To give people some perspective here... in endgame raids or pvp, you pretty much have to use perfume to be affective. It gives +50% mana and health, and gets rid of the death penalty of -25% stats, stackable 4 times, that lasts at max level 50 minutes. These perfumes cost 13.5 dollars for 10 hours worth on the cash shop. Disappointing because the game is better quality than a LOT of p2p mmo's and is currently my favorite, the only f2p mmo I've ever enjoyed... but spending a months subscription on 10 hours game time is ridiculous. Hopefully nobody buys at this price and the prices go down, as this is the only f2p mmo I'd consider paying for, but I doubt it.
6 more inventory slots added onto a 18 slot bag costs 20 bucks, but it CAN be aquired in game.
Technically you can buy perfume on the AH, but at the price its going for nobody will sell it on the AH for anything remotely affordable.
Drop the prices 60% and the 95% of the population who poled the prices overpriced will be happy to pay.
Hell, the Russian client only costs the equivilent of 2 us dollars for a bag.
On the one hand I agree that these prices seem pretty high.
On the other, many many people keep saying "but it's a free game, it costs nothing". Well if a person didn't want to spend anything on the game anyway, then it doesn't matter to that person either what the prices are, imho. So all those people who complain about the prices planned to spend money for it, rendering the "it's free" argument pretty invalid.
On the one hand I agree that these prices seem pretty high. On the other, many many people keep saying "but it's a free game, it costs nothing". Well if a person didn't want to spend anything on the game anyway, then it doesn't matter to that person either what the prices are, imho. So all those people who complain about the prices planned to spend money for it, rendering the "it's free" argument pretty invalid.
The thing is the majority of the community WANTS to spend money on it... just not be completely ripped off in doing so.
Point of clarity on perfumes. A stack of 20 perfumes for $13.50, not 1 for $13.50. Finding this out made me feel a little better about it.
Yes, this, but 20 only lasts 10 hours and needs to cover both endgame raids, and endgame pvp. Give 50 in a stack and I'd not complain... still steep but not NEARLY as bad.
Do you people forget you get 15 of them from a quest, there's a daily quest that gives you one per day, classes that have a ress spell won't get you the sickness, there's a way to pay in-game gold to remove sickness and there's also an item that people say it works some no that also removes sickness.
[Edit]
You can also purchase them from other people too.
By this I'm not saying the prices are good as they are just stating that there are a lot of ways to get rid of the sickness.
Well it is a free to play after all, what did you expected?
True enough.
What's really amusing however, is the pure irony of that. Here we are bemoaning the exorbitant high prices in a "free" to play game. Somehow, that very thing about f2ps....never fails to amuse me. And yes, I know all the "arguments" for still calling it a "free to play" game. And...they're still all really buying into the psychological manipulation/trick/illusion of the f2p marketing scheme.
Do you people forget you get 15 of them from a quest, there's a daily quest that gives you one per day, classes that have a ress spell won't get you the sickness, there's a way to pay in-game gold to remove sickness and there's also an item that people say it works some no that also removes sickness. [Edit] You can also purchase them from other people too. By this I'm not saying the prices are good as they are just stating that there are a lot of ways to get rid of the sickness.
1 only lasts 30 minutes... thats 30 minutes of pvp or raiding a day... the res spell doesn't give you +50% mana and health. In game prices are going to reflect out of game prices, in other words... unaffordable. It is game breaking in the extreme, and if you look at the pole on the official forums, 96% say they are way overpriced. My entire guild, 50 people in all, is quitting immediately, and I know many others are following suit. And paying in game gold to remove Fear of Death is so spendy you'll be broke in a day of hardcore pvp.
I find it so ironic how F2P cash shops can easily surpass a monthly fee or even a retail fee.
But I guess that's part of the logical economic mechanics, if you reduce the amount of paying people you have to increase the average cost for the ones paying, since only around 10-15% ever spends money, you need an insane increase.
For someone that wants to support the game they play it does seem insane considering the advantages brought.
Do they only offer these items? I hate how these cash shop games sometimes hide the offered items and prices from someone not in-game.
I find it so ironic how F2P cash shops can easily surpass a monthly fee or even a retail fee. But I guess that's part of the logical economic mechanics, if you reduce the amount of paying people you have to increase the average cost for the ones paying, since only around 10-15% ever spends money, you need an insane increase. For someone that wants to support the game they play it does seem insane considering the advantages brought. Do they only offer these items? I hate how these cash shop games sometimes hide the offered items and prices from someone not in-game.
These are the important ones. The bad part is the majority of the community was psyched when Cash Shop came out, they WANTED to spend money... it really is a fun game. Unfortunately, greed got in the way, which is ironic because they'll make MUCH less money off a few big purchases than TONS of small ones.
I won't play the game. Was in beta and it's not worth crap to me. Sadly, there are many, many people with cash to burn and not a lick of sense between them. They will purchase away and the greed cycle will continue with this game and the next. Eventually, greed based business practices do cave in on themselves, it's proven throughout history. I will not be a sad puppy when these companies get what's coming to them down the road.
The truly sad thing is that many people will spend lots of real life money on virtual items that will have absolutely no beneficial effect on their real lives. It's one thing to spend a small amount of money on entertainment, quite another to obsess over in game items or bonuses, spend more money than is healthy for them and not only feed the greedy companies in the process, but fuel your own psychoses as well.
I won't play the game. Was in beta and it's not worth crap to me. Sadly, there are many, many people with cash to burn and not a lick of sense between them. They will purchase away and the greed cycle will continue with this game and the next. Eventually, greed based business practices do cave in on themselves, it's proven throughout history. I will not be a sad puppy when these companies get what's coming to them down the road.
Idk... a LOT of people got burned here, especially since they said it was going to be cheaper than RU, which it clearly isn't. There is a rumor on the forums that they are freezing credit card payments and not letting them through, so they may be lowering prices, but I doubt it... nobody is stupid enough to give them their credit card numbers to check, lol.
The forced pvp was already making me reconsider continueing to play this game, but seeing these ridiculously over priced items in the cash shop has already made up my mind to stop playing. The same shout of, "What you expect? It's f2p, they gotta make their money somehow". I completely agree with that, but if you are going to spend your money, then you want to make sure you get balue for money.
Every f2p game I've tried, I always give it a couple of days to see if I like it, and if I do, then I start using the cash shop items. Majority of them are reasonably priced, and don't run out after a few days, so i have no problem buying them, but Allods, well, I can see the population dropping considerably as soon as everyone who decides they're playing for a while, realise the cash shop is going to be have to used, no matter what.
I agree about small, cheap priced items make you wanna use the cash shop more, but c'mon, $20 for a bag?! That's about £17 GBP. I could go buy myself a bottle of Jack Daniels for that, and have a much better night. I know there's a bag quest, but if anyone remembers the drop rate in CB for the items to get the bag, then there's no way you're gonna want to spend so many days trying to get them.
It's a shame really, as Allods is a decent game once you get into it. Just doesn't seem busines sense to piss off the same people you want to use your cash shop
The only f2p i've really dropped some cash on is DDO, but thats mainly due to just getting the adventure packs and not paying for them ever again. I'm trying to like Allods, and i'll take my usually stance with most foreign f2ps, where i won't buy nothing unless i need it to advance. If i'm forced to pay for stupid stuff later on, i will quit, but i don't see my self paying for a bag. Also, if the shop is only viewable in the game, that usually means they are testing it out as well. That usually means prices might drop, or stay the same when they launch it on their site, DDO did the same when i was beta testing their f2p client.
Those of us who frequent the Allods NA forums were told TIME and time again "Oh no, it won't be like that when our cash shop arrives so don't worry" They're ABSOLUTELY RIGHT! It's far worse than we could've expected it to be RU Players pay $.03 per crystal We pay $.01 per Tatercash (someone in game came up with this name) Now OUR Bag that's 24 Slots is 2000 Tatercash (You do the math) RU Bag is 200 Crystals for 24 slot (again you get to do the math)
Crazy ain't it?
The way they're milking money is ridiculous but you can't compared the two regions on a cent for cent basis. the economies of RU and the US are completely different, $1 for them is much much more than it is to you.
Reposting this from the Official Forums. These are my thoughts:
Everyone who reads these forums regularly knows how big of a supported I am of gPotato making money. I supported Perfume and the FoD mechanic.
This is total fail, however. Total, absolute 100% fail.
I can not and will not support the cash shop at these prices. No way, no how.
I posted my thoughts over on Corpse Run. I encourage you folks to take a look and comment on it. The folks at gPotato read Corpse Run and every little indication of our dissatisfaction helps. You can find the post located right here!
I played the Closed Beta and wasn't too much wowed by the game then did some research and expected this exact thing to happen from other "Free" MMO experiences with the Item Malls, so I decided to stick with Warhammer as it was more my style and boy am I happy I did that just now.
It amazes me how these people can keep slapping the "free" tag on games and after you start playing and get hooked realize that your spending over $25 a month on the game for poor support and patches when in a P2P game u could pay only $15 for much more.
Only people who can play these "free" games and play it really free are casual gamers who log on and kill 10 monsters and log out, the people who want to compete be the best and win end up paying wayyy over $40 a month in most cases, I am surprised MMORPG.Com has never done a column on that, "The Real Price of Free to Play".
If the bag upgrade was $2 I would have bought one this morning, if it was 48 slots and say $5 I would have bought one. Instead I logged out forever. I started in CBT3 and had 6 different Characters I loved to play. What a shame.
One of the few F2P games I was looking forward to, now Gpotato is officially on my Hate List, this move alone moves NCsoft to second and Gpotato to first...
"The question that sometimes drives me hazy: Am I, or the others crazy?" - Albert Einstein
I was actually willing to spend money on the cash shop in this game. I was looking to spend something reasonable like $15 and possibly even $20 a month on the game, because it is a good game and the end game is a refreshing change from WoW's gameplay.
This is absolutely unacceptable and I'll be quitting the game now.
The point I was trying to make on my last post that was agrued so much was that this markup is going to cause them to lose more revenue when they would have gained with the markup. Do you really think that something like a 600-1200% markup on prices is going to make up for the loss of customers? How many people who were willing to pay before are going to leave now? 6:1? 12:1? 50:1?
I'm guessing for every customer willing to spend the $218 or some odd dollars of month for hardcore play are few and far between. Gpotato made a very bad decision.
Comments
To give people some perspective here... in endgame raids or pvp, you pretty much have to use perfume to be affective. It gives +50% mana and health, and gets rid of the death penalty of -25% stats, stackable 4 times, that lasts at max level 50 minutes. These perfumes cost 13.5 dollars for 10 hours worth on the cash shop. Disappointing because the game is better quality than a LOT of p2p mmo's and is currently my favorite, the only f2p mmo I've ever enjoyed... but spending a months subscription on 10 hours game time is ridiculous. Hopefully nobody buys at this price and the prices go down, as this is the only f2p mmo I'd consider paying for, but I doubt it.
6 more inventory slots added onto a 18 slot bag costs 20 bucks, but it CAN be aquired in game.
Technically you can buy perfume on the AH, but at the price its going for nobody will sell it on the AH for anything remotely affordable.
Drop the prices 60% and the 95% of the population who poled the prices overpriced will be happy to pay.
Hell, the Russian client only costs the equivilent of 2 us dollars for a bag.
On the one hand I agree that these prices seem pretty high.
On the other, many many people keep saying "but it's a free game, it costs nothing". Well if a person didn't want to spend anything on the game anyway, then it doesn't matter to that person either what the prices are, imho. So all those people who complain about the prices planned to spend money for it, rendering the "it's free" argument pretty invalid.
Let's play Fallen Earth (blind, 300 episodes)
Let's play Guild Wars 2 (blind, 45 episodes)
The thing is the majority of the community WANTS to spend money on it... just not be completely ripped off in doing so.
Point of clarity on perfumes.
A stack of 20 perfumes for $13.50, not 1 for $13.50. Finding this out made me feel a little better about it.
Yes, this, but 20 only lasts 10 hours and needs to cover both endgame raids, and endgame pvp. Give 50 in a stack and I'd not complain... still steep but not NEARLY as bad.
Do you people forget you get 15 of them from a quest, there's a daily quest that gives you one per day, classes that have a ress spell won't get you the sickness, there's a way to pay in-game gold to remove sickness and there's also an item that people say it works some no that also removes sickness.
[Edit]
You can also purchase them from other people too.
By this I'm not saying the prices are good as they are just stating that there are a lot of ways to get rid of the sickness.
True enough.
What's really amusing however, is the pure irony of that. Here we are bemoaning the exorbitant high prices in a "free" to play game. Somehow, that very thing about f2ps....never fails to amuse me. And yes, I know all the "arguments" for still calling it a "free to play" game. And...they're still all really buying into the psychological manipulation/trick/illusion of the f2p marketing scheme.
President of The Marvelously Meowhead Fan Club
1 only lasts 30 minutes... thats 30 minutes of pvp or raiding a day... the res spell doesn't give you +50% mana and health. In game prices are going to reflect out of game prices, in other words... unaffordable. It is game breaking in the extreme, and if you look at the pole on the official forums, 96% say they are way overpriced. My entire guild, 50 people in all, is quitting immediately, and I know many others are following suit. And paying in game gold to remove Fear of Death is so spendy you'll be broke in a day of hardcore pvp.
I find it so ironic how F2P cash shops can easily surpass a monthly fee or even a retail fee.
But I guess that's part of the logical economic mechanics, if you reduce the amount of paying people you have to increase the average cost for the ones paying, since only around 10-15% ever spends money, you need an insane increase.
For someone that wants to support the game they play it does seem insane considering the advantages brought.
Do they only offer these items? I hate how these cash shop games sometimes hide the offered items and prices from someone not in-game.
These are the important ones. The bad part is the majority of the community was psyched when Cash Shop came out, they WANTED to spend money... it really is a fun game. Unfortunately, greed got in the way, which is ironic because they'll make MUCH less money off a few big purchases than TONS of small ones.
I won't play the game. Was in beta and it's not worth crap to me. Sadly, there are many, many people with cash to burn and not a lick of sense between them. They will purchase away and the greed cycle will continue with this game and the next. Eventually, greed based business practices do cave in on themselves, it's proven throughout history. I will not be a sad puppy when these companies get what's coming to them down the road.
The truly sad thing is that many people will spend lots of real life money on virtual items that will have absolutely no beneficial effect on their real lives. It's one thing to spend a small amount of money on entertainment, quite another to obsess over in game items or bonuses, spend more money than is healthy for them and not only feed the greedy companies in the process, but fuel your own psychoses as well.
Idk... a LOT of people got burned here, especially since they said it was going to be cheaper than RU, which it clearly isn't. There is a rumor on the forums that they are freezing credit card payments and not letting them through, so they may be lowering prices, but I doubt it... nobody is stupid enough to give them their credit card numbers to check, lol.
The forced pvp was already making me reconsider continueing to play this game, but seeing these ridiculously over priced items in the cash shop has already made up my mind to stop playing. The same shout of, "What you expect? It's f2p, they gotta make their money somehow". I completely agree with that, but if you are going to spend your money, then you want to make sure you get balue for money.
Every f2p game I've tried, I always give it a couple of days to see if I like it, and if I do, then I start using the cash shop items. Majority of them are reasonably priced, and don't run out after a few days, so i have no problem buying them, but Allods, well, I can see the population dropping considerably as soon as everyone who decides they're playing for a while, realise the cash shop is going to be have to used, no matter what.
I agree about small, cheap priced items make you wanna use the cash shop more, but c'mon, $20 for a bag?! That's about £17 GBP. I could go buy myself a bottle of Jack Daniels for that, and have a much better night. I know there's a bag quest, but if anyone remembers the drop rate in CB for the items to get the bag, then there's no way you're gonna want to spend so many days trying to get them.
It's a shame really, as Allods is a decent game once you get into it. Just doesn't seem busines sense to piss off the same people you want to use your cash shop
Those of us who frequent the Allods NA forums were told TIME and time again
"Oh no, it won't be like that when our cash shop arrives so don't worry"
They're ABSOLUTELY RIGHT!
It's far worse than we could've expected it to be
RU Players pay $.03 per crystal
We pay $.01 per Tatercash (someone in game came up with this name)
Now
OUR Bag that's 24 Slots is 2000 Tatercash (You do the math)
RU Bag is 200 Crystals for 24 slot (again you get to do the math)
Crazy ain't it?
The only f2p i've really dropped some cash on is DDO, but thats mainly due to just getting the adventure packs and not paying for them ever again. I'm trying to like Allods, and i'll take my usually stance with most foreign f2ps, where i won't buy nothing unless i need it to advance. If i'm forced to pay for stupid stuff later on, i will quit, but i don't see my self paying for a bag. Also, if the shop is only viewable in the game, that usually means they are testing it out as well. That usually means prices might drop, or stay the same when they launch it on their site, DDO did the same when i was beta testing their f2p client.
Man, this is really pissing me off... I want a reason to play my gibberlings!!!
The way they're milking money is ridiculous but you can't compared the two regions on a cent for cent basis. the economies of RU and the US are completely different, $1 for them is much much more than it is to you.
Reposting this from the Official Forums. These are my thoughts:
Everyone who reads these forums regularly knows how big of a supported I am of gPotato making money. I supported Perfume and the FoD mechanic.
This is total fail, however. Total, absolute 100% fail.
I can not and will not support the cash shop at these prices. No way, no how.
I posted my thoughts over on Corpse Run. I encourage you folks to take a look and comment on it. The folks at gPotato read Corpse Run and every little indication of our dissatisfaction helps. You can find the post located right here!
I played the Closed Beta and wasn't too much wowed by the game then did some research and expected this exact thing to happen from other "Free" MMO experiences with the Item Malls, so I decided to stick with Warhammer as it was more my style and boy am I happy I did that just now.
It amazes me how these people can keep slapping the "free" tag on games and after you start playing and get hooked realize that your spending over $25 a month on the game for poor support and patches when in a P2P game u could pay only $15 for much more.
Only people who can play these "free" games and play it really free are casual gamers who log on and kill 10 monsters and log out, the people who want to compete be the best and win end up paying wayyy over $40 a month in most cases, I am surprised MMORPG.Com has never done a column on that, "The Real Price of Free to Play".
If the bag upgrade was $2 I would have bought one this morning, if it was 48 slots and say $5 I would have bought one. Instead I logged out forever. I started in CBT3 and had 6 different Characters I loved to play. What a shame.
i ll give you a reason !to reach max level !
One of the few F2P games I was looking forward to, now Gpotato is officially on my Hate List, this move alone moves NCsoft to second and Gpotato to first...
"The question that sometimes drives me hazy: Am I, or the others crazy?" - Albert Einstein
Here guys, to give you a little more perception... level ten runes are,... wait for it... 6890 dollars... yes... 6890... wtf???
I was actually willing to spend money on the cash shop in this game. I was looking to spend something reasonable like $15 and possibly even $20 a month on the game, because it is a good game and the end game is a refreshing change from WoW's gameplay.
This is absolutely unacceptable and I'll be quitting the game now.
The point I was trying to make on my last post that was agrued so much was that this markup is going to cause them to lose more revenue when they would have gained with the markup. Do you really think that something like a 600-1200% markup on prices is going to make up for the loss of customers? How many people who were willing to pay before are going to leave now? 6:1? 12:1? 50:1?
I'm guessing for every customer willing to spend the $218 or some odd dollars of month for hardcore play are few and far between. Gpotato made a very bad decision.