Someone who wouldn't buy one for $10 might buy 10 for $10... so you'd get that $10 instead of zero money.
And yet, all those programmer's salaries are being paid. People do buy things. Cryptic does make money. You have no clue how many $10 Coalescent wards they sell, only they do.
My gut feeling is $10 is over-priced, but I don't have any actual data to back that up. Cryptic does. I very strongly suspect they have someone that looks at Zen market data closely and sets prices to maximize profit. If they could make more by dropping coalescent ward prices, they would.
Certainly that could be possible. 75 tradebars was likely too attractive a price, $10 is likely too expensive. However when seening some inflation the correct answer isn't for the fed to increase interest rates to 25%. When you have a product that is not performing you don't yank its availability or drastically increase its price in one go. You make adjustments, observe the changes and go from there.
The appropriate change to make here if they thought there was a problem would be to change the price in the TTB store. Not to delete them.
makes me super glad i stopped buying zen. you know, i came to this game because of the chance to play D&D in a reasonable fashion. each mod has taken it further from the feel of the original game. slapping names from D&D onto barely recognizable mechanics was lame, but hey, better than the other attempts right? years later, and this is a travesty for the name of D&D. as many mistakes as were made in the original over the years, they still never did anything this greedy and dumb.
So this game is becoming even more alt unfriendly? Great.
It would prob behoove Cryptic to try to release a significant buff alongside any major nerf like this (and I'm not talking about one-time compensations). Like in this case- okay Coal Wards are taken out of the trade bar exchange, but then up their drop rate in invocation coffers, and/or allow it to drop as a reward for doing any of the weekly AD quests.
Even if this change was done 'for the good of the economy', player perception matters, and this sort of business model certainly won't win over most customers.
Well, I'll add another post to the mix, because I can.
I'm not jumping off buildings over the change, but it still sucks. Primarily it hurts alts and those that play with alts. One of the most expensive things in game to do is rank up enchantments. Now, the only realistic way will be to use real money. You may be able to get enough from RNG on those celestial bags to get a couple ranks up, but if you are the type that likes to play several characters, that simply won't be enough. Not only does the price of a coal ward go up, the enchant prices will go up and as we know for each enchant you want to rank up, you need not only the marks, the coal ward (cause 1%) you also need another enchant of equal rank to the one you want to improve. All of that is going to be more difficult, e.g. costly to acquire. I was just starting to have fun building my DC and OP now that my CW is a 3.3 ilvl. I'm seriously wondering if I should bother now as I don't pump in more than the occasional $10-$20 for a treat.
With VIP and a rare zen key purchase you usually get very little out of the lockboxes - most people I've met anyway - but you could count on those trade bars which were useful in building up your alts.
If the problem was that the price was too low, then increase the number of trade bars a bit. If the problem was that there weren't enough zen sales, then why not offer other things that people would want to buy.
Why not have some designers work on some nice new gear appearances, and no not clothes, actual armors. No stats, just for appearance. I would certainly fork over a little more $$ to acquire that really sweet new armor look if it was there. There is already a lack of variety in the armor options, some more choices would be great. Make them zen only purchases, there are no stats so it's not P2W, just P2lookcool.
Add some services like a token to unbind your artifact or mount and change it to BoA so you could move that awesome Axe Beak to an alt now that you don't need the ArPen anymore.
There are plenty of fun, cool options that could be added to the Zen store for Zen only purchasing that won't break the power balance and would entice players to spend. I don't see completely removing the wards from the TBar store as something that is going to fix an economy that really doesn't feel broken (compared the last 1-2 years anyway.) The biggest impact I see, is that players will play less and potentially spend less. Lately, a lot of my time was spent working on alts knowing that I would be able to gear them up reasonably well without breaking the bank and impacting my main character. I'm not so sure that's doable anymore, so when I'm done with the few things my main does on a daily basis, if it's a slow guild night, I'm going to be apt to just shut the game down rather than jump to an alt and grind out the campaigns again.
I'm just not seeing the upside especially when there were alternatives to generate income without hurting your reputation and/or the player experience.
With the lack of elite dungeons in Mod9, the Mount money sink and now the Trade Bar store, I worry for the player base. I still plan on being here playing the game likely less often and that is too bad.
Just my two Lincolns on the change.
Really sensible ideas here Crizpy. Unfortunately, the term sensible is anathema to them
Of course you use the most favorable Zax rate and not the current (and likely future one). Meanwhile you make wildly positive estimates on income.
One person for 40 days that got the worst loot? I know of 3. I have gotten a few good things over the ~6 monthes of VIP. But there are at least 3 monthes where I got essentially nothing other then the T-bars, and over the month about an equivalent value to the keys. No complain there, its just gambling and you're not supposed to be 'profiting'.
Sometimes you'll make it, and sometimes you won't. But playing scrath-its to pay the rent isn't a reliable way of doing anything. ..and its not a viable way of planning a game you want to play vs the amount of money they are asking for.
I do not mind paying some. When I pay some however I expect there to be a standard of value that doesn't get undermined at every turn. The last changes before these were good ones, and cheered me up as I was beginning to sour on the economy and the grind. It was unlikely I was every going to achieve a character that could live in the PVE world respectably. Then I could.
Now .. there is no way I can comparitvely improve my characters other then constant grinding, more then a full-time job, over old tired content. Ill pass. ..and so will many others it seems.
vip 1 month 1000 zen : coupon 15% 850 zen. exchange 370 ad per zen =314500 astral diamonds. enchanted key 125 zen -40% coupon it goes 75 zen . 75x30= 2250 zen x370 = 832500. what we have here? 1. you buy vip 1 month 314500. 2. in your pocket staying 518000 otherwise you could give 832500 to get x30 keys with coupon 40%. 3. your loot even if is a black ice pack is 5800 ad. in the worst case you will get 174000 astral diamonds. 4. tarmalune tradebars: even if you get 3 per day is 90. lets say enchant level 7 give 9000 ad each. 9000 x15=135000. 5. 174000+135000 =309000. that means -5000 but show me one person in 30 days got the worst loot of all in the lockbox. 6. i will say the average number since opened many lockboxes is 20000 per key. that finally means you gave 314500 and you get 135000+600000=735000-314500 =420500. WITH new changes with current prices you are +420500 ad per month so you will renew your vip or not?.
You have shown us no proof that the Coal Wards have changed our game economy in a negative way, in fact most of us are happier with the economy then we have been in a long time. What you are forcing us to do is open our wallets to pay an outrageous price for upgrades. This will have one of 3 outcomes.....People will quit and take their money elsewhere to games that know how to manage a free to play economy....ALOT more people will be buying from 3rd parties because they will want to keep playing but will not want to pay your outrageous 10$ price.....Or they will continue to play but never spend another dollar on Zen even though their own gaming experience will suffer(because all their friends are here). If you are having financial issues why not be honest about it and let us know you need donations, or you could make the Zen store prices reasonable as opposed to outlandish and increase the options available in it. If you lower your prices a bit people will spend more and more people will spend....simple economics. I am not a long time player and have rarely found anything to complain about loving this game for all the time I have played but this decision was obviously made by people with no experience in the Neverwinter gaming community because I have not seen a single response thinking this is a good idea and already know multiple people that plan on quitting simply because you are forcing us to spend money to progress....this game is no longer free to play...it is only free to play for a little while and that is a sad thing for you to do to those of us who have spent money and supported you. I hope you all come to realize the mistake and fix it soon.
I don't know, but I think they have been doing a lot of damage all a long. I noticed the chance of getting a good item from the boxes, has really dropped. I don't mean one of the high end items either, I just mean something that was actually useful. I used to get one good item, off from every $30.00 spent, it has taken $70.00 this last time. So even buying the keys has not been very worth it.
I may not be the best player in the world, but at least I learn my Toon, and how to play them. b:laugh
Since what I bought with VIP was detrimentally changed from my perspective I'll be detrimentally changing my spending habits from Cryptics perspective. I also love the short notice on this change in order to not allow players to spend their bars in order to stock up on C. wards. Shady business practices...
I'm very sad to see that awful decision Cryptic has taken! I have been a fan of Cryptic since 2010, when I started Champions Online! I really enjoyed that game and that's why I tried NW as well! It is a pretty decent game so far! I have been playing for 4 months now and I managed with hard work to buy 3 months worth of VIP! I only did that for bars because lets face it I'm not getting an epic mount or companion soon! Now you guys removed the only worthwhile things from store so what am I supposed to do with my three months of VIP? It is pretty unfair to take such a decision for people who work hard to upgrade and want to enjoy the game! Many people are already furious about this event and it may lead to drive even more away! Please you have to reconsider your actions and bring the refining items back!
Since what I bought with VIP was detrimentally changed from my perspective I'll be detrimentally changing my spending habits from Cryptics perspective. I also love the short notice on this change in order to not allow players to spend their bars in order to stock up on C. wards. Shady business practices...
This way when everyone who sticks with the game and dumped all their trade bars sees the mount change coming will need to buy more keys for a shot at mounts and trade bars for the mounts in the trade bar store. Nice way to get folks to dump their stores and need to refill later.
Since what I bought with VIP was detrimentally changed from my perspective I'll be detrimentally changing my spending habits from Cryptics perspective. I also love the short notice on this change in order to not allow players to spend their bars in order to stock up on C. wards. Shady business practices...
Well said. Im surprised this hasn't been brought up before (I just got through reading the whole thread). The sudden announcement right before update is not as bad as what seems to have happened on xbox, but still pretty underhanded.
Fascinating. I am usually the first to get grumpy and say mean things about changes. It's funny that all the changes the previous posters loved, I was really annoyed with and this change I think doesn't make the slightest bit of difference. Anyone who claims to have levelled up because of the coalescent wards in the Trade Bar store, as I've seen at least one person say, has seriously played very badly. I do not see the problem here. When I started NWO, Coalescent wards were rare and really exciting to get, not so much now. My biggest complaint is how easy this game has been made. Every challenge has been eliminated and all a player needs to do is grind through the zones for xp. No thinking required.
I would like to thank the Devs for giving the Coalescent Ward, Preservation Wards, and Blood Ruby in our in-game mail. They did not have to do this and that generosity is typical of Cryptic and PWI. I play STO, Champions, and Perfect World and despite some gripes, over all I have been fairly pleased.
I am not a long time player and have rarely found anything to complain about loving this game for all the time I have played but this decision was obviously made by people with no experience in the Neverwinter gaming community because I have not seen a single response thinking this is a good idea and already know multiple people that plan on quitting simply because you are forcing us to spend money to progress....this game is no longer free to play...it is only free to play for a little while and that is a sad thing for you to do to those of us who have spent money and supported you. I hope you all come to realize the mistake and fix it soon.
I HAVE been playing this game for quite a long time and the notion that anyone has to spend one penny to advance or succeed is ludicrous. I invite people to play NWO all the time with the comment that "it is completely and totally free to play from zero to seventy." And it is. Anyone saying differently clearly has an agenda, most likely a PvPer who wants the absolute max in gear. For those who are quitting, sayonara, thanks for all the fish, and your absence will make all the more room for the rest of us
Not only this game has never been free to play, but it is way more expensive than any subscription game or other freemium games on the market. We all want to make money and that is ok but what Cryptic does is not ok. Even if they are legally protected by the EULA's, it is still abusive practice. Now it is up for players to decide whether they will accept being exploited one more time or if they will stand against this tyrannic business model by not purchasing zen or vip. As someone who has spent money in this game, I can say that I won't pay $10 on a coal ward. I won't pay 5 mil on a perfect vorpal when my AD income is incredibly low, and for sure I won't renew vip because who cares about travel post or summon mailbox. And don't tell me that the vip ad boost and decreased mark costs are worth because it simply isn't true.
Just do the math on how much you need to spend in coal wards to obtain a rank 11 or 12 enchant and multiply it by the number of slots you have available. Unless you enjoy playing a 1k gs scrub and getting rekt, you won't be finding much joy in this game as it is now.
After all the work, the time, effort of going through getting enchats just to level 8-9 mostly and artifacts up to max level ( Just waiting on getting enough Greater marks to finish them to Mythic as well as the Wards for it, or was... ) and you pull this pile of BS??? I'm currently VIP Rank 6, it will go not higher, as I'm not going to support this game any longer with any purchases from your crappy, overpriced Zen Store. I'm thinking I may just go back to Tera, as I'm so not impressed with how little you give us to begin with. It's bad enough the only bloody way to get enough inventory space to do a damn thing is you have to buy Zen. It's bad enough that you took away so many cool dungeons from the game that could have been left in for people of the dungeon's level to go in and have something different other than the same 3 all the damn time.
I've been back only 4 or 5 months in this game, I'm already starting to hate the direction the Devs go. Then you get this lying sack of horse dung shoving this HAMSTER at us like we're going to believe it's about the Economy? The only thing wrecking your Economy is you! Cryptic it's all your fault. You leave the BOTS in the game, you give them freedom to do what they want. YOU let your servers go to hell on a nightly basis because you don't know how to protect from DDO attacks, YOU are the ones that need to pay better attention to what is really important. Some of us actually do work for a living and can't be here to farm 24/7 like BOTS do to gather up all the stuff they can to sell and get millions of AD on a regular basis. Those Trade Bars were not a problem. Those Rubies, Wards and such you could have made them BoA and that would have stopped them from being put on the AH or sold online externally from the game.
You really do not give a rats HAMSTER about the people that have spent hard earned money for the Mounts, Bags, and your over the top priced Packs to open up certain races, etc... You're a bunch of greedy SoB's that I'm quite fed up with now and wouldn't give you the time of day. You're now worse than Sony, EA and Warner Bros. put together! Congradulations on that! That is something I never thought anyone would want to achieve!
Great job shafting all the VIP Players - can we get a refund? since there literally is no freeking point being VIP anymore.
Not sure if you noticed but this has gone down horribley.
SHOOT THE DIPSHT WHO DECIDED THIS ONE!
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drwarpeffectMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 71Arc User
When I started this game my brother challenged me to play it with only 1 character because I was famous for running insane numbers of alts in the long line of games from EQ up thru DAoC (and others) and on into WoW. I challenged myself to play it without spending a single penny (even though I spend money regularly in other F2P games) until I felt that PWI was charging reasonable prices for a reasonable return. This change simply repeats a constant stream of overly greedy decisions. Suffice it to say that I have played since the beginning with only 1 toon and still have not spent a single penny, nor does it look like I will any time soon. Nothing like making a big investment in leadership assets or VIP service and then have it gutted with little or no warning by PWI. I still can't believe the move to a level 70 cap brought me only the opportunity to replay the level 60 content as a gimped 70 and get killed by mobs I used to routinely solo. I still cannot solo some of the dailies I used to do everyday.
I don't begrudge a company the need to make a profit, heck I want them to make a profit if I like the game so i can keep playing it. BUT, provide me adequate VALUE for my money and EARN that profit. PWI has it backwards, don't try to FORCE me to spend, make me WANT to spend.
Im going to get so rich after this patch, got so lucky i managed to buy 10 million worth of this before price raised, im not doing anymore crappy missions in this game, from now on, i do just what i want, ty cryptic, you just made me a ingame millionaire
I would appreciate you to not read my signature, now that you did, dont do it again.
I still can't believe the move to a level 70 cap brought me only the opportunity to replay the level 60 content as a gimped 70 and get killed by mobs I used to routinely solo. I still cannot solo some of the dailies I used to do everyday.
That's absolutely right. Mod 6 was the most pathetic mod ever released and really crippled the game for many people. Going back to the main topic though, the sad part of all of this is that players will keep accepting this abuse and spending money because they may be attached to the game. Cryptic repeats its cycle of abuse because the players accept it. Supply and demand right? There seems to be a high demand for this game, otherwise devs wouldn't do this kind of stuff.
yowza, thats an hour of my life i wont get back reading 16 pages of comments.
money money money, must be funny, in a rich mans world....... or If I were a rich man, Yubby dibby dibby dibby dibby dibby dibby dum.
I dont think i can add anything really, its pretty much all been said
i guess the one thing i didnt see was nobody seem to mention the ardent coin boxes (the 11 coin ones) which do produce some coal wards, yes it aint much or often but they do produce and im betting most of the players commenting have several if not loads of alts, i have 1 main and 6 alts and have had 6 coal wards since january, maybe i got lucky or maybe they drop more then theyre supposed to but im trying to see all this from a different perspective cos i still love this game.
yes we get bent over and get spanked by uper management who want 'mo money' but u cant blame the devs, they do as they are told its their job.
i suppose tho with the mass exodus which may take place I will have to queue longer to get my dailies done but hey ho life goes on.
Im going to get so rich after this patch, got so lucky i managed to buy 10 million worth of this before price raised, im not doing anymore crappy missions in this game, from now on, i do just what i want, ty cryptic, you just made me a ingame millionaire </p>
of course you have to have fellow players to actually buy stuff from you though =P
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mamalion1234Member, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 3,415Arc User
I bought vip level 12 for all bonuses. they took away wards ok. Is still good for me.
Its like giving a 9 y/o an unwrapped lollipop and take it back after 30 seconds, saying there is something wrong.. Then drop the lollipop into a pile of cow dung and give it back to the kid...
Welp, I can't add anything to all that has been said but... why the extended maintenance? Why are you doing it now? I'm scared... Of course, there is not much you can take now, unless... you wanna remove marks of potency from bazaar and put them in zen store of something like that? Or... is it something else?
What is broken now that needs to be fixed besides the thousands of things already broken? Cause I know you fix stuff every once in a while... But this... I don't trust... We will see once the super long maintenance is over.
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dademon1982Member, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 21Arc User
Stuck with this game since open release, and all its nerfs, but this one is really making me think of leaving, still undecided.....
I find it really telling, that despite their promise of "more communication" and "more transparency", not a single dev/CM has posted a response either here on the 16+ (and still counting) pages of forum rant, nor on the facebook rant...
Its like giving a 9 y/o an unwrapped lollipop and take it back after 30 seconds, saying there is something wrong.. Then drop the lollipop into a pile of cow dung and give it back to the kid...
ROFL!!! funny thing is i could see people at cryptic specially the NWO staff doing exactly what you described.
Kirk eyes a young female romulan put on her EV suit then her head dissapears.
Kirk : My god bones...her head is gone :eek:
Mccoy : DAMNIT JIM!! im a doctor not a game developer
Hehe, I was wondering the same when I saw that post :-)
The poster provided the actual proof to contradict what he was saying.
It's events such as this that I think make us think twice about logging back into the game. Quite disappointing. Those items were the only ones worth spending Bars on. They might as well remove the Tarmalune stuff altogether. I now have a few thousand bars with nothing to spend it on. I'm very puzzled at such an anti-customer action.
Ahh actually that shows a steady linear drop from the beginning to present. Thats with new content and mods coming online. You realize that new content is supposed to increase demand for a game right?
Ther eason they did the low price was they were trying to hide the fact that Underdark was a complete and utter failure.
Who says it was a failure? I rather enjoyed the mod for a while (though it's not enough content to last until the next module). Steam charts shows a pretty steady user base over the last 3 months (and more-or-less over the last 9 months).
Comments
The appropriate change to make here if they thought there was a problem would be to change the price in the TTB store. Not to delete them.
good job guys, good job. /s
It would prob behoove Cryptic to try to release a significant buff alongside any major nerf like this (and I'm not talking about one-time compensations). Like in this case- okay Coal Wards are taken out of the trade bar exchange, but then up their drop rate in invocation coffers, and/or allow it to drop as a reward for doing any of the weekly AD quests.
Even if this change was done 'for the good of the economy', player perception matters, and this sort of business model certainly won't win over most customers.
<CO docs> .: Petco :. // Base DPS Sheet (needs revision) // PSA on Power Activation Delay
- Themed Tanks // Misc Build Dump // Ayonachan's Gift Horse (stat data)
- Be safe and have fun, champs - for science!
One person for 40 days that got the worst loot? I know of 3. I have gotten a few good things over the ~6 monthes of VIP. But there are at least 3 monthes where I got essentially nothing other then the T-bars, and over the month about an equivalent value to the keys. No complain there, its just gambling and you're not supposed to be 'profiting'.
Sometimes you'll make it, and sometimes you won't. But playing scrath-its to pay the rent isn't a reliable way of doing anything. ..and its not a viable way of planning a game you want to play vs the amount of money they are asking for.
I do not mind paying some. When I pay some however I expect there to be a standard of value that doesn't get undermined at every turn. The last changes before these were good ones, and cheered me up as I was beginning to sour on the economy and the grind. It was unlikely I was every going to achieve a character that could live in the PVE world respectably. Then I could.
Now .. there is no way I can comparitvely improve my characters other then constant grinding, more then a full-time job, over old tired content. Ill pass. ..and so will many others it seems.
A frustrated Cryptic fan!
Im surprised this hasn't been brought up before (I just got through reading the whole thread). The sudden announcement right before update is not as bad as what seems to have happened on xbox, but still pretty underhanded.
I would like to thank the Devs for giving the Coalescent Ward, Preservation Wards, and Blood Ruby in our in-game mail. They did not have to do this and that generosity is typical of Cryptic and PWI. I play STO, Champions, and Perfect World and despite some gripes, over all I have been fairly pleased. I HAVE been playing this game for quite a long time and the notion that anyone has to spend one penny to advance or succeed is ludicrous. I invite people to play NWO all the time with the comment that "it is completely and totally free to play from zero to seventy." And it is. Anyone saying differently clearly has an agenda, most likely a PvPer who wants the absolute max in gear. For those who are quitting, sayonara, thanks for all the fish, and your absence will make all the more room for the rest of us
Just do the math on how much you need to spend in coal wards to obtain a rank 11 or 12 enchant and multiply it by the number of slots you have available. Unless you enjoy playing a 1k gs scrub and getting rekt, you won't be finding much joy in this game as it is now.
I've been back only 4 or 5 months in this game, I'm already starting to hate the direction the Devs go. Then you get this lying sack of horse dung shoving this HAMSTER at us like we're going to believe it's about the Economy? The only thing wrecking your Economy is you! Cryptic it's all your fault. You leave the BOTS in the game, you give them freedom to do what they want. YOU let your servers go to hell on a nightly basis because you don't know how to protect from DDO attacks, YOU are the ones that need to pay better attention to what is really important. Some of us actually do work for a living and can't be here to farm 24/7 like BOTS do to gather up all the stuff they can to sell and get millions of AD on a regular basis. Those Trade Bars were not a problem. Those Rubies, Wards and such you could have made them BoA and that would have stopped them from being put on the AH or sold online externally from the game.
You really do not give a rats HAMSTER about the people that have spent hard earned money for the Mounts, Bags, and your over the top priced Packs to open up certain races, etc... You're a bunch of greedy SoB's that I'm quite fed up with now and wouldn't give you the time of day. You're now worse than Sony, EA and Warner Bros. put together! Congradulations on that! That is something I never thought anyone would want to achieve!
Not sure if you noticed but this has gone down horribley.
SHOOT THE DIPSHT WHO DECIDED THIS ONE!
I don't begrudge a company the need to make a profit, heck I want them to make a profit if I like the game so i can keep playing it. BUT, provide me adequate VALUE for my money and EARN that profit. PWI has it backwards, don't try to FORCE me to spend, make me WANT to spend.
Im joking!
money money money, must be funny, in a rich mans world.......
or
If I were a rich man,
Yubby dibby dibby dibby dibby dibby dibby dum.
I dont think i can add anything really, its pretty much all been said
i guess the one thing i didnt see was nobody seem to mention the ardent coin boxes (the 11 coin ones) which do produce some coal wards, yes it aint much or often but they do produce and im betting most of the players commenting have several if not loads of alts, i have 1 main and 6 alts and have had 6 coal wards since january, maybe i got lucky or maybe they drop more then theyre supposed to but im trying to see all this from a different perspective cos i still love this game.
yes we get bent over and get spanked by uper management who want 'mo money' but u cant blame the devs, they do as they are told its their job.
i suppose tho with the mass exodus which may take place I will have to queue longer to get my dailies done but hey ho life goes on.
What is broken now that needs to be fixed besides the thousands of things already broken? Cause I know you fix stuff every once in a while... But this... I don't trust... We will see once the super long maintenance is over.
I find it really telling, that despite their promise of "more communication" and "more transparency", not a single dev/CM has posted a response either here on the 16+ (and still counting) pages of forum rant, nor on the facebook rant...
Where's your communication and transparency now??
FateSpinners Guild Leader We are RECRUITING!!
Kirk : My god bones...her head is gone :eek:
Mccoy : DAMNIT JIM!! im a doctor not a game developer
The poster provided the actual proof to contradict what he was saying.
It's events such as this that I think make us think twice about logging back into the game. Quite disappointing. Those items were the only ones worth spending Bars on. They might as well remove the Tarmalune stuff altogether. I now have a few thousand bars with nothing to spend it on. I'm very puzzled at such an anti-customer action.