More than enough coin sinks

Tankado - Heavens Tear

I don't understand why we have to pay a fee to list an auction and then pay tax on our sales as well. You get us going into the door and coming back out again! Seems to me that one or the other method of removing coin from the player's pocket would be sufficient, but NOT BOTH! And its not as if there aren't enough coin sinks in the game even if we don't use the auction to sell our items.

I for one prefer not to use a stalling system to sell items, but for some reason this system seems to be favored by the Asian community of developers. And I think its a very bad thing when game mechanics encourage people to be logged in for long periods while afk. People are utilizing your server bandwidth to run their stalls, who are not actively engaged in playing the game. But of course I realize that a player rant on the game forum will be completely ineffective at changing a system thats already built into the game.

I'm sure that the numberous coin sinks in PWI provide ample encouragement to the players to buy and sell gold and trade cash shop items for coin. And of course this works out to be an advantage for the non-paying members of our community.

Now I for one believe that this is a business and that the company has no reason to appoligize for wanting a profitable venture. But the marketing strategy is pretty ruthless IMHO. From the point of sale where the customer is buying Zen, which is pretty much usless in the game because you can't spend Zen. But clearly 3000 Zen is a much bigger number than 30 gold, so we must be getting more for our money this way. But I think its unreasonable to expect the paying customers to pay by the hour to play with an XP bonus, even though it is entirely optional. I would be willing to pay more money for a 30-day bonus like this because it could work out like a montly subscription fee.

This situation of paying for Zen reminds me of how all the gas stations in this country always charge an extra 9/10th of cent per gallon. Because nobody ever notices that part of the price, the whole community is deluded into believe they are paying less for gasoline!

I'm sure it won't matter if I say that i refuse to keep doing business with a compnay of questionable ethics; because I've already spent my money on inventory expansions for 3 characters and I sure won't be spending it again. Due to the constant influx of new players, the company can keep on selling those inventory expansions, such is the nature of the MMOG Industy. A few disgruntled customers won't cause the business to fail.

Twilyte - Heavens Tear

You do bring up some very interesting points, and much kudos for a well presented post. Much more appealing to read than the usual, incoherent flames that usually populate these forums.

In your observations, you also pointed out one of the strengths of the system: because of the combination of multiple gold sinks and the ability to sell cash shop gold in game for in game currency, it creates a sense of fairness in the playing field for non-cash paying players.

Many other games I have played where cash shop currency was unavailble to non-paying customers, those players had 3 choices: be left out of in the cold with no cash shop items, buy only what cash shop items were allowed to be sold and being subjected to the whim of the seller as to what price was dictated, or lastly convert into a cash paying customer.

At least here, even though some players try to tweak more value out of selling their cash shop gold at higher prices, others are content just quick selling to whoever is currently bidding to buy. I know I do that myself. I have never posted my gold for sell, rather, I just sell to the current top bidders if I have extra after buying what I need or if I want a little more gold.

I have also been in many a subscription based game that truely could have learned a thing or two about gold sinks from PW. Instead, they watched helplessly as the in game economy spun out of control as people were making more gold than they ever could spend in game.

Is PW a little heavy on gold sinks. Probably a bit. Making money without a veno at low levels can be a challenge. But, they also provide the veno (gold making) class as an option, as well as tens of millions of gold introduced each week through the territory wars. Even if you don't participate in the wars, that gold gets fed into the system as those players buy gear and items from other players.

enigma32

I don't understand why we have to pay a fee to list an auction and then pay tax on our sales as well. You get us going into the door and coming back out again! Seems to me that one or the other method of removing coin from the player's pocket would be sufficient, but NOT BOTH! And its not as if there aren't enough coin sinks in the game even if we don't use the auction to sell our items.

I'm sorry but I've read this post three times and I'm still confused. Are you saying you don't want to spend IRL money because of 'coin sinks' like the auction hall example copied above or did I miss something?