What almost every one of them does is gives you a chance to either test drive it yourself or see someone else use it. This lets you get an appreciation for the item, which makes you want to buy it more. When they give you something good that's time limited, it leaves you wanting for more of it.
One of the best examples of this I have found was in Atlantica Online. They'd give you a free Teleport License for one week. The idea is it let you fast travel to any of the 50 or so towns without having to go into a town first. You also didn't have to pay the fee to fast travel to a different town, which could get pretty expensive sometimes. When that Teleport License expired, people felt really limited. As such, almost every single high level still bought the Teleport License and a bit of a bonus in a pack for like $10 a month. They basically got to keep their Free 2 Play/Micro-transaction description, but also got to collect a subscription fee every month from a lot of their players.
It's almost amazing that people need to have this explained to them isn't it?
110% speed is downright addictive. I'm so glad I bought Zen with my AD and bought my Heavy Worg.
It not only made leveling my Guardian Fighter a lot faster, it also allows me to run past mobs I really don't feel like fighting, which was the biggest problem I found with the 5 gold horses. You're just not fast enough to outrun them with 50% speed and you get knocked off easily with 3 attacks(since most mobs late game come with 2-3 ranged).
Not to mention you can get to zone related events faster than other people with those 5 g mounts and WIN!
It's almost amazing that people need to have this explained to them isn't it?
If you guys' theory was right, the rental tokens would give you 80 or 110 mounts. So that when the teleport license, er, mount rental ran out and you could easily afford a gold mount, you would still be in withdrawl and feel "forced" to get a fast zen mount.
As it is, the rental mounts are basically the same speed as the gold mounts, and the rental period is plenty long enough to get enough gold to afford one of the gold mounts (so, no delay period where you're stuck on foot). This doesn't fit the cash-grab/"forced to spend zen" tactics that you're describing. /shrug
(just to make the record clear, I've never bought a gold mount - I knew I'd be making lots of alts, so I spent $5 on the basic zen mount back when my first character hit 20. It's saved me a pile 'o gold since then. And during the "launch" sale, I traded in some AD to get the cheapest 110 horse. Yeah, it's nice.... but I never felt forced to get it. Eh, whatever.)
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arathelyaMember, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Hero UsersPosts: 2Arc User
edited July 2013
If you played beta you would have experienced a time when the base level mounts were 2g50s.
When the game went to pseudo-launch (veiled as open beta...) the price doubled to 5g and you got the tokens.
Whilst 5g isn't too crazy there isn't really a good reason to have done this. You already get a quest/message about mounts so the tokens aren't a public service to ensure you know that mounts exist in-game.
Someone suggested economic reasons (forget which poster, don't care to read 4 pages of speculation again to find out) but removing an extra 2g50s per character would have essentially 0 impact on the entire economy, especially when you consider the very small amount of things that gold is actually used for.
I'd say it is a sales ploy. Some % of players will get to 20, not have the gold and just buy a zen mount. That might not be you (if you're sensible it isn't) but I don't think it's difficult to understand why a change like this would have increased zen purchases, even if only slightly.
All of that said, as much as it might seem strange or <font color="orange">HAMSTER</font> you off, it's a far subtler way of goading you into buying zen than exists in the rest of the game. At least they give you an alternative (tokens) to satisfy your needs until you can afford the 5g mount.
As far as mount complaints go, your best off campaigning to get some price reduction happening. $40 is pretty exorbitant for a mount (yes you get it on all future chars on the same account, but purchases shouldn't represent value for money only after spending more [more character slots]) and not having an epic mount in PvP puts you at a definite disadvantage, particularly if they start releasing larger pvp maps.
Comments
It's almost amazing that people need to have this explained to them isn't it?
Not to mention you can get to zone related events faster than other people with those 5 g mounts and WIN!
If you guys' theory was right, the rental tokens would give you 80 or 110 mounts. So that when the teleport license, er, mount rental ran out and you could easily afford a gold mount, you would still be in withdrawl and feel "forced" to get a fast zen mount.
As it is, the rental mounts are basically the same speed as the gold mounts, and the rental period is plenty long enough to get enough gold to afford one of the gold mounts (so, no delay period where you're stuck on foot). This doesn't fit the cash-grab/"forced to spend zen" tactics that you're describing. /shrug
(just to make the record clear, I've never bought a gold mount - I knew I'd be making lots of alts, so I spent $5 on the basic zen mount back when my first character hit 20. It's saved me a pile 'o gold since then. And during the "launch" sale, I traded in some AD to get the cheapest 110 horse. Yeah, it's nice.... but I never felt forced to get it. Eh, whatever.)
When the game went to pseudo-launch (veiled as open beta...) the price doubled to 5g and you got the tokens.
Whilst 5g isn't too crazy there isn't really a good reason to have done this. You already get a quest/message about mounts so the tokens aren't a public service to ensure you know that mounts exist in-game.
Someone suggested economic reasons (forget which poster, don't care to read 4 pages of speculation again to find out) but removing an extra 2g50s per character would have essentially 0 impact on the entire economy, especially when you consider the very small amount of things that gold is actually used for.
I'd say it is a sales ploy. Some % of players will get to 20, not have the gold and just buy a zen mount. That might not be you (if you're sensible it isn't) but I don't think it's difficult to understand why a change like this would have increased zen purchases, even if only slightly.
All of that said, as much as it might seem strange or <font color="orange">HAMSTER</font> you off, it's a far subtler way of goading you into buying zen than exists in the rest of the game. At least they give you an alternative (tokens) to satisfy your needs until you can afford the 5g mount.
As far as mount complaints go, your best off campaigning to get some price reduction happening. $40 is pretty exorbitant for a mount (yes you get it on all future chars on the same account, but purchases shouldn't represent value for money only after spending more [more character slots]) and not having an epic mount in PvP puts you at a definite disadvantage, particularly if they start releasing larger pvp maps.