Goblin Squad Member
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Some cash shops are well designed. Many are not. In my opinion anything that can be done or created in game should not be sold in a cash shop, as these things would undermine the in-game crafting conducted by players. The blog mentions some things such as mounts, clothing items, and building decorations, but all those items seem like things that should be craftable by players and therefore should not be in the cash shop. Goblinworks wants (and needs) to make some cash on the cash shop items (it IS a cash shop, after all) so here are a few examples for a potential Pathfinder Online Cash Shop (some items already mentioned in other threads):
Theme park dungeon adventures (mentioned in blog) Either made by the game designers or from a player made (but designer vetted) dungeon creation system. Instanced dungeon adventures that could be activated once the party is formed. Loot would be modest and not unbalancing. The higher level and/or more advanced instanced dungeons would be somewhat more expensive. Difficulty would be determined based on the owner’s experience. Single use.
Playing a monster boss for a week Players could pay cash to be able to assume the role of a monster boss with a contingent of followers and a lair of some sort for say, one week. During that week the player, as a monster boss, would have five days to muster as much defense as possible with the full expectation that his/her doom is near since the appearance of a new lair would be posted in nearby settlements. After the five days, a “Wanted” poster would appear in Settlements to leads adventurers to the lair to rid the land of the creatures and their boss. The party would be able to loot the boss treasure. First boss role minor, and would increase in power the more often this feature were activated.
Pipesmoke Battle Set Players who activate this event can challenge another player with the same item to a battle of different smoke ring apparations. Once engaged, players would smoke a pipe and the smoke would form into a preselected icon which would then seek out the opponents smoke item. (Players can choose from a variety of pipesmoke creations, and when blown out goes towards the opposing smoke ring to fight it out.) Lasts 15 minutes.
Nature's Friend Players could card summon a creature of nature to keep them company for a short while. Summon a colorful songbird to sing on top of your hat, or sit on your shoulder, or a squirrel who follows at your heels and lets you feed him seeds if you sit down. Creatures not targetable or attackable. Only usable outdoors. Lasts 15 minutes. (Would be very prestigious for Druids, Rangers, Elves.)
Shadow Dancer When activated your shadow dances on its own. Depending on the dance moves available to players the shadow would dance for a period of 15 minutes. The more dances the players learns the more that become available to the shadow dancer.
Ridiculously Shaped Beard This item would give the player a ridiculously shaped beard that would grow into odd shapes and ridiculous lengths for 15 minutes. The ridiculous beard is encouraged to become even more ridiculous when the player is inebriated, and the more inebriated the more ridiculous the beard becomes. Usable by females characters too!
Dive Bombing Pigeon Activating this item creates a swooping pigeon to drop a gooey blob of goo another player or NPC. Surprise a player with a big, splattering poop from a friendly pigeon. They won't know what hit 'em! Some poops are colorful, some are white, and all are disgusting, yet harmless. Poop fades in 15 minutes.
Portable Trash Pile This item creates a temporary but disgusting large pile of trash and debris crawling with vermin. Place the pile in a city location to get a reaction from the crowd, the more crowded the better. Or place in a competing Inn's Common Room to embarrass the owner. Lasts 15 minutes.
Ancient Item Activate this item player can target an item to make it appear either extremely old or very fragile. Places an illusion on an item of theirs (or another player) to appear as though it came from a time in the distant past. Could either be an interesting look of lore or mystery, or make a perfectly new item look as though it is about to fall apart. Purely cosmetic, but fun to boggle others. Lasts 15 minutes.
Trail of leaves or feathers Activating this item leaves a trail of colorful leaves or feathers in the players wake. Usable indoors or outdoors. Lasts 15 minutes.
Curse of Belching and Farting Activate this targetable item and cause the player to randomly belch or fart loudly. All sorts of belches and farts might suddenly spring forth from the target. Not a big deal in a tavern full of drunken revelers, but great fun in a formal setting such as an audience with nobility or in the heat of battle!
Add more things you want to see in the PFO Cash Shop!
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Goblin Squad Member
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For player housing items and settlement accent items, note these are the plans and not the items (or should be). The plans may be purchased by anyone and sold in-game, so players that want to craft them may either buy their own or buy the plans on the in-game market. I strongly oppose any item that should otherwise be player crafted being sold in the craft shop.
Plans, designs, and recipes For players that have reached a level of in-game expertise through the normal skill training process, certain unique or custom items may be player made via the crafting process. By buying plans, designs and recipes for housing items (furniture, storage containers, decorations, wall hangings and artwork, floor coverings, etc...) and settlement accents (gargoyles and grotesques, fountains and statuary, gardens, etc...). Also available are custom clothing designs for tailors, doors and entryways for carpenters, etc...).
Fireworks schematics Schematics for all sorts of fantastic fireworks. What public event is complete without an array of dazzling fireworks to entertain partygoers young and old? Plans come in many brilliant colors and effects!
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Goblin Squad Member
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I'm expecting to see the basic items:
Additional Character Slots
Clothing Items
Pets
Titles
Training Time CardsI would also like to see:
Player Housing Items
Settlement Enhancements
Bluddwolf, has player housing been announced? I don't recall seeing that, but I miss some stuff.
I'm pretty sure character slots will not be a shop item, as I recall one of the Devs saying (or perhaps it was Ryan) that they wanted to make accounts as versatile as possible, so you would be able to have a number of characters, only you would need to buy the training time for every character past the first (unless you have a Destiny's Twin, then it'd be for every character past the second). So GW would be making money on every alt you wish to train. Making you pay for the alt and then the training seems excessive.
Hardin, cool ideas! Not sure if every one is viable, but they do look like fun. Now, if exotic beards were mad permanent, I might play a Dwarf LOL
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Goblin Squad Member
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Gloreindl, I'm just throwing some ideas out there to see what is appealing. I really want to keep crafting as important as possible, so it makes sense to me for the plans to be a buyable item for some things, but not the items themselves. I want the crafters to be able to make all the usable stuff possible, and that includes fancy clothes, decorations....even the pipes in the pipe smoke battle listed above. I mean, why not let players make the stuff players want?
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Goblin Squad Member
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... if a Player Character can do it, then ONLY Player Characters can do it.
I hope and expect this will apply to Cash Shop items as well, and that there won't ever be anything for sale in the Cash Shop that could replace something that Player Characters can acquire.
I don't want to see Recipes in the Cash Shop unless that's the only way that particular recipe can be acquired, and the item created isn't significantly similar to an item that can be created by players.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I have been slowly going through the Unity manual. It might be possible to have players craft new storefronts (if they have access to Unity and GW allows import) for sale in a Cash Shop. Also (again, if GW allows imports) unique weapons and armor might be possible. After all, they did want the development of player content. I am trying to focus (when I wade through it) on the Terrain Generator. I think there is a possibility of bringing existing 5-meter data elevation sets (with modification) into the PFO landscape.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I have been slowly going through the Unity manual. It might be possible to have players craft new storefronts (if they have access to Unity and GW allows import) for sale in a Cash Shop. Also (again, if GW allows imports) unique weapons and armor might be possible. After all, they did want the development of player content. I am trying to focus (when I wade through it) on the Terrain Generator. I think there is a possibility of bringing existing 5-meter data elevation sets (with modification) into the PFO landscape.
Do you mean like players shaping the landscape? That would be real Nice.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Well, @Bringslite, I was thinking more of a way for GW devs to generate terrain quickly and with some additional realism by using existing GIS data. If they ever expand the PFO landscape to existing River Kingdom boundaries it may be as big as 90 miles by 120 miles. That would be a lot of hexes to generate. Still reading manual.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Well, @Bringslite, I was thinking more of a way for GW devs to generate terrain quickly and with some additional realism by using existing GIS data. If they ever expand the PFO landscape to existing River Kingdom boundaries it may be as big as 90 miles by 120 miles. That would be a lot of hexes to generate. Still reading manual.
Harad, If that scale is correct on that map you posted above the River Kingdoms is gigantic....looks to be about 400 miles north-south and 550-600 east west (rough estimates based on the little scale in LR corner). If they can create the land generation and seeding program to work properly future expansions would be "relatively" easy. Yeah, tons of polish afterwards, but they wouldn't have to start from scratch.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I don't think that they will expand to the entire River Kingdom area. Too much Paizo story setting to disturb. I do think that they can take the area of Echo Woods (which does not seem to be claimed in the source book).
Agreed. If they can build the forest that is plenty of wilds to explore. It looks to be 6 times the current starting map, give or take. Mostly heavily forested. Should be interesting to see how they manage land expansions.
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CEO, Goblinworks
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There will likely be convenience items in the cash shop that have analogs that can be crafted by players like potions of healing. They won't be materially better than what you can craft yourself, and the point of making them available for sale is just to reduce player frustration not force people to buy stuff.
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Goblin Squad Member
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That sort of thing doesn't seem like it would be a problem, unless you were depending on selling healing potions I suppose.
But even then does anyone think healing potions from an in-game store would really compete with player crafted potions available in-game for in-game currency?
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Goblin Squad Member
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There will likely be convenience items in the cash shop that have analogs that can be crafted by players like potions of healing. They won't be materially better than what you can craft yourself, and the point of making them available for sale is just to reduce player frustration not force people to buy stuff.
It's funny to me how easily I accept things when you explain them :)
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Goblin Squad Member
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As long as I can make Nihimon's beard grow to ridiculous lengths, and to hire a pet pigeon to dive bomb Bluddwolf I'll be happy. (I don't need to make Being's beard grow, I saw him in a video!)
Stilts Made tall so Gnomes and Halflings can pick the high hanging friut.
Disguise Kits So players can look like anyone else, or totally non-descript NPCs. Also usable by those with the skill and inclination to play music, perform or otherwise act in taverns, inns, or gypsy caravans.
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Goblin Squad Member
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There will likely be convenience items in the cash shop that have analogs that can be crafted by players like potions of healing. They won't be materially better than what you can craft yourself, and the point of making them available for sale is just to reduce player frustration not force people to buy stuff.
It is worth asking, how will things like healing potions be in the logistics train of war? IE when we are talking a long drawn out war, side A, needing a chain to move their crafted potions to their troops, of which side B can vandalize, meanwhile side B has rich players poofing them into existance on the front lines. Depending of course on all kinds of things like, how hard are potions to get out, how much is the cooldown etc... we are talking anything from a minor negligible effect that may have little to no impact, to pure and direct pay2win of which 2 buyers can hold their side indefinitely and the battle wages on until someone maxes out their card.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Ideally (to me at least) I'd love to see the ability to buy rare weapons/armor/trinket 'patterns' off the site, not actually fully made items, but new skins and textures would be a nice touch for people seeking an 'edge' in the market.
The 'Store' could also be a handy font if certain resources keep drying up.
'Starter Packs' for farms, including two 'seasons' worth of specific items, such as baby/weanling animals such as Goat Kids, Piglets, Lambs, Calves, Chicks etc, or seedlings of basic crop produce such as vegetables or grains.
Buying crafting materials should be possible from the 'Store', but should also be painfully expensive so that it's a 'last option', not the first. Also such items should be 'locked' to the buyer's account, so that we can't see people buying up ALL the items they can and placing it at ridiculously high prices, effectively blocking lower level or players with less time from purchasing crafting materials.
Mind you, Assassination contracts work to help fix this ...
Basically I see the Store offering basic 'starter kits' for people wanting to start a profession with a slight leg-up, but nothing in regards to combat. Help make crafting a little bit less grindy at the start, get more people into it in addition to their dungeon crawling, and it also provides a bit of a safety net if they are being hammered non-stop by a dedicated 'core' of people trying to drive them out of the game by attacking their farms/smithies/taverns/alchemy shops on a regular basis.
Fun, quirky and mostly thematic or 'bling' type purchases available, such as fancy riding saddles, 'town clothes', vanity pets, quirky potions and ointments, in addition to race changes and perhaps even tokens that can be redeemed in-game to purchase specific long-term rewards, such as being able to build a structure outside of a Settlement, an actual permanent structure outside of the Settlement's 'floor-plan' or a 'Bandit Hideout' (the quasi-hidden areas mentioned in the blogs), something that's fun and adds longevity to your playing time, without making you 'better' than the other guys.
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Goblin Squad Member
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As long as I can make Nihimon's beard grow to ridiculous lengthsAhem! Elves do not grow beards! :)
They do if I can use my "Rediculously Shaped Beard" Cash Shop item on you! Man! I can't wait to see you in a crazy beard that grows into a tall spiral straight over your head! That'd be awesome!
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Goblin Squad Member
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There will likely be convenience items in the cash shop that have analogs that can be crafted by players like potions of healing. They won't be materially better than what you can craft yourself, and the point of making them available for sale is just to reduce player frustration not force people to buy stuff.
Reducing player frustration, that must be a solid marketing strategy. :P
For the love of [insert deity of your choice] no forced emotes. There has been many pages of vitriol written on the forums of any game that includes them, written by both sides I might add.
The most recent being the lotro forums where turbine have finally caved into demand and given people and tick box to opt out of forced emotes from others.
By all means have a farting and belching emote you can cast on yourself, if you put one in you can cast on others though expect to run from cover from the forum wars. It is something that seems highly divisive
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Goblin Squad Member
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I am still a bit iffy about healing potions being available in the store.
It seems to me that the biggest pillar of the game, is to create both conflict and cooperation in relation to the natural resources of the gameworld. Harvesting them, stealing them, claiming more land to increase them, transporting them, guarding them etcetera.
Healing potions seems like a commodity that will forever be in demand, in large quantities and thus creating a lot of gameplay. Especially since they are consumables. There is a lot of danger in the Riverlands and I am afraid that players will quickly turn to the store for consumables like these, rather then crafting themselves, having to endure getting killed during harvesting or losing your mats during transport.
Even if you manage to get safety in numbers by harvesting and transporting in a group, it seems a bit redundant to go out and create them yourselves when you know you can simply buy them in the shop.
Now if they are crazy expensive in the shop, then this might not be a problem but still. I feel that in a game like PFO, incentives for the economy and incentives for players to band together are very important.
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Goblin Squad Member
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There will likely be convenience items in the cash shop that have analogs that can be crafted by players like potions of healing. They won't be materially better than what you can craft yourself, and the point of making them available for sale is just to reduce player frustration not force people to buy stuff.
If it is limited to convenience items then cash shops are totally fine.
That said potions of healing (assuming the usual drink potion gain health back instantly) is a horrible example for convinience items.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Evil ones grow black Van-d~#~s (AKA in the US as a goatee) Just look at Evil Spock (a space Elf) LOL ;)As long as I can make Nihimon's beard grow to ridiculous lengthsAhem! Elves do not grow beards! :)
Umm, I know (and support) how supportive of the LGBTT (yes the term now has two T's) community Paizo is, but why did someone, or was it automatic, change the name of the mustache and goatee I mentioned? Just curious, as the word changed does have legitimate usage that don't mean anything offensive, such as the name of this facial hair or a means by which the Dutch keep the ocean from flooding the lowlands (not to mention it is a valid surname). Inquiring minds want to know.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Sadly, America is a litigation-crazy country. It's safer for them to avoid any chance of the 'Army of Kyle's Mom' parents and sue-happy offendees than let something out that might be 'construed' as offensive.
And yeah, I agree, it's sad they have to do that ...
On the other hand, I have the giggles now, as I imagine Merisiel with a knee-length beard chasing after a certain Halfling Bard.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Umm, I know (and support) how supportive of the LGBTT (yes the term now has two T's) community Paizo is, but why did someone, or was it automatic, change the name of the mustache and goatee I mentioned? Just curious, as the word changed does have legitimate usage that don't mean anything offensive, such as the name of this facial hair or a means by which the Dutch keep the ocean from flooding the lowlands (not to mention it is a valid surname). Inquiring minds want to know.Evil ones grow black Van-d~#~s (AKA in the US as a goatee) Just look at Evil Spock (a space Elf) LOL ;)As long as I can make Nihimon's beard grow to ridiculous lengthsAhem! Elves do not grow beards! :)
Well did you write dike or the word with a "y"?
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Goblin Squad Member
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The cash shop could also be used to enforce rarity on certain items or options that belong in the game, but should never be common.
For Example:
"Gunslinger Skill Package and Firearm
XX dollars in the cash store.
Only 10 will be available this year, and 6 have already been sold."
This would allow unusual skill sets, rare items, even oddball character races to exist in the game, while preventing the "Everyone's a Jedi" problem of late-stage Star Wars Galaxies. (SWG was set in the time period of the original trilogy, when the Jedi were nearly extinct. After some changes to the game, it became easy for anyone to create a Jedi character, and soon you couldn't cross the street without tripping on Jedi robes.)
To make things a little more fair for those who simply can't afford the rare packages, maybe the XX dollars would be lower than a direct purchase price, but it would buy a ticket for a Rare Stuff Lottery, rather than purchasing a rare thing outright.
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Goblin Squad Member
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The cash shop could also be used to enforce rarity on certain items or options that belong in the game, but should never be common.
For Example:
"Gunslinger Skill Package and Firearm
XX dollars in the cash store.
Only 10 will be available this year, and 6 have already been sold."This would allow unusual skill sets, rare items, even oddball character races to exist in the game, while preventing the "Everyone's a Jedi" problem of late-stage Star Wars Galaxies.
To make things a little more fair for those who simply can't afford the rare packages, maybe the XX dollars would be lower than a direct purchase price, but it would buy a ticket for a Rare Stuff Lottery, rather than purchasing a rare thing outright.
I really hope not. That sounds like the lockboxes you see in every Perfect World game, and they're obnoxious.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I haven't tried any of the Perfect World games. Are the lockboxes similar to the Black Lion Chests in Guild Wars 2?
I think Black Lion Chests are well balanced, by the way, because they don't contain really incredible loot, you can sell them to people who are willing to buy the keys from the cash shop, and they don't drop often enough to really annoy me.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Like that, except some of the loot is awesome (the rest is trash), and they drop like candies. It's a pretty blatant cash grab. To give you an idea, I actually got a pack of the keys for the lockboxes in STO, got a drop out of one, and had someone offer me 10% of the maximum possible cash you can carry for it. Also, doesn't GW2 make it possible to get the keys in game?
If you're suggesting putting whole player options (skill sets, races, etc) in a random roll like that, it sounds a lot closer to PWE's model than GW2s.
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Goblin Squad Member
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You're right. Putting character options in the cash store is different than selling chest/lockbox keys in the cash store.
I believe each character receives a few keys over the course of the personal story arc. I think you can also convert in-game gold into cash shop currency and buy more keys that way. I've never had enough gold to make it worthwhile to convert part of it to cash shop currency (gems).
The two games do seem to illustrate that cash shops need fine-tuning. If locked containers drop like candy, the crash grab becomes blatant. If they're rare, and drop in addition to normal loot, they're less intrusive.
One cash shop introduction that went over very poorly was 'Monocle-Gate' in EVE. The cash store opened with only the super-luxury tier of items available, giving most players little to buy. There was also a deep-seated fear of pay-to-win items among the player community. (There were other issues, too, but they were very specific to EVE, so they don't really apply here.) Big take-away lesson from that: Open the cash store with multiple price tiers. Starting with super-expensive items only (as high as $40 USD for the titular monocle) just reeks of cash-grabbing.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Titles would be fun, as long as it was clear that they conveyed no authority in the River Kingdoms, or extra income. Under those conditions, it would be fun to come across minor Taldan nobility slumming it in the River Kingdoms, or someone from a cadet branch of a deposed royal family (Cheliax or Galt, for example).
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Goblin Squad Member
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...'Monocle-Gate' in EVE.
The cash store opened with only the super-luxury tier of items available, giving most players little to buy. There was also a deep-seated fear of pay-to-win items among the player community. (There were other issues, too, but they were very specific to EVE, so they don't really apply here.) Big take-away lesson from that: Open the cash store with multiple price tiers. Starting with super-expensive items only (as high as $40 USD for the titular monocle) just reeks of cash-grabbing.
That whole monocle-gate protest thing was over-the-top silly as hell but the players organizing the protest were quite proud of their "rally". I thought it was very childish. CCP needs to make money and the old dogs ingame could care less whether CCP lives or dies. They want their free cookie even if the house caves in around them.
But multiple price tiers is only a good business plan so players of various incomes can do as they like. Ryan has alluded to this more than once in the blog and his postings. If someone wants to spend a lot of money on Pathfinder Online, that player will be accomodated. If another players wishes to only spend the minimum, that players will be accomodated as well, but they will have different experiences. Seems logical to me.
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Goblin Squad Member
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...'Monocle-Gate' in EVE.
The cash store opened with only the super-luxury tier of items available, giving most players little to buy. There was also a deep-seated fear of pay-to-win items among the player community. (There were other issues, too, but they were very specific to EVE, so they don't really apply here.) Big take-away lesson from that: Open the cash store with multiple price tiers. Starting with super-expensive items only (as high as $40 USD for the titular monocle) just reeks of cash-grabbing.
That whole monocle-gate protest thing was over-the-top silly as hell but the players organizing the protest were quite proud of their "rally". I thought it was very childish. CCP needs to make money and the old dogs ingame could care less whether CCP lives or dies. They want their free cookie even if the house caves in around them.
But multiple price tiers is only a good business plan so players of various incomes can do as they like. Ryan has alluded to this more than once in the blog and his postings. If someone wants to spend a lot of money on Pathfinder Online, that player will be accomodated. If another players wishes to only spend the minimum, that players will be accomodated as well, but they will have different experiences. Seems logical to me.
To my mind, the heart of the monocle issue was not the fact that there was an expensive tier, but the fact that it was the only tier available when the shop went live. Players had no "low end" items to compare to the "luxury" items that were in stock on day one.
The protests had more to do with the EVE-specific issues than the actual cash store, I think. Still, the monocle became a symbol of the protest because its price was frankly ridiculous, and nobody could tell how high or low the prices for the second batch of cash store items might be.
Create multiple price tiers? Sure, that's reasonable. Just open the shop with a cross-section of prices, so people can tell approximately how much they'll be paying for things in each tier.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Emotes (not forced ones) are an easy way for characters ingame to communicate. While playing Darkfall with other Goblins (Bringslite, Lhan, Jaz, Urman, a few others that escape me, sorry guys) we were discussing some emotes becoming available from the cash shop after a certain in game requirement was met. An achievement system within the game that, once completed, would provide a token or some sort of currency item (let GW work it out) that could be used to purchase a single cash shop item when added to say, two dollars cash (or an amount of skymetal equal to two dollars).
For example, you get butt-taunted by a mean ol' Goblin! You go on a goblin killing rampage, and after 1,000 goblin kills you receive a token from an NPC Sheriff (a Knight of Iomedae from Fort Riverwatch or other appropriate NPC personality) thanking you for your service to the River Kingdoms. Interestingly you remember an item in the marketplace at Fort Riverwatch (a cleverly disguised cash shop run by Goblinworks) where you can trade in this otherwise nifty yet worthless token in exchange for being taught the Goblin butt taunt emote! Oh what fun you will have with that!
OK, for those of you that don't want the goblin butt taunt available to the player public, I say, so what! Think of some emotes that are not part of the stock emote library every MMO should have (think greetings and farewells, military emotes, a limited number of taunts, a dance or two, that's enough). All the other emotes in the game would be available by achieving some task and paying a small amount of cash to the cash shop. Say, entering 100 hexes allows a player to obtain the "Opening Map" emote complete with map looking paper in hand!, fully exploring 100 hexes allows the "Experienced Explorer" emote where the player dons a pith helmet for a moment (or some other Pathfindery headgear), and uncovering the entire 256 hexes of the original River Kingdoms area allows the "Legendary Explorer" allowing the used to don the pith helmet, hold up a spinning globe of Golarion, accompanied by a server wide announcement of the characters personal achievement!
Well, just an idea to be batted around. Need some good stuff for the cash shop that isn't P2W but still fun to receive and use...
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Goblin Squad Member
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GW is going to have to be very careful how they structure & present their cash shop. Lots of games seem to make a mess of it. EVE one example. Even Star Citizen, which seems to be doing almost everything right for a game at least a year away from launch, made a bit of a mess of their cash shop launch and had to embark on damage limitation exercise a couple of days later.
https://robertsspaceindustries.com/comm-link/transmission/13241-17-Million
Their forums are generally full of nothing but praise of Chris Roberts & team. But a few hours after launch of Voyager Direct that all changed with thousands of negative posts on the forum.
RSI handled the situation pretty well, but had to drop the prices of several items in their store, and gave every backer and extra 5 USD equivalent store credit.
I think the major problem was that the game is going to be funded through a mix of game purchase + cash shop. However currently kickstarter & other backers have already contributed a lot of money each for a game not yet launched. Apparently most people who have backed the game have done so for over 100 USD. So if you're in that position seeing a cash shop launched so early comes across as a bit crass and a cash grab.
GW are probably then being wise to start of the game on a subscription basis to avoid risking alienating kickstarter backers who might well already have put up a fair bit of money.
Just a thought.
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Goblin Squad Member
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There's an old maxim that states "A product is worth exactly what a customer will pay for it." With cash shops in MMOs this is true, but there are very different repercussions. The average gamer is not wealthy. Many of us have mortgages or rent, tuition or student loan repayment, utility bills, family, food, vehicles, insurance, and fuel to spend a limited income on. Entertainment usually takes up a position at or near the bottom of the expenses totem pole, and in some cases that particular budget is slim indeed. Right now my personal monthly entertainment budget is around $10. I play EVE because I can pay for my accounts with PLEX. I play MWO because it's free. I have purchased MC in that game when my budget and desires allow.
The cost of items in the meatspace marketplace are dictated by supply and demand. They are by no means fixed, and in many cases, especially when dealing on the bulk or wholesale side of things, the price is negotiable. In MMO cash shops the prices are generally fixed by the company. There is no haggling, no way to make deals, and no way to shift the price without being vocal about it on the forums.
Of course if you purchase an item in meatspace and the next week the price is dropped, the general reaction is 'Damn, I should have waited.' In MMO Cash shops, if the same thing happens and it's not a 'sale' the nerdrage potential rises and people demand refunds. If the company over-estimates the value of an item in meatspace then nobody buys it unless it's absolutely necessary and the price eventually drops until it reaches a point the market will accept. If an MMO Cash shop item is overpriced, very few people will buy it and the nerdrage potential spikes. If an item is under valued in meatspace the demand may exceed the supply, causing the price to rise to a level of equilibrium. In an MMO Cash shop, the under valued item will be consumed and not a peep will be heard from the consumers. As a digital product demand will never exceed supply, there will never be a shortage to cause prices to rise. If the MMO company decides to increase the price of the under valued item, though, once more the nerdrage potential rises.
MMORPGs are an escape, an alternate reality where your physical/meatspace circumstances have no bearing on what you are and what you can do. The thought of someone using, or being able to use their superior meatspace circumstances to get an advantage over you which will be difficult to overcome, if not insurmountable, is abhorrent. Pay 2 Win, or even the perception of Pay 2 Win will drive away a large portion of the player base of any game who does not outright state that P2W is an option.
A cash shop is going to be a delicate balancing act.