Reposting some common sense after being berated for
suggesting that cash shops suck. Good to see the direction AoC is going with their community. No room for discussion. Regardless of the bartle test's "authenticity" people still play mmo's in a variety of ways whether you want them to or not. Now, I know it's hard to imagine... but not everyone agrees with:
...several dozen hours of effort in order to get leveled up to the level cap - which is where I consider the game to begin.
Some people enjoy
playing the game.
I agree completely. I don't think anyone commenting on this thread has any sort of idea what a true MMORPG experience should be. All of you beside OP seem to only see games as these virtual accomplishment factories, where daddy Steven can give you all hard earned points without P2W but fail to see how the cosmetic model only forces P2W one of the four player types of an MMO. Anyone who has a slight grasp on how an MMO should be designed knows that you need to meet the needs of all four types of players.
Adding a cosmetic shop puts an unfair social pressure on the social player type to spend their money to look the coolest while they're roleplaying or socializing in the game. You are all so worried about having P2W affect your favorite aspect that you're all quick to forget about the socializers point of view.
Let's imagine a similar situation from the achievers perspective. There is a shop but all you can buy are achievements in game that you can't otherwise complete without spending your real world money. To the Socializer this doesn't matter at all and has no effect on the game they're playing. The killer player type doesn't care because they only want to kill other players and the explorers don't care as long as they don't have to pay to explore new areas.
Let's imagine it again from the explorers perspective, the cosmetic shop is now the Lands shop. It doesn't add any new gameplay but it does add massive lands to explore but you can find all the same materials in the non-paid for area. It doesn't achieve anything for your account besides giving you new places to visit. The only ones who would really care in this situation are the players who love to just explore games.
Let's now imagine one more time from the perspective of the killer player type. The cosmetic shop is now the Kill Shop. You can buy tokens that allow you to kill players and that's the only gameplay change, it only affects players who like to engage in PVP. The socializers don't care because they're not killing players, the achievers don't care as long as they don't have to kill players to achieve something and the explorers really could care less, in fact they'd sing it's praises because it means they'll less likely to get killed while exploring.
We can see that in all of these situations we've unfairly placed the P2W model on 1/4th of our playerbase.
It's true it's too late to change it for this game which is why I don't think this is the pinnacle of MMOs by any means.
Not thinking of Socializers gameplay decisions and just saying we can't have better is very closed minded.
The excuse that a box price and subscription makes the barrier of entry to high is really a cop out. Ashes could charge $100 entry + $30 subscription fee and they'd be perfectly fine. The fact that people can't stomach a slight price increase to not have a cash shop baffles me. Subscriptions have been $15/mo since 2004 while everything else has gone up in price. $30/mo is not a lot of money for someone with a fulltime job. People pay $200/mo for cable ffs.
There are plenty of other ways to allow players to try the game without paying the box price or the subscription, you guys just eat up the corporate bullshit though. Like actually letting them just try the game, if it's actually good then it will have no problem hooking them in the first few levels. I hate that argument that you have to play an MMO for 100+ hours to start to see the fun. That's just another cop out for poor game design.
This place is going to be just like the WoW forums but instead of a bunch of brainwashed blizzard shills it will be a bunch of unaccomplished losers who worship Steven and see him as some sort of God.
If you've already spent money on this game, that doesn't even have a release date, then you're already lost. That's like paying for a meal you can't eat for 5 years because the chef needs help funding his dream to build a kitchen first and then he will make all the meals, he promises, and it will be like the best meal you've ever eaten in your entire life.
Because the game was founded from the beginning on...All of the people who pledged many thousands of dollars..
