114668-suggestions-for-ncsoft-and-account-level-operations

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Well, I feel like it's sort of a sad waste that someone might get into the game, see that beret, and think, "I will never have that." Unless Carbine makes it an available in game drop, thus negating giving it to us as a reward. And if someone wants to retroactively "pay a sub" or some portion thereof to get that item, I can't see the problem. I'm not talking slippery slope issues here, I'm talking about sheer improvement and maybe giving NCSoft a little extra money if the game explodes further down the line in popularity. If they're cosmetic, we're not being asked to pay extra as active players, and those items essentially drop off the face of the Earth except as costume pieces for those that were there at one point, I certainly wouldn't complain. I'm against F2P games as well, but I'm certainly not against CREDD players or free trials, so I certainly won't step on NCSoft's throat for making previous season items purchasable if someone wants to retroactively pay for a sub. As far as I'm concerned, that's just paying for a previous month or portion thereof. It's not like these items took 15$ a player to make.


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Good reason not to have loyalty items. Not a good enough reason to implement a cash shop.

If they're keeping us happy with real content, they don't need gimmicks like that to distract us or convince us we're happy.

You either misread what I wrote, or I was unclear, so I will reiterate: I have no problem with your system as you stated it. I have major objections to the potential problems it would cause, because judging by multiple games with which I have personal experience, NCsoft will never allow the cash shop to remain as you've outlined. I am not willing to risk those potential problems. Therefore, my position is that I am not in support of your idea, and I will not waste my time or money watching another game sabotaged by an NCSoft cash shop.

It is only a continuum fallacy if there is no demonstrable evidence indicating the inevitability in question. In this case, the demonstrable evidence is past experience. I have already stated that my opinion on this matter is proactive rather than reactive, as reactive is much less likely to have any effect.

As to the red sentence, the short answer is yes, I will condemn this game and NCSoft both if they implement a cash shop of any type. I am not going to stick around or spend further money to see the eventual decay into the NCSoft abyss. I was hesitant enough to buy this game in the first place simply because it was under the NCSoft umbrella. Part of the problem is that both the account rewards and the cash shop are inherently divorced from the game and exclusive, which leads into:

^ Precisely this.


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The theory[1] I subscribe to why cash shops work is because they allow the players who wish to spend more than the monthly sub to do so. Limiting cash shop items to retired subscriber awards doesn't make a lot of financial sense since the vast majority of interested people would already have them. Any cash shop implementation will come with cash shop exclusive items. SW:TOR's cash shop illustrates many of the negative points: The Cartel Market gets a good 4-5 armor sets a month while new in-game awards are super rare and crafting is completely ignored. Not to mention the in-game stuff tends to get a "wtf were they thinking?" reaction while the CM stuff more often has a "it must be mine!" one. They mostly avoid the P2W items but not for lack of trying. They test the population every 3 or 4 months. Direct purchase items are stupid expensive 15-45USD with some of the worst offenders being one time use dye sets with high demand colors (black/black $20, white/white $10). The true evil are the gamble boxes. Most of the items cannot be purchased directly. Instead there's a boom-box like system with roughly the same drop rates of desirable items vs. junk (oh joy another transmat pass). Imagine paying 3-4USD for a boom-box. [1] see Simon Ludgate's "energy model"


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Read developer Josh foreman's post from the Guildwars 2 forums about NCSoft as follows: "Indeed. I’ve been in this industry for 16 years and worked with a several publishers including Interplay, Sierra, THQ and now NCSoft. And for what it’s worth, the amount of creative freedom that NCSoft gives ArenaNet is MASSIVE compared to the others. NCSoft is crazy successful for a reason. They recognize the talent here and support us with a very hands-off policy in general. They give us a LOT of feedback and data to work with, but I’ve never got the impression that they are overlords like I have with the other publishers I’ve worked under." Reference Link/Citation: https://forum-en.guildwars2.com/forum/game/gw2/Merged-The-Cantha-Thread/page/4#post1400102 Here's your evidence. NCSoft are not evil overlords.


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