Guild Wars 2

Rhyse.8179:

If you read various articles around the net, you’ll generally hear that 2014 is the year of FTP- largely thanks to GW2 being so successful at it. At the same time, I see the exact opposite as being true: GW2 has NOT been successful.

Sure, it’s been a financial success; but it’s been a gaming failure. Even with the living story, it just doesn’t develop over time the way other MMO’s have. Nightwulf said that both models (f2p and sub) influence game design- this is undoubtedly true. The difference is that f2p encourages short term gimmicks, if not outright requires them. A subscription business model allows (note: “allows for.” not inevitably results in) for gradual development of a superior product that keep customers simply by being awesome. F2p is fighting an uphill battle to accomplish the same thing.

A successful game, regardless of business model, has a long term upward trajectory as it fights for subscribers. The difference is that monetizing must be included at all times with a F2P system. Quality considerations aside (even F2P has to make good content- if they don’t, noone will play and the number of shinies in the shop won’t matter), this means that the shape of content is subtly different. GW2 is full of gimmicks and doo-dads- special effect finishers, special harvesting animations, quaggan backpacks. Like a mall during christmas, it’s positively packed with stuff. The F2P shop doesn’t just distract from development, it distracts from gameplay as well.

To sum up, if GW2 is an example of F2P’s great success, then I prefer subscription development hands down. F2P is simply too intrusive.

I couldn’t agree more with this person but want to add. Guildwars2 has taken free to play to the next level from a business stand point. They not only get the best part’s of a F2P game (micro transactions that can generate a company serious profit) but they also get the standard buy-in to even give the game a try. They get to double dip per say. This gives them a system that generates huge profits in the short term. The problem is quality suffers and overall retention rate of players is lower. This can also lead to the company’s name being tarnished and upcoming products not doing as well. This is truly a double edge sword. I think soon we will see how tarnished ANet’s/NCsofts rep is when Wild Star Releases.

Personally after playing Guildwars 2 I prefer a P2P mmo. my experience with those is simply they focus more time and effort into the game then into a cash shop. When they have a choice between making a quick 20 bucks for a mount vs 15.00 × 12months. Its pretty easy to decide which one is going to be more valuable to the company.

chemiclord.3978:

The entire heart of your argument is that you want expansions. The “quick and dirty” is your excuse to rationalize it.

That just isn’t true, now I can’t speak of his/her preference for Q&D expansions, but in all the things discussed, to me one thing stands out:

The longing for value for money.

The question then becomes which system gives a company the best incentive to stick to ‘value for money’. As opposed to Q&D cash grab ways, like this new pick. That didn’t add any value to the game for anyone anywhere or what so ever. AND screws over a large portion of people that bought the original picks.

I for one prefer the cash shop model, as the best incentive. It keeps the company on their toes to supply that value for money in the short run, and the long run. While expansions totally remove the short term value goal (besides the most obnoxious bugs), and all effort is put in the next big thing. This also means there is a large ‘hit or miss’ risk involved, not only for the company but for the game as well. As opposed to a miss in a cash-shop item, which ‘IF!’ the company releases shop items from a value for money vision, is much easier to redeem yourself from…

And this is sort of where I left off when dinner called me…

See, the trouble isn’t the cash shop, the trouble is finding that balance where cash shop items don’t skew the game over to a point where it becomes unplayable. And avoid selling ‘power’ in which ever shape or form in the shop (aka. turning the cash shop into the only way to play the game).

And the trouble is that ‘economists’ try to utilize the traditional ways to handle a monopoly situation. It’s the Q&D financial managers that saw the millions of WoW and expected this golden flees to lie at the bottom of any MMO river of time. Because they don’t understand, nor are interested in the actual value that these games have for their consumers, they use all sorts of psychological tricks and traps to nickel and dime the money out of your pocket. And the problem is that a lot of consumers actually don’t care, or aren’t smart enough to see what is going on. And like any con(wo)man they don’t care about these people, all they care about is that golden flees.

And one of the things that ‘proofs’ that these people have no clue about video games, is the fact that many of them think they will produce the next WoW. WoW wasn’t just ‘an MMO’ game, WoW already had 3 strategy games and a huge following behind it before it became a 3D MMORPG world. Not only was it able to draw on this huge following, it also had (for its time) innovative features. It also came at a time, where subscription based gaming was the norm (due to server costs in the past), but at the same time consumer based computing and the internet took it’s true flight, and due to that and technological advances ‘servers came with a box of cereals’. Also due to its marketing ‘and’ art style, as well as a name with legacy, it appealed to a lot of new gamers. Who more then undoubtedly had at some point played a cracked WOW game, at least once in their lives. WoW was the actual golden flees, a one time deal that came to be due to a mix of circumstances of which Blizzard only controlled a few. It was the right thing at the right time, with the right amount of history behind it.
It wasn’t the art style, the gaming mechanics, or even the fact that it was an MMORPG (there were others around at the time as well), it was all the ‘luck’ of various circumstances coming together at that particular time.

And in hind side you can somewhat conclude that ‘GW1’ was sort of the ‘settlers’ of the MMORPG movement of that time. Why the ‘settlers’ actual company never made an RPG remains a mystery to me. They now have a cash shop web based game, which I tried, but it (like any settlers after II:gold edition) couldn’t live up to that one great version of it. And a settlers MMORPG ‘now’ would not have had the same impact as one would have had shortly after the release of WoW.

The only ‘game’ company that ‘may’ be able to create a next true ‘WoW’. Sid Meyers: Civilisation Online. I have absolutely no real clue as to how an MMORPG of this gaming type could be come a reality. But it is the only ‘game’ that has a similar legacy as WoW did, years of games from another genre, but appealing enough to the general gaming community that any gamer will have at least heard of the name, and more then likely played one or more version of it, at one time in their gaming career. Due to the nature of Civ though, it is unlikely that this game can somehow be transferred into an MMO. Aka. there will likely not be another WoW ever… and we should be happy too as well! If ever a game turned a company into an evil entity set upon ways to take candy from a baby, it was WoW. $25,- pixel pony…

If you compare that to EVE’s equivalent monocle, and the definite uproar about them, to the point where people cancelling their subscriptions made the company revert back to their ways. You can see that the audience largely dictates what sort of things ‘they’ can pull off…

But I am drifting off topic now… so i’ll leave it at this..

It is not the system, ‘subscription, expansion, cashshop’ that determines the quality of the game. It’s the people behind it. Are they in it for the quick buck and as much of it as possible. Or are they in it to offer a value for money product…

Arghore.8340:

It is not the system, ‘subscription, expansion, cashshop’ that determines the quality of the game. It’s the people behind it. Are they in it for the quick buck and as much of it as possible. Or are they in it to offer a value for money product…

Thank you for actually reaching the same conclusion as I do from the different direction.

The “people behind it” would be just as money driven if a “cash store” didn’t exist. The quality wouldn’t magically improve if such a thing was declared illegal and GW2 had to abruptly turn to the expansion route. You’d see the same “quick and dirty” process, just in a different form.

If you honestly believe that this company is simply looking for the path of least resistance and seeking quantity over quality no matter what, simply changing the system would NOT make the game better.

Arghore.8340:

~

I want to start by saying I use mini’s as an easy example. You could fill many things in that spot where I talk about mini’s. Skins, fun-items, mounts, finishers, dyes, ranger pets and so on. All examples of a type of horizontal progression.

It’s not only the fact that many mini’s are in the gem-store it’s the way you need to get this sort of items. There are a few implemented in the correct way imho (there is a mini the TA dungeon, there is one that drops from Tequatl and I think there is also one that drops from a mob in Southsun Cove ) thats how they should all be implemented. Having some linked to achievements is also fine IF the achievements are not temporary.

“obviously you would like to keep gathering them (and remember there is no expansion), what would you find acceptable in regards to mini’s? to ‘pay’ “

The only way I find it fun (and I play a game to have fun) so acceptable is if they are almost all implemented in such a way (and grinding gold does not fit in there, farming one type of mob for one specific mini does). Now don’t get me wrong, lets say they have 5 mini’s in the store, and for every expansion there is one you can only get with the collectors edition and there are 5 mini’s you can only get at gaming conventions then you would not hear me complaining (that means only for every expansion that number gets upped by 1). So you say “when there are no expansions”. Thats the whole problem. What I ‘want’ will not work if you base your income on micro-transactions.

Anyway, I will go by your list.
-10% that is way to much and that also means the number will stay increasing. Like I said if there are 10 / 20 mini’s you can’t get ‘the normal way’ it’s oke, you can easily say I want the full collection but I don’t count those 10/20 as full collection. With 10% thats just to much.

-Ingame and in cash-shop. No that would take away the ‘special factor’. Besides then some might be extremely hard to get ingame but they are not ‘special’ because people simply buy them (no fun there). Maybe if we combine the first 2 option. 10% of the mini’s that are available ingame (and then not the very special or hard to get ones) are also available in the cash-shop then it might work from a game-viewpoint (for me personal) but then it would not work from a commercial viewpoint because not enough people would buy them.

-No thats exactly the stuff I would love to do ingame. Have something like that in a fun-craft where I can make that.

-Thats how it is now, so obviously no. Makes getting mini’s a gold-grind.

-Some bound, some non-bound yeah but then where is the cash-shop? Converting gems to gold? Yes that would work but once again from a financial viewpoint the incentive to then buy gems to indeed convert them to gold might not be high enough.

-No (See first and second point)

-Only if you can indeed convert gems-to gold. Because then it’s one thing where you need to grind gold for (if you don’t want to buy gems) so it does not become a grind grind grind. But at the same time I want it to be available ingame as also this is a game-play element. I can tell you that exactly this was one of my personal set achievements in other mmo’s. Having as much ‘pets / mini’s’ active at the same time. Sometimes there are quest that give you a temporary mini / pet I would then not complete that quest to keep the mini / pet, and there are items that can summon a mini/pet and then you have a normal mini and as ranger a pet. So while this might look for some players as “just a convenience” for other people this is a game-play element and so should be available ingame. Now like I said if this was the one thing you had to buy by converting gold to gems it would work. But exactly for that reason once again it would not work from a financial viewpoint.

Now it might seem like I am just complaining by pretty much saying no against everything but what people miss is that these sort of things are just as well game-play elements for them as combat might be for you.
People who do a lot of combat don’t like P2W elements or having to grind and grind and grind to get there BIS weapons / armor. But what that ‘kill’ is for them is the same as that collection of mini’s is for somebody else.

I am not a role-player, I do like the RP elements of the game but because I am not a role-player the ability to sit in a chair is not a game-play element for me. But looking true the eyes of role-players the ability to sit on a chair is part of there game-play. And just as a combat person would not like it if there are P2W items in the gem-store the Role-players don’t want the ability to sit in a chair in the gem-store, they just want that available in the game. That is something some people seem to forget.

GW2 was put on the market as an MMO for casual gamers. I see things as collecting mini’s really as a thing casual gamers would do. Then “But it’s not P2W” does not do it for me.

chemiclord.3978:

Devata.6589:

Well I did say that from a financial viewpoint of an investor it could make sense to not use it but go for a F2P model. Yes I do want the expansion model because I do think it will result in a better game.

It’s not like I ‘just want it’ and make some stuff up to support it (noise as you name it). Why else would I want that model? If I didn’t honestly believe it would result in a better game then I would want a F2P model as it would not cost me anything (I never buy cash-shop items).

But that’s the issue. There is NO reason to believe simply changing a financial model would change the quality of content in and of itself. If you HONESTLY think that Arena.net’s motto now is “quick and dirty…” it’ll still be “quick and dirty” with expansions shot out rapid fire. Cheap, lazy expansion content is no better than cheap, lazy F2P content.

The entire heart of your argument is that you want expansions. The “quick and dirty” is your excuse to rationalize it. You wouldn’t care one whit about “quick and dirty” if it was coming in the form of “Guild Wars 2: [insert expansion name here].”

I don’t see the cash-shop-focus being the main reason for the Q&D. So yeah that mentality would still be there.
If I did see the cash-shop-focus mentality as reason for the Q&D I would have put the Q&D topic inside this one but I created it as a separate thread for that. Still I do think the quality would be better but it would indeed not just solve the Q&D. I don’t think they would suddenly remove all the invisible walls as an example.

For me there are 3 main issues with GW2. It’s the cash-shop focus, it’s the Q&D and it’s the ‘different for the sake of different’. But while they might be slightly related overall I see them as 3 different problems where I see the cash-shop focus as the biggest of the 3.

So yeah I still do think it would be better for the game (and there you disagree) but I don’t see it as solving the Q&D mentality.

But of course you could see cash-items as a form of Q&D. Not denying that. But I really view the two topics as separate topics.

Devata.6589:

For me there are 3 main issues with GW2. It’s the cash-shop focus, it’s the Q&D and it’s the ‘different for the sake of different’. But while they might be slightly related overall I see them as 3 different problems where I see the cash-shop focus as the biggest of the 3.

1) The cash shop is a non-starter. It literally has nothing to do with product quality. It’s a revenue stream. If a company is putting out cheap, lazy content… they’d be doing the same thing with a sub-model or expansions.

2) The “quick and dirty” production (presuming that’s an actual problem and not code for “design decisions I don’t like”) is a problem with the personnel of the company, and there’s little player can do to “fix” that outside of quitting the game and not playing.

3) “Different for the sake of different” was the very selling point of the game, really. It’s already slowly morphing into a traditional MMO experience, and you want it to do so more. No thanks. Ya want that? Play a different game and stop trying to ruin this one.

chemiclord.3978:

If you honestly believe that this company is simply looking for the path of least resistance and seeking quantity over quality no matter what, simply changing the system would NOT make the game better.

Assuming this is aimed at Devata and not me, I still bolded the IF.

Because this is where the question is really… And if you look at the game itself, you can hardly say it’s not made with quality in mind. Regardless of whether everything they envisioned works as intended and whether or not they had to revert to Q&D in certain areas of the game to make it work in the timeframe available to create everything. You can hardly say that quality was NOT one of the things they aimed for.

What you can ‘conclude’ to some point, is that ‘at’ some point decisions were made (and still seem to be made) that go against everything promised. That go against anything the long term player base has come to expect from ANet. And the question is largely who is responsible for these turns, but more important, with which motives/reasons behind it…

Seeing we are currently speaking about micro-transactions and the shop, ill stick to that and leave the whole Ascended debacle out of this. I will even leave out the picks, as they have threads of their own…

See what I wonder about the most is the following:
Why not go the extra mile to create value for the game, supported by features in the cash shop that are clearly linked to this added value

In this regard I already mentioned the hairstyles and barbershop. In a sense the shop ‘is’ a way to do Q&D development at this point. Create hairstyles with out the features to support it ‘in game’, and dump them in the cash-shop. Similar with minis, people want them, dump them in the cash shop. (even though various ones are also in the game, or can be earned by events A* .)

A* I want to elaborate a bit on this as well, while I think a mini can be a great end reward for a LS event chain, at some point it felt that every LS had a mini. When it was clear that people were going ‘meh another mini’, the next couple of events had a back-slot item. And not just one, various LS events in a row had this as a reward. To the point where people were going ‘meh’ another back-slot item. And I am fearing the worst for the ‘books’…

It feels as though there is nobody making an analysis of what players see as value, and the simple understanding that ‘a change in spice, makes one eat’ (freely translated saying from my own language). See the minis do have value to the player, as do back slot items. Same as people value pizza as one of the world’s great foods, but have pizza every time and sooner than later it’ll start coming out of your noose.

And it’s not like these are hard to grasp, difficult concepts. But the trouble is, there is this ‘gemshop’ department that sees that ‘item x’ sells good thus, MAKE MORE X! … that might work for a pizza shop, that sees different customers every day, but not for an cash shop that sees the same players every day (or in this regard, the event rewards that see the same players).

So let’s take a more analytical approach, and see what could be done and what is need for that to take place. in my next post, as I see this one is nearing that limit again

chemiclord.3978:

Arghore.8340:

It is not the system, ‘subscription, expansion, cashshop’ that determines the quality of the game. It’s the people behind it. Are they in it for the quick buck and as much of it as possible. Or are they in it to offer a value for money product…

Thank you for actually reaching the same conclusion as I do from the different direction.

The “people behind it” would be just as money driven if a “cash store” didn’t exist. The quality wouldn’t magically improve if such a thing was declared illegal and GW2 had to abruptly turn to the expansion route. You’d see the same “quick and dirty” process, just in a different form.

If you honestly believe that this company is simply looking for the path of least resistance and seeking quantity over quality no matter what, simply changing the system would NOT make the game better.

Well I think that the different routes would indeed result in other decisions and I think those decisions effect the game in different ways and micro-transactions based decisions results in decisions that effect the game in the most negative way. Thats really how I see it. You say it are the same money grabbing people.. well if they get forced into one way yes.

But maybe the reason they pick this route in stead of the the expansion-route is because this best fits the “money grabbing” mentality. Oow and for the record, I don’t mind them wanting to make money. But I also want them to deliver a high quality product.

When I buy a printer I search for the printers that might be much more expensive then the average printer but have way cheaper Ink Cartridges.

chemiclord.3978:

Devata.6589:

For me there are 3 main issues with GW2. It’s the cash-shop focus, it’s the Q&D and it’s the ‘different for the sake of different’. But while they might be slightly related overall I see them as 3 different problems where I see the cash-shop focus as the biggest of the 3.

1) The cash shop is a non-starter. It literally has nothing to do with product quality. It’s a revenue stream. If a company is putting out cheap, lazy content… they’d be doing the same thing with a sub-model or expansions.

2) The “quick and dirty” production (presuming that’s an actual problem and not code for “design decisions I don’t like”) is a problem with the personnel of the company, and there’s little player can do to “fix” that outside of quitting the game and not playing.

3) “Different for the sake of different” was the very selling point of the game, really. It’s already slowly morphing into a traditional MMO experience, and you want it to do so more. No thanks. Ya want that? Play a different game and stop trying to ruin this one.

1 Example: If they made money with an expansion in stead of gem-sales there would be no need to make gold so important. Now it makes a lot of sense because that increases the incentive to buy gems to convert to gold. It however also means the game becomes a gold-grind and so effects the game in a negative way.

So the focus on the cash-shop can indeed effect the quality of the game. Even if you have the same company behind the game.

3 Selling point was maybe different or innovative. But not “We just do thinks different just so we can say it’s different”. While in reality thats what it looks like. Sometimes different is better but you also need to recognize that sometime it isn’t.

chemiclord.3978:

1) The cash shop is a non-starter. It literally has nothing to do with product quality. It’s a revenue stream. If a company is putting out cheap, lazy content… they’d be doing the same thing with a sub-model or expansions.

I have to disagree here. The cash shop has everything to do with product quality. They have the option of retaining players by putting out cheap gimmicky “buy it now” products that act just like fads, or they have the option of producing quality content that retains people for a longer period of time. Anet is clearly going the quick-and-dirty-short-term-cash-now path. I highly doubt that their monetization department looks further than a year into the future. They are the tools for short term minded investors to pull in profits, and, like the investors, couldn’t care less about the players experience. We are simply suckers to them.

chemiclord.3978:

But that’s the issue. There is NO reason to believe simply changing a financial model would change the quality of content in and of itself. [insert expansion name here]."

Nobody has said that- you should go back and read it more carefully. The issue is that F2P systems encourage short term gimmicks, and Subs/Expansions don’t. It’s that simple.

The market is littered with failures using the sub or expansion model. It’s obviously not a magic bullet for a great game. F2P, however, is like a rusty 20 year old land mine that may or may not explode unexpectedly. There are so many steps and traps that have to be avoided or it will interfere with the game itself. Look at the marketing for any modern F2P game – “We won’t be selling power- we won’t be selling gameplay- we won’t be doing this or that.” (note: for an example of a company that’s done this successfully, I suggest looking at Grinding Gear Games and their marketing) A model that requires you to market based on what you won’t be doing is a model that is at high risk of undermining your product.

With a Subscription / Expansion format, all you have to do is deliver a great product. That not every company can do this is a fact of the market and not linked to the business model itself.

They’d be suckers to you with an expansion model.

If the people at Arena.net are just looking for money, and decided not to do a cash shop, instead you get glitchy, buggy, slapped together expansions every 6 months with tons of re-used resources that they charge $60 for.

An example I’ve seen used is with EVE, who cranks out quality expansions (supposedly) on a half-year cycle. But if EVE was focused on quality, they’d be focused on that quality with F2P or subscription or whatever revenue flow they decided to run with.

IF Arena.net is the company you claim they are… the problem with the game is in the people developing it, not the system they use. THAT’S why it’s a non-starter.

I like the system they have, because it allows me to support them when I feel they deserve it. If I like the content they’ve put together in a given month, then yeah, I’ll drop ‘em $10-20. If I don’t, they don’t see anything from me. I’m speaking with my wallet, and if enough people did, you’d see change. That we’re not seeing change tells me people want this stuff.

Whereas in a subscription model or expansions, I’m basically buying it on good faith I’ll like what I see. If I don’t, they still get my money. I haven’t told them anything other than I’m a sucker for their brand name; that I’ll throw money at whatever they slap their title on.

Right now… I blame the players. This game has shaped the way it is because this is what the bulk of the players want, even the parts I don’t like.

chemiclord.3978:

They’d be suckers to you with an expansion model.

If the people at Arena.net are just looking for money, and decided not to do a cash shop, instead you get glitchy, buggy, slapped together expansions every 6 months with tons of re-used resources that they charge $60 for.

An example I’ve seen used is with EVE, who cranks out quality expansions (supposedly) on a half-year cycle. But if EVE was focused on quality, they’d be focused on that quality with F2P or subscription or whatever revenue flow they decided to run with.

IF Arena.net is the company you claim they are… the problem with the game is in the people developing it, not the system they use. THAT’S why it’s a non-starter.

I like the system they have, because it allows me to support them when I feel they deserve it. If I like the content they’ve put together in a given month, then yeah, I’ll drop ‘em $10-20. If I don’t, they don’t see anything from me. I’m speaking with my wallet, and if enough people did, you’d see change. That we’re not seeing change tells me people want this stuff.

Whereas in a subscription model or expansions, I’m basically buying it on good faith I’ll like what I see. If I don’t, they still get my money. I haven’t told them anything other than I’m a sucker for their brand name; that I’ll throw money at whatever they slap their title on.

Right now… I blame the players. This game has shaped the way it is because this is what the bulk of the players want, even the parts I don’t like.

If you read back I did state that the investor might have different interest then the developer. So we are more talking about NcSoft then Anet if it go’s about squeezing out money.

However I really think you don’t get the point I make. I don’t say they are a company that want to make bad content just to make some money (Now talking about Anet). However the way they need to try and get people to buy gems will effect the game in a negative way. Even if they try to create a high quality product.

If they want to generate money on expansions it means they need to keep ongoing for many more years (it’s much more long term) and so a bad expansion would not work because after the first expansion nobody would buy the second one.

However thats not the point. Even if Anet tries to create a high quality product the fact that they try to get people to buy gems does effect the game in a negative way. Thats the point.

chemiclord.3978:

They’d be suckers to you with an expansion model.

If the people at Arena.net are just looking for money, and decided not to do a cash shop, instead you get glitchy, buggy, slapped together expansions every 6 months with tons of re-used resources that they charge $60 for.

An example I’ve seen used is with EVE, who cranks out quality expansions (supposedly) on a half-year cycle. But if EVE was focused on quality, they’d be focused on that quality with F2P or subscription or whatever revenue flow they decided to run with.

IF Arena.net is the company you claim they are… the problem with the game is in the people developing it, not the system they use. THAT’S why it’s a non-starter.

Except that after the first slapped-together, buggy expansion, their profits sink into the floor. Nobody will continue to buy expansions if they suck.

Now, about EVE and it’s business model. I’ve been playing it for almost 6 years and can speak authoritatively about it. Comparisons between it’s model and others don’t work because the nature of the game (ie, full sandbox gameplay) is extremely sensitive to even perceived gimmicks. In fact, the company nearly folded when they released their cash shop 3-ish years ago, due to mass exodus of players. The mere possibility of P2W made people flee like the game had Ebola. (google “monoclegate” and/or “Jita riots” if curious about the event) The cash shop still exists, but it sits unused and hasn’t been updated in roughly 2 years.

I’ll take this space to describe EVE’s business model, since it’s apparently not understood. They charge a subscription. That’s it. No box price, no expansions. $15 bucks and you’re in for a month. Their “expansions” are basically equivalent to other games large content patches- but they are free and come every 6 months like clockwork. They blog about new features months in advance, and actually have a player-elected board of players that they discuss feature ideas with- they actually pay to fly these players out to Iceland every year for a big meeting, all to make sure that their development is what the player base wants. The game is 11 years old, and has steadily grown it’s subscriber base for that entire time. It’s the only game in existence to have done this. Most games start high and dwindle over time as people finish content and move on. EVE takes that convention and laughs at it.

Rhyse.8179:

Except that after the first slapped-together, buggy expansion, their profits sink into the floor. Nobody will continue to buy expansions if they suck.

You clearly have a much higher opinion of the general intelligence and good taste of my fellow human beings than I do. I see people line up like drones at game shops for the same game they bought just the year before.

The problem isn’t game systems. The problem is people. They’re idiots. It’s why we keep seeing all these dumb things in the gem store… because PEOPLE ARE BUYING THEM.

The LS comes out every 2 weeks and runs for 4 weeks, with a 2 week overlap. Then there are a couple of 2week events that will likely see a return every year (Halloween, Wintersday, The Azuran’box’ and the ‘Windship’ people. (- of which these last 2 are my own guestimates). These all have their own ‘set’ of rewards that will more then likely stay the same. And that is just fine, to me at least). This means that for 8 weeks the rewards and events are pretty much ‘set’ in stone. Which leaves:
52w – 8w = 44w
44w / 2w = 22 events during the year that have to ‘give’ a reward at the end of the 2weeks.

Now lets go past all the items in game that may give ‘value’ to the player:

1. Headpiece
2. Shoulder piece
3. Gloves
4. Vest
5. Pants
6. Boots
7. Back-piece
8. ‘Snorkle’ (under water mouth piece)
9. Mini
10. Dagger(s)
11. Sword
12. Great Sword
13. Axe
14. Hammer
15. Great Hammer
16. Short Bow
17. Long Bow
18. Pistol
19. Rifle
20. Staff
21. Wand
22. Icon
23. Colours to dye (for)
24. Commemoration item (‘all I got was this lousy T-shirt’ item)
25. Mask.
26. ‘Fun’/Festive items
27. Town clothes x6
28. etc…

So clearly there is absolutely no reason what so ever to release a mini in some event more then 1x a year. Unless you want to create a couple of ‘styles’ that go with different themes, so you can please more people with the same item. And even then you could wonder why ‘giving people a choice’ wouldn’t be a better way to go about this… Why? Because:

Now lets see what ‘value’ for a player really is, at least in my views (and I will leave the actual content of the events out of that, it refers back to quality of the event more then the value of it, even though these are obviously linked.) :

Players value, customization and uniqueness

That’s it, simple as that. Why do they value this, because it gives them a sense of identity. And part of that is also, the option to change their looks, as they have the urge to change the spice of what they are looking at, so it keeps appealing to them. It also has to do with the ‘monkey rock’ and ‘hen house sticks’, natural tendency of human behaviour. The monkey rock is obviously the male incentive, and the ‘hen picking order’ is the female one. Related in this sense to the sticks in a hen house, where the higher order hens sit on the sticks higher in the hen house. The ‘special snowflake’ urge people have is related to this, because this gives people the feeling they have ‘their own rock’ / ‘stick’ to sit on, and as there is only ‘one’ of these, and they sit upon it, they are the highest ‘in rank’ in their own system of ranking. But biology and psychology aside.

If making money and creating value is giving players what they want, then obviously giving them varied reward every time. With a few fixed certainties during the year (on the fixed events). Is the way to go in my views…

But how to link this to the cash-shop? i’ll put this in the next post, as I fear yet again I’m close to passing the character limit

chemiclord.3978:

Rhyse.8179:

Except that after the first slapped-together, buggy expansion, their profits sink into the floor. Nobody will continue to buy expansions if they suck.

You clearly have a much higher opinion of the general intelligence and good taste of my fellow human beings than I do. I see people line up like drones at game shops for the same game they bought just the year before.

That’s because people ARE more intelligent then that. They wouldn’t be buying the same game if they didn’t want it. Thats why EA keeps making the same game in the first place – it’s what their audience wants. You think they are being remote-controlled by aliens or something? Meh.

edit: you have a point about “good taste” though, thats for sure.

Case in point, closer to home- WoW expansions. Same formula for years, but done with high quality. Minimal bugs, lots of content. Sure, its the same type of content (and that’s why the game is shrinking over time), but it if was poorly made noone would buy it anymore.

Arghore.8340:

Now lets go past all the items in game that may give ‘value’ to the player:

THERE’S the problem. There’s been tons of items, dyes, etc and so forth. Stuff.

To gameplay has not changed. Balance issues have not been addressed. Bugs have not been fixed. PVE is still tremendously easy. PVP is still haphazard. WVW is still a zergfest. The game as a whole has not evolved, and is not showing signs that it ever will (we’ll see how this CDI thing turns out- I figure it’ll take at least a year to see results and find out) That’s the problem with the cash shop- it directs development into monetizable content, not gameplay.

Rhyse.8179:

chemiclord.3978:

Rhyse.8179:

Except that after the first slapped-together, buggy expansion, their profits sink into the floor. Nobody will continue to buy expansions if they suck.

You clearly have a much higher opinion of the general intelligence and good taste of my fellow human beings than I do. I see people line up like drones at game shops for the same game they bought just the year before.

That’s because people ARE more intelligent then that. They wouldn’t be buying the same game if they didn’t want it. Thats why EA keeps making the same game in the first place – it’s what their audience wants. You think they are being remote-controlled by aliens or something? Meh.

edit: you have a point about “good taste” though, thats for sure.

Case in point, closer to home- WoW expansions. Same formula for years, but done with high quality. Minimal bugs, lots of content. Sure, its the same type of content (and that’s why the game is shrinking over time), but it if was poorly made noone would buy it anymore.

Really? The quality of each expansion has steadily gone down the toilet. They maintain the expansions they do pretty much through, “Really? You’re gonna let this toon you so carefully crafted for 8+ years just… die, in a sense?” It’s how they kept me hooked halfway through Cataclysm and all that stale, boring, watered down content.

Since it sounds like you still play it… tell me… Have they dropped the entire delusion about talent trees and insert the points FOR you at every level yet, or is that in the next expansion coming? How about gear, is it all labeled “+5 Good, +10 Awesome” yet?

Because heaven forbid you have to THINK about what you’ll be bringing to the table nowadays. That’d be too hard.

chemiclord.3978:

Really? The quality of each expansion has steadily gone down the toilet. They maintain the expansions they do pretty much through, “Really? You’re gonna let this toon you so carefully crafted for 8+ years just… die, in a sense?” It’s how they kept me hooked halfway through Cataclysm and all that stale, boring, watered down content.

Since it sounds like you still play it… tell me… Have they dropped the entire delusion about talent trees and insert the points FOR you at every level yet, or is that in the next expansion coming? How about gear, is it all labeled “+5 Good, +10 Awesome” yet?

Because heaven forbid you have to THINK about what you’ll be bringing to the table nowadays. That’d be too hard.

Don’t mistake “quality” for “content you personally like.” The fact that Blizzard’s technical execution is still excellent has nothing to do with whether you want what they are selling.

Also, personal attacks are not a substitution for discussion. I will be ignoring the rest of your post as off topic.

Rhyse.8179:

Don’t mistake “quality” for “content you personally like.” The fact that Blizzard’s technical execution is still excellent has nothing to do with whether you want what they are selling.

Also, personal attacks are not a substitution for discussion. I will be ignoring the rest of your post as off topic.

I apologize if it came across as a personal attack. I did not intend it to be so. I personally think everyone in this discussion has been quite reasoned and intelligent so far.

I was trying to get at the changes that Blizzard made to simplify their game wasn’t because they WANTED to. You didn’t see talent trees get pared down into what they were in Cataclysm because they thought it would make the game more robust. They didn’t create “Looking for Raid” with lore enemies that could be beaten by rolling your face across the keyboard because they felt the content was “too hard.”

They did it because players demanded it. Because the PLAYERS wanted this stuff.

The same phenomenon is what is happening in the Gem Store here in GW2. Ya see all those “RNG” store items they keep coming up with? Ya wanna know why they keep doing that? BECAUSE PEOPLE BUY IT.

That “Pay 2 Win” (pardon me while I roll my eyes) Watchwork Pick? Wanna know how that “treadmill” never gets off the ground? By not buying the kittened thing. But I am 100% confident we’ll see more of these “added feature” type items because I am 100% confident a mass of players thought, “Hur hur sprawkats!” and bought the thing by the truckload.

Because, ya know… I kinda kittened on WoW there, but I don’t believe those developers are lazy. I don’t think they suck. I think the opposite. I think they’re a bunch of people passionate about the game they have (and are creating) and want it to be awesome. They sure as HELL ain’t in it for the money (believe me… game developers AREN’T doing this for the paycheck, I promise you).

I believe the same about Arena.net. I believe the limitations we keep seeing, the flaws we keep observing, are nigh entirely due to player-side problems. The problem isn’t the gem store, it’s that Arena.net has to cater to people who want vertical progression, who want “X+1”, who want easy to complete content and get violently mad whenever there is something that might result in failure if they don’t know what they’re doing.

Because the smart people, who have a pretty good idea what they’d like to see, and what our games COULD be are a pretty vast minority of the people who buy games.

(I apologize for the rant. I’m normally pretty good at not letting this stuff bother me. I’m just havin’ a bad day, I think.)

Behellagh.1468:

Do you honestly believe they start with gem shop items and then build a LS episode around it? No, they write the whole narrative first, decide where to divide the chapters, and then they either add a new skin related to the content or figure out what popular discontinued item to bring back.

They don’t build the stories around it but they build the reward systems around it.

chemiclord.3978:

The same phenomenon is what is happening in the Gem Store here in GW2. Ya see all those “RNG” store items they keep coming up with? Ya wanna know why they keep doing that? BECAUSE PEOPLE BUY IT.

So what? Just because some whales are addicted to the gambling aspect doesn’t mean anet has to exploit them.

Devata.6589:

However I really think you don’t get the point I make. I don’t say they are a company that want to make bad content just to make some money (Now talking about Anet). However the way they need to try and get people to buy gems will effect the game in a negative way. Even if they try to create a high quality product.

Something thats pertinent here is a post that a monetisation manager made to reddit about why he was glad teso was going to be a sub. The salient point was:“The problem I have with f2p games is that I know the drive behind developing patches and content for one. You are no longer concerned with what your users actually want or what would be cool to add to the game, you are only concerned with how to get their money by pretending to give them what they want.”

And with a sub-based game the major concern is keeping players on the hamster wheel of “progression” so they become so locked in to the game that they cannot allow their subs to lapse. Get to max level, raid for gear, raid another tier for better gear, raid another tier for best gear, gear reset, repeat.

Very few games are produced for the sake of making a good game. Most developers need a paycheck to survive so they do what they need to do to make money. A lot of games are very good games regardless, but the basic need behind them is the need to make a profit, not fun.

Ok, so how to link these sort of rewards to the cash-shop, and use it to give people what they want. Both in the shop as well as in-game:

1. Armour.
The thing I wouldn’t mind with armour is the following: ANet would make a cultural inspired armour, that is an ‘put on armour’ item, for every race. Then for each of these armours they would make one of the pieces have an alternative look 2×. So the Norn armour has 2 other shoulder pieces, the Charr armour has 2 other gloves. And lets add to this, all the pieces have 1 different headgear item.

Then the players get to choose from these 2 items on completion of one of the event steps. And the whole armour would be an unlock in the cash-shop. At the end of the whole meta event you get to pick one headgear item from all 5 of the alternatives.

Now this would give the people buying the armours, a reward that goes with the armour they just bought, while the say ‘boots’ would give all other people a way to mix and match. With other armour items. Obviously this would need a serious pass through the armours and dealing with the large amount of ‘non mixable due to overlapping’ armour pieces. But that’s something that I think should be done anyways, there are some really bad overlapping issues (f/e the Sylvari T1 armour, totally blocking any other glove you put on, likely there are others)

The ‘event’ that would make sense in this regard would touch each and every race, and thus each and every racial area of the game. Due to the choice factor, there be different results for looks.

1B Armour + Weapons.
If a string of events would give out a whole armour set, or a weapon set, sell the a similar themed set in the shop. Aka. an armour set to complement the weapons or weapons to complement the armour.

2. Dyes.
Instead of selling a new set in the shop only, or some RNG set like they are now, ‘uch’ … Why not sell the set ‘as is’ and give everybody one RNG item that produces ‘one’ of this set, and make them tradable. The cash-shop colours would obviously be unlocked right away instead or be soul bound.

That way everybody gets a new colour, if its one you don’t like so much, you can trade it for another. If you want them all, you can obviously buy them from the TP, or from the Shop.

3. Town clothes.
Similar to armour really, all of them are in the cashshop, for as far as I know, and seeing there isn’t ‘any’ piece in any shape or form, in the LS reward scheme, hardly anyone uses these clothes, and thus there is hardly any incentive to buy these items.

4. Weapons.
If there were to be 3 sets of weapons. And a string of events were to give you the choice of any of these (but just 1), for all 13 weapons. To then put these weapons into the shop as well. And actually make it possible to buy just 1 of them.

Now yes, on some level this is a ‘trick’, as it may ‘force’ you to buy another weapon just because you like a certain look (in hind sight) better than one you picked. But is that truly a bad thing? I see this more as a good thing, because without this we wouldn’t have ‘any’ weapon set available.

Even though some of these examples might not be the best, as I am just grabbing them out of some creative thinking space as I type this post. So please forgive me for that. But see what I am getting at…

Instead of focussing on what gives the most money for the least amount of work (aka slap 20% on some pick). Analyse what would add value to the players, and add value to the game, and make some part of that a thing in the cash shop.

Another example would be the state of the guild systems, now obviously there has to be put money (in the form of time) into these systems with no clear way to earn that money back. Well is that really true?! No it’s not!!

What about a custom Guild icon for 15-20$, I am sure there are a lot of guilds that would figure: “hmm I would like a custom guild icon, and even small guilds could chip in $2,- all to pay for one”. Then maybe also make some new back slot items, like the flag one. Or possibly even create an ‘unlock’ for some new guild stands.

Now I am unsure of how many guilds there are, but a great deal of the supporting systems for these things are already in the game. If it were to be clear that these things came alongside improvements (long asked for) to the guild system, how many guilds do you think would not mind at all to scrape some money together between their members and get these things. I would reckon more guilds would buy these things than it would cost to make the content that for which the request will not go away…

In this sense the ‘cash-shop’ become the ‘subscription’ of the past. Which had always been justified because without the subscription the game could not be online, due to server costs. (Which only became obsolete as a reason when servers started to come with boxes of cereal). But the idea that you can support a game by paying for the features in the game, that you as a consumer want in the game… that is not gone, at least not from the minds of the players (I am sure),

The thing is, it’s not in the mind of cash-shop analysts that have some economics as background and have no clue about the history of gaming, or even gaming as a concept of self expression and community. But maybe worse, it seems as though the developers of games do not see this either.

biggest example this sort of cash-shop would work, Devata’s comment on the amount of mini’s in the cash-shop. He doesn’t mind if there are a couple in there (the amount debatable), as long as there may be a way he can get them in the long run (aka. gems 4 gold), and as long as he would be more conscious of the fact that the few things that are in that shop, and possibly some items he may well or may not really need, but none the less are very ‘neat’. Pay for him and all other players to have a mini collecting sub game in the actual game.

Arghore.8340:

What about a custom Guild icon for 15-20$, I am sure there are a lot of guilds that would figure: “hmm I would like a custom guild icon, and even small guilds could chip in $2,- all to pay for one”. Then maybe also make some new back slot items, like the flag one. Or possibly even create an ‘unlock’ for some new guild stands.

I for the most part have no problem with the ideas you present, but I do want to address this one specifically, because I know it’s something Arena.net actually DID consider, but decided against it.

Why? Because they had this image of guilds running around with obscene or offensive guild emblems and standards (I am Seymour Butts, of the guild Koreans Die Now, with a guild emblem of an extended middle finger) emblazoned on their gear.

The amount of effort they have to get into moderating just player and guild names alone can be trying… to add guild emblems (and the all the layers of subtly offensive images can have) was deemed above and beyond what could be reasonably managed.

So, yeah… in that case, Arena.net and you were on the same page… but they decided it could not be practically implemented in a way they were comfortable with.

@Chemiclord
Do you know how ‘pirates of the carabien’ solved this issue? likely not, nor do Anet apparently
They had a special part of the board, designated to the review of the icons, which came along with a voting system. And a clear ‘approved/unacceptable’ button on it…
The system would obviously ‘flag’ obscene symbols, and they would simply not be approved.

And seeing there was also a final check when the ‘.gifs’ turned in (or w/e format it was) were put into the game, so even if there was nobody around to oppose to an icon, there was always that last person putting the stuff into the game.

I think it took me 3week to a month b4 my guild had it’s own flag, and it was worth the wait for sure!

And with a community check, there were as far as I know, hardly any guilds that put up obscene images. The reason being fairly simple, most guilds were looking for at least some decent reputation, even if they were the nastiest pirates around. And further more, due to the credit system put in place, there was no way to get these symbols into the game anyways. So why even try… still though 1% or so would, but due to the voting system in place, it was very unlikely that even one employee had to go through these images anyways…

Yes, they considered having an approval process. They deemed the possibility of something slipping through the cracks was too high. All it takes is one offensive image someone missed (due to cultural reasons or it was subtly hidden) to set off a firestorm of negative publicity.

Maybe they are overthinking it… but they sure as hell thought about it.

On top of that, Pirates of the Caribbean likely didn’t have thousands upon thousands of prospective images to filter through. Arena.net would. It would likely take a LOT longer than three weeks to a month to approve something. And let’s be honest here… with this player base? You know the minute any guild emblem approval took more than 12 hours (much less weeks) these boards would be alight in flame and rage.

It’s just not worth the headache for this developer.

So, remove the icon if it is clearly against some pre written and on purchase agreed upon regulation.

It’s not that ANet isn’t used to a kitten storm flaming up every now and then, heck, halve the time you wonder if they are deciding to do thing just to get us all fired up…

It’s not about the mistakes you make, it’s about accepting that you make mistakes and the actions you take to correct them

Arghore.8340:

Ok, so how to link these sort of rewards to the cash-shop, and use it to give people what they want. Both in the shop as well as in-game:

But everything people want should be available in the game as part of the game-play.

If you take something out the game that people want or adds value and put it in the gem-store you are effecting the game. You are taking away part of the game. Plus you will still be busy trying to get people to buy the thing what also effects the game in some way.

Trying to get people to buy items will effect in a negative way because of exactly that.. you are trying to get them to buy it. Meaning you try them to want something and then make it boring or hard or impossible to get except when they buy it.

No i don’t agree with that point of view. In a game that has no expansions or subscription and thus has to have a cash-shop. You add things to the game that add value to the game, and have value to the players. And offer ways to pay ‘you’ back for it.

That way every release becomes a mini-expansion. A mini expansion that you can choose to pay for to get even more out of it.

Now obviously you are of the opinion that you should just pay for everything up front, without the ‘choice to pay’. And that all features and items should thus be a part of that update. And honestly, there is no way convince you otherwise, the systems are what they are.

But I think that as long as the updates focus on added value to the game, and offering ‘more value’ in the cash-shop, it being a way ‘in essence’ to pay and reward the manufacturer for the time put in, if you believe the result was worth the time, and your money. That is better than to have to pay up front and to get everything, regardless of whether you think it was worth it.

And my examples were by no means ways to make things un-accessible, or not giving people what they want or turning it into a big grind. It uses the simple mechanic of value for money, and in it there is a bit of ‘free stuff’ (all earned through the content btw) and a part where you pay (for added bonuses that in essence pay for the whole thing).

But lets make it more ‘concrete’ by getting a RL example. Lets take a butcher, and assume this butcher comes highly recommended by the local advertisement. This butcher has 3 ways to buy meat. From a magical meat stock that needs only to be butchered once every ‘time’ but then the meat mysteriously doubles at every sale.

1. The subscription model; each two weeks the butcher supplies you with various kinds of meat with herbs and sauce, and you are free to eat what ever you like from it. Or discard what you don’t like, but that may mean you run out of meat b4 the 2 weeks are over.

2. The expansion model; each month the butcher comes at your door, and you are free to buy a batch of meat with herbs and sauce from him. You are free to eat which ever meat you like from it, or ignore others, but seeing he only comes once a month and the supply of meat will last you 2 weeks at most. So you have to plan yourself when to eat what.

3. The cash-shop model; each week the butcher comes at your door, and hands you a slice of sausage, and a supply of meat for 2 days (regardless). Then you are free to pay him for a bit more meat, so you can eat meat a bit longer, or maybe he gives you the meat intended for the whole week and tries to sell you the herbs and sauce to go with it.

I think i got these right, even though i think the cash-shop model in gaming is more like a 5 days of meat and a choice to pay for the 2 remaining ones and or the herbs and sauce. And he throws in that slice sausage for the kids ‘if you have any’. But i may be wrong, do please correct me, these are for all intend and purpose my views…

So now, which model for this butcher gives the most incentive to sell the best meat?
i will wait for you to approve of these RL examples, before giving my own answer (also because i now see it’s way past bedtime for me)

Arghore.8340:

But lets make it more ‘concrete’ by getting a RL example. Lets take a butcher, and assume this butcher comes highly recommended by the local advertisement. This butcher has 3 ways to buy meat. From a magical meat stock that needs only to be butchered once every ‘time’ but then the meat mysteriously doubles at every sale.

1. The subscription model; each two weeks the butcher supplies you with various kinds of meat with herbs and sauce, and you are free to eat what ever you like from it. Or discard what you don’t like, but that may mean you run out of meat b4 the 2 weeks are over.

2. The expansion model; each month the butcher comes at your door, and you are free to buy a batch of meat with herbs and sauce from him. You are free to eat which ever meat you like from it, or ignore others, but seeing he only comes once a month and the supply of meat will last you 2 weeks at most. So you have to plan yourself when to eat what.

3. The cash-shop model; each week the butcher comes at your door, and hands you a slice of sausage, and a supply of meat for 2 days (regardless). Then you are free to pay him for a bit more meat, so you can eat meat a bit longer, or maybe he gives you the meat intended for the whole week and tries to sell you the herbs and sauce to go with it.

Wow, guess I’m a vegetarian!

When a company has a cash shop in a game that’s not free…they have to walk a tightrope. They can’t put anything too good into the shop that people will be required to buy, because that would make the game pay to win…or at least pay to play. SWToR did this sort of thing. You get one skill bar and if you want to use more skills you have to pay to unlock a second skill bar. That’s not free to play to me anyway.

Companies that gate content behind walls, or races or professions…they’re borderline free to play with me.

Guild Wars 2 has a cash shop and that cash shop offers mostly crap…and mostly crap you don’t need. Does it matter that there’s new minis in the cash shop? Well, not unless you’re a mad addicted mini collector. Does it matter if there’s a new weapon skin or new armor skin…not really, it’s a skin. You can play the game without the skin and there are nice looking armor sets in game that you can get. Your game isn’t depending on having THAT specific skin.

If you are bored with every skin in the game, and skins are that important to you, you’ll go to the cash shop…and that should be fine by everyone. The cash funds the game, but you don’t “need it”.

As time goes on, companies tend to push what they can get away with. They test the waters. They see if adding say sprockets to a pick is something the community will accept. I bought the pick myself, but before I knew about the sprockets. I probably wouldn’t have had I known.

The cash shop in this game isn’t actually that intrusive. It’s nothing like the cash shops in games like Lotro and DDO or Runes of Magic, where you can’t really compete if you don’t pay up regularly.

And then there are games like WoW which charge a monthly fee and STILL have a cash shop for cool cosmetic stuff.

No cash shop is ever going to be perfect, but to say all the content in the game is about the cash shop, or affects it is probably a misnomer. We got two boss fights this week, both of which took work. A lot of people love the Marionette fight. With the exception of the achievements I like it. But there’s nothing in the cash shop related to the fight. There are three wurm minis that tie to the other big boss fight. So what?

If you like the wurm minis you can buy them. If you don’t like them, you can’t.

And there’s a mini that drops in the game from the Scarlet chest you can get anyway, that drops fairly frequently.

I’m just not seeing this huge pressing problem here.

As far as Guild Wars 1 was able to do something and survive so others should be able to do it…I disagree. Guild Wars 1 was able to do it 8 years ago. It’s a very very different market. Much more competitive now. Far more investment needed to get a game out in the first place. A far bigger staff.

I really don’t believe that the original model would work today because the entire landscape has changed significantly. Even just the number of games available make the expansion model at the very least far more risky.

The butcher analogy doesn’t work because it assumes that all 3 products are equivalent. The problem that we are complaining about has nothing to do with how we spend our money, it’s about what we are given to spend it on.

See my signature.

I’m not sure I like the analogy, but I’ll take a stab at fixing it:

1, Subscription. The meat counter is well stocked with a selection of quality but common meats. You pay the door fee, and get unlimited access until your ticket expires.

2, Expansion. The counter is periodically restocked with the finest selections. Delivery day is exciting with many new foods to try and sample. In between restocks, the selection is meager but acceptable.

3, Cash Shop. The counter is constantly stocked with common but quality meats, which are free to everyone at all times. A second, smaller counter sells Vienna Sausages, and Slim Jims, and Pickled Pigs Feet at stunningly inflated prices. If enough people buy the junk food, the store remains in business.

Now, as long as the main meat counter and the junk food are kept separate everybody is happy with that. If there’s a tub of Jerky sitting next to the cash register, it doesn’t really bother anyone. When the butcher starts mixing the junk food in on the main counter in order to get more people to notice it, it contaminates the real food. Nobody likes getting Pickled Pigs Feet juice on their filet mignon. Pretty soon people are shopping somewhere else entirely.
________
Now, to answer the question.

Arghore.8340:

So now, which model for this butcher gives the most incentive to sell the best meat?

Option 1, no contest. Option 2 is also attractive, but far less stable. Option 3 is actively working against you.

Vayne.8563:

The cash shop in this game isn’t actually that intrusive.

It is actually. It’s nowhere near as bad _ as (language filter srsly?), say, World of Tanks or Mechwarrior Online, but it’s pretty invasive compared to other MMOs.

*Searching for dye on the TP, there’s a pile of them that can only be bought in the cash shop. Their corresponding gold price is disturbingly high.

*BL Chests and keys are world drops and quests rewards, constantly teasing you by saying “Here! Have some loot!” only to shuffle you off to the cash register.

*Search for high level gear on the TP, and you will find a lot of weapon skins that are only available from those horrid RNG chests. Once again, the gold equivalent price is extremely high.

*Other people are constantly walking around with silly things, like cow finishers and quaggan backpacks and so on, that don’t blend in with the environment. A constant reminder that there’s a cash shop just over there.

*Every LS update includes a new doo-dad, dye pack, weapon skin or what have you. Meanwhile, bugs, gameplay and balance issues dating back to the Beta are still unaddressed. Granted, the cash shop may not be the reason for this neglect, but the constant updates to the shop makes it clear where their priority lies.

*Gold prices on many things are incredibly high to encourage gem buying- tier 3 cultural armor for just one example. It could easily take a month of normal (non-farming) gameplay to get a single set for a single character. There are no quests, or factions, or special materials to collect- just a gateway of cold hard cash.

Mostly, in terms of gameplay, it’s the gold one thats a killer. That has single-handedly turned Anet’s “We don’t make grindy games” into one of the grindiest games around. Everything else has just created a flashy, commercial environment. Which is also bad. But the grindplay is really a killer.

@ Rhyse

So let’s look at your list of pretty bad things. Let’s start with dyes.

There are 400 dyes in this game. 400. There are dyes like Abyss which is black black and would cost you over 30 gold on the TP right now. But just black dye (which IS black) and I use is only 8 gold or 8 dungeon runs to unlock it on a character.

Black Lion chests don’t contain skins for weapons. They contain tickets which can become skins. But there ARE skins in the game. Even if you include all the skins in the black lion chest (many of which aren’t that popular anyway) it’s still JUST a skin. There are skins in game to work for that are cool too. Skins have always been fair game for cash shops that aren’t pay to win. And the truth….you can live without those skins. If you absolutely must have them, the problem isn’t the cash shop’s.

Stuff that doesn’t blend in the the environment doesn’t necessarily have anything to do with the cash shop. The christmas cane weapons in Guild Wars 1 weren’t cash shop items, but they didn’t fit in. That’s a design decision, not just a cash shop decision. Anyway, this game isn’t immersive enough to even start worrying about that. But blaming the cash shop for stuff not fitting in? It’s a hazard you get because different people want different stuff. If people didn’t want that stuff, people wouldn’t buy it. I mean the Guild Wars 2 baseball cap was free, no?

Every MMO has bugs, and long standing bugs at that. There were bugs that launched with WoW that lasted for years, and no MMO has as much income as WoW. You can’t blame the cash shop on WoW.

The stuff it launches with is, for the most part, completely innocuous. A weapon skin or a mini, or a dye pack with a random chance of a cheap color. You know, I don’t like any of those random chance packs, so I don’t buy them. Do I miss ANY of the dye colors in there? No, because there are 350 other dyes I can get cheap.

If you get brainwashed by the shinies, the shop will mean more to you.

But let’s compare it to Lotro, which has a cash shop. I was playing Lotro with a friend and we go to go into the next area to do quests. So he goes there and I go to go there and suddeny…oh wait…sorry I can’t quest with you. I don’t have that area. Hang on, let me go buy it. That’s intrusive.

Or DDO, where I paid to unlock the monk profession because I really wanted to play it. Early there’s a dungeon you can do that gives you a returning shuriken…so you don’t have to keep buying them. Oh wait, I don’t have that dungeon pack. Want the shuriken? You have to go out and buy it.

In SWToR you have to buy SKILL bars. People who played characters and leveled them when they went free to play had to choose 2 characters they could play out of all of them, unless they paid a subscription fee.

Tell me, which MMO cash shop have you seen that’s less intrusive than this one. Because even WoW, which charges a monthly fee, made a small fortune selling the sparkle pony. Did you hear about Eve online’s fiasco with the $90 monocle?

Have you looked the cash shop for AOC, Runes of Magic, DDO, Lotro? What MMO has a cash shop fairer than this…besides Guild Wars 1, which isn’t an MMO and has a much smaller overhead anyway?

I’m still waiting for medium armor skins with realistic metal reinforcement:)

chemiclord.3978:

<really good points>

(I apologize for the rant. I’m normally pretty good at not letting this stuff bother me. I’m just havin’ a bad day, I think.)

Nothing to apologize for. Some really good insight there.

Arghore.8340:

No i don’t agree with that point of view. In a game that has no expansions or subscription and thus has to have a cash-shop. You add things to the game that add value to the game, and have value to the players. And offer ways to pay ‘you’ back for it.

Yeah you are completely right. Thats why I also say this (a cash-shop as income) is bad.

When you rely on a cash-shop you need to add such things and that on it’s turns has a negative effect of the game..

And again not so much the individual item but the effect of the focus on getting people to buy it. That can be by making the items of a certain value (for some people) or putting in specific game-mechanics but however you do that it always effects the game and imo not in a good way. But like I said that also depends on the type of content you play.

People who just do PvP don’t have much to complain about if it comes to this for example. A way to get them to buy items would be to put P2W items in the cash-shop.

Arghore.8340:

That way every release becomes a mini-expansion. A mini expansion that you can choose to pay for to get even more out of it.

If you would have both all those ‘mini expansions’ how much money would you have paid by now? No sorry, I can not see it a a mini expansion people choose to pay for or not.

Vayne.8563:

Guild Wars 2 has a cash shop and that cash shop offers mostly crap…and mostly crap you don’t need. Does it matter that there’s new minis in the cash shop? Well, not unless you’re a mad addicted mini collector. Does it matter if there’s a new weapon skin or new armor skin…not really, it’s a skin. You can play the game without the skin and there are nice looking armor sets in game that you can get. Your game isn’t depending on having THAT specific skin.

Vayne, you are now only looking at it from your personal perspective. You say “what is in the cash-shop is crap” because you think so. I personally don’t try to always get the BIS item (strongest) because I don’t care about that so much. I would not agree if they put that in the cash-shop but for me personally it probably would not hurt me much, while it might hurt you (reading what you consider bad).

“Does it matter that there’s new minis in the cash shop? Well, not unless you’re a mad addicted mini collector.”
Yes it does for many casual gamers (thats how they promoted this game right). It has nothing to do with an addiction. In many MMO’s going into the world and doing dungeons, doing quest, doing crafts where you could create mini’s, killing mobs and so on to get those mini’s is what I do as game-play. Thats how I play an MMORPG. Not by trying to get the highest AP, Not by tring to get the most kills in PvP.
Fun thing about that is that it would let you do every aspect of the game because every mini (or whatever item) would require another way to get them but that would them simply be the road to get it for me. While the dungeon for you maybe is the goal itself.

That IS my game-play. That is what I prefer to do in a MMORPG. Collecting mini’s, finding rare items, collecting mounts. That’s what the game is to me. It might not be what the game is for you, for you mini’s and such are just crap items that don’t add anything to the game (because they don’t higher your stats) but for the people who like the RPG element of this MMORPG that is very much part of the game-play.

Thats now all grind grind grind or buy, so the cash-shop destroys that part of the game it’s as simple as that.

Devata.6589:

Vayne.8563:

Guild Wars 2 has a cash shop and that cash shop offers mostly crap…and mostly crap you don’t need. Does it matter that there’s new minis in the cash shop? Well, not unless you’re a mad addicted mini collector. Does it matter if there’s a new weapon skin or new armor skin…not really, it’s a skin. You can play the game without the skin and there are nice looking armor sets in game that you can get. Your game isn’t depending on having THAT specific skin.

Vayne, you are now only looking at it from your personal perspective. You say “what is in the cash-shop is crap” because you think so. I personally don’t try to always get the BIS item (strongest) because I don’t care about that so much. I would not agree if they put that in the cash-shop but for me personally it probably would not hurt me much, while it might hurt you (reading what you consider bad).

“Does it matter that there’s new minis in the cash shop? Well, not unless you’re a mad addicted mini collector.”
Yes it does for many casual gamers (thats how they promoted this game right). It has nothing to do with an addiction. In many MMO’s going into the world and doing dungeons, doing quest, doing crafts where you could create mini’s, killing mobs and so on to get those mini’s is what I do as game-play. Thats how I play an MMORPG. Not by trying to get the highest AP, Not by tring to get the most kills in PvP.
Fun thing about that is that it would let you do every aspect of the game because every mini (or whatever item) would require another way to get them but that would them simply be the road to get it for me. While the dungeon for you maybe is the goal itself.

That IS my game-play. That is what I prefer to do in a MMORPG. Collecting mini’s, finding rare items, collecting mounts. That’s what the game is to me. It might not be what the game is for you, for you mini’s and such are just crap items that don’t add anything to the game (because they don’t higher your stats) but for the people who like the RPG element of this MMORPG that is very much part of the game-play.

Thats now all grind grind grind or buy, so the cash-shop destroys that part of the game it’s as simple as that.

So the minis in WoW, subscription cash shop and the mounts aren’t fair game? Because that seems to be what you’re saying.

Whatever subscription games are left are also getting cash shops now and putting that very stuff in cash shops. Are there any purely subscription games out right now that don’t have cash shops.

Stuff likes mounts and minis and skins…that was always supposed to be what a not P2W cash shop is. Why? Because they offer no power.

For weeks and months before the game came out, in every speculation thread I can remember, everyone said cosmetic items are fine. Minis are fine. No one lifted a finger against them.

WoW charges fifteen bucks a month and still has mounts and minis that people would have to buy if they wanted them. Rift is free to play now, because it couldn’t sustain a sub. SWTOR has a hybrid model that’s greedy as hell but still allows you to sub. Eve has a sub and a cash shop…with cosmetic items.

If sub games can have cosmetic items in their shops, why shouldn’t a buy to play game? And what would they have if not cosmetic items.

Do you realize the outcry that you’d here if they put gear with stats in the cash shop?

Vayne.8563:

@ Rhyse

So let’s look at your list of pretty bad things. Let’s start with dyes.

There are 400 dyes in this game. 400. There are dyes like Abyss which is black black and would cost you over 30 gold on the TP right now. But just black dye (which IS black) and I use is only 8 gold or 8 dungeon runs to unlock it on a character.

For me the fun would then be going into the world doing that dungeon or quest or whatever to get that black or Abyss dye.

That’s my idea of fun. Not going into the world, finding a way to grind gold and then use the gold to buy the item and then do the same for the next color (or mini, or kin) and again for the next item and again for the next item and so on and so on, not to forget to grind all temporary achievements to make sure I do not miss out on a item.

No, going for the item specific (at my own time) and every item has it’s own way. That is what I like to do. Thats my idea of fun, that my game-play element and thats impossible because of the design that things “how do we get people to buy gems”, “well not by making everything available in the game”.

With the skin, if I see a cool skin (personally for ME collecting all skins would not be a game-play element.. for somebody else it might be!) the my idea of fun would indeed be again the same as I just explained with the other items. Going into the world and find it. Not coming to the conclusion it’s not available anymore or having to buy with real money it or having to grind gold to buy it. Thats not fun to me.

Devata.6589:

Vayne.8563:

@ Rhyse

So let’s look at your list of pretty bad things. Let’s start with dyes.

There are 400 dyes in this game. 400. There are dyes like Abyss which is black black and would cost you over 30 gold on the TP right now. But just black dye (which IS black) and I use is only 8 gold or 8 dungeon runs to unlock it on a character.

For me the fun would then be going into the world doing that dungeon or quest or whatever to get that black or Abyss dye.

That’s my idea of fun. Not going into the world, finding a way to grind gold and then use the gold to buy the item and then do the same for the next color (or mini, or kin) and again for the next item and again for the next item and so on and so on, not to forget to grind all temporary achievements to make sure I do not miss out on a item.

No, going for the item specific (at my own time) and every item has it’s own way. That is what I like to do. Thats my idea of fun, that my game-play element and thats impossible because of the design that things “how do we get people to buy gems”, “well not by making everything available in the game”.

With the skin, if I see a cool skin (personally for ME collecting all skins would not be a game-play element.. for somebody else it might be!) the my idea of fun would indeed be again the same as I just explained with the other items. Going into the world and find it. Not coming to the conclusion it’s not available anymore or having to buy with real money it or having to grind gold to buy it. Thats not fun to me.

But you get tons of dye drops just playing… and some of those might be those colors. I have gotten both black and abyss dye drops. You dont’ have to buy them. You can play to get them.

So I’m not sure what the complaint is about here. I mean in guild wars 1, dyes were in a similar situation. They’d drop randomly anywhere in the world…but you could also go to a dye trader and buy them.

Vayne.8563:

Devata.6589:

Vayne.8563:

~

~

So the minis in WoW, subscription cash shop and the mounts aren’t fair game? Because that seems to be what you’re saying.

Whatever subscription games are left are also getting cash shops now and putting that very stuff in cash shops. Are there any purely subscription games out right now that don’t have cash shops.

Stuff likes mounts and minis and skins…that was always supposed to be what a not P2W cash shop is. Why? Because they offer no power.

For weeks and months before the game came out, in every speculation thread I can remember, everyone said cosmetic items are fine. Minis are fine. No one lifted a finger against them.

WoW charges fifteen bucks a month and still has mounts and minis that people would have to buy if they wanted them. Rift is free to play now, because it couldn’t sustain a sub. SWTOR has a hybrid model that’s greedy as hell but still allows you to sub. Eve has a sub and a cash shop…with cosmetic items.

If sub games can have cosmetic items in their shops, why shouldn’t a buy to play game? And what would they have if not cosmetic items.

Do you realize the outcry that you’d here if they put gear with stats in the cash shop?

I indeed think they should especially in a game with a subscription not put that in a cash-shop but like I also said before. If there would be like 10 mini’s in the cash-shop you would not hear me complain I can life with that. I don’t know how many are in the cash-shop but I do know by far most are in the game. So if it comes to the way to get mini’s then I guess WoW wins this match.

“Stuff likes mounts and minis and skins…that was always supposed to be what a not P2W cash shop is. Why? Because they offer no power.”
However, the casual or more RPG players (not the combat player) is not looking for power but for mounts, mini’s skins. So just as the combat player would not like a cash-shop to interfere in the combat (there game-play) a RPG player would not want the cash-shop to interfere with there game-play.

“For weeks and months before the game came out, in every speculation thread I can remember, everyone said cosmetic items are fine. Minis are fine. No one lifted a finger against them.” Well I do and I know many people who like to collect such items don’t like it. The fact that many people said “if it does not add power it’s ok” might be because a lot of ‘combat players’ had been bothered with P2W elements in many other games so they say as long as it’s not P2W it’s fine. Thats nice for them but not for the other type of players.

I did go for GW2 because it was B2P and it had a name of mainly focusing on expansions for sales with GW1. Because I don’t like cash-shop because they always effect the game. Sadly GW2 then turned out to also be a cash-shop game but one you had to buy into.

So you are now referring to other cash-shop and how they also do the same. While some of them in much less quantities. I really think the WoW cash-shop does not add that much because it are just a few items (just when to have a look on the there site) and the game also not seems to be trying to get you to buy anything from it. But yes many cash-shop do that, some more, some less. Thats maybe the reason I don’t like cash-shops???

“Do you realize the outcry that you’d here if they put gear with stats in the cash shop?”
Yes I do realize that very much. Because then suddenly all the combat players get exactly the same problem as the casual / RPG players already have. So that group suddenly also starts complaining.

Same as why now suddenly many people are complaining about the pick. The people for who’s grinding is the game-play are now suddenly also hit by it so that group started to complain about it.

Vayne.8563:

Devata.6589:

Vayne.8563:

@ Rhyse

So let’s look at your list of pretty bad things. Let’s start with dyes.

There are 400 dyes in this game. 400. There are dyes like Abyss which is black black and would cost you over 30 gold on the TP right now. But just black dye (which IS black) and I use is only 8 gold or 8 dungeon runs to unlock it on a character.

For me the fun would then be going into the world doing that dungeon or quest or whatever to get that black or Abyss dye.

That’s my idea of fun. Not going into the world, finding a way to grind gold and then use the gold to buy the item and then do the same for the next color (or mini, or kin) and again for the next item and again for the next item and so on and so on, not to forget to grind all temporary achievements to make sure I do not miss out on a item.

No, going for the item specific (at my own time) and every item has it’s own way. That is what I like to do. Thats my idea of fun, that my game-play element and thats impossible because of the design that things “how do we get people to buy gems”, “well not by making everything available in the game”.

With the skin, if I see a cool skin (personally for ME collecting all skins would not be a game-play element.. for somebody else it might be!) the my idea of fun would indeed be again the same as I just explained with the other items. Going into the world and find it. Not coming to the conclusion it’s not available anymore or having to buy with real money it or having to grind gold to buy it. Thats not fun to me.

But you get tons of dye drops just playing… and some of those might be those colors. I have gotten both black and abyss dye drops. You dont’ have to buy them. You can play to get them.

So I’m not sure what the complaint is about here. I mean in guild wars 1, dyes were in a similar situation. They’d drop randomly anywhere in the world…but you could also go to a dye trader and buy them.

Dyes indeed drop anywhere. It was also just one of the examples. Dyes are still not fun for me because like I said ‘I like to go and hunt for the item I want’, that is my game-play. That is not possible with open world loot drops.

You will always have some open world loot in games but it takes away part of the fun. In GW2 however many thinks are open-world drops. Meaning you can’t really farm for anything meaning it all becomes a gold grind. You grind gold (by getting world loot drop you don’t want and selling it) and then buy what you want. Making gold more important meaning people are more likely to buy gems to convert them to gold. (See the connection here)

Well thats not my type of game-play. My type of game-play if going for that one item that I want (so not cash-shop item, no open world loot, just one item in one specific place). Being it a specific dye color or a specific mini or a specific skin or a specific mount or a specific crafting recipe.

Now that might not be where your interest is but I think it’s hard to deny that that element is pretty much gone in GW2 and you might also see how the cash-shop has much to do with that.

I would have no problem if they offered specific drops from specific bosses, like they did in Guild Wars 1. There are some in the game, but not nearly enough. Same with minis. You can get a rare chance for a Tequatl mini by doing Tequatl. You can get a rare chance at a clockwork moa by doing the new Marionette event. There have been plenty of minis in the game already that you can win.

What you want isn’t realistic. I want a game where they keep giving me content, for which I don’t really have a cash shop that sells stuff that people might want, and I want it in such a way where I can play this specific way. Do this one thing to farm for that one thing.

It’s nice that you want this, but it’s really too specific a request in my opinion. I think your cash shop desires, in particularly, are completely unreasonable. It seems the community, for the most part, in any game or board I’ve ever seen, has agreed only cosmetic stuff should be in the cash shop.

This isn’t some small thing I made up, it’s been discussed to death. For any company to go against that grain and give you stats instead of skins, would immediately label them pay to win.

Vayne.8563:

I would have no problem if they offered specific drops from specific bosses, like they did in Guild Wars 1. There are some in the game, but not nearly enough. Same with minis. You can get a rare chance for a Tequatl mini by doing Tequatl. You can get a rare chance at a clockwork moa by doing the new Marionette event. There have been plenty of minis in the game already that you can win.

What you want isn’t realistic. I want a game where they keep giving me content, for which I don’t really have a cash shop that sells stuff that people might want, and I want it in such a way where I can play this specific way. Do this one thing to farm for that one thing.

It’s nice that you want this, but it’s really too specific a request in my opinion. I think your cash shop desires, in particularly, are completely unreasonable. It seems the community, for the most part, in any game or board I’ve ever seen, has agreed only cosmetic stuff should be in the cash shop.

This isn’t some small thing I made up, it’s been discussed to death. For any company to go against that grain and give you stats instead of skins, would immediately label them pay to win.

If you would have read the thread you would have seen I did refer to those few that are in the game. Saying they should all be in the game like that.

“What you want isn’t realistic. — think your cash shop desires, in particularly, are completely unreasonable.”

Oow it’s very realistic but not when they focus on a cash-shop / micro-transactions as income.. That might be the reason why in this thread I say that is bad and that they should focus on expansions for income? I don’t desire anything from the cash-shop. I desire that they use expansions to generate income not a cash-shop because a cash-shop will always influence the game itself.
Like I did show in the examples and I have the feeling you do now understand. Even do it might not be a problem for your personal game-play.

“It seems the community, for the most part, in any game or board I’ve ever seen, has agreed only cosmetic stuff should be in the cash shop.”
I have to disagree. There are enough people complaining about things that are very much related to the way the cash-shop works now. One of the many complains you hear is “grind grind grind” and that can very much be related to this “cosmetic cash-shop”. Also the complain about no end-game.. For some that might be raids but for enough people it’s the things I talk about.. hunting for items. So many of those complains are indirect complains toward this “cosmetic cash-shop”.

“This isn’t some small thing I made up, it’s been discussed to death. For any company to go against that grain and give you stats instead of skins, would immediately label them pay to win.”
Of course it would. You don’t hear me saying they should do that.