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Cosmetic expense? Outrageous!

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  • sockmunkeysockmunkey Member Posts: 4,622 Arc User
    edited October 2013
    I am glad, cryptic gave me this option. Well for some of those serious roleplay people it may be a problem, but not for the average gamer.

    I dont know many average games that like to self nerf.

    Archetypes vastly under perform compared to free forms. Most don't have self healing. All are locked into hard defined roles. Wanna tank as an Inferno? To bad, you are a striker for life now. Wanna DPS as a Glacier? Congrats you are a tank, like it or not. The only saving grace is end game content is REALLY easy, to the point that even an archetype has a fighting chance, mostly. But nothing, AT ALL, like even a mediocre free form would.

    Considering the screams of "oh no, nerfs!" we see here. Its safe to say, most average gamers arnt happy at self nerfing. Some just accept it, because there is little other in the way of choice.
  • knightfalzknightfalz Member Posts: 1,261 Arc User
    edited October 2013
    gek1956 wrote: »
    Do I have their sales information? Ha. Do you have the Coca Cola recipe?

    I'm not trying to make commentary on the Coca Cola recipe, so I don't need to know it. You've got nothing to base your pricing commentary on other than assumption and a bit of the anecdotal, as you don't have access to the information you need to base it on anything else.
    When walking around in game... PE in particular, I see a very low percentage of customization on the PCs. Character customization is a such an easy revenue source, I don't understand why this game has made it so hard. Saleswise, whether sales come as 10 $2.00 transactions or 100 $.20 transactions makes no difference to the bean counters. Where it matters is with the players themselves, the games customers. Happy customers grow games. Unhappy customers don't. After games like COX and CO where character customization flourishes The apathetic response of players for what options there are speaks volumes.

    Game companies are notoriously silent about their metrics. Serious financial research here is inconclusive. The parent corp PWI is traded on nasdaq under PWRD. Profit wise it's a lukewarm year, which they are charging to development writ offs. Both PE and growth projections by the two investor services I have access to are lukewarm. This is actually a nice review for a game company, They aren't exactly popular on Wall St.

    This isn't their first crack at an MMORPG with a cash shop, as you well know. They have years of experience at setting prices and then noting the resulting revenue at those prices. Due to that they pretty much know how to milk their customers and what they should charge to maximize their profits from them, and how much of a charge would end out in decreased revenue.

    Your comparisons to both CoX and CO are off base, as they have or had a different model of business, one that offers both subscription and 'f2p' options for their customers. This game only offers the one, so can't be expected to have the same kind of prices or offers in the cash shop as the others.

    Further, superhero games like CoX and CO need to be rife with character customization options, due to the needs of the genre, where each character is very distinctive from one to the other and the look of the character or his costume forms a much greater part of that character's identity.

    This is not nearly the case in the fantasy genre, where this is some difference, but difference that is constrained within a much more narrow range for the most part, and the equipment they have isn't so much part of a whole as it is the items they happen to be using at the time.

    There is a big difference between the star-spangled shield of a reawakened WWII super soldier and the shield used by most fantasy adventure warriors. The character without the former is incomplete. The character without the latter just needs to get another shield. As such one can't really expect the same degree, or even the same method, of customization in games that are set in these very different genres.
  • trollgretrollgre Member Posts: 297
    edited October 2013
    make changing appearance free = more players will buy dyes = more money for them

    they can only sell lots of dyes if its on sale
  • knightfalzknightfalz Member Posts: 1,261 Arc User
    edited October 2013
    trollgre wrote: »
    make changing appearance free = more players will buy dyes = more money for them

    they can only sell lots of dyes if its on sale

    If they thought this would produce more revenue for them they would have already done it.
  • andferne3andferne3 Member, Neverwinter Knight of the Feywild Users Posts: 104 Bounty Hunter
    edited October 2013
    While I would like for the prices for this to be lowered. I do not see it happening anytime soon. Which is why customization is last on my to do list.
  • gek1956gek1956 Member, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Hero Users, Neverwinter Knight of the Feywild Users Posts: 0 Arc User
    edited October 2013
    knightfalz wrote: »
    I'm not trying to make commentary on the Coca Cola recipe, so I don't need to know it. You've got nothing to base your pricing commentary on other than assumption and a bit of the anecdotal, as you don't have access to the information you need to base it on anything else.



    This isn't their first crack at an MMORPG with a cash shop, as you well know. They have years of experience at setting prices and then noting the resulting revenue at those prices. Due to that they pretty much know how to milk their customers and what they should charge to maximize their profits from them, and how much of a charge would end out in decreased revenue.

    Your comparisons to both CoX and CO are off base, as they have or had a different model of business, one that offers both subscription and 'f2p' options for their customers. This game only offers the one, so can't be expected to have the same kind of prices or offers in the cash shop as the others.

    Further, superhero games like CoX and CO need to be rife with character customization options, due to the needs of the genre, where each character is very distinctive from one to the other and the look of the character or his costume forms a much greater part of that character's identity.

    This is not nearly the case in the fantasy genre, where this is some difference, but difference that is constrained within a much more narrow range for the most part, and the equipment they have isn't so much part of a whole as it is the items they happen to be using at the time.

    There is a big difference between the star-spangled shield of a reawakened WWII super soldier and the shield used by most fantasy adventure warriors. The character without the former is incomplete. The character without the latter just needs to get another shield. As such one can't really expect the same degree, or even the same method, of customization in games that are set in these very different genres.

    And you, who has no more information or experience than me are right because... WHY?

    You can assume that the company knows best business wise all you want. But I'm gonna point out that Cryptic has had a very rough ride in the MMO universe since the COV half of COX was released. Much of their original core team stayed with NCSOFT to help run COX and became Paragon Studios. Since they are now owned by Perfect World they have adopted a decidedly eastern business model. This is not necessarily bad, but it is different. Asian players often expect to be charged for things that Western players take for granted, and vice versa. Admittedly you never know what works until you try, but at some point you have to be flexible. None of Cryptic's other titles have been trolled so harshly web-wide as this one has, and 90% of it is over pricing.

    Players are just as obligated as developers to look out for games they like. I have my opinions, and you have yours. F2P or not, in the end the bottom line is the only thing that counts. Blizzard didn't know Jack Splat about the MMO business, yet managed to launch the biggest internet cash cow since AOL. WOW may be aging but it still out grosses every other game out there, even with an 'outdated business model'. I would say they got a lot more right than they did wrong. Not bad for beginners.

    If you don't set high standards you will never get them. IMO PC customization in this game is sub-par even for F2P, much less for the price they want to charge. Feedback is one of my best tools to get this changed, so I'll be out here blogging with the rest of you.
  • ulkaurulkaur Member, Neverwinter Beta Users Posts: 0 Arc User
    edited October 2013
    At 51k per transmute I haven't felt the urge to change anything yet. It equates to $9 if you transmute your armor and held items. That's too much. 60 is the cap, and since the only option until the cap is raised is different looks, and with the equally outrageous costs of enchanting gear, no sane person wants to waste money like that. I've always said a sales model that can't adapt to one the majority of it'd users will take advantage of is a poor one. I took advantage of the one in Star Trek Online because it was more reasonable. I would rather spend my Zen on bag and bank slots to hold what I want my gear to look like until they see it and change it so I will use it.

    To be honest they could sell transmute tokens similar to preservation wards for a more reasonable cost and it would be used more. I would pay $1 for 10 tokens. I won't pay $1.54 for one.
  • trollgretrollgre Member Posts: 297
    edited October 2013
    knightfalz wrote: »
    If they thought this would produce more revenue for them they would have already done it.

    thats why dyes are on 50% sale making it look cheap
    if changing appearance is free all the money will go to Zen not on changing fee = more money for them even if dyes are not on sale
  • mittensofdoommittensofdoom Member, NW M9 Playtest Posts: 247 Arc User
    edited October 2013
    I payed the old cost for transmuting most of my 4 toons, Im glad they lowered the cost
  • colonelwingcolonelwing Member Posts: 1,448 Arc User
    edited October 2013
    sockmunkey wrote: »
    I dont know many average games that like to self nerf.

    Archetypes vastly under perform compared to free forms. Most don't have self healing. All are locked into hard defined roles. Wanna tank as an Inferno? To bad, you are a striker for life now. Wanna DPS as a Glacier? Congrats you are a tank, like it or not. The only saving grace is end game content is REALLY easy, to the point that even an archetype has a fighting chance, mostly. But nothing, AT ALL, like even a mediocre free form would.

    Considering the screams of "oh no, nerfs!" we see here. Its safe to say, most average gamers arnt happy at self nerfing. Some just accept it, because there is little other in the way of choice.

    1. Archetypes, deal more damage than freeforms.

    2.supernatural possession, necrullitic elixir.

    3. nimbus of force, eruption, demonic flesh graft, supernatural possession, necrullitic elixir.

    4. The Glacier had a buff and is now totally overpowered damage wise. aka. fotm AT.

    5. I used to duel against 3-4 freeforms at once. My AT outperforms many frankenbuilds, in terms of damage AND suvivability.


    I disagree. :rolleyes:

  • knyteshadeknyteshade Member, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Hero Users, Neverwinter Guardian Users, Neverwinter Knight of the Feywild Users Posts: 4 Arc User
    edited December 2013
    runebane wrote: »
    Nothing wrong with it taking a bit of time to upgrade your character's looks.

    With all due respect, this is a matter of opinion. Not everyone is like you. In fact, many people are not like you. Other equally valid takes on gaming exist. There are a great many gamers out there who fundamentally enjoy a game for being able to express their individuality DURING a grind, not after it. When you force people to grind as a prerequisite to enjoying the game how they most wish to enjoy it, that removes the "game" aspect and leaves a job in its place.

    Your opinion is valid, but there are also other valid ways of enjoying a game for people who don't have your personality. For example, people who preferentially enjoy aesthetics, and yet still want to be playing a combat game.
  • mustrumridcully0mustrumridcully0 Member Posts: 145 Arc User
    edited December 2013
    knightfalz wrote: »
    That's a lot of hyperbole and assumption for one paragraph.

    You are assuming they ran about that way to express distaste with customization options. There is no evidence this was so. You also have no evidence that any of them left, much less most. Your characterization of the prices as 'ruthlessly overpriced' is an overly flamboyant depiction that simply serves to discredit your opinion.

    Well... I don#t remember running around in underwear for long, but the customziation seemed very limited and costly compared to STO and CO, and I only occassionally (rarely) look into the forum to see how the game is progressing.

    And that was definitely for me a mjaor reason to not play it. The D&D 4 relations and the Foundry look reasonably attractive to me. The other was that I was disappointed by the character development choices I had. D&D 4 allowed to select frmo a host of At-Will and Encounter Powers when you got a new one, even just with the core rulebook. CO didn't.
  • melodywhrmelodywhr Member Posts: 4,220 Arc User
    edited December 2013
    i think it's a fair bet to say that more customization is coming. andy velasquez mentioned it in an IRC chat a few months ago:
    Question from DreamHuntressX
    future (hope soon) to add more customization options, like new hair models, vanity items (as of the elven regalia)?
    ---
    TheSquez: hey dream huntress
    DreamHuntressX: Hi :)
    TheSquez: sooo do you hunt my dreams? or do you hunt me in my dreams?
    Dragostini: Hahaha.
    DreamHuntressX: xD
    DreamHuntressX: wont tell :p
    TheSquez: oh yeah we totally want to get to more of these
    Dragostini: I apologise DreamHuntressX it seems your question got cut off, can you ask it in full for us?
    TheSquez: vanity items have more coming online pretty regularly
    TheSquez: whether it be from Zen market releases or various event rewards
    DreamHuntressX: So, i wanted to ask if theres any chance to add more customization sets in NW
    TheSquez: things like hair and face options is on our radar to do as well
    DreamHuntressX: Honestly, IMHO, it lacks the variety we found in Co and STO :/
    TheSquez: yeah. thats certainly valid criticism
    TheSquez: i worked on STO pre launch ( i was employee # 4 on that project i think...)
    TheSquez: and yeah, those games did have more
    DreamHuntressX: Nice :)
    TheSquez: NW's design limited us in a way
    TheSquez: b/c we are much more item driven than those titles were
    DreamHuntressX: Still pretty awesome
    TheSquez: so we put a lot of our dev effort into making awesom armor, monsters etc
    TheSquez: that being said we do want to go back in and add more hairs, eyebrows, etc
    TheSquez: its just going to have to be measured against allof the other awesome things we want to do
    TheSquez: like new classes, races, etc.
    TheSquez: but if i hear enough of the requests then i'll make it happen. So keep raising your voices for what you care about
    DreamHuntressX: Nice wish the best of luck :)

    :]
  • battlestationvbattlestationv Member Posts: 0 Arc User
    edited December 2013
    the bigger picture is actually more like 51k x 7 pieces of gear for guardians rangers and tr's(helm,chest,arms,mh,shield/off hand,boots,neck) at 357k ad and 6 for every other class at 306k ad still altogether highway robbery.
  • slambitslambit Member, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Hero Users, Neverwinter Guardian Users, Neverwinter Knight of the Feywild Users Posts: 282 Bounty Hunter
    edited December 2013
    why was the free appearance change removed from the fey weapons on wonderous bazaar?
  • klangeddinklangeddin Member, NW M9 Playtest Posts: 882 Arc User
    edited December 2013
    51k AD for a single item appearence change seems to be a little harsh yeah, but in the end, it's only cosmetic, so I guess I could live with it, this being a F2P game and all.

    Of course, if they found a way to drastically reduce this cost to 5k AD or change it to gold cost, I would be happy about it.

    What I do not understand is why those blue armor sets from Bazar cost millions of AD? Is anyone buying them at all? Seriously? I think those have one or two zeros too many in their AD cost.
  • twstdechotwstdecho Member, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Knight of the Feywild Users Posts: 630 Bounty Hunter
    edited December 2013
    Lower the transmutation cost to an appropriate level, and you get more people tweaking their look, can anyone really argue against that statement? Lower it enough and you might even entice people to transmute as they level instead of at 60.

    More people transmuting would most likely lead to more dye and dye pack sales as well.

    Here's an idea though...

    Any items (armor, weapons etc.) that you've unlocked in the new "Collections" window gives you an option to pay a price in AD to permanently unlock that item as a skin to be used freely at any time, as often as you like. Extend that to encompass mounts as well, and I'd pay quite a bit to use that feature.
  • gavinrunebladegavinruneblade Member Posts: 3,781 Arc User
    edited December 2013
    klangeddin wrote: »
    What I do not understand is why those blue armor sets from Bazar cost millions of AD? Is anyone buying them at all? Seriously? I think those have one or two zeros too many in their AD cost.

    Given that you can get a blue item with almost any combo of stats you want off the market for 100AD or less I sincerely HOPE no one is buying them.
  • mrspumamrspuma Member, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Hero Users Posts: 0 Arc User
    edited December 2013
    13 characters, 8 level 60/max leadership (w/2 more close to 60/20 Leadership) = over a million AD a week just signing into the gateway for 20 minutes a day two or three time a day. Not that it didn't take me a fair bit of time to reach that level, mind you.

    This isn't to brag about how much lots o' alts can make you - I do have a point. And that point is, I've paid for transmuting appearance three times. In other words, despite a hefty weekly AD income, everything else I want/save up for (which is still a lot of stuff since I don't just want one of a lot of those things) costs so much AD that I'm still unwilling to toss 50k+ AD towards appearance transmutation willy nilly. And I don't care about my weapon/armor appearance very much, either. Back before I had the Leadership-alt gravy train, there's no way I would have spent to transmute an item.

    Even tho I do think the cost could be lowered some more, I think there's also a factor re: whether the cost of the transmutation and the cosmetic appearance is important/desirous enough to you for the cost to be worth it, regardless of how much AD one has.
  • tang56tang56 Member, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Guardian Users, Neverwinter Knight of the Feywild Users Posts: 0 Arc User
    edited December 2013
    mrspuma wrote: »
    13 characters, 8 level 60/max leadership (w/2 more close to 60/20 Leadership) = over a million AD a week just signing into the gateway for 20 minutes a day two or three time a day. Not that it didn't take me a fair bit of time to reach that level, mind you.

    This isn't to brag about how much lots o' alts can make you - I do have a point. And that point is, I've paid for transmuting appearance three times. In other words, despite a hefty weekly AD income, everything else I want/save up for (which is still a lot of stuff since I don't just want one of a lot of those things) costs so much AD that I'm still unwilling to toss 50k+ AD towards appearance transmutation willy nilly. And I don't care about my weapon/armor appearance very much, either. Back before I had the Leadership-alt gravy train, there's no way I would have spent to transmute an item.

    Even tho I do think the cost could be lowered some more, I think there's also a factor re: whether the cost of the transmutation and the cosmetic appearance is important/desirous enough to you for the cost to be worth it, regardless of how much AD one has.
    I'm one of the people who have spent heavily on transmuting. It's worth it for me. 250k for a outfit I like wearing and makes me look unique. It's not a bad trade off at all, especially since that 250k is easily made back through leadership or a single good DD run.

    It's more palatable to me than the mount training(though I've upgraded a basic mount to 110% too) or the companion upgrades(never used, will never use in it's current state). Obviously, based on what you value in the game, your mileage may vary.
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  • bioshrikebioshrike Member, NW M9 Playtest Posts: 4,729 Arc User
    edited December 2013
    Here's what the devs should do - add a "Wondrous wardrobe" pack to the Zen store. This pack contains an account-wide artifact. This artifact summons a big Narnia-style wardrobe, which you can interact with to give you a set of fashion clothes. Those clothes are bound and have no sale value. Let's say the wardrobe could give you 1 of 2 possible sets each time it's summoned, and you can only have 1 of each type of piece with you at any given time. Better still, what if it simply provided a portable fashion-only storage space that you could summon at any time...
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  • ulkaurulkaur Member, Neverwinter Beta Users Posts: 0 Arc User
    edited December 2013
    I've figured out my problem. I'm equating astral diamonds to zen and therefore creating an imaginary expense. All I need to do is take zen out of the equation and only worry about building up diamonds for what I want and the problem is solved. When an item on the zen store I want is on sale, I can at that time convert diamonds and buy it. I stopped buying zen cards months back, and since the only way to fight what I disagree with is to treat it as if it does not exist, so be it.
  • lionmaruu0lionmaruu0 Member Posts: 327 Arc User
    edited December 2013
    The price of item transmutation is ok for a lvl 60 character (of course, the cheaper the best), and they added some pieces free to transmute. If they only charged you for cosmetic changes I would be extremely happy.
  • beckylunaticbeckylunatic Member, NW M9 Playtest Posts: 14,231 Arc User
    edited December 2013
    slambit wrote: »
    why was the free appearance change removed from the fey weapons on wonderous bazaar?

    I bug reported this on preview, but to my knowledge, it's not that the free appearance change has been removed. It's that the description tag is missing. I browsed all sorts of items that should have "free appearance change" listed, and while none of them said that anymore (when I was testing on Mimic), everything that I had functioned as a free transmute in spite of the missing description.

    I'd still recommend trying it out on preview before committing any funds for real, in case anything further has changed. And it needs to be fixed, because the missing description is still a bug.
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  • beckylunaticbeckylunatic Member, NW M9 Playtest Posts: 14,231 Arc User
    edited December 2013
    Given that you can get a blue item with almost any combo of stats you want off the market for 100AD or less I sincerely HOPE no one is buying them.

    The point of those items isn't to wear. They have unique appearances, and although the descriptive tags are currently missing, they should be free appearance change items so that if you do decide to eat the initial expense, you get to be snazzy afterwards.
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  • klangeddinklangeddin Member, NW M9 Playtest Posts: 882 Arc User
    edited December 2013
    The point of those items isn't to wear. They have unique appearances, and although the descriptive tags are currently missing, they should be free appearance change items so that if you do decide to eat the initial expense, you get to be snazzy afterwards.

    You can see them in the collection, and they do not look that impressive, really, for that price I'd expect to look like a deity. In fact, I can say that for GF they look worse than blues dropped by Sharandar mobs :P
  • beckylunaticbeckylunatic Member, NW M9 Playtest Posts: 14,231 Arc User
    edited December 2013
    I had a GF one from a Tymora box, which I used to cover the awfulness that was an Armor of Insanity I got him as a cheap starter epic. I haven't looked at his collection to see what the other pieces look like.
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  • imsmithyimsmithy Member Posts: 1,378 Arc User
    edited December 2013
    I hate the AD cost just to make your character look a little unique , I have the T1 Dread ring CW hat and robes in my bank waiting to transmute onto my fugly looking HV set but I just hate the idea of spending 102k just on aesthetics -.-
  • ikeepit3hunnaikeepit3hunna Member Posts: 0 Arc User
    edited December 2013
    Well seeing as how u can make 1-5mil a day if effort is put forth, I don't see why 50k ad is a problem. I transmute gear all the time
    U R 2 E Z- SENT IV GWF undefeated 16k GS
    FaceRoller- regen recovery TR (put on the shelf for now) 14k GS
    Supreme CHAOS - IV GF (put on the shelf for now) 16k GS
    White Khalifa- tene/hp/regen CW (retired) 11k GS (tene)
    Death From Above- TANK ranger 16kGS
    (all halfling everything)

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  • karranorkarranor Member Posts: 191 Arc User
    edited December 2013
    It is way to high. Please cut it in half or quarter.
    Main(s): Kyruel Foecrusher OP, Meriki The Mad CW, Mortalis TR, Gorebringer GWF, Karranor HR
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