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Let's talk about REASONABLE Zen prices
gek1956
Member, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Hero Users, Neverwinter Knight of the Feywild Users Posts: 0 Arc User
I've got a serious bone to pick with certain aspects of the business model here.
Customers deserve more bang for their money. The idea here is to maximize FUN for
customers and PROFIT for the game. My only other PWE MMO is Champions Online, I've got a
lifetime sub there, I picked it up in beta, and I love that game. Here, I picked up my founder's pack, and got $100 bucks worth of Zen to get me started, so I'll give you my money, but I don't like having my wallet hijacked.
Take bank slots and costuming, for example. Now I know that Cryptic is great with
costumes 'cuz I played both COX and CO, so why do they put up such HAMSTER here and charge
such a high price. Bottles of dye? OMG!!!! you're killing me!. It's almost funny it's
so stupid. Now for the bank. In Champions, for my SHARED ACCOUNT BANK, I spent between
fifty and one hundred dollars but I got several hundred slots that ALL of my 'toons
could share. Six hundred Zen for 24 spaces? Who'd they hire for this? A Pentagon
puchasing agent? Someone that would spend a thousand dollars for a toilet seat might
think We'll spend a quarter apiece for a nothing that holds nothing. Most players will
just clutter up the mail and the AH to avoid this bit of robbery.
On buying "packs" , or lockbox keys.... my advice is DON"T... I refuse. If I want
something out of a pack I'll pick it up in the AH. Not that I'm stingy, I usually don't
mind dropping twenty or thirty bucks a month on an MMO. In Champions Online I learned
very quickly not to buy the keys. Purple top drops in these packs are often as low as
1%, blues usually run about 10% average.
As of today 6/22/13 Zen is trading at about 345 astral diamonds, so, just to pick
one, the 1600 Zen you have to pay for the Professions Asset Pack can get you 552,000
astral diamonds on the astral diamond exchange. Now I've dealt with this system in CO
for almost 3 years now, seen several friends drop $100 dollars on keys trying to get one
thing out of a lockbox, and I've got a degree in math, so these estimates I'm about to
make are just about as accurate as my information allows.
A STINGY pack will drop assets ( iron tongs, adventurers master weavers...etc) worth
only about 65,000 astral diamonds on the auction house.. the temporary alchemy 'bonus
drop ups that to a little over 80,000. The better packs will drop for around 3 times
that value, say 200,000 to 250,000 ADs worth of assets. I'm not gonna drop several
hundred bucks on this game to get 'hard' data... Zen are a penny apiece US and that pack
is sixteen dollars. A month's subscription with the old model of $15.00 a month on
almost all MMO's from the great WOW to the tiny Champions Online. But this is just not
gonna cut it, when my Zen is worth three to four times more in the auction house.
Obviously SOMEBODY is buying this junk.
So PWE and Cryptic, LISTEN to me and make what you want us to buy in this game worth
what we have to pay for it. It's not only good for business its good for FUN, and fun
makes buzz, and buzz can turn this wonderful game here into the next WOW...I'm an older
gamer, a lifelong addict, but what's some teenager gonna do when he drops his whole
allowance on a game pack and gets a couple of needles and some men at arms? Think about
it, HMMM? In the words of two great American Icons....
There's a sucker born every minute........ P.T.Barnum
Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice shame on me........ Mark Twain
Which is it gonna be guys?
Customers deserve more bang for their money. The idea here is to maximize FUN for
customers and PROFIT for the game. My only other PWE MMO is Champions Online, I've got a
lifetime sub there, I picked it up in beta, and I love that game. Here, I picked up my founder's pack, and got $100 bucks worth of Zen to get me started, so I'll give you my money, but I don't like having my wallet hijacked.
Take bank slots and costuming, for example. Now I know that Cryptic is great with
costumes 'cuz I played both COX and CO, so why do they put up such HAMSTER here and charge
such a high price. Bottles of dye? OMG!!!! you're killing me!. It's almost funny it's
so stupid. Now for the bank. In Champions, for my SHARED ACCOUNT BANK, I spent between
fifty and one hundred dollars but I got several hundred slots that ALL of my 'toons
could share. Six hundred Zen for 24 spaces? Who'd they hire for this? A Pentagon
puchasing agent? Someone that would spend a thousand dollars for a toilet seat might
think We'll spend a quarter apiece for a nothing that holds nothing. Most players will
just clutter up the mail and the AH to avoid this bit of robbery.
On buying "packs" , or lockbox keys.... my advice is DON"T... I refuse. If I want
something out of a pack I'll pick it up in the AH. Not that I'm stingy, I usually don't
mind dropping twenty or thirty bucks a month on an MMO. In Champions Online I learned
very quickly not to buy the keys. Purple top drops in these packs are often as low as
1%, blues usually run about 10% average.
As of today 6/22/13 Zen is trading at about 345 astral diamonds, so, just to pick
one, the 1600 Zen you have to pay for the Professions Asset Pack can get you 552,000
astral diamonds on the astral diamond exchange. Now I've dealt with this system in CO
for almost 3 years now, seen several friends drop $100 dollars on keys trying to get one
thing out of a lockbox, and I've got a degree in math, so these estimates I'm about to
make are just about as accurate as my information allows.
A STINGY pack will drop assets ( iron tongs, adventurers master weavers...etc) worth
only about 65,000 astral diamonds on the auction house.. the temporary alchemy 'bonus
drop ups that to a little over 80,000. The better packs will drop for around 3 times
that value, say 200,000 to 250,000 ADs worth of assets. I'm not gonna drop several
hundred bucks on this game to get 'hard' data... Zen are a penny apiece US and that pack
is sixteen dollars. A month's subscription with the old model of $15.00 a month on
almost all MMO's from the great WOW to the tiny Champions Online. But this is just not
gonna cut it, when my Zen is worth three to four times more in the auction house.
Obviously SOMEBODY is buying this junk.
So PWE and Cryptic, LISTEN to me and make what you want us to buy in this game worth
what we have to pay for it. It's not only good for business its good for FUN, and fun
makes buzz, and buzz can turn this wonderful game here into the next WOW...I'm an older
gamer, a lifelong addict, but what's some teenager gonna do when he drops his whole
allowance on a game pack and gets a couple of needles and some men at arms? Think about
it, HMMM? In the words of two great American Icons....
There's a sucker born every minute........ P.T.Barnum
Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice shame on me........ Mark Twain
Which is it gonna be guys?
Post edited by gek1956 on
0
Comments
A few people have done some testing and found out that on a per cost basis, the packs end up being identical as far as getting assets, not including the professional resource part.
But really, these packs are more aimed at "seeding" the market. If there's a very specific tool or asset you need, you're better off buying it directly off the AH.
+1
some things are almost worth it, like mounts - you can purchase the best mount in game, for ALL your chars, present and future, for around $35? that's pretty close to being reasonable... I'd say they'd sell twice as many if they dropped the price to $20 but.. ok that's one that's not too bad.
top end pets $30-40 for only ONE char? ridiculous. and don't get me started on profession items or bank slots or RESPECS(!), $6 really? cmon man, stuff like that should be $0.50-$1 tops. TOPS!
they're supposed to be nickel & diming us to death, not five to ten dollaring us!
The bottom line is Cryptic told the truth you can do everything in this game for free if you choose to, I could care less about Zen prices, since I really don't need to buy it, I just wish you could make this kind of bank in every MMO.
Pssh. If they're gonna do that, they need to make SPECIFIC profession packs and make them like 400 zen. I don't want to waste 16$ for a "booster pack" and then end up with stuff I don't end up using.
It's like the blue and purple professionals. I see Heroes going for 350k AD, but you can get 4 Adventurers going for 65k AD a piece. Do the math. That's 260k AD and 18 hours of your professional slot time to get the same purple and you're saving 90k. (I'm pretty sure though, these are people that have done this, themselves and are hoping to recoup a "little more" AD.)
So, since the game has no subscription , it behooves you to wait if you have large AD reserves.
Maybe they do not expect this game to last longer than a year or two so they are trying to get as much as they can squeeze.
Savnoka, the AD market will react to supply and demand as it always does... right now there are a lot of new players learning to make ads...professions rock for that as do the dailies.. but many are here for the FTP aspect and wont buy Zen.. so right now they are pricey.. up nearly 100 from when I first started a month ago. right now I'm buying and holding zen.. cuz I feel zenflation will last for a bit, but if they start to drop I'll sell em for ads to cover for a loss...
I give it 4 months at best.
now this feels like a REAL thread
It's probably only a matter of time before someone steps in and starts regulating gaming due to things like this.
I salute to you sir.
But since I cracked so hard on bank slot prices earlier, I'll note that guild bank slots are much more reasonable priced, with 150K ADs getting you 48 of them
LOL and fusro I love the name... maybe this game could use some DRAGONMEOWS
Anyway knowing how pwe. It wont be happening. For now i refuse to spend anymore until things are at a more decent level. There are more worth while games out there worth my money and time.
Lets be clear i have no problem spending money. But i have an issue being screwed or rob.
End-game gear is ridiculously cheap. I have not been to any epic dungeon yet but already 3/4 in purples.
The reality of the matter is that any FtP monetization system depends on some players, those willing to spend on the game to any significant degree, subsidizing those less able or less willing to break out their credit card. Cryptic's system for converting in game currency to Zen amplifies that effect.
'Caine, miss you bud. Fly high.
If you think this game is anything but a way to scam people out of money you are mistaken.
Look at the examples..35$ (say it out loud to yourself..thirty-five dollars..that is a lot of money to a majority of Americans, for a MOUNT. One item! Then you have the costs of companions (which nearly every one of them do not work properly) cost of wards and the 1% chance to combine w/o them, the utterly laughable costs of bank slots and bags, on and on.
Then take a hard look at the content. When I played Ad&D 20 years ago as a child the basic books had 30x the content this game has. I mean really, come on. As a 60 GF I have what..maybe 3 weapon model choices and 4 or 5 armor choices and cannot wield anything but a 1hs and a shield. I won't even get into skills and classes.
Then we have the zones. 100% linear zones that have no level variation and whose mobs hard currency drops are nerfed to 2cp after you outlevel them. Once you complete the zone there is no reason whatsoever to go back and visit them. The endgame is a joke when you take into account all the issues and PVP is broken to almost not being worth doing it at all.
What it all boils down to is a very very short amount of actual fun playtime to funnel you to spend real money when you have exhausted the entire game's content, which is not much as I have said. Yes the experience of getting my characters to 60 was a lot of fun, and this was intentional. But after that, the whole charade starts to fall apart and we see the wizard behind the curtain. The really sad thing is that the quality of software is so poor now days that most people will accept this game as a genuine article.
P.S. I forgot to the mention the "Founder's Packs". Were they not supposed to be only for early supporters of the game? Now they are for sale again but with a different name.
If you call 600k AD per piece cheap then you must have invested some money into the game. Yeah I had full purple armors right when I hit lvl 60 and they cost like 50k AD altogether. But that's T1 gear. Then there's T2 gear and even better than T2 which would be the end-game gear you're talking about.