The cash shop will turn into Pay2Win and here's why

Blud · January 2015

phairdon wrote: »

BBSooner wrote: »

phairdon wrote: »

Ohioastro wrote: »

Mercurio wrote: »

eisberg wrote: »

BBSooner wrote: »

I agree it will devolve in to P2W, but not because people think "ZOS lies". It's just the path that the cash shop sets the game on. Removing sub requirements puts the weight of income on a combination of subs, Box sales, and cash shop. When box sales plateau, They have to put increased emphasis on the cash shop and make it more valuable - thus including items that go from "convenient" to "required".

Guild Wars 2, 28 months later, still nothing in there that is required, or pay to win. They average about $11 Milllion a month in revenue from Guild Wars 2, that is equivalent to about 733,000 subscribers paying $15 a month.

GW2 does not have (by design) any gear or anything that can be construed as P2W in the 1st place. The only "rewards" in the game *period* come from the cash shop. It's a trick and you were dumb enough to fall for it, even 2 years later when nothing has been added to the game you repeat this mantra.

Yes - and there has been virtually no content added to the game since release (except tons of cosmetics in the cash shop). This is the best case outcome for ESO.

Get the impression this is because they decided to run the living story model over creating expansions.

So the option GW2 brings with its "success" is content stagnation over p2w content trivialization? I'll admit I quit GW2 shortly after level cap at release so I don't know how many new zones, instances, raids, progression content, brand new systems like justice or complete overhauls like champion that GW2 has put out, but I do know that I don't hear people comment on content positively.

True enough. Not all are happy with gw2, like most games at a guess. This being said, the game still has a solid player base. Still playing myself, now in my 25th month. For me it represents good value.

I've played a lot of GW2 and I log in at least once a week. I just don't have time to play it because I've been keeping busy with ESO.

My expectations for GW2 were not the same as they were for ESO. With GW2, we knew from the start about the b2p and gem store model.

k2blader · January 2015

What has bothered me for a while is how they say they have fixed certain bugs, but then it turns out the bugs have not been fixed. To top it off, they don't admit it, and they still don't fix the bugs.

Zeni, are you going to fix all your damn bugs??

Iago · January 2015

just watch eventually champion points are going to be available for purchase in their little crown store.

Roechacca · January 2015

Dymence wrote: »

Are you playing the game to do ZOS a favor? Or are you playing the game because you enjoy it?

What does it even matter what they say, just enjoy the ride for as long as it lasts.

Are you posting to hear yourself post ? Or are you posting to add something to the subject ? Post something useful while there's something still useful to post about ...

NadiusMaximus · January 2015

I Imperial city will be the first dlc, huh, knew it.

Ourorboros · January 2015

Here's a Crown Shop model for you. Maybe it will lighten the mood.

KaneK899ub17_ESO · January 2015

Khivas_Carrick wrote: »

Snipped for length

You seriously underestimate the need to generate profit. Sorry, but fiduciary responsibility is a legally binding contract whereby an entity has to do anything it can, within the law and reason, to generate value for investors. If they fail to live up to this, the board of directors can be re-elected, executives can lose their jobs and corporations can be liquidated. If you think for one moment that our desires outweigh their need for a paycheck...

ZOS is a subsidiary of Zenimax Media which is a 1.2b dollar company. It happens to be privately held, but they still have a board and stakeholders that they answer to. You don't become a 10 figure business by ignoring well established business models.

Now, no one is saying the game will be pay to win at the start. It never is because that's stupid. They'll get the money from the subs that stick it out and the players coming because they don't need a sub. As they lose the subs, they begin pushing more incentives (usually for an MMO this is power) into the store.

Smaller/international studios and titles might be able to pull it off long-term, but Zenimax Media is an American company meaning it has to adhere to American laws - fiduciary responsibility and be conscious of the fact that this is a litigious society and stakeholders also have all the power.

Vanity is powerful, money is powerful...er.

NotSo · January 2015

If I have to spend money beyond my current monthly sub then I'm done paying forever and I will quietly wait for Star Citizen to release while playing Zelda on the wii u.

EsORising · April 2015

Bouvin wrote: »

Jennifur_Vultee wrote: »

Neizir wrote: »

1. Yes, actually it did happen.
2. Would you rather get relatively small, broken, unfinished content every month than huge, complete, bug-free content every 3 months
3. EVERY P2P MMO developer has stated this, then what happened? B2P/F2P happened. Nothing new.
4. ...How exactly is this point related to pay-to-win? Be thankful you got any info at all!
5. How exactly are ANY of the above points related to pay-to-win?

The point Bouvin is making is they lied to us several times before. Now they're saying the cash shop will be "convenience items", honestly I'm inclined to agree its a lie and pay to win items will creep into it in one form or another.

Can't complete the latest trials? Buy our new Life Extender Potion that grants 2 minutes of invulnerability, only $5 each!

Need to upgrade your gear to the new Orange quality level...sorry those enhancement gems are cash shop only but they only cost $5 each!

Exactly.

As soon as the cash shop sales for fluff slow down, they'll go to the next level.

ZOS is a business. They'll do whatever it takes to make money. Wether it's in the best interest of their playerbase or not.

They lost the majority of their fan base and subscribers because of greed in the early months with the

EsORising · April 2015

LoL not only are you wrong about everything you said, but you didn't even mention why the cash shop is P2W. They did convert xp to cp ; so your "not really" statement doesn't make any sense. They have updated the server multiple times since it tamriel unlimted went live, which you said they would never do

. You people don't even have a clue what pay to win is and you complain about something you know nothing about. Pay to win is adding content that is unreachable for non paying players. Items that give an unfair advantage in "competition. A level boost and some crappy pots is not pay to win. You pay to win people just need to go away already. 25% level boost woopty do... your worried about someone with a 25% boost when there are people AOE grinding getting a 200% boost over you.

mitchav66 · April 2015

Dude idk about that. If they wanted the game pay-to-win they would have made the game free to play. Plus, what we are seeing the shop reminds me of the SWTOR cartel market when it first came out. At first all there was was a bunch of mounts and attire and people thought that that would turn pay to win but now over a year later theres still some stuff in there that is just pretty much mounts and attire. I imagine that TESO will add some packs in there to roll for some really unique looking mounts or armor, but thats about it. After Archeage, I cant imagine zenimax following the same path.

Mikoto · April 2015

And the naysayers strike again. We now lost 10 more potential newcomers.

I'm still questioning why you're still here? There's no sub to hold you here and balling your eyes out because a company 'lied'. Boohoo welcome to the real world, I really hope you don't end up in corporate career.

Wolfshead · April 2015

Bouvin wrote: »

The cash shop will turn into Pay2Win and here's why.

ZOS doesn't keep it's promises.

They are saying that he cash shop will only be fluff and convenience items. But their track record of sticking by their word is really bad.

Examples:

1. They said the'd track XP and convert it to CP. Did that happen, not really!
2. They promised new content every 4-6 weeks when hyping the game. We are lucky to even get server maintenance every 4-6 weeks let alone content updates.
3. When hyping the game before release they promised it would stay on a subscription model and said they'd rather "Shut the game down than go F2P". Now they are essentially doing that. You can argue B2P isn't F2P, but I guarantee you once they want to inflate player-base numbers the box will either drop to some minimal cost (like $5) or the "base game" will be free with restrictions.
4. They have delayed 1.6 patch notes on PTS to wait for the Tamriel Unlimited announcement, taking a vow of silence on all matters subscription or 1.6 release dates until that announcement was made.

If you think this game isn't going to turn into play-2-win. Your probably one of the people who was defending ZOS saying they'd never stray from the subscription model, and that the silence was because there was no truth in it.

ZOS. At this point you've completely destroyed the trust of your community. How do you think this is going to work out for the longevity of your game?

Clearly you have not keep youself update what have happen and why ESO went B2P and not F2P it is big different between them which you clearly dont know anything about

B2P mean you have to buy game in order to play and you can play game as it without pay any extra with real money, F2P mean you can go home to game homepage on internet and download it and you have pay extra to get everything playable good example of F2P is SWTOR very basically need to pay real money for everything.
Why ESO went B2P in 1st place was that microsoft did not want gave up there own subscribe on XboxOne therefore did ESO go with B2P instead of subscription model so the can sell the game on XboxOne.
Well you talk about content update will tell you the true WoW before a new expansion people play that game have wait almost 1 year before the get any typ of content update beside all the content ZoS have done up to now will become DLC the question is just when will we start to see it.
Well i for one did figure it out that 1.6 patch would be around 17th march you dont need to be rocket science to come to that conclusion really that what i would have done if i was them.
Track the XP and convert to CP will again use you head if the would have done right that would mean those how have been VR14 would have close to all CP from start and then what was the point of put in CP system then for fact is most VR play was basically just farming same mobs over and over agian for month to get to max VR lvl which i think is cheating other would say NO but that is up to them.

So honest those point you have write will not make ESO a P2W game ESO is not even close to be P2W again i dont think you have really play a "P2W" game the are many asian mmo that is where you basically can buy gear with stats on in there game store which is just sick.

And also dont use word like "you've completely destroyed the trust of your community" for you are not clearly speak for me on this forum and the have maybe completely destroyed the trust you have from them. Personaly i would like know when are start to put out DLC to be honest that is what i'm *** off most about.

But honest OP if you would care to do some research before come here and post thing that you clearly dont know anything is just plan stupid in my opinion the are post here on forum just about this thing you have write about.

starkerealm · April 2015

@Wolfshead : quick question. You did notice this thread just got necroed from January, right?

Wolfshead · April 2015

starkerealm wrote: »

@Wolfshead : quick question. You did notice this thread just got necroed from January, right?

Damn it no i just got up from 50 min ago and i have not really wake up yet sorry mate ^^

Mikoto · April 2015

Wolfshead wrote: »

starkerealm wrote: »

@Wolfshead : quick question. You did notice this thread just got necroed from January, right?

Damn it no i just got up from 50 min ago and i have not really wake up yet sorry mate ^^

This here. I tend to forum surf at work on the phone and it came up as 'new'

Vahrokh · April 2015

eisberg wrote: »

BBSooner wrote: »

I agree it will devolve in to P2W, but not because people think "ZOS lies". It's just the path that the cash shop sets the game on. Removing sub requirements puts the weight of income on a combination of subs, Box sales, and cash shop. When box sales plateau, They have to put increased emphasis on the cash shop and make it more valuable - thus including items that go from "convenient" to "required".

Guild Wars 2, 28 months later, still nothing in there that is required, or pay to win. They average about $11 Milllion a month in revenue from Guild Wars 2, that is equivalent to about 733,000 subscribers paying $15 a month.

Guild Wars was:

1) Created by ArenaNet, that is the original Blizzard The Good Real One developers. This alone grants they are not clueless incompetents.

2) It's a game designed and built from the ground up to be viable with the aptly and diligently designed cash shop model. ESO instead is in "we are in huge difficulty, emergency mode". Quite hard to develop a fair, sustainable economy model in this situation.

kewl · April 2015

Someone tell the console people they will be beta testing ESO for F2P relaunch, a year from now.

Mikoto · April 2015

Vahrokh wrote: »

eisberg wrote: »

BBSooner wrote: »

I agree it will devolve in to P2W, but not because people think "ZOS lies". It's just the path that the cash shop sets the game on. Removing sub requirements puts the weight of income on a combination of subs, Box sales, and cash shop. When box sales plateau, They have to put increased emphasis on the cash shop and make it more valuable - thus including items that go from "convenient" to "required".

Guild Wars 2, 28 months later, still nothing in there that is required, or pay to win. They average about $11 Milllion a month in revenue from Guild Wars 2, that is equivalent to about 733,000 subscribers paying $15 a month.

Guild Wars was:

1) Created by ArenaNet, that is the original Blizzard The Good Real One developers. This alone grants they are not clueless incompetents.

2) It's a game designed and built from the ground up to be viable with the aptly and diligently designed cash shop model. ESO instead is in "we are in huge difficulty, emergency mode". Quite hard to develop a fair, sustainable economy model in this situation.

The Anet today is vastly different than the Anet you're taking about due to a good number of them left in between gw1 and gw2 or left during production.

Takhistis · April 2015

B2P=more money to devs.
And with cash shops and subscriptions even more money to dev's
and more money to devs=hopefully more content

Nightscar · April 2015

OP
Yes it will and you know what .. I can't wait!
I gotz lots of $$$
So bring it on.. Just like in real life we have to start separating the rich from the filthy.. Sorry its just how life works

werghon · April 2015

Bouvin wrote: »

Neizir wrote: »

1. Yes, actually it did happen.
2. Would you rather get relatively small, broken, unfinished content every month than huge, complete, bug-free content every 3 months
3. EVERY P2P MMO developer has stated this, then what happened? B2P/F2P happened. Nothing new.
4. ...How exactly is this point related to pay-to-win? Be thankful you got any info at all!
5. How exactly are ANY of the above points related to pay-to-win?

Keep defending ZOS. Just like all the people did in the F2P threads for the last 3 months.

Just like all the people did when they announced the removal of the 6-month sub and said it had nothing to do with a subscription model change.

I guess some people are just sheep and will believe whatever they are told.

Stop playing and writing on the forum if you dislike the game so much?

Kupoking · April 2015

To be honest, I feel like if we didnt have watch dogs flagging p2w stuff it would have been implemented. At least zos listen to us that why we must express ourselves on that matter

Seraphyel · April 2015

Sure it will turn into P2W because they need money and with their current shop they won't get money. And when console version is just a lukewarm success like the PC version P2W things are the only things left to make money.

mhmfrogub17_ESO · April 2015

Old topic

Bouvin · April 2015

EsORising wrote: »

LoL not only are you wrong about everything you said, but you didn't even mention why the cash shop is P2W. They did convert xp to cp ; so your "not really" statement doesn't make any sense. They have updated the server multiple times since it tamriel unlimted went live, which you said they would never do

. You people don't even have a clue what pay to win is and you complain about something you know nothing about. Pay to win is adding content that is unreachable for non paying players. Items that give an unfair advantage in "competition. A level boost and some crappy pots is not pay to win. You pay to win people just need to go away already. 25% level boost woopty do... your worried about someone with a 25% boost when there are people AOE grinding getting a 200% boost over you.

It's coming, just not yet. Most games don't roll out the P2W stuff right away... it takes a while, but once they start feeling the need for more cash flow they will start putting it in there.

They have 50% XP booster potions that people have screen shotted. They will be in the store but not yet.

And as far as updating the server... LOL those were bug fixes for game breaking bugs, which the game is still full of.

timborggrenlarsenb16_ESO · April 2015

Wait till around august and on, then you will start to see the true face of this Itemshop

Molsondry · April 2015

Hey even wow is moving to b2p . they introduced the wow token that gives you the ability to pay your montlhy sub with in game gold. In max 1 year I bet its gonna be on the same model then eso, b2p with a slitght bonus sub and a store( they already have the store for a while now, And I think its was the first step into moving wow to b2p). Its a great move !

On the other side I dont think they will go into p2w with there crown store

P2W has made its time , its not viable anymore and zos knows it(unless they are really ignorant), if they go p2w they will lose all there player base. As I can see they opted for he same system LOL-wow(in progress of transfer from sub)-HotS-dota2 are using to make money and has proven themself. Offering mounts, skins , pets . Nothing that you NEED to actualy play the games but that bring hell lots of money because of the player fan base that we all know LOVES mount skin and pets! Eso is going in the right way for now.

And no a 50% xp bonus potion isnt p2w, just like wow giving 90 lvl for 60$ isnt pay to win . Does potion gives you the high end pvp or pve gear ? no . Does it give you the ability to get more skill on your bar ? no . Does it gives you skill points ? No.

Yes its helps alot for cp farming .. its does. but hey you could also have 4 alt all enlighted and just rotate into them , youll be able to play allt he time you want while being almost constantly enlighted. Anyway 50% isnt 300%. My point .. its not that much a big deal. And its a way to level alt faster, altough, I think, If the potion was for alt leveling solution I would rather them just give us the option to buy a vr 10 champ. that way vr 14 cant use the potion to get faster cp farm(even tho 50% faster cp point @ vr 14 IS NOT a big deal espacially thinking enlighted is like a 300% buff)

If they start selling CP then its gonna be a p2w . and its most likely never gonna happen , why? zenimax knows if they do that its like shooting themself in the feet.

rogueslayer · April 2015

If Zenimax didn't do things to create something for people to complain about there would be absolutely nothing for a lot of people to do. Thank you Zenimax for giving people the fuel they need to complain and not leave them out in the cold. Zenimax providing entertainment for everyone no matter what they wish to do.

eventide03b14a_ESO · April 2015

Neizir wrote: »

1. Yes, actually it did happen.
2. Would you rather get relatively small, broken, unfinished content every month than huge, complete, bug-free content every 3 months
3. EVERY P2P MMO developer has stated this, then what happened? B2P/F2P happened. Nothing new.
4. ...How exactly is this point related to pay-to-win? Be thankful you got any info at all!
5. How exactly are ANY of the above points related to pay-to-win?

2 Bug free?
3 EQ2 waited 8 years till it went F2P. WoW is still sub based.
5 I agree that it doesn't mean it will be pay P2W, however I think the OP has a point that we really can't trust anything they say anymore.

Fissh wrote: »

Self entitlement ruins games.

That doesn't even make sense. Pointing out that we were told/promised one thing and then the exact opposite happens isn't self entitlement. Unless you feel that being lied to should be expected.

wiz12268b14_ESO wrote: »

Yea but what do you win? I never understood the whole "pay to win" mentality. If you pay to level faster or blow through content faster in a game like ESO youre actually losing, because 90% of this game is questing, story, and listening to Kate Beckinsale.

PvP in this game was never any good, and even if they did sell PvP crap would it matter? It might actually help PvP in this game and get more people doing it. Let the guys with the biggest wallets have their own private pay ground.

As far as "updates" pretty obvious if you watched the twitch they have a ton of stuff already done, my guess is at least 10 if not more DLC packs ready to go and they will release them in a timely manner (to simulate sub profits they were making) and continue to develop new DLC content going forward. I suspect a housing one (and that one should be major) with an expansion of the crown store and introduction of hundreds of housing items.

Mixed emotions, the game can be played for free or you can buy pieces of it going forward or you can sub and play through those places (pay to rent) and move on.

I suspect they will release DLCs staggered so that some with more replayability than others will be mixed in with ones not worth buying. So eventually it will be a hopping effect where a one time DLC comes out you sub for a month get your perks and do it on all your toons you want then when one comes out worth owning you buy that one and keep it and let your sub stay lapsed. Its a game within the game.

These DLCs look like all solo dungeon or map content anyway so I doubt even if you and a friend both own it you will be able to play together on them. They havent addresses that yet, but to keep the 'no pay wall' mantra theyre almost forced to make the DLC stuff solo only.

Not everyone just does quests in this game. Nor does everyone enjoy them. It's not fun when you lose in competitive play like PvP because someone had more cash to burn to get CPs quicker. P2W completely destroys the meritocracy of the game.