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Check out Alpha Two Announcements here to see the latest news on Alpha Two.
Check out general Announcements here to see the latest news on Ashes of Creation & Intrepid Studios.
To get the quickest updates regarding Alpha Two, connect your Discord and Intrepid accounts here.
Apparently some people really like cash shops.
Shoelid
Member, Alpha One, Alpha Two, Early Alpha Two
Talking to some fellas on Reddit and never before have I had to unironically argue against cash shops. I am genuinely surprised that these people exist. Huh.
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What kind of talk were you having? I feel like I'm missing some additional information.
If a box price is buying a membership access to a cake buffet and a subscription is buying the right to maintain that membership every month, then I can tolerate a cash shop that sells candles and frilly plastic toothpick swords for the cakes. If those candles and filly toothpicks allow the bakers to create extra toppings for the cakes and treat themselves to nice vacations as a reward for baking good cakes, then it's a fair enough trade. It's when the cash shop is selling the forks and plates for the metaphorical cakes that I take issue.
Oh they definitely deserve monetary compensation. I'd be willing to more than double my sub for AOC if they didn't include the cash shop and instead focused on creating more & better in-game achievable cosmetics. It's not a dealbreaker that it's there, but I'd definitely prefer it weren't.
To work that into your analogy, I pay the cake buffet subscription for the experience of being able to walk in and experience everything as I please. To me, having to make extra transactions inside the buffet ruins the vibe. If the chefs would like more funding for more toppings and better vacations, I'd be more than happy to provide that in my subscription.
I know that this post is against cash shop, but there is no point in opening a discussion on the forums like this, honest
Haha, not trying to have any real discussion here, I was just honestly surprised that there are people who enjoy P2W in their games, or at least dont mind it enough to argue in its favor. I'd thought that between this forum and a couple discords that I had a pretty well rounded view on this stuff, but I was proven wrong today.
That’s the massively multiplayer part of MMORPGs - there will be many different perspectives of what players like and dislike.
You will disagree with some players.
Often times game company seek funding from parties who are not interested in the game itself and this leads to P2W and lack luster game design. To me, it is a very nuanced topic and I have to judge each game and company on a case by case basis to know if I trust them with a cash shop. So far, I trust intrepid, but that could change in the future.
This is my personal feedback, shared to help the game thrive in its niche.
I judge not by company, but by what item gets added. And one item thats P2W will make me not buy anything from them ever again:))
You're right, @Schmuky. One MMO that does a decent job with a non-P2W cosmetic shop is ESO.
And it looks like Ashes is on that same path.
One of the many reasons I've never played (or plan to play) WoW.
The point is that having paid cosmetics in the PAY/SUB TO PLAY game is a crapy thing to do.
Especially when FOMO is the core marketing strategy.
So yeah, some people are dumb af.
you might, but a large majority of the potential playerbase will not. The Devs know that very well, which is why they don't bother trying it
The explanation given from Intrepid/Steven Sharif is essentially that the cosmetic store is necessary to make up for the lack of a box cost, which I'm inclined to agree. The FOMO stuff I go back and forth on. Sometimes it upsets me, sometimes I like the prospect of having exclusive cosmetics. It does bother me a little, despite being such a big fan of Ashes.
...Reddit.
That's understandable if you have the money for it. It's not typically a good business move to create a larger barrier to entry unless you have the confidence in your product to overcome the first-time payer mental barrier for enough people. Something that's a very challenging task in the saturated gaming market when your company does not have an established fan base from other titles the company has made. Already going to be quite a handicap they have a subscription in the first place.
Yeah, I'm fully aware of that
The people you are arguing with on reddit are rock brains and I would avoid them. I totally understand the "I did it without P2W so that is an additional accomplishment" but in reality, most games simply hide content behind pay walls that make them it impossible without paying. I Haven't downloaded an app game in like 7 years because of this. Aside from chess....which was free and allows me to play....chess.
If the pay to win is harmless...like as in pay for "convenience", I personally feel like there is still no point in playing ...so I don't play them at all.
Some people do have more money than time, and so want to buy progress in an MMO rather than grinding it out themself.
Also, there are some people out there that take pride in beating people that are wearing equipment worth actual hundreds of thousands of dollars, without having paid more than their subscription fee (this was me in Archeage).
This is a reasonable thing for some people to want, and a valid thing for some games to cater to.
However, it is the notion that all games should cater to this that I would take exception to. In the same way that people that enjoy this sort of thing really should have games that cater to them, people that really dont want any pay to win in their game at all should have games that cater to this as well.
Really? I was disgusted by ESO cashshop to the point I had to stop playing.
Any achievement or progress was made thru cash.
I'd rather pay a monthly sub and box cost than being annoyed 24/7 being told that I'm a second-class player
For example: Everyone riding waaaay over-the-top mounts, but I couldn't care less for any of them, as all they had done to get them is pay. I was stuck with the slowest donkey, but at least I had got it in a fair way.
That is exactly why I quit as well, the cash shop in ESO is ridiculous.
As pay to play and subscription, players were benefited with ability to pick and choose how they spent their benefits within the cash shop as they pleased.
Anything above that for a subscriber one had to pay more, and as a non-subscriber you had to pay.
ESO is not a Pay-To-Win game. Anything you can buy for Real Money -> Crowns -> Gold, you can get in game by playing the game. Perhaps the only difference with the cash shop was that there were some nicer looking items that perhaps in game one could not get. Mounts were basic looking in game, but obtainable with minimal effort and as far as remember same speed. Cash shops were visually more appealing.
Only thought is that the cash shop items is quite high and perhaps you could accelerate your progress in recipes though cash shop, but then that was a choice by all subscribers of how they use their coin each month.
Have I missed something?
This is why nothing from the cash shop in Ashes will be tradeable - so you can't buy it and then sell it for gold.
As far as I know you cannot buy gold through the cash shop nor exchange / trade cash shop items.
Subscribing provides potential to all benefits, and non-subscribing means selective payment to do same.
A subscriber gets x number of tokens each month to spend in the cash shop but not sufficient to buy all at once.
Not sure then if that is pay to win.
While subscribers do get some crowns with their monthly subscription, they can still use money to buy more, and more is an obvious advantage.
I actually like the way ESO offers cash shop currency with the games subscription. It doesn't stop the cash shop being pay to win, but I do like it.
You`re right about the utility & upgrades though, shame.
Yeah, to me, that is the best way to support a game that is subscription, but allows for free to play still.
Give subscribed players full access to new content as per ESO, but charge non-subscribed players for it. Then have a cosmetic cash shop, and give subscribers about $5 a month to spend in it - enough that people that don't care too much about cosmetics would be able to get something "free" every few months, but those that want a new outfit every week or two would still need to pay.
I don't think it would work in Ashes situation though, it does seem more of a bonus for subscribing - which would require the game to not require a subscription.
That said, I could see an amount of embers given to accounts that subscribe for 3, 6 or 12 months at a time instead of monthly.
Getting extra embers for subscribe for several months at a time sounds good, but I think maybe they will add some kind of discount like other games? Something like 1 month = 15$. 3 month = 14$ each one, etc.
This is a random idea that just came to my mind while reading about ESO in this post, but what about add two types of subscriptions in AoC?
- Base subscription: 15$, the default subscription.
- Base + bonus subscription: 20$, bonus of X embers every month.
I don't know if maybe it would cause the feeling of need to have to buy the bonus subscription for some people and turn into a bad idea.