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.
Microtransactions and the possibility of it ruining the game.
Hi everyone,
Heard about the game yesterday from LazyPeon and it looks like the perfect MMO most of us have been looking for for a long time.
As there is no search function, i couldn't find any similar topics so here it goes. Also i know it is still very early to talk about these things but all developers and publishers should be made aware of it.
Archeage was in my humble opinion the best sandbox MMO ever released until Trion gave in to their greed and turned the game into a P2W fest. You can never win by doing shady business such as lying to your customers either. Archeage would still be popular if it wasn't for Trion. They possibly made a ton of money in 3 years but their reputation is destroyed. The game could still be alive if they showed even a small bit of common sense but yeah we know how that went.
Your referral system motto is great, you are giving people cash back to be used in store but i suggest you keep it cosmetics and mounts only. The moment you start selling crafting related stuff (Assuming crafting will be a big part of the game) is the moment the game will collapse. You can make just as much money by selling very cool looking outfits.
I'm tired of seeing the games i like disappear because of poor microtransaction decisions and dishonesty.
Heard about the game yesterday from LazyPeon and it looks like the perfect MMO most of us have been looking for for a long time.
As there is no search function, i couldn't find any similar topics so here it goes. Also i know it is still very early to talk about these things but all developers and publishers should be made aware of it.
Archeage was in my humble opinion the best sandbox MMO ever released until Trion gave in to their greed and turned the game into a P2W fest. You can never win by doing shady business such as lying to your customers either. Archeage would still be popular if it wasn't for Trion. They possibly made a ton of money in 3 years but their reputation is destroyed. The game could still be alive if they showed even a small bit of common sense but yeah we know how that went.
Your referral system motto is great, you are giving people cash back to be used in store but i suggest you keep it cosmetics and mounts only. The moment you start selling crafting related stuff (Assuming crafting will be a big part of the game) is the moment the game will collapse. You can make just as much money by selling very cool looking outfits.
I'm tired of seeing the games i like disappear because of poor microtransaction decisions and dishonesty.
0
Comments
If the devs can replicate or improve upon this business model I think this game will enjoy consistent success and player base just like Warframe
However, I understand that MMOs these days want more income than a subscription provides, I just wish there was another way.
People say costumes, and there goes a market for Tailors. Mounts, there goes a market for breeders. ETC.
I'm an old MMO player who remembers the days before Cash Shops, longingly.
The developers are gamers themselves. They know that microtransactions are bad and shouldn't be in any game, but it is necessary to support the game, hence why they will have a cosmetic shop. I only hope that they truly understand that XP and currency (do AoC use gold?) boosts are P2W and not Pay for convenience. Especially in a game that is so dependent on player progression for how the world shapes.
I will never complain about microtransactions for pure cosmetic items. I will however stand up if they add special boosts to shop cosmetics. For example, mounts has 10% more movement speed compared to same rarity mounts found in the game. Or certain costumes add more HP and MP.
Tho' come to think of it, the "money bomb" talked about would be fun if kept to holidays and similar events.
Anywhooo, ESO had a sub based model and it has changed to a hybrid sub and/or cash shop model. If a franchise with many games and a built-in fan base had to change then it doesn't bode well for the sub model. Hopefully we'll see enough players subscribe to keep AoC afloat without having to resort to anything beyond cosmetics and mounts.
If you're living in Asia especially in Korea you would not complain at all about p2w cash shops. Why?
1. You can link your CreditCard to a certain game/company. Every time you spend money on something no matter what it is you will get a certain % of the money you've spend as cash shop currency for a certain game or for your game account.
2. 90% of the time when you order food you will get a shit ton of coupons. However while in EU/NA you usually get food Gift certificates when ordering food (or if you purchase stuff online) you will get a lot of game codes in Asia/Korea instead.
3. They love gambling. RNG crates are in literally every single game no matter what genre. No idea why but it seems like they dislike games without RNG crates.
__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Once an Asian game gets released in EU/NA no matter what publisher it is - they usually dont have the power over the cash shop. It's the asian developer who decides what items will be on the cash shop not the EU/NA publisher. The only thing they can do is simply tell them what the community is asking for - however they usually dont care at all about the community since it's just an easy and quick way for them to earn even more money if they release there games in EU/NA.
__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Since AoC is made and published by a western company i'm actually 90% sure that we wont see any p2w in the cash shop at all. Not to mention that the devs clearly dislike p2w.
Asian games have a 100% chance to be p2w within the first 6 months after release.
ArcheAge - Black Desert - Tera - Revelation - Bless - ect ect
They all baited players with little to no p2w at the start and then suddenly turned into cash grab games.
At least most people where smart enough to refund there entire money once these games went p2w mode.
__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
On the other hand you have several MMO's who where mostly made in EU/NA that have barely any p2w elements and generated by far a much higher playerbase because of that.
WoW: 10 million active accounts after almost every single new Addon
ESO: 8 million active accounts across all platforms in 02.17 after the Addon announcement
GW2: No official numbers but it's far away from beeing a dead game
<em>And then you have Asian MMO's..</em>
Other than FFXIV they are all so low when it comes to player population BDO has 250k in 2k17 and i dont even want to now the amount of<strong> active players</strong> for most other MMO's.
__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
If done right a fair b2p or p2p MMO with a decent cash shop like GW/ESO will be more successful in the long run.
i f d o n e r i g h t
I do not really have anything against microtransactions though. The reason they are so popular is because of how much revenue they can generate for the game. If this leads to a decreasing (or no) subscription costs, even better!
[/quote]
It's been said that the same cosmetics in the shop will be available in game as well. Honestly, as I get older, I'm able to just shell out the $20 because I have more money, but less time to grind. Some people I know actually enjoy grinding, and others are into it by necessity. When I was in college playing Lineage 2, all my money went to books (beer) and food (craft beer) so I given the option between paying and grinding, i took grinding.
I'm glad we have an option here, and that we aren't forced into a situation where we are forced to grind vs pay for anything that's not cosmetic.
I generally thumb my nose at B2P/Subscription games with cash shops. More so B2P because they sneak in items such as boosters and the sorts. The cash shop here seems it'll be "well you can grind this fancy looking cosmetic or just pay up front". Of course it's great on paper but we'll see how it's executed. Hopefully it'll be something not TOO tedious to where it'll be a "well just throw money at it I'll never get it" and the sorts.
[/quote]
I hope that they will stand by that.
Micro transactions have ruined games many times over.
I sincerely hope they will limit it do that.
[/quote]
I also would prefer to have at least a certain amount of extravagant looking armors (depending on the style of the game overall) and if you want more pay for it.
Additionally it would be cool not to mix cash shop and ingame costumes like ArcheAge did. I mean it's pretty stupid to offer the same "skin" in a gambling box or grind a few weeks for it.
Having observed how it was done with AA (and hearing 2nd hand about BDO), it seems like one of the causes of issues for people is if there's a dramatic change to it. "It was fine until you added X" or "you said you wouldn't do it and then you did it" seem common.
Cosmetics only is a big promise and one I hope that isn't too difficult to stick to.
If the devs can replicate or improve upon this business model I think this game will enjoy consistent success and player base just like Warframe
[/quote]
You cannot have a F2P MMO without making it P2W. So no It either stays P2P or countless people leave the game period and it becomes nothing but ArcheAge because you need Whales to paying for people who dont pay. There is no Improvement upon a P2P because you either pay or go somewhere else.
Having both a cash shop AND a sub-fee was one of the major arguments against The Secret World when it launched (not to mention all the other issues), and as a result it was doomed to failure.
Just take whatever you where going to put in the cash shop and let players craft it instead. If you want more long-term cash you should make DLCs or even better full expansions for it.
Oh and for the love of god don't sell life-time subscriptions because all the dedicated players will buy them and eventually you will lose most of your future revenue.
Having both a cash shop AND a sub-fee was one of the major arguments against The Secret World when it launched (not to mention all the other issues), and as a result it was doomed to failure.
Just take whatever you where going to put in the cash shop and let players craft it instead. If you want more long-term cash you should make DLCs or even better full expansions for it.
Oh and for the love of god don’t sell life-time subscriptions because all the dedicated players will buy them and eventually you will lose most of your future revenue.
[/quote]
I agree with every part of this.
I simply don't trust a cash shop and what it could become, no matter how good the intentions are from Intrepid. I get that if the game ends up not doing so well they might have to go the Microtransaction route and they'll already have a shop set up, hopefully that doesn't happen. I would rather they trust their sub model and build upon that.
The idea of lifetime subscriptions can really backfire on them if regular subs decline and a large part of your player base is pretty much playing for free This kind of happened with Lotro and they ended up having to go f2p. I haven't seen many lifetime subs offered in other games and I reckon there's a good reason for that.
Ultimately I'm delighted Ashes will be a sub game and that's the most important thing for me.
Once a substantial portion of the player base has achieved certain levels (or whatever the metric that most makes sense is) I think it is okay to have items like exp boosts that only help lower levels advance more quickly and only to a point still a ways below the top of the curve. I think GW2 has something like this, where they only work for characters below a certain level and only add a helpful but not game-breaking amount of benefit.
I'm by no means sure this is a good thing, but at the moment, I wouldn't be opposed to it showing up slowly over time as it would still require players to do the last 20% (based on wherever the end-line is) on their own with no help. But it would generate revenue (which, believe it or not is very important) for the developer/publisher and help keep the influx of new players more steady since the carrot doesn't continue to move farther away with each passing month.