I want an official response.

[Sholah]

Nobody is being ripped off -_-

Are you going to back up that statement, or keep repeating it and hope it becomes true?
I'll say it again. These cash shop items were developed with money from our subscriptions. You already paid for it, and they are only charging for it again because they know people like you are so used to it that you'll pay that price and thank them for the opportunity to do so.

[Adoulin]

First of all I didnt care about cash shop when it sold minions and mounts, but it really
started to bother me when they added dyes (glamour) to it and kinda a hairstyle for both
males and females. the point of cash shop mainly for F2P games, SE here are being super
greedy asking for more money from glamouring stuff like dyes to use it in a game that we
already paying for. Before we would get one new hairstyle for each race with the patch
but now its from the cash shop. Next they will add cool armor models and everything that
is not a main story or an endgame content to the cash shop. Take Blizzard shop for example
other than Server transfer/Race change/Name change they only sell minions/mounts
but SE is kinda pushing it now

[Kuolema]

So what you're saying is that you can't refute my point, but you will defend SE to the death anyway even if you have to defy logic.

I'm not defending SE. It just is what it is. Games have been doing this for years now and it isn't going to change.

[Sholah]

There is being passionate and then there is being obsessive. I'm all for being passionate about things that matter, but to be completely worked up over a game is not healthy.

Just because you aren't passionate over video games doesn't mean it's unhealthy for other people to be. I don't care about photography, but I understand that some people are.
Some people actually really enjoy video games, and care about where the industry is heading. Things like this are becoming standard and normal. Developers are openly selling day-one, on-disc DLC and nobody cares. It's sad to see people just being okay with being ripped off and the industry standards going down the tube.

[Sholah]

I'm not defending SE. It just is what it is. Games have been doing this for years now and it isn't going to change.

It isn't going to change because people like you just sit back and take it. The developers should be listening to the players, their customers.

[Themis]

Yes, it does upset me that much. Nobody is saying that it breaks the game, but it is one less thing among many things that were cut out of the game to sell to you again. Wouldn't you rather have Sleipnir as a drop from Odin? Or those Scion minions as a quest reward? Wouldn't you rather have more things in the game to work toward?

There is a big difference between content being "cut out" of the game and being sold separately.

"Cut out" implies that it was intended to be included, but was removed at last minute.

If Sleipnir was never intended to be included in the game (and there is no way to know that for sure unless you happen to have the game's design documents where this is stated), then it was not "cut out". Also, the content that it would drop from is not even in the game yet. There's no way to say that it won't ever be made available in game. It's unlikely, but possible, that purchasing it from the cash shop simply means you get early access to it. But if it isn't part of the content, then you can't say it was going to be part of it initially.

It's like how some products are labeled "batteries sold separately". Batteries are required in order to use said product, but it was not ever intended to be sold to you as part of the product's cost. In this case, "Sleipnir sold separately".

And sure, they could have reasonably (even if it did mean a delayed patch release) add in more content that offered the items as rewards. But then, that doesn't generate additional income does it? And additional income means that more content can be made available in patches (which is what we want, is it not?). If the purpose of the shop is to raise more money to support more/better servers and improvements to the game etc, then I have no problem with certain parts being "sold separately". I'd even be ok with optional dungeons* being sold, and I'd probably buy it. Why? Because I enjoy the raiding/dungeon side of the game, and why not balance the complaints with those who find their fun in minions/mounts/vanity.

*By this, I mean dungeons which are not required for roulettes or relic upgrades etc. Otherwise, it isn't truly optional. There's no reason why it can't drop the same items that come from equivalent dungeons, though. All this would do is simply increase my enjoyment of the game.

[Roris]

When people argue in a seemingly defensive way it's usually because the things being said are true and hit close to home, or I guess to try to look mature by taking the contrarian stance and telling the "hater kiddies" to "stop complaining". Really there's no middle ground in that side of the argument.

The true middle ground that can be reached is: SE can monetize on the game all they want because they're a company, whether they state their plans well in advance or just announce them out of the blue on the last week before the feature they hyped a lot is implemented. Consumers can choose to partake or not on that and take their business elsewhere.

Now on the speculation side on how the decision to monetize the game was reached, we don't know if the game is losing subs fast or not because they don't publish official subscriber figures. The logical conclusion, looking back on the history of MMOs specially on the themepark market is that yes, this game is losing subscribers fast and like many P2P MMOs that have faced this situation in the past, an emergency F2P plan was deployed. Another possible reason for monetization is simply that they want to make more money and are trying to follow, yet again, on WoW's footstep by maintaining both a sub and a cash shop. Again, MMO history shows that this has never actually worked aside from WoW itself, all the other P2P MMOs that tried it went F2P shortly after anyway, especially due to consumer distrust.

[Kuolema]

Just because you aren't passionate over video games doesn't mean it's unhealthy for other people to be. I don't care about photography, but I understand that some people are.
Some people actually really enjoy video games, and care about where the industry is heading. Things like this are becoming standard and normal. Developers are openly selling day-one, on-disc DLC and nobody cares. It's sad to see people just being okay with being ripped off and the industry standards going down the tube.

I never said I wasn't passionate about video games. I've been playing them for 30 years but I'm not going to let myself get worked up because a game has a cash shop or day one DLC. It isn't worth getting obsessive about it. I play games to relax and if a game isn't helping with that then I put it to the side.

If a game has a cash shop or day one DLC that's all fine and well. It doesn't mean I have to buy it. If I do choose to purchase that shiny new vanity item or day one DLC then it's my choice to purchase it, if it's a game that I enjoy then I will support it.

[Akamu_Aniketos]

[Fornix]

It isn't going to change because people like you just sit back and take it. The developers should be listening to the players, their customers.

Not true. People just sitting back and not caring is not why it carries on. People purchasing is why it carries on. Heck, 90% of the community could start crying on as to how terrible cash shops are, but as long as money keeps flowing in with people purchasing items there's no reason for publishers and developers to stop.