Acceptable Cash Shop Items: Suggestions!

[Luxx]

I swear the stupidity in this thread is going to give me a aneurism.

If you do so happen to gain an Aneurism.

Mayth haveth thou stuffth? O:
Specifically your Atma Omnilex. -cough;

[Rose_Vilehart]

*snip*

just leave and go back to having fun in game, this thread really isnt worth your time......

[Skull_Angel]

snip

From my understanding the developers of TERA thought they could increase their player base and bring in more money by going F2P and expanding their cash shop. They did such because they saw a trend in current P2P MMOs only holding on to a dedicated/hardcore player base after the initial "hype" phase after release. Whether it worked or not to bring in a larger player base, it ended up losing a lot of it's hardcore/dedicated players. The failure didn't come from having the cash shop, it came from expanding it and going F2P, at least that's what I understand from articles and testimonies.

I haven't really suggested anything myself, I've even stated that it's my opinion that the inclusion of P2W elements is unacceptable. I have been questioning why offering additional aesthetic options via cash shop would be such a horrible thing though, and have only gotten one real good answer.

Companies look to make money, that's what they do. They look to find ways to make more money constantly and weigh the positives and negatives of doing certain things; cash shops done in a certain way are able to create a lot of revenue at minimal cost [when done in a way that's acceptable to most of the community].

In short, people think it will ruin the game or betray it's spirit.

This is more of what I've been seeking, and it reflects what I've observed so far in this thread. So, because people believe it will ruin the game it should not be attempted in the first place, no?

[Ikeda]

snip

1. What happened with TERA is they started as P2P with no cash shop, had a decent amount of subscriptions that not very slowly started leaking away, decided to add a vanity cash shop (while it was still P2P) to try to "make up" for the lost subscriptions, the remaining players felt ripped off by the cash shop and saw the addition of a cash shop as a sign of failure and impending switch to F2P and promptly left, TERA temporarily shuts down and switches to a F2P model. Back when TERA first added the cash shop, En Masse tried to say there was no plans for the game to go F2P and yet it went F2P only a few months later.

2. You do not work for these companies, you have NOTHING to gain from the addition of a cash shop other than less money in your wallet should you decide to waste any on a cash shop. So I've got to ask why are you even suggesting one? So far SE has added nothing more than an equivalent to the server transfer services, character recreation, and something similar to how you could pay extra for mules in FFXI, all of these being services that have existed in P2P mmos long before cash shops were even thought up and yet for some reason you think that their addition is a sign of "things to come" that make a cash shop inevitable.

3. When people have witnessed first hand that the addition of cash shops cause a loss of subscriptions in a P2P mmo (and have even been part of those lost subscriptions themselves) then yes they have more than enough reason to believe that a cash shop will inevitably lead to the game shutting down or going F2P.

[Rose_Vilehart]

*snip*

that and unlike tera this game has a steady good sub base

[Karnyboy]

....

You and everyone else seeming to make these claims are speculative at best. Just because the inclusion of a cash shop into a game doesn't necessarily mean anything to its "failure" (or eventual death). There's many MMO's out there nobody has mentioned that a CS literally saved it from dying. These are shops implementing things correctly (DDO, Tera, LoTR to name a few)

A cash shop should never be a replacement for a subscription to enjoy the game, nor should it be a means to advance your character. A steady income via subscriptions is still a viable stance to have with MMO gaming since servers and various other developing costs are a factor. However that being said, the inclusion of a CS should be flavor, not requirement. There's people out there that WANT to spend more money, maybe YOU don't, but there's others who have this spare money to spend, let them spend it as they see fit in a cash shop with items, etc that don't alter the outcome of a successful in game life. Who are you to say what they can and cannot do with their money? I believe things like retainers, Fantasia, weapon skins, armor skins, etc are suitable things that don't take away from actual game play.

This is how a CS should be done, and the ones that don't follow suit are the ones that do suffer/get cancelled.

Just remember that the MMO market has steadily increased since 1995, it IS saturated now, only a few games stand out and the reasons they fail are typically because of the stagnation in the market. You tell me how many games since WoW's peak success have just looked like WoW? We want innovation but even the innovative games get cancelled. So what do we want? As an avid MMO gamer that answer is not so cut/paste. Really think about what you are typing when you take such a strong stance against item shops.

[Skull_Angel]

snip

1. I see no claims of such (TERA loosing mass subs because a cash shop was added). I do however see statements from En Masse saying they considered going F2P before TERA's launch, but decided not to because the game had not been designed for such. The cash shop was created with the explicit intention of going F2P and players left after realizing this.

2. You're right, I don't work for these companies and don't pretend to. I do understand how companies work though. I have asked questions about additional services, but bo far I seem to be running circles around the same question.

I'll also add to the statement of "something similar to how you could pay extra for mules in FFXI" by stating that for a very small amount more you can have access to extra character slots instead, but you can not send items directly to your other characters and need to use a proxy, making additional retainers more appealing. This may not effect most people, but for omni-crafters it's (extra inventory) something that is highly considered .

3. I want to say the majority hsn't witnessed first hand what the inclusion of cash shops do to a game's community, only heard claims of what happens without having all the information. In cases where it impacts the community negatively, P2W elements were added and the "unfair" advantages given to those that payed caused others that refused to fall behind and leave. In few very cases only aesthetic elements were added and a small portion of the community rage quit because of idealism (from direct observation I knew people that did this in WoW, but returned shortly despite their feelings).

[JatohCynn]

This is more of what I've been seeking, and it reflects what I've observed so far in this thread. So, because people believe it will ruin the game it should not be attempted in the first place, no?

I think it's more a path once taken, never taken back kind of thing. Even after CCP completely caved to the community the cashshop remained because they couldn't very well just turn around and hand out for minimal effort things people paid real money or extravagant ISK prices, as I did.

It remains, kind of looming over the game, always threatening to be the thing the staff falls back on to make up for a drop in subs rather than trying to improve the game and make people come back. Far easier to sell a suit of armor or barding for $10 a pop than to spend months on new content for people to play.

I don't think Squeenix would do that, not initially at least. They could have just salvaged FF14 1.0 into some smash and grab temporary MMO that was never designed to last but to generate as much money in the time it had. They instead chose to evaluate why the game failed and to fix those reasons, creating a game that stands completely on the fact that people want to keep playing so much they will part with $15 a month to do so. It shows the staff loves the game and respects the player base, but ultimately, it shows the people who control the money decided it was a sound investment. If they calculate that the better path to profit is to cater to the instant gratification crowd then that's where the game will go and that's what scares so many people.

[Felis]

The Mog Station was created with the explicit idea of micro transactions in mind. The developers could have left the payment service as it was with account.square-enix.com, but they decided to create a whole new site dedicated to transactions for FFXIV. This tells us that extra services through micro transactions were highly considered at one point and the expansion of which is more than likely to become a reality at some point.

They didn't create a new payment side for transaction, but because the old payment side was too confusing for many people. It was one of the many 1.0 critics that needed to change for ARR.

[Rose_Vilehart]

"Would you prefer actual collage level course learning in video game design and market. You know I am trying to to boast that around, but if you want to put my credability into judgement, toll, you might want to go else where. I have had talks with my proffessors who recently worked at EA and Bethesda Games. So STFU"
as someone who also takes a college course in game design...........have you actually got a job designing games yet? or finished your course? unless you have please stop pretending you are "teh master of game design knowledge!"