Glorious Alpha Two Testers!
Phase I of Alpha Two testing will occur on weekends. Each weekend is scheduled to start on Fridays at 10 AM PT and end on Sundays at 10 PM PT. Find out more here.
Check out Alpha Two Announcements here to see the latest Alpha Two news and update notes.
Our quickest Alpha Two updates are in Discord. Testers with Alpha Two access can chat in Alpha Two channels by connecting your Discord and Intrepid accounts here.
Phase I of Alpha Two testing will occur on weekends. Each weekend is scheduled to start on Fridays at 10 AM PT and end on Sundays at 10 PM PT. Find out more here.
Check out Alpha Two Announcements here to see the latest Alpha Two news and update notes.
Our quickest Alpha Two updates are in Discord. Testers with Alpha Two access can chat in Alpha Two channels by connecting your Discord and Intrepid accounts here.
Comments
Doing better than your previous self is generally referred to as getting better, not as winning - outside of sarcasm and irony.
However, to my second point in my above post, how it is viewed by the reader does not matter, what matters is how it was intended by the writer.
The reason this matters is simple. "To pay" can be defined as spending time to achieve something.
As such, pay to win can be considered as spending time to gain advantage - and as such no pay to win can be considered as not being able to spend time to gain advantage.
So clearly, we need to consider how Intrepid talk about pay to win, not how we perceived to fit in to the narrative we want to spin.
Since Steven talks about not being able to buy advantage, then we can assume that the definition of win that they are using is the more common use of the word in relation to competition with others with objective victory conditions.
No, Gacha is definitely just Gacha. I don't know what the correct term is so I'll just briefly describe it.
Player A spends 15$ a month and gets to play the 'base game'.
Player B spends 25$ a month and gets 5 Bonus Chances to do Dungeons (This is also an option in NWO or was when I cared enough to pay attention) and maybe... let's go all the way to Ashes... a selection of 1 Cosmetic a month.
At the end of the month if unused, Player B's stuff does not roll over. They can't stockpile it. There is no other way to buy stuff from the studio. You either pay Sub A, Sub B (let's assume there's a middle where you get the Cosmetic but no Bonus Chances or vice Versa) or Sub C to get both.
Player A knows what they are paying for. They know exactly 'how far' Player B is 'ahead' of them. Maybe they care, maybe they don't.
I'm saying that IF there must be an additional income for a studio through MicroTransactions, I want this kind. No player can just 'Throw massive cash at the problem', everyone has the same capacity to drip-feed cash into the system.
Call it 'Time Gated P2W', 'added sub' P2W, whatever. I'm hoping for something like this in TL for example, similar to BDO's Value Pack. Now, I don't like BDO's Value Pack because BDO itself sucks, but it's basically the equivalent of 'pay the sub fee, get some faster leveling and more storage'.
I'm aware that this is usually a highly controversial position, as it makes people think 'You're taking away things I could use in order to make me then pay for them'. And y'know what? Yes. That's what that is. Servers ain't free and neither are Testers/Boss Mechanics Devs.
I definitely perfer cosmetics only shop to that...
A higher sub fee for the game is a double edged sword as they need enough players for the game to function aswell.... So i really do see cosmetic skins to be "the only way" for additional revenue, without impacting the game too heavily. Of course i do agree its also a slippery slope, that if the cash shop isnt making the revenue they need, with a shop.... the next thought is, what else do we put in this shop.
I'd say Genshin's "sub" ($15) is similar to this, except it's in a f2p game so it's even more fair (if you can even call it that).
Or maybe they just scale the game back and the amount of developers they have later after release. The game is finished at that point and if they are going to make more content they need the player base there to suppose it. If they game isn't good and is losing players and that is what is hurting their revenue there will be les reason for majors expansions for the game.
To low ball only salary cost for them having 180 employees with a flat cost of 50,000 average for all them that is 9 million a year just on that.
50,000 a year is also low balling for a salary isnt it they are based in California, one of the most expensive states as far as living expenses.
And in turn, this depends on the game and what the playerbase and devs feel the game 'is about'.
If anyone told me that Cosmetic skins in Elite Dangerous for your ships was P2W I would have to give that person a good long look because one's RP (if any) in that game does not rely on which cool pearlescent or snake-pattern paintjob your ship has.
But a relatively heavy (or strong option) RolePlaying game, built on Synergy and supposedly based off a PathFinder campaign, with an explicit intent to 'have people want to have one of each Archetype in a group'?
MMOs are social games but not everyone comes into them with a social group already. If your 'standing' in a social group can be affected by the appearance of your gear, there's something there. My question to you would therefore be...
Do you just not care if you 'wanting to be the cool Desert Trader of the impromptu roleplay group that appears to be forming in your Node' is hindered because you didn't buy the cosmetic that makes you look more like the cool Desert Trader but someone else did?
If you don't care, then it's all good. Similarly, I don't care if a player pays an extra $7 a month to get two more chances at opening the Tower Gate without having to run the prerequisite Quest that I have to do.
I will be genuinely upset if it turns out that anyone working full time at Intrepid is making $50,000 a year.
That's great that the game tailors to the way you like to play and makes your experience "easier and quicker" (disregarding risk versus reward). But that doesn't mean that some players don't have an issue with the current cosmetic shop and how it affects visual progression/competition/achievement.
Again tho. The cosmetics dont effect my character effectiveness. I guess in the situation where my party wants to guard a caravan, and another exactly the same stat and ability wise party wanted to guard the same caravan, and the caravan owner picked them because they looked cooler, and it completely had nothing to do with player reputation in game.... sure. I guess in that exact situation the boight cosmetics may have some effect. But the stretching we are doing seems rediculous to me.
Or if you are strickly asking, "if something i wanted relied on how my character looked" and "someone elses character looked the way i NEEDED to because of the shop" i dont see many situation like that existing. But again, if you are going to force me to aline with your purposed examples and values. Sure, i could see the issue.
But when forced to align myself with anyones purpose and values, i wonder to myself why my purpose and values dont matter in this situation of theirs.
Of course. But having 'an issue' and designating that issue as P2W are very different things.
Risk vrs reward and us talking about P2W cosmetics are two different discussions. I tried to reason with them to have them understand using a buzzword in the wrong way isn't going to get them to have a good discussion.
idk I'm not discussing values.
The situation outlined is one where Cosmetics are P2W.
Those situations are not necessarily uncommon in some circles.
I don't think the definition of P2W used by Steven is meant to address RolePlaying at all. Hence 'disingenuously correct'.
In other words:
"Cosmetic shops are P2W"
"Yeah and?"
"Steven said no P2W in this game!"
"That's not what he meant tho."
"It's still P2W!"
"Ok, so Ashes has P2W for roleplayers."
For me this is where the conversation ends. If it ends here for you too, then sounds like you're comfortable and Iridianny is not.
If you feel the need to dispute specifically the first line (which you said you don't) then lots of discussion happens, but the 'opponent' will never budge because... I mean, they're right... from their perspective, they're just not right from Steven's. And that was Iridianny's point.
If you say the game is roleplay heavy and intended to be so, then the outlined situation becomes possible. Similar to how if two people are competing in Crafting in a game and one of them can 'buy a chance to fight a Boss for a Recipe Drop', we don't get to say 'Well you're not paying for Crafting so it's not P2W relative to crafting'.
Roleplayer Hierarchy is serious business. No sarc here.
At this point im just bored and discussing. Making points and responding to points. In my mind its no longer an argument.
Well, you can always discuss it with me but if you do, bear in mind that I'm going along with the definition of 'Win' as 'Got to have an experience you wanted in a space where there was competition for the spot'. I hope we can agree that a situation where what you are able to pay for is RARE does not disqualify it from being P2W.
Ok, so it is. @Iridianny I'm probably not interested enough in this to continue either for the moment. You have my 'help' for what it's worth, in the definition department. It's all yours.
(just remember that I don't actually care about the outcome of this, as seen above)
That's fair. I am able to see both sides. I understand why someone would call the cosmetic shop P2W and I can understand why some do not see it that way.
It just seems like some people in this thread get hung up on the "P2W" portion and just totally dismiss the core of OP's argument. They are unable to see past the fact that since the purchasable cosmetics provide no measurable advantage in game... the cosmetic shop inherently must not have any downside whatsoever or infringe on how people enjoy playing the game. That's just not the case.
I understand you don't like that they used the term "P2W"... But just because you don't like it doesn't mean their opinion should be deemed invalid or automatically dismissed. But like I said in other replies, I can see the argument from both sides.
And that is why video games became popular over tabletop games. Visuals.
Say what now?
I can definitely believe that you've never experienced this, if you tell me so. But I can also assure you that it does happen. If you're absolutely convinced that this never happened, even when people were playing just MUDs...
If you think this can't happen in Roblox...
Then I won't say anything, but I'll repeat it again for those capable of believing it.
Roleplayer Hierarchy is serious business. Some 'storylines' do NOT work with 'more than one person trying to be the same character slot', and when that happens, it is INDEED the better RolePlayer or better fit (sometimes this means 'most visually obvious to others outside the main RP group) that gets the slot.
You can keep defending the argument and asking one side to ignore the p2w argument, but at the same time... the other side of the argument coukd move away from the p2w argument and have a more reasonable stance like the cosmetic shop is negative overall for the game, because {blank}
It takes both sides to keep an argument stationary.
I am glad to hear that, since whatever prior interaction I've had with you on this forum resulted in you getting onto my ignore list, and if it was for the usual 'let me avoid this person for the sake of the forums' reason, I'd probably remember it.
Best not to assume we're aligned on anything though, even though I appreciate your ability to in turn, appreciate ... 'consistent perspective', perhaps?
Note that I mention this for the usual reason. If you are on my ignore list, using the @ function does not send me a message and I cannot be summoned. This is the only reason I generally bring this up, you get additional context because I figure that just saying that and not why might be rude.
As someone who has run multiple rp guilds in mmos, participated in many other’s rp guilds, and have been the focal point of rp communities by facilitating numerous server wide events… it’s 100% serious.
Ehhh.. ill give you like... 98% serious. 100% is a stretch
I've done enough rps and know enough people, my uncle would slap me on the back of my head if I said i won in rp.
You aren't in a group bragging about your character saying i have better looking gear than you. You are playing your character and building your story be it in a group or alone.
When we are strictly talking about RP with your words, the story and of course you look plays some part of it. You aren't walking up to someone being like I win in rp people would look at you funny and you would be breaking the immersion. If you are thinking on anything else besides that we can talk about that and see if that relates to actual Roleplaying.
I understand you are trying to be fair to this person but you can't honestly tell me Roleplay has anything to do with winning. Role play is not the objective your party is doing or the combat as the example you used was about the look of your character in relation to pay to win. A outfit doesn't make you a better roleplayer or give you any kind of advantage your own skills and creative thoughts is what does that.