Cashshopping: Required?

blindeyesniper

There are quite a few non-cash shoppers having billions worth of coins. They know how to merchant, that's all.
So no. You don't need cash-shop. Unless you're very impatient.

Maragon - Dreamweaver

blindeyesniper wrote: »

There are quite a few non-cash shoppers having billions worth of coins. They know how to merchant, that's all.
So no. You don't need cash-shop. Unless you're very impatient.

but then bear in mind that the majority of your time isnt going to to actually playing the game.

Coraline - Lost City

Maragon - Dreamweaver wrote: »

but then bear in mind that the majority of your time isnt going to to actually playing the game.

Unless you have two computers or and lets face it's way more common than you think, if you multi.

blindeyesniper

Maragon - Dreamweaver wrote: »

but then bear in mind that the majority of your time isnt going to to actually playing the game.

Well, I know people who put up a catshop at night time when they sleep. They are not worried about coins at all and have very very decent gear. Then there are those with a second computer that they use as catshop.

Dear - Raging Tide

Not required, unless you want the biggest and fanciest mounts, wings, and other unnecessary ****. My main is lvl 76 Archer, I only spent 20 dollars on this game (bought mount, wings, charms and d. orbs). I was impatient and spent that 20 dollars, but I can easily save up enough coins ingame, it just takes more time. I also hate PVP so a cheap crappy gear is good for me... I heard PVP freaks spend a lot of money on uber gear and upgrades to pwn everyone. x.x

Euphy - Dreamweaver

Dark_Feather - Lost City wrote: »

ok, so i've been lurking on the forums lately, and alot of discussion seems to revolve around cashshops. I've read alot that you HAVE to use cashshops if you want to get anywhere in the game.

well, I don't have money for that. Period.

However, I am willing to grind my **** off if thats the case. For me, killing things is what makes it fun. b:chuckle

So my question is:

Is using the cashshop a necessity for getting up in levels, or is grinding sufficient? I understand it would probably take longer that way, but I would love to hear suggestions and whatnot.

If you're actually willing to grind your **** off you don't have to cash shop. It will be slow and brutal. Most of the complainers are too lazy to do what it takes to play this game for free. I think with your attitude you'll be fine.
At lv.95 or 100 you might want to invest heavily in armor. There are some people who've spent close to $50,000 in this game. Their equipment is incredible (+10 or even +12). You probably wont be able to get that level of equipment. But neither will general "cash-shoppers". Good equipment (+5 or so) is manageable through grinding and selling of farmed materials. This is easily obtained if you spend cash and thus you can work towards it ingame.

PunkinKatt - Heavens Tear

Wow... many of you people are completely hopeless... or in the least, completely clueless.

The cash shopping issue here isn't, as in "IS NOT", about making coins. It's about all the items in the cash shop that give cash shoppers tremendous advantages over non-cash shoppers.

Anyone can make coins. Granted, selling gold is the fastest (and laziest) way to do so.

Hopeless, hopeless, hopeless... tsk tsk! b:scorn

RoidAbuse - Sanctuary

PunkinKatt - Heavens Tear wrote: »

Wow... many of you people are completely hopeless... or in the least, completely clueless.

The cash shopping issue here isn't, as in "IS NOT", about making coins. It's about all the items in the cash shop that give cash shoppers tremendous advantages over non-cash shoppers.

Anyone can make coins. Granted, selling gold is the fastest (and laziest) way to do so.

Hopeless, hopeless, hopeless... tsk tsk! b:scorn

But items in the cash shop are accessible to everyone.

Brigid - Harshlands

RoidAbuse - Sanctuary wrote: »

But items in the cash shop are accessible to everyone.

Precisely. Gold can be purchased with coin, therefore anyone can obtain any boutique item. It's more difficult, but not impossible.

PunkinKatt - Heavens Tear

RoidAbuse - Sanctuary wrote: »

But items in the cash shop are accessible to everyone.

Brigid - Harshlands wrote: »

Precisely. Gold can be purchased with coin, therefore anyone can obtain any boutique item. It's more difficult, but not impossible.

Still don't understand, eh?

People who work HARD for their coins so that they can upgrade their skills, get gear, and whatnot don't buy gold... unless they have endless hours to put into the game to make the extra coins. There are priorities involved here. Gold prices are too high and the coins are needed for skills and gear.

So, nope! Still clueless!

RoidAbuse - Sanctuary

PunkinKatt - Heavens Tear wrote: »

Still don't understand, eh?

People who work HARD for their coins so that they can upgrade their skills, get gear, and whatnot don't buy gold... unless they have endless hours to put into the game to make the extra coins. There are priorities involved here. Gold prices are too high and the coins are needed for skills and gear.

So, nope! Still clueless!

This is what I don't get, making coins is so ridiculously easy in this game yet so many people complain that they don't have any coins. When I tell them what and how to merchant, they'd make some profit and end up spending everything on gear instead of reinvesting to make more because they feel that they'll never make huge amount of coins doing what I told them to do. And no, it doesn't even take that much time to merchant. My friend turned 10 gold into 50 gold in 4-5 days from doing what I told him. He only has one computer and catshops over night. Some people use AH so they don't even have to leave their computer on. Just merchant 3-4 hours a day can probably net you enough coins to get all your skills up to date and have enough for decent gear without crazy refines. Sure beats the heck out of grinding for coins.

WarrenWolfy - Sanctuary

PunkinKatt - Heavens Tear wrote: »

Still don't understand, eh?

People who work HARD for their coins so that they can upgrade their skills, get gear, and whatnot don't buy gold... unless they have endless hours to put into the game to make the extra coins. There are priorities involved here. Gold prices are too high and the coins are needed for skills and gear.

So, nope! Still clueless!

Actually, I find myself at least partially agreeing with you here.

There's a large population of people who work hard for their coins that do not buy Gold. I don't know how big a proportion it is, but it's a huge segment of the player-base.

I know they exist because the amount of profit cash-shop item merchants can make selling to these people every day is staggering. Meanwhile, we can't make money off of cash-shoppers because they will simply buy the items directly, while a player who buys Gold themselves will skip the merchants and get the items themselves for cheaper.

Typically, I've been averaging about 7 million per day profit over the course of a month, with about 6-8% markup. That means players who are working hard for their coins and not cash-shopping or buying Gold with coins are spending roughly 100,000,000 coins per day at my cat-shops, and I'm just 1 merchant of many.

So yes, there are many people who work hard for their coins that don't buy Gold, but ironically it's not because they can't afford it, but rather it's because they'd rather pay an extra 7% to have somebody else handle the Gold buying process for them. I honestly don't know how they are able to afford it, though.

PunkinKatt - Heavens Tear

RoidAbuse - Sanctuary wrote: »

This is what I don't get, making coins is so ridiculously easy in this game yet so many people complain that they don't have any coins. When I tell them what and how to merchant, they'd make some profit and end up spending everything on gear instead of reinvesting to make more because they feel that they'll never make huge amount of coins doing what I told them to do. And no, it doesn't even take that much time to merchant. My friend turned 10 gold into 50 gold in 4-5 days from doing what I told him. He only has one computer and catshops over night. Some people use AH so they don't even have to leave their computer on. Just merchant 3-4 hours a day can probably net you enough coins to get all your skills up to date and have enough for decent gear without crazy refines. Sure beats the heck out of grinding for coins.

You're talking about buying zen to sell gold and/or cash shop items in a cat shop or on AH here. I'm talking about people who don't buy zen, don't buy gold, and therefore do not cash shop.

I'd rather play a game and enjoy it than spend most of my time trying to make in-game money. Grinding allows me to do both at the same time. Once my quests are complete, grinding and dailies are the only way to fill up the other 75% of my exp bar. I don't do the dailies that require coins though, for the same reason I don't buy gold... I need my hard earned coins for skills and gear.

The problem here, for people like me, is that the cash shop has items that give huge advantages to the people who buy zen. Why else would I be at level 70 on a character that is well over a year old and we already have Tideborn's at level 100+? Granted, I took some time off from the game last summer to do some real life summer activities, but it wasn't enough to have held me back that much.

Aubree - Dreamweaver

Double drops screws up the market for non-cash players. Everytime they do doubles there are so many more mats on the market. Where cash players used to pay nicely for their mats, they now get for dirt cheap.... gold stays around 400k. It used to be a better balance; now it really sucks. There are ways to making coin, but it is harder. Tokens barely made it over 13k while packs were gone, tokens are now back at 9-10k. There are so many tokens that I don't see them increasing in price by much at all. Stagflation?