Not to go to far down the rabbit hole, the indications given in the forums tell us they will have several more classes before release including Warlord and Ranger.
The currency issue doesnt seem to bad. The events were a bit limited in Beta and that is one of the key ways to make Astral Diamonds.
Personally I don't see an issue with the economy structure. There is little difference between this model and using a monthly paying cycle. How many players out there have played MMOs with a monthly billing cycle like EQ, and then went to sites like IGN to buy Plat to get high end items? Is this any different? Not really. The only real difference in this model is CO / PWI are cutting out the middle man for what people would do anyway. You can't stop those that are going to spend money to get ahead in any structure. There is always a work around. I personally feel that if this structure helps support a game we enjoy instead of utilizing an additional monthly fee, then I support it.
As for commercalizing the beta, I don't see a problem with that either. There are many people that were not accepted to the closed beta that really wanted to be part of it. Why not sell access and help support the game. It seems harmless enough to me. Infact, that is the main reason I did buy a founders pack. Well that, and to support my in game vanity.
As fot the Astral Ruby progression, yes it will take awhile. You don't always get them with the hourly invocation either btw. You can get them in the other ways mentioned above. I got quite a few doing the orc assaut and tower events. Will it take awhile to get everyhting you want? Yes it will, but it doesn't mean that you can't do it. If you can't get a decent party to complete or you get crappy rolls and miss out on the gear, does that mean you should not have access to get decent gear for the end game or PVP? I don't think it should. I lost every roll on each event, so I never got the good stuff. I know I could purchase similar items with astral rubies and tokens, but it's not the same as having won the items myself. But that is personal preference for me. How many times have people wanted to raid in WoW or EQ only to be turned down because your gear wasn't good enough? Why should someone be punished for not having the time to spend getting gear because of RL situations like work? I don't think purchasing similar items is neccesarily a bad thing. Yes, there are those out there that will try to use this as an advantage to get a head. But there are others out there that work long hours and miss out, but still want to be able to game with friends that do have time to get the better items. So I personally don't see an issue. Although, I would hope the developers have put different graphics for the putchased items and those that have been won . Again, it's a vanity thing.
Think what you want and play if you like. Everyone is entitled to their own opinion. I am a big fan of cryptic and have played CoH/CoV, CO and STO from beta. I have never been disappointed. This was the first beta I was not accepted into, but took a chance with a founders pack. Again, i was not disappointed. I think this game has great potential and look forward to the release.
Damn that preview looks so generic... game that could, at max, be enjoyable for 5 hours before falling into boredom again
Why can't MMORPGs be fun nowadays, like single player games ?
You're a Hardcore Survivor!
You not only survived the zombie apocalypse, but did it with style! Your mastery of zombie knowledge, survival tactics, and weaponry is nearly unmatched. Congratulations, for you are hardcore!
Damn that preview looks so generic... game that could, at max, be enjoyable for 5 hours before falling into boredom again
Why can't MMORPGs be fun nowadays, like single player games ?
if made well and from the video i have seen it has a LOT of options i could easily get hundreds of hours just making missions in the foundry.. i spent well over 1000 hours back in the day with RPG Maker on PS1 and that had very limited options and a pretty bad interface
I angered the clerk in a clothing shop today. She asked me what size I was and I said actual, because I am not to scale. I like vending machines 'cause snacks are better when they fall. If I buy a candy bar at a store, oftentimes, I will drop it... so that it achieves its maximum flavor potential. --Mitch Hedberg
Originally posted by Benbrada In theory I love this approach as well but my concern is always how do they pay the salaries of their development staff? Assuming everyone who plays drops a 5 or 10 spot now and then maybe that's enough. Do players feel obligated to drop a 5 spot once in awhile? I do in GW2 in hopes of helping keeping the game moving forward, e.g. I've spent 5 to get gems to convert to gold to buy crafting mats, etc. I feel it's a worthwhile investment because it saves me some time plus hopeful helps propel the game forward on a financial curve.
It's simple, since people know they aren't greedy and they aren't trying to force you to pay for anything people are actually fairly giving especially when the team keeps in contact well with the public, cares about their player's concerns and actively tries to make the game the best game experience. They pay their people essentially by people buying things out of the store because they like to they feel good about supporting a game rather then the old SOE and now EA method of forcing people to purchase things to play. It's how they've done so well with the other two PW/Cryptic games with this payment model.
Damn that preview looks so generic... game that could, at max, be enjoyable for 5 hours before falling into boredom again
Why can't MMORPGs be fun nowadays, like single player games ?
if made well and from the video i have seen it has a LOT of options i could easily get hundreds of hours just making missions in the foundry.. i spent well over 1000 hours back in the day with RPG Maker on PS1 and that had very limited options and a pretty bad interface
That's what I plan on doing too hours of putting together my own stories LOL I loved doing that as a GM for AD&D and then getting responses from people about my work.
Originally posted by thekze Will you be able to purchase astral diamonds at any time? Can you buy items with these astral diamonds?? Will players have to work very hard to obtain what others got by spending money?? If yes is the answer to my three questions. This game is pay-to-win.
Astral Diamonds are in game currency. You can earn them in game by completing dungeons, competitive challenges, events or invoking your god every hour. You can also trade Zen (RL currency) for other players Astral Diamonds via a GW2 type broker.
You buy items with those Astral Diamonds. You can obviously get items quicker if you just buy them with RL cash, but there is no need to.
Thats not Pay to Win, its just convenience.
Transforming real world currency into in-game currency allowing you to buy anything with real currency is pay to win. Unless the endgame items are bound on pickup so you can't simply purchase them.
that's never how i viewed P2W for me that's pay for convienence.. to me P2W is having items in the CS that give players who pay an unfair advantage over players who don't pay
Exactly, if you can obtain the same item through reasonable gameplay (as in, not grinding for months and months like Age of Wushu), then it's not Pay to Win.
Can you buy wearable items with Astral Diamonds? Yes. But Astral Diamonds, which people can trade RL money for, are obtainable in game by farming events. Giving no advantage, other than having to play less, to people who purchase the diamonds.
Pay to Win only applies when an item or perk purchased with real cash will give you a power advantage over someone else who plays normallyl, having a magical sparklepony isn't Pay to Win, it's vanity.
Also, AD's will most likely be purchased via Zen which is PW's universal currency which means you can earn money on one game and transfer it to zen and use it on the other game. :P
I hear a lot of "it had better not.." and "this means you have to spend money to..." ... really?
1. The game is FREE. You're not even paying for the game. For WoW, that's $60 for the original game. then BC/WotLK/MoP, there's another $120. Oh yeah, and you're paying $15/month so that's $180/year. Man, they're just milking you! They also charge for character moves, name changes, MOUNTS?!?!?! etc. And yes, this is not UNCOMMON in the subscription based MMO genre, so it's a great example.
2. No subscription, but the company needs a way to keep the servers online. Do pretty outfits really support a successful MMO? Wouldn't players complain that the only way to get cool looking gear was to spend money? No? Then why would they complain about the cost of a high level mount that isn't required? Why would they complain that items can be bought on the AH with currency that's derived from RW money? Because people complain about EVERYTHING. I'm complaining about them complaining.
3. Founders pack.. is it an indication? The $60 pack gets you 125,000 AD. The $200 pack gets you 750,000 AD. A level 3 mount costs millions of AD? What? Well, maybe since the beta only went to 30 they're going to adjust prices later. Still, that's an insane amount of AD. Then again, the cost for some guns in Ghost Recon Online are around $30 if you purchase them with RL money instead of the earned point system.
Anyway, get used to F2P folks, it's here to stay and new skins won't completely support the game. Every now and again people want to just buy options.
I fully expect content to be purchased with AD eventually. This would be like DDO in that regard. DDO has a pretty good shop IMO. I didn't play STO after beta and same with CO. So I'm not really that familiar with how Cryptic does their cash shop, nothing more insightful than this article.
I will probably at least try this game. The instance small zones are the biggest turn off. As for them selling stuff in their game. Thats to be expected they have to make money somehow. It strikes me funny but I'll that the self entitlement crowd are already crying foul.
I think what most players who have played a few of the Cryptic games are concerned about is the "other" currencies that come into play.
As one mentioned above you can farm a crap ton of dilithium in STO but Cryptic has a daily cap of 8000 "refined dilithium" per day. So even if you farm up the 300k Dilithium you would still have to wait 83 days to purchase what you were aiming for.
Then there is the Lobi crystals... these come on the lock boxes that drop from everything in the game.. they can get rather annoying if you arent a wallet warrior. Leveling one federation engineer i managed to amass quite a collection of lock boxes. From Ferengi to Dominion I had well over 400 lock boxes by the time i hit 50. and for the record..
Aint no way in hell im buying keys for all of those. But i can sell them on the exchange for the useless Energy credit currency.
"Now why would people pay 1.25 per key to unlock hundreds of boxes" one may ask.
its simple you get some of the best looking and some of the more unique looking ships out of these lock boxes.. at a very, very low drop rate.
How this would work in Neverwinter is still a mystery as there is a finite mount selection in forgotten realms if they stick to canon. also take into consideration there are alot of "mystical" items found in forgotten realms. I wouldnt put it ast them, nor blame them to place a few of tese items in the cstore as they wouldnt be very common items. Dont get me wrong the items i refer to arent "OP" and wouldnt over balance the game.... which after seeing the trickster rogue in action i dont think is a serious issue... OP seems to work with it.
Just saying there is alot that Cryptic could do and personally i could live without seeing what wallet warriors gain flashing across my screen like it does in STO.
And just to explain I am one of those Wallet Warriors....
Do people still buy Cryptic stuff? When will they learn their lesson, a Cryptic MMO is basically a series of boxes that they call a map with flashing things that you have to click, sometimes the flashy things are guarded by mobs...the end.
When I originally heard about the game, I was actually pretty excited about it. Then, PWI's logo came up and my excitement pretty much went down the drain in one move.
The Free to Play model, 'buying CS currency', and other similar stuff are certainly not a new thing in MMOs. Pretty much every notable F2P game has it; a good part of how successful these games are is still mostly determined by how well it prices items in the cash shop, which PWI has a terrible record for (in my experience, at least).
I have almost no doubt that it will take like 3 months to farm something halfway worthwhile from the cash shop - at this point, I trust random MMO forum-goers much more than I trust what comes out of the mouth of someone that works at a PWI subsidiary.
Not to say that the game won't be good, of course - PWI does make and/or host a lot of pretty good games. I hold no hopes for the CS being in any way like what they promise, though.
"Because you can put your Astral Diamonds up on an auction house and sell them for micro-transactable points. Then you can purchase anything you'd like in our micro-transaction store."
Yeah, but someone else has to buy those points with Cash to sell to you. Not to mention the best gear will probably cost millions of ADs and/or require tokens that can only be gotten from the microtransaction store.
"Because it's easier to nitpick something than to be constructive." -roach5000
LOL. "Get Everything You Want By Playing" this is what Cryptic keeps telling everyone. But let do some math. In STO, they lock some of the best gear in the “Lobi” Store. Some of the gear is upward of 300 lobi per piece of three piece set (900 lobi in total) “lobi” is another currency that only comes in lock boxes at the rate of about five lobi per box. each key to open a lock box cost $1.25. So you could spend $75 on one piece of gear (some items cost about $200 in lobi) or you play and get “dilithium” (the in game “time based” currency) and trade it for Zen to buy keys. Dilithium to zen trades at about 90 dilithium to 1 zen. So you need 675,000 dilithuium to buy 60 keys. But Cryptic has a limit that you can only earn 8,000 dilithium per day. So even if you played hour and hours per day, it would take 84 days to make enough in game cash to buy ONE piece of the end game gear. So yes. you can “get everything you want by playing”
(,,,)
Buuuut, that is just "Pay for convenience" and that is always fine.
1: there is nothing you have to buy in any of their stores to play their games effectively. You do not have to have anything in the STO stores not the ships, not the consoles, not the Doffs or boffs that you can't spend a little time farming drops from explorations to get energy credits and buy in the Exchange without spending a RL dime. They practically throw Dilithium at you. It took me 4 days to reach 20k dilithium which is alot! I was able to completely gear my ship and ground units on 1 toon on the max gear in 2 weeks which is sold in Fleet (guild) vendors and again not for real money. So please explain how they are P2W again?
2: STO's market isn't a pay with real money system. They have lots of RL members who bought the game LONG before PWE took over the title and PWE actually increased the amount of free monthly Zen points lifetimers could receive which improved the dilithium <-> Zen Store exchange market. Sooooo how is that an imbalance? This game is 3 years old and surviving just fine off of free Zen points monthly! You really haven't played their games have you?
3: Actually no, Western MMO's start usually with a monthly sub and then become F2P later. This is the first one I know of that actually started F2P from the start and not that stupid Freemium crap where they kept the subscription model cutting people off from content forcing people to sub. STO even started off that way.
4: I don't understand you animosity first of all nothing in the founders packs is gamebreaking, they haven't revealed what will be in the stores and the prices of the items in the store, they are giving the free players access to everything without pay, there are no gimmiks no DLC's. What's even funnier about your argument is you'd rather be ripped off by a sub model then play a game for free. Uhm, isn't that a little brainless?
And then you go on to say that you play TERA and AION both of which are arguably the worst Freemium models I've seen since SOE. So you want to spend $15 a month to play but paying nothing to play is a problem for you, that's what I'm seeing here.
I have one question regarding the founders packs, and a statement made in this article - in the article, it was stated:
"In-game, a player can earn Astral Diamonds from completing content (usually somewhat harder than normal quests, but not necessarily "1337"). No one 'needs to purchase Astral Diamonds... Ever. Play as as you' like and get everything desirable that way."
and then to re-iterate the point:
" And please note that last sentence -- you can get everythingyou want by playing. Everything. This includes mounts, costumes, etc."
But before he had written that, he'd said:
" We've grouped exclusive items into pre-order "Founder's Packs" so that MMO gamers and D&D fans can start their own adventures at launch with exciting, exclusive options and bonuses. "
So, I'm guessing that 'everything you want' only applys to the things in the shop - and that the exlusive founder armored spider mount, and Drow Background, won't be in the shop for purchace?
is that how others are interpreting those statements?
And then you go on to say that you play TERA ... arguably the worst Freemium models I've seen since SOE. So you want to spend $15 a month to play but paying nothing to play is a problem for you, that's what I'm seeing here.
Cryptic is under PWE's flag now. STO might have been an exception (I haven't played that one), but PWE has a history of milking it's player's cash right from their first game onwards. Western and Asian also doesn't matter - a lot of Asian games use the F2P model from the start, from the excellent and innovative ones to the generic ones. I have yet to see a [i]single one of them[/i] that didn't eventually end up requiring the cash shop at some level. ESPECIALLY not any of the originals that PWE came up with (you know, Perfect World, Jade Empires, Forsaken World, etc.)
PWE is also a Chinese company that basically makes a living from F2P, so it's not a marvelous and amazingly wonderful thing that this one is F2P either. Perhaps Cryptic would have as much of a creative license as ArenaNet does and can somehow break from the PWE parent company mold, but I'm not holding my breath for it to happen.
I'd also love to hear from you why TERA is one of the worst Freemium models you've seen. Go on, this one I'm really curious about.
Let's be serious here. It's a PWE game. You'll have to play 15+ hours aday forever to stay remotely close to the person who drops hundreds or thousands of dollars on the cash shop. It's a fact and always will be with all PWE products.
The first couple of months may hide the fact that you will have to be a heavy cash shopper to stay competitive, but it will show it's ugly head soon after launch.
The game looks worth a try, but make sure you play hardcore as possible at start and learn the best way to get that loot before things get nerfed !
What grabs me about the game is hte combat. But what I really want to get into are the choices for each build and the routes you can go. The DnD community is rather cool so this i a game I want to expore the player content dev tools.
Um, this guy didn't say the most important thing about the P2W aspect. What he said is NOT why this game isn't a P2W game.
Facepalm. How can he not tell people, that every piece of equipment you'll want, you'll be able to buy at the Auction House, and not with Astral Diamonds, but with the normal currency. And you cannot buy the normal currency with real-life money, or even exchange Astral Diamonds for the normal currency. So THAT is why it's not P2W, because everybody will have the same ways of earning normal money and they won't be able to boost it in any way.
Astral Diamonds, which you exchange for ZEN, the store currency, will allow you to buy things that make your life prettier and easier in-game, but will not make your character any better. Things that you'll be able to buy will be costumes, pets, XP boosts, more character slots, respec tokens, more inventory slots, bank slots, etc. This kind of things, not Rare and Very rare pieces of gear. These you can buy only with the normal currency. Or loot.
That is how Star Trek Online is constructed, and hopefully they won't change a thing in Neverwinter.
EDIT: I know he says that Astral Diamonds will be used also for purchasing gear, but I hope he's talking about sets. In Star Trek Online you can buy a set of melee weapons, for example, which level up with you. And they suuuck. So hopefully it will be like that, so the gear content in the Store will be very limited and not even close to overpowered.
Um, this guy didn't say the most important thing about the P2W aspect. What he said is NOT why this game isn't a P2W game.
Facepalm. How can he not tell people, that every piece of equipment you'll want, you'll be able to buy at the Auction House, and not with Astral Diamonds, but with the normal currency. And you cannot buy the normal currency with real-life money, or even exchange Astral Diamonds for the normal currency. So THAT is why it's not P2W, because everybody will have the same ways of earning normal money and they won't be able to boost it in any way.
Astral Diamonds, which you exchange for ZEN, the store currency, will allow you to buy things that make your life prettier and easier in-game, but will not make your character any better. Things that you'll be able to buy will be costumes, pets, XP boosts, more character slots, respec tokens, more inventory slots, bank slots, etc. This kind of things, not Rare and Very rare pieces of gear. These you can buy only with the normal currency. Or loot.
That is how Star Trek Online is constructed, and hopefully they won't change a thing in Neverwinter.
EDIT: I know he says that Astral Diamonds will be used also for purchasing gear, but I hope he's talking about sets. In Star Trek Online you can buy a set of melee weapons, for example, which level up with you. And they suuuck. So hopefully it will be like that, so the gear content in the Store will be very limited and not even close to overpowered.
You do know that Astral diamonds are the currancy used by the aution house right? If you want to play this game for free you will be selling in game gold for Zen to other players than buying Astral diamonds with Zen from other players and both tansactions makes Cryptic/PWI money. You will be able to earn rough diamonds by doing in game events and such but you are capped on how many you can refine to ensure that the grind stays consistent to everyone.
This game is designed from the ground up to insert Zen into nearly every aspect of it though the use of astral diamonds as a intermediate currancy regradless of what lip service the devs may give to otherwise. They have a vested interest in keeping the value of that Zen in time to earn high to keep it's value in trade high enough so that those who value time more than money will buy it with cash and sell to others who don't.
The whole system depends on Zen being valuable and hence a pain to earn by free means to work.
Let's be serious here. It's a PWE game. You'll have to play 15+ hours aday forever to stay remotely close to the person who drops hundreds or thousands of dollars on the cash shop. It's a fact and always will be with all PWE products. The first couple of months may hide the fact that you will have to be a heavy cash shopper to stay competitive, but it will show it's ugly head soon after launch. The game looks worth a try, but make sure you play hardcore as possible at start and learn the best way to get that loot before things get nerfed ! Best of luck to all who play !
And bets on when the "Locked treasure chests" go in, with keys that must be purchased from the cash shop?
Let's be serious here. It's a PWE game. You'll have to play 15+ hours aday forever to stay remotely close to the person who drops hundreds or thousands of dollars on the cash shop. It's a fact and always will be with all PWE products.
The first couple of months may hide the fact that you will have to be a heavy cash shopper to stay competitive, but it will show it's ugly head soon after launch.
The game looks worth a try, but make sure you play hardcore as possible at start and learn the best way to get that loot before things get nerfed !
Best of luck to all who play !
And bets on when the "Locked treasure chests" go in, with keys that must be purchased from the cash shop?
Since currency earned by playing the game can be exchanged for cash shop currency, it's not really the problem some try to make it.
Comments
Not to go to far down the rabbit hole, the indications given in the forums tell us they will have several more classes before release including Warlord and Ranger.
The currency issue doesnt seem to bad. The events were a bit limited in Beta and that is one of the key ways to make Astral Diamonds.
See how it looks as they improve things
Personally I don't see an issue with the economy structure. There is little difference between this model and using a monthly paying cycle. How many players out there have played MMOs with a monthly billing cycle like EQ, and then went to sites like IGN to buy Plat to get high end items? Is this any different? Not really. The only real difference in this model is CO / PWI are cutting out the middle man for what people would do anyway. You can't stop those that are going to spend money to get ahead in any structure. There is always a work around. I personally feel that if this structure helps support a game we enjoy instead of utilizing an additional monthly fee, then I support it.
As for commercalizing the beta, I don't see a problem with that either. There are many people that were not accepted to the closed beta that really wanted to be part of it. Why not sell access and help support the game. It seems harmless enough to me. Infact, that is the main reason I did buy a founders pack. Well that, and to support my in game vanity.
As fot the Astral Ruby progression, yes it will take awhile. You don't always get them with the hourly invocation either btw. You can get them in the other ways mentioned above. I got quite a few doing the orc assaut and tower events. Will it take awhile to get everyhting you want? Yes it will, but it doesn't mean that you can't do it. If you can't get a decent party to complete or you get crappy rolls and miss out on the gear, does that mean you should not have access to get decent gear for the end game or PVP? I don't think it should. I lost every roll on each event, so I never got the good stuff. I know I could purchase similar items with astral rubies and tokens, but it's not the same as having won the items myself. But that is personal preference for me. How many times have people wanted to raid in WoW or EQ only to be turned down because your gear wasn't good enough? Why should someone be punished for not having the time to spend getting gear because of RL situations like work? I don't think purchasing similar items is neccesarily a bad thing. Yes, there are those out there that will try to use this as an advantage to get a head. But there are others out there that work long hours and miss out, but still want to be able to game with friends that do have time to get the better items. So I personally don't see an issue. Although, I would hope the developers have put different graphics for the putchased items and those that have been won . Again, it's a vanity thing.
Think what you want and play if you like. Everyone is entitled to their own opinion. I am a big fan of cryptic and have played CoH/CoV, CO and STO from beta. I have never been disappointed. This was the first beta I was not accepted into, but took a chance with a founders pack. Again, i was not disappointed. I think this game has great potential and look forward to the release.
Damn that preview looks so generic... game that could, at max, be enjoyable for 5 hours before falling into boredom again
Why can't MMORPGs be fun nowadays, like single player games ?
You're a Hardcore Survivor!
You not only survived the zombie apocalypse, but did it with style! Your mastery of zombie knowledge, survival tactics, and weaponry is nearly unmatched. Congratulations, for you are hardcore!
if made well and from the video i have seen it has a LOT of options i could easily get hundreds of hours just making missions in the foundry.. i spent well over 1000 hours back in the day with RPG Maker on PS1 and that had very limited options and a pretty bad interface
I angered the clerk in a clothing shop today. She asked me what size I was and I said actual, because I am not to scale. I like vending machines 'cause snacks are better when they fall. If I buy a candy bar at a store, oftentimes, I will drop it... so that it achieves its maximum flavor potential. --Mitch Hedberg
It's simple, since people know they aren't greedy and they aren't trying to force you to pay for anything people are actually fairly giving especially when the team keeps in contact well with the public, cares about their player's concerns and actively tries to make the game the best game experience. They pay their people essentially by people buying things out of the store because they like to they feel good about supporting a game rather then the old SOE and now EA method of forcing people to purchase things to play. It's how they've done so well with the other two PW/Cryptic games with this payment model.
That's what I plan on doing too hours of putting together my own stories LOL I loved doing that as a GM for AD&D and then getting responses from people about my work.
Also, AD's will most likely be purchased via Zen which is PW's universal currency which means you can earn money on one game and transfer it to zen and use it on the other game. :P
I hear a lot of "it had better not.." and "this means you have to spend money to..." ... really?
1. The game is FREE. You're not even paying for the game. For WoW, that's $60 for the original game. then BC/WotLK/MoP, there's another $120. Oh yeah, and you're paying $15/month so that's $180/year. Man, they're just milking you! They also charge for character moves, name changes, MOUNTS?!?!?! etc. And yes, this is not UNCOMMON in the subscription based MMO genre, so it's a great example.
2. No subscription, but the company needs a way to keep the servers online. Do pretty outfits really support a successful MMO? Wouldn't players complain that the only way to get cool looking gear was to spend money? No? Then why would they complain about the cost of a high level mount that isn't required? Why would they complain that items can be bought on the AH with currency that's derived from RW money? Because people complain about EVERYTHING. I'm complaining about them complaining.
3. Founders pack.. is it an indication? The $60 pack gets you 125,000 AD. The $200 pack gets you 750,000 AD. A level 3 mount costs millions of AD? What? Well, maybe since the beta only went to 30 they're going to adjust prices later. Still, that's an insane amount of AD. Then again, the cost for some guns in Ghost Recon Online are around $30 if you purchase them with RL money instead of the earned point system.
Anyway, get used to F2P folks, it's here to stay and new skins won't completely support the game. Every now and again people want to just buy options.
I fully expect content to be purchased with AD eventually. This would be like DDO in that regard. DDO has a pretty good shop IMO. I didn't play STO after beta and same with CO. So I'm not really that familiar with how Cryptic does their cash shop, nothing more insightful than this article.
so...
"I'll never grow up, never grow up, never grow up! Not me!"
I will probably at least try this game. The instance small zones are the biggest turn off. As for them selling stuff in their game. Thats to be expected they have to make money somehow. It strikes me funny but I'll that the self entitlement crowd are already crying foul.
I think what most players who have played a few of the Cryptic games are concerned about is the "other" currencies that come into play.
As one mentioned above you can farm a crap ton of dilithium in STO but Cryptic has a daily cap of 8000 "refined dilithium" per day. So even if you farm up the 300k Dilithium you would still have to wait 83 days to purchase what you were aiming for.
Then there is the Lobi crystals... these come on the lock boxes that drop from everything in the game.. they can get rather annoying if you arent a wallet warrior. Leveling one federation engineer i managed to amass quite a collection of lock boxes. From Ferengi to Dominion I had well over 400 lock boxes by the time i hit 50. and for the record..
Aint no way in hell im buying keys for all of those. But i can sell them on the exchange for the useless Energy credit currency.
"Now why would people pay 1.25 per key to unlock hundreds of boxes" one may ask.
its simple you get some of the best looking and some of the more unique looking ships out of these lock boxes.. at a very, very low drop rate.
How this would work in Neverwinter is still a mystery as there is a finite mount selection in forgotten realms if they stick to canon. also take into consideration there are alot of "mystical" items found in forgotten realms. I wouldnt put it ast them, nor blame them to place a few of tese items in the cstore as they wouldnt be very common items. Dont get me wrong the items i refer to arent "OP" and wouldnt over balance the game.... which after seeing the trickster rogue in action i dont think is a serious issue... OP seems to work with it.
Just saying there is alot that Cryptic could do and personally i could live without seeing what wallet warriors gain flashing across my screen like it does in STO.
And just to explain I am one of those Wallet Warriors....
Played: UO, LotR, WoW, SWG, DDO, AoC, EVE, Warhammer, TF2, EQ2, SWTOR, TSW, CSS, KF, L4D, AoW, WoT
Playing: The Secret World until Citadel of Sorcery goes into Alpha testing.
Tired of: Linear quest games, dailies, and dumbed down games
Anticipating:Citadel of Sorcery
When I originally heard about the game, I was actually pretty excited about it. Then, PWI's logo came up and my excitement pretty much went down the drain in one move.
The Free to Play model, 'buying CS currency', and other similar stuff are certainly not a new thing in MMOs. Pretty much every notable F2P game has it; a good part of how successful these games are is still mostly determined by how well it prices items in the cash shop, which PWI has a terrible record for (in my experience, at least).
I have almost no doubt that it will take like 3 months to farm something halfway worthwhile from the cash shop - at this point, I trust random MMO forum-goers much more than I trust what comes out of the mouth of someone that works at a PWI subsidiary.
Not to say that the game won't be good, of course - PWI does make and/or host a lot of pretty good games. I hold no hopes for the CS being in any way like what they promise, though.
"Because you can put your Astral Diamonds up on an auction house and sell them for micro-transactable points. Then you can purchase anything you'd like in our micro-transaction store."
Yeah, but someone else has to buy those points with Cash to sell to you. Not to mention the best gear will probably cost millions of ADs and/or require tokens that can only be gotten from the microtransaction store.
"Because it's easier to nitpick something than to be constructive." -roach5000
Buuuut, that is just "Pay for convenience" and that is always fine.
@Hiccups
1: there is nothing you have to buy in any of their stores to play their games effectively. You do not have to have anything in the STO stores not the ships, not the consoles, not the Doffs or boffs that you can't spend a little time farming drops from explorations to get energy credits and buy in the Exchange without spending a RL dime. They practically throw Dilithium at you. It took me 4 days to reach 20k dilithium which is alot! I was able to completely gear my ship and ground units on 1 toon on the max gear in 2 weeks which is sold in Fleet (guild) vendors and again not for real money. So please explain how they are P2W again?
2: STO's market isn't a pay with real money system. They have lots of RL members who bought the game LONG before PWE took over the title and PWE actually increased the amount of free monthly Zen points lifetimers could receive which improved the dilithium <-> Zen Store exchange market. Sooooo how is that an imbalance? This game is 3 years old and surviving just fine off of free Zen points monthly! You really haven't played their games have you?
3: Actually no, Western MMO's start usually with a monthly sub and then become F2P later. This is the first one I know of that actually started F2P from the start and not that stupid Freemium crap where they kept the subscription model cutting people off from content forcing people to sub. STO even started off that way.
4: I don't understand you animosity first of all nothing in the founders packs is gamebreaking, they haven't revealed what will be in the stores and the prices of the items in the store, they are giving the free players access to everything without pay, there are no gimmiks no DLC's. What's even funnier about your argument is you'd rather be ripped off by a sub model then play a game for free. Uhm, isn't that a little brainless?
And then you go on to say that you play TERA and AION both of which are arguably the worst Freemium models I've seen since SOE. So you want to spend $15 a month to play but paying nothing to play is a problem for you, that's what I'm seeing here.
I have one question regarding the founders packs, and a statement made in this article - in the article, it was stated:
"In-game, a player can earn Astral Diamonds from completing content (usually somewhat harder than normal quests, but not necessarily "1337"). No one 'needs to purchase Astral Diamonds... Ever. Play as as you' like and get everything desirable that way."
and then to re-iterate the point:
" And please note that last sentence -- you can get everything you want by playing. Everything. This includes mounts, costumes, etc."
But before he had written that, he'd said:
" We've grouped exclusive items into pre-order "Founder's Packs" so that MMO gamers and D&D fans can start their own adventures at launch with exciting, exclusive options and bonuses. "
So, I'm guessing that 'everything you want' only applys to the things in the shop - and that the exlusive founder armored spider mount, and Drow Background, won't be in the shop for purchace?
is that how others are interpreting those statements?
thanks,
zWolf.
Thank you,
zWolf -out.
Cryptic is under PWE's flag now. STO might have been an exception (I haven't played that one), but PWE has a history of milking it's player's cash right from their first game onwards. Western and Asian also doesn't matter - a lot of Asian games use the F2P model from the start, from the excellent and innovative ones to the generic ones. I have yet to see a [i]single one of them[/i] that didn't eventually end up requiring the cash shop at some level. ESPECIALLY not any of the originals that PWE came up with (you know, Perfect World, Jade Empires, Forsaken World, etc.)
PWE is also a Chinese company that basically makes a living from F2P, so it's not a marvelous and amazingly wonderful thing that this one is F2P either. Perhaps Cryptic would have as much of a creative license as ArenaNet does and can somehow break from the PWE parent company mold, but I'm not holding my breath for it to happen.
I'd also love to hear from you why TERA is one of the worst Freemium models you've seen. Go on, this one I'm really curious about.
Let's be serious here. It's a PWE game. You'll have to play 15+ hours aday forever to stay remotely close to the person who drops hundreds or thousands of dollars on the cash shop. It's a fact and always will be with all PWE products.
The first couple of months may hide the fact that you will have to be a heavy cash shopper to stay competitive, but it will show it's ugly head soon after launch.
The game looks worth a try, but make sure you play hardcore as possible at start and learn the best way to get that loot before things get nerfed !
Best of luck to all who play !
What grabs me about the game is the combat. But what I really want to get into are the choices for each build and the routes you can go.
The DnD community is rather cool so this is a game I want to expore the player content dev tools.
Um, this guy didn't say the most important thing about the P2W aspect. What he said is NOT why this game isn't a P2W game.
Facepalm. How can he not tell people, that every piece of equipment you'll want, you'll be able to buy at the Auction House, and not with Astral Diamonds, but with the normal currency. And you cannot buy the normal currency with real-life money, or even exchange Astral Diamonds for the normal currency. So THAT is why it's not P2W, because everybody will have the same ways of earning normal money and they won't be able to boost it in any way.
Astral Diamonds, which you exchange for ZEN, the store currency, will allow you to buy things that make your life prettier and easier in-game, but will not make your character any better. Things that you'll be able to buy will be costumes, pets, XP boosts, more character slots, respec tokens, more inventory slots, bank slots, etc. This kind of things, not Rare and Very rare pieces of gear. These you can buy only with the normal currency. Or loot.
That is how Star Trek Online is constructed, and hopefully they won't change a thing in Neverwinter.
EDIT: I know he says that Astral Diamonds will be used also for purchasing gear, but I hope he's talking about sets. In Star Trek Online you can buy a set of melee weapons, for example, which level up with you. And they suuuck. So hopefully it will be like that, so the gear content in the Store will be very limited and not even close to overpowered.
You do know that Astral diamonds are the currancy used by the aution house right? If you want to play this game for free you will be selling in game gold for Zen to other players than buying Astral diamonds with Zen from other players and both tansactions makes Cryptic/PWI money. You will be able to earn rough diamonds by doing in game events and such but you are capped on how many you can refine to ensure that the grind stays consistent to everyone.
This game is designed from the ground up to insert Zen into nearly every aspect of it though the use of astral diamonds as a intermediate currancy regradless of what lip service the devs may give to otherwise. They have a vested interest in keeping the value of that Zen in time to earn high to keep it's value in trade high enough so that those who value time more than money will buy it with cash and sell to others who don't.
The whole system depends on Zen being valuable and hence a pain to earn by free means to work.
And bets on when the "Locked treasure chests" go in, with keys that must be purchased from the cash shop?Since currency earned by playing the game can be exchanged for cash shop currency, it's not really the problem some try to make it.
Hell hath no fury like an MMORPG player scorned.