Acceptable Cash Shop Items: Suggestions!

[Ikeda]

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You don't see that information popping up in search engines because those were the old forums. After the switch to F2P they opened up new forums and had the old forums deleted. But here is a few links showing people's discontent with the current state of the game:

http://tera-forums.enmasse.com/forum...I-was-lied-too
http://tera-forums.enmasse.com/forum...ve-ruined-TERA
http://tera-forums.enmasse.com/forum...your-customers
http://tera-forums.enmasse.com/forum...at-a-cash-grab

Apparently the game is even worse off now than I thought it was. As you can see what started out as a purely vanity cash shop, quickly devolved into P2W among many other things. Back when TERA was P2P and even during the time it was F2P the game had a system sort of similar to FFXIV's glamour where you could put the looks of a piece of a equipment over one that has better stats. According to one of those threads they recently removed that system entirely to force people to have no choice but to buy the costumes on the cash shop if they want any sort of vanity content. Also if those threads are anything to go by it would be impossible for me to provide a link because those threads would fall under that forum's rules of "threads that have to be deleted" which they very likely were deleted long ago if they weren't already deleted with the switch to the new forums.

I can't provide a list of other P2P games that failed despite only adding a vanity cash shop because as far as I know there hasn't been a single other mmo that only added a vanity cash shop without going down the P2W route which as you can see even TERA itself devolved into the P2W route after a while which simply shows that according to history there is pretty much zero chance for a P2P game to only add a vanity cash shop and stick to only being vanity because the greed is simply too tempting for the companies.

[Skull_Angel]

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Those links seem to support what I've posted, everything crumbled when the community realized the game was headed away from a P2P model. The cash shop was added and people seemed to [more or less] accept it initially, but when they started removing content and/or gating it behind it (the cash shop) the community basically bailed.

I know Blizzard has successfully offered vanity items for WoW through it's store without destroying it's community; yes, it did ruffle a lot of feathers, but most that left because it challenged their ideals did return. I'm not too keen on what they're doing now with buying boosts to lv90 though, and don't personally agree with it.

[Ikeda]

Those links seem to support what I've posted, everything crumbled when the community realized the game was headed away from a P2P model. The cash shop was added and people seemed to [more or less] accept it initially, but when they started removing content and/or gating it behind it (the cash shop) the community basically bailed.

I know Blizzard has successfully offered vanity items for WoW through it's store without destroying it's community; yes, it did ruffle a lot of feathers, but most that left because it challenged their ideals did return. I'm not too keen on what they're doing now with buying boosts to lv90 though, and don't personally agree with it.

They didn't start locking content behind the cash shop until AFTER it went F2P. While the game was P2P the cash shop had nothing more than useless weapon skins, they didn't even have costumes in the shop. Useless weapon skins were enough to get enough of the remaining players to quit to the point that it was forced to go F2P.

Blizzard is the ONLY company to successfully offer vanity items and the ONLY reason it survived long enough to continue doing that is the sheer amount of subscribers it had. WoW with it's 8 million+ subscribers had enough subscribers to withstand a few hundred thousand to 2 million+ lost subscriptions due to the cash shop. FFXIV and many other mmos that only have a few hundred thousand to 2 million+ subscribers DO NOT have enough subscribers to withstand the inevitable loss of subscriptions.

Also those players that left and returned only did so because the mmo market literally consists of a massive sea of clones of WoW that have less content than the original. When their only choices are either play the game that's ripping them off or play a copy of said game that has far less content of course a few of them are eventually just going to say screw it and go back to the game with the most content and ignore the cash shop. Other mmos DO NOT have that luxury because they are those clones with less content.

[Skull_Angel]

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First of all, there was no definitive timeline of events posted in any of those threads or anything I could find. Thank you for clearing it up, but I find it hard to believe that TERA lost mass subs only because a cash shop was added, more had to be going on and a lot of testimonies point to activity suggesting the game was headed to a F2P being the cause. I can believe a portion of the player base being unhappy with the inclusion if the cash shop and of them some leaving due to idealism, but to say it was the reason the majority left does sound out of place.

As for Blizzard, I don't agree that WoW's sub. numbers was the only reason that offering vanity items didn't make the player base tank. Only a small portion of the player base cared and out of those, only a smaller portion left. A lot of people did talk about it at first, but it quickly turned into a forgotten novelty by most. IIRC, this all happened around the time that F2P MMOs were high in popularity and P2P was scarce, most of the people that I knew who left clamored about F2P games and shortly returned not only because of the lack of content, but the lack of quality and support (and they missed their friends, haha).

[ReiszRie]

Those links seem to support what I've posted, everything crumbled when the community realized the game was headed away from a P2P model. The cash shop was added and people seemed to [more or less] accept it initially, but when they started removing content and/or gating it behind it (the cash shop) the community basically bailed.

I know Blizzard has successfully offered vanity items for WoW through it's store without destroying it's community; yes, it did ruffle a lot of feathers, but most that left because it challenged their ideals did return. I'm not too keen on what they're doing now with buying boosts to lv90 though, and don't personally agree with it.

Don't bother, he is too stuck in his own warped logic that he will never attempt to understand or accept the arguments of another and even reasoning no longer matters to him.

It has been going on for quite awhile now and he still couldn't produce a single shred of evidence to support his baseless accusations of cash-shops being the prime cause of MMO failures.

I've learnt to just ignore him and let him carry on his inane rant as no one really takes him seriously.

[Skull_Angel]

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Yes and yes. From what we have seen the [FFXIV:ARR] developers have a genuine love for the game and franchise, so if they are pressured by the company (SE) to find more ways to bring in revenue I believe that if they chose to expand their cash shop (the Mog Station) they would do it in a way that would cause the most minimal damage to the community.

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You've offered no facts, only conjecture and any evidence you have shown has been inconclusive in it's ability to pinpoint the cause of failure.

A cash shop architecture is already in place in the form of the Mog Station and elements are already floating around with the Digital Collector's upgrade as well as buying the Before Meteor soundtrack and ARR soundtrack (there are people that bought these specifically for the minion). To think this is the end of it would be almost naive.

[Ikeda]

A cash shop architecture is already in place in the form of the Mog Station and elements are already floating around with the Digital Collector's upgrade as well as buying the Before Meteor soundtrack and ARR soundtrack (there are people that bought these specifically for the minion). To think this is the end of it would be almost naive.

As has already been said the entire point of the mog station was because back in 1.0 SE received alot of complaints about how confusing the game's billing page was. The mog station is nothing more than a remade billing page for the game. The digital collector's upgrade is just SE catching up with the times because basically every mmo has been adding a digital collector's upgrade for the past few years. The soundtrack minion doesn't mean a freaking thing, it's just a useless bonus people get for purchasing a piece of merchandise. If I remember right they even had something similar for FFXI years ago that gave special rings or something as a bonus and what do you know there STILL isn't a cash shop for the game. So once again there is currently zero evidence to believe we'll be getting a cash shop anytime soon. You're all looking for "signs" when there currently is no signs. This entire thread has been nothing more than a few people jumping the gun at things they "think" are signs of a upcoming cash shop.

[Felis]

Yes and yes. From what we have seen the [FFXIV:ARR] developers have a genuine love for the game and franchise, so if they are pressured by the company (SE) to find more ways to bring in revenue I believe that if they chose to expand their cash shop (the Mog Station) they would do it in a way that would cause the most minimal damage to the community.

An FF VII cross-over event would bring them more money than a cash shop

[Skull_Angel]

An FF VII cross-over event would bring them more money than a cash shop

That's an opinion, but you're telling me people would re-sub for an in-game event they probably will not hear about? Many people outside of FF and SqEx fans do not sub to the newsletter or frequent places that news of such (in-game events) gets advertized.

[Kerberon]

*a man lays dying on the streets, just before he took his last breath, a pigeon defecated on him and he died, therefore pigeon shit kills.

Bad analogy. There are so many zoonotic diseases that are spread that way. The bullet may have killed your hypothetical victim but the feces could easily pass on diseases that kill the first responders.