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Why do people have such a big issue with P2P+CS for vanity items?
SgtFrog
Member Posts: 5,001
I have never had an issue with P2P mmorpg charging extra for vanity item but people here seem to go crazy when it happens.
I always hear the argument if I pay $15 a month I want 100% of the game...which I think is a little silly...what is wrong if someone is willing to pay a little extra for a few pixels that will not affect your game play in any way at all.
March on! - Lets Invade Pekopon
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Probably because it strays alittle into the F2P territory which apparently has a lot of rabid haters to the point of being irrational. Even if the cash item is purely decorative, the person who brought it has something that cannot be obtained in the game without outside cash.
Because it's only a flick of a switch to start offering items that offer more than just a cosmetic advantage.
It's not the being of F2P and cash shop as it is the temptation for the developer to possibly go further with the cash shop and leave the normal paying customers with little to be desired.
Because anyone who isnt slavering for corporate knows its a total ripoff. You paid for the development of those vanity items with your subscription, which you are now being asked to pay for again...
Besides the fact that its never JUST vanity items, and it always quickly becomes more than that. Additionally, the vanity items are usually massively overpriced (see $25 reskinned sparklepony)
I have no idea - it'd be pretty difficult to make a rational argument about why that model is bad. But I've already said my piece on the TERA cs+ sub thread and people just refused to listen so there's not much more I can say on it.
I don't think vanity items are the problem, it's just the potential for them to suddenly sell "other things" whenever they feel their profits are down.
(Oh and btw, if you don't think they'd be allowed to suddenly make that change, better read just about any terms of service :P)
Well I've yet to see any game company stop selling vanity items due to players being annoyed. So let me answer your question with a question.
Why do you care how they feel when it obviously doesn't affect YOUR game play?
If you can't dazzle 'em with brilliance, riddle 'em with bullets
Because this is an mmorpg forum were people discuss different aspects of mmorpg...or has that changed?
March on! - Lets Invade Pekopon
I don't really mind, though I never buy them. Ever. If it doesn' t have a practical use then I would definitely not spend money on it.
Just seems like a cheap way to get extra cash for a few hours of work for the devs. Oh well, to each his own.
That's not what he's saying - he's wondering why players say things like "well, I'm not going to play this game anymore now that they've said they might have a cash shop with vanity items". It could effect his gameplay to a degree in some ways because fewer people get the game meaning less community, less cash to the devs, possibly slower content. Sure, that might mean fewer idiots, which would probably be a plus, but still.
No it hasn't changed at all. In fact this same topic has been rehashed about a million times already with no clear benefit to any involved since neither camp will change their veiwpoints. All it ever does is become a toll-fest and waste MMORPG's bandwith. So why bother?
If you can't dazzle 'em with brilliance, riddle 'em with bullets
There's also the possibility that the people without the decorative items will harass the people who do have it.
That is a very easy and seemingly logically sound argument to make. However, in truth you have no idea what funds and resources were used to develop the item shop content, nor do you know how much were needed. Also, we have no basis for saying that the items will escalate from cosmetic to useful once a company starts developing for an item shop. No reputable, P2P MMOG company has yet made that mistake, and I seriously doubt we will ever see in happen from major developers. Yes, the namby-pamby F2P game companies will always sell "game-changing" items in their item shops however, they don't count... yes it theoretically could happen, but I find it highly unlikely.
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"Searchers after horror haunt strange, far places..." ~ H.P.Lovecraft, "From Beyond"
Member Since March 2004
I'm gonna get going before I embroil myself again in a thread about this but I think it's worth having because people who refuse to even look at a game that will feature a sub + cash shop system are basing their argument on a logical fallacy (that fallacy being "cash shop with vanity items always leads to cash shop with game-changing items"). These sorts of things should be dislodged or people will continue to think their broken logic is valid and apply it to other aspects of their life - hurting themselves and all of us in the long run.
Haters? Nah. Just people who smell a scam and are trying to convince the victims not to fund it.
The issue is simple - everything in the game matters to everyone. You are not playing a single-player game where your character has no effect on others - even something as insignificant as a costume piece CAN affect other people's gameplay. Case in point - City of Heroes has player-run and funded costume contests all the time. How does someone buying a special costume piece NOT affect the other people in the contest? MMOs are social environments - accept that what you do matters.
The scam part is, once you get ONE person buying something, everyone else has to start buying to keep up, or fall behind. Hey look, I got a sparkle pony! So what, you say, it's no faster than the best regular mount. The BEST REGULAR MOUNT, which took how long to get in regular play? So, you can just buy your way out of the game's designed gameplay progression and get something that others have played days or weeks for, and maybe were a little proud of achieving.
And oh looky, now the sparkle ponyFLIES TOO lol.
That's the part where microtransactions turn evil. Once you let the game company get your subscription PLUS MORE MONEY from you, they are not going to say "Oh cool, that's enough money, we can stop now". The suits will jump on the concept and force the developers to find more things to sell you for more money - not because it makes a better game, but solely out of greed for the money.
The part that makes me lol is the lies - "We need the money to fund more development!". BULLCRAP. Unless you see red ink on their statements, the only way a game company needs that money for development is if they are taking the money from the subscriptions that should go to development and doing something else with it - like putting it into the net profit column so the stock goes up and the suits' stock options are worth more money. In other words, redirecting it in a way that lets them personally profit from it without being charged with embezzlement, and then trying to get you to replace that money in exchange for something that "doesn't matter".
What a scam. Please don't give game companies excuses to charge you more money for something you've already bought and paid for. It just won't work out well.
Would a cash shop "sparkle pony" that provides 310% boost in speed (IF the player has at least one other 310% speed mount) count as useful or just cosmetic? It seems like it's just cosmetic to me but I'm wondering what others think.
Edited: Changed "cash shop mount" to "cash shop sparkle pony" because the words make me smile.
Well until Cataclysm it is an advantage, but a very petty one.
I don't think any other mount except for the Refer-A-Friend rocket scales with your riding speed.
Cryptic anyone?
There's been plenty of games that included vanity items and other 'fluff' as part of the game included in any monthly fees. Customization is a big part of MMOs for many. The more recent trend has seen companies such as Cryptic changing things to make more money while not adding any value.
They're happy to take the money in the short term that way if a game fails they don't get burned too badly. It's a shame that they don't take longer and produce better, more complete games instead. That way they might end up with a decent long term population.
Oh and Blizzard just do it because they can.
The idea that "it's only pixels so it doesn't matter" is a complete fallacy. Everything you see on your computer is pixels. The only thing that makes those pixels worth anything is the values players assign to them. And if someone is willing to pay money for pixels, then they clearly have value.
The only way a company can ever make any serious money from a cash shop is by putting things people want in the shop. And that inherently means either denying those goods to non cash-shop customers, or cheapening the achievements of non-cash shop customers who have shown in-game effort or skill to gain similar items.
D&D Home Page - What Class Are You? - Build A Character - D&D Compendium
Like everything else in life you got to pay that little bit extra for that special something .
March on! - Lets Invade Pekopon
Why pay for them? $15 maintains your access to the whole game, and $50 can afford you a whole new game.
Yet these vanity items cost $10~$25 each. We are talking about a hugely overpriced 3D model, take a look at your game - it features thousands of 3D models, yet they decide to charge for a single one.
you can't have it both ways. Either the items don't impact play or they're extra special.
The point you're missing is depsite some peoples' claim that because the items presumably don't affect combat or leveling, they don't count. But that mistakenly assumes that combat is the end-all/be-all of these games, and being mmoRPG's, it's clearly not the case. Being mmorpgs, non-combat items DO affect the gameplay of the people who are involved in that aspect of the game. The real argument being made by people who say 'it's only vanity items' is "Well they're not charging for the stuff I care about so who cares?" Well clearly since we're talking about rpg's and also given our capitialist society and the for profit motive of the companies inolved it's sheer ignorance to believe these companies have chosen to sell something that has no value to the player.
And I'm back lol.
This post is ironic, because you call that quote a fallacy (when it's actually an opinion and can't be logically evaluated) while committing several fallacies yourself in your own arguments.
You use the same word "value" twice but with different meanings. The value players assign to their in game experiences are not the same as monetary value - they are what an economist would call utility (i.e. some amount of relative worth each individual person assigns to each thing). This is called the fallacy of equivocation.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equivocation
Next, you purposely misinterpreted what would have been meant by the quoted phrase. Obviously, someone who says that means that the occasional cosmetic change in a game does not effect the many other factors that go into the gameplay experience - most of which have far more bearing such as actual mechanics. You distorted the argument into being "if anything is made of pixels, it has no worth." Distorting the argument and then attacking it is called the strawman fallacy.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strawman
And as far as your final arguement, developers are no more denying customers content with fluff items through a cash shop as they are denying them content by creating expansion packs for the game that offer the option of an additional playable race (and atleast in an expansion pack, other things will probably change besides aesthetics - further warranting the price). They also don't offer things that are available in the actual game, so no efforts to get different items of the same category are cheapened, unless you're talking about items such as stat-boosting equipment - which AAA mmos rarely offer in their cash shops. This is called missing the point (yes, that's a fallacy, not just a figure of speech).
http://changingminds.org/disciplines/argument/fallacies/missing_point.htm
RPer and to me it still does no bother me, but I guess that is just my opinion.
March on! - Lets Invade Pekopon
Well then there is the answer to your question. Its a matter of opinion. And it can't be explained any better than you can explain why it doesn't bother you.