shown (if not given gory details) that there are multitudes of ways to earn the cash required, and if such cash cannot be made there is the method of earning items called Crafting.
the fact that even crafting is mentioned as a 60% success rate in the article in a bad way denotes again its bad journalistic approach to Lineage2.
MMORPG.com was not ever one to praise anything other than wow, though, so i never expect anything good from its articles for anything but wow.
I agree that the article is terrible (I wasn't too impressed with the tank articles either), but they can only work with what they're given. They don't actually send someone into a game to write an article about its economy, they pay some ******* who is already in the game to do it. If they're guilty of anything, it's not editing the articles more to raise the journalistic standards of reporting.
And calling MMORPG WoW biased is just silly. If anything, they're biased towards Eve Online. :D
I agree with the article in most respects. Amazingly I have activated my account just so I could post on this topic to let my voice be heard. I quit Lineage 2 from some of the reasons stated in the article, and I have already deactivated my account because I seen nothing has changed really since I have played last. More or less I am waiting for Aion which I hope combines some of the best features of current top MMO's. (I.E. Everquest 1&2, Final Fantasy 11 online, Warhammer, Lineage 2, Gulidwars, World of Warcraft etc. etc.) And I'll break down my responses on topic with my opinion. And a couple of other suggestions to make the game more fun.
1.) Auction House?
Currently most mmo's have some kind of auction house system, and some are better then others. I have to say an auction house in Lineage 2 would be great. It would cut down on the time that people have to run a shop. Although I don't see it doing away with the shop entirely either if it was added. On top of that I think it would evolve the shop even further. For example in SquareEnix's Final Fantasy online (FFXI) avatars have shops also and the game has an auction house system. In Lineage 2 (L2) the shops are stationed at where ever you plop you avatars butt. Once your shop is open you can't do anything else but just sit there and wait. In FFXI a shop is totally different, an icon is place by the avatars name to alert people that this person has a shop open. But your not stationed in one spot. You can take your avatar all over the world complete quest etc. This alone maximizes your play time online. And having an auction house helps out with this also. Even if NC-Soft wanted to look for a ploy to get people into such an auction house system, they could easily just say they are going green and with less pc's on 24/7 they are helping out the environment. How ever you want to sell it to people doesn't really matter the point is most people don't want to waste time, people would rather enjoy their time not feel like they have a 2nd job. How many times have people wasted time shouting in Dion or Grain trying to sell or buy something just to find out after looking at a clock they wasted 4 or 5 hours and got nothing accomplished? Nothing is more frustrating then having a limited time to play and to waste it looking for something that could be easily picked up at an auction house. And wasting time leads to other problems like RMT's, Botting, etc. Basically an auction house would not fix everything overnight but it would help out alot on making the game more fun and more enjoyable. An example "oh I want a Baium ring lets check the auction house oh none in ok time to go get 2 hours worth of exp or farm some adena. And I'll check back later..." Honestly an Auction house would be helpful in most respects when it comes to the person that doesn't like to waste time. Now what kind of auction system to use that's a different story for a different time.
2.) having designated trade areas??
Having this would be quite dumb, the only reason I would see having this if the game did not implement an auction house. This would free up space in main areas of some cities so people don't have to run through a sea of people. Would help when trying to get to a gate keeper and not clicking on tons of shops all camped out at her feet. I only see this as a good thing if an auction house is never implemented in the game ever. Would be nice to have a small bubble area around key NPC's that people can't setup shop around.
3.) Casual or Grind, Making the game more friendly to get more subscriptions.
What can I say the Grinder is DEAD very dead.... its soo dead that if you went to get a stick to poke it by the time you come back there would only be dust in the wind. Its dead dead people, what most MMO's have to focus in on is getting that casual subscription while having content for those hardcore grinder players. Basically a balance of both to appeal to both type of players in the world. Lineage was a large mmo the first game had over 5 million users world while. And was crowned the king of MMO's but it was dated and the new 3D MMO's began to hit the market. Everquest (EQ) at the time stomped Lineage out of having a large North America foot hold. But at that time their were only a hand full of MMO's and only 3 undisputed kings known world wide, EQ, Ultima Online (UO), Lineage. Then others started to hit the market, slowly taking away from the user base of these 3 games. SquareEnix's FFXI was announced and to me it was the nail in the coffin. And sent major MMO's studios back to the drawing board to make new and better MMO's. Lineage 2 by far was the best looking game at the time it came out. MMO's never looked that good ever! But it looks like it was short lived as FFXI was picking up large movement & Sony Online Entertainment (SoE) announced its Everquest 2 & Blizzard announced production of World of Warcraft. EQ2 didn't do so hot as it went with a more Grind base MMO like the Lineage series of games. While WoW when with a more causal mmo base like their popular Diablo series of games. As you can see WoW had the better formula for a MMO in the long run. And most MMO's out there are switching to a more causal base gameplay & leveling format while having tons of content. Like FFXI for example, Once hailed as the hardest MMO's ever to play and it is. SquareEnix is making changes to the game now to make it more friendly. Currently the content they have added to FFXI has a balance of both grind & causal gameplay. 10 second to 10 hour boss fight sure but leveling for hours on end stopped. Even NC-Soft started to add features like this to Lineage 2. Lets face it everyone, WoW is killing every mmo out there because it has more causal features & more in touch with its worldwide community then other MMO publishers. And the other publishers are starting to see that now that their user bases are shrinking.
4.)Lineage 2 is a great game what would could make it better?
Lots of things could make Lineage 2 better. But the best thing is to start making it more casual but with same hardcore endgame content that makes Lineage 2, well Lineage 2.
a.) increase the ease of leveling mostly at higher level. 1 to 62 is ok its just after 62 is when it seems to turn back into a grind fest again.
b.) decrease the amount of exp loss during death 20 thru 80. And change the no exp loss to be from 1 to 20.
c.) adding an auction house.
d.) open up more to the community feedback. And in touch with the community, not saying the current community management is bad. But I mean be more out there. I'll give some examples. Xbox Live has Major Nelson & Trixie360 who is out there at multiple events etc. Blizzard & EA & SquareEnix have people in Major League Gaming (MLG). Casual MMOer's like a proactive community. When did work for Sony and visited their studio's they didn't think they needed something like this. And when I talk with other companies and they heard of this proactive take they jumpped on it. Now the proactive communities are the new way of how to keep people interested in your game. If WoW didn't have tournaments or active ladders and cash prizes with big MLG tv hype. It wouldn't have such a large following. Its like Soccer (Football in places outside of North America). If it had a large proactive following, community and leaders here in North America it would be very big here also like the NFL's super bowl. But it never had that proactive community and people never got interested or hyped up to go see a soccer game. So its kinda a dead sport in more of North America. Well the same applies for an MMO style game. If the publisher is more proactive with its community they can get more people interested. You have to make people want your game and that if they play for hours on end they can get to some of that hype. And thats just for starters I'm sure the community could add more and more to this. And this would attracted more new players to the game.
5.) PK PK PK & RMT's
To be honest Lineage 2 has one of the best PK systems ever made for an MMO. But it kinda sucks that when you see a bot you can't kill it without some repercussions. And some of the L2 bots are so well programed they can fight back. Well I came up with a system and alpha tested a similar game that had a nice system for such things. Sadly I never seen it implemented in any other MMO type game. But you could go to an NPC this NPC would prompt you for the name of the person you think is a bot/rmt etc. And then send a message to to the player. Well they would get a random graphic that would prompt them. They would have to enter in the code for the graphic similar to a "capcha code" basically its a prompt to ask if they are human. If its not entered the NPC would issue a bounty for this PC. Then you the player would be able to kill the bot without turning red or losing exp if they fight back. Then you return to the NPC to complete the "Bounty" and get some small prize. The system is designed to reduce the amount of GM calls & on the side create a list of accounts for GM's to investigate for for RMT/Botting activities so that it cost the publisher less money to find and ban the accounts. Because some reports go nowhere and ends up with a ton of worker hours lost. And it comes out of the publishers pocket, so its quite effective but could also use some refining.
6.) Crafting
Would be nice if every race could craft and/or if there was crafting skill that people can level on dwarf other then leveling the dwarf via standard exp to get to certain craft grades. I just don't see how killing a mobs over and over again for 60 levels will all of the sudden give me the ability to craft b-grade. Now crafting an armor over and over again for 60 levels and then poof you know i could make a better armor B-grade. Dwarf would still be level 1 in all respects but a different way to level up craft by crafting would be nice.
7.) The number 1 way of getting more people interested in your L2
If L2 didn't cost as much per month as other MMO's that are currently very popular. I would get more people back into it. like for example:
1 month = $12.99
3 month = $35.97 / $11.99 monthly
6 month = $65.94 / $10.99 monthly
12 month = $119.88/ $9.99 monthly
Doesn't have to be the model i placed above but it would help to lower the cost. Since some new potential players may look at Lineage 2 and then say something like..."aww noway 15 bucks a month and it doesn't have features like my current game. forget it I'll stay with my current mmo game." So in closing we get back to the auction house issue again.
thanks those who read this long blurb also side note, if I misspelled or messed up my grammar somewhere sorry but it is 4am lol. But I think the general point I was able to get across. I hope my little blurb here may be some help in the debate and hope to debate the point of view further. until then good night my dreams needs me. Oh btw before people say I like WoW.. I don't I hate it to me its the sucks, now if it had Lineage 2 graphics with twist of endgame content that FFXI, L2, GW & EQ. Then it might be playable.
I'm not going to reply to that whole thing, but the going green angle certainly has occurred to me and is easily the best reason why this game needs some sort of system to let you buy/sell items while not online.
My gaming rig when idle and the monitor is turned off still consumes 150w of power. If I leave it on all night then I'm using 1.2Kwh of power. Extrapolate that over an entire year and I'm using nearly 400Kwh of power. At my particular power rates, that's $52 of power just so I can sell something.
If this game absolutely needs to keep the buying/selling the way it is currently, then they need to allow you to keep your shop up without being logged on. Having a system that requires you to have your computer on 24/7 is just broken to begin with.
Oh and I thought of something else that would be a great help to make Lineage 2 soo much better.
I don't mind the loss of exp as long as it does not cause me to level down. Now in WoW & Warhammer & Gulid Wars and a few other popular mmo's. You don't loose exp or level down or you get some other type of weakness effect. So here is my simple solution to the problem.
after you get to your 1st or 2nd class transfer you never can level down. you can loose exp after getting k.o'd and going back to the village or getting low level raises. but you won't be able to level down from your current level. Now as for those who farm in low level raids and catacombs, one might ask how can they keep doing that. That's easy add a level linking system that will lower everyone's level in the party to the person they are linking to. Like if a level 70 healer linked with a level 40 dwarf. The healer would become a level 40 healer and only have abilities of a level 40 healer. Well what if you have 2 level 70's that want to farm in that raid or cata. Well a talisman can be sold in a shop and placed in your bracelet to force a character to link down a few levels. This is good since you have to be atleast c grade to use a bracelet with a talisman. And there can be a talisman for each 5 levels ranging from 40 to 70.
Aside from the pretty worthless article, everyone is stuck on the ideas from other games that L2 could "use," like the auction house. I spent 2 years criticizing Lineage 2 for its downfalls IN COMPARISON mostly to World of Warcraft. After those 2 years of Lineage 2 I went to play World of Warcraft for a year, and in 6 months I made it into the top guild, raided every end game instance, and ended up getting the server first kill on Kil'Jaeden, boss of Sunwell Plateau.
Now, You'll get frustrated at how much time you waste on the game, but there's a reason I returned to L2 after this time, probably the same reason most players return. The system is unique, and yes, it sometimes is annoying. But the game overall is the best around. No other game will get your heart racing like L2, whether you wanna flame me for this for saying or not. I could run around in WoW and could care less if i die, run back to corpse womp womp... L2 there is always something at stake, whether exp loss or potential item loss while red or failing your craft for an S Grade Weapon. NOTHING BEATS THAT RUSH.
All this ties into the economy. While crafting 60% is sometimes a let down, who wants to sit in the same dungeon all day and farm for a drop that you may not even get. I spent those 6 months raiding every week the same place, 2-4 hours in the same dungeon, only to be disappointed every time to not see my item drop. While these Bind on Pickup Epic items may seem free, my time is NOT. It's important to recognize this big difference between having Bind on Pickup raid items and the items that appear in your L2 inventory. While L2 items come with a high in-game-currency price tag, WoW items come with just as high of a price tag. I wouldn't say the L2 economy/high prices of armor/weapons is any sort of a challenge that any player couldn't overcome.
Giran has has done a good job mimicking a real situation selling zone. Buyers and Sellers all convene and at a location and do their thing. An auction house is gravy, but the economy would be much more inflated if everyone was able to sell anything they want at any time. Imagine how flooded the market would be with items. If youre the only one in town with that +3 S Weapon 150 element for sale, you're holding the monopoly of that item for that time. The power is in the player's hand, allowing him/her to set the prices and bargain at his/her will. Add the auction house into that mix, you're gonna see everyone's S weapon up there for probably outrageous prices; if not outrageous prices, there will be plenty of that item so that you can never have a monopoly on that item again.
Lineage 2 is what the community makes of it. There shouldn't be any complaining of high prices. Common Weapons/Armor are EASILY earnable and can serve you well into your 70s. Spend a day in Giran and the earning is exponential. Spend an hour to craft something and sell it, or buy low and sell high. I think the main point I am trying to say is, Lineage 2 is definitely not for the weak hearted. For those 13 and under WoW is definitely more appealing, but I am glad that Lineage 2 has a high level of difficulty which has weeded out the immature underage mmo-players. Spend 2 months playing WoW, you'll see what I mean by the 13 year olds...Pats on the back to NCSoft, may have taken 4-5 years of confusing patches of seemingly meaningless game content, but it's definitely come together very nicely. And don't complain about the long post, 5 years of everyone's complaining is much longer than my post.
Well done!
You remind me why I came back to this wonderful game :). L2 has the potential to be the best game ever, and just need some professional work from the people running it.
The article sucks because: Who is the audience? New L2ers? Current L2ers? Retired L2ers? People who have never played it before? None, the audience the writer had in mind was the mmorpg.com staff, which explains both why it got published and why it sucks.
PS I shouldn't have to leave a bloated L2 client on 24/7 to keep my buy/sell orders on the market.
If this game absolutely needs to keep the buying/selling the way it is currently, then they need to allow you to keep your shop up without being logged on. Having a system that requires you to have your computer on 24/7 is just broken to begin with.
+1 i fryed my vidio card because of this
If one of my students turned in that article I would have given it back to them telling them to redo it for (at best) half credit. Why?
- Falsehoods. For example, they say one must now spend "half a day" running around Giran checking prices. Ten or fifteen minutes does not make half a day. When you have to lie to make your point, it shows your point is weak.
- False assumptions. For example, implying that an auction house would bring more items to market than setting up a sell shop. Why would more come to market? If someone has something to sell now they sell it now, they don't hold it in warehouse in case NC starts an auction house.
- Ignoring (at least) half of the equation. Written only from the perspective of the buyer, it ignores that every trade takes two people, a buyer and a seller. The seller is essential, at least as important as a buyer. Sellers like high prices, they craft to make money. If prices are forced lower that is BAD for the seller, BAD for half of the parties to each transaction. Lower prices means LESS sellers. Less sellers means less supply. Prices are set by supply and demand regardless of the market mechanism (shops versus auction) so the auction house would not only HURT the selling players (and we all sell sometimes) but it would eventually raise prices, hurting the buyers too.
OK, maybe I wouldn't let the student resubmit the paper. Maybe I would just flunk them and tell them to go to truck driver school.
There is a verry pro-active solution i discoverd in another game
i play wich is called Bite-fight
herethey resolved the economy problem in a verry simple clever way:
***Off-line working***
Before u log out u give a task to u'r character of choice that will perform
that task while u are logged OFF, so its economically smart for both
ingame and real life because u don't have to leave u'r computer on!
In this game the off-line task is : working at a graveyard, obvious beacuase its a vampire game
in our game u could just work for u'r guild, like for instance if u'r a bishop
u will work in church , if u'r a gladiator u will work for the warrior guild in
town.
It's fairly simple to implement:
The player talks to the NPC , choses between 1 to 8 hours work maximum
per day, then logs off
in the game i play the monney received augments per level, so should
that be here and the position u have raises to from simple clerc to high
magistrate.
Giran has has done a good job miing a real situation selling zone. Buyers and Sellers all convene and at a location and do their thing. An auction house is gravy, but the economy would be much more inflated if everyone was able to sell anything they want at any time. Imagine how flooded the market would be with items. If youre the only one in town with that +3 S Weapon 150 element for sale, you're holding the monopoly of that item for that time. The power is in the player's hand, allowing him/her to set the prices and bargain at his/her will. Add the auction house into that mix, you're gonna see everyone's S weapon up there for probably outrageous prices; if not outrageous prices, there will be plenty of that item so that you can never have a monopoly on that item again.
Lineage 2 is what the community makes of it. There shouldn't be any complaining of high prices. Common Weapons/Armor are EASILY earnable and can serve you well into your 70s. Spend a day in Giran and the earning is exponential. Spend an hour to craft something and sell it, or buy low and sell high.
You had a very good post. The part above which I am quoting I want to talk about.
Sorry for being slightly off-topic but you just worded it so well for me.
Basically you (and everyone who agrees with you - all of the people who are against an Auction House) make this point, and forgive me (I know some of you will not like this) but I think I can sum it up this way:
"If there is more transparency and better means available for players to trade their goods, prices will go down and I will no longer be able to play the money game which I thoroughly enjoy and take advantage of. I do not care about other (legit) players who do not have the time (or interest) to spend hours in Giran making money by 'playing the market'."
This sounds an awful lot like the people who did not want places like a mercantile exchange so that they can continue to sell their overpriced goods.
I would much rather spend my time playing with my clan than the Giran game (been there, done that, made some money - absolutely don't care for it).
Some games actually use both an AH and private stores (I even played one of them for a while - Perfect World International) - and guess what? There were TONS of private stores and goods being traded that way.
- Falsehoods. For example, they say one must now spend "half a day" running around Giran checking prices. Ten or fifteen minutes does not make half a day. When you have to lie to make your point, it shows your point is weak.
Good point, true.
- False assumptions. For example, implying that an auction house would bring more items to market than setting up a sell shop. Why would more come to market? If someone has something to sell now they sell it now, they don't hold it in warehouse in case NC starts an auction house.
Disagree, I have lots of stuff I would sell now and I do keep it in my warehouse because I can't leave shops a lot of the time. Plenty of people do this. I have also found a lot of items I wanted to buy from my random !WTB shouts (instead of from an actual shop) because some player who happened to have that item wanted to sell it but probably did not set a shop for similar or whatever other reasons.
- Ignoring (at least) half of the equation. Written only from the perspective of the buyer, it ignores that every trade takes two people, a buyer and a seller. The seller is essential, at least as important as a buyer. Sellers like high prices, they craft to make money. If prices are forced lower that is BAD for the seller, BAD for half of the parties to each transaction. Lower prices means LESS sellers. Less sellers means less supply. Prices are set by supply and demand regardless of the market mechanism (shops versus auction) so the auction house would not only HURT the selling players (and we all sell sometimes) but it would eventually raise prices, hurting the buyers too.
Good point, but I think you are basing part of your assumption on your previous point (which I disagree with). Also, I just don't really buy this argument.