Cash shop confirmed

[Giantbane]

I mean... if you go to a restaurant and pay for a meal - you expect what's included in the meal. An extra side of beans will cost extra. Because it's not included in the meal.

Just because they have the side of beans already cooked hot-and-ready and you paid for a meal doesn't mean you can have extra beans without paying more.

Not getting extra beans doesn't reduce the amount of food in the meal you paid for - and it doesn't take anything away.
The restaurant doesn't owe you a free side of beans just because you paid for a meal and saw they had some beans and wanted beans even though beans aren't part of the meal you paid for.

Cash shop is the extra side of beans.

But if the amount of beans you normally get is reduced, then you start to wonder whether or not it was because they're trying to encourage you to pay more for the same amount of food we got before.

And with this game, it's not some static plate like chicken & beans where you can easily quantify whether you're getting the same product you got before because this game is ever changing. What happens if they don't realease as many minions, mounts, or vanity pieces before? You can start to question their motivations. Make one of those insanely difficult/random/grindy to get? You start to wonder. What if the stuff they give us as part of the package we already paid for is deemed to be substandard quality, but the "premium" pieces all look really cool? Again, you can wonder.

And even if they were able to keep up the quality/quantity of vanity items in addition to the ca$h $hop offerings, the wondering or the doubt or the lack of trust can and will degrade the experience for some people of the product they are currently already paying for.

[Tupsi]

But if the amount of beans you normally get is reduced, then you start to wonder whether or not it was because they're trying to encourage you to pay more for the same amount of food we got before.

Here's the problem - what "we got before" has always been inconsistent, sometimes never getting a minion until another event or content concept strolls around. So in this comparison, SE isn't taking anything away to encourage us to buy it in cash shop, because even vanity armor wise, it's usually always been the regular amount of sets for DoW/M...what are they gonna do? Suddenly only offer DoW or DoM set and make you buy the other? Not happening lol.

[Giantbane]

Here's the problem - what "we got before" has always been inconsistent, sometimes never getting a minion until another event or content concept strolls around. So in this comparison, SE isn't taking anything away to encourage us to buy it in cash shop, because even vanity armor wise, it's usually always been the regular amount of sets for DoW/M...what are they gonna do? Suddenly only offer DoW or DoM set and make you buy the other? Not happening lol.

They could offer boring DoM/DoW sets and offer much more aesthetically interesting sets via the premium shop. Now on the one hand, you could say that "premium" items you have to pay extra for should be better, but you might also wonder if they're not putting as much effort into the stock DoM/DoW sets since they would prefer you buy the premium sets.

[Vhailor]

Here's the problem - what "we got before" has always been inconsistent, sometimes never getting a minion until another event or content concept strolls around. So in this comparison, SE isn't taking anything away to encourage us to buy it in cash shop, because even vanity armor wise, it's usually always been the regular amount of sets for DoW/M...what are they gonna do? Suddenly only offer DoW or DoM set and make you buy the other? Not happening lol.

I agree to an extent. I don't think we can effectively judge the cash shop's influence based on how much (or what type) of content gets released. All we can say for a certainty is that it gives SE a strong incentive to continue developing nontrivial amounts of vanity gear, which is what they have been doing anyway of late.

There are more concrete reasons to be in favour of, or against, its presence.