Basically the zen store whiners remind me of the people in line at social development (welfare) when I go to the DMV. They sit there with their 4 kids, their cigarettes and their coffees, and complain that life is too expensive, and how they didn't get their check last month, or their family allowance was late, etc...
While the people who calmly buy things from the zen store are like regular tax payers, who think, "man, I pay taxes (buy things from zen store) so these low-lifes can buy their smokes and their 40 oz'ers (play NWO for free), and they STILL find something to complain about."
It's always the people who aren't willing to work their way out of the rut they are in who are the most vocal. Fact of life.
You are in no way supposed to change your build every 5 minutes. A build should be finite unless it has some major flaws in it's structure. This is not WoW. If you read the tooltips, you do not need to use 1 respec token... i pulled off a perfect build, on the first attempt. If you are naive enough to spend 6$ on a respec, because your build sucks it is your own fault.
Peace.
Did you know how the threat mechanic system works from your very first visit on clock tower dungeon?
It's a pure dps run and as a guardian you do not have any decent aggro or threat skills to test.
Besides that, how can you reject or rate a skill that you never use?
Do you know if your build as a guardian must be aggressive or bunker?
You don't know the end game contend yet so you cannot decide what is the best build.
I suppose your character is damage based and its easy to choose your skills.
Yeah no idea why this is such an issue, I honestly dont even notice anyone who has a cool mount, or different style. I have no desire for cosmetic stuff. But may be forced to buy some keys. But the game was free so I really cant complain.
Did you know how the threat mechanic system works from your very first visit on clock tower dungeon?
It's a pure dps run and as a guardian you do not have any decent aggro or threat skills to test.
Besides that, how can you reject or rate a skill that you never use?
Do you know if your build as a guardian must be aggressive or bunker?
You don't know the end game contend yet so you cannot decide what is the best build.
I suppose your character is damage based and its easy to choose your skills.
Did you know that it gives you about 20 extra power points that you can just throw in anywhere and it won't matter? The only skills that matter are the ones you pump up to Rank 3, so 2 dailies, 2 passives, 2 at-wills and 3 encounters.
That makes a grand total of 30 points you actually need to put in the right place, and 20 you can basically just use to throw darts and d;ck around with?
If you are tlaking about PvE/PvP dual specs, then you are SoL I agree, but I'm assuming they are going to implement a dual spec option soon enough anyways, probably when they add paragon paths. (which they will be giving you a free respec token anyways)
Basically the zen store whiners remind me of the people in line at social development (welfare) when I go to the DMV. They sit there with their 4 kids, their cigarettes and their coffees, and complain that life is too expensive, and how they didn't get their check last month, or their family allowance was late, etc...
While the people who calmly buy things from the zen store are like regular tax payers, who think, "man, I pay taxes (buy things from zen store) so these low-lifes can buy their smokes and their 40 oz'ers (play NWO for free), and they STILL find something to complain about."
It's always the people who aren't willing to work their way out of the rut they are in who are the most vocal. Fact of life.
A post that insults and belittles the people that oppose your view, and puts the people that support your view on a pedestal, without adding any reasoning or logic as to why your view is better.
And its a strange analogy you use considering you said:
I'm working on my second 60, and I'm up to a grand total of .... wait for it ....... 0$ !!! And it's not because I can't afford it, it's because everything you need is given to you for free.
Wouldn't you say a more fitting analogy is that people complaining about cash shop prices being too high (at least for some non-cosmetic items/mounts) are the honest, hard-working taxpayers complaining that their rates are too high because they have to support lazy freeloaders like yourself?
A post that insults and belittles the people that oppose your view, and puts the people that support your view on a pedestal, without adding any reasoning or logic as to why your view is better.
And its a strange analogy you use considering you said:
Wouldn't you say a more fitting analogy is that people complaining about cash shop prices being too high (at least for some non-cosmetic items/mounts) are the honest, hard-working taxpayers complaining that their rates are too high because they have to support lazy freeloaders like yourself?
I spent 0$ because it's absolutely possible to play this game without spending any money on it. I spent time, instead, and got everything I needed. Kinda like in real life; I work to afford the things I want. I worked the AH to get all the AD I needed to do the things I wanted to do.
idgaf about cosmetics, so I won't be spending much on the z-store. But I'm not going to come cry that the prices are too high for cosmetics, because they cost what others are willing to pay. If you think it's too expensive for a shiny mount, by all means, don't buy it.
I do still think my analogy is fitting. You guys were given a free game (your welfare check) but it's still not enough. While the people that ARE buying things, aren't really complaining about it, because they have the money to buy these things, and to them, its a good value.
I never said I was the one buying things, because I doubt I'll buy much other than a few character slots, a few respecs, and some bags.
But I sure as hell won't be coming to the forums saying "omg 6$ is too much for a respec."
EDIT: I also think it's quite petty that you search through my posts, parse them to make them fit whatever point you are trying to prove, mix and match them, etc... You really have that much spare time on your hands?
I do still think my analogy is fitting.
You guys were given a free game (your welfare check) but it's still not
enough. While the people that ARE buying things, aren't really complaining
about it, because they have the money to buy these things, and to them,
its a good value.
I beg to disagree. I work my a$$ off for my own money. I have bought Zen.
I'm happy to, good games disserve support. But I still think some stuff are too
expensive. And I'm pretty **** sure I am allowed to voice my opinion on it.
A post that insults and belittles the people that oppose your view, and puts the people that support your view on a pedestal, without adding any reasoning or logic as to why your view is better.
Pretty self evident as to why his view is better.
He's not the one complaining he can't afford anything.
Did you know that it gives you about 20 extra power points that you can just throw in anywhere and it won't matter? The only skills that matter are the ones you pump up to Rank 3, so 2 dailies, 2 passives, 2 at-wills and 3 encounters. I didn't know that (30 lvl guardian), thanks for info
That makes a grand total of 30 points you actually need to put in the right place, and 20 you can basically just use to throw darts and d;ck around with?
If you are tlaking about PvE/PvP dual specs, then you are SoL I agree, but I'm assuming they are going to implement a dual spec option soon enough anyways, probably when they add paragon paths. (which they will be giving you a free respec token anyways) I didn't mention about a PvP build because of the high (in my opinion) AD cost to respec feats. At least respec feats will cost AD but I will never spend AD just to check what PVP build suits me.
My general opinion is that they must lower their prices to 50%.
Only that way they will manage to attract new customers and keep all the existing.
I beg to disagree. I work my a$$ off for my own money. I have bought Zen.
I'm happy to, good games disserve support. But I still think some stuff are too
expensive. And I'm pretty **** sure I am allowed to voice my opinion on it.
You can voice your opinion by not buying it.
Coming to the forums and crying about it will get absolutely nothing to change. Look at the headline on the main website : "Neverwinter Open Beta a Great Success!"
Their sales teams don't troll the forums. They analyze sales charts, demographics, etc... If they see that nobody is buying, they will modify the prices accordingly. until then, you can assume that enough people ARE buying, and PWE is satisfied with that.
Sure, voice your opinion all you want: It will always fall on deaf ears.
My general opinion is that they must lower their prices to 50%.
Only that way they will manage to attract new customers and keep all the existing.
They have a "sweet spot" they are looking for, which is where they charge enough for an item to make a profit, but people will still buy. If they find that the prices are too high, they will lower them. This game came out 2 weeks ago, give it time.
Coming to the forums and crying about it will get absolutely nothing to change. Look at the headline on the main website : "Neverwinter Open Beta a Great Success!"
Their sales teams don't troll the forums. They analyze sales charts, demographics, etc... If they see that nobody is buying, they will modify the prices accordingly. until then, you can assume that enough people ARE buying, and PWE is satisfied with that.
Sure, voice your opinion all you want: It will always fall on deaf ears.
They have a "sweet spot" they are looking for, which is where they charge enough for an item to make a profit, but people will still buy. If they find that the prices are too high, they will lower them. This game came out 2 weeks ago, give it time.
Not sure we'll see that sweet spot anytime soon if all the inferno horse mounts I see awarded every night and how many people I saw in the early betas (who paid $60-$200) are any indication.
And I saw far more $200 spider mounts than $60 horses in the early access.
Coming to the forums and crying about it will get absolutely nothing to change. Look at the headline on the main website : "Neverwinter Open Beta a Great Success!"
Their sales teams don't troll the forums. They analyze sales charts, demographics, etc... If they see that nobody is buying, they will modify the prices accordingly. until then, you can assume that enough people ARE buying, and PWE is satisfied with that.
Sure, voice your opinion all you want: It will always fall on deaf ears.
If they are any smarts, and I'm sure they are, they will read forums.
Why? Because I, and by extension other players as I'm sure, do only spend
what seems fair to me. They want me to spend more? Fine with me I got some
money to spare, get me something worth buying. Basic supply and demand.
Charts will work on this one. If noone is buying mounts, it means they are to
expensive.
Should I however ever be in the position that I am forced to spend money,
or be irrelevant game-wise, or change my gaming experience into running
a marathon with a big stone tied to my nuts, that will make me leave the
game. If you gonna rely on charts for this one, by the time your chart shows
you this, I'm gone, and so is my money.
But I sure as hell won't be coming to the forums saying "omg 6$ is too much for a respec."
EDIT: I also think it's quite petty that you search through my posts, parse them to make them fit whatever point you are trying to prove, mix and match them, etc... You really have that much spare time on your hands?
That was your reply to one of my previous posts, I didn't have to "parse" anything I just have a memory. It strikes me as pretty hypocritical that you harped on about how you paid nothing to get your toons to 60 and now turn around and call others dole bludgers-especially since my payments are funding your free play time.
I do think $6 is really expensive for a respec, basically forces you to reroll a toon whenever you want to try out something new; or pay a lot of money. Many people enjoy respeccing a lot for various reasons; if I respecced as much in this game as I did in others I've played, I would be up for over a $1000- I'd say that's expensive by most people's standards.
In addition, reducing the cost of respecs does not hurt other players or damage the game, so why are you so brutally insulting to people just asking for a common feature seen in many mmos?
On another note, despite our difference of opinion on this matter, I thought it was nice that we both agreed that having lore on the gateway was a great idea.
If they are any smarts, and I'm sure they are, they will read forums.
Why? Because I, and by extension other players as I'm sure, do only spend
what seems fair to me. They want me to spend more? Fine with me I got some
money to spare, get me something worth buying. Basic supply and demand.
Charts will work on this one. If noone is buying mounts, it means they are to
expensive.
Should I however ever be in the position that I am forced to spend money,
or be irrelevant game-wise, or change my gaming experience into running
a marathon with a big stone tied to my nuts, that will make me leave the
game. If you gonna rely on charts for this one, by the time your chart shows
you this, I'm gone, and so is my money.
Unfortunately for you, the population on the forums is about 2% of the in-game population.
Also unfortunately for you, mount prices remain static because enough people ARE actually buying them.
... toons to 60 ... ... reroll a toon ... if I respecced as much in this game as I did in others I've played... asking for a common feature seen in many mmos? ...
Take your 'toons' back to WoW with your 15$/M subs and your 60$ xpacs that come out every year. There are some who play this game who DON'T want WoW 2.0, as crazy as that may sound to you.
Not really. Poor people don't suck, people who determine human value by what they do or do not have that actually suck. But what sucks even harder is that there is no way up front to know that when you buy a load of zen it doesn't become available until you specifically transfer it into Neverwinter. I bought some and bought some and it never showed up. I searched and searched looking for a reason why and it wasn't until I went all the way out to my 'perfect world' account where all that zen showed up in my PW account just fine, it was just completely unavailable to my characters in Neverwinter and thus unusable. I think it is unfortunate, leading to dismay and possibly reduced trust in the customer to be so obscure about what it takes to USE that zen after being so enthusiastic about getting us to buy some. Customer Service/User Friendliness is not supposed to be analogous to a venus flytrap.
Lo, the mighty Oak: Just a little nut who stood his ground.
Any time you find a cash shop in an multiplayer online game you find these whiners. Since every online game nowadays has a cash shop attached you always find whiners in every game you go to but fortunately you only find them in the forums.
Yes, they whine but their wallets don't. According to the last Playspan survery, only a minority of 23% of the online gamer community paid to pay subscription based games while the 77% majority paid an average of over $30 a month.
Whiners will always whine but just let them whine in every game just like they are crying and whining desperately in the Blizzard forums now just hoping to stop WoW from turning f2p and its not-yet-borned first ever f2p sister Heroes of Warcraft to be killed before it came to the world.
@ nuburu2012: So you think it is fine that there isn't clear instruction on how to actually get your zen into Neverwinter once you've bought some?
Hey that's weird, this is my first PWE game, I purchased zen and transferred all in about 5 minutes time. So tell me how I did that without clear instructions? Lucky clicks?
It's called "entitlement". They get what they want, when they want it. If they don't, they make a long winded, *****y post insulting people until they get it.
LOL. There you go! Whiners always whine whenever they see the word microtransaction, even if they don't know what the products they are whining about and how the cash shop thing is being implemented into these games. WoW and other Blizzard game players just feel like such f2p attempt will inevitably lead WoW and other games they play down the slippery slope. Likewise, they just keep whining about the cash shop in this game although they know some changes will likely be made later. This game is only in open beta
for 10 days. Nobody knows how is the cash shop going to turn out a month, 3 months or more later. They just whine based on what
they saw from other cash shop based game, regardless they are produced by Cryptic, PWE or another other MMO developers.
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jorealMember, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Hero UsersPosts: 0Arc User
Not really. Poor people don't suck, people who determine human value by what they do or do not have that actually suck. But what sucks even harder is that there is no way up front to know that when you buy a load of zen it doesn't become available until you specifically transfer it into Neverwinter. I bought some and bought some and it never showed up. I searched and searched looking for a reason why and it wasn't until I went all the way out to my 'perfect world' account where all that zen showed up in my PW account just fine, it was just completely unavailable to my characters in Neverwinter and thus unusable. I think it is unfortunate, leading to dismay and possibly reduced trust in the customer to be so obscure about what it takes to USE that zen after being so enthusiastic about getting us to buy some. Customer Service/User Friendliness is not supposed to be analogous to a venus flytrap.
Although its not readily apparent that you need to transfer your zen into the game that you want to use it in I hardly call it a venus fly trap. I'm not sure why you would continue to keep buying something when it doesn't show up the first time. That just seems like asking to have more money sitting in limbo than fixing the problem. Regardless its actually kind of nice to be able to transfer zen in and out of the game in order to use it in other games they have as well. I had a bunch of zen in my Blacklight account that I could transfer to NW.
LOL. There you go! Whiners always whine whenever they see the word microtransaction.
Well then, count me amoung the whiners and those who will likely uninstall soon as this there are few things more stupid than paying to be on a "winners list" based largely on how much you paid to be on it. If that appealed to me, I'd go into politics.
Given: There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lunch (TANSTAAFL). The D&D license isn't free. The Cryptic game engine isn't free. The artists and coders who crafted Neverwinter for the cryptic engine demanded a salary. Somehow some subset (including the degenerate case of all players) of the players needs to cought up enough money to keep the hamsters fed to power the servers. There are a bunch of ways to do this:
Pay2play: The traditional way was by subscription, in 2008 DDO came out with a significant f2p size plus microtransactions to buy up the rest of the game. I was very happy playing this way, especially compared to later when pay2win was added.
Pay2win: This can vary from "pay to be adequate" (DDO has been using this for quite some time) that gives new players advatages to catch up to veteran players, to the pure pay2win that NWO is using where the best stuff is behind paywalls.
Pay2BeCool: Doesn't seem as popular as you would expect. Included in plenty of games (including NWO, see the differences in horse costs), but pay2play and pay2win seem keep bringing in way more money.
While I'm wildly disappointed with the pay2win structure (but not surprised: the foundry makes pay2play nearly impossible), my main problem is the open-ended structure to it. With NWO, there seems to be a steady case of "suprise! pay up!" mugging where you are expected to suddenly pay. While we all know that the $160 "top item" is going to be quickly obsoleted, we don't know the cost of the next item. We know the cost to respec is $6, but we don't know how quickly nerfs, buffs, and new paragon paths will be established and require respecs.
Examples:
pay2play: WoW has a published subscription price. DDO and LOTRO have complete price lists for each pack/expansion module (plus subscription prices). Guildwars[2] has the price on the box.
pay2win: WoW seems like a no-show (except for the announcement above). DDO has 32 point builds for sale (which was a serious grind when announced), stat tomes (which as raid gear should be a no no), plenty of ways to level faster (and the biggest require a subscription - which shows how loyal Turbine is to those who bought the entire game a la carte), and plenty of pay2lose vendor trash for sale. LOTRO has a load of unlocks which make a $15 single months subscription nearly mandatory, then expect to buy certain virtues per character unless you want to grind forever. NWO appears to have plenty of pay2win from the start, with $200 entry fee (founder pack) and willing to sell plenty of things at such prices.
My point is that some games I know what the cost is: look at WoW's subscription cost. GW2 has the price listed on the box (or Steam download). Turbine games take a little while to figure out (especially LOTRO), but you can figure it out before you have to pay anything. NWO has a completely open price structure. How much win do you want and how much will you pay for it? How much lack of fail do you want, and how much are you willing to pay for it. That's what gets me: if I knew the costs going in I would be far more likely to stay with the game, as it is it I expect to uninstall it (without PWE getting a dime).
Finally, I should point out that my biggest beef (by far) is the open ended nature of NWO's pay2win model. By my definition I've paid2win (for rather small amounts of "pay" for somewhat small amounts of "win") LOTRO (I've bought the one month subscription specificly to give my characters a load of cash-only perks) and was happy doing so. If Turbine came around and threatened my characters with a major round of nerfing unless I paid up, I would be less happy to do so. As far as I can see, I can't imagine a case where the zen pay2win store had any guarantees that a buying a win today lets you win tommorow (imagine a game that has pvp without rebalancing left and right). I would be impressed if PWE managed to show that you need only pay a certain ammount to maintain certain "tiers of win", but I'm not holding my breath.
Comments
While the people who calmly buy things from the zen store are like regular tax payers, who think, "man, I pay taxes (buy things from zen store) so these low-lifes can buy their smokes and their 40 oz'ers (play NWO for free), and they STILL find something to complain about."
It's always the people who aren't willing to work their way out of the rut they are in who are the most vocal. Fact of life.
Did you know how the threat mechanic system works from your very first visit on clock tower dungeon?
It's a pure dps run and as a guardian you do not have any decent aggro or threat skills to test.
Besides that, how can you reject or rate a skill that you never use?
Do you know if your build as a guardian must be aggressive or bunker?
You don't know the end game contend yet so you cannot decide what is the best build.
I suppose your character is damage based and its easy to choose your skills.
Did you know that it gives you about 20 extra power points that you can just throw in anywhere and it won't matter? The only skills that matter are the ones you pump up to Rank 3, so 2 dailies, 2 passives, 2 at-wills and 3 encounters.
That makes a grand total of 30 points you actually need to put in the right place, and 20 you can basically just use to throw darts and d;ck around with?
If you are tlaking about PvE/PvP dual specs, then you are SoL I agree, but I'm assuming they are going to implement a dual spec option soon enough anyways, probably when they add paragon paths. (which they will be giving you a free respec token anyways)
A post that insults and belittles the people that oppose your view, and puts the people that support your view on a pedestal, without adding any reasoning or logic as to why your view is better.
And its a strange analogy you use considering you said:
Wouldn't you say a more fitting analogy is that people complaining about cash shop prices being too high (at least for some non-cosmetic items/mounts) are the honest, hard-working taxpayers complaining that their rates are too high because they have to support lazy freeloaders like yourself?
I spent 0$ because it's absolutely possible to play this game without spending any money on it. I spent time, instead, and got everything I needed. Kinda like in real life; I work to afford the things I want. I worked the AH to get all the AD I needed to do the things I wanted to do.
idgaf about cosmetics, so I won't be spending much on the z-store. But I'm not going to come cry that the prices are too high for cosmetics, because they cost what others are willing to pay. If you think it's too expensive for a shiny mount, by all means, don't buy it.
I do still think my analogy is fitting. You guys were given a free game (your welfare check) but it's still not enough. While the people that ARE buying things, aren't really complaining about it, because they have the money to buy these things, and to them, its a good value.
I never said I was the one buying things, because I doubt I'll buy much other than a few character slots, a few respecs, and some bags.
But I sure as hell won't be coming to the forums saying "omg 6$ is too much for a respec."
EDIT: I also think it's quite petty that you search through my posts, parse them to make them fit whatever point you are trying to prove, mix and match them, etc... You really have that much spare time on your hands?
I beg to disagree. I work my a$$ off for my own money. I have bought Zen.
I'm happy to, good games disserve support. But I still think some stuff are too
expensive. And I'm pretty **** sure I am allowed to voice my opinion on it.
Pretty self evident as to why his view is better.
He's not the one complaining he can't afford anything.
My general opinion is that they must lower their prices to 50%.
Only that way they will manage to attract new customers and keep all the existing.
You can voice your opinion by not buying it.
Coming to the forums and crying about it will get absolutely nothing to change. Look at the headline on the main website : "Neverwinter Open Beta a Great Success!"
Their sales teams don't troll the forums. They analyze sales charts, demographics, etc... If they see that nobody is buying, they will modify the prices accordingly. until then, you can assume that enough people ARE buying, and PWE is satisfied with that.
Sure, voice your opinion all you want: It will always fall on deaf ears.
They have a "sweet spot" they are looking for, which is where they charge enough for an item to make a profit, but people will still buy. If they find that the prices are too high, they will lower them. This game came out 2 weeks ago, give it time.
Not sure we'll see that sweet spot anytime soon if all the inferno horse mounts I see awarded every night and how many people I saw in the early betas (who paid $60-$200) are any indication.
And I saw far more $200 spider mounts than $60 horses in the early access.
If they are any smarts, and I'm sure they are, they will read forums.
Why? Because I, and by extension other players as I'm sure, do only spend
what seems fair to me. They want me to spend more? Fine with me I got some
money to spare, get me something worth buying. Basic supply and demand.
Charts will work on this one. If noone is buying mounts, it means they are to
expensive.
Should I however ever be in the position that I am forced to spend money,
or be irrelevant game-wise, or change my gaming experience into running
a marathon with a big stone tied to my nuts, that will make me leave the
game. If you gonna rely on charts for this one, by the time your chart shows
you this, I'm gone, and so is my money.
That was your reply to one of my previous posts, I didn't have to "parse" anything I just have a memory. It strikes me as pretty hypocritical that you harped on about how you paid nothing to get your toons to 60 and now turn around and call others dole bludgers-especially since my payments are funding your free play time.
I do think $6 is really expensive for a respec, basically forces you to reroll a toon whenever you want to try out something new; or pay a lot of money. Many people enjoy respeccing a lot for various reasons; if I respecced as much in this game as I did in others I've played, I would be up for over a $1000- I'd say that's expensive by most people's standards.
In addition, reducing the cost of respecs does not hurt other players or damage the game, so why are you so brutally insulting to people just asking for a common feature seen in many mmos?
On another note, despite our difference of opinion on this matter, I thought it was nice that we both agreed that having lore on the gateway was a great idea.
Unfortunately for you, the population on the forums is about 2% of the in-game population.
Also unfortunately for you, mount prices remain static because enough people ARE actually buying them.
Take your 'toons' back to WoW with your 15$/M subs and your 60$ xpacs that come out every year. There are some who play this game who DON'T want WoW 2.0, as crazy as that may sound to you.
Point A is statistically invalid.
There are enouph players on the forum to be representative.
2% is a lot more then most statistics are based on.
Point B is invalid too.
I couldn't care less about the price of mounts.
They are prestige stuff, they are supposed to be expensive.
I f'ing love this dude.
Your posts are always golden, and I always imagine that's actually you in your avatar, saying them and it makes them more priceless
Yes, they whine but their wallets don't. According to the last Playspan survery, only a minority of 23% of the online gamer community paid to pay subscription based games while the 77% majority paid an average of over $30 a month.
Whiners will always whine but just let them whine in every game just like they are crying and whining desperately in the Blizzard forums now just hoping to stop WoW from turning f2p and its not-yet-borned first ever f2p sister Heroes of Warcraft to be killed before it came to the world.
You telling me WoW has a sequel coming out? Ugh ..... New generation of no-no to deal with...
You are the no-no rather. HoW is not a sequel or offspring of WoW. It is the first ever cash shop based, no subscription MMORTS produced by Blizzard.
Hey that's weird, this is my first PWE game, I purchased zen and transferred all in about 5 minutes time. So tell me how I did that without clear instructions? Lucky clicks?
AKA the first self proclaimed Pay to win.
No. But this is not a reason to whine about the zen store. It should be a question directed to customer support if you have such a problem.
LOL. There you go! Whiners always whine whenever they see the word microtransaction, even if they don't know what the products they are whining about and how the cash shop thing is being implemented into these games. WoW and other Blizzard game players just feel like such f2p attempt will inevitably lead WoW and other games they play down the slippery slope. Likewise, they just keep whining about the cash shop in this game although they know some changes will likely be made later. This game is only in open beta
for 10 days. Nobody knows how is the cash shop going to turn out a month, 3 months or more later. They just whine based on what
they saw from other cash shop based game, regardless they are produced by Cryptic, PWE or another other MMO developers.
Although its not readily apparent that you need to transfer your zen into the game that you want to use it in I hardly call it a venus fly trap. I'm not sure why you would continue to keep buying something when it doesn't show up the first time. That just seems like asking to have more money sitting in limbo than fixing the problem. Regardless its actually kind of nice to be able to transfer zen in and out of the game in order to use it in other games they have as well. I had a bunch of zen in my Blacklight account that I could transfer to NW.
Well then, count me amoung the whiners and those who will likely uninstall soon as this there are few things more stupid than paying to be on a "winners list" based largely on how much you paid to be on it. If that appealed to me, I'd go into politics.
Given: There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lunch (TANSTAAFL). The D&D license isn't free. The Cryptic game engine isn't free. The artists and coders who crafted Neverwinter for the cryptic engine demanded a salary. Somehow some subset (including the degenerate case of all players) of the players needs to cought up enough money to keep the hamsters fed to power the servers. There are a bunch of ways to do this:
Pay2play: The traditional way was by subscription, in 2008 DDO came out with a significant f2p size plus microtransactions to buy up the rest of the game. I was very happy playing this way, especially compared to later when pay2win was added.
Pay2win: This can vary from "pay to be adequate" (DDO has been using this for quite some time) that gives new players advatages to catch up to veteran players, to the pure pay2win that NWO is using where the best stuff is behind paywalls.
Pay2BeCool: Doesn't seem as popular as you would expect. Included in plenty of games (including NWO, see the differences in horse costs), but pay2play and pay2win seem keep bringing in way more money.
While I'm wildly disappointed with the pay2win structure (but not surprised: the foundry makes pay2play nearly impossible), my main problem is the open-ended structure to it. With NWO, there seems to be a steady case of "suprise! pay up!" mugging where you are expected to suddenly pay. While we all know that the $160 "top item" is going to be quickly obsoleted, we don't know the cost of the next item. We know the cost to respec is $6, but we don't know how quickly nerfs, buffs, and new paragon paths will be established and require respecs.
Examples:
pay2play: WoW has a published subscription price. DDO and LOTRO have complete price lists for each pack/expansion module (plus subscription prices). Guildwars[2] has the price on the box.
pay2win: WoW seems like a no-show (except for the announcement above). DDO has 32 point builds for sale (which was a serious grind when announced), stat tomes (which as raid gear should be a no no), plenty of ways to level faster (and the biggest require a subscription - which shows how loyal Turbine is to those who bought the entire game a la carte), and plenty of pay2lose vendor trash for sale. LOTRO has a load of unlocks which make a $15 single months subscription nearly mandatory, then expect to buy certain virtues per character unless you want to grind forever. NWO appears to have plenty of pay2win from the start, with $200 entry fee (founder pack) and willing to sell plenty of things at such prices.
My point is that some games I know what the cost is: look at WoW's subscription cost. GW2 has the price listed on the box (or Steam download). Turbine games take a little while to figure out (especially LOTRO), but you can figure it out before you have to pay anything. NWO has a completely open price structure. How much win do you want and how much will you pay for it? How much lack of fail do you want, and how much are you willing to pay for it. That's what gets me: if I knew the costs going in I would be far more likely to stay with the game, as it is it I expect to uninstall it (without PWE getting a dime).
Finally, I should point out that my biggest beef (by far) is the open ended nature of NWO's pay2win model. By my definition I've paid2win (for rather small amounts of "pay" for somewhat small amounts of "win") LOTRO (I've bought the one month subscription specificly to give my characters a load of cash-only perks) and was happy doing so. If Turbine came around and threatened my characters with a major round of nerfing unless I paid up, I would be less happy to do so. As far as I can see, I can't imagine a case where the zen pay2win store had any guarantees that a buying a win today lets you win tommorow (imagine a game that has pvp without rebalancing left and right). I would be impressed if PWE managed to show that you need only pay a certain ammount to maintain certain "tiers of win", but I'm not holding my breath.