1500 crowns per outfit slot (1 slot) just under $1200 for every slot

OrdoHermetica

Morgul667 wrote: »

But i seriously feel they would sell much more crowns if they made the slots account wide for 1500 crowns. The price is so high it is a deterrent to buy at the moment. I dont know even one guy in game who bought it.

In fact, I have guildies who haven't touched costuming at all because of it. That doesn't quite make sense to me - I'll totally use my one free slot - but apparently it's just not worth engaging with the system at all to them. I suppose I can see where they're coming from. After all, no part of the Outfitting system is cheap.

SydneyGrey

They probably won't lower the price now, because it would tick off the few people who have bought outfit slots. I expect they'll have a sale at some point, though, because of the outrage. I refuse to buy the slots at this price, but I would if they were half off.

I don't usually use the word "greed" when I talk about companies, because companies exist to make money, BUT I think ZOS saw how excited people were about the outfit system, so they made the prices for slots sky-high. They did the same with that Nocturnal costume ... people were talking about how much they loved it when it was datamined, so they raised the price sky-high.

Lesson learned: If you like anything that was datamined, or on the PTS, DON'T TELL THEM.

LadyAstrum

SydneyGrey wrote: »

They probably won't lower the price now, because it would tick off the few people who have bought outfit slots. I expect they'll have a sale at some point, though, because of the outrage. I refuse to buy the slots at this price, but I would if they were half off.

I don't usually use the word "greed" when I talk about companies, because companies exist to make money, BUT I think ZOS saw how excited people were about the outfit system, so they made the prices for slots sky-high. They did the same with that Nocturnal costume ... people were talking about how much they loved it when it was datamined, so they raised the price sky-high.

Lesson learned: If you like anything that was datamined, or on the PTS, DON'T TELL THEM.

Yes, I think they gauge excitement/hype for certain things and price accordingly.

I feel quite empty thinking about buying outfit slots at the current price. I'm willing to pay for certain things, but this blatant greedy price feels vampire-like, as if I'll be sucked dry if I buy any slots. It's difficult, because I keep wanting save outfits, but can't.

mrdiamond666

Glad I can only buy 1 (got 14 toons, lol)

OrdoHermetica

LadyAstrum wrote: »

Yes, I think they gauge excitement/hype for certain things and price accordingly.

I feel quite empty thinking about buying outfit slots at the current price. I'm willing to pay for certain things, but this blatant greedy price feels vampire-like, as if I'll be sucked dry if I buy any slots. It's difficult, because I keep wanting save outfits, but can't.

Speaking as someone with some marketing and sales experience, their model is outright, textbook predatory. It's also infuriatingly short-sighted, and I could rant on and on about how this sort of thing will actually dramatically cut into their profits in the long term, but I'm pretty certain I'd be wasting my breath, so I won't.

But yeah. This shouldn't be surprising, to be honest. The entire Crown Store is built around this sort of behavior, to one degree or another. Though, granted, this is particularly bad.

BlueViolet

For 1500 crowns apiece, I think it's appalling that the slots are not account wide.

I'm fine with editing an existing slot over and over, but I still think that kind of pricing is astonishingly greedy. There is a difference between "Being a business and needing to make a profit to survive" and "fleecing your customers"

I'll stick to costumes thanks.

Elsonso

SydneyGrey wrote: »

Lesson learned: If you like anything that was datamined, or on the PTS, DON'T TELL THEM.

I do think that they set the prices by taking into account the number of "squeeee!" responses they see. Sadly, nothing can be done to stop that, and I suspect that it doesn't take many "take my money now" memes to jack up the prices.

anitajoneb17_ESO

OrdoHermetica wrote: »

Speaking as someone with some marketing and sales experience, their model is outright, textbook predatory. It's also infuriatingly short-sighted, and I could rant on and on about how this sort of thing will actually dramatically cut into their profits in the long term, but I'm pretty certain I'd be wasting my breath, so I won't.

So you make a statement but you don't care to back it up with any kind of reasoning ?
As someone with some marketing and sales experience, you are well aware that models are developed based on quantitative and qualitative studies of consumer behaviour, and decisions are made according to a chosen goal.
Given that you don't know that goal and don't have any of the data, I wonder how you can say that the model is bad. It's pretty much like saying "they chose the wrong type of car" without knowing their budget, nor if hey intended to use that car for everyday town use, races or a roundtrip around the planet.

That you as a customer are not happy with the price of outfit slots is understandable (neither am I), but that doesn't mean it's a bad choice for the company.

Merlin13KAGL

It's $25 for a name change in this game.

A single database entry modified by a completely automated script.

I'm not sure why 1500 crowns for something like this comes as a surprise to anyone here.

Elsonso

Merlin13KAGL wrote: »

It's $25 for a name change in this game.

A single database entry modified by a completely automated script.

I'm not sure why 1500 crowns for something like this comes as a surprise to anyone here.

Sometimes, pricing supports scarcity. This is a case where monetization may not be to collect revenue, but to discourage behavior. I don't think they want the price of name changes so low that people are doing it every day. They want it done when it really needs to be done. Higher prices for the name change, race change, and appearance change tokens support scarcity, but still allow it when it really needs to be done.

I don't have a good excuse for the 1500 Crowns per slot, though. It acts to discourage the use of additional slots. I can't see it raking in the revenue. At that price, a lot of people won't be going beyond the free one, and when they do, it will probably just be a small number. What I don't understand is why they do not want people to make full use of the Outfit system.

anitajoneb17_ESO

lordrichter wrote: »

What I don't understand is why they do not want people to make full use of the Outfit system.

I'd guess it's about costumes. Costumes are another big moneymaker in the crown store, and there are two advantages to costumes :
1/ They have a unique look and don't look like any other armor style (at least, most of them)
2/ it's the only way to change one's look "on the fly", or "in the field", without having to go through the tedious steps of changing gear for every slot, or go to a dye station for new colors.

An outfit system with many, easy to acquire slots for each character nullifies directly that second advantage of costumes.
It would be one monetizing system competing with another.

In other words, I believe the reason for making outfit slots expensive, is to preserve the attractivity of costumes.

Elsonso

@anitajoneb17_ESO ... Maybe. I'd think that rather paranoid. At best, the Outfit System is a reuse-recycle system. While it is a costume, it is limited to what you can already do. Crown costumes are all about looks that you cannot easily replicate in the game using stuff you already know. My feeling is that they should feel secure in that.

Edit... besides, costumes don't get purchased because they are too expensive. Lower the crown cost. Drive sales.

anitajoneb17_ESO

lordrichter wrote: »

Edit... besides, costumes don't get purchased because they are too expensive. Lower the crown cost. Drive sales.

I don't know how many times I'll have to explain that WE DON'T KNOW.

We don't know if costumes sell well or not. And unless someone here has access to ZOS internal data, none of us knows that. And we don't know their objective, meaning that we don't know what "selling well" or "selling bad" means for ZOS.
We don't know either how much more or less sales would occur if the price changes.
If 100 players buy sthg at 1000 crowns, it means 100 000 income.
if 120 players buy the same thing at 600 crowns, it means 72000 income. More unit sales but less income.

Let's stop thinking that we know better than ZOS what they should or should not do and stick to our choices as customers : buy if we think it's value for money and can afford it, or don't buy if we don't or can't. In that position, we also have every right to express why we don't buy - but not what they should have done.

Elsonso

anitajoneb17_ESO wrote: »

lordrichter wrote: »

Edit... besides, costumes don't get purchased because they are too expensive. Lower the crown cost. Drive sales.

I don't know how many times I'll have to explain that WE DON'T KNOW.

We don't know if costumes sell well or not. And unless someone here has access to ZOS internal data, none of us knows that. And we don't know their objective, meaning that we don't know what "selling well" or "selling bad" means for ZOS.
We don't know either how much more or less sales would occur if the price changes.
If 100 players buy sthg at 1000 crowns, it means 100 000 income.
if 120 players buy the same thing at 600 crowns, it means 72000 income. More unit sales but less income.

Let's stop thinking that we know better than ZOS what they should or should not do and stick to our choices as customers : buy if we think it's value for money and can afford it, or don't buy if we don't or can't. In that position, we also have every right to express why we don't buy - but not what they should have done.

It was a general statement that goes with the paragraph above it. Of course we know that high prices are a reason why people don't purchase costumes. We also know that lower costs tend to drive sales. We don't have to know sales numbers to figure this out. I completely agree with you and said nothing to contradict that.

anitajoneb17_ESO

lordrichter wrote: »

Of course we know that high prices are a reason why people don't purchase costumes. We also know that lower costs tend to drive sales. We don't have to know sales numbers to figure this out.

No, you don't know that, and yes, you need to know sales numbers to figure this out.
Anyway. Forget it.

LadyAstrum

anitajoneb17_ESO wrote: »

lordrichter wrote: »

What I don't understand is why they do not want people to make full use of the Outfit system.

In other words, I believe the reason for making outfit slots expensive, is to preserve the attractivity of costumes.

In my case, the attractiveness of costumes is preserved, but mainly because I can't in my right mind (perhaps if I was drunk) pay 1500 for a single outfit slot. 1500 for five perhaps...one, no. It's unappealing because you are not paying for an item in the way you would a costume, you're paying for access to use something you've already obtained through gold, time or crowns, whether it be a motif or achievement dyes.

OrdoHermetica

anitajoneb17_ESO wrote: »

So you make a statement but you don't care to back it up with any kind of reasoning ?
As someone with some marketing and sales experience, you are well aware that models are developed based on quantitative and qualitative studies of consumer behaviour, and decisions are made according to a chosen goal.
Given that you don't know that goal and don't have any of the data, I wonder how you can say that the model is bad. It's pretty much like saying "they chose the wrong type of car" without knowing their budget, nor if hey intended to use that car for everyday town use, races or a roundtrip around the planet.

That you as a customer are not happy with the price of outfit slots is understandable (neither am I), but that doesn't mean it's a bad choice for the company.

You're right, I don't have access to their sales data. And as I've said in a number of my other responses, it's entirely possible that the numbers they have say this is working, at least in the short term. However, I don't need to see their internal numbers to make an educated guess that this is a Bad Idea in the long term: we have plenty of examples of other MMO monetization schemes to consider ESO alongside, we have reviews from professional journalism outlets that have been critical about the pricing structure since 2014, and we have several dozen threads over the last couple days criticizing this decision (including this thread, which has been near or at the top of the forum for over a week at this point).

There are also some pretty well-established industry practices to consider as well, such as the fact that micro-transactions work best when their price point is low enough to avoid causing hesitation or buyer's remorse, and the Crown Store regularly falls short of that.

Most important, though: the negative effects this sort of thing can have on customer loyalty. The #1 complaint I hear about this game by far is that people dislike how expensive and cynically greedy the Crown Store is. People don't like to feel like they're being milked for all they're worth, and people don't like being taken for fools, and - again, admittedly anecdotally because I don't have the data, but based on forum threads and guildies and zone chat and the like - that's how this and other Crown Store decisions make them feel. Which, in turn, erodes community trust and loyalty to the game and the company. I know I've certainly hesitated to recommend this game to some of my friends because of it.

Clearly some people are buying these items at these price points. And it's possible that I'm mistaken, and this makes sense in the long term as well. But based on what I know as a customer, and based on what I know about the importance of building and maintaining customer loyalty through a community first approach, I sincerely doubt it.

cabbageub17_ESO

Your opinions might be more visible in this thread.

https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/396487/outfit-system-feedback/p1

Velaethia

This is incredibly frustrating. I had to jump through a million hoops just to get forum access so I could comment on this thread. The ESO site is utterly terrible to navigate. Not user friendly AT ALL!!!

This price is ridiculous. If it were this price for every toon on the account. Then that would be justified. Most things like that are account bound on this game. Most crown store items are. So why the heck is this not???

One of two things needs to happen ZoS.

1: Make the purchase account bound. Retroactively apply this to everyone who's made the purchase, and compensate them if it went beyond the maximum limit for outfit slots.

2: Greatly reduce the price of outfit slots. Hell even 500 would be better. In addition reduce the price of the token to 50-100 crowns.

Currently you can only buy one for one character once a month with the ESO+ crowns. And isn't 1500 crowns like $15? You're seriously charging $15 (The same price as a new character slot btw) to buy additional outfit slots? That's madness.

I understand you're a company. I understand your point is to make money. But this is by far an overcharge. The price is artificial because it doesn't cost you anything to provide the slots. (Which is why everyone got 1 free).

Please, please reduce the price, or make it an account bound unlock.

In addition ESO+ members should get a secondary free outfit slot.

I know you're a company, I know you like money. Listen to your fans though. We're upset about this. This is one of the most desired features for this game. You don't have to over-price it to make back the money you invested into it. Make it cheap and people will buy it in the handfull.

Please for the love of the gods be reasonable.

Most people aren't going to buy them at all at this price. It's just not gonna happen. You're likely to have an even harder time making back the money you invested in this feature than if you priced it lower.

Most people I know play more than one character. People like me being an altoholic and unable to settle on a "main" are thus SoL. Because I'm not going to spend that insane price on one slot for one character who at the drop of a hat I might stop playing. It's not worth it.

Please, please change this. I promise you, you'll still make plenty of money. In fact I wouldn't be surprised if you made MORE money!

I mean logically why would costumes be account bound, but not outfit slots? They're both cosmetic things.

Anthony_Arndt

SydneyGrey wrote: »

...I don't usually use the word "greed" when I talk about companies, because companies exist to make money, BUT I think ZOS saw how excited people were about the outfit system, so they made the prices for slots sky-high. They did the same with that Nocturnal costume ... people were talking about how much they loved it when it was datamined, so they raised the price sky-high.

Lesson learned: If you like anything that was datamined, or on the PTS, DON'T TELL THEM.

Isn't this exactly what happened with the Elk? A unique, but not particularly inventive mount with no upgraded appearances for the three skills... but people thought it was really cool on the PTS and it was released at a price comparable to three to seven times the cost of the other mounts in-game.

My wife and I live in Germany but we're from the US. So we play on the NA servers, and have since the beta. But our son is starting to game, and will probably want to play on the EU servers when he makes local friends. And this makes us really hesitant to buy anything with crown points.

Anything that you buy through the in-game crown store, even if it is "account-wide" is only for the server you are on when you buy it. If you buy it through the website with meat-space money it is actually account-wide. Since I bought the first four DLCs with crowns, I had to buy them twice. My wife bought them through the website and had them on both servers. Of course we would only discover that after moving to Germany and I decided to give the EU server a try.

I would have loved that Elk for my Bosmer... but... paying 4500 crowns for it once... then having to pay for it a second time... just to use it on (two copies) of one character? It's not that nice. My Imperial Horse and Striped Senche-Tiger are good enough. Drop the price to 1-2k and I'll think about it. Sell it through the shop for $10 or so and I'll think about it. But since discovering that in-game purchases are per-server, not account-wide, I only buy crowns when on sale for 50% or lower since each crown is only actually worth half-a-crown to me. I used to buy every pet and costume that I liked, just to support the game. Now, I only buy character customization options that I use all the time. No more pets and no more costumes.

It's no different with the outfit slots.

I love the system. I honestly think that this system is the single-best outfit system of any game I've played so far. The best options, the best control for look, colour, silhouette, etc. Overall, I love the system.

AO just had robes; Wow had nothing (until recently, and a horrible art-style post-40); LOTRO had a great, if limited system for outfits and dyes (for the time); SWTOR still just has a mediocre copy of LOTRO's system; AoC and TSW/SWL have adequate systems...

SWTOR has been my main sci-fi MMO and LOTRO was my previous main fantasy MMO. In both games, I have 4-8 outfit slots unlocked on every character. Even though I don't get involved in RP, I do historic costuming in real life so the look of my avatar is my main concern in every game I play.

I have been a vocal proponent for an outfit system in ESO since my wife and I joined the beta in the March or April of 2013. By the time I joined the beta forums, the thread discussing what people wanted in an outfit system was on it's third 11-page thread. The things people were asking for in 2013 are basically what we have today. So when it was announced that we finally were going to have it, I was overjoyed. And I feel the system lives up to the hype (even if it's four years late).

But the pricing is absolutely atrocious.

The gold cost might be fine if you are an end-game player who has been raiding since year-one... but my wife and I don't have so much free-time for raiding and so far neither of our banks and none of our characters have all the vault and bag upgrades unlocked. We love the game but we jokingly call it "Inventory Management Online"... So paying 2000-8000 per character for outfits has tapped us out.

And then there's the crown cost for unlocking the Outfit Slots. With our experience in the other MMOs we've played, we were expecting the cost to unlock one extra slot be somewhere around 100-200 per character or 800-1000 for an account-wide unlock. And for it to be unlockable with both crowns and gold. But 1500 crowns for ONE slot on ONE character?

Not bloodly likely. There is no way I'd spend $13 on an unlock for a character. I happily spend money on the game, on the account. I will not spend money on a character.

So I'd like to say great system to the developers!

...and absolutely nothing good to say about the sad sacks who set the prices.

OrdoHermetica

Anthony_Arndt wrote: »

So I'd like to say great system to the developers!

...and absolutely nothing good to say about the sad sacks who set the prices.

This pretty much sums up my feelings on ESO in general, to be honest.

nexxus_ESO

Utterly ridiculous. No thanks. Won’t be purchasing and not inclined to bother with the outfit stuff if I’m being charged to use the things I’ve already earned and purchased.

Morgha_Kul

I started another thread about this, but it's been suggested we post here, so here I am.

The fact is, the outfit slots are too expensive. I did a bit of math, and for the same service at The Old Republic Online, it costs just under a DOLLAR to unlock a slot on one character... just under $5 for one slot for ALL characters on an account. That's from a F2P model most people consider excessively draconian.

I've worked in retail most of my life, more than 25 years experience. I've worked for high volume stores with lower prices and low volume stores with higher prices. WITHOUT EXCEPTION, the high volume stores do better business.

It comes from a couple of things. First is that you're selling more stuff. However, there's more to it.

Suppose you have that high end, low volume store. You're selling those Armani suits, but they're $5000 a pop. That means that the average person comes in, sees something they like but can't have. That person then goes out and tells everyone they know that your store is overpriced, that you have nice things, but people can't have them. BAD WORD OF MOUTH.

Now suppose you have that high volume store. You're selling cheaper suits, maybe $500 a pop. Now, instead of selling ONE and having one happy customer, you sell TEN, and have TEN happy customers to spread GOOD WORD OF MOUTH. More, that also means fewer people that are unhappy, meaning less BAD WORD OF MOUTH.

As anyone who has worked sales will tell you, word of mouth is the most effective kind of advertising, and the most damning form of criticism.

This is a computer game, so there's NO SUPPLY to maintain. You can sell as many items from your store as you want and you'll NEVER run out. That means VOLUME is your most logical and most productive form of sales. If you're limiting yourself only to the high price people, you're limiting your overall income.

It's BAD BUSINESS, and it's utterly nonsensical.

I've said this before, with regard to housing (among other things). ESO is pricing itself into the economic grave.

I really, REALLY want to see this game thrive; but decisions like this one are putting the survival of the game in question. I'm not crying "DOOM!" just yet, but these decisions really make me wonder what the future will hold.

Orticia

Merlin13KAGL wrote: »

It's $25 for a name change in this game.

A single database entry modified by a completely automated script.

I'm not sure why 1500 crowns for something like this comes as a surprise to anyone here.

It's not a surprise to me, but disappointing all the same. And the whole fact it is not in the slightest surprising to me is pretty much the problem. It simply means almost everything in the crown store is (hugely) overpriced to me. And in fact it is the reason I never so far could justify buying any item from the store save spending my initial new account and bought version crowns. And saving all occasional sub month crowns for content DLC's.

Nothing to do with me not liking the stuff in the store most of the time. Just not finding them worth nearly that much. Then they go from desirable and fun (and worth spending some money on) to just overpriced fluff pixels I can do without. High price makes me look at stuff differently/way more calculating (literally) and sure as heck turns off any impulse buy drive I might otherwise have. In the end spending quite a bit less then I otherwise would have.

Velaethia

"BREAKING: ESO fired their sales team. Hired a bunch of forward thinking socialists for their sales team. Help created a new system built to keep ESO afloat and make a net profit (After paying employees obviously) of 10%. The result: Game made of love. The game still makes a profit. Players are happy, devs are happy, everyone is happy. All ESO store item prices have been greatly reduced. The only people not happy is the people who want to maximise profits but they also got fired. It was bad business. A business that makes a smaller profit but has a healthier consumer/company relationship is much better than a company that makes a large profit but has a very unhealthy consumer/company relationship. It helps keep the the company afloat and increases the strength of their loyal customers. While the profit may have been somewhat reduced. Over-all happiness among both employees in the company and consumers of the company's products has increased greatly. It is also predicted that the company's survivability to be greatly increased. Potentially doubling it's predicted life-span. "

I wish I could live to see this be reality. But not in our world, never in our world.

j3crow

OrdoHermetica wrote: »

Chaos2088 wrote: »

How is that even justified?....Wouldn't they make more money if it was cheaper? (aka people would buy it) I am not buying any at that price.

Yes. Yes they would. Their marketing and sales strategy is old school and one that a lot of businesses are moving away from, because it's not sustainable in the long run. Turns out cynicism and appealing to people's base impulses loses its effectiveness over time.

They seem to be sticking to their guns, however, despite some of the earliest critical reviews from gaming and industry publications citing high cost as a serious drawback. Clearly they have data that shows that their system is working for them, at least for now - and "for now" seems to be the time frame that matters to them, not what these practices will very likely do to their base down the road.

This exactly.

ZOS will learn the hard way that brand reputation matters, and you can't just see "what the market will bear" without damaging the relationship with the customer. It matters a lot. Because we are not just talking about a video game. We are talking about consumer culture. This pricing is simply insulting.

@ZOS there are other games. Even if they are not as good as ESO, they will win my loyalty ( and my money), by treating me as a valued, long-term customer.

Practices like this tell us just how disposable you view us as.

j3crow

anitajoneb17_ESO wrote: »

OrdoHermetica wrote: »

Speaking as someone with some marketing and sales experience, their model is outright, textbook predatory. It's also infuriatingly short-sighted, and I could rant on and on about how this sort of thing will actually dramatically cut into their profits in the long term, but I'm pretty certain I'd be wasting my breath, so I won't.

So you make a statement but you don't care to back it up with any kind of reasoning ?
As someone with some marketing and sales experience, you are well aware that models are developed based on quantitative and qualitative studies of consumer behaviour, and decisions are made according to a chosen goal.
Given that you don't know that goal and don't have any of the data, I wonder how you can say that the model is bad. It's pretty much like saying "they chose the wrong type of car" without knowing their budget, nor if hey intended to use that car for everyday town use, races or a roundtrip around the planet.

That you as a customer are not happy with the price of outfit slots is understandable (neither am I), but that doesn't mean it's a bad choice for the company.

Current trend analysis is short sighted. Just because short range market studies reflect the efficacy of certain practices, does not negate the fact the longer term revenues are a more sustainable model. I won't belabor the thread with a history lesson about the American automobile industry in the 70s, when they were caught with obvious deceptive practices such as built-in obsolescence.

To this day, the imports have a much better brand reputation. Of course, there are a lot of inputs to that cycle, which led to the decline of the American auto industry, but you get the point.

As someone who is an analyst, I will tell you that studies can often be in error, especially when it comes to forecasts and predictive analysis. A clear example is the 2016 election cycle in the US (not to get politically, just to make a point about forecasts).

As a middle-aged American consumer, how I am treated as a customer, and whether or not I feel I am being offered added value matters. Because again, its not just about the game anymore.

I have no problem giving my money to someone else if I feel the vendor in question is price gouging, or being exploitative. Added value matters and long-term relationships matter.

Kanar

I just hope the posts in this thread aren't an example of the behavior identified in this thread:
https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/395491/the-psychology-of-zos-forum-part-1/p1

If you're complaining about the price or feel it's unfair then please don't give in to temptation and buy an outfit slot.

I have the crowns and only really need 2 or 3 total outfit slots, but am not buying on principle at this time. The real test comes 2, 3 months down the road when the pricing doesn't change; will you still have the willpower to protest?

Elsonso

.

Kanar wrote: »

I just hope the posts in this thread aren't an example of the behavior identified in this thread:
https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/395491/the-psychology-of-zos-forum-part-1/p1

If you're complaining about the price or feel it's unfair then please don't give in to temptation and buy an outfit slot.

I do not like Crown Crates and do not feel they should be part of the game. In the year (plus) since Crown Crates were introduced on the Live server, I have yet to purchase a Crown Crate. I have not opened any of the free Crown Crates that they hand out. I have 56 unopened Crown Crates on PC.

Trust me. I will not by buying any 1500 Crown outfit slots.

WhiteCoatSyndrome

Kanar wrote: »

I have the crowns and only really need 2 or 3 total outfit slots, but am not buying on principle at this time. The real test comes 2, 3 months down the road when the pricing doesn't change; will you still have the willpower to protest?

This sort of thing actually becomes easier to resist over time; the residual hype wears off, I go back to the pre-patch mindset of 'I can't do all the nice things I wanted to' I had when it flat-out wasn't possible, and I find other things to focus on and move on.

In this particular instance the pre-patch hype gave me a bug to mod Skyrim, so there go the next three months of my life.