Just some food for thought for some in this thread, contrary to popular opinion, dil' isn't only used for buying Zen. There are still a bunch of people who have fleets that are still working, upgrade equipment, and such. If your dil' isnt doing you enough good, I will happily accept donations, to take such a troublesome burden off of your hands
There is a place, out there, that is the center of the universe, and its not you.
When I first heard about this I thought it was a mistake and the prices would be adjusted since they seemed so ridiculous, but then they went live on holodeck as is. Personally, I think the prices are nuts. I'm not at all tempted by any of them. There are much better things to spend dilithium on.
This doesn't strike me as an effective means of controlling the price of dilithium. Balancing/controlling a market relies on persistent forces. The draw being introduced is inconsequential because it's appeal is to a minority. A prospective vest wearer would need both the means and the desire to pay the toll with it.
Why would a buyer's desire to gather a huge sum of dilithium lower the cost in the first place? Has every seller and farmer always wanted a WoK vest or MACO outfit? Unless the people who drive the dilithium market are the intended targets of the promotion I can't see this having any noticeable and certainly no persistent effect on the economy. Realistically the reserves these individual's possess would make 2m ore look laughably small.
Finally dilithium farming is for financing FTP gameplay or for profit. As the item binds on pickup there is no profit to be had. I don't believe a knee jerk, stop gap reactionary measure like this will do anything. At best it would be a morass of contreversy that smokescreens more direct methods of market control.
Bizarrely, the more I think this one over, the more it makes sense to me.
Cryptic want to put some downwards pressure on the dilithium exchange rate, so they are providing a dilithium sink.
Doesn't a sink actually have to be used wide spread, to actually be a sink?
Time will tell.
I think the prices are a bit too high, maybe 500k-1m dil would be more useful as a sink.
But, at the same time, it's very good to have stuff like this for people to covet and work toward.
It might be better if they'd made new stuff for it, widely desirable stuff, but there will still be a small core of people who covet these enough to earn them.
Which is what I have been saying, don't make the most coveted items that everybody wants and have been constantly asking for, but only a few can afford, be the things to moderate the economy.
All that does is create dissention among the players.
(as proved by the conversation in this very thread)
Make new assets that are desirable or use pre-existing popular ones and tweak them so they can still be flaunted around by the folks who have more dilithium than brains.
STO Member since February 2009. I Was A Trekkie Before It Was Cool ... Sept. 8th, 1966 ... Not To Mention Before Most Folks Around Here Were Born! Forever a STO Veteran-Minion
Bizarrely, the more I think this one over, the more it makes sense to me.
Cryptic want to put some downwards pressure on the dilithium exchange rate, so they are providing a dilithium sink.
Doesn't a sink actually have to be used wide spread, to actually be a sink?
Depends on who you want to use the sink. If they don't want dil drawn out by the average joe, then they will set the bar high for stuff that people really wanted so the average joe does not spend their dil on it. The reason for this is because drawing dil out of the average joe isn't helping because they would have spent those dil for upgrades or fleet projects anyways. It's the space rich they want to target. The ones that have 10s of millions of dil...is not 100s of millions. It's not just about how many people use the sinks...it's also about who too.
I'm hoping Cryptic will take feedback into consideration on this. But it might not be for a while. They may want to wait a bit and see if the outfits become popular at the current price.
[but there will still be a small core of people who covet these enough to earn them.
Again if that is the case, it defeats the purpose of being a sink. Key words, "small core of people".
Key phrase you're missing: "with enormous amounts of in-game currency". It's clearly aimed at a comparatively small group of people who can actually afford the things. There aren't many of them, but (as we have seen in, y'know, real life) a small group of very wealthy people can affect the overall economy.
(Whether or not this measure will actually work - well, time will tell.)
Nope. Cryptic, ya gots no chance of ever selling me those costumes pieces at those prices. I have other things to spend Dilithium on which are far more useful.
Note: The other things I am more than willing to spend Dilthium on are also far more fun.
A six year old boy and his starship. Living the dream.
A one-time only purchase is a sink? huh? No, this isn't a sink. Its an overpriced costume charcter unlock, just like the lobi store items. A prober sink would be something repeatable.
Lobi/dil costumes cost 6-8 times more than a zen costume pack, which also contains more costume parts than a dil/lobi costume, and zen store costumes are also account unlocked.
Lower the cost of the dil costumes by a lot, or lower them by small amount and make them account unlocked.
Alternatively, also don't make them a bound one-time purchase. So people with too much dil can exchange them for something else.
"Please, Captain, not in front of the Klingons." Spock to Kirk, as Kirk is about to hug him.
Star Trek V: "The Final Frontier"
What I still don't get is why people are saying the price is ok because they can afford it.
To me that's not the point. Every thing we buy must have a balanced and fair price. Should someone pay 500$ for a hotdog just because they have 10 million dollars? Should they be ok with paying the 500$?
I also know that many times the asking price has the "how much you really want it" factor influencing, but we're talking costumes here. I wouldn't even go with the exclusive argument.
Maybe I'm wrong, and people have the right to have different opinions, but to me this is actually a way of making people elitists, even those who have no intention of being elitist.
Bizarrely, the more I think this one over, the more it makes sense to me.
Cryptic want to put some downwards pressure on the dilithium exchange rate, so they are providing a dilithium sink.
To stand any chance of being successful, this dilithium sink must have three main properties:-
1. It must cost an awful lot of dilithium. (Like, nearly two years' worth of refining on a single toon.)
2. It has to be something that won't affect gameplay. Because if this whatever-it-is gives massive bonuses in regular play, like some super-ship, super-console or super-weapon, the people who can't afford it (which is going to be the vast majority of us, see point 1) will - quite rightly - protest that they're being disadvantaged, that there's no longer a level playing field, that the well-off can "pay to win". So the dil sink must be a pure vanity item. Like, say, a costume.
3. It has to be something that, despite the obscene price tag, people will still want to buy. Something like... costume pieces people have been asking for practically since the game came out. Sure, you could put in things like monocles or gold plating on your spaceship, but those are silly frills that virtually nobody will be interested in. But beaming down with your away team and looking like Jim Kirk in TWOK when you do it... that's Star Trek, man, Trekkies want that. (I know. I'm a Trekkie and I want it.)
So... I see their reasoning, here. I may not like it very much (I'm not a whale, I'm barely even a malnourished porpoise, I can't afford this stuff), and it's too early to tell if enough people will want this to take a significant amount of dilithium out of the exchange. But I definitely see the reasoning. It is logical, Captain.
Bizarrely, the more I think this one over, the more it makes sense to me.
Cryptic want to put some downwards pressure on the dilithium exchange rate, so they are providing a dilithium sink.
To stand any chance of being successful, this dilithium sink must have three main properties:-
1. It must cost an awful lot of dilithium. (Like, nearly two years' worth of refining on a single toon.)
2. It has to be something that won't affect gameplay. Because if this whatever-it-is gives massive bonuses in regular play, like some super-ship, super-console or super-weapon, the people who can't afford it (which is going to be the vast majority of us, see point 1) will - quite rightly - protest that they're being disadvantaged, that there's no longer a level playing field, that the well-off can "pay to win". So the dil sink must be a pure vanity item. Like, say, a costume.
3. It has to be something that, despite the obscene price tag, people will still want to buy. Something like... costume pieces people have been asking for practically since the game came out. Sure, you could put in things like monocles or gold plating on your spaceship, but those are silly frills that virtually nobody will be interested in. But beaming down with your away team and looking like Jim Kirk in TWOK when you do it... that's Star Trek, man, Trekkies want that. (I know. I'm a Trekkie and I want it.)
So... I see their reasoning, here. I may not like it very much (I'm not a whale, I'm barely even a malnourished porpoise, I can't afford this stuff), and it's too early to tell if enough people will want this to take a significant amount of dilithium out of the exchange. But I definitely see the reasoning. It is logical, Captain.
Agreed on each and every point. Well-put.
Oh sure, he's right. Doesn't make some of the suggestions (account unlock, tradable, etc.) in this thread any less appropriate.
Infinite possibilities have implications that could not be completely understood if you turned this entire universe into a giant supercomputer.
I can't even begin and even waste any energy to understand how anyone can defend this. I tried, I really did, but can't do it.
It's not about the question of, 'hey, you can do this in 7 or 10 days if you have so many characters, it's not that hard'. It's about these prices vs. other items that are available in game in comparison to what these costumes are being sold for and what you get for them.
I know this isn't based on dilithium and more in point if it were a cash purchase, but just as an example:
$50 for the Temporal ship pack which could be used on all of my characters
or
$50 for a uniform on one character?
You're talking about a ship that becomes available to all your characters vs. something that is cosmetic that is only available to ONE of your characters.
There are thousands of other examples available that would just be straight dilithium comparison cost but you get the point.
Now personally again, I don't care, I don't do barbie stuff, and I wouldn't get this if they were 100 EC. So I should be happy overall if this is successful as this would be a major dilithium sink on others, while I keep my dilithium and makes it a bit more valuable, and I didn't have to do anything. But I'd be happy and scared.
So what do you think would happen if they see this as a success? What's going to happen to possible future items down the road and how will they be effected as a result? What about current items? Those can easily be changed in pricing at anytime.
Time will tell, but I hope this isn't a trend.
Retired. I'm now in search for that perfect space anomaly.
The assumption here by the price tag is it's not meant for the vast majority of players who don't have millions of Dilithium to just throw at a costume. It's aimed at the zomgspacerich crowd that has more Dilithium hoarded than they know how to get rid of- especially at current exchange rates. (which I hope stay astronomically high, keeping Zen as valuable as it should be)
In fact, I'm hoping they up the cap for the market to 1000 or better.
It's not you- it's me. I just need my space.
Being critical doesn't take skill. Being constructively critical- which is providing alternative solutions or suggestions to a demonstrated problem, however, does.
The assumption here by the price tag is it's not meant for the vast majority of players who don't have millions of Dilithium to just throw at a costume. It's aimed at the zomgspacerich crowd that has more Dilithium hoarded than they know how to get rid of- especially at current exchange rates. (which I hope stay astronomically high, keeping Zen as valuable as it should be)
In fact, I'm hoping they up the cap for the market to 1000 or better.
Possible, but still scared.
Retired. I'm now in search for that perfect space anomaly.
Account unlock would make it less of a sink. Tradeable on the other hand...that I think they should do. Would make a better sink if those who can afford those can rebuy it to sell for lots and lots of EC.
The Lobi costumes are tradeable too. But this would create an 'inverse EC sink' (otherwise simply known as Inflation).
Bizarrely, the more I think this one over, the more it makes sense to me.
Cryptic want to put some downwards pressure on the dilithium exchange rate, so they are providing a dilithium sink.
To stand any chance of being successful, this dilithium sink must have three main properties:-
1. It must cost an awful lot of dilithium. (Like, nearly two years' worth of refining on a single toon.)
2. It has to be something that won't affect gameplay. Because if this whatever-it-is gives massive bonuses in regular play, like some super-ship, super-console or super-weapon, the people who can't afford it (which is going to be the vast majority of us, see point 1) will - quite rightly - protest that they're being disadvantaged, that there's no longer a level playing field, that the well-off can "pay to win". So the dil sink must be a pure vanity item. Like, say, a costume.
3. It has to be something that, despite the obscene price tag, people will still want to buy. Something like... costume pieces people have been asking for practically since the game came out. Sure, you could put in things like monocles or gold plating on your spaceship, but those are silly frills that virtually nobody will be interested in. But beaming down with your away team and looking like Jim Kirk in TWOK when you do it... that's Star Trek, man, Trekkies want that. (I know. I'm a Trekkie and I want it.)
So... I see their reasoning, here. I may not like it very much (I'm not a whale, I'm barely even a malnourished porpoise, I can't afford this stuff), and it's too early to tell if enough people will want this to take a significant amount of dilithium out of the exchange. But I definitely see the reasoning. It is logical, Captain.
Agreed on each and every point. Well-put.
Oh sure, he's right. Doesn't make some of the suggestions (account unlock, tradable, etc.) in this thread any less appropriate.
Account unlock would make it less of a sink. Tradeable on the other hand...that I think they should do. Would make a better sink if those who can afford those can rebuy it to sell for lots and lots of EC.
True.
A lot of things in the game are untradeable for no good reason.
Account unlock would make it less of a sink. Tradeable on the other hand...that I think they should do. Would make a better sink if those who can afford those can rebuy it to sell for lots and lots of EC.
Account unlock would make it less of a sink... sure... because everybody's lining up to buy them for dozens of characters already.
1. There's lots of people refusing to buy it because it's not account-wide with a price like that.
2. There's very few people, if any, who have any intention of buying these costumes on more than one character.
For me I think it comes down to terrible decision making and marketing choices.
You put a product out at an outrageous price tag to boot (because let's be honest here it is pretty steep) and make it character but not an account lock (which would have taken a lot of the sting out of the price).
This is where I am disappointed with whoever is in charge of these things because it conveys a message to me that either
a) You really have no idea how to market an item that can be reasonably obtained even if you had to grind for it on one character.
b) Did not take into consideration any sort of downside to what you were marketing in regards to price.
or even worse..
c) knew exactly what was the fallout from all of this and just shrugged and put it out anyway because at the very least there would be a buzz about it, however mixed it may be.
The fact that the powers that be have not said one word in response to the questions put to them or even acknowledged the fact that the feedback has been less than stellar only tells me that they are following the tried and failed tactic of putting up a wall of silence in the hopes that this will blow over and everybody is eventually going to accept it.
Problem is in doing that you lose alot of confidence among the player base. Now I know there are those that would disagree with everything I have said and that's fine. Honestly, I don't have a problem with Cryptic, it's staff or the game and I have said before when they do something right they really knock it out of the park. For me it's just unfortunate they took this path.
"There is iron in your words of death for all Comanche to see, and so there is iron in your words of life. No signed paper can hold the iron. It must come from men. The words of Ten Bears carries the same iron of life and death. It is good that warriors such as we meet in the struggle of life... or death. It shall be life." - Ten Bears (Will Sampson)
Guess what Shrimp? It works. People spends hundreds of dollars in lockbox ships and you don't see massive forum fires being started over it. How is his any different?
Guess what Shrimp? It works. People spends hundreds of dollars in lockbox ships and you don't see massive forum fires being started over it. How is his any different?
I do not believe that this marketing tactic and following lack of communication has any positive benefits in regard to overall customer satisfaction and/or confidence. As far as comparing lockbox key spending and this situation is apples and oranges to me.
"There is iron in your words of death for all Comanche to see, and so there is iron in your words of life. No signed paper can hold the iron. It must come from men. The words of Ten Bears carries the same iron of life and death. It is good that warriors such as we meet in the struggle of life... or death. It shall be life." - Ten Bears (Will Sampson)
Account unlock would make it less of a sink. Tradeable on the other hand...that I think they should do. Would make a better sink if those who can afford those can rebuy it to sell for lots and lots of EC.
The Lobi costumes are tradeable too. But this would create an 'inverse EC sink' (otherwise simply known as Inflation).
Player trade does not cause inflation since it just shift around currency already in the economy. Now if these could be sold to vendors for like 500 mil EC...yes that would cause an EC inflation. If the demand for these are high enough, it can even cause market deflation for other items as the EC demand for them gets shifted to this item and away for the others.
Account unlock would make it less of a sink. Tradeable on the other hand...that I think they should do. Would make a better sink if those who can afford those can rebuy it to sell for lots and lots of EC.
Account unlock would make it less of a sink... sure... because everybody's lining up to buy them for dozens of characters already.
1. There's lots of people refusing to buy it because it's not account-wide with a price like that.
2. There's very few people, if any, who have any intention of buying these costumes on more than one character.
1) If you can't afford these prices without blinking an eye on multiple toon, then this was not targeted at you to begin with. You not getting these items because you want it for all your toon and can only really afford one means they don't care about you. No really. There are players who can get 10 of these for all their toons and be completely unfaxed by it because they just have that much refined dil on hand. These are the folks that move the dil exchange in their favor. These are the people who could do with 20 mil less dil to do that with. Personally I think they should have one use ships for these prices to make a perma dil sink for these folks.
2) And that is fine. They still spent the dil on one.
1) And those players would be far more likely to do such a thing if they could derive substantial EC profits from it (tradable outfits), rather than as an exercise in stupidity.
2) And somehow, the rest of us shouldn't be motivated to follow their example, because of the off chance that they'll decide to buy it for more characters?
Infinite possibilities have implications that could not be completely understood if you turned this entire universe into a giant supercomputer.
Comments
There is a place, out there, that is the center of the universe, and its not you.
Why would a buyer's desire to gather a huge sum of dilithium lower the cost in the first place? Has every seller and farmer always wanted a WoK vest or MACO outfit? Unless the people who drive the dilithium market are the intended targets of the promotion I can't see this having any noticeable and certainly no persistent effect on the economy. Realistically the reserves these individual's possess would make 2m ore look laughably small.
Finally dilithium farming is for financing FTP gameplay or for profit. As the item binds on pickup there is no profit to be had. I don't believe a knee jerk, stop gap reactionary measure like this will do anything. At best it would be a morass of contreversy that smokescreens more direct methods of market control.
Which is what I have been saying, don't make the most coveted items that everybody wants and have been constantly asking for, but only a few can afford, be the things to moderate the economy.
All that does is create dissention among the players.
(as proved by the conversation in this very thread)
Make new assets that are desirable or use pre-existing popular ones and tweak them so they can still be flaunted around by the folks who have more dilithium than brains.
I Was A Trekkie Before It Was Cool ... Sept. 8th, 1966 ... Not To Mention Before Most Folks Around Here Were Born!
Forever a STO Veteran-Minion
I'm hoping Cryptic will take feedback into consideration on this. But it might not be for a while. They may want to wait a bit and see if the outfits become popular at the current price.
(Whether or not this measure will actually work - well, time will tell.)
Note: The other things I am more than willing to spend Dilthium on are also far more fun.
Lobi/dil costumes cost 6-8 times more than a zen costume pack, which also contains more costume parts than a dil/lobi costume, and zen store costumes are also account unlocked.
Lower the cost of the dil costumes by a lot, or lower them by small amount and make them account unlocked.
Alternatively, also don't make them a bound one-time purchase. So people with too much dil can exchange them for something else.
Spock to Kirk, as Kirk is about to hug him.
Star Trek V: "The Final Frontier"
To me that's not the point. Every thing we buy must have a balanced and fair price. Should someone pay 500$ for a hotdog just because they have 10 million dollars? Should they be ok with paying the 500$?
I also know that many times the asking price has the "how much you really want it" factor influencing, but we're talking costumes here. I wouldn't even go with the exclusive argument.
Maybe I'm wrong, and people have the right to have different opinions, but to me this is actually a way of making people elitists, even those who have no intention of being elitist.
welcome in the plutocracy
Agreed on each and every point. Well-put.
Oh sure, he's right. Doesn't make some of the suggestions (account unlock, tradable, etc.) in this thread any less appropriate.
Infinite possibilities have implications that could not be completely understood if you turned this entire universe into a giant supercomputer.
It's not about the question of, 'hey, you can do this in 7 or 10 days if you have so many characters, it's not that hard'. It's about these prices vs. other items that are available in game in comparison to what these costumes are being sold for and what you get for them.
I know this isn't based on dilithium and more in point if it were a cash purchase, but just as an example:
You're talking about a ship that becomes available to all your characters vs. something that is cosmetic that is only available to ONE of your characters.
There are thousands of other examples available that would just be straight dilithium comparison cost but you get the point.
Now personally again, I don't care, I don't do barbie stuff, and I wouldn't get this if they were 100 EC. So I should be happy overall if this is successful as this would be a major dilithium sink on others, while I keep my dilithium and makes it a bit more valuable, and I didn't have to do anything. But I'd be happy and scared.
So what do you think would happen if they see this as a success? What's going to happen to possible future items down the road and how will they be effected as a result? What about current items? Those can easily be changed in pricing at anytime.
Time will tell, but I hope this isn't a trend.
In fact, I'm hoping they up the cap for the market to 1000 or better.
Being critical doesn't take skill. Being constructively critical- which is providing alternative solutions or suggestions to a demonstrated problem, however, does.
Possible, but still scared.
The Lobi costumes are tradeable too. But this would create an 'inverse EC sink' (otherwise simply known as Inflation).
A lot of things in the game are untradeable for no good reason.
Account unlock would make it less of a sink... sure... because everybody's lining up to buy them for dozens of characters already.
1. There's lots of people refusing to buy it because it's not account-wide with a price like that.
2. There's very few people, if any, who have any intention of buying these costumes on more than one character.
No it wouldn't. The EC doesn't magically appear from anywhere, just like the dilithium doesn't - you're selling to other people.
Infinite possibilities have implications that could not be completely understood if you turned this entire universe into a giant supercomputer.
You put a product out at an outrageous price tag to boot (because let's be honest here it is pretty steep) and make it character but not an account lock (which would have taken a lot of the sting out of the price).
This is where I am disappointed with whoever is in charge of these things because it conveys a message to me that either
a) You really have no idea how to market an item that can be reasonably obtained even if you had to grind for it on one character.
b) Did not take into consideration any sort of downside to what you were marketing in regards to price.
or even worse..
c) knew exactly what was the fallout from all of this and just shrugged and put it out anyway because at the very least there would be a buzz about it, however mixed it may be.
The fact that the powers that be have not said one word in response to the questions put to them or even acknowledged the fact that the feedback has been less than stellar only tells me that they are following the tried and failed tactic of putting up a wall of silence in the hopes that this will blow over and everybody is eventually going to accept it.
Problem is in doing that you lose alot of confidence among the player base. Now I know there are those that would disagree with everything I have said and that's fine. Honestly, I don't have a problem with Cryptic, it's staff or the game and I have said before when they do something right they really knock it out of the park. For me it's just unfortunate they took this path.
I do not believe that this marketing tactic and following lack of communication has any positive benefits in regard to overall customer satisfaction and/or confidence. As far as comparing lockbox key spending and this situation is apples and oranges to me.
1) And those players would be far more likely to do such a thing if they could derive substantial EC profits from it (tradable outfits), rather than as an exercise in stupidity.
2) And somehow, the rest of us shouldn't be motivated to follow their example, because of the off chance that they'll decide to buy it for more characters?
Infinite possibilities have implications that could not be completely understood if you turned this entire universe into a giant supercomputer.