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Let's talk about REASONABLE Zen prices

gek1956gek1956 Member, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Hero Users, Neverwinter Knight of the Feywild Users Posts: 0 Arc User
edited August 2013 in General Discussion (PC)
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 <font color="orange">HAMSTER</font> 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
«134

Comments

  • chronomancerchronomancer Member, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Guardian Users Posts: 1,223
    edited June 2013
    IMHO asset pack should be lowered to 1200 zen ... it's so not worth the 1600 zen since you get a better bang for you buck with just the booster pack.
  • osiabunnyosiabunny Member Posts: 0 Arc User
    edited June 2013
    I consider anything over 10 dollars to no longer be a 'micro transaction shop.' A dollar is fine, 40 dollars however for a mount! pffts I'll skip it.
  • ironzerg79ironzerg79 Member, Neverwinter Moderator, NW M9 Playtest Posts: 4,942 Arc User
    edited June 2013
    IMHO asset pack should be lowered to 1200 zen ... it's so not worth the 1600 zen since you get a better bang for you buck with just the booster pack.

    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.
    "Meanwhile in the moderator's lounge..."
    i7TZDZK.gif?1
  • pooklove1pooklove1 Member Posts: 13 Arc User
    edited June 2013
    Yeah I happen to agree with the prices in this game, they are completely out of hand. I mean it's cool, 40 dollar mounts. If you really want it you'll get it, but 6 dollars for 12 bag slots, $2.30 just to respec? Just for a basic item? Seems a little steep. I've played other games which have a cash shop but this one seems to be the most expensive. I'm sure you'd make more money if the store was a bit cheaper anyhow. Right now, if I was to purchase some of stuff from the store at those prices I'd feel like an idiot.
  • efaiciaefaicia Member Posts: 71
    edited June 2013
    I support this cause.
    [SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
  • walk2kwalk2k Member Posts: 928 Arc User
    edited June 2013
    pooklove1 wrote: »
    Yeah I happen to agree with the prices in this game, they are completely out of hand. I mean it's cool, 40 dollar mounts. If you really want it you'll get it, but 6 dollars for 12 bag slots? Just for a basic item? Seems a little steep. I've played other games which have a cash shop but this one seems to be the most expensive. I'm sure you'd make more money if the store was a bit cheaper anyhow. Right now, if I was to purchase some of stuff from the store at those prices I'd feel like an idiot.

    +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!
  • assassin83assassin83 Member, Banned Users Posts: 276 Bounty Hunter
    edited June 2013
    all they want is your money, PERFECTWORLD
  • drk1058drk1058 Member Posts: 7 Arc User
    edited June 2013
    I will not spend more than $15 USD per month on any of the three games I play. I just stared with this company/game tbh i love the game but hate the fact that this company is like a vampire bat out to blood suck my wallets blood to death. my first drop that was purple was a lockbox when i click open it requires zen to buy a key 120 i think but if you do the math 10 USD=1000 zen well there goes about 8 lockboxes (Which i doubt that i will get anything other than the green gear :( ) o and the fact that i cant spend more that 5 bucks on any mmo.
  • stormdrag0nstormdrag0n Member Posts: 3,222 Arc User
    edited June 2013
    Besides my hero of the north pack I have spent a grand total of ten bucks on this game and really didn't have to spend that, my two mil AD is still in the queue and I have anything I want, I could have not spent a dime and had the same thing considering I'm playing a HE, not using the mount or the kitty.

    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.
    Always Looking for mature laidback players/rpers for Dungeon Delves!
  • methuselasmethuselas Member Posts: 275 Arc User
    edited June 2013
    IMHO asset pack should be lowered to 1200 zen ... it's so not worth the 1600 zen since you get a better bang for you buck with just the booster pack.

    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.)
  • smurfjokerzsmurfjokerz Member Posts: 21
    edited June 2013
    you do know that the reason why the prices are soo high in the zen store is because you can EXCHANGE astral diamonds to zen or real money. or else everyone would be spending all their AD on zen store with low costs..
  • savnokasavnoka Member Posts: 4 Arc User
    edited June 2013
    Based on experiences in both CO and STO, astral diamonds will eventually crash. The exchanges run strong for a few months, then, as there becomes increasing numbers of drains on astral diamonds and people go very sour on what is available from the zen store, the value of zen lowers.

    So, since the game has no subscription , it behooves you to wait if you have large AD reserves.
    [SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
  • vaultfairyvaultfairy Member Posts: 67 Arc User
    edited June 2013
    It is perfect world.. What do you really expect? They would rather gouge the wallets of their customers than having reasonable prices.

    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. :confused:
  • gek1956gek1956 Member, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Hero Users, Neverwinter Knight of the Feywild Users Posts: 0 Arc User
    edited June 2013
    Ya see I watched Champions Online just die on the vine because of developer neglect and poor pricing policy after they went FTP. The opening was spectacular for FTP.. they got it out just ahead of DC Universe Online.. :) spoiled their party really good... but nobody stayed. Later all us old hands got some breaks...storage and respec prices there are ACE COOl.. so I spent a lot on the game.. but the player base is TINY, and there's already 4 or 5 times more real estate on the map for this game. I just want them to make this one WORK.. it could really be the next BIG game and I love it :)

    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...
  • dootudootu Member, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Guardian Users Posts: 58
    edited June 2013
    Given the poor reception this game has had in Beta, I really can't see many people throwing much more real money on it.

    I give it 4 months at best.
  • gek1956gek1956 Member, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Hero Users, Neverwinter Knight of the Feywild Users Posts: 0 Arc User
    edited June 2013
    Troll Troll Troll :P

    now this feels like a REAL thread ;)
  • grizzdelgrizzdel Member, Neverwinter Beta Users Posts: 34
    edited June 2013
    The result you receive from packs like this are way too random. How PW is able to sell these things and certain lockboxes without an online gambling license is questionable.
  • s3pts3pt Member Posts: 177 Bounty Hunter
    edited June 2013
    grizzdel wrote: »
    The result you receive from packs like this are way too random. How PW is able to sell these things and certain lockboxes without an online gambling license is questionable.

    It's probably only a matter of time before someone steps in and starts regulating gaming due to things like this.
  • shadowbug2013shadowbug2013 Member, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Guardian Users Posts: 0 Arc User
    edited June 2013
    The prices on the store in this game, and the requirement of at least 5 players spending rl money to even be able to fully play this game very much means this is truly not a free to play game as they have advertised. I don't see the game lasting long
  • fusromeowfusromeow Member, Neverwinter Beta Users Posts: 23 Arc User
    edited June 2013
    Zen prices are over the top expensive for what the items are worth. Zen for this game just allows you to pay for convenience, and its not worth spending immense amounts of zen just for that. I mean seriously? Paying 30$ for a mount to make you go 25% faster? Or paying 35$ for a companion that's only there to assist you in minor ways that aren't even effective? Its a joke if you ask me.
    I salute to you sir.
  • gek1956gek1956 Member, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Hero Users, Neverwinter Knight of the Feywild Users Posts: 0 Arc User
    edited June 2013
    Five players? it takes that to start a guild.. but that's free. You lost me Shadowbug.

    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 :D
  • johneco1johneco1 Member Posts: 42 Arc User
    edited June 2013
    This thread is not so much a troll as it is just a vent for the frustration players are dealing with. The prices are insane and even a polished MMO couldn't demand these kind of premiums. So PW can do one of two things. If they are scared at what their P&L looks like right now, they may continue to fleece unsuspecting players or those who are just caught up in the excitement of a new game OR they will bring their prices in line with other MMOs to maintain a solid player base. The economy is not the only issue with the game but it's a glaring one.
  • darsik5454darsik5454 Member Posts: 6 Arc User
    edited June 2013
    I will say I bought a couple of the 1600 zen packs and of anything so far in this game that is where I felt ripped off. Made me seriously back off from the game a bit and consider something else. I can see the mounts going for what they do even though really it only helps when leveling or if you farm stuff cause really how fast do you need to move from the AH to the mail box to the bank to the profession supplies. But 16 bucks for a very small chance to get something good for the profession I need it for is crazy I feel stupid for ever having bought into one let alone more than one put a sucker sticker on my head and a kick me sign on my back and put me in a shirt saying take my wallet. That's not the feeling I was hoping for from neverwinter The profession packs need to be reduced by allot and I am talking more than 50% off.
  • dsolzdsolz Member, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Guardian Users Posts: 0 Arc User
    edited June 2013
    I am sure pwe will make more money if they lower the pric to micro level. For example 1 dollar for a bag. I am sure i will buy for all my character max number of bag. If they lower price of dye i probaby will change my color every other week.
    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.
  • nikitaoznikitaoz Member, Neverwinter Beta Users Posts: 149 Bounty Hunter
    edited June 2013
    Cryptic hindered their profit by introducing AD - Zen exchange. AD is easy to earn. The entire ZEN store is on AH.
    End-game gear is ridiculously cheap. I have not been to any epic dungeon yet but already 3/4 in purples.
  • demonishademonisha Member Posts: 27 Arc User
    edited June 2013
    This company has done what it set out to do... take our money. If you expect that this game will ever be good again, then your wrong. Cause in my honest opinion, the only thing that could save this game would be for it to shut down completely, fix **** that should have been fixed and working correctly before "RELEASE" and wipe everything.. I know this will never be done, so the game sits as it is, a boring *** game. Everything that could be cool about this game is being over looked, and the sole concern is just exactly how much can they get from all of us idiots before we realise they only respond to one thing.. MONEY, and without it they have to either pull the plug or fix **** so people want to play. I have thought about quitting several times, but eh so long as my guild played, I played. However, since the release of the GauntletCrapper, and how fk'd up it is my guild said screw it and went to dragons prophet. I logged in now long enough to pray, do professions, then log off to play another game that has interesting aspects of it still.
  • ashensnowashensnow Member Posts: 2,215 Arc User
    edited June 2013
    The ability to exchange in game earned currency for cash shop currency means that the listed prices in the cash shop are not necessarily the out of pocket cost. Comparison's to cash shops in games where you cannot convert in game currency to cash shop currency are irrelevant.

    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.
  • grizzdelgrizzdel Member, Neverwinter Beta Users Posts: 34
    edited June 2013
    It really is a shame. Such potential but once again the D&D name was abused again for this cash grab.

    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.
  • ometochometoch Member, Neverwinter Beta Users Posts: 1 Arc User
    edited June 2013
    I just think it's crazy that you have to pay $6 for 16 bank slots, when $5 gets you two extra characters each with a 30-slot starter bag. So let's do the math here. Buying bank slots is 37.5 cents each, and buying mules is 8 cents per slot. It's ridiculous. I wouldn't even mind so much paying a little bit extra for bank slots if it were just a little. I might even be able to stomach it if it unlocked an extra 16 slots for each character. But as it is now there's no way I can do it.
  • jappethebreadjappethebread Member Posts: 82 Arc User
    edited June 2013
    nikitaoz wrote: »
    Cryptic hindered their profit by introducing AD - Zen exchange. AD is easy to earn. The entire ZEN store is on AH.
    End-game gear is ridiculously cheap. I have not been to any epic dungeon yet but already 3/4 in purples.

    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.
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