Who is Optional – A Question of Consumer Value

[M0xie]

<<huge post above>>

Your post is too big to cut in the specific points you've made so I hope you can follow along with this okay...

Yes, theme park style is for "players." Are people who only collect items really playing the game? In terms of pace of playing the game (hardcore/casual), we have end-game raids or just doing simple dungeons to get relatively the same level stuff. Career crafters and gatherers are playing the game; of course they don't have dungeons but they have their own goals and objectives as playable jobs in the game.

Minions and mounts are all "features" available to add variety to the game, but still not really part of the game's objectives/purpose, hence optional.
Legendary end game weapons/armor can't be sold and therefore aren't on the market board. They're won, by playing in raids and dungeons on a DoW/DoM class. Minions and glamour items cost more because people are more interested in just buying those items than playing enough to win them/make them. (Minus the Odin mount of course.)

People continue to fight primals because they're working on obtaining the items by playing through traditional, intended means. Although I still suspect we'll see an Odin mount that's dropped.

Maybe the people who derive so much joy from collecting mounts and minions should play the game and obtain them instead of buying them on the market board or now, the cash shop. (Though I do think the two different eternal bonding ceremonies is kind of low.)

The items being offered in the cash shop can be important to players too, who spend time playing in dungeons or whatever is needed to obtain them (again minus the Odin mount).

News flash, EQ (subscription-based) has successfully released paid expansions every six months for 15 years and people still buy them. If you don't buy the expansion, you don't get the content and/or can't go to the zones/level up/etc. This is not a new concept!