Concerns About Cash Shop Pricing

mystic wrote: »

You're level 26. You have no idea what you're talking about. If you don't spend cash shop money to get heirograms, you don't have enough money to get skills or anything else. That's how this game works. A level 26 couldn't possibly understand that, so I'm explaining to you. You're wrong.

Yes I am new to this game, I have only been playing it 4 days now. But I have been playing online games now for 7 years. I have seen all this before. You are right that it may be hard at the higher levels and that the high lvls will quit if you do HAVE to spend money to get anywhere in the game. But as I say there will never be a shortage of players because you are over looking the fact that more new players join.

The 1st game I played online was VERY small when it started and was totally free. Then they introduced members and it has grown to be one of the most successful mmorpgs with millions of players and over 150 servers. It's the same there. Many older/high lvl players have quit due to various reasons but the population is far, far, far greater now due to all the new players and the simple fact that it is still playable for free and is good quality.

Don't give me this "I am a higher lvl than you attitude so I know more than you", for I am the kind of player that sticks with a game for a long time, learns it and grows within it very fast. It's also common sense to see that more and more players will join this game over time once the word gets out about it.

On this other game that I am talking about I have pretty much maxed all skills and at almost the highest combat lvl that you can get. The "skills" there are far harder to train than here too, it takes real work. The skills here are a joke compared. I'm talking about working on these skills over periods of months of actual put in play time too (per skill, years for all skills)...... Heck it's taken me seven years to get where I am at and I am still some ways from maxing them all.

This game will never be without players. It's free and it's good quality. People will always play free good quality games even if they can't afford or will never get all the best items or benefits from the game.

56 Pages and as of yet, and the most recent GM reply was quite some time ago. I can only hope it is currently under heated discussion at PWI offices.

This is an issue which will not be easily solved people. Reorganising a financial strategy for a game takes time and discussion, esp when the F2P / cash shop model for a game is usually heavily researched before being put into implementation.

That being said, The GM's have always been there for many of us when we needed help, and nothing has changed. They are not responsible for the pricing structure, the company is. Lets hope that fair minds prevail in that regard. I walked away from the fiasco that was HGL bitter. I was crushed at the knock on effect for Mythos.

I still have hope for PWI, as silly as that may be for everyone so keen to throw flame. I dont agree with the cash shop pricing structure, and I'm concerned since I've done my research and seen the need for Charm usage in late game structures. You cant avoid it.

I dont want to make a choice. I have friends here. I have an awesome guild here. Hell, even the GM's are great in game. I'm barely into my 40's in game and dont want to start all over again somewhere. I wont say that I will, even if the pricing structure isnt changed. I have bought things in the Cash shop. Not alot, but some things. Many complain about the pricing conversion of dollars to euro's, but try rands to dollars. It hurts my salary even more.

I will wait. And be patient. And see.

Baifang - Heavens Tear wrote: »

esp when the F2P / cash shop model for a game is usually heavily researched before being put into implementation.

Usually that is the case. That's why you don't see these threads popping up on all F2P games with this kind of support. PWI did not do that, they just based it of GDP in which the error of doing that has already been pointed out. I doubt anyone in the company has any sort of financial degree, in fact it seems this company is ran by a bunch of 20 somethings who have good intentions but don't really have an inkling of what they are actually doing. They just expect to get rich their first month in play. Unfortunately, the world doesn't usually work that way.

Poison - Heavens Tear wrote: »

Usually that is the case. That's why you don't see these threads popping up on all F2P games with this kind of support. PWI did not do that, they just based it of GDP in which the error of doing that has already been pointed out. I doubt anyone in the company has any sort of financial degree, in fact it seems this company is ran by a bunch of 20 somethings who have good intentions but don't really have an inkling of what they are actually doing. They just expect to get rich their first month in play. Unfortunately, the world doesn't usually work that way.

Agreed, the gms are becoming annoying not fixing the prices and not even answering... wth is going on..

Yesh, I don't know what is wrong with them. This is overexxesive haha, hillarious even.

For what it's worth, maybe they don't really work weekends or whatever reason for shortened hours. If you go to their profiles, as of this post, Xarfox's last login date was 9/12 and same with most of the other admins. Dvorak logged in today to post about the maint and their contest and nothing else so far.

troll wrote: »

you are missing the point here.

nobody cares if the players who want to play for free stay or go.

the people posting here are the cash shop users from other servers and we are choosing to leave THIS server as the rates of dollar to gold are so very way off what is a reasonable cost to play this game.

this fool company is chasing off legitimate cash shop users, as we will not play a game at prices we KNOW are too expensive.

this company is losing our money, and for that tradeoff you say it's ok as "new low level people (who don't need cash shop) will always come into game, and terminal free to play players will always remain".

looks like epic fail to me.

I am not missing the point at all. MY point was that there will never be a shortage of players in reply to all the "there will be a mass exodus of players and no one will play the game" replies.

I too am one of the cash payers in this game, heck I've only been playing 4 days and I have spent $90 already so don't think I have come here to flame the payers. I too was grumbling about it all here, you can see that if you search my posts.

I did not anywhere say it was "ok to have players leave because new players will come along". I am just saying (again) that there will never be a shortage of players. Albiet the type of players that come along will probably be the ones that wont pay, which was also my point. That there will be players here but payers or non payers? So will they be any good at all?

I am on your side here buddy, don't get so worked up so quickly, try reading AND comprehending, jeez.....

If anything I was trying to give a warning to the Game devs. If they want this game to be successful they have to look at other successful games that are out there and follow those by example. If they want this game to be a money make for them and to have it keep going they have two options:

1 - Bring in a subscription. This will probably spell the end of the game being free. They could limit certain parts of the game to non members tho, however I think it would be too late to implement that now.

2 - Have reasonable prices (conversion of Zen-Gold) so that it is attractive and affordable to at least 50% of the population of players. With that, have the items be WORTH it and attractive (again to 50% if not more of the players), add more to the mall, I have heard there is a ton missing. Bring them in and make them worth what we pay for them.

That's it, plain and simple. Any company trying to survive or make money from a game by having their players only succeed or have fun in their game by forcing them to spend HUGE amounts of cash (I'm not talking about high cost items, I'm talking about cheap items that you need very frequently or the "random try your luck" ones such as dye pigments) will surely fail. Those players will move on and be disgusted at the game and the company. Not good for either party.

Right, I hope I have not caused any confusion for anyone else with what I have said now...

nounours wrote: »

Hey guys, I feel like you all didnt understand something.
This Topic is clos, They wont change zen price, no point to continu posting,
Poeple are already buying zen,
So please take break;)

People may be buying Zen but that does not mean that they are totally happy about it or will be further down the track when they see just how much more they MAY have to spend to get anywhere.

I'm still wondering about that myself tho. As at my low lvl I already have lvl 3 in 3 of the skills and am stocking up on charms easily, I have had 2 bronze whats a ma call its and I wont get them again as they are a waste. Especially the mana one, recharge at less than 75% what the heck is that about? That's killing off your "free" mana just so you burn through your item faster so that you have to buy another. Pretty much the same with the hp one but at 50%. Surely 25% would be more reasonable and a more "value for your money" item.

I think with time, patience and a little work you can get most things here just by playing the game and earning the in game gold. It helps obviously too if you have good friends/faction to help you out on your adventures. Perhaps some people are just too used to playing this game by taking all the shortcuts and getting everything fast from that?

One person who posted already said "you need money to raise your skils". Not from what I have see and done already. You CAN get the items yourself or trade for them. Maybe it's just me coming from another game that FORCES you to work very hard to get what you want where you can't BUY your way to lvling up that gives me this outlook.

I could be wrong however, as it has already been pointed out I am a lowly lvl 20 something right? Time will tell, because either way I will stay and play I wont run off just because I can't buy everything and get everything now, now now. I still prefer to help support the game, but I assure you I wont be spending any money on any item that I see as a complete and utter waste and just a cash cow for the company.

No offence to anybody at all, I'm just blunt and that's all there is to it.

wow, people still give a damn. o_O
57 pages and no change, this means you (we) have 2 choices:
- accept the prices and play here
- leave for other servers.

i'm choosing the 2nd option. too bad, i had high hopes for this version.

Hey, there's a patch coming with maintenance tonight, maybe possible they will lower prices or add some things to item mall?

sweigh wrote: »

charms will be 40% cheaper, but only for the next two weeks.. hardly a solution to the problem.. luckily a new MMO is going public on thursday.

I agree, after all the complaints they decided to go for a short discount? Sticking around was a waste of time, they obviously didn't care about "listening to the community".


Take a good look at my cash shop activity, then kiss it goodbye. This was nothing short of an insult to those who tried to have faith.

Nice, PWI's smoother talking than Rohan... exept the end result will be the same, because talk is cheap. A 2 week sale won't bring back the 5 (or more... i dont know most the members) rq who quit. Not to mention the mass of other people pissed off at these prices.

Even though my werefox class is rich and hardly has to use heiros, I can foresee myself having to quit when the population dwindles and gold costs a mil ingame so that new players can only play if they spend cash.

Competition is good for business, and a two week charm sale is not competition.

kenshin913 wrote: »

Really? Your solution to our complaints about prices being high is to give us a sale for two weeks? So for these two weeks we're supposed to buy as many hieros as we can, stock up in case the price never goes down again.
Also, new fashion items? I don't think that was really necessary. People aren't wearing as much fashion in this game. Not nearly as much as compared to PW-MY. The prices are way too high for it to be reasonable for most people. ZEN is just not worth it right now compared to the prices that we can get these items for in the other versions of the game.

I find this fact amusing. Everyone on MY had fashion. Customer happiness should come first, and I've never heard anything good about the prices here.
On the other hand, I never saw any complaints about MY's prices when I played... hell, I would have dropped a bunch of cash there if it weren't for the lag and malaysians.