Factotum Polymorph
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VaranisArano✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭✭✭I'm afraid I don't see the difference between "you spend your money how you want and Ill spend mine how I want" and you saying you prefer to spend fake money on fake things and real money on real things, but okay. I meant them to be about the same thing, so perhaps we're just talking past each other there and meaning the same thing.
That being said, since you just called me a liar about statistics, I've gone to hunt up the reference.
From August 2017, on this thread, https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/comment/4399012ZOS_RichLambert wrote: »
Seeing as I was looking at this stuff just now anyways (total gold for an account with at least 1 level 50)...- XB1 - 90th percentile - 412k gold
- PS4 - 90th percentile - 459k gold
- PC - 90th percentile - 890k gold
It's not the top 1%, but it gives you an idea.
So when I say that the average player does not have the gold to buy the polymorph, nor presumably the ability/time to farm lots of gold, I don't think that's an unrealistic conclusion based on that statistic provided by ZOS.
I based the 50 days number on my history of eraning, fully understanding that I have more gold than the average player (I have 4+ million so well over the average player on PC.) Whether or not I'm under-earning is besides the point, its simply to illustrate the math for me. I like math problems, I know my average daily earning, ergo I can compare my gold earnings vs my spending cash earnings to illustrate which is easier for me to get - since the entire original point was "How could paying with crowns (real money) be good compared to in-game gold?" It would be easier for me to buy it with crowns since I can earn $25 spending cash much quicker than the in-game gold, particularly if I subscribe to the "time-is-money" idea which I don't actually subscirbe to in this case because I like farming but I've known players who would make that argument. Buying it with in-game gold is certainly achievable for me with enough time. However, its a moot point, since I have no desire to buy the thing for either gold or crowns.
As for opting out, I already said I'm not interested in buying the factotum in my original post. So I'm merely pointing out why an average player might find $25 spending cash easier to get than millions of in-game gold or a trial complete. I'm certainly not trying to convince you or anyone else to spend money on it. I just like math problems.
I suspect we are just trying to convince each outher of something we are fundamentally in agreement with, that cosmetics probably aren't worth real money. I certainly prefer to buy things for ingame gold where I can. But I don't appreciate being called a liar about "assuming statistics" when I specifically offered to provide the source in my original post (I wasnt at a point where I could find the source easily at the time). You could have just asked if you wanted to know where I got that statistic.
Edited some for clarity.Edited by VaranisArano on April 5, 2018 3:55AM3 -
DoctorESO✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭Value is in the eye of the beholder.
And value is determined by what people decide to pay for it.
Nuff said.0 -
Shad0wfire99✭✭✭✭✭
✭Raiders finally have something that could potentially make their hours spent in raids profitable, then they just throw the damn thing in the Clown Store with a new coat of paint. SMH.
XBox NA3 -
SydneyGrey✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭✭✭Whatever price they were planning for it, they'll raise it if they see a lot of positive comments in this thread. Just sayin'.2 -
Xoelarasizerer✭✭✭I appreciate that it looks like the crown store version will be a different colour from the trial reward version.
AFAIK (from googleimages) the trial reward version is a brass/gold coloured version, whilst the screenshot for the crown store is clearly the metal/silver variant. So you can tell from that alone, if someone spent alot of crowns (a polymorph/personality blend? it'll cost alot) or had great luck in a trial/spent alot of gold for a runebox: clockwork reliquary.
It's kinda like the option to spend crowns on vampirism and werewolf instead of working to get bitten by the special NPC werewolves/vampires... except in this case, ZoS gave the extra appreciated detail a simple distinction someone that had crowns or trialluckl/lotsagold. That and the chances of another player giving you a free WW/Vamp bite is WAY higher than them gifting you a free clockwork reliquary runebox.Edited by Xoelarasizerer on April 5, 2018 5:20AM0 -
Xoelarasizerer✭✭✭.... I would've preferred just the factotum personality on it's own, though, so I could have one of my outfitted toons "do the robot" (my Khajiit swordsman already pretends to be a zombie, it's not a stretch of the 'mersion.)Edited by Xoelarasizerer on April 5, 2018 5:15AM1
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ZiRM✭✭✭✭✭
✭I'm thinking it will be 4000 crowns.SpoilerWant to become Vampire? 5k @ZiRM in game.ESO Server Status. ( ^_^)o自自o(^_^ ) SkåL!!!!!0 -
Marabornwingrion✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭✭Next month in Clown Store - recolored Emperor's Regalia, limited time offer, 10k crowns only1 -
ATomiX96✭✭✭✭✭
✭so *** lazy from zos, first they advertised cwc-dlc with the "rare polymorph which only can drop when you do hardmode" now they put it for probably 2k crowns into the crown store so the look is accessible to casual audience. no shame, maybe you wanna sell the skin as well with maybe a bronze or gold skin tone (basically spotless vhof skin)? and if youre already on it pls sell achievements and titles as well thx.3 -
Soul_Marrow✭✭✭
CEOs are too busy making money to sit around at home counting their money. Unless you're talking about fake CEOs.
If you don't think a CEO keeps a close eye on his or her money then you have lost the plot. lol :-P Even if they are simply looking over what their accountant has put together for them in a presentation. Rich people don't stay rich by acting foolishly and carelessly with money.Edited by Soul_Marrow on April 5, 2018 12:55PM0 -
Universe✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭What's next ?
Reskinned Emperor's Regalia in the crown store ?
Some videos I recorded for fun: Main character:
PC EU main: Universe - AD magicka Sorcerer, Former Emperor, Grand Overlord, The Merciless, Trial Bosses Solo Champion
Top alts: Genius(stamina/sagicka Dragonknight) The Force(stamina Nightblade) and other chars.
PC NA main: The Magic - AD magicka Sorcerer
Started playing ESO in beta & early access
User_ID: Daedric_Prince0 -
Soul_Marrow✭✭✭VaranisArano wrote: »I'm afraid I don't see the difference between "you spend your money how you want and Ill spend mine how I want" and you saying you prefer to spend fake money on fake things and real money on real things, but okay. I meant them to be about the same thing, so perhaps we're just talking past each other there and meaning the same thing.
That being said, since you just called me a liar about statistics, I've gone to hunt up the reference.
From August 2017, on this thread, https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/comment/4399012
So when I say that the average player does not have the gold to buy the polymorph, nor presumably the ability/time to farm lots of gold, I don't think that's an unrealistic conclusion based on that statistic provided by ZOS.
I based the 50 days number on my history of eraning, fully understanding that I have more gold than the average player (I have 4+ million so well over the average player on PC.) Whether or not I'm under-earning is besides the point, its simply to illustrate the math for me. I like math problems, I know my average daily earning, ergo I can compare my gold earnings vs my spending cash earnings to illustrate which is easier for me to get - since the entire original point was "How could paying with crowns (real money) be good compared to in-game gold?" It would be easier for me to buy it with crowns since I can earn $25 spending cash much quicker than the in-game gold, particularly if I subscribe to the "time-is-money" idea which I don't actually subscirbe to in this case because I like farming but I've known players who would make that argument. Buying it with in-game gold is certainly achievable for me with enough time. However, its a moot point, since I have no desire to buy the thing for either gold or crowns.
As for opting out, I already said I'm not interested in buying the factotum in my original post. So I'm merely pointing out why an average player might find $25 spending cash easier to get than millions of in-game gold or a trial complete. I'm certainly not trying to convince you or anyone else to spend money on it. I just like math problems.
I suspect we are just trying to convince each outher of something we are fundamentally in agreement with, that cosmetics probably aren't worth real money. I certainly prefer to buy things for ingame gold where I can. But I don't appreciate being called a liar about "assuming statistics" when I specifically offered to provide the source in my original post (I wasnt at a point where I could find the source easily at the time). You could have just asked if you wanted to know where I got that statistic.
Edited some for clarity.
I urge and challenge you to show me where I called you a liar. I even went out of my way to state that I wasn't trying to be argumentative or disrespectful because I know exactly how people get. I said my opinion was that your statistics were assumed. Statistics, by nature, are tricky. Let me also assume and use the statistics you mentioned. Does this account for gold they may have stored in a private guild bank being used as storage like so many people do? Is the gold per account or per character? Does this account for all of the high, medium, and low cost items they have available to sell on each character, but haven't sold yet (I can show you about 20-30 million gold worth of inventory in my banks, lock boxes, guild bank, craft bag, etc of unsold items)? Do defunct/unused accounts of players who played and quit also get lumped into this statistic? What are the ages of these accounts on average? and so on... Anyone who understands statistics also understands the sheer amount of variables that can skew them in one way or the other (which is why you see them thrown around in political arguments so often).
The original statement that you made wasn't whether or not a 25 dollar pixel costume was easier, it was that it "3000 crowns sounds good" which are 2 entirely different things. If you only play the game 2 hours a week and want the costume then clearly a crown store purchase is EASIER, but that certainly doesn't mean spending 3000 crowns for a costume is good. It is bad in all the ways I explained in my previous (ridiculously long, I know) post where I stated examples, cited warnings from industry experts, etc. My main contention comes from you stating that 25 dollars for a costume is good. It isn't. It's bad for the industry and for the consumers alike in almost every way with the exception of being a quick way to obtain the item in question.
Do you ever wonder why they sell things with crowns and not a dollar amount in the U.S. (or proper currency for other countries)? Many companies use this same trick because it works. It helps you justify the purchase. It skews the reasoning in your mind during a moment of impulse. It muddies the true cost of the item being purchased unless you stop to do the math properly and sadly, most do not. You KNOW the inherent value of a dollar if you have used that currency your entire life (you may not personally value it, but you understand it). We all know that 100 pennies equals a dollar...or 4 quarters equals a dollar, etc. You do NOT immediately understand the value of a crown. That's exactly why there isn't a 1:1 crown to real currency ratio...that makes the deception too easy to spot. There is a reason that 750 crowns is $7.99, 3000 crowns is 24.99, and so on all the way up to the "best value" price at the top of the list which is 21,000 crowns for $149.99. If 30 crowns was equal to 30 cents or 30 dollars then there would be no point in using a special currency and the marketing ploy would be lost. They need to confuse the amount you are paying for an item in your mind for you to not question spending such a high dollar amount for it. They need to sell you more crowns than you need and get you stuck with just enough leftover crowns to make you want to buy more crowns to complete another purchase (for fear of being stuck with the wasted crowns, which are essentially wasted money) OR they need to sell you just UNDER the amount of crowns you need in order to get you to buy more crowns to complete your purchase OR they need to offer you a 3rd option in the form of a sliding scale value in order to get you to purchase more than you need of said special currency so that you buy in bulk and spend more actual money in a single purchase than you likely would have spent if you weren't given the option of a "value buy". Since you say you like math, let's talk.
The gradual perception of value increase is also very intentional. This does 2 things to the consumer:
1) it tricks/persuades the consumer into thinking that they need to "stock up" on the better deal so that they can have a stock pile of crowns that will allow them to pay less for items as they get released. The problem with this is that you do not know what the future items will be released, nor do you know their crown cost and you may never want to spend another crown again...but you may feel obligated to buy items that are simply "alright" or that you wouldn't normally buy only because you already spent money on the crowns and they can not be spent literally anywhere else.
2) It justifies the desire to purchase a costume at 20-some dollars because it gives you the false perception of getting a deal. If you buy 21,000 crowns at 149.99, this values a single crown at just under a penny (.007142381 cents). Let's assume that the item in question DOES cost 3,000 crowns. If you ONLY buy 3,000 crowns then you will spend 24.99, but if you buy the highest value pack available, it will only cost you $21.43. You get a "better value"...or do you? Now you are stuck with a false currency that you may or may not ever want to use again.
These are predatory, shady business practices used by companies with little to no ethics in order to squeeze a gullible consumer for every last cent that they can. Part of me says good for them. People shouldn't be so dumb or behave so impulsively, but the other part of me knows how it affects the market negatively for everyone. This doesn't even factor in gambling crates nor does it factor in the "free" crowns (that you actually pay for) that you receive with an ESO Plus subscription.
So I'll go back to my main point:
3,000 crowns ($21.42 - $24.99 using the above figures) for an in-game outfit vs. spending the fake money (gold) you earn simply from playing the game ANYWAY (and a LOT can be earned without much extra effort once you learn the ins and outs of things) is not "good" in my opinion. Spending more money on a single digital outfit than someone spent for the entire game (or a 3rd of the cost of the game in my situation since I purchased it at launch) is not "good" in my opinion. It's EASIER to buy with crowns if you do not play much or do not know how to make gold easily and quickly with little effort. It's BAD for consumers because it places a stupid high real world currency value on an item that should cost much, MUCH less OR could be earned in the game as a reward to loyal players who continue to keep the servers populated. Continuing to allow companies full access to your wallet will only hurt ALL OF US in the long run when the next insane price inflation happens as they keep testing how high we will allow the prices to hike (and it WILL continue to raise until the bottoms falls out of the market). This type of nonsense certainly makes the 2 dollar horse armor from Morrowind look like child's play. Yes, it's your money to spend, but it's ALL OF OUR MONEY that gets affected by a change in market values. I do not know why this is so hard for most people to understand. Please use your heads, ladies & gentlemen. Look up from your phones and lets all meet back up in the real world to gain back our logic and perspective from time to time. I suppose we will just have to agree to disagree, but please don't forget that the facts behind an opinion never change. The opinion may change, but facts remain facts regardless of our opinions.
Edit: The percentage of people who will read and take the time to comprehend this entire post before shooting off at the mouth will likely be .00000001%. To anyone who bothers to read the post in it's entirety and reads it to actually comprehend it rather than skims over it to argue, THANK YOU.Edited by Soul_Marrow on April 5, 2018 2:19PM3 -
Nihility42✭✭✭✭Soul_Marrow wrote: »
3000 crowns is like 25ish bucks, dude. How does that sound good? or better than fake currency earned in the game?
Does not compute.
A couple of hours of work at my actual job vs. FAR more hours farming in game. Pretty easy choice to me. Not that I'm getting it, but in general I'd rather pay for something like this for a small cash price than grind for weeks to afford it.0 -
ol_BANK_lo✭✭✭✭✭DeadlyRecluse wrote: »I am not a player capable of earning the vAS one ingame.
If I were, I would be pretty upset by this, and would hope it cost a good 5k crowns or something ridiculous.
Agreed. Even though the color is slightly different, it is the same poly people have spent a ton of time trying to get in an end game hard mode trial. That's pretty crappy of ZOS. Come up with something else. If they are going to use skins, titles and polymorphs as the incentive for end game PVE, especially with being able to upgrade blue jewelry soon, they can't just start selling it at the next patch.1 -
ol_BANK_lo✭✭✭✭✭Even if I couldn't get the poly from vAS, I wouldn't buy this. It feels too close to the AS one. It's almost like paying for something you didn't earn.1
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DaveMoeDee✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭
Rip off? Considering only a small percentage of the player base can obtain it i say it's pretty fair.
Maybe crown cost is less than what they would have to pay gold farmers?1 -
Soul_Marrow✭✭✭Nihility42 wrote: »
A couple of hours of work at my actual job vs. FAR more hours farming in game. Pretty easy choice to me. Not that I'm getting it, but in general I'd rather pay for something like this for a small cash price than grind for weeks to afford it.
Again, you have to read the entire point to understand the perspective. Ease vs overall good are very different. This is exactly why companies can get away with this.
"It's time to stop." - Filthy Frank0 -
VaranisArano✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭✭✭Soul_Marrow wrote: »
I urge and challenge you to show me where I called you a liar. I even went out of my way to state that I wasn't trying to be argumentative or disrespectful because I know exactly how people get. I said my opinion was that your statistics were assumed. Statistics, by nature, are tricky. Let me also assume and use the statistics you mentioned. Does this account for money they may have stored in a private guild bank being used as storage like so many people do? Is the gold per account or per character? Does this account for all of the high, medium, and low dollar items they have available to sell on each character? Do defunct/unused accounts of players who played and quit also get lumped into this statistic? What are the age of these accounts on average? and so on... Anyone who understands statistics also understands the sheer amount of variables that can skew them in one way or the other (which is why you see them thrown around in political arguments so often).
The original statement that you made wasn't whether or not a 25-30 dollar pixel costume was easier, it was that it "3000 crowns sounds good" which, to me, are 2 entirely different things. If you only play the game 2 hours a week and want the costume then clearly a crown store purchase is EASIER, but that certainly doesn't mean spending 3000 crowns for a costume is good. It is bad in all the ways I explained in my previous (ridiculously long, I know) post where I stated examples, cited warnings from industry experts, etc. My main contention comes from saying stating that 25 to 30 dollars for a costume is good. It isn't. It's bad for the industry and for the consumers alike.
Do you ever wonder why they sell things with crowns and not a dollar amount in the U.S. (or proper currency for other countries)? Many companies use this same trick because it works. It helps you justify the purchase. It skews the reasoning in your mind during a moment of impulse. It muddies the true cost of the item being purchased unless you stop to do the math properly and sadly, most do not. That's exactly why there isn't a 1:1 crown to currency ratio...that makes the deception too easy to spot. There is a reason that 750 crowns is $7.99, 3000 crowns is 24.99, and so on all the way up to the "best value" price at the top of the list which is 21,000 crowns for $149.99. If 30 crowns was equal to 30 dollars then there would be no point in using a special currency and the marketing ploy would be lost. They need to sell you more crowns than you need and get you stuck with just enough leftover crowns to make you want to buy more crowns to complete another purchase OR they need to sell you just UNDER what you need in order to get you to buy more to complete your purchase OR they need to offer you a 3rd option in the form of a sliding scale value in order to get you to purchase more than you need of said special currency. Since you say you like math, let's talk.
The gradual perception of value increase is also very intentional. This does 2 things to the consumer:
1) it tricks/persuades the consumer into thinking that they need to "stock up" on the better deal so that they can have a stock pile of crowns that will allow them to pay less for items as they get released. The problem with this is that you do not know what the future items will be and may never want to spend another crown again, but feel obligated to buy things that are simply "alright" because you already spent money on the crowns and they can not be spent literally anywhere else.
2) It justifies the desire to purchase a costume at 20 dollars because it gives you the false perception of getting a deal. If you buy 21,000 crowns at 149.99, this values a single crown at just under a penny (.007142381 cents). Let's assume that the item in question DOES cost 3,000 crowns. If you ONLY buy 3,000 crowns then you will spend 24.99, but if you buy the highest value pack available, it will only cost you $21.43. You get a "better value"...or do you? Now you are stuck with a false currency that you may or may not ever want to use again.
These are predatory, shady business practices used by companies with little to no ethics in order to squeeze a gullible consumer for every last cent that they can. This doesn't even factor in gambling crates nor does it factor in the "free" crowns (that you actually pay for) that you receive with an ESO Plus subscription.
So I'll go back to my main point:
3,000 crowns ($21.42 - $24.99 using the above figures) for an in-game outfit vs. spending the fake money (gold) you earn simply from playing the game anyway (and a LOT can be earned without much extra effort once you learn the ins and outs of things) is not "good" in my opinion. Spending more on a single outfit than someone spent for the entire game (or a 3rd of the cost of the game in my situation since I purchased at launch) is not "good" in my opinion. It's EASIER if you do not play much or do not know how to make a ton of gold easily and quickly with little effort. It's BAD for consumers because it places a stupid high value on an item that should cost much, MUCH less or could be earned in game as a reward to loyal players. Continuing to allow companies full access to your wallet will only hurt ALL OF US in the long run when the next insane price inflation happens (and it will until the bottoms falls out of the market). This type of nonsense certainly makes the 2 dollar horse armor from Morrowind look like child's play. Yes, it's your money to spend, but it's ALL OF OUR MONEY that gets affected by a change in market values. Please use your heads, people.
Edit: The percentage of people who will read and take the time to comprehend this entire post before shooting off at the mouth will likely be .00000001%.
@Soul_Marrow
You said "I think we need to keep assumed statistics out of this because these are assumptions and nothing more."
I have now provided the statistics I used to do the math I posted, which are not "assumed." Those statistics were done by a ZOS developer, and you are free to ask them for clarification on the details if you want. I took them at face value, interpreting that as "(total gold for an account with at least 1 level 50)" as the dev quote says. So in short, while you can dispute my interpretation of those statistics or my understanding of what the developer meant, I really don't appreciate being told I was using "assumed statistics" when I offered to provide the source. Again, all you had to do was ask for the source.
However, I think you and I appear to be arguing at cross-purposes because we are interpreting "good" differently. I suspect we agree more than you think.
You seem to want to argue that paying for the cosmetic is not "good" because it is harmful for the consumer and ultimately the game and the companiy even though the short-term, predatory profits are great. You know what? I agree. Its just that this wasn't, remotely, the argument I was making. So...you are trying very hard to convince me of something I already agree with. Thanks? I'm not going to argue with you over this because I agree with you, so that would be pointless.
Instead, I wanted to talk about what could possibly make an average player think this is a "good deal" when it seems obvious that its simple to just farm gold. Putting myself in the shoes of the "If I were an average-player-consumer who doesn't care about the health of the game economy at all, but does happen to really want that factotum polymorph"-type-player, it happens to be easier for me to buy it with crowns, than to farm in-game gold (based on the statistics for 90th percentile players provided by the ZOS dev) or to complete the trial (admittedly I've got no statistics here, but I assume that complete this trial to get the reward is pretty danged hard, no? I know I don't have a vAS-ready character). So from perspective of a average-player-consumer who really just wants that polymorph, buying with crowns is a "good" option compared to the others. Please note, again, that I have no interest in buying the polymorph for either crowns or gold, so this is mostly an exercise in perspective
Again, I agree with your economic point about paying real money for fake items being neither a wise decision financially nor the predatory marketing being healthy for the game/players/company long term. I do think that, from the perspective of a average player who doesn't give a fart about all that economics but who really wants a factotum, buying a factotum for crowns looks like a pretty good deal compared to farming gold for however long that takes them or running the trial for the drop.
But honestly, I think we are arguing about semantics and how players "should" spend their money. We agree, I suspect, on the main point of "The Factotum isn't really worth it for crowns if you can just farm the gold for it/run the trial" as well as the point of "Hey, guys, ZOS putting expensive things in the crown store really is not a great thing for consumers."
Edit: The percentage of people who will read and take the time to comprehend this entire post before shooting off at the mouth will likely be .00000001%. I'd be insulted if I weren't rather familiar with points in my own posts that were entirely clear to turn out to be not so clear to my readers. As it is, I agree with your argument that paying for cosmetics like the factotum with real money is not "good" for consumers or the game as a whole. However I do think that for an average player with average gold-acquiring capabilities who just wants that factotum and doesn't care about the economic repercussions aka "its my spending money and I'll do what I like with it" might well find the crown factotum a "good" alternative to the other options of acquiring it.Edited by VaranisArano on April 5, 2018 2:31PM1 -
VaranisArano✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭✭✭Soul_Marrow wrote: »
Again, you have to read the entire point to understand the perspective. Ease vs overall good are very different. This is exactly why companies can get away with this.
"It's time to stop." - Filthy Frank
That's a nice, succinct statement of your perspective. "Ease vs overall good are very different."
I agree. When looking at this factotum (and other overpriced cosmetics available from the Crown Store), the option that best serves the "overall good" is to save your real money and don't indulge these practices by companies, thus showing them that less-predatory practices should be adopted, making the game better for everyone.
That's a very broad, "greater good" perspective and its entirely correct.
However, from the perspective of an average player, Ease of Obtainability has its own finger on the scales along with "how much do I really want this" level of desire. None of us are perfect economic actors, or even perfect caretakers of the Commons. So from the perspective of an individual player who weighs the different options of obtaining the desired polymorph and the opportunity costs of not getting the polymorph, spending $25, earning a bunch of gold, or learning and doing the trial, I'm not in the least bit surprised that some players will choose to spend $25+ worth of crowns on a purely cosmetic item that they desire.
For them, in their individual situation, spending real money for the desired cosmetic incurs the least opportunity cost, making it a "good" or at least "the least bad" choice for them.
Now is what's "good" for that individual also "good" for everyone else in the game? Nope. Not when it comes to encouraging ZOS to throw more overpriced cosmetics in the Crown Store among other predatory practices. But that's the reality of economics, that no one is a perfect economic actor and that plenty of people make decisions based on what is "good" for them as an individual rather than for the "overall good" of the game/society. But now I'm veering way deeper into economic theory than I wanted to when I originally sat down to explain why an individual average player might find that buying the factotum for crowns is a "good" choice (incurs the least opportunity cost) for themself.0 -
Nihility42✭✭✭✭Soul_Marrow wrote: »
Again, you have to read the entire point to understand the perspective. Ease vs overall good are very different. This is exactly why companies can get away with this.
"It's time to stop." - Filthy Frank
I mean, I get that, but I also think it's silly to fight economics. Companies provide goods or services, consumers buy them, companies adjust their prices to that which the market will support. If I want a polymorph, costume, mount, or loot box, I'm not going to avoid buying it because of some greater good or in the hope that I can boycott the company into lowering prices. Assuming it is what I deem a reasonable price for the value I am personally receiving, I will just buy it. If the item is too expensive, then I won't buy it, simple as that. Part of the value I receive is not have to grind for ages to buy something that takes an hour or two at my job. I will pay for the value of my time saved grinding as well.1 -
Soul_Marrow✭✭✭@VaranisArano
I swear I wasn't calling you a liar...lol Let's not be so sensitive. You are correct that the "average player" would find a simple crown store purchase to be a "good" (easy & accessible) alternative, but the typical MMO player doesn't usually fall into the average player category either. MMO's tend not to have mass appeal to casuals outside of the concept, the lore it is attached to (casual Elder Scrolls fans), and the excitement of a new experience (running around and acting like a fool in a town crowded with other players). A company may try to figure out other ways to attract new crowds, but alienating their hardcore player base certainly isn't the way. The hardcore players are the guys who will keep coming back in the long term, will bring friends to share the experience with, and will continue to support the game at the beginning of it's life cycle as well as it's end (even if some of them complain a lot...lol).
I also agree that we may have been stating similar things in our posts on some points. I just wanted to explain why these types of practices are not "good" for anyone other than the company...and this includes the casuals who may be more prone to purchase it for crowns due to it's rarity in-game. What good would it do for a casual player to have a company dangle a shiny object in front of them as an impulse buy and then pillage their wallet in a deceptive way (crown currency explanations above) only to have them quit playing the game shortly after because they are the average casual gamer? I was only trying to explain that it isn't GOOD for anyone. It may be EASIER, but it only hurts the community as a whole. It ticks off and alienates the hardcore endgame players, it creates a lack of trust and faith in the company to it's consumers, it helps rob players of the experience of going out to earn it with their friends because the reason for wanting to earn it in the first place was for it's rarity and it's prestige or to make gold to buy other things such as houses, etc. I mean the list can go on and on for quite a while, but I am tired of typing for now
I was just trying to ever so slightly shift the perspective right back to where it should be rather than sitting back and watching my favorite type of game continue to get destroyed by greed and compliance. If we don't clear things up for others who may not have thought of it this way or who may have not lived during a different era of gaming then the greed continues and we all lose more and more, little by little. Let's take every chance to make an attempt at taking games back. It really is MUCH needed. For anyone who doesn't agree, have a look at how many developers and publishers are now re-skinning a game that they sold you a few years ago and selling it to you again. Why? Because they can...and because you will buy it. A single console generation ago, we had this energy around new ideas for games. The creativity was flowing and developers were trying new things, creating new IP's, finding ways to push the boundaries and make games they didn't think would be possible on the hardware they had at the time, etc. Now all we get is "generic shooter sequel #45" or "repackaged game experience sold twice". YOU hold the power in your wallet, let's all try to agree on good vs ease and make better long-term decisions so that we can all continue enjoying the hobby we love instead of watching it get destroyed more and more. Otherwise, have fun purchasing and playing the next 400 re-releases from the last generation of consoles because laziness and a lack of creativity have given rise to supreme greed...and that is good for no one.Edited by Soul_Marrow on April 5, 2018 3:09PM0
