Zen Mount "Preview Arena"

alvadimarco

An idea was raised in another thread to have an instance added to PE where you can summon mounts to "preview them" in order to help pick the mount you actually like the best. There are plenty of buildings in PE that don't actually do anything, including one right next door to the Stables, so there's plenty of room for this.

The initial idea involves being given a token or some kind of temporary consumed-on-use item that allows you to summon any of the available mounts while within that particular instance. The item would either be lost upon leaving, prevent you from leaving or simply be non-functioning unless in the Mount Preview Arena.

I don't know about others, but I'd be a lot less hesitant to buy a fancy mount if I could try it out first and be sure I liked it before spending Zen that I could just as easily use on something else.

Feel free to discuss.

beckylunatic

alvadimarco wrote: »

There are plenty of buildings in PE that don't actually do anything, including one right next door to the Stables, so there's plenty of room for this.

That's not actually true, as any door in PE that isn't currently a shop can be used as a Foundry entrance and turning it into a shop would break any quest tied to it.

It's a neat idea, but would require a bit more to go into it.

alvadimarco

I guess it was a bad idea to put suggestions up during the Great Server Outage of 2014. Now that it's over, let's try again.

angrysprite

Any door in PE can be changed into an instance entrance by the Developers. Though the Tavern isn't an instance (just a segregated part of the map) the Moonstone Mask, Trade of Blades, Companion Emporium and such are instances. It should be no issue at all to create such for a Mount "stable showroom". And with that, I would't call it an arena. Though "Arena" does apply as a word description, in MMOs and such it is usually though of as a combat stage. Emporium or Stables would be a better description.

Furthermore, I know it has been asked-for/suggested/requested that there be some way to allow "testing" of some mounts. That's a lot of work for the Devs to accomplish when they already have so much on their plates. However, to mimic (no puns intended) the Companions Emporium should be very easily doable. No need to create ridable Mounts at all, just model them, the way they do in PE right now, but with a instanced "Stables" the room could be as large as necessary to display ALL Zen Store mounts, if not all possible mounts.

Of course this could have a "double-edged sword" effect by causing some people to shy away from making purchases they might have made. But I'd argue that it will entice fence-sitters to make those purchases they've been thinking about. I know that modeling costumes in-game at Champions Online has done so for me (caused me to make a purchase I likely would not have made otherwise).

I think this is a great I sea and I'm willing to bet that it is only a questions of when, not if we will see such a "Mounts Showroom" in-game. When one stops to think about it, it's kind of a no-brainer.

alvadimarco

While it might shy people away from making a purchase, it's worth considering that it might also keep people from making a purchase they aren't sure about, being unhappy with the results and vowing to never ever spend money ever again.