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and people bitched when WoW introduced the cash shop.
azrael466
Member Posts: 365
There is one thing, completely undenyable about the WoW playerbase, and maybe the MMO playerbase as a whole. They don't like the idea of paying real money for virtual items, so when WoW first introduced the idea that they'd be selling purely cosmetic pets for real money. It was no surprise people would be unhappy about it...It is surprising to me atleast how violently a majority reacted however. Saying the game is now a failure, blah blah blah, whatever. recently WoW has introduced its latest cash shop mount and people are - once again I might add - Claiming its the death of WoW, proof of failing subs, the cause of AIDS, and a personal affront to baby jesus. MEANWHILE, Valve sells an "engagement ring" on team fortress 2. What does this ring do, you might be wondering. Well let me explain.
You cannot trade the ring, and you cannot use the ring, you can only gift it to another player. When you gift the ring, a message goes up to EVERYONE announacing how you're both now "engaged". The ring then appears on both of the players characters.
Let me ask you, how much would YOU pay for something like that? Personally, I'd pay maybe 5, 10, 15. Valve charges..I shit you not...100 dollars for it.
So, WoW players. You've no right to bitch about the cost of any cosmetic item ever again..
Playing
Nothing
waiting for
The secret world
Played
WoW, DCU online, star wars: the old republic, city of heroes, city of villains, everquest, plenty more I'm probably forgetting or aren't worth noting.
Comments
Well , WoW is one big dungeon que !
I think you mistunderstand why people don't like cash shop like mechancis in WoW. First of all it is still a P2P game, so the idea of having any cash shop crosses a line, even for me. Then, there are people that feel F2P games with cash shops crosses their line, although I can buy it because it isn't a P2P game and has to generate revenue somehow.
Throw in that the next expansion may not make it Q2 or even Q3, and it is easy to see there is a shift of focuse from content, to cash shop items. Even though Blizz is losing subs, they are making money from these items, and still can be a P2P game. They have the best of both worlds.
That may be why YOU don't like cash shops. and really, lets face it, them being P2P is irrelevent. Either that or what you're saying is F2P can get away with anything but P2P has to give absolutely everything for free.
Personally, My limit is giving items on the cash shop that give stats, even if they're low stats that're easily beaten by anything else easily obtained in game. For example, if blizzard sold a set of BOAs that are actually weaker then the normal ones. it would still piss me off.
I don't blame valve one bit for selling the ring. Its an outragous price, in my opinion. What gets me is the double standard. Valve throws shit in peoples face and charges them 100 bucks, people open their wallets with a smile. Blizzard does (relatively) the same thing for cheaper and everyone throws a bitch fit.
Playing
Nothing
waiting for
The secret world
Played
WoW, DCU online, star wars: the old republic, city of heroes, city of villains, everquest, plenty more I'm probably forgetting or aren't worth noting.
Here is the problem with WoWs cash shop:
They dont put the money back into the game.
EQ1 and EQ2 make 1/10th of WoWs revenue, or less, but both add way more content while doing things WoW deems to costly (huge inventories, housing). So I can forgive their shop a LOT more, since there is at least an illusion that they use the money.
WoWs shops are a pure cash grab. They have the highest revenue but the least amount of content. Does not make sense.
blizz crossed the limit long time ago, unique mounts/pets for $ in a p2p game? come on ....if it was a game that was doing poorly and needed an influx of $ to keep going....but wow?
add race/sex/name/server/faction change....pffffttt
the last mount is cool , but cata failed ,and 4.3 released more thant 3 months ago with reclyced models/zones all over the place.
now what? no 3.4 in the horizon....expansion in a very early alpha stage....why players are paying for?
yet they have time to put a mount on the store ... (a model that will be used over and over for MoP ,like all the dragons in wow)
while others game are giving ppl more content , just look at rift (u dont have to like it ) , releasing content left and right every other month , events ,new raids , a huge zone with daily quest/raid /dungeon......Planar attunement ...
and they wonder why ppl are leaving....
Do you read what you write? You are definitely not Iluminati material.
One, of course P2P is relevant. You are paying an upfront fee, then a monthly fee to play a game. Nothing is "free," nothing can ever be "free." Anything that comes out you already paid for, and a cash shop is an additional fee on top of that. So, P2P does not equal F2P (lol do I even have to say that?).
Two, many of the Blizzard gamers complained, and many loved the cash shop. Same for the Valve gamers, I'm sure. I am guessing just like you, but my guess is much, much, much, much (to infinity) more likely to be true. So what's got your panties up in a bunch? Why are you losing happiness over something that isn't even true, unless you are basing this on a couple of friends you know?
Aside from a cash shop, my main character was on a totally dead server, and and to continue playing WoW it would cost me :
$25 Character transfer
$39.95 for the Cataclysm expansion
$14.95 for another month
That's $79.95 to continue playing. PLEASE EXPLAIN HOW WOW COULD JUSTIFY THIS !!!!....after giving Blizzard tons and tons of money in the past for a game they had changed around so much that people are not excited about.
Blizzard was a great company for several years, asking nothing of it's followers during vanilla WoW days only later turning into the most greedy of any video game developer ever !
Now my question to the OP is.....Will Blizzard make everyone that would like to play the Panda's expansion,pay for every expansion ever made ?
Actually, 2/3 of those are optional. You can just re-roll, and you don't NEED cata to play, just to play top teir content..Just saying.
Playing
Nothing
waiting for
The secret world
Played
WoW, DCU online, star wars: the old republic, city of heroes, city of villains, everquest, plenty more I'm probably forgetting or aren't worth noting.
Unfortunately, Blizz have added items you can sell for gold in game that can be purchased with real life currency, which pretty much effects the flow of gold currency ingame.
That may be why YOU don't like cash shops. and really, lets face it, them being P2P is irrelevent. Either that or what you're saying is F2P can get away with anything but P2P has to give absolutely everything for free.
Personally, My limit is giving items on the cash shop that give stats, even if they're low stats that're easily beaten by anything else easily obtained in game. For example, if blizzard sold a set of BOAs that are actually weaker then the normal ones. it would still piss me off.
I don't blame valve one bit for selling the ring. Its an outragous price, in my opinion. What gets me is the double standard. Valve throws shit in peoples face and charges them 100 bucks, people open their wallets with a smile. Blizzard does (relatively) the same thing for cheaper and everyone throws a bitch fit.
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F2P with cash shops is okay with me because I don't pay a sub but I choose what content I want to pay for. A P2P with no cash shop is okay because I pay a sub for content. A P2P that has cash shop is way over the line. Furthermore what valve is doing is not even comparable to WoW.
People seriously wants products like this?
Its like buying a book with missing pages and you can buy missing pages afterwards and you need to pay extra.Ofcourse they charge monthly fees while you are holding the book.
$ound$ imbacool.
Let's internet
Team Fortress 2: F2P game with cosmetic cash shop and keys for crates that you can get otherwise (from other players or some other way, can't really remember)
WoW: Subscription, paid expansions every 2 years, cosmetic cash shop
I don't like all the hate against WoW but I'm not with you on this one.
That's been my problem with WOW for a long time. The amount of content they put in each expansion has nothing to do with their revenue. It's a cash cow and they maintain the status quo. Part of it has to do with their lead designers only being able to do so much and them not hiring and trusting other people to expand the features of the game.
I have no problem with the items they've put in the store though. I have resented the CCG reward items though. That's a much worse money grab in my opinion and the exclusives there are much cooler.
Sub + cash shop mean i won't play your game. As simple as that.
I have quit WOW and Eve-Online because of that.
Now you want to sell vanity item silly price in a f2p game, no trouble. The fool his the one buying it.
That being said its still crummy when they sell game breaking stat items. If its optional content or fluff then its no big deal.
I prefer F2P games that sell extra content because it gives me a chance to try the game, if then I like it, I am all for throwing the developers a few bucks for a cosmetic item, extra content or character slot. Partially as a thank you to the developer for giving me a obligation free chance to try and enjoy their game and so that they have the funds to keep delivering that experience.
If for any reason this sounds completely unreasonable, as the majority of players want the most they can get for nothing. Then just subscribe to the mindset of ignorance. Avoid the cash shop and or game all together. There are more than enough options out there nowadays.
Take my word for it. WoW and TF2 are the same exact games with or without wedding rings and fluff items.
~If you run, you'll only die tired~
How about this, if you don't like to pay for cosmetic stuff, then don't... problem solved
I dont mind cashshops in p2p games personally. If i dont see things i like, for example the clothing in eve. i dont buy anything. its fairly simple. dont like, dont buy xD. Only time i raise my pitchfork is when companies release items with stats. p2w items are the death of mmo's. Being able to buy tradable items in cashshops are pretty cool as well. Look at how Eve online does its Plex market. It adds another aspect to the economy and it brings additional money into the company. sounds win win to me. its optional as well.
. one of the coolest things with EVE as well is if I make enough ingame currency i can buy gametime and pay for my account by only putting time into the game 
.
That is actually pretty clever. I still don´t like cashshops in any P2P MMO though and I think the lot of the crap Wow players got to hear about Wows cashshop is due to how much Wow players were laughing six months earlier when EQ2 opened up their cashshop.and talking about how greedy SOE was.
What goes around comes around.
Cashshops are fine in any B2P pr F2P game but games with monthly fees should be able to include all content in the monthly fee. i wouldn´t single out Blizzard for this though since almost all P2P games have it.
Diablo 3s real money market place is another matter, that is something just Blizzard (and Perfect world) do.