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Taverns, Mini-Games, and the Zen store.
ranncore
Member, Moderators, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Knight of the Feywild Users Posts: 2,508
I don't know about you guys, but I personally don't much like lockboxes. I feel like it's a real-life intrusion into an otherwise immersive world when developers ask me to pay real money for loot I just earned by defeating a monster, and furthermore, it seems like gambling. I thought to myself, "self, gambling doesn't really have a place in DnD." I was wrong, of course: the shadier taverns of Neverwinter are steeped in gambling, among other illicit activities.
And then it came to me: Why shove gamble boxes in the player's faces during combat, when it seems totally out of place, when there are places, social hubs no less, in the LORE in Neverwinter for that sort of activity?
I've always thought it would be cool if the in-game store for an MMO was exactly that. A physical place you could go to to see the things that were available for purchase.
I also think that in order to be real social hubs, Taverns need to offer something unique. From the looks of it, players can get quests from anywhere - there's no REAL need to go to a Tavern for that. But if Taverns had other social aspects - like mini-games to spend in-game currency (and real currency on)...
What do you guys think? I think I'd rather have real-money purchases confined to a space, instead of intruding other parts of the game. And I think Taverns offer a unique and lore-friendly way to do it. I'm not saying take the in-game store panel out of the UI, but putting the gambling aspect of it in a place instead of letting it obscure and tarnish other parts of the game would be a lot nicer for me.
I haven't really heard much about mini-games but I'm hoping that Taverns will offer something there. Fun little games, like memory card games, follow the coin under the cup games, that sort of thing. And I think those mini-games - in that setting - would be a really great opportunity to capitalize on without intruding on the immersion.
And then it came to me: Why shove gamble boxes in the player's faces during combat, when it seems totally out of place, when there are places, social hubs no less, in the LORE in Neverwinter for that sort of activity?
I've always thought it would be cool if the in-game store for an MMO was exactly that. A physical place you could go to to see the things that were available for purchase.
I also think that in order to be real social hubs, Taverns need to offer something unique. From the looks of it, players can get quests from anywhere - there's no REAL need to go to a Tavern for that. But if Taverns had other social aspects - like mini-games to spend in-game currency (and real currency on)...
What do you guys think? I think I'd rather have real-money purchases confined to a space, instead of intruding other parts of the game. And I think Taverns offer a unique and lore-friendly way to do it. I'm not saying take the in-game store panel out of the UI, but putting the gambling aspect of it in a place instead of letting it obscure and tarnish other parts of the game would be a lot nicer for me.
I haven't really heard much about mini-games but I'm hoping that Taverns will offer something there. Fun little games, like memory card games, follow the coin under the cup games, that sort of thing. And I think those mini-games - in that setting - would be a really great opportunity to capitalize on without intruding on the immersion.
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Comments
agree
yep, agree.
This is a brillaint idea. The closer to RP conditions the better.
I feel the same, people i play with general end of being PUGS if my guild start to flatline such as GW2. I'd love a place to meet new people and share adventure with them rather than the usual looknig for group function, have you done this instance before, whats your build, whats your gear score, blah blah blah.
However I agree with you having gambling in taverns and such is a great idea, and something they should take over into STO with dabo and other ferengi gambling games. Please cryptic don't turn my looting experience into something I have to pay for, just ask for my money upfront and offer good rewards.
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Add a Race-change token in the Zen Store, please!
This is why at this point in time I'm much more likely to re-sub to Rift rather than invest in an F2P game.
I consider them an abomination and will most likely never become invested in this game if they are included here. I played STO for about a week then got sick of not being able to loot the stuff I earned without paying real money. I never spent any money on the game. And I am, to say the least, an AVID Star Trek fan. And I even liked the game. It was fun.
But I think if the developers want to include gambling real money in their game (which can only tentatively even be legal), Taverns provide a lore friendly way of including it in the game without intruding on player's loot. I am a bit of a gambler myself, when I'm in the mood. I've responsibly enjoyed my several stays in Vegas and Atlantic City. If I want to gamble in Neverwinter, I'd like to go to a shady tavern, where I can sit at a table with a mug of ale and play cards.
Nice one gil, agreed.
+1
These ideas could solve so many issues...but PWE will nix the idea they want buy buy buy in your face no matter where you are and what you're doing.
It's really a shame... I have just as much faith that Cryptic will make this a good game as that PWE will ruin this good game.
Hopefully they don't include the pay to win, the lockboxes, and all the other shmarmy store HAMSTER in at launch, and I can get a few good months out of it before PWE steps in.
I think a card game would be a much better way to make money than lockboxes. Players could play cards with each other, find cards for sale at taverns, and maybe some enemies would drop cards. Cards would be for sale at the zen store. Heck, even better cards would be for sale at the zen store - as long as they don't affect in-game statistics in any way, shape, or form, I don't see it as pay to win (altho it might be construed as pay to win the card game, but I'd rather it confined to a card game than the dungeons).
But making a card game is hard, right? Well, it's a good thing Cryptic is teamed up with a company that has produced tons of successful card games over the years. I don't want to give away any spoilers, but it rhymes with Wizards of the Toast. Maybe they could help.
I understand that PWE and Cryptic want to make money off this game, but I'd rather not see it come at the expense of the game. At a certain point, the techniques they use for monetizing the game are going to send customers away. They say, "but lockboxes work!" What they don't realize it is that they only work on the people who bother to keep playing a rancid game with those atrocities in them. Others, like myself, go somewhere without them.
The people who play Star Trek aren't there for the lockboxes - they'd still be there if the lockboxes left. But the people who aren't playing Star Trek because of the lockboxes - well, you get the point.
As far as lockboxes go I always felt GW2 had theirs pretty spot on. Everything from lockboxes were gem store stuff items like XP boosts, karma boosts, crafting boosts, festival skins, repair canister ect ect which never impacted the players power. Which makes their out of place become more appropriate. My only beef is that there was no way to really gain any keys and pretty much forced to buy keys which were not exactly cheap either.
If your gonna argue about revenue tactics then I say show us hard data and not hearsay opinions.
That might be true in GW2, but in Cryptic games, you can clearly buy power from the store. I know they said they won't do that with this game, but they said that in Champions Online and in Stark Trek online too. But you can literally buy powers in CO: the abilities are called exactly that, powers, and they are for sale. Star Trek Online sells entire ships in the store, and they drop in lockboxes.
The lawsuit over lockboxes is waiting to happen whether or not it occurs in taverns. They are a gamble. If they're going to include it - and I'd rather they didn't, but they are in every single PWE game, so they probably will - I'd rather it be confined to an area that doesn't affect my dungeon crawling experience.
Obviously I don't have hard data and I made it pretty clear that this is all opinions. I can give you one hard fact tho: if this game has pay to win gamble boxes like every other PWE game, I won't be playing it.
Edit: Well, after a bit of searching, I DID find some hard evidence on it. Japan has already passed regulation concerning the gambling nature of lockboxes, and Danish ministry is currently working on it. Also, players who favor lockboxes are FAR outnumbered by players who don't like them.
http://seekingalpha.com/article/611721-regulation-may-alter-mmo-landscape-part-1
http://massively.joystiq.com/2012/02/27/leaderboard-lockboxes-yea-vs-lockboxes-nay/
An employee at Cryptic has also said it is more likely fans will lose the playability of Star Trek Online in an entire country than remove lockboxes from their game.
http://massively.joystiq.com/2012/05/15/star-trek-online-dev-not-concerned-with-losing-global-playabilit/
As far as I'm concerned, that would be a death blow to PWE and Cryptic for me.
Ummm as much as I'm not a fan of lock boxes ( and show my dislike by not buying keys ever) You're taking what was said out of contex
Borticus explains here
Let's take the high road in showing our displeasure and not resort to quoting yellow journalism that Massively is quite well known for okay?
But we're diverting from the point of the thread: that there are other ways to make money in the game. And that there are even ways to make money using this tactic in the game that don't cause as much controversy to the players. By localizing the gambling aspect to lore friendly areas.
uh huh....:rolleyes:
No, all we are really doing is speculating about a feature that may or may not even be present in the game...and it's always the same way; the conversation will start rational with optional ideas and quickly head off the deep end.
I honestly believe that we could get a lot farther with Cryptic on this topic if we could divorce ourselves from the dramatic proclamations and accusations.
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Nonetheless, as is evidenced by the growing number of lawsuits, lockboxes are nothing short of gambling, and if the rating for this game is less than 18, it's also underage gambling.
It's also pretty clear that despite the fact the majority of players don't want them, the minority who engage in that activity make too much money for the company to ignore.
I'd certainly like to see Cryptic address these concerns in a morally and legally irreproachable manner, but it's much more likely that they'll continue to use them, despite these concerns and without addressing them, til the eventual day they are legally banned.
Until then, what I'm trying to do here, is to set up a system that uses these devices in a way that doesn't so negatively affect the players that don't want to use them. I've made my suggestion and I encourage everyone else to think of ways that utilize this tactic, which at least one Cryptic employee seems loathe to abandon, in a manner that's more widely agreeable to everyone.
Kind of like a bait and switch. Like saying they won't sell power, then selling power a few months down the line.