Pay to win game, the breakdown!

_Pale - Sanctuary

P2P or F2P and P2W, it's a game and it should be fun to play.
The reason people complain is when they think it isn't fun to play, and when the game they love starts to become less fun. It's a perfectly legitimate complaint whether they pay for the game or not. Ofcourse they can always leave, but then the game would only be fun to play for autistic people. Games without players are pretty much fail and most paying players would leave rather quickly.

If winning is what makes a game fun and you feel paying earns you the right to win, then please come and play my "WIN game": donate $1000 to my bank account and I'll post a nice "You Win" badge on the forum to print out and pin above your bed. You can look at it before going to bed and feel good about your accomplishment of donating $1000. Ofcourse if anyone wants to donate more, they get a badge too and you'll lose.
b:laugh (ofcourse this is not a serious invitation)

Foxymage - Harshlands

im still waiting to be served(still waiting on my 20 gold and its been 5 days since they said they are "working on the problem")yup still waitin

RedBuIl - Lost City

im not a mod so i cant close this post but i'll prob wont look at it again as its going in a completely different direction... nobody even read the first post .. people are just commenting about what teh idiot above them said, and then the cycle continues..

The main point was just to point out that people cant excpect to claim virual representation while not charging and complaining about those that do, as this goes against the system... This post was also inteded to answer the question: Why do people even bother complaining about a system of gold buyers and sellers that they themselves propell by buying gold, and we propell by selling it for high prices..

But the post did a 540 (180 for all you smart people) degree turn and went in the complete opposite direction into accusation of greed and some lunatic lvl 100 chick saying that i want to get rid of every single non charger on the server.. I think she pulled as much factual opinion from my post as i pulled out from her jibberish, she hates cats btw, i totally read that in her post...

anyways, i might check this one again but i doubt it as its probably over here anyways, ty for all those that attempted to answer some things, there were some pretty smart answers, and no ty to the lvl 100 chick who delivers lessons on economy, cant read, and hates cats.

I dont know how people view this thread, as angry or sad but i can assure you its sad.. not angry at anyone, just annoyed is all.
- RedBull

RedBuIl - Lost City

Foxymage - Harshlands wrote: »

im still waiting to be served(still waiting on my 20 gold and its been 5 days since they said they are "working on the problem")yup still waitin

sorry, was still typing when this was posted, if you charged by credit card then its just a problem with transactions with the bank, its alot easier to get pre-paid cards and get the gold instantely..
But if you used google or paypal you really should't have to wait 5 days, usually works in seconds, im not aware of the other options though, hope that helped.

Torathin - Raging Tide

Ashendal - Dreamweaver wrote: »

*shrugs* I see it as my maybe $10 every few months to get a perfect hammer or maybe a random pack just to try my luck is a bonus that helps. Yes it would be nice to have a totally free game but as the saying goes, "There's no such thing as a free lunch." Someone is paying for your meal somewhere, somehow.

Getting upset because of Anni packs ruining the gold-coin ratio is on the players heads themselves. The real reason that price goes up is because players get greedy and charge more. There, I said it. It's not PW's fault that people don't want to be fair in their dealings, it's human nature to be greedy and make things go in our favor.

That's not to say their doing that with the Cash Shop. Every other FTP game has something like that, and every other FTP game that has one has to keep pushing items in there and advertising them otherwise they'd make no money at all as people would just play for free and ignore the shop. What would happen to PW then? No money at all means no game.

If everyone just once in a while decided to pay 10 bucks here or there we might actually see a less of a push of cash shop items and a greater push of content since the staff wouldn't be worried about running out of money to pay the insane server bills that I know they have. (MMO server costs are the largest online costs per bit of data hands down.) We might actually see the bugs everyone complains about fixed because the staff wouldn't be trying to get cashflow to make sure the game is around for those people to complain about.

Yes they do sometimes go overboard...70 bucks for a mount is a lot, but most times they atleast try to give a decent amount of items as cheaply as possible. Case and point the mat sale right now, I bought some glues to make mats with...did it cost me a whole lot? Nope. But did I do it since it was easier then farming and didn't cost an arm and a leg to get? Yes.

To sum it up, if you don't want to support the game, all you want to do is complain, and you want everything handed to you for free....seriously rethink how your viewing the game and life.

I'll make the point here that I'm not bashing FTP people. I've met some very nice ones that don't complain because they know their playing for free. I get upset with the ones that do nothing but complain and they never paid a cent. Entitlement is not something I approve of.

er... that part in red... i'm sorry to tell you this but the game's doing just fine the way it is and always has been. Do you honestly think that they NEED the money really badly? Do you? Seriously? You think this company's not doing that well? If so then please explain to me why everything that comes out new is so high priced. The fact of the matter is charms are their big sellers, charms, and now the oracles. Why do you think they're so cheap? B/c people need them to do well in the game so they're pretty cheap for what they do.

This company's not in a state where they're worrying about their next paycheck, if they were... do you think we'd have another new server? Do you think there'd be mounts in the game for 70$+? NO, it's a proven fact that you get more money from cheaper items. It's simple as simple can be. Look at the oracle sales and tell me this game's not doing ok. I want you to seriously try to tell me this game's not going that well. PW is the backbone of their entire compnay. If it wasn't doing well, why'd they continue to make new games and make expansion packs for this one? if an IP is failing, you sell stuff really cheap i mean literally go on sale 24/7 for everything. Then if that doesn't bring you out of the red, you shut it down. I don't see that happening here, so you sir are an idiot.

Learn how company's work then we'll talk.

Foxx - Heavens Tear

Torathin - Raging Tide wrote: »

charms, and now the oracles. Why do you think they're so cheap? B/c people need them to do well in the game so they're pretty cheap for what they do.

Compared to what?
Most of us simply cant afford them anymore, unless you like farming for negative wealth.

Filet - Heavens Tear

Darksylph - Heavens Tear wrote: »

I dont care about the gear Anni Packs introduced. Seriously, the reason they ruined the economy was the 10 mil bank notes. Look at the larger scope for a second. The economy is spiralling out of control due to inflation. Packs constantly injecting more & more coin only accelerates the inflation, and as we saw just before the great depression, and even more recently with the housing market crash, hyper-inflation destroys an economy.




Please read my post right above you. I'm sorry you're rather mis-informed if you believe this game only lives due to those that charge zen. Without those that dont charge zen, this game dies.

That's not 100% true. Those who charge zen are more valuable to PWI than those who don't charge zen. If the entire population of PWI charged zen the game would still be up. Just because you charge zen doesn't mean you can't buy zen with coins.

Prowler - Heavens Tear

SupaRoyalty - Lost City wrote: »

Servers cost what... maybe 60 a month.. they make more than a fortune than that.

I was not planning to participate in this thread till I saw this post.

An hour later, I'm still laughing so hard I can barely type. I mean, there ought to be some minimum basic IQ requirement for people to be allowed to post something in public!

OK here goes MMO server 101 - the numbers are projections from another much smaller MMO I was closely associated with:

A typical "Server" as we see it, e.g. Heavens Tear, will consist of a minimum of a blade server array, with one or more processor blades (physical servers with CPU and RAM) per "slice", where each "territory", each instance (FBs, TT, Frostland, RB Alpha, RB Beta, RB Gamma, ...) is a "slice". The heavily used slices, such as West Archosaur, would typically be catered to by several powerful processor blades. Similarly, low activity slices such as the extreme north territories, Avalanche Canyon, Misfortune, etc, would be sharing one single processor blade. So we're talking anywhere from US$2000 to 8000 per blade, and thirty to a hundred blades or more for the Heavens Tear "server" alone. If they have "High availability" - which they do not, going by past server crashes - then that would double all of the above costs.

The transactional database, used for trading, auction house, and almost any other transaction in the game, would typically be a separate redundant high-availability database cluster, with a NAS or SAN attached, to cope with the sheer volume of transactions per second per server. If this cluster consists of two servers or (more likely) two blade arrays, that's another US$20k each plus the NAS at another US$10k to US$50k. The "two" above is a minimum for a high-availability database cluster, a conservative number at best. Given the number of active users doing World Chats alone, I'd size at perhaps trice this cost.

Add to the above the web server (plus these forums) and the user database server(s), which are the "cheap" parts of the establishment. Those are perhaps US$3k at the low end, but could well be in the 10k range, depending on how much activity there is on the web server and forums.

Lest we forget: The file server(s) for serving the game installer and patches, another $3k at the low end. Yeah, possibly could do $60 a month for just this piece, if the company is willing to provide very limited bandwidth for downloads.

Connectivity: Each hosting center would need multiple OC3 circuits, to different network primaries - what's the cost of an OC3 per month these days? I quote from Broadband Nation: "The local loop for an OC3 can range from around $3,000 to $10,000+ per month .... depending on the location. The port charge may vary between around $3,000 to $7,000+ per month". Easy enough to add those up. Note that there are at least two hosting centers PWE uses, east coast and west coast.


Now, amortize the buy cost you calculate from the above, across a 3 year period, add up the monthly charges such as connectivity, add salaries and utilities, and then tell me how many zeros you missed in that very amusing "60 a month" you posted.

Or did you mean US$60k a month? In which case, I take back my disparaging remarks and apologize, as you might be off by only a zero or two.

Laughter is good for health, I thank you for your posting!

Ashendal - Dreamweaver

Torathin - Raging Tide wrote: »

er... that part in red... i'm sorry to tell you this but the game's doing just fine the way it is and always has been. Do you honestly think that they NEED the money really badly? Do you? Seriously? You think this company's not doing that well? If so then please explain to me why everything that comes out new is so high priced. The fact of the matter is charms are their big sellers, charms, and now the oracles. Why do you think they're so cheap? B/c people need them to do well in the game so they're pretty cheap for what they do.

If they didn't need money why in the world would they release a $70 dollar mount? If you had even taken Economics in high school or college you'd know that when a company needs money they DON'T do what a normal person would think to do. They release something expensive and try to get as many people to buy it as possible. When people don't THEN they lower the price closer to the equilibrium price. Then and ONLY then will they actually get more sales and until then they will try every high priced option they can to get money. Seriously. Go look it up in a text book and then come talk to me. It makes absolutely no sense at all that company's do that and yet they do.

As for Charms and Oracles, they've been out for a while and have hit the equilibrium price for what people are willing to pay. If they tried to charge more now they wouldn't make squat. As it is they only get money for them because people want to level up as fast as they can and "beat" the game. Charms are only purchased because of the fact that monster difficulty jumps at several points in the game in regards to expected equipment power. If they didn't do that then charms would be less needed and we wouldn't see the many jumps and issues with monster power as we do now.

Torathin - Raging Tide wrote: »

This company's not in a state where they're worrying about their next paycheck, if they were... do you think we'd have another new server? Do you think there'd be mounts in the game for 70$+? NO, it's a proven fact that you get more money from cheaper items. It's simple as simple can be. Look at the oracle sales and tell me this game's not doing ok. I want you to seriously try to tell me this game's not going that well. PW is the backbone of their entire compnay. If it wasn't doing well, why'd they continue to make new games and make expansion packs for this one? if an IP is failing, you sell stuff really cheap i mean literally go on sale 24/7 for everything. Then if that doesn't bring you out of the red, you shut it down. I don't see that happening here, so you sir are an idiot.

See the above post. In Economics company's firmly believe that selling a few high priced items will be better off then selling more lower priced items. Even if they sell exactly the same amount to make the same amount of profit they will continue to sell something above what the item is really worth just so they can get a "larger" profit margin. I work for another gaming company, and things like this happen a LOT. They see a need for money and release a large package that costs upwards of $50 dollars instead of pushing small items. It doesn't make sense and I've stated that, yet they do it anyway. They also push items that are worth a lot less then they have them priced and they sell somewhat ok, but when they drop the price they sell like hotcakes. Yet each time they don't take that into account first to make more money upfront and try to make up lost amounts on the tail end.

Torathin - Raging Tide wrote: »

Learn how company's work then we'll talk.

Why don't YOU learn basic economic principles and then we'll talk. You've obviously never worked in a company and never had an economics class beyond the simple ones in grade school. Once you do and you actually see what I just said then we can have a discussion. Until then you have absolutely no idea what your talking about.

Paramedic - Dreamweaver

talking about server costs is pretty pointless if you dunno how much money they make
(unless u wanna scare some kids with big numbers)


anyway, it is not about if PW is doing well or not (tho imo they are if they are able to develop few other games in same time).


it s about lack of balance since packs were implement


ffs, guy can have in one single magic ring stats that i have from few parts of gear (-6% channeling, +3% crit +250 p.def) lol my top armor has 170 p.def b:surrender

and that just 1 ring

and there are cheat capes, gold lunar weapons (with another insane channel/crit/p. def addons), event boots/ hats., tomes..

and this is kinda standard $-gear

trying to kill such person is like fighting someone 10 lvls higher b:bye

Piliener - Lost City

Ignore this...most of the best stuff is only obtainable (at first) through in game work...not coin or gold b:quiet

aryannamage

OP asked for closure...

Why did we leave this open so long?