Concerned about most recent 'Optional Items' update.

Hey there everyone, first of all merry xmas,

After logging in today I noticed something that kind of rubbed me in the wrong way.
Now first of all let met me tell you that I am by no means fully against an optional items option, and I love this game to bits.

What does bother me though is that what was added was 20 hats that are basically a full year old, and cost 1/5th of a monthly sub EACH. Of course you can argue that these items are completely optional and you do not HAVE to have them, but after being able to buy them for 10 gil at a vendor last year during the event,having to pay 2.10 euros EACH just sounds like an extremely cheap cash in for a free-to-play model mmo.

Now don't get me wrong, I already own all these items, and Id gladly pay for something made specially for the optional store, like one of the minions. But I just feel like this is squeezing out rehashed stuff in an overly lazy way.

I am really interested in your opinion. Please keep your responds serious.

These are items that are no longer obtainable and 99% of the population doesnt care about at all. For that 1% that wants to collect everything, the option is there.

It doesnt really bother me at all as long as they dont start putting really nice things on there that arent obtainable in game. That would be too much double dipping for me.

Just look at SWTOR: you have to pay a sub to have a decent experience and all of the endgame gear looks like trash while the cash shop vanity gear looks 100 times better, their focus in development is on the cash shop...

As long as it doesnt turn into any bs like that Im fine with minor things like minions and missed seasonal items.

I agree with you, its nice to see older event items be available to people, but having 10 gil items up there for over 2 euros/3 dollars each...for just a hat? I'd say price them between 0.50 and 1.00 and id say alright. Not to mention that 3 of the items currently in the optional item shop are TRADEABLE if someone that did do the event gets them off their calamity salvage npc for 850 gil.

To be frank, I kind of feel the same Dikai. I'm not really happy with the addition of old content to the cash shop. It simply destroys its novelty.

The way I see it is I'd rather they put these things in the cash shop so we get new items next year and the year after for these events. I don't want people to pressure them to "omg put the Starlight Barding back in as a quest reward for people who weren't playing when it was added!".

It is funny, though. SE can't win if they put new, unseen in game things in the cash shop because people gripe. And they can't put old things in the cash shop. Even old things that nobody wants to buy anyway.

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Originally Posted by TheCurls

The way I see it is I'd rather they put these things in the cash shop so we get new items next year and the year after for these events. I don't want people to pressure them to "omg put the Starlight Barding back in as a quest reward for people who weren't playing when it was added!".

It is funny, though. SE can't win if they put new, unseen in game things in the cash shop because people gripe. And they can't put old things in the cash shop. Even old things that nobody wants to buy anyway.

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They can win if if they put neither, get rid of the cash shop, and do what they did before and let everyone buy the items from past years from an in-game vendor during the events. Everyone will be happy, guaranteed.

Since there is already a year to wait for an event, why not expand on the idea of certain events, making them bigger over the year.

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Originally Posted by Dikai

What does bother me though is that what was added was 20 hats that are basically a full year old, and cost 1/5th of a monthly sub EACH.

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Only the horse Kabutos and the snake Kabutos are 1 year old. The other Kabutos are older.
The Usaki Kabutos are still tradeable, because they were crafted during the 2010/2011 New Year event, with the Red Kabuto as a basic mat. If you want them, you can buy them in the market board. But they are not your 10 gil items (80 gil from NPC, around 2k gil in the MB)

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Originally Posted by Yshnal

They can win if if they put neither, get rid of the cash shop, and do what they did before and let everyone not even buy the items from past years events from an in-game vendor during the events. Everyone will be happy, guaranteed.

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Fixed it a bit
This is what SE did from 2010-2012

Oh boy hats, this is turning into TF2 faster than I've expected.

Putting older seasonal items in the cash shop is what they've been doing. Like another player said, if this helps give us a chance at getting new items and possibly more seasonal events I'm for it.

I've always been 100% fine with old seasonal items being put up on the cash shop. They did it with the All Saint's Wake, they did it with Starlight Celebration, they're doing it with Heavensturm, and I think it's really good of them to put up all the old stuff on the cash shop since everyone who has been playing the game since launch of 2.0 has had a very fair chance at every one of getting these items in-game.

The only reason they sold the old hats for 10 gil last year, I assume, is because the majority of the current playerbase didn't play 1.0 and missed out. This way, as 2.0 is more accessible and populated than 1.0 was, moving those items to the cash shop keeps them able to be purchased all year round.

So I'm perfectly fine with old event items being on the cash shop. It keeps the events fresh and clean while still giving players the option to grab the old stuff if they so choose.

I'm not so keen on selling items that you could have bought yearly with in game money.
If it was something like the one time only events like the Dragon Quest or XI events, I'd be more alright with it because you really did only have one shot at them.

As it is, it's a little greedy.

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Originally Posted by Yshnal

They can win if if they put neither, get rid of the cash shop, and do what they did before and let everyone buy the items from past years from an in-game vendor during the events. Everyone will be happy, guaranteed.

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Ill take that bet.

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Originally Posted by Yshnal

They can win if if they put neither, get rid of the cash shop, and do what they did before and let everyone buy the items from past years from an in-game vendor during the events. Everyone will be happy, guaranteed.

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I remember skipping events for last Christmas/Easter. Those Items weren't available to me at the vendors you speak of. Only the items associated with events I had actually participated in were available for purchase.

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Originally Posted by Gramul

I'm not so keen on selling items that you could have bought yearly with in game money.
If it was something like the one time only events like the Dragon Quest or XI events, I'd be more alright with it because you really did only have one shot at them.

As it is, it's a little greedy.

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This year Heavensturm event will be not the same as last year. So yes, seasonal events are one-time events, except name and date.

Some MMOs offer the rewards from past events for purchase with in game currency, XI offers their past seasonal items from in game vendors, ARR did so too until they pushed that F2P emergency button. Other MMOs go even further than that and make the entire event questlines from past years available the following years. I'd rather ARR handled it that way and allowed anyone to do all the seasonal quests they missed so they could follow their story lines and earn the rewards, but you know, someone needs money to save that sinking ship.

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Originally Posted by Black91CRX

I remember skipping events for last Christmas/Easter. Those Items weren't available to me at the vendors you speak of. Only the items associated with events I had actually participated in were available for purchase.

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You're confusing what I'm speaking about, with the Calamity Salvager.

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Originally Posted by Felis

This year Heavensturm event will be not the same as last year. So yes, seasonal events are one-time events, except name and date.

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I mean im terms that we where able to buy old yearly event gear when they popped up in game.

Yes, we used to be able to buy last year's gear from event vendor for gil.

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Originally Posted by Gramul

I mean im terms that we where able to buy old yearly event gear when they popped up in game.

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Was only 2013 until summer 2014 this way. Before it we had what we have now without the cash shop.
It would be no problem for me if the devs bring the "You missed the event? You missed the gear." rule back, where you have to participate in the event to get the gear and can't get it anymore after the event.

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Originally Posted by Felis

It would be no problem for me if the devs bring the "You missed the event? You missed the gear." rule back.

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I find it strange that people would rather past event items be gone for good than be available for money.

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Originally Posted by Black91CRX

I find it strange that people would rather past event items be gone for good than be available for money.

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This bothers me too. Exclusivity really annoys me. Give a bonus to people who adopt early, but don't remove the ability to get it entirely for those who adopt later.
If someone wants to spend money on a hat, let them.
The cash shop isn't going anywhere no matter how much you moan about it. Learn to live with it, or quit. I know that's been said a lot, but that doesn't make it less true. If the cash shop is hurting your enjoyment of the game, then quit. Don't play a game that isn't fun.

Telling people to quit will only make them quit, which will lead to even less subscribers, which will lead to even more cash shop items.

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Originally Posted by Roris

Telling people to quit will only make them quit, which will lead to even less subscribers, which will lead to even more cash shop items.

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If they stop whining about the cash shop so incessantly then i call that a victory. It's not like it's a massive swath of people, it's a very vocal minority.

This entire forum is a vocal minority

Yeah, victory by supporting my favorite game by making it lose even more subscribers and more money. Oh wait.

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Originally Posted by Dikai

Since there is already a year to wait for an event, why not expand on the idea of certain events, making them bigger over the year.

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Because that would just make sense to slowly expand events and make them give a giant variaty of seasonal items. There isn't any money in that! Development is so expensive these days guys were lucky they didn't go bankrupt yet, the subscriptions are hardly enough to keep the hamsters running the servers alive.

Id rather see past seasonal items in cash shop (that anyone could get if they were playing) than new seasonal items or new items (thanks for no such stuff in golden saucer). So really np for me, I missed 2 seasonal events and if I will like the stuff.. I will buy it.

I'd rather see past seasonal event items being sold by npcs for 10gil. I took a break buring the Halloween and Christmas events in 1.0 when they were doing pumpkin heads and reindeer suits and then last year they were selling the pumpkin heads and reindeer suits for 10gil and got them then. So why do we have two extremes here? One side is for get it now or never have it again and the other side is for, sell it in the cash shop so I could buy it now. When it should be sell all past event items from an npc for 10 gil.

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Originally Posted by ArkNova

So why do we have two extremes here?

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Because there's a few people who think that this is unacceptable business practice. They believe it absolutely, irrevocably changes the dynamic of the game, and is too 'risky' to let it go on unchecked, or unquestioned.

Then, there's a lot of people who literally couldn't care less about near-arbitrary vanity items that actually don't change any important facet of gameplay. Said people, likely understanding that this is natural video game agenda now. That's not to say these people should be (or are) satisfied with the status quo, just... it isn't changing any time soon, so you might as well enjoy the games you enjoy, taking the good with the bad.

I prefer them to sell past event items, than cash shop exclusive items, at least you had a fair way to obtain them in game.

I don't care give me my Yukata already :( I'll buy every single one of them for both male and female D: Just GIMME

Most of the cash shop item pricing seems alright to me, but since there are so many of these hats, and they are a single item and not a set, like the reindeer costumes or something, I do think it was unwise to price them at 3.00 a piece. Perhaps they should have made the set of hats available for for $5 (for all). That would have made more sense.