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My question is this then, if these are items that can only be purchased from the C-Store and will probably never reach the Auction House market to be sold to a player for In-Game Currency........Then what is the point of Stars as currency? Why not just purchase it using real money?
Somewhere along the lines there was a belief that Stars would be purchased using real money and then somehow transferrable into the player base for those that didn't want to purchase Stars, but instead just use In-Game Currency.
Or did I read something wrong?
Because if there is a way for a person who didn't purchase any Stars from MWM to somehow obtain them via transfer from somebody generous enough to donate them, purchasing them by means of In-Game Currency, or trade for a random drop that may be desirable and placed on the Auction House.......then there may be a means in which someone can take advantage of the situation and make money off of it.
Case in point: If an item that is heavily desirable, yet very hard to obtain is placed on the Auction House and sells for 1 billion In-Game Currency OR *1000......you have effectively just priced Stars at 1 billion In-Game Currency for *1000. Now MWM has said that *1 is worth $0.01 so therefore $10.00 buys you *1000. NOW a RMT Farmer can come along and say for $10.00 we'll give you 1.5 billion In-Game Currency. This will now effectively undercut MWM's ability to make money with people who want to buy Stars because it will be cheaper for the person to instead give the $10.00 to a RMT Farmer who will give them 1.5 billion In-Game Currency in which to purchase items from the Auction House instead of using Stars.
Now, if you are going to say that only items that were bought for in Stars can be placed on the Auction House and only bought with Stars you might be able to curtail that. However, you now have the dilemma of somebody who doesn't want to buy Stars being unable to obtain the item from the Auction House like you had hoped they would. Again making Stars pretty much a moot point. Since if the only people who can buy it are those that purchased Stars, they have the ability to purchase that item any time they want from the C-Store with their Stars.
Or again, Am I missing something?
I'm trying to understand your logic, and I get the gist of what you are wanting to accomplish. I think. You want a way for people to purchase Stars and use them to make transactions with MWM, while at the same time still being able to give people who don't want to purchase Stars with real money the option of obtaining the Stars somehow to be able to buy items that they normally wouldn't be able to obtain by normal gaming means. Or am I wrong?
I am not against trying to share the wealth, but I'm just not sold on this idea of how to do it. Perhaps it's because I'm not seeing it the way you envisioned it to work. Sometimes though the way we see how something SHOULD work, doesn't always end up being the way it DOES work.
I got chills! They're multiplyin'. And I'm losin' control. Cuz the power, I'm supplyin'. Why it's ELECTRIFYIN'!!
I can see an additional safeguard against this racket: If stars are not exempt from Transaction costs such as a listing fee or a mark-off. As long as those costs are standardized and not ludicrous I could see that providing a "Star Sink" in addition to the direct c-store purchases would curtail RMT profiteering operations more than just the c-store would. Stars exclusively used on the Market would only remain for so long because as they are traded back and forth stars are drawn out of the system.
This would provide an increased drain on the number of stars active in the market and also incentivise players to purchase more: As the supply of Stars on the Market dwindle, their worth in in-game currency increases, making them more worthwhile to players with the willingness to invest and then trade for in-game currency.
I believe I can expect some push-back concerning Star transaction fees as reducing the worth of Star purchases. To counteract this I would also suggest that stars remain low in individual cost such as with the ~$0.01 basic rate you outlined previously. Psychologically players are less likely to be willing to pay 1 star out of their supply of 500 (~$0.10ea) for the privilege of posting a trade than they would be to pay 10 stars out of their supply of 5000 (~$0.01ea), even when the value would be equivalent. The higher the numbers a player sees, the less each individual is valued; regardless of its true value.
"Anyone who would act up to a perfect standard of goodness in everything must be ruined among so many who do not. It is essential therefore to have learnt how to be other than good and to use, or not use, goodness as necessity requires." - Machiavelli
There are two points and answers to make to this question. The first is a straight-forward one: Consider League of Legends, wherein Riot Points can never buy anything other than skins, champions, and the like. Why not just put those up for straight money? Because the model works better with a "buy a gift card" style of sales.
The second goes more to the root of a misunderstanding you're still having.
The items for sale on the c-store are not the sort of items that anybody could buy to "pay to win." No "purple rares," no "super-one-shots," no "I win buttons," or what-have-you. Anything of that sort will only be generated when it drops in the game due to somebody's gameplay activities (whether that is some sort of vendor sale, reward for mission completion, loot drops, crafting, or what-have-you).
The items in the c-store will be things like (and these are examples, not guarantees that any will specifically be there) subscription time (for whatever perks subscriptions give), costume pieces, character slots, custom animations, emotes, access to special-appearance "delux" base pieces (which still must be bought in-game through the same means as normal versions thereof), etc.
Sort-of. If my plan is implemented, it will be possible for players to sell stuff to each other for Stars or for in-game currency, and even sell in-game currency for Stars (and vice-versa).
Definitely, you did.
The player-to-player market will have the "purple rares" and the like - the things not on the c-store that, if purchased, make your character mechanically superior to how he was before, and thus help you "win" - provided players wish to sell them (and, if CoH and other MMOs are any indication, they will). Players who are selling on this market may list prices in in-game currency, or they may list prices in Stars. Players may even list in-game currency or Stars in a "money changing" sort of arrangement, directly buying Stars with currency and currency with Stars.
Those who sell anything for Stars will receive those Stars as payment. They never paid real money for those stars, personally, but the person who bought the item off the market from them (probably) did. (The "probably" is because it's possible somebody got Stars by selling other stuff, then decided to spend them on the market instead of in the c-store.)
You keep saying that, but without actually explaining how and explaining how it is a sustainable model that costs MWM money - where MWM is denied a sale of Stars, or where an item is bought from the c-store without MWM seeing any of the profit - I'm not sure what the problem is.
The two problems RMTs pose are a potential loss of sales for MWM (I really don't see how that happens with this proposed system, though) or inflation of the currency in which they trade (because they farm it so heavily). The latter could happen in in-game currency if the competition from other players also selling in-game currency for Stars doesn't keep the price down, but it can't happen in Stars because Stars have a defined dollar value. In order to cause inflation in Stars, the RMTs would have to buy (or cause to be bought) a ton of Stars from MWM.
Which...well, that's a lot of money MWM just made, not a lot of money out of MWM's pocket. And the RMTs would have to find a way to then sell the Stars for less than it cost the RMTs to have them created in order to "steal" customers from MWM.
Who is "you" in this example? MWM won't ever put items on the AH; that's the player-to-player market, and players determine all prices there.
Hypothetical dollars-to-Stars pricing accepted for this discussion.
Remember that it is not MWM that is pricing items on the AH. Let's call the item that you said sells for 1 billion currency OR *1000 a Shy Violet. (Maybe it enhances invisibility powers or something.)
So, Joe Player puts one up on the market for 1 billion currency, and it sells! Yay!
Jane Player, on the other hand, puts her Shy Violet up for *1000. That's been the going rate, apparently. Unfortunately, $am Player sees Robert Marty Taylor, the RMT, selling 1.5 billion currency for $10.00. Realizing that he could have 5 billion currency left over after buying a Shy Violet from Joe Player, he buys from Rob. Therefore, Jane can't move her item at *1000.
So she lowers her price to *750 after some research into what currency is going for directly on the market. ($am, perhaps, put his 5 billion up for *250, since he got it cheap anyway and wants to convert it more than he wants to milk it for all it's worth. Or maybe Jane found out what RMTs were selling at, and did some mental math, herself, to compete.)
In any event, if the RMTs are selling at 75% of the going rate in Stars-for-currency, the Stars-for-currency trade will drop to match fairly soon as people realize they can't move currency at the rate they're pushing.
Eventually, if the RMTs keep lowering their prices to compete, they literally won't be able to keep the currency in their own coffers to sell at the cheap, cheap rates they'll have to sell. Supply and demand works because supply IS finite, at least over any finite time period.
[b]Note, also, that none of what your hypothetical outlined would be prevented by NOT allowing Stars to be spent on the AH for in-game items.[/b]
I think you are. You're right, restricting AH sales to only items bought with Stars would utterly defeat the purpose. The AH is supposed to be where you can obtain items that you CANNOT get in the c-store. (Whether you can ALSO obtain items there that were available in the c-store is irrelevant to this point.)
You've got the gist of it, but the way you're trying to describe it tells me that you're not following the actual mechanism I've been trying to describe. Did my explanation earlier in this post help clear it up?
I agree; I don't think what you're picturing is what I'm describing.
Imagine CoH took all of the items that were "account-bound purple rare" sorts of things out of the c-store, so nothing in the c-store could replace going to the AH or "earning it the hard way."
Now, picture the AH from CoH.
Now, imagine that you could list prices on it in either Inf or Paragon Points. Players who used to go to the c-store to buy "account-bound purple rares" now can take the Paragon Points they would have spent there, and come to the AH to buy the same "purple rares" from [i]you[/i]. [b]Alternatively,[/b] if you're disappointed that you can't get that "purple rare" in the c-store anymore, because it's so prohibitively expensive on the AH and you just don't have the patience or luck to get it "the hard way" in game, you can now see what it's going for in Paragon Points on the AH and buy those Paragon Points with real money in order to buy it off the AH.
Does that make sense?
[color=#ff0000]Business Manager[/color]
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hmmm. makes sense as far as stars are concerned. Although, unless stars and other stuff cant be traded directly player to player, then RMT can actually sell lower than the market going rate with no trace of history. Like they did in COX. They didn't do their transactions on the market and thus there was no history to report. Unless every transaction is reported somehow with stars. Kind of like the Q exchange where you can only sell it and buy there and not directly give it to someone. If that is the case, yeah the exchange rate may level out and make it harder for RMTs to compete over time.
While I didn't see it being the case ,maybe overlooked it accidentally, it sounds like while one can purchase stars, with real money, and then basically sell those stars for in game currency or items on the AH, but not really stars to cash?
Because the point of RMT is to make money, regardless if the main game company get a cut or not. So, if someone could do the usual in game currency farm, now they can buys stars from players, using in game currency. Now, assuming one could sell stars for cash anyways, can simply undercut the MWM price or make it look like a steal with large amount of stars and some good price. Sell them, and make money. Repeat process. Then all they have to do is stay below the in game currency to stars rate while selling them slight below the going rate. Even if they sell them at half rate, they still make money on top of if they sell in game currency o nthe side, depending on the weather. Because it may be situation where not many people are listing prices in stars or stars are not moving as well as intended. That still means now, a person have to have in game currency to possibly get what they need and thus RMT people to the rescue.
Like I said, may have overlooked something, but it sounds like another revenue stream for RMT people. Not that's a bad thing but it doesn't sound like the Star system, even if MWM gets their cut, will stop them or stop eople that feel they must or get better deal in using them.
Okay. I think I get it now. You basically want to set up Stars much like Paragon Points, and the Titan Store much like the Paragon Market. Only difference being that we can take the items that we purchase off of the Titan Store and put them up in the Auction House for sale to everybody for either In-Game Currency or Stars. Those items that will be offered in the Titan Store will be mostly items that will not effectively enhance game play but strictly be cosmetic or QoL items. So if I were to purchase say an Invisible Jet and then later decide that I no longer want the Jet I could then turn around and sell it however I like.
I'm not really sure I like the idea of buying subscription time with Stars and then being able to sell it to somebody else on the AH though. I dunno. That just may be me. I can't see that I would ever do that for any reason. If I'm buying time to play a game, I'm going to use that time to play the game. Now selling a costume piece or an e-mote that I get bored of, yeah that I would do. I still have a strong feeling that Subscription time should just be left alone and only buyable with Real Money and not be tradable or sellable.
Would Power Sets be offered in the Titan Store and purchasable only through Stars, then later to be able to be sold on the AH for In-Game Currency? I dunno. Something still just doesn't feel right to me about this. I wish I could explain it better. But I just get the feeling that this isn't a good idea. Something just keeps nagging at me that RMT Farmers can somehow take advantage of this situation by selling In-Game Currency at a cheaper price than buying stars and somehow allowing people to pretty much neuter Stars in some fashion. Again, I wish I could explain how, but for some reason I just can't quite picture it properly nor have the words to adequately describe it.
I got chills! They're multiplyin'. And I'm losin' control. Cuz the power, I'm supplyin'. Why it's ELECTRIFYIN'!!
Okay, we're close, now. Let's, for the moment, forget about taking Titan Store/c-store stuff and selling it on the market/AH, as I think that's confusing the issue, still.
The idea, more directly, is that the c-store only offers QoL/cosmetic-type stuff, never stuff that effectively enhances one's power-level in the game, as Static noted. BECAUSE of this, anybody who has more money than time and thus wishes to pay for "the last bit of their IO set" or their "purple rares" can't go to the c-store to buy it. This might normally drive somebody to RMTs, because that way they can buy in-game currency farmed by the gold-sellers and use that on the AH to buy these game-power-level-enhancing items.
So the idea is to at least attempt to cut out the RMT middle-man, not by selling currency directly in the c-store, but by allowing players to do one of two things:
[list][*]Buy currency from other players with Stars, or
[*]Buy items on the AH directly with Stars[/list]
Either works, and which people do will likely depend on whether the item they want is currently available in a Star price they find reasonable or if they think the currency prices once filtered through the exchange rate for Stars is better. (Also, if currency sinks are enough of an ongoing thing, I expect people will want to buy in-game currency with Stars to cover them, too.)
Now, if I read jag40's post rightly, his concern is that RMTs will step into this system and play the market to get people to give them Stars for items and they'll still farm currency and sell both Stars and currency for real money. This is possible. My thought on the latter is that it at least isn't cutting MWM out of anything: MWM got paid for those Stars, so it doesn't matter that somebody paid still MORE money to get them from an RMT; the RMT provided some service to the person who originally bought them which enticed that person to buy them in the first place. There's no difference from MWM's profit margin's perspective if there is Player A->RMT->Player B or just Player A->Player B; all MWM sees is Player A buy the Stars and Player B spend them in the c-store. Notably, there will always be a maximum upper price RMTs could charge for Stars: if they ever charge as much as MWM does or more, people will just buy them from MWM.
As for currency...I think the fact that every player in the game who wants to get Stars is competing with the RMTs will help even keep those prices down. The more currency gets inflated by the farming for gold the RMTs do, the more Stars will cost on the in-game market (just like everything else) to buy in currency. And that will make buying Stars to get currency even more alluring, as it's cheap and well within the fair play rules of the game, so lacks the stigma and inconvenience of buying from RMTs. And markets are really good at keeping prices on a competitive keel; I don't think the RMTs will manage to undersell the in-game market when you translate Stars to real money and compare prices-for-currency. Not by much, and not for long. Eventually, there reaches a bottoming-out of prices, where somebody just doesn't think it's worth it.
For instance, I doubt even RMTs would have felt it worthwhile to sell "one character's full cap of inf" for "one cent," any more than players would find it worthwhile to sell that much inf for one paragon point.
[color=#ff0000]Business Manager[/color]
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The problem with RMT is actually less the selling of "gold", but the incessant advertising in chat and scamming of accounts. I feel we have to make every effort to crack down on this behaviour including extensive logging to track movements of currency so we can stamp it out as best we can. Saying "it's not a big issue" IMO is wrong.
[color=#ff0000]Tech Team and Forum Moderator[/color]
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And, in PvEvP games, monopolizing lucrative spawns. If the most expensive IO recipe in the game only dropped to the player that got the kill shot on the Kronos Class Titan, there would probably be more gold farmers trying to drive players from the zone than there were farming it.
Not that that scenario would be relevant to CoT. A game that tries to keep/restore the friendly community of CoH wouldn't have any mechanics intended to make players hate each other designed into it.
Segev, there is one service that I would want to be [b]purchasable[/b] through Stars only instead of through in-game currency.
Respec Tokens.
That way, NEW Respec Tokens can only be made through consumption of Stars.
However, if Respec Tokens [i]can be traded for Stars or INF[/i] then you've got a circulating market producing an economy.
And if you can do THAT with Respec Tokens ... you're not all that far away from being able to do the same for Subscription Tokens [b]purchased[/b] with Stars, but which can be traded for either Stars or INF inside the game's market(s), creating a situation not unlike the PLEX economy in Eve Online.
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[i]Verbogeny is one of many pleasurettes afforded a creatific thinkerizer.[/i][/center]
Basically my view on it. Not so much about the actual selling of the gold but what the selling of gold leads to.
Choosing what, if anything, from the c-store will be able to be traded on the player-to-player market will be one of the more delicate decisions to make. It might be another case where having multiple "AH" venues with different internal rules could help.
[color=#ff0000]Business Manager[/color]
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I'd disagree. But you know I would.
Workflow 1
I buy stars. I use those stars on the stars store (not the in-game stars AH) and buy a locked (to my account) item
The money goes to MwM. It stays with MwM. There are no additional items being created.
Workflow 2
I buy stars. The cash I use goes into an escrow system whilst I look around with what to do with my stars. I buy RMT services - inf, levelling, duped or original but rare farmed items, I buy a lucky drop, a crafted enhancement, a base blueprint, a costume.. whatever.. from JayBezz.
Now I have a bunch of stuff and those stars are still out there and can still be used to buy star store items that SHOULD BE AVAILABLE ONCE AND LOCKED TO YOUR ACCOUNT.
What other games are you basing this star model on? Can I go look and see how they are doing?
you need to add "and by just selling the items that people want directly".
What if nobody wants them?
woah.. wtf?
http://www.baekdal.com/opinion/optimizing-your-industry-to-the-point-of-suicide/
new business commitee pl0x
If people won't pay enough to finance its creation, it is not worth creating.
/Segev
You've yet to explain how this looks different to MWM's bottom line.
In workflow 1, you buy Stars, then buy items from the c-store. MWM gets paid once for the Stars.
In workflow 2, you buy Stars, then hold on to them, and maybe at some later date you (or somebody else) use them to buy items from the c-store. MWM gets paid once for the Stars.
In workflow 1, the only items created are the Stars when you buy them, and the c-store item(s) when you destroy the Stars to create them.
In workflow 2, the only items created are the Stars when you buy, them, and the c-store item(s) when you or somebody else destroy(s) the Stars to create them. Those other things - the services you buy from RMTs (with real money, I am guessing, since you're buying them form RMTs; this would happen with or without any sort of "Stars system"), the items you buy from JayBezz (which I assume he got from playing the game, as that's the sort of item I expect to see people pay for with Stars on the market)...those are not created at MWM's [i]expense[/i].
They either have nothing to do with MWM (the RMT "services" you listed are all things you can get in WoW right this minute for real money, if you want, and introducing this "Stars system" wouldn't somehow make it increase in frequency; in fact, if people started taking Stars for those services, then those who took Stars encourage those who buy the services to buy those Stars from MWM, giving MWM a cut of those profits!), or they're things that are created through gameplay [i]anyway[/i] and thus would exist with or without the "Stars system."
And I'm not understanding what "locking items to your account" does to change any of your examples.
Please, I really am trying to understand: How does MWM have less money in "workflow 1" than in "workflow 2?"
This is really just an expansion of the "astral diamonds for Zen" or "ISK for Plex" system in other existing games. The difference is in the breadth of options for what players can sell to each other for Stars. Rather than inventing a narrow-bound extra currency through which all real-cost-to-game-stuff transactions must filter, it allows players to establish prices more directly. Less steps of calculation, more avenues of stabilization.
Why? What difference does it make, to MWM's bottom line, whether the items are sold directly in the c-store or they're sold by players on the player-to-player market, if somebody spends real money on Stars to buy them either way?
It [i]does[/i] make a difference in how the game is perceived, and how the distribution of game-mechanic-improving-items looks. In your suggested model, it's pay-to-win. Give MWM money, and MWM will create items just for you that make your character better than those who have played the game without giving us money. Nobody else benefits, and those items' prices are just as high as we think we can get away with (and it's guesswork how valuable they really are).
In the model I'm proposing, the "pay-to-win" guy still can give MWM money and go acquire the game-mechanic-improving-items. However, he now does so [i]to the benefit[/i] of other players, rather than to their relative detriment. He does NOT increase the commonality of the items in question; they are just as rare as they would be otherwise, because they're all earned in-game by [i]somebody[/i]. Meanwhile, the people the "pay to win" guy is getting the items from benefit from their item having dropped even if they couldn't use it, themselves.
Moreover, MWM gets paid based on what the PLAYERS value these items at.
Well, then, MWM won't make any money. But, looking at other freemium MMOs, the fact is that it looks like people [i]do[/i] tend to want the c-store currency so they can buy things in the c-store. What are you basing the premise of your question on? What makes you think "nobody" will want Stars?
I've read articles along those lines. Note that the motivation behind currency sinks is not "milk more money from the players." It is something we'd be pursuing anyway, because it helps fight inflation of in-game currency (which is the core, I think, of most problems in-game player-to-player markets tend to face in most MMOs).
The more desirable currency is, however, the more likely players are to want to buy from "gold-sellers." All this system does is make it perfectly legit to spend real money and go someplace in the game to transform the Stars you bought into in-game currency. You buy it from another player.
But that hinges on there being something other than the AH on which to spend in-game currency, because obviously, if we fail to have interesting currency sinks and we allow Stars to directly trade on the AH, people have no reason to buy currency with Stars when all they want is available on the AH for Stars.
Note that this isn't a problem with this system; this is just a piece of analysis. If players are trading Stars for currency, they must want something they can only buy with currency. Since the AH will be a place where you can spend [i]either[/i] in order to obtain items therefrom, it is likely that the only things that will cause people to [i]specifically[/i] want currency over Stars (which might incentivize trading between them) are currency sinks which can't be paid for directly in Stars.
Does this make sense?
Can you explain where MWM has more dollars at the end of the day in your "workflow 1" vs in your "workflow 2?"
I really am trying to be clear and to understand your concerns, here.
[color=#ff0000]Business Manager[/color]
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In my own defense, I would say that the phenomenon detailed in that link is precisely why I have consistently responded so negatively to JayBezz's arguments in favor of a microtransactions only business model based on the notion that subscriptions are not profitable (relatively speaking) and that the only thing that matters (enough to get worked up over) is money money money moneymoneyMONEY!
Quoted from the provided link for Emphasis, Truth, and [b]BOOT TO THE HEAD[/b]!!
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[i]Verbogeny is one of many pleasurettes afforded a creatific thinkerizer.[/i][/center]
You don't end up with more dollars. Don't keep trying to.
You get my $10. I get 10 stars. I spend them on two purple enhancements for my account.
This is the only time I'll buy those stars, I don't want your costume or jet powered rocket shoes.
So you've got my $10 I've got 2 items that are account locked so they can't get onto the market, I can't sell them and generate inf / stars / RMT or anything else.
I'm happy, you're happy.
Except you wont sell me them. You think they are pay to win. What, pray did I win?
Say I bought those jet-shoes and they got me somewhere faster. Man, this game is pay to fly.
Say I bought a disco outfit. Pay to fro?
Say I buy team boosts, you know like +damage/+tohit or +defense/+resist to get past that end boss- will those be a thing?
So...I have $10. I get 10 stars. I spend those stars on various items in the game so now 5 players have 2 stars each. I have 5 purples (maybe.. who knows, maybe 5 oranges.. maybe I got a bargain bunch of boosts..) and those 10 stars are still on the market. You've effectively not cashed my $10 because that money is still floating around. Think of it as vouchers for your favourite retail store. They took my $10 and gave me 5 $2 vouchers. I gave those vouchers to other people in exchange for back rubs. You still need to honour those vouchers.
Ultimately I feel that you wont get paid because you don't sell anything I want.
This is why I believe you wont sell any stars. You are not offering anything anybody wants that you can't get in-game. You can sell extra slots, but I'll get them in my sub, right? You can sell costume unlocks, but they are in the sub, you can sell some boost but they are in the sub (or stipend pays for them) etc. etc.
So. What is there for me to buy stars for?
Oh wait.. those things will not be in my $15 pmo sub?
I don't want to spend $1000 to get that purpled out tank. I don't think you should be able to purple out a tank at the start, I don't think purples should exist until after the first expansion, hell, add new sets over time..
*translate this to any of your other pay-to-win items, that denim clad, diamond studded staff of cool etc.
If those things exist, it's just a race to get them. Then a race to sell them for the most money possible. Including off-market on Ebay if you make them rare/desirable enough. In that case ebay replaces the cash store for me.
You also don't need to sell every single item in my Mids build at the same time or indeed ever. I should be playing first, supplementing as a second option. They did not make me win. Anything.
But I digress.
There are so many things that go into make a good character (CO's freeform, NW's and WoWs trees, look at the options in MIDS for CoX.. boggling) that selling me the odd really desirable item seems to make sense. That's what I'd spend my stars on.
You specifically said you wanted people to buy stars to be able to afford the inf sinks you were going to put in.
That is is pay to play. This isn't "motivation behind currency sinks", I understand that, this is something evil.
There is also, it should be noted, NO inflation yet. Can we deal with that when we actually get some?
What things? The things I'm saying you should sell? The things you are saying you will not sell? Yep those things are what I buy in other games stores.
But what do I know? This should be opened up to everyone who has subbed so far. Why aren't we surveying the donators via email to see what everyone wants? Why is this being decided in the free to play section of the forums?
What currency? The c-store currency in anything I can think of is not player tradeable. WIth PW products you buy Zen. You can't give zen to players.
I can't remember what you buy in GW2.. Gold I think? You don't then give gold to players, you have to exchange it for um diamonds?
And how is that? Let's ask people. How do they perceive a game which follows the same model as the other game they used to play. You know, the one this is the successor to?
This seems to be more of a problem for you than it is for me..
Anyway, ultimately, I have $10. And you aren't getting it.
If people won't pay enough to finance its creation, it is not worth creating.
/Segev
I'm sorry, I thought your whole premise was that we got paid only once under one scheme, and more than once under the one you suggested. My apologize for misunderstanding you.
Okay.
...but in the other thread, didn't you just finish saying that you adored the booster packs? Those had nothing but the "costume" or "jet powered rocket shoes" or "cosmetic pets" in them.
You keep saying that like it somehow makes the items superior, more desirable for you to have. Why?
Why not?
Why are you happier with fewer options? Why do you assume that others would be less happy with more?
You paid money to be mechanically better than if you had not paid money. This is not inherently problematic. However, you have done so and circumvented part of the game. Whether you believe it or not, like it or not, the perception of other players who do care about these things is that you have not "earned" them, and that you have cheapened their accomplishments in getting them. Moreover, those who have yet to be able to get them and can't or won't pay real money for them look at you and are annoyed that you got what they want just by forking over cash.
These attitudes may not be wholly mitigated by the plans I lay out here, but they ARE mitigated at least in part: in buying the mechanically superior items from the market, you reward those who HAVE "earned" them. You do not in any way "cheapen" them by rendering them somehow less rare. Every item you buy that way was won via gameplay by [i]somebody[/i]. Moreover, those who look to you and see that you have things because you spent real money can now look to you as something to hope to emulate, if not by spending real money, then by obtaining Stars from you or people like you and using them to buy the Disco Suit they want.
I'm not really sure what the question is, here, or the point you're trying to make. Can you elaborate, please?
Yep! I don't see the problem, here. Can you explain why this is an issue? Stores love it when people buy gift cards. But if you bought 10 $10 gift cards to Wal*Mart, and traded them to people for $10 worth of stuff they have each, does Wal*Mart care that it's those people, and not you, who will come into the store and buy things with the gift cards?
MWM has been paid for whatever it is those Stars are eventually used to buy, if anything. We are not out anything if nobody ever cashes them in, nor if they're cashed in 5 months later. (Especially since c-stores sell virtual items we can and do generate as soon as somebody spends the Stars to buy them.)
But...you just said you bought $10 worth of Stars. You spent them to get your Purples or Oranges or whatever. Yes, you bought them from other players, but it doesn't matter; you spent $10 that MWM now has.
You, yourself, said in the other thread that you bought lots of Booster Packs. (Or was that not you?) We're selling the sorts of non-mechanics-enhancing items that you can get from those, possibly even in that format. These things will not be available unless people spend Stars on them; they won't "drop" in-game.
There are things that will be sold on the c-store and not dropped by gameplay activities. There are other things that will not be sold in the c-store that ARE dropped by gameplay activities. Does this now make more sense?
Well, if you're paying for a stipend, you're not only spending money on a subscription, but your stipend is [i]in[/i] Stars. That's the c-store currency! So you ARE buying Stars if you've got a subscription.
That's fine; you don't have to. You can play the game and get all that stuff. I don't know how much real money it will cost to "get that purpled out tank." I don't know what the Stars-value on the AH will be for those items; that will be player determined based on the rarity of those items as they drop in game.
I assure you, things will come out in expansions. We have not announced definites on what is intended for release and what is intended for expansions; we are still weighing some of these things.
Why? Why will you expect it to be cheaper on eBay than on the AH (once you convert costs in dollars-to-Stars)? If people are under-selling on eBay, it reduces demand in the market, so prices will drop in the market.
I'm not quite following your point here. It looks like this starts with one point, then undermines it and shifts to another that I'm not understanding.
Then by all means, do so. The "odd really desirable item" will be available on the market, I am sure. If it's for sale in currency, you can almost certainly find somebody who will sell you currency for Stars. If it's for sale in Stars, you can buy Stars and purchase it.
Either way, you spent real money for Stars, and bought the "odd really desirable item" with said Stars, just as if MWM were selling it in the c-store.
You are confusing goals with recognition of probable outcomes.
Let's say we don't have any means, in-game, to buy currency with real money. Stars are just c-store currency, and can only be spent there, and never shall anybody get Stars without spending real money.
Let's then also say that we implement currency sinks to keep inflation down.
Are you telling me that RMTs won't have customers who come to them to buy currency in order to pay for those money sinks?
This is a naive statement. Inflation happens when the supply of currency grows faster than the supply of things on which to spend it. It's simply supply and demand; currency is just another "good." If supply of it grows faster than demand for it grows, it loses value and you have inflation.
Currency in MMOs is the single most-easily generated "good." It drops from every "kill," it is part of every reward package you get for missions, and it is commonly the most easily-obtained transformation of junk drops; "vendor trash" is auto-converted to currency when you sell it.
The definition of a "currency sink" is "anything on which players spend in-game currency which causes it to be removed from the system." WoW has expensive mounts, many games have transport costs, base rent qualified (albeit not well) in CoH, vendors selling one-shots are a form of currency sink, vendors selling any item you want to use are at least a diminishing currency sink.
If we do a good enough job of implementing currency sinks that the sinking keeps up with the generation of currency from other sources, that means the currency sinks are desirable enough that people WANT to spend their currency on them. This will make currency something people want to have (as it is in any game, unless you're going to claim that RMTs don't successfully find customers to sell in-game currency to in other games).
Because the system I propose will enable players to trade Stars for in-game currency amongst themselves, I expect this will draw the same sort of RMT gold-seller customer to spend money with MWM instead of with RMTs. And if it doesn't...well, we can try to figure out why RMTs are selling cheaper than players will sell to each other in Stars.
You're being inconsistent from thread to thread, though. In this one, you claim the only thing you'd ever buy is a rare purple from the c-store, while in another you're claiming that you bought lots of "booster packs."
I'll assume you mean it when you say the first thing, though, for sake of argument: The only items you'd ever spend real money for are items that help you build a mechanically superior character. You will never buy extra character slots, you won't buy a subscription that includes such things and a stipend, and you won't buy costume pieces or alternate animations for your powers.
Why do you assume that nobody else will? I have only to point to CoH, to League of Legends, to Gaia Online, and to numerous other games and similar media to find examples of people who absolutely will spend money on the sorts of things we plan to sell in the c-store.
So, yes, there will be people who would love to take your Stars in exchange for that "purple rare" you want, if you're willing to buy it from them with said Stars. They'll go and spend the Stars on those things you say you don't want, because they're interested in them.
You're happy; they're happy; MWM's happy. You got the rare purple, they got the booster pack, and MWM got the $10.
Do you think this forum is somehow exclusively available to you? I imagine those who backed us pay as much attention to these forums as their interest dictates.
You are unaware of Astral Diamonds?
You don't even address Eve Online and their Plex (subscription tokens) which can be traded in-game for ISK (their in-game currency) paid by other players for the Plex.
Questionite, I think. Or is that CO? Regardless, those diamonds? They can sell for other things, and can be used for other things. The point is, you can spend real money to buy c-store currency and give it ot other players for an item those players obtained in-game. If you do'nt see a problem with it in GW2 or STO or Eve, why do you see a problem with it here?
This is not a clone of any game. It is designed to feel like home to a target audience, but not to be a rip-off thereof.
Because this is not a clone, it is dangerous to say "do it exactly like this other game, with no difference at all."
Note that there are those who grumble about Paragon Points buying account-bound "purples." You may not be amongst them, but there are those who were unhappy with it, some for the reasons I've outlined. Others, likely, because they didn't want them account-bound. I know you think that makes them better, somehow, but others would disagree.
I still question your logic as to why you refuse to spend it. I would love to convince you to buy those purple rares you say you want. But you are dead-set against it for reasons that I can't understand. I don't think you're really getting what I'm suggesting, because what you're saying the situation is doesn't reflect what I've described. I am sad to lose you as a paying player, but I've yet to hear from you something that is rooted in what I'm actually trying to get across that convinces me that the problems you expect are really going to materialize.
I am not trying to be insulting nor dismissive, but in the end, your individual, personal $10 aren't enough to make or break the game. Every bit helps, and I would never turn up my nose at it, but if your price for it is "do it exactly like this other game I loved did it, in exactly this model," then I am afraid I cannot sell you what you're asking for.
If what you're asking for is the ability to spend $10 on Stars and buy a purple rare or few with it, however, then what I've proposed can provide you that service, provided $10 is enough to buy what you want. (I can't guarantee that, because I honestly don't know what the going rates on the market will be.)
[color=#ff0000]Business Manager[/color]
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Clarification:
For Guild Wars 2, the ingame currency is the "fantasy" Gold, Silver, Bronze setup.
You buy Gems from the Guild Wars store (or brick and mortar store as a gift card). You can then spend those Gems on stuff in the Guild Wars 2 store. You can also exchange them over into Gold via an interface on the Guild Wars 2 market. How much you get for them... well that all depends as to *what* the exchange rate is at that current point in time.
Players can also Gold for Gems. Once again, how many Gems you get for you money all depends on the exchange rate. You *cannot* however, directly trade "player to player" Gems.
If this system is similar to Champions Online/Star Trek Online/Neverwinter... let me know, because even though I play Guild Wars 2, I have *never* felt that there was something on the Guild Wars 2 Store that was "MUST BUY" because it made me super.
There were items of convenience there... but nothing that gave me a direct *advantage* over someone who didn't buy them (ie everlasting gathering tools... handy, but not "must have" to be fair.... It would save me just a few slots in my bags overall.
I can't comment as to whether what they do constitutes "must buy" to be "super." I get the impression they don't, because most of the successful, long-term games seem to be avoiding pay-to-win. That said, it sounds like GW2 actually is very close to what I'm suggesting: they only allow transfer of Gems to Gold or vice-versa, but it's done player-to-player, and it allows those who pay real money to acquire in-game Gold and those who have in-game Gold to acquire Gems without paying real money, thus opening the c-store to those who haven't spent money on Gems and allowing those who spend real money to get stuff for in-game Gold based on the money they spent.
I assume GW2, like most modern MMOs, has a player-to-player market wherein one can exchange Gold for stuff others have gathered through play.
[color=#ff0000]Business Manager[/color]
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Doesn't GH have a point here, Segev? You have said several times that the forum represents only the vocal minority, and I'm convinced you are right. I think somewhere you've said or implied that the only way we'll really know what people want is to see what they buy in the game. But wouldn't GH's suggestion of a formal survey of backers give you feedback that is likely more representative of the playerbase's opinions than what we see here? Of course, even results of an accurate backer survey could differ from the final in-game playerbase reaction, but wouldn't it add value by coming earlier in the design process rather than having to wait till after implementation?
EDIT ["one more thing..."]: Wouldn't periodic surveys to KS backers on all sorts of "What would you like to see regarding ________ in CoT" topics also serve to keep up interest, a la KS updates, but with the added benefit of providing discrete, analysable data?
Spurn all ye kindle.
I'm just going to post from my experience:
Public interest and fiscal interest don't often line up unless people are coming from the perspective of the "business" and not that of the "consumer". The public will consistently want things for "free/discounts" from my experience.
Crowd Control Enthusiast
Actually, surveys are sent out to backers as a matter of course just to fulfil obligations to them. I assure you, we are going to be sending them out. I should apologize, my response to GH was a bit sharp. So I am sorry for that.
The point I was trying to get across is that we're not "hiding" this discussion nor avoiding hearing from our backers by having it here. I was, perhaps, a little too quick to assume that that was the accusation.
Oh, people will always seek to pay the least to get the most, wherever possible. This is true of businesses (run by people), charities (seeking to maximize the amount they can stretch each donation), governments (when they're run by honest men and women), and individuals.
However, people are not strictly motivated by "spend the least." That "get the most" angle also plays a significant role. It's why people will spend money on premium things.
The reason we can look at what people buy - once we have our stores running - to see what they want is because humans determine, individually for themselves, what the best deals are. They will spend more money for things they find more appealing. So if we cater to the areas we see the most purchases being made, we are almost certainly catering to the majority of our players.
Recalling that we will have this mechanism whereby players can trade in-game stuff for Stars on the market, we don't even have to assume that we're failing to measure the "free" players' interests: looking where Stars are spent (both on the market and in the c-store) will tell us a lot about what entices people to a) spend real money to buy Stars, and b) to expend resources to improve their game experience.
If we see certain sorts of things are more popular in the c-store, we can aim our development at making more options for those. I admit that I'm less sure how we can use the information about what people spend Stars on in the market versus what people spend in-game currency on, but I am positive that information, too, will teach us things about how best to cater to the interests of our players. Just not as directly, because we're not directly putting anything on that market. (The angle of interest we need to be focused on there, I think, will be what CONTENT people are pursuing, as catering to their interests will be more along the lines of finding what they do in game, there, rather than what they buy on the market.)
[color=#ff0000]Business Manager[/color]
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:-)
The only surveys to KS backers I have heard mention of so far are ones to determine KS rewards. Are you saying we're also gonna have surveys asking us about game design decisions? That's what I -- and I think GH -- are referring to.
Had to read this several times. By "CONTENT" you mean things like story arcs, right -- not that only the buying habits of "happy, satisfied" players are to be focused on?
Spurn all ye kindle.
In this case, by "content," I mean "everything people are doing in the game." Story arcs, street sweeping, mini-games, etc. What are people doing that draws them to the game? That's what makes them satisfied players, and satisfied players are probably satisfied customers.
I cannot promise anything on surveys specifically about the direction of the game being made to backers, or to backers exclusively. I can say that getting the pulse of our known player base is definitely a resource that we would be foolish not to exploit in designing a game where we hope they'll spend more money to help support it in the future and want to keep playing to be part of the community we hope to serve.
[color=#ff0000]Business Manager[/color]
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Not wanting to wade through the walls of text, but one comment that needs to be made:
No they didn't, they had some REALLY useful things in them:
funky inspirations
reward merits
enhancement converters
enhancement boosters
archetype IOs
etc
[color=#ff0000]Tech Team and Forum Moderator[/color]
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Ah, did they? My mistake, then.
[color=#ff0000]Business Manager[/color]
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Should have included the link http://paragonwiki.com/wiki/Super_Pack#Heroes_and_Villains unslotters as well.
[color=#ff0000]Tech Team and Forum Moderator[/color]
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I do have a few ideas that can be added to the cash shop or subscription system without making it a pay to win or making it feel like content from the game is very much help back from you before you pay a little money (much like one of the criticisms CoH got when it went F2P hybrid). Now keep in my mind these are just my unprofessional and unrefined ideas fro ma person with limited experience in MMOs so take this with a grain of salt. For example what if there was a monthly digital comic (or even several) that ties into the game and which can be bought for some amount of the cash shop currency, these comics can revolve around the main characters of the universe and be used on the side to help expand upon details of the world while still keeping with the theme as a tradition super hero comic; subscribers might even be able to read these comics for free as they come out. Or what if subscribers got some sort of special kind of reward for staying loyal, yeah most MMOs already do something like that but think of something a little creative like, hey you subscribed for a year and you get an exclusive real world cape or something mailed to you; or how about a year of subscription entitles you to enter some sort of raffle each year so long as you stay subscribed, the winner of said raffle would be able to have whatever costume they draw or want to make (within reason) made into the game that they can use exclusively to their own characters, such as an alternate skin for their existing characters or a skin they can go to if they want to make a new character; if you are an artist then you can send your concept to the devs to make into the game to the best of their ability (after of coarse being approved as PG) or if you're not really an artist then just discuss with the game devs or a comic book artist on what you want that special to you and see if they can make it happen. Or perhap have some oher raffle where if you win your character can have a cameo in the game story line or the comic.
Profile Pic via http://www.heromachine.com/heromachine-2-5-character-portrait-creator/ (missing hat and visible eyes but eh, what can you do) [img]https://scontent-b-lga.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ash3/t1/1964839_721426151231254_1302170917_n.jpg[/img]
Completely unrelated:
I want my FX to look almost EXACTLY like Magneto in GoldPeter's avatar (only emanating from the head). Must find that image for future reference!
Crowd Control Enthusiast
I found it on a quick google search Jay https://i.annihil.us/u/prod/marvel//universe3zx/images/thumb/9/90/Magneto_430.jpg/406px-Magneto_430.jpg
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Ok so here me out on this. Most of us here know how the UFC and WWE hold monthly pay per views. What if CoT did something similar? Now I am not saying no holiday events for the F2Pers, that would just be dumb, everyone should get to experience the fun of a Halloween event. Anyway, what if each month there was some type of event that the subs could join for free but the F2P people could throw say 5 bucks at to join in on that months event.
An example would be perhaps one month out of the year the devs hold a big PvP tournament. Another month they open a X-Men style danger room where players could do some type of crazy boss rush mode that drops fun temp powers, badges and titles. Lastly, on the birthday month, would just be one big celebration, where some of the devs could interact with players and just have fun. I remember this happened once of CoH (might have been on the test client). Huge party in Pocket D, where someone had built this insane maze (couldn't use travel powers) and a few of the devs were there answering questions about upcoming content. At the end of the night they tried to kill everyone in Pocket D by filling it with giant monsters. Good times.
Might be a crazy idea, but it might make a few of the F2P people sit back and go "these events are pretty awesome, I should just go ahead and sub so I can see the whole game."
your search-fu is strong
Crowd Control Enthusiast
Okay, let me see if I have this correct. I buy stars from MWM they get my money. All well and good. I use stars in the auction house to buy rare drops. My character is uber. I just payed to win. Am I wrong or missing something?
I reserve the right to have an opinion. You reserve the right to not agree.
What you are missing is, that über-rare item was found in the course of regular gameplay, by someone who had no better use for it. You can't buy it until someone finds it and puts it up for sale.
Then, after you buy it, the person you sold it to takes those Stars and buys the item he needed to make his character über.
Repeat that step until the stars are in the hands of someone whose character is already über. Then that person buys costume pieces. ^_^
Foradain, Mage of Phoenix Rising.
[url=https://cityoftitans.com/forum/foradains-character-conclave]Foradain's Character Conclave[/url]
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Don't get me wrong. I think that someone who does this sort of thing is the same as someone who will cheat while playing checkers by himself. I don't really care personally. It keeps the money in the hands of the developers, which keeps a game I love going. The point I make is there is always someone who will pay to win. I don't really think this can be avoided. Which takes me back to, it supports the game I love. As long as the game is supported by this type of behavior and makes it money for those who enjoy it, this in my opinion is better than gold farmers taking profit from the game and it not making it back to perpetuate development. Regardless of where the stars eventually end up, someone can pay to win.
I reserve the right to have an opinion. You reserve the right to not agree.
I've paid for stuff. Not often, but occasionally when I had a little money and when didn't have a lot of time to play, and I've never cheated in my life. At a game or on a test or anything. You drew a false equivalency there.
If it's allowed by the rules and is instituted and enacted by the devs, it's part of the game. How can it be cheating? Just because you don't like an intended aspect of a game doesn't mean it's cheating--it just means that you don't like it.
But, other than that, I agree with your post.
FIGHT EVIL! (or go cause trouble so the Heroes have something to do.)
Something I was wondering about helping CoT make money was in game coupons. Coupons that would be rare random drops that would give discounts on things sold in the cash shop. I think they should be locked to account on dropping so they could not be sold for stars and I don't think they should be allowed to be used in the purchase of stars as I think that stars should be used to base real world cost for cash shop items, wouldn't want to muck with the value of stars. I don't know if this is a good idea overall because I don't want it to hurt the profit margin of the game too much. But I do wonder if it would entice those nonpaying customers into buying something from the cash shop once in a while instead of freeloading. I dunno, what do you all think? Of course I have no idea if this is a good or bad idea *shrugs*.
I reserve the right to have an opinion. You reserve the right to not agree.
In my opinion there needs to be a use for Stars that is not a permanent item. For example: a costume piece lasts forever, a ham sandwich does not. There need to be some ham sandwich-like items in the game to buy with Stars. Consumables, in other words. Respec tokens fit this bill, but those might not sell very often, a given player might only need one every 6 months, depending on their play style.
I proposed one earlier on the another forum involving paying Stars as an entry fee for a TF or Trial. Not that all Trials and TF would use this, just the idea that you'd pay an entry fee (in Stars) each and every time you went to start a certain specific TF (or maybe there are several "pay to play" ones to choose from, etc). That way, when the trials starts, the Stars are spent, like buying a ticket for a movie. The Stars thus exit the system and don't just float around forever, devaluing themselves. This idea was met largely with extreme aversion.
R.S.O. of Phoenix Rising
I would say that if you want something to be spent on Stars that is consumable, make it something like super inspirations, super packs like CoH had that could grant you a bunch of random things, enhancement unslotters, respecs, or enhancement boosters. Perhaps even vanity items that can't be sold or traded to other players.
I got chills! They're multiplyin'. And I'm losin' control. Cuz the power, I'm supplyin'. Why it's ELECTRIFYIN'!!
Radiac,
I'm not sure how I would feel about this. Maybe if the entry fee were low enough in real cash value and the TF were something fun and unique enough or perhaps offered a fair chance for a very unique and coveted drop, perhaps. But if I am already paying a sub, it would have to be something pretty cool to experience and or offer a really good reward to make me feel as if it wasn't a cash grab for the developers. I know for me at least, it would be a hard sell.
I reserve the right to have an opinion. You reserve the right to not agree.
One or two devs mentioned in another thread (in an different sub forum) that the plan is not to have Inspirations at all, as far as I can tell. The deal is supposed to be that when you get in fights with mobs, you build momentum, which may or may not matter at all to your toon's build. Then, as you come to rest the momentum bleeds off and when that happens you acquire up a sort of fluid called "Reserves". The idea being that there will be no Catch a Breath's anymore, but rather an "Endo Reserve" that fill as Momentum fades away and then you can push a button to spend Endo Reserve points to get Endo back. Kind of like flushing coolant in MechWarior (my analogy, not theirs). Supposedly there will be different categories of reserves, they didn't specify, but I would assume Hit Point Reserves would be one, Endo another, then maybe Damage, Defense, Resist, and Accuracy, just as an example.
This eliminates one more possible consumable to sell. That is of course assuming there will be no Insps, as one Dev (Tannim222 or Segev) mentioned. This doesn't totally eliminate the possibility of having Insp-like objects for other purposes, like the Break FRee, the Wakie, and those "temporary +1 effective level" Insps that CoX had. But as far as I know that isn't on the table.
Anything lie Enhancement Boosters, if it happens at all, ought to be temporary for this to be a decent Star sink too. Like not "boosts the enhancements's numbers permanently" but rather "boosts it for a few hours, or a day, or X activations" or something like that.
R.S.O. of Phoenix Rising
I agree largely with you here, Follies, the details would have to be worked out in terms of what the subscribers get for their monthly fees. Maybe while $15/month sub is paid you get a full-on VIP pass that lets you do unlimited free TFs, like buying a season pass at Disney, or else maybe the subscription simply gives you X number of Stars in general to use as you want and this is just one of the uses for those Stars. There are different possibilities there.
I also agree that having somewhat better random drops during the TF or at the end (or both) might be a thing to have. Using the Reward Merits of CoX as an example, if a "regular, free" 45-min long TF gives X merits, the paid-for 45 TF might give more than that. Or maybe you get the same merits AND a random drop off of a random reward table that the paid-for ones use (which is still random, but maybe has better odds of getting more desirable things). There are a lot of things you could do in that vein. Better XP rates, etc.
Edit: Another idea that had been mentioned previously when we were all arguing about this before was the thought that the devs might get a celebrity comicbook artist or writer to do a TF or maybe have one based on a popular band (i.e. hey kids, wanna do the "Save Motorhead from the Rainbow Glitter Unicorns TF?" it's SOOO much fun!) or something and then they'd be able to split the profits from that specific piece of content with the sponsors, or at least pay the guest writer for his work, etc.
R.S.O. of Phoenix Rising
This all just gets back to my original premise that the purpose of a Subscription is Preferential Treatment rather than a quantitative "boost" over everyone else that creates an underclass of Players. As a result, my personal preference is to use Stars to "buy in early" on features that Subscribers get "for free" with their subscription payments.
So if there's a new costume piece coming out ... all the Subscribers get it on release day, and everyone else gets it 6 months later (number made up for purposes of illustration of principle). Don't want to wait as a non-Subscriber? Simply pay some Stars to get the costume piece "early" like the Subscribers do. So what are you "paying" for, actually? You're paying to jump to the front of the line, rather than being locked out of ever getting the new shiny. If you're [i]patient[/i] it'll cost you nothing.
[url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z8VD4JXUozM][i]"Yeah, yeah, PATIENCE! How long will that take?"[/i][/url]
The key point you want to aim for is a situation in which the stuff you can buy with Stars [b]raises the minimums without moving the maximums[/b] because that way you aren't creating a Haves vs Have Nots type of dynamic (or at least one that won't persist). It is only when you create a [i]persistent[/i] condition of Stars offering advantages that cannot be obtained any other way that you create the problem of Pay To Win.
Selling EARLY ACCESS to features being released in a temporary way (due to expiration date) does not sustain a dynamic of Pay To Win. It does however still offer an advantage to the Get There First crowd who'd be willing to part with their Stars in exchange for such a service.
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[i]Verbogeny is one of many pleasurettes afforded a creatific thinkerizer.[/i][/center]
as a subscriber I should not have to pay for any content, and this (imo) includes costume sets, powers, classes, missions, TF's and mega-TFs. I will be paying them a constant revenue of $15/month (for example...although I may will to pay even more depending on how it looks and what I get in my sub)...even during those time when nothing is being released, which could last for months, especially given MWM is primarily a volunteer workforce so new content, I suspect, will be coming out much slower than what we may be used to. as such, I should not have to pay for anything that comes out, content-wise...the exception being an actual expansion which I would gladly pay for.
given this, I would be willing to spend extra money on the following items:
Temporary Boosts (XP, strength, hit points, etc)
Vanity Pets
Extra Emotes (I do this there should be some basic ones included though)
Extra Bank slots
Extra Character slots
Extra Bag Slots (what one can carry on their person)
I am very much against paying a sub only to have to turn around and buy any type of real additional content. if this is the route that happens I might not sub at all and depending on how much we get nickel and dimed it could very well turn me off to the whole thing. it's completely wrong for a player who is willing to sub every month and then turn around and tell them that they still need to send in more money for content based material!? yeah...that's a big NO NO and will generate Bad Ju-Ju.
in regards to STARs? I really don't like the idea of getting Stars...only to turn around and then buy what I want content-wise from the store. just give me all the content from the get go. If I get a stipend of stars in addition to all content sure, I'll take em....but I certainly don't expect them.
[img]http://ic.pics.livejournal.com/whiteperegrine/84183/69278/69278_original.gif[/img]
I have no control over the exact monetization scheme they go with, and if it is "You pay $15, get Stars, then use them to buy different things" I would point out that THAT system has the flexibility to pick and choose what things you want each month. For example, if there comes a month when you're fairly sure you'll not be needing any crafting, you could go without, for a month, ans save those Stars to unlock some other thing with instead, like a new costume set, power set, etc.
One thing people have pointed out is that if the game does not provide a fungible currency (that is, some in-game currency that real world money in some way) then what happens is that people end up making an ad hoc currency out of something else. In Diablo II it was Stones of Jordan or something, I forget. The point is, they may as well make Stars and have it be the currency of the game, because at least then it is something they have a handle on in some way. That established (and I think the devs are fairly set in the idea that there will be Stars, actually), I think it would be good to have something consumable to spend Stars on and have it be a fun "event" type of thing, like a run through a Trial or whatever. I'd also point out that getting third party people to participate in the making and branding of content, like a Motorhead TF or a TF written by Stan Lee or whatever isn't going to come completely free to the devs either. All of that would have to be a deal hashed out with the third parties involved.
R.S.O. of Phoenix Rising
I too feel the same way about this. There is a lot of debate that has gone on regarding the whole Stars currency, Subscriptions, and Pay to Raid idea. I'd rather not rehash all that once again, as that led to things getting out of hand, and I had hoped that all that had been pretty much tamped down yet some people really like to keep trying to fan the flames alive again.
Needless to say, there will be Stars. That much has been stated. Or whatever they decide to call it at launch. They will be able to be traded, given, and even sold to other players for their use as well. I'm not a big fan of how the Stars system is going to work from what I've heard, but I've accepted it and hope it's not as bad as I'm thinking it will be.
I got chills! They're multiplyin'. And I'm losin' control. Cuz the power, I'm supplyin'. Why it's ELECTRIFYIN'!!
Economy, even game economy, is a tricky thing.
I'm sure the devs have put tons of thought into it as they have into all other aspects. Radiac is right that there WILL be currency, so it's good that the devs are going to take that bull by the horns, and I also I'd be ok with the "Star stipend for sub players" approach.
Exactly how they decide to handle it? I think there are a few different ways that could work just fine.
But, if there are third party events...
I WANT KISS! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dus7hHb0Je8
FIGHT EVIL! (or go cause trouble so the Heroes have something to do.)
One idea I've seen mentioned elsewhere is the idea of renting billboard space in Titan City. This could be useful for supergroups and individuals who have a need to broadcast their interests throughout the game. This could be extended to include NPC chatter such that players could pay a fee to get NPC's talking about topics of their choice for a while. Players could use these mechanisms to advertise items or services they have for sale, or even just for fun.
Mass communication without broadcast spam. It could be a unique source of continuous revenue as long as there's demand for it.
You could call it "Empyrean Saves KISS Saves Santa: The Movie: The Game"
R.S.O. of Phoenix Rising
O_O
I would give my entire stipend of stars forever for that.
Finally, I could rock and roll all night, and party every day--WITH SANTA!!!
FIGHT EVIL! (or go cause trouble so the Heroes have something to do.)
If there are going to be Stars, I feel it's nice to have something that's always available to be able to spend them on, because then Stars are always in demand and are therefore valuable. Thi skeeps the Stars from getting devalued by inflation. It's also not good to have Stars then largely make stuff unavailable for Stars. Like, imagine you're in a theme park that has it's own fake currency, like "Itchy and Scratchy Money", well, that currency is crap if everything you want to buy is from a place that doesn't accept the fake money (Simpsons did this joke on the show).
So when it comes to how many different things there are in the game to spend Stars on, I'd rather have "a lot more than is necessary " different things to spend Stars on than not enough. If the only thing Stars can do for you is pay for subscription time, then that sets the limit of how useful it is and people just buy exactly as many Stars as they need in a given month and that's it. If Stars, which remember represent money spent by someone somewhere, can be used to buy costume unlocks, Signature Story Arcs, new power sets, etc, then that's better, but you still only need as many Stars as is necessary to get the new stuff they roll out that you want. This means the devs constantly have to produce more costumes and crap to be able to make more money. What the game clearly could use is a thing that people can and would want to spend Stars on oall the time, without saturating the market. You can only buy the new Funny Hat once, after all, then you own it. Done. Next? Well, you have to wait 1-6 months for whatever is "next" because they don't have infinite resources to make these things.
If you think of it in terms of being like a videogame arcade (I'm old, hear me out, these things really did exist at one point), you take money and give the customer tokens, and the arcade game machines accept tokens. It''s not like everyone is uying their own Pac-Mac machine, they're just paying a quarter for one play. If the devs can roll out a thing that accepts Stars and, like the Pac-Man arcade game, has no limit on how many times, or how often people can pay Stars to play that arcade machine (or whatever the CoT version of it is), then you've ALWAYS got a reason to want more Stars, because you can spend them on this repeat-business enabling thing, whatever it is.
I submit that the most straightforward analog of dropping a token into an arcade machine or paying a ticket fee for a rollercoaster ride is paying a Star or two to do a TF or trial of some kind. That seems like the closest and best fit for this.
You can complain that they're selling you something that you think should be free, but you can't deny that this creates a demand for Stars. With this in place, you've always got something to blow excess Stars on, when and if you decide you don't like the new costume set or power set, you can just do more paid TFs that month and probably get some decent swag in the process.
So you're in a world where their deal is "Pay any amount of money per month (or whenever) and you get Stars for your money. Then, you can go to the shop and buy whatever you want with Stars, like a month of FULL VIP(TM) for X Stars, or maybe a few sub-packages with just the bare-bones stuff for less."
It seems to me that whether you're denied access to the entire Incarnate system (and thus its Trials) by not paying a full subscription or denied access to the individual Trials by not paying a Star or two per run, both of those systems are putting SOME amount of content behind a paywall, and with CoX it was all or nothing, whereas with Stars you could make it more variable. People who don't want FULL VIP (which might be an all-month pass that lets you into all of the paid trials) this month, or can't afford it could just throw the devs a buck here or there to do a trial now and then. CoX, which we all loved and miss terribly now didn't have that flexibility and as such I think this is a BETTER deal for the customer than what they were selling, frankly.
R.S.O. of Phoenix Rising
A different topic in a different thread gave me an idea that affects this:
In other games, there tends to be open world street sweeping and raids. CoX had missions too, and that's fine. But what if it worked like this:
Our TF/Trial, would basically be what we're calling a raid for lack of a better term, so not a Hamidon Raid where it's part of the open world in a zone but like the BAF or Lambda or even a more scalable version of the Sister Psyche TF, as examples. Okay, so for each "raid", you have a queue that requires a set minimum number of people to start and has a timer so that it waits for the queue to get reasonably full before firing off the next group to do the raid. But then each raid will also have an NPC contact that stands someplace in the game that will allow you to form your own team to do the raid, no queue, not random idiots, just you and your team. Or maybe just you, period, if that's what you want (with warnings that soloing it is not intended to be possible and that you're most likely going to fail). People could try to solo TFs this way, they could form dream teams to try to do badge runs, or even just do "SG only" teams or groups of RL friends with no outsiders. So what you then do is only allow the FULL VIP people to do the "exclusive" version of the TF, and maybe give it better rewards. Then non-VIP people can either take their chances in the queues or else pony up a Star or two to do the exclusive one with people they know.
Edit: The way I envision this working, the exclusive version of the raid would give out the same types of swag, just more of it or at a faster rate of XP or whatever.
R.S.O. of Phoenix Rising
Really wish you would drop this and stop bringing it up. I would have thought that the last time this was approached and shut down you'd learn, evidently I was wrong.
There will be plenty of things for us to spend "Stars" on. Not only will you be able to use the "Stars" to pay for your subscriptions you will also be able to use them on the Auction House to buy other things besides just using your regular In-Game Currency that is earned during game play. So if somebody gets some kind of enhancement, costume piece, or whatever item drop during their play time, they can put it up on the Auction House for a list price of either In-Game Currency or Stars value. So we will have plenty of stuff to spend our "Stars" on between Subscriptions, QoL Enhancements, and Regular Game Play Items.
I got chills! They're multiplyin'. And I'm losin' control. Cuz the power, I'm supplyin'. Why it's ELECTRIFYIN'!!
Yes, but one of the complaints before was that the content itself was being put behind a paywall, and in this new system the content is NOT being paywalled, only the VIP-style access to it. Even if you dislike the idea of letting non-subs pay to raid (which I still contend is only an added OPTION that adds a convenience CoX never had and could have probably made money on if it did), you can take that away entirely and the fact that you're giving the VIP full subscribers a way to cut the usual line is still one more thing to encourage becoming a paid subscriber, right? I mean it's a form of value added for paying the monthly sub, isn't it?
Also, I will continue to bring up ideas (whether they were popular the first time or not) if and when I feel there is new information or a new wrinkle to be considered. This is not the exact same idea back again in the same form, it's definitely a new take, and I personally think it merits discussion for that reason.
R.S.O. of Phoenix Rising
1. You are once again bringing up the whole Pay to Raid topic.
2. You are once again bringing up the idea that if you Pay to Raid you will get better rewards than the person that doesn't Pay to Raid, which is dangerously close to the "Pay to Win" scenario.
3. You have no idea how the Task Force, Trial, or Raid system will work. So therefore you cannot assume that there will be a queue system like WoW.
4. You have no idea how MWM wants to monetize their game. So once again you are speaking about a dangerous topic that could once again lead to a locked thread.
5. They have already mentioned that a "Subscription" will not be like the old typical "Subscription" system. Therefore we do not know if there will be gated content behind whether or not you pay to "Subscribe".
6. Once again, I urge you to drop this topic and leave it alone. At least until we have a better understanding of how MWM is going to implement their monetization method of the game. I urge anybody, not just you, to not try to monetize MWM's game and instead allow them to come up with that plan and if they so desire ask us for feedback once they do.
I got chills! They're multiplyin'. And I'm losin' control. Cuz the power, I'm supplyin'. Why it's ELECTRIFYIN'!!
1. I sure am, and with fun new details that make it different now, what about that?
2. This is the same point as 1, and if anyone want's to accuse this proposed system as a form of Pay to Win, they can. Different people have different ideas about what that phrase even means. The fact that a person could pay to PLAY a TF then fail out and not get the reward for defeating the end boss makes it something other than strictly "Pay money for better swag then dominate without having to earn it the hard way", you're still earning it the hard way here. (and no those quotation marks are not meant to imply that Static or anyone else ever said that exact sentence, they're just general "air quotes").
3. Nobody has any idea how the TF/Trial/raid system will work, but we can propose ideas for how it COULD work, and then discuss them in the forums. That's what I'm doing, brainstorming ideas. What we actually GET when the game comes out could be exactly like or completely UNLIKE what I'm describing, that's part of the fun of kicking ideas around.
4. Again, you're right, I don;t know how MWM intends to monetize, but I can theorize how _I_ might try to monetize and think about how that might work and then propose it in forums and get good discussion from people about it. That's what a forum is for, the free sharing of ideas.
5. This is not a different point than point 4 above, it's just re-iteration. Subscription and monetization are basically wrapped up in the same problem of how to get money from people for the game that you're producing.
6. You can urge me (anyone else who has ideas you personally dislike) to shut up until you pass out from exhaustion, that isn't going to take away my right to express my ideas openly on these forums.
R.S.O. of Phoenix Rising
If a sub gets to raid without paying extra and a non sub gets to pay a certain amount to raid for the week. I don't consider that pay to raid. I consider that, pay to play, only they're paying a small amount to play a specific aspect.
That style of payment should imo make it more expensive in the long run, while the sub shows to be the best course.
Something else they could do with CoT is follow FFXIV's example...
12.99 a month Entry level: All the perks limited to a small number of alts (in FFXIV's case this is 8 characters with 1 per server)
14.99 (monthly) gets you all the perks with basically unlimited characters.
What makes pricing a bit difficult is that if you assume the "Full blown sub" is $15/month, you then have to try to determine what fraction of that monthly fee represents just those premium raids/TFs that you're charging the non-subbers per-raid ticket prices for.
Assuming the non-subber already has fewer storage spaces, fewer buy/sell slots on the auction house, limited chat options (i.e. no access to user-created channels, can't use broadcast channels, ect), then that stuff should all have a pricetag on it too.
Just as an exercise, if say $5 per month is supposed to represent the fraction of the sub that goes toward premium raid/TF access, you're getting WAY more for your money as a sub than you would paying $1 per ticket as a non-sub, assuming you do maybe 2-4 such raids/TFs per week. On the other hand, if, say ALL$15 of the monthly sub dollars is paying for the premium raids/TFs, then you'd need to do at least 16 runs of such content every month to make the sub "technically, slightly better value" than the non-sub option.
I can tell you personally, in CoX, my main reasons for paying a sub was about 90% Incarnate stuff and 10% everything else. Frankly I didn't want to play CoX as a non-subber in the last year because I wanted to feel like a VIP and be called a VIP, but the most tangible benefit of that was being able to join and form up Trials.
R.S.O. of Phoenix Rising
TOR does it just fine. Sub fee of 15 or pay for certain privledges. Use them as a baseline.
TOR is one of the models we've studied in depth, along with GW2, FFXIV, NWO, and a lot more. NWO's model actually has one of the best bangs for buck, with GW2, TOR and FFXIV coming in right behind it in that order. In all cases, playable content as a pay item is counter-productive. When the playable content went free, revenue went up.
Technical Director
Read enough Facebook and you have to make Sanity Checks. I guess FB is the Great Old One of the interent these days... - Beamrider
Thank you Doctor Tyche. This is exactly the point I was trying to make last time. Make the content free and people will spend their money on all the QoL items that make playing the game more fun and enjoyable. There are plenty of other things to use to make people spend their money.
I got chills! They're multiplyin'. And I'm losin' control. Cuz the power, I'm supplyin'. Why it's ELECTRIFYIN'!!
I'm not familiar with the models you're talking about, as I have never played any of those games. Can you provide more context/detail as to how those models work?
R.S.O. of Phoenix Rising
GW2 is buy to play (buy the game and you get all the content). in the store you can buy quality of life items: various temporary buff items (strength, increased magic find, run speed, etc), new skins (weapons and armor), dyes to dye armor (although these tend to come in packs and the color is random), keys for the lockboxes they have, various animations for finishing moves used in pvp, vanity pets, temp access to certain places for faster travel across the lands..oh, and the ability to alter how your character looks:hgt,wgt,hair, etc
basically...you buy the game and you technically don't have to spend another dime on the game at all as you have access to all the content. everything sold in the store is completely optional and everything is sold is really geared at improving quality of life...there is nothing you can buy in the store that will increase stats or make your character stronger. hope that helps a lil radiac.
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NWO model is the same as CO model isn't it? The buy key for a random lockbox of never getting what you want?
isn't that how most lockbox schemes work? heh. thankfully, GW2 was merciful and one did not need to use lockboxes if they didn't want to. Could you get good items outta them? sure, but it was just as easy, if not easier, just playing the game content for em. GW2 lockboxes also had items from the store in them, skins, buffs, barber type tickets, etc.
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But mention of NWO (Never Winter Online) which is a Cryptic/PWE Game, correct? So I figure same style lock boxes of evilness.
I'm guessing MWM will not be having lockboxes. I think they've seen how frustrating that can be to players and will err on the side of caution for that.
I got chills! They're multiplyin'. And I'm losin' control. Cuz the power, I'm supplyin'. Why it's ELECTRIFYIN'!!
I'm pretty tolerant and can generally go with a range of things, but I'm not a fan of lockboxes. They're a pain and hard to work into the world in a way that maintains decent immersion.
FIGHT EVIL! (or go cause trouble so the Heroes have something to do.)
I seriously don't want to see a single lockbox. All CO has done for ages is release more and more of them without a drop of actual content. I don't think MWM would do the same if they used them but seriously. Just release packs or something like they did before. I am far too burnt out from the lockboxfest that has become CO.
Puny Heroes.
+111111
I dont drop lotsa "dollar dollar bills yall" in Vegas either. ;)
And anyways, thats just Bad Business Sense.
Its much Better if you make the customer FEEL like it was a Mutually beneficial transaction. Rather than it favoring One side. ;)
No lockboxes. Frankly, they're a gimmick which has seen its heyday long past.
Technical Director
Read enough Facebook and you have to make Sanity Checks. I guess FB is the Great Old One of the interent these days... - Beamrider
I'm glad you can see that too.
Puny Heroes.
Lockboxes = Gambling
Teens ought to not be gambling.
No lockboxes in City of Titans.
Win.
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[i]Verbogeny is one of many pleasurettes afforded a creatific thinkerizer.[/i][/center]
So from what I'm hearing, the stuff of NWO's monetization model, the lockboxes, isn't desirable and isn't going to be used, despite it being described as "the most bang for the buck". I have no love of lockboxes, so I'm fine with that. I personally can't imagine this game, being a spiritual successor to CoX, trying to sell people colors in the cash shop for costumes (at random, no less!). So this still leaves us in a place where we're not really sure what the monetization is going to be like (and by "we" I mean we the future players).
Whatever the monetization ends up being, as long as the game is successful with it I'll be happy.
That said, the Kickstarter perks mention costs to buy the game and subscriptions, so I'm assuming those will be things that exist, at least in the beginning. This leaves open the question of whether or not there will be a non-sub play option. I'm personally not against making the game sub-only like WoW, which last I checked was like THE most financially successful MMO ever.
But maybe there will be a non-sub option. If we begin by assuming there is a directive from our business team that money spent by players will be on "quality of life" stuff and not content per se, this directive still does not rule out the possibility of the "non-subs use the public queue, which has certain amounts of suckyness built into it, while subscribers can form their own private groups to do the raid when they want to" system, as far as I can tell. That CONTENT is not being denied to anyone, just the method by which it is accessed. It's not pay to win, it's not got random packs of Magic: the Gathering cards --er, lockboxes, to deal with, it's just a thing that makes the game a little less easy to access by the non-sub and a little more easy to access by the subscriber. And even there, I still see no reason NOT to offer the non-sub the ability to join a VIP team now and then by kicking in a buck or two each time. Again, there you're not making them pay for content, you're making them pay for red-carpet VIP style access to the content.
R.S.O. of Phoenix Rising
FOr some reason I find it's more noticeable in CO than it is in STO or NW. Maybe because not much has been done with CO since release, while STO and NW seems to have much more in the way of development focused on them? But yes all 3 have lockboxes.
Don't have much experience with mostof those - but as long as you stay away from the Marvel Heroes and MechWarrior Online models - yikes - not much "bang for your buck" there!
All great to hear.
Seeing as how we have already established that there will not be a minimum set number of players to start a TF or Raid, there will not be a queue system. 1 person can start the Raid, 2 people can start the Raid, 5 people can start the Raid, etc. It's going to be player formed TF or Raid teams. Content will be available for ALL players, everybody will be equals when it comes to the content and how it's accessed.. It's going to be just like Guild Wars, you buy the game and you have access to the whole game. The only thing after that will be QoL items such as Inventroy space, Character slots, Bank storage, Enhancement Storage, Costumes, Vanity pets, etc. Subbing, from what I understand according to the things Segev has said, will not provide you any MAJOR benefit over a non-subber. I don't even think we can really technically call it Subbing as all you are doing is giving MWM money to purchase Stars and then using those Stars to purchase QoL items for your account per month that you can change around from Month to Month as you see fit.
I got chills! They're multiplyin'. And I'm losin' control. Cuz the power, I'm supplyin'. Why it's ELECTRIFYIN'!!
I don't know if you're right. I haven't been following the sub/free stuff closely enough to tell (cause I'm gonna sub), but, if that IS the case, it seems a little farkakte.
There needs to be both a good reason to play free and a good reason to sub, and this game isn't (probably, I hope I'm wrong) going to be so massive that subs won't matter.
FIGHT EVIL! (or go cause trouble so the Heroes have something to do.)
If I recall - the devs have said that the plan (or at least one of the plans) is that subs basically get bonus "stars" (or whatever the store currency is going to be called). So a $15 sub would net you MORE than $15 worth of credits in the store. Not sure if there are any other planned benefits for subbing - though I wouldn't be shocked if there were [I]some[/I] minor "VIP" perks associated with it.
Again, I am only going off of the things I heard Segev say about Subscriptions. When approached about a Stipend, his response was your stipend was going to be whatever was left over after you paid for your 15 dollars worth of Stars and you picked out what Micro-Subscription packages you wanted for the month.
Now, NOTHING has been set down in stone yet regarding the monetization of CoT. Besides the fact that there will be some kind of monetization. This is part of the reason why I keep trying to stop this subject from being brought up. It led to a really big heated battle on the Pay to Raid thread. It led to people discussing things that MWM does not fully know the answers too themselves. No "Perks" have been set down in stone yet regarding whether or not a person pays a monthly sub fee or not.
The things I do know that HAVE been mentioned.
TF's or Raids will be able to be started by any amount of people desired. So that pretty much shuts down the idea of a Queue System at all.
All content will be free. Once you buy the game, and you will have to buy the game in order to play the game, you will have full access to the game. So pay gating content will NOT be done.
The Devs have NO desire to create any kind of a "Pay to Win" scenario, so I highly doubt that by paying a sub or any kind of extra money will allow a player to be able to get a better reward or quicker reward than a person who does not pay a sub or extra money to do so. As that is very close to a "Pay to Win" scenario.
All of those things listed above are pretty much everything Radiac has been trying to push in both the Pay to Raid thread and this thread, and which is why I have been trying very hard and very civilly to cease the continuation of talking about it.
I got chills! They're multiplyin'. And I'm losin' control. Cuz the power, I'm supplyin'. Why it's ELECTRIFYIN'!!
The only pay to win in CoX were the top line enhancements (which could be obtained from normal gameplay or merits) and level up inspirations with limited duration. That seemed a very reasonable amount of pay to win.
I'd be comfortable with that or a bit more in CoT.
Am I missing something? Can someone please link me to the thread post or Kicksctater update wherein a reliable source from MWM said for certain that no content would ever be team-size gated under any circumstances? Because if they did, that's a BIG piece of information to have. I thought I was keeping up with these updates pretty well and I don't remember hearing that being definitively announced anywhere. Everything I remember Segev, Tannim222, Doctor Tyche, and others saying on the forums was usually preceded by a disclaimer like "This is just my personal opinion, not official word..." etc
Also, I'm not "pushing" anything. I have ideas, I post them, people discuss them. I have said things in the past like "if it were up to me, it'd work like this" or "if I'm designing the game.." but I'm under ABSOLUTELY NO illusions that anyone in MWM is actually going to act on any of it, or if they do, they probably had the same idea about a year before I ever mentioned it. I seriously doubt Dr. Tyche is just sitting back and saying to himself "I'll let Radiac design this game's monetization scheme without telling him, and without doing my own research to figure it out at all. I'll just copy my homework off of the forums." NO WAY is that happening. Frankly, the devs have probably thought of all of my ideas before I ever had them and already ruled most or all of them out for various reasons, considering they've been at this longer than I have and with a far deeper intellectual investment.
None of that stops me from spitballing ideas around here on the forums, and asking "what if...?" because that's what the forums are for. And if you're worried that I'm giving the devs bad ideas you can just relax. They're smarter than both of us put together when it comes to this stuff and have done more research on these subjects than either of us have. They're probably already had ideas that won't even dawn on me for a long time, if ever. The devs are, in short, way ahead of both of us.
Making our opinions known about all of these subjects is a good thing for the greater knowledge of the devs and players, what do we like, dislike, etc and for that reason I will continue to speak my mind on the subject of monetization in threads appropriate to that topic.
R.S.O. of Phoenix Rising
Actually not quite true, with the super packs you could get some useful consumables (enhancement boosters fpr example) that were undoubtedly P2W.
[color=#ff0000]Tech Team and Forum Moderator[/color]
[img]http://missingworldsmedia.com/images/favicon.ico[/img]
Didn't those only go to 50?
Hah the jokes on you.[i]I used to use lockboxes when I was kid back in other older MMOs and other older games extensively![/i] I just wanted to try to get that....one...goddamn.....item that appealed to me! [i] But of course I never got it but[/i] [i][b]little fucking Johnny[/b][/i] [i]who constantly griefs other players for fun would always get that one goddamn item on his first try.[/i]
[b]*sobs, goes into the nearest corner and assumes a fetal position*[/b]
Formerly known as Bleddyn
[url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0WCqnt88Umk]Do you want to be a hero?[/url]
[url=http://cityoftitans.com/forum/nyktoss-character-cove] My characters [/url]
The AT specific sets where good, but not 100% needed. In fact, Id say some of the sets weren't that great to have the whole set.
Like the Purple Set wasn't great on all ATs (notably the MMs)
Actually, I think the MM was one of the few ATs that did better with non standard IOs. While everyone else was fighting for the same IOs with almost all the other ATs, MMs where just fighting amongst themselves.
And if I remember correctly, the AT specific IO sets couldn't be put on the market, but they could be traded to other players. I remember just giving them to friends who needed them.
I had soul bound allegiance, uncontrolled restraint, and grav anchor on my thugs/poison mm. Seemed to work well
I don't remember, but there were good reasons to use some sets that went to 40 and +5ing them was huge.
However http://paragonwiki.com/wiki/Enhancement_Booster_Salvage suggests you could up 50s too.
[color=#ff0000]Tech Team and Forum Moderator[/color]
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Huh never tried that
Enhancement boosters let you push things to effective level 53 (50+++), IIRC.
[i]Has anyone seen my mind? It was right here...[/i]
Could you do that with ... Purples?
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