Cash Shop/Costumes Prices.

    Quote from Zodai
    Quote from White Rabbit

    Prices are about standard as far as MMOs these days come. inflation is a bitch

    I'd disagree, there are examples such as LoL and Warframe above that generally offer much more for less. I disagree in this being the standard, and if it can be considered a standard then it's a standard that does more to harm the players and the game than to help them. If the pricing is unjustifiable to an average user it hurts their bottom line, and we should give them the feedback to let them know there are better options.

    The exceptions prove the rule, and LoL? Really? Their ultimate skins cost more than the 30$ one we get here. Not to mention, moba vs mmo, one you are using around 100 diff characters, this is just one character.

    You can't really use LoL to compare to this because LoL is a moba. You can't really customize a characters eyes, hair, skin tone, etc. Yes, LoL has chromas but they're mainly re-colors of a champ. That's like buying an already customized character in the webshop on SoulWorker if they ever did that.


    Anyways, my point was to not compare this game to mobas but compare it to some other f2p mmos like Dragon Nest, Elsword, Kritika, etc etc.

    If it is an outlier, it's one that's been shown to be very successful, at the very least that makes it worth paying attention to from a business perspective as something with similar play structures, though at the same time their model couldn't be ported 1:1 over here at all.


    I will agree that they do have a generally corporate mentality, but even when the bottom line is your main concern you know you'll know you can be more profitable the more happy players can afford spending money on the game. If we can converse coherently about the issue, they could at least listen enough to find a more healthy compromise that still fits within their ideology and provides a better experience both on players and profit.


    Quote from Harmony
    Quote from Zodai

    Well, this is hence why we should be providing feedback. Nobody here or at Gameforge wants the game to flop, so if we're clear and concise about our concerns and why we're upset they're bound to at least listen somewhat. They care about their bottom line as well, and a monetization system that doesn't work well influences that.


    I am rather concerned about the cash shop being put up during the beta though. Betas exist more for stability than profit - that's why they're not a full release instead.

    I agree - providing feedback is important. I just hope they read these posts and listen, rather than ignore it like it seems like it's been..

    I don't think they have any bad intentions - as someone who writes for a small game studio it can actually feel very intimidating to jump into the public part of the community. I highly doubt they're malicious, at best if they aren't listening it's more out of focusing on their own jobs since community interaction is something other than what they were hired for, and at worse it's probably a lack of awareness or a misunderstanding of F2P more than anything else.


    I don't doubt they have at least a few people who are reading over this and going over feedback - we should be discussing our thoughts as formally and coherently as we can so what we're saying can be understood.

    Easy fix.. increase the amount of soulcash we get for the price we are paying.. and all of a sudden the costs seem more reasonable. What is unreasonable is one region gets ~24000 for most expensive option and we get like 15000.. Thus making the items in shop much more expensive for us..

    This is not something new, almost all MMOs with the currency model has a set amounts for x cost and that cost is within reason from one region to the other.

    What we have is not within reason from a consumer stand point at all. The price is about the same but the amount is greatly different.

    That is the root of this problem.

    Erwin1.png

    around 25-30 for costumes,same price for hairstyle as for haircolors(inb4 they raise haircolors instead of lowering hairstyles)

    So I'm pretty sure like most have said, the prices are placeholders even given GF's history with this kind of thing.

    However, I'm gonna be honest outside of the hairstyles the prices are actually pretty standard in terms of what other Action MMOs charge for their costumes.

    Elsword and closers seem to be the big two right now and both of them charge anywhere from $15-$45 for costumes depending on what they do or how popular they think they're going to be.

    I feel like the hairstyle pricing is a SERIOUS typo because by any stretch of the imagination $21.50 is outrageous for one hairstyle.

    But, we'll see as time goes on. Given how... ahh spotty is a good word for this launch has been from the start, I wouldn't be surprised if some things in the cash shop are off.

    But the fact that the majority of the top players on the server right now haven't dropped a penny on the game. It bodes well for the P2W worries most of us are having. (At least for now *Ahem* I'm looking at what y'all did to Aion's EU client GF. >~> )

    You know, I really enjoyed this game. I really like it a lot. It reminded me of my favourite game, Dragon Nest. That game got ruined.
    And what do you know? This one did too.

    The prices are absurd. You can buy 100 energy in the shop, when it's supposed to be event only. The mat and free 100 ep aren't even in the shop, they either lied or it's a bug. You can buy enhance materials in the shop. 20$+ for a reset. 20 - 40$+ for a costume.

    Not to mention brooch sets and other's that are likely to come. I'm more than willing to buy items for dz, and I was going to anyways. But this?
    There's no point playing a game when you just get screwed over, you, the large majority of their player base.
    There's no point in playing a game that will soon, have no community.

    You didn't even give NA the same soulcash as the other regions, yet we have to pay more. USD is worth a little less than your dollar, and we STILL have to pay A LOT more. 300 for 5$, and not even 500? Say goodbye to half your playerbase, a lot of us are quitting. Job or no, not a lot of people are gonna spend on this cash shop, and you'll close the game down in most likely a year or two. I wouldn't be surprised if it's closed down within the year.

    If you're saying paying 40$ and even more while EU doesn't have to for a costume is completely normal, then there are literally no words that can be said to you.

    Otherwise, yes. 30$ is pretty standard, with 20$ being on the cheaper end, and above 30$ is a rip off.

    Legit, it should be 6.21 USD for 500 soul cash, but instead, we pay 5$ for 300? That makes a lot of sense, doesn't it. They really shouldn't have published NA.

    Quote from Gishler

    So....If you haven't noticed gameforge released a premium shop full of items (Which are of course borderline and in some cases full p2w but that's not the point of this thread and please dont start a p2w discussion) which Im ok with alright, but hey here comes the clownfiesta striking again as usual. Guess what's in the cash shop? Watch out...."GUILD NAME CHANGE COUPON". You read that shit right, GUILD NAME CHANGE COUPON. For a total of ~20$. Which again, is ok but hey guess what? Not even a week ago gameforge competely messed up the patch and most guilds got their names mutilated (Im a leader of one of those guilds. Our guild name got cut by 4 characters). So obviously I sent a support ticked askin' whats up and if they can fix it. You know what they told me? "NO WE CANT SORRY FOR THE INCONVENIENCE" but not even 2 days pass and they have the audacity to scam people which got their names all messed up and add that shit to the premium shop? This quite literally just blew my mind.


    Edited the insults and swear words, got carried away a bit and previous thread got deleted.

    Where do you even see a guild rename token? i only see a guild emblem token changer. As for my ticket about my guild name getting screwed up they told me that everything should be fixed soon.

    Quote from Baltazzar

    I agree with Zodai, we have to post formaly as we can.


    Ingame haircut are more expensive than a reallife haircut!?, unacceptable.

    Well, it helps if we can communicate why they're unacceptable rather than more simplified statements. The more backing logic we have the more they're able to listen - why it's unnacceptable is often the more valuable piece of information.


    In general, hairstyles should be lower-priced than the costumes. While they're both cosmetics the hair is usually a smaller piece of customization, compared to the outfit which is the main bulk of it. I don't mind higher-tiered hairs but in general they should be cheaper than the clothing options, which is half-true at the moment.


    The other main issue is effectively that the hair pricings go right over the point for their estimated value on the NA server - 5$ does seem fair for more options in hair color, and while I'd be happier with the more basic non-default first tier being closer to 8$ instead of 10$ the 10$ option is still cheap enough that it's fair to go for. Instead though, the NA payment system pushes these into the tiers above - you need a $10 minimum purchase to get one of the default hairstyles in a different color that's worth about 5$, and you need to jump to 20$ in order to get the first tier of new styles. A 40-50% increase is far less justifiable, the money you need to spend is almost twice what the items are worth. This is even further increased when it comes to the highest tier of hairstyles, where it's only 50 points over the 20$ bar but you need to jump all the way to 50$ in order to buy it.


    It's fair to say that the hairstyles are overpriced, but it's the soulcash purchase system more than anything else in NA territories that's shooting the game in the foot right now, once those are rebalanced then individual prices would be the next priority.

    Quote from Nan

    One can hope there will be a cash shop discount on official release.



    I can't help but wonder why open beta to open the shop though.

    That's why this feels like it might be an error on their part, but it hasn't really been changed yet either. I'm assuming someone higher-up said that they were losing money in regards to paying for server bandwidth during the beta without any monetization, since those do take money to run. A longer unmonetized time gives us chances to make sure everything's running smoothly, since usually if you're charging people it can't really be considered a 'beta' any more but I can see where the logic comes from.

    Quote from Beluga
    Quote from Vaunhause

    Not trying to take this off topic but I did manage to claim my free 100 energy and mat from the shop a few hours ago. Not sure what went wrong there does sound like a bug.

    I haven't been able to claim since the official cash shop went up, but maybe it's still resetting. I don't know what the timer is at.