Because some of us actually want to support the developers with a fair amount of money and are not total leeches.
What? That makes no sense. Think about it. You want to support the developers, but why buy something that is completely useless to you? You can just as easily buy something ELSE to support the developers. Has nothing to do with me being a leech, just being....logical?
Why spend money at all.....everything about this game is free and earnable. I have made zen from surveys, sold stuff for AD and am doing well. So far I have spent spare time on this game and have spent zero dollars. The game has been out a couple weeks....quit ****ing hitching
But thanks to those spending money....it allows us who are intelligent enough to continue to enjoy the game for free
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tempestroMember, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Guardian UsersPosts: 2Arc User
edited May 2013
I'd have to agree.
10$ for one bag on one character? No way. That means that it'd cost you about $40 per character to fill their bags.
If it was an unlock for the entire account? Sure. I might see fathoming that, or spending that much to get it.
There was one game - you bought a mount ($40) and you got one for each char made on that account. I can stomach that if you got like 8 chars on the account. You get that here if you get the cheap founder's one. Smart investment, I think.
I can stomach 2 char slots for 5 bucks. That's only 2.50 each. No problem.
Costumes prices are fine - if it was an account wide unlock.
Like the guy said earlier - he'd rather just make a new account and have mule space that way. And frankly, that's what is going to happen. No one is going to pay that much to increase one character's bank slots. It's silly, really.
Adventurers Bag has a heap of worthless crud in it, the only interesting thing is the XP Booster. But $15 for it? They're dreaming. I would rather buy a stack of 10 XP Boosters for maybe $5, but not $15 for ultimately 1.
The rest of the fancy mounts and aesthetical things, shouldn't be pushing more than $5 either. Profession boosters? Real money for CHANCE? No thanks. Real money for certain or I'm not interested. If they want to "P2W" in essence, I want certainties, none of this roll chance stuff.
They will hopefully lower the prices after a few months, but something tells me they won't, and it will deter the F2P impulse buyers immediately. Seperating those who will spend the zen from those who wont, and ultimately pushing the cost and gear difference down to willing to spend
corporation01Member, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Guardian UsersPosts: 16Arc User
edited May 2013
I've got to say I absolutely agree with this thread. The prices are beyond ridiculous. The OP is also correct in saying that about 10% of the current population will continue to play this game within a month or two unless they take a long hard look at their pricing model and act of it fast, and I mean fast!
Perfect World, there is no point getting around to fixing it when you see numbers start dropping dramatically. Fix it while you have a healthy population playing and release some information of your plans. Way to many gaming publishers/developers pathetically attempt to fix things after the horse has already bolted.
I know developers need to make their money and they should get that and cash shop and F2P is a good idea imo, but if you pay real money to gain advantages in gameplay that ruins the game.... cosmetic effects should be all they sell, pets that are not used for combat skins for mounts things that only change appearence not gameplay. otherwise you ruin your game.
You're comparing against an F2P model that charged access to the Flashpoints (dungeons), charged for you to roll on loot in the Flashpoints and then charged you too equip said loot unless you paid the subscription fee.
I'd much rather be unable to roll for loot because I don't have the bag space to pick it up than because I didn't pay for the right to roll on said loot.
And PWE does have the data for this, they've been running F2P games longer than most US companies that run F2P games, they have 2 markets and 5 years of experience in the youngest of those markets. They run regular sales on their games and have people who's job it is to analysis the data from all sales in the cash stores across all their games, and those people probably made more accurate predictions about sales of items from the Neverwinter C-Store than any of you.
PWE also has a reputation for ruining good games, and running other games into the ground. They have a reputation for being an evil scumbagish company that over prices everything... Just because they have been around longer doesnt mean they are good at what they do. Are they making a profit? probably but they do so at the cost of the consumer, and they care little for public relations. They only care about the almighty dollar. You as a consumer should not be siding with PWE as they are ripping you off...
Good Companys understand how to market there game, and get how to do it properly with out HAMSTER there customer base over. DDO did it by giving a straight forward 1-20(max level) in there game but did require repeating same content. However could unlock various other dungeons, could also... earn ingame points by leveling various characters, and if you were a grind aholic could play the game free. But turbine was smart...everything is fairly reasonable, most dungeons are like 10-15 dollars at the most, inventory expansions were like 2-5 dollars. Was some gear on the market but was all attainable in game, and it was all fairly basic stuff... was much better found in dungeons.
Path of exiles is another example of a company understands how to run a cash shop. Its all cosmetic, and its all fairly reasonably priced! they are another great example of a good free 2 play game done right. City of heroes was fairly reasonable as well...problem with CoH was never there f2p market as much as it was a very dated game, and just didnt stand the test of time(though i loved it) power sets were like 10 dollars, costume parts varied i think were some i felt were overly expensive but most were reasonable.
We arent asking for everything to be free we are just asking that the prices be cut back and made reasonable. 20 dollars for mounts, 5 dollars for bags, make 10 dollar bags were account wide, companions should be 10-15 dollars each.... seriously you guys are marking up everything like 200-300% from other games... so far i've bought 1 thing and i wont be buying more till the prices come down...and i regret buying 1 thing i got...
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atlantis212Member, Neverwinter Beta UsersPosts: 6Arc User
edited May 2013
I agree with the Op, I have not spent anything on this game but I really want to, I want the badger companion + the worg mount, and if you add up that zen cost... it's a dam lot. A mount is not worth 3500 or 4k zen, that is just insane.
being greedy with Cs prices will be a double edged sword, look at blacklight.
What? That makes no sense. Think about it. You want to support the developers, but why buy something that is completely useless to you? You can just as easily buy something ELSE to support the developers. Has nothing to do with me being a leech, just being....logical?
How is char slots and bags useless? It's convenient. It's like why are you driving to work when you can take the buss...well you pay for convenience. All the hassle with 2 accounts, blah.
Why spend money at all.....everything about this game is free and earnable. I have made zen from surveys, sold stuff for AD and am doing well. So far I have spent spare time on this game and have spent zero dollars. The game has been out a couple weeks....quit ****ing hitching
But thanks to those spending money....it allows us who are intelligent enough to continue to enjoy the game for free
So spending money makes you less intelligent? If no one person bought anything this game would shut down in 1 month. You must be one of cheapest person on this forum.
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rapticorMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 1,078Arc User
Prices atm just don't make sense. A shame because there are a lot of interesting features in this game, the foundry in particular, but the greed is going to kill things.
I got one of those lockboxes on my first day playing, as I was enjoying the game up to that point I put in $5 to get a few keys. By the third day playing I'd used my keys up on box drops and had two more lockboxes in my bags. At that rate if I want to open all the boxes that drop they'd be taking between $100 and $150 off me a month. Absolutely insane!
And yes I want more bag/bank space, but not at these prices! I don't mind paying a reasonable amount for stuff I enjoy, but I don't like being gouged and it puts me off what could be a good game.
Ofc but 2 for your 2 chars would be nice, plus maybe some alt and ofc I would like to spend some $$ just to get some AD, respec maybe rename companion and TONS of other items/services.
I don,t want to limit myself.
TBH 40$ in some EU countries is like 1/10 of your mounth salary so yes this cash shop prices are way to high compare to quality/gameplay to maintain fair amount of players for a long time.
I don't mind spending money on virtual pixzels but please i need to eat sth sometimes and this is not the only game I play.
Yes, I will be severely limiting my purchases in Neverwinter simply because of the outageous pricing.
If they ever come down, I might spend more. But I am keeping a very minimalist attitude about buying Zen for Neverwinter until they get their head straight.
I have spent $100 or more dollars on LoL on items that I bought on a whim, and probably $150 on PoE. I have never bought anything through the WoW store, but only because I am really not much of a fan of non-combat pets or mounts, but if they introduced something useful I wouldn't have an issue buying anything there.
I've spent quite a bit of money in TF2, having bought the game at release they still bring out content that I want, but don't feel compelled to buy to be competitive. I bought a few things in the small amount of time I played secret world, not much but a few. I have spent a small amount of money playing APB: Reloaded because I wanted the better guns and they were only a couple of dollars each.
I will never, ever, EVER spend a cent on Neverwinter while I feel like a real world money system is being forced down my throat. The way to get me to spend money in a post-release video game is to make it feel like a splurge, rather than a necessity. When I have the money to spend, I will spend it. When I don't, I will pull back. It doesn't completely ruin the immersion factor when I have infinite chests dropping that I will never open because I will never buy a key. You have a great game, and I would really like to support it. But in doing so, I would feel like I am supporting a model of gaming that I never, ever want to see succeed, a model driven purely by greed. In reality, all gaming models are driven by greed, but this is the first one, and by far the worst one, where I really feel it seeping into almost everything I do in the game. Like a good UI, infiltration of a real money system into a video game must be absolutely invisible and seemless.
Having to spend real money for something as simple as a bag beyond one per character is an absolute farcical joke. I won't ever buy a bag, purely out of spite to the system.
How is char slots and bags useless? It's convenient. It's like why are you driving to work when you can take the buss...well you pay for convenience. All the hassle with 2 accounts, blah.
I never mentioned bags, so I will not comment on that part, but I understand what you are trying to say with the account matter. I guess it comes down to the individual if managing 2 accounts is worth the hassle or not in contrast to just unlocking character slots. I'd be more inclined to unlock more slots if I had an item such as the bag, now that you mention it, unlock on multiple characters.
Unfortunately that's not the cass. To me it is just not worth it. This is not me being stingy, or just HAMSTER poor, but to me it is just a matter of principle. I could afford it yes, but knowing that less expensive sales practices within the f2p market work and general empathy I have with less fortunate people, I will not spend Zen unless the price is lowered to a standard where it is fair, not only to me, but for the majority.
As much as I would love to have a cool companion, mount, and that lovely wedding dress for my halfling lass, I will stand for what I believe in and vote with my wallet.
It is the people who spend the money on it anyway, despite it being freaking overpriced, why companies continue to push boundaries.
This is why EA is still doing their shady stuff.
This is why Blizzard pulls off HAMSTER like Diablo 3.
Because in the end, despite all the warnings, the whining, and whatever, you guys STILL BUY IT.
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direcrowBanned Users, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Guardian UsersPosts: 0Arc User
edited May 2013
I'd love to buy the wedding outfits, but there is no way I'm paying $30 a pop for them. Seriously, does PWE or Cryptic have any shame at all?
Mindflayer Shard - @direcrow
The Dire Crow - Tiefling TR
Alice L'ddell - Human GF
Ludovique - Tiefling DC
PWE also has a reputation for ruining good games, and running other games into the ground. They have a reputation for being an evil scumbagish company that over prices everything... Just because they have been around longer doesnt mean they are good at what they do. Are they making a profit? probably but they do so at the cost of the consumer, and they care little for public relations. They only care about the almighty dollar. You as a consumer should not be siding with PWE as they are ripping you off...
Good Companys understand how to market there game, and get how to do it properly with out HAMSTER there customer base over. DDO did it by giving a straight forward 1-20(max level) in there game but did require repeating same content. However could unlock various other dungeons, could also... earn ingame points by leveling various characters, and if you were a grind aholic could play the game free. But turbine was smart...everything is fairly reasonable, most dungeons are like 10-15 dollars at the most, inventory expansions were like 2-5 dollars. Was some gear on the market but was all attainable in game, and it was all fairly basic stuff... was much better found in dungeons.
Path of exiles is another example of a company understands how to run a cash shop. Its all cosmetic, and its all fairly reasonably priced! they are another great example of a good free 2 play game done right. City of heroes was fairly reasonable as well...problem with CoH was never there f2p market as much as it was a very dated game, and just didnt stand the test of time(though i loved it) power sets were like 10 dollars, costume parts varied i think were some i felt were overly expensive but most were reasonable.
We arent asking for everything to be free we are just asking that the prices be cut back and made reasonable. 20 dollars for mounts, 5 dollars for bags, make 10 dollar bags were account wide, companions should be 10-15 dollars each.... seriously you guys are marking up everything like 200-300% from other games... so far i've bought 1 thing and i wont be buying more till the prices come down...and i regret buying 1 thing i got...
The problem I have is that I see very little evidence of this scumbagishness you describe, I might have had good experiences when I've had to get help from PWE but my overall experience has been very pleasant.
You say that these are good companies, the last time I subscribed to a Turbine game they didn't cancel the automatic payments last when I dropped my subscription and failed to update my sub to active after taking payment, it took me 2 months and turning to Paypal to get the payments refunded. Problems I've never had with Perfect World.
Yes, they charge more, but they do provide a good experience in most of their games. The problem I'm seeing is that people don't like what they charge and spread these sorts of rumours based not on their own experiences but on what they see on the forums and other websites in an attempt at blackmail to drive people away from the games in order to get the prices lowered. I'm not saying that you specifically are doing this, but it is a common practice amongst disgruntled MMO customers.
As for them only caring about the almighty dollar, lets provide you with a hypothetical scenario, Lets say you provide a product for $10 that 100 people will buy, but 150 will buy at $5, which is the best for you as the supplier? As I said, PWE do have the numbers, and they don't care about losing 50 customers in exchange for the 100 paying twice as much.
Priceing way out of control? Im thinking most would say YES!
It would be nice to see a poll just to give these guys (some) numbers tho it will only be the forum lurkers have to start somewhere.
As for them only caring about the almighty dollar, lets provide you with a hypothetical scenario, Lets say you provide a product for $10 that 100 people will buy, but 150 will buy at $5, which is the best for you as the supplier? As I said, PWE do have the numbers, and they don't care about losing 50 customers in exchange for the 100 paying twice as much.
Another hypothetical scenario: but 500 will buy at $5 or 10.000 will buy at $1 which seems more realistic to me.
I won't buy anything from the Cash Shop, if the prices remain as high as at present.
Thanks for the feedback, everyone! We really appreciate it!
So are you a paid representative of PWE/Cryptic or just a paid forum moderator?
If the former, then let me be the first to say, I dont care if you appreciate it or not. Are you actually taking it under advisement and considering your payment model.
Or is this just a flyby post to give fanbois some thing to glam onto?
If I havent offended you today....dont worry!!!....there's always tomorrow. Of course, you could also go to here for all I care.
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direcrowBanned Users, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Guardian UsersPosts: 0Arc User
The problem I have is that I see very little evidence of this scumbagishness you describe, I might have had good experiences when I've had to get help from PWE but my overall experience has been very pleasant.
Actually there is tons of evidence.
I remember when Ether Saga first came out. There were hairstyles you could buy in the the zen store. Basically all the hair for each of the races were available. Even though you could preview each hairstyle on any character, what they didn't tell players is that the hair was still limited to whatever race they came from.
When people complained about paying for hair they couldn't use on the forums, you know what the official response was?
"Don't worry we'll have plenty more items coming out to purchase later that you can use."
That's it. You got ripped off! But don't worry, there will be more stuff for you buy later, that may function.
You know how much it costs to max out a zodiac pet in BoI? http://boi-forum.perfectworld.com/showthread.php?t=25641
You'll spend on average $500. For the game that their lead developer swore up and down wasn't pay for power. Days after launch, the game became very much pay for power.
The fact is, PWE expects people to pay literally more money than a console and several games, just to get advantages in a game.
I've also heard of people spending hundreds a month on PWI, to max out mounts and weapons. When your free to play game encourages people to spend a thousand dollars in one month, yeah you're a scumbag company.
PWE is the ultimate 'pay for power' company. and for all the money they make on gamble boxes, and ridiculous costs to stay competitive, their customer service is bottom of the barrel.
Mindflayer Shard - @direcrow
The Dire Crow - Tiefling TR
Alice L'ddell - Human GF
Ludovique - Tiefling DC
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direcrowBanned Users, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Guardian UsersPosts: 0Arc User
So are you a paid representative of PWE/Cryptic or just a paid forum moderator?
If the former, then let me be the first to say, I dont care if you appreciate it or not. Are you actually taking it under advisement and considering your payment model.
Or is this just a flyby post to give fanbois some thing to glam onto?
Community manager, so he/she is a rep. That said, he/she doesn't care, and even if they did, PWE certainly does not.
Mindflayer Shard - @direcrow
The Dire Crow - Tiefling TR
Alice L'ddell - Human GF
Ludovique - Tiefling DC
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gameramelliMember, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Hero Users, Neverwinter Guardian Users, Neverwinter Knight of the Feywild UsersPosts: 8Arc User
edited May 2013
I totally agree with the OP, the whole currency structure needs to be changed. At the moment prices are too high.
In other free-mmo games I play I can get a decent amount of bang for my buck to spend in the in-game stores and what have you, with regular bonus deals (like weekend double credit offers once a month or so). I will easily give them my money because they are willing to give their customers a good deal, and this reflects in-game where you can actually get a lot of great items (for example I could buy the top credit amount and that would get me about three exclusive store mounts easily with a few credits here and there to spare. You could in no way get that with PW Zen and NW mounts currently!).
'Perfect' World - this is the first mmo I've come across that I've stood back and questioned buying currency. As of now I have decided I cannot trust them with my money, and until their pricing structure gets a re-think and improves this will continue to be the case.
To be fair. Im going to get some alt-slots. Il admit that rather openly but $20+ for some things. That is really painful to see. I'll admit that i am someone who buys skins and things for games. I own all the ones for a lancer and warrior in Tera but here...i just can't bring myself to say "Yes, i want that $30 rock-man" because that is a full game....i know cash shops are to make money. I'm not someone who worries too much about it. But so far, with the 3 different currencies, the constant feeling that gold means nothing next to AD and Zen. I feel like it's just getting too much in general to me to make me feel like i'd want to spend money until i see something lower and change a bit.
It isn't me whinging. I see the business but i can chose to say that it is a bad business model to charge $34 for a horse, $30 for a rockman helper or making EVERYTHING AD related, making gold in game worthless. *shrugs* Money makes the forbidden realm go round.
To the OP and his 12 member following. Nobody really cares....if you all think your hitching makes any difference....it doesn't. Please move along, find a new place or if you actually have the balls and wherewithal then by all means create your own bull****. Otherwise your about as useless as this thread.
Ok, lets start a serious post rather than just responding to other people one at a time.
I don't like the seemingly high prices but I do understand why they would make them so high. The game has soft launched so to continue getting funding for development from PWE Cryptic needs a positive ROI. The prices will therefore be estimated based on data for other F2P games (not just limited to PWE's games, their analysts will be going over all publicly available information from their competitors too here), the reviews for the games beta tests, not just official ones but Blogs, the official forums and other forums too (basically people googling Neverwinter and seeing what comes up) as well as the amount of players in the Beta weekends, what they transferred in and what they brought from the C-Store. It may seem like the prices were arbitrarily set in CBW2 but in reality a lot of study even before CBW1 had gone into these prices and what they should be.
Now Cryptic needs to start turning a profit, and cutting prices simply based on peoples opinions on the forums in the first week after soft launch is not going to help them turn a profit, it'll be a month or two at least before we see any movement on these prices and the opinion of the forums will only be a small voice in whether they are next too the actual sales figures.
I agreed with the OP right up until Saturday when I bought both the Hero & Guardian founders packs.
I, like the op looked at them about a month or two ago, and thought "These prices are pretty nuts! Boxed Collector editions go for @ $150!!!" I did realize though, they do give you a fair amount of stuff for the prices...I did laugh though when I saw "A $700 value!!" ORLY?! Forsooth, methinks you severely over-estimate the value of your non-tangible digital product.
Saturday I was looking for a new RPG, which I tend to mow through them (mostly due to boredom) and pick up a new one every few months. I have GW2, WoW (non sub), and have tried SWTOR (terrible).
I don't know what it was, but I downloaded the game Saturday / friday night, and was playing as much as I could Saturday, so much so, my coccyx got sore from my chair (crappy folding chair that's due for an update). I was really into it. The visuals were nice, the playability fairly easy, and I am familiar with Forgotten Realms so I knew what was going on in the world. After a few hours I justified the HoTN purchase as a really expensive CE version. As I played, I found it hard to pull myself away. Yeah, I got bored at times and realized that the game is pretty much a normal MMORPG. I just don't know how to explain it, but something pulled me in...probably the $260 I just spent, wanted to feel I was getting my monies worth!!
the one thing I found to be annoying was the prices people are asking for for ZEN. I guess it's just part of the reality that you're probably going to need to spend a little money and buy some (the market place seems to be very pricey). I haven't looked at the ZEN prices, but I'm familiar with the MWO model, and I don't really like that and felt they are overpriced, so I can imagine this games model is the same if not similarly "over-priced".
I'm old enough to remember when NW came out originally, I never played it though, the idea of player created content was cool back then, and after playing some of it last night for the dailies, I can't wait to start on my own dungeon delve (I really hope they allow some adult content if it's tasteful, not over the top, and disclaimers abound in the quest description). I think this is the cool part of NW, and hope they really add to that.
We are only given a small taste of the the D & D world as I'm sure most people know. I can see expansions coming out for this almost exactly the same way Hasbro / Wizards made modules for the table top game years ago. There is still so much of the Forgotten Realms we haven't seen in this, that I get a little giddy at the idea of creating some kind of PLANECHASE dungeon using those rules & monsters somewhere down the line.
Sure, it's still early, and the game could very well die, as long as I can walk away feeling I've gotten my monies worth (so far so good), I can justify the expense. If done correctly, this game could become the ultimate D&D game!
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gameramelliMember, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Hero Users, Neverwinter Guardian Users, Neverwinter Knight of the Feywild UsersPosts: 8Arc User
...But so far, with the 3 different currencies, the constant feeling that gold means nothing next to AD and Zen. I feel like it's just getting too much in general to me to make me feel like i'd want to spend money until i see something lower and change a bit...
I can't get my head around that either. I remember I went 'woop 1 gold!', and then though, well now what? and carried on playing. TBH I currently don't even look at my gold anymore, it just has no use for me other then crafting and kits every now and again.
In my mind it would work better if... :-
> Auction House was open to two currencies - AD and Gold
> Allow new currency convert - Gold to AD or AD to Gold
> Keep current structure of AD to Zen or Zen to AD
> Allow new craft ability to break an item down into craft materials (Give players more choice - Currently, on Dragon realm at least, the worth on AH of equipment is pretty much - anything lower then purples/epic is worthless)
I'm sure others could add to this.
But above all they need better zen pricing structures to bring in cash flow.
Comments
What? That makes no sense. Think about it. You want to support the developers, but why buy something that is completely useless to you? You can just as easily buy something ELSE to support the developers. Has nothing to do with me being a leech, just being....logical?
But thanks to those spending money....it allows us who are intelligent enough to continue to enjoy the game for free
10$ for one bag on one character? No way. That means that it'd cost you about $40 per character to fill their bags.
If it was an unlock for the entire account? Sure. I might see fathoming that, or spending that much to get it.
There was one game - you bought a mount ($40) and you got one for each char made on that account. I can stomach that if you got like 8 chars on the account. You get that here if you get the cheap founder's one. Smart investment, I think.
I can stomach 2 char slots for 5 bucks. That's only 2.50 each. No problem.
Costumes prices are fine - if it was an account wide unlock.
Like the guy said earlier - he'd rather just make a new account and have mule space that way. And frankly, that's what is going to happen. No one is going to pay that much to increase one character's bank slots. It's silly, really.
Adventurers Bag has a heap of worthless crud in it, the only interesting thing is the XP Booster. But $15 for it? They're dreaming. I would rather buy a stack of 10 XP Boosters for maybe $5, but not $15 for ultimately 1.
The rest of the fancy mounts and aesthetical things, shouldn't be pushing more than $5 either. Profession boosters? Real money for CHANCE? No thanks. Real money for certain or I'm not interested. If they want to "P2W" in essence, I want certainties, none of this roll chance stuff.
They will hopefully lower the prices after a few months, but something tells me they won't, and it will deter the F2P impulse buyers immediately. Seperating those who will spend the zen from those who wont, and ultimately pushing the cost and gear difference down to willing to spend
Perfect World, there is no point getting around to fixing it when you see numbers start dropping dramatically. Fix it while you have a healthy population playing and release some information of your plans. Way to many gaming publishers/developers pathetically attempt to fix things after the horse has already bolted.
PWE also has a reputation for ruining good games, and running other games into the ground. They have a reputation for being an evil scumbagish company that over prices everything... Just because they have been around longer doesnt mean they are good at what they do. Are they making a profit? probably but they do so at the cost of the consumer, and they care little for public relations. They only care about the almighty dollar. You as a consumer should not be siding with PWE as they are ripping you off...
Good Companys understand how to market there game, and get how to do it properly with out HAMSTER there customer base over. DDO did it by giving a straight forward 1-20(max level) in there game but did require repeating same content. However could unlock various other dungeons, could also... earn ingame points by leveling various characters, and if you were a grind aholic could play the game free. But turbine was smart...everything is fairly reasonable, most dungeons are like 10-15 dollars at the most, inventory expansions were like 2-5 dollars. Was some gear on the market but was all attainable in game, and it was all fairly basic stuff... was much better found in dungeons.
Path of exiles is another example of a company understands how to run a cash shop. Its all cosmetic, and its all fairly reasonably priced! they are another great example of a good free 2 play game done right. City of heroes was fairly reasonable as well...problem with CoH was never there f2p market as much as it was a very dated game, and just didnt stand the test of time(though i loved it) power sets were like 10 dollars, costume parts varied i think were some i felt were overly expensive but most were reasonable.
We arent asking for everything to be free we are just asking that the prices be cut back and made reasonable. 20 dollars for mounts, 5 dollars for bags, make 10 dollar bags were account wide, companions should be 10-15 dollars each.... seriously you guys are marking up everything like 200-300% from other games... so far i've bought 1 thing and i wont be buying more till the prices come down...and i regret buying 1 thing i got...
being greedy with Cs prices will be a double edged sword, look at blacklight.
How is char slots and bags useless? It's convenient. It's like why are you driving to work when you can take the buss...well you pay for convenience. All the hassle with 2 accounts, blah.
So spending money makes you less intelligent? If no one person bought anything this game would shut down in 1 month. You must be one of cheapest person on this forum.
You don't need 4 24 slot bags to play this game.
Prices atm just don't make sense. A shame because there are a lot of interesting features in this game, the foundry in particular, but the greed is going to kill things.
I got one of those lockboxes on my first day playing, as I was enjoying the game up to that point I put in $5 to get a few keys. By the third day playing I'd used my keys up on box drops and had two more lockboxes in my bags. At that rate if I want to open all the boxes that drop they'd be taking between $100 and $150 off me a month. Absolutely insane!
And yes I want more bag/bank space, but not at these prices! I don't mind paying a reasonable amount for stuff I enjoy, but I don't like being gouged and it puts me off what could be a good game.
Ofc but 2 for your 2 chars would be nice, plus maybe some alt and ofc I would like to spend some $$ just to get some AD, respec maybe rename companion and TONS of other items/services.
I don,t want to limit myself.
TBH 40$ in some EU countries is like 1/10 of your mounth salary so yes this cash shop prices are way to high compare to quality/gameplay to maintain fair amount of players for a long time.
I don't mind spending money on virtual pixzels but please i need to eat sth sometimes and this is not the only game I play.
If they ever come down, I might spend more. But I am keeping a very minimalist attitude about buying Zen for Neverwinter until they get their head straight.
I've spent quite a bit of money in TF2, having bought the game at release they still bring out content that I want, but don't feel compelled to buy to be competitive. I bought a few things in the small amount of time I played secret world, not much but a few. I have spent a small amount of money playing APB: Reloaded because I wanted the better guns and they were only a couple of dollars each.
I will never, ever, EVER spend a cent on Neverwinter while I feel like a real world money system is being forced down my throat. The way to get me to spend money in a post-release video game is to make it feel like a splurge, rather than a necessity. When I have the money to spend, I will spend it. When I don't, I will pull back. It doesn't completely ruin the immersion factor when I have infinite chests dropping that I will never open because I will never buy a key. You have a great game, and I would really like to support it. But in doing so, I would feel like I am supporting a model of gaming that I never, ever want to see succeed, a model driven purely by greed. In reality, all gaming models are driven by greed, but this is the first one, and by far the worst one, where I really feel it seeping into almost everything I do in the game. Like a good UI, infiltration of a real money system into a video game must be absolutely invisible and seemless.
Having to spend real money for something as simple as a bag beyond one per character is an absolute farcical joke. I won't ever buy a bag, purely out of spite to the system.
I never mentioned bags, so I will not comment on that part, but I understand what you are trying to say with the account matter. I guess it comes down to the individual if managing 2 accounts is worth the hassle or not in contrast to just unlocking character slots. I'd be more inclined to unlock more slots if I had an item such as the bag, now that you mention it, unlock on multiple characters.
Unfortunately that's not the cass. To me it is just not worth it. This is not me being stingy, or just HAMSTER poor, but to me it is just a matter of principle. I could afford it yes, but knowing that less expensive sales practices within the f2p market work and general empathy I have with less fortunate people, I will not spend Zen unless the price is lowered to a standard where it is fair, not only to me, but for the majority.
As much as I would love to have a cool companion, mount, and that lovely wedding dress for my halfling lass, I will stand for what I believe in and vote with my wallet.
It is the people who spend the money on it anyway, despite it being freaking overpriced, why companies continue to push boundaries.
This is why EA is still doing their shady stuff.
This is why Blizzard pulls off HAMSTER like Diablo 3.
Because in the end, despite all the warnings, the whining, and whatever, you guys STILL BUY IT.
The Dire Crow - Tiefling TR
Alice L'ddell - Human GF
Ludovique - Tiefling DC
The problem I have is that I see very little evidence of this scumbagishness you describe, I might have had good experiences when I've had to get help from PWE but my overall experience has been very pleasant.
You say that these are good companies, the last time I subscribed to a Turbine game they didn't cancel the automatic payments last when I dropped my subscription and failed to update my sub to active after taking payment, it took me 2 months and turning to Paypal to get the payments refunded. Problems I've never had with Perfect World.
Yes, they charge more, but they do provide a good experience in most of their games. The problem I'm seeing is that people don't like what they charge and spread these sorts of rumours based not on their own experiences but on what they see on the forums and other websites in an attempt at blackmail to drive people away from the games in order to get the prices lowered. I'm not saying that you specifically are doing this, but it is a common practice amongst disgruntled MMO customers.
As for them only caring about the almighty dollar, lets provide you with a hypothetical scenario, Lets say you provide a product for $10 that 100 people will buy, but 150 will buy at $5, which is the best for you as the supplier? As I said, PWE do have the numbers, and they don't care about losing 50 customers in exchange for the 100 paying twice as much.
It would be nice to see a poll just to give these guys (some) numbers tho it will only be the forum lurkers have to start somewhere.
Another hypothetical scenario: but 500 will buy at $5 or 10.000 will buy at $1 which seems more realistic to me.
I won't buy anything from the Cash Shop, if the prices remain as high as at present.
So are you a paid representative of PWE/Cryptic or just a paid forum moderator?
If the former, then let me be the first to say, I dont care if you appreciate it or not. Are you actually taking it under advisement and considering your payment model.
Or is this just a flyby post to give fanbois some thing to glam onto?
Actually there is tons of evidence.
I remember when Ether Saga first came out. There were hairstyles you could buy in the the zen store. Basically all the hair for each of the races were available. Even though you could preview each hairstyle on any character, what they didn't tell players is that the hair was still limited to whatever race they came from.
When people complained about paying for hair they couldn't use on the forums, you know what the official response was?
"Don't worry we'll have plenty more items coming out to purchase later that you can use."
That's it. You got ripped off! But don't worry, there will be more stuff for you buy later, that may function.
You know how much it costs to max out a zodiac pet in BoI?
http://boi-forum.perfectworld.com/showthread.php?t=25641
You'll spend on average $500. For the game that their lead developer swore up and down wasn't pay for power. Days after launch, the game became very much pay for power.
The fact is, PWE expects people to pay literally more money than a console and several games, just to get advantages in a game.
I've also heard of people spending hundreds a month on PWI, to max out mounts and weapons. When your free to play game encourages people to spend a thousand dollars in one month, yeah you're a scumbag company.
PWE is the ultimate 'pay for power' company. and for all the money they make on gamble boxes, and ridiculous costs to stay competitive, their customer service is bottom of the barrel.
The Dire Crow - Tiefling TR
Alice L'ddell - Human GF
Ludovique - Tiefling DC
Community manager, so he/she is a rep. That said, he/she doesn't care, and even if they did, PWE certainly does not.
The Dire Crow - Tiefling TR
Alice L'ddell - Human GF
Ludovique - Tiefling DC
In other free-mmo games I play I can get a decent amount of bang for my buck to spend in the in-game stores and what have you, with regular bonus deals (like weekend double credit offers once a month or so). I will easily give them my money because they are willing to give their customers a good deal, and this reflects in-game where you can actually get a lot of great items (for example I could buy the top credit amount and that would get me about three exclusive store mounts easily with a few credits here and there to spare. You could in no way get that with PW Zen and NW mounts currently!).
'Perfect' World - this is the first mmo I've come across that I've stood back and questioned buying currency. As of now I have decided I cannot trust them with my money, and until their pricing structure gets a re-think and improves this will continue to be the case.
Its' nice that you said that, but will you be giving us any feedback in response? We would all greatly appreciate it. x
I know
Just trying to make it evident for the ones that didnt pick up on it.
It isn't me whinging. I see the business but i can chose to say that it is a bad business model to charge $34 for a horse, $30 for a rockman helper or making EVERYTHING AD related, making gold in game worthless.
I don't like the seemingly high prices but I do understand why they would make them so high. The game has soft launched so to continue getting funding for development from PWE Cryptic needs a positive ROI. The prices will therefore be estimated based on data for other F2P games (not just limited to PWE's games, their analysts will be going over all publicly available information from their competitors too here), the reviews for the games beta tests, not just official ones but Blogs, the official forums and other forums too (basically people googling Neverwinter and seeing what comes up) as well as the amount of players in the Beta weekends, what they transferred in and what they brought from the C-Store. It may seem like the prices were arbitrarily set in CBW2 but in reality a lot of study even before CBW1 had gone into these prices and what they should be.
Now Cryptic needs to start turning a profit, and cutting prices simply based on peoples opinions on the forums in the first week after soft launch is not going to help them turn a profit, it'll be a month or two at least before we see any movement on these prices and the opinion of the forums will only be a small voice in whether they are next too the actual sales figures.
I, like the op looked at them about a month or two ago, and thought "These prices are pretty nuts! Boxed Collector editions go for @ $150!!!" I did realize though, they do give you a fair amount of stuff for the prices...I did laugh though when I saw "A $700 value!!" ORLY?! Forsooth, methinks you severely over-estimate the value of your non-tangible digital product.
Saturday I was looking for a new RPG, which I tend to mow through them (mostly due to boredom) and pick up a new one every few months. I have GW2, WoW (non sub), and have tried SWTOR (terrible).
I don't know what it was, but I downloaded the game Saturday / friday night, and was playing as much as I could Saturday, so much so, my coccyx got sore from my chair (crappy folding chair that's due for an update). I was really into it. The visuals were nice, the playability fairly easy, and I am familiar with Forgotten Realms so I knew what was going on in the world. After a few hours I justified the HoTN purchase as a really expensive CE version. As I played, I found it hard to pull myself away. Yeah, I got bored at times and realized that the game is pretty much a normal MMORPG. I just don't know how to explain it, but something pulled me in...probably the $260 I just spent, wanted to feel I was getting my monies worth!!
the one thing I found to be annoying was the prices people are asking for for ZEN. I guess it's just part of the reality that you're probably going to need to spend a little money and buy some (the market place seems to be very pricey). I haven't looked at the ZEN prices, but I'm familiar with the MWO model, and I don't really like that and felt they are overpriced, so I can imagine this games model is the same if not similarly "over-priced".
I'm old enough to remember when NW came out originally, I never played it though, the idea of player created content was cool back then, and after playing some of it last night for the dailies, I can't wait to start on my own dungeon delve (I really hope they allow some adult content if it's tasteful, not over the top, and disclaimers abound in the quest description). I think this is the cool part of NW, and hope they really add to that.
We are only given a small taste of the the D & D world as I'm sure most people know. I can see expansions coming out for this almost exactly the same way Hasbro / Wizards made modules for the table top game years ago. There is still so much of the Forgotten Realms we haven't seen in this, that I get a little giddy at the idea of creating some kind of PLANECHASE dungeon using those rules & monsters somewhere down the line.
Sure, it's still early, and the game could very well die, as long as I can walk away feeling I've gotten my monies worth (so far so good), I can justify the expense. If done correctly, this game could become the ultimate D&D game!
I can't get my head around that either. I remember I went 'woop 1 gold!', and then though, well now what? and carried on playing. TBH I currently don't even look at my gold anymore, it just has no use for me other then crafting and kits every now and again.
In my mind it would work better if... :-
> Auction House was open to two currencies - AD and Gold
> Allow new currency convert - Gold to AD or AD to Gold
> Keep current structure of AD to Zen or Zen to AD
> Allow new craft ability to break an item down into craft materials (Give players more choice - Currently, on Dragon realm at least, the worth on AH of equipment is pretty much - anything lower then purples/epic is worthless)
I'm sure others could add to this.
But above all they need better zen pricing structures to bring in cash flow.