"Never ascribe to malice that which is adequately explained by incompetence." - Napoleon Bonaparte
I've still not figured out whether the ZOS PR and Marketing people are insufferably stupid or fiendishly clever. They seem to stumble from one disaster to another, yet most of these "disasters" seem to result in bigger sales and more hype.
The "horse apocalypse" could have been motivated by a clumsy attempt to please those that were upset about the fact that only IE buyers got a horse. Or it could be a carefully calculated gambit to introduce the start of a full-blown "Cash Shop".
They will no doubt soon be announcing more of the "services" that will be for sale after launch. The next 2 weeks will be interesting...
Whether by design or blunder, it's motivated me to go from pre-order to "wait and see". I have more to gain in waiting a month to see how this pans out than front-loading them $$ and having it turn sour.
Originally posted by tedgp If the horse comes with the skill required to use it, then it shouldnt be allowed. If its just a skin of another horse and thats all, then it should.
I could be wrong on this, but I think the only 'skill' required is to own a horse...
If I can get the same/similiar items through actually playing the game, then I don't mind people paying for stuff with real money in a CS.
I would agree with you ...
However my experience has been that it is just not the case. I mainly speak from SWTOR as it is really the only game I have played recently that has had a sub and a cash shop.
Everything cool / new was going into the cash shop. No way for subs to get them by playing the game the only way to get those cool things was to have someone buy them and put them on the GTN.. of course they give the subs a monthly allotment but when 100's of things are being added to the Cash Shop including quest & companions it makes the value you of that monthly allotment less & less.
I would call it a bad move just because of the fact that so many non MMO playing TES fans may buy the game, see the sub they don't normally pay and then start seeing all these "real money" items for sale. It will just serve to drive more of them away.
I personally decided not to pre-order when I saw the CE containing a race. I can think of only one other MMO to do such a thing and that was STO which was a horrible game anyway. I cannot abide a sub based game that also has F2P pay walls to unlock content.
If I buy a game and have to pay a subscription the entire game better be accessible to me. Their now adding a horse leaves far too much open for this turning into a sub game with a F2P cash shop since it already has a pay wall (for a race) and that is something I will never support no matter how good the game is. That can be a genre altering event, towards the worse. We could end up seeing a sub based game with a full cash shop and that is something I shudder to think about, the COMPLETE corporate monetization of MMOs taking the worst of both worlds.
Originally posted by emperorwings If they delibrately decrease player movement speed and increase time it takes to gain in game currency then it would be a problem.
you know, once upon a time there was a game which did , well exactly what you described ? :P Allods actually removed one of classes mov speed buff (was party wide buff psy had) and nerfed mov speed before they added horses to the game :=) Funny thing is those horses were still slower than pre-nerfed foot speed so people did not quite like it.
so, never say never, because stuff like that happens in mmo world
but yea i still think its a bad move, as bad as selling day 1 dlcs, but as long as we support it with our wallets, companies will keep doing so, and they will probably come up with more ways to make us pay, on top of box price + monthly fee + expansions.
so just dont buy the dam thing and let them know what you think about it... which never works because even if they put it at $800 a pop there would still be people buying it :=P
I would call it a bad move just because of the fact that so many non MMO playing TES fans may buy the game, see the sub they don't normally pay and then start seeing all these "real money" items for sale. It will just serve to drive more of them away.
I personally decided not to pre-order when I saw the CE containing a race. I can think of only one other MMO to do such a thing and that was STO which was a horrible game anyway. I cannot abide a sub based game that also has F2P pay walls to unlock content.
If I buy a game and have to pay a subscription the entire game better be accessible to me. Their now adding a horse leaves far too much open for this turning into a sub game with a F2P cash shop since it already has a pay wall (for a race) and that is something I will never support no matter how good the game is. That can be a genre altering event, towards the worse. We could end up seeing a sub based game with a full cash shop and that is something I shudder to think about, the COMPLETE corporate monetization of MMOs taking the worst of both worlds.
Unfortunately we already have this and this is what I see coming down the pipe. For some reason a lot seem to support this, why is beyond me.
Originally posted by SpottyGekko "Never ascribe to malice that which is adequately explained by incompetence." - Napoleon Bonaparte
I've still not figured out whether the ZOS PR and Marketing people are insufferably stupid or fiendishly clever. They seem to stumble from one disaster to another, yet most of these "disasters" seem to result in bigger sales and more hype.
The "horse apocalypse" could have been motivated by a clumsy attempt to please those that were upset about the fact that only IE buyers got a horse. Or it could be a carefully calculated gambit to introduce the start of a full-blown "Cash Shop".
They will no doubt soon be announcing more of the "services" that will be for sale after launch. The next 2 weeks will be interesting...
They first put a race/freedom to play any alliance in CE/preorder, now they sell horses, it will be interesting as you said what will be the full list of cash shop offers. It was not clumsy attempt to please players upset about CE horse, they could give CE a special model horse and drop the price of the horse in game if they wanted to do that. So get used to cash shops, after all think of poor zenimax executives and their right to a new shiny car so buy the game and enjoy spending in cash shop, like so many shills..sorry, i mean fanboys, argue on this forum.
Why is anyone surprised by this? Pretty much everyone is doing micro-transactions like these now. It's nothing unusual and really doesn't affect the game in any serious way. Who gives a crap?
Originally posted by bobfish Blizzard sells mounts for WoW and pets... for years... yet they haven't turned into Pay to Win. This is fine.
To ride that horse bought from wow shop you have to have the riding skill in game which is payed in game money not bought in the shop. So does not count wow sells horses because you still have to buy the skill in game while in TESO having the horse is enough,no skill needed. Regarding pets those are a little overpowered in pet battles I understand, so somepeople interested in that could argue that shop or blizzcon pets are pay to win.
I don't agree with subs plus cash shop but it's just business, they're trying to maximze their profits so I understand the business point of view and it's probably going to work.
Originally posted by Anubisan Why is anyone surprised by this? Pretty much everyone is doing micro-transactions like these now. It's nothing unusual and really doesn't affect the game in any serious way. Who gives a crap?
If Matt Fior hadn't explicitly, on many occasions, made it a part of his ESO marketing platform to not have a Cash Shop then you might have a point. Doing a 180 this close to launch has left a lot of people that were supporting his sub-only model with a bad taste in their mouth.
Originally posted by bobfish Blizzard sells mounts for WoW and pets... for years... yet they haven't turned into Pay to Win.
This is fine.
To ride that horse bought from wow shop you have to have the riding skill in game which is payed in game money not bought in the shop. So does not count wow sells horses because you still have to buy the skill in game while in TESO having the horse is enough,no skill needed. Regarding pets those are a little overpowered in pet battles I understand, so somepeople interested in that could argue that shop or blizzcon pets are pay to win.
Meh....... for 5 gold, you can be up and riding though. That's almost literally mining one or two nodes, or gathering one or two herbs. It might as well be given to you. As far as pets go, the "best" pets in the game are still found wandering around. The Blizzcon pet is pretty OP, but still not the best.
Hey, what about people who get in with a guild of people who are highly motivated to get to max level and they just give the them a horse? I'd be like "Freakin' awesome guild!!" Still, you didn't work for it. There will undoubtedly be thousands of people riding around on free horses, in addition to those store bought ones and CE ones. THOSE are the REAL bad people
I was going to buy the Imperial Edition but them selling mounts turned me away from the game completely. I will now spend the money and support a different game.
The problem is they are actually selling items in game ( a mount ) when they said they would not do this.
The items shop in TESO was supposed to be purely cosmetic. They already greatly inflated the price of the horse in the game and gave an advantage to everyone who bought the more expensive copy of the game by making it FREE (or cost just 100 gold).
If they were selling skins for you to change the color of your horse then I would be OK with this, but not actually selling the horse.
Agreed, friends and co-workers tell me that in SWTOR for example, the entire game and it's content direction is now completely driven by their cash shop.
Unless your friends and co-workers classify collecting as many different cosmetic gear pieces as possible as "the entire game and it's content direction" they are just flat out wrong.
Peace is a lie, there is only passion. Through passion, I gain strength. Through strength, I gain power. Through power, I gain victory. Through victory, my chains are broken. The Force shall free me.
I would call it a bad move just because of the fact that so many non MMO playing TES fans may buy the game, see the sub they don't normally pay and then start seeing all these "real money" items for sale. It will just serve to drive more of them away.
I personally decided not to pre-order when I saw the CE containing a race. I can think of only one other MMO to do such a thing and that was STO which was a horrible game anyway. I cannot abide a sub based game that also has F2P pay walls to unlock content.
If I buy a game and have to pay a subscription the entire game better be accessible to me. Their now adding a horse leaves far too much open for this turning into a sub game with a F2P cash shop since it already has a pay wall (for a race) and that is something I will never support no matter how good the game is. That can be a genre altering event, towards the worse. We could end up seeing a sub based game with a full cash shop and that is something I shudder to think about, the COMPLETE corporate monetization of MMOs taking the worst of both worlds.
Unfortunately we already have this and this is what I see coming down the pipe. For some reason a lot seem to support this, why is beyond me.
SWTOR is a prime example.
Actually no it isn't. SWTOR is a former subscription based game that is now a Freemium game where a subscription is optional. it is not the same.
Also I recall the developers of TESO stating that the game will be monetized via a subscription and will only have charges for things like name changes. Personally I would not look at selling mounts as being a bad thing because other sub based MMOs have it, but with the CE containing a race, and it also being in the cash shop it has moved them from normal MMO sub practices to that of a F2P/Freemium game.
That is a line being crossed that should not be supported by any MMORPG player that prefers subscription based games over F2P games.
I don't see why any of this is causing an uproar? Everyone knew you could already spend more money to get a in game horse at level 1 with the preorder. There should be no "new" rage here.
Agreed, friends and co-workers tell me that in SWTOR for example, the entire game and it's content direction is now completely driven by their cash shop.
Unless your friends and co-workers classify collecting as many different cosmetic gear pieces as possible as "the entire game and it's content direction" they are just flat out wrong.
Their cash shop does not just contain cosmetic gear, a lot of update content is locked in the cash shop, P2W items are in the cash shop, access to skills are in the cash shop. The last major update was mostly locked in the cash shop, this means he is correct.
And that is not necessarily a bad thing for a game like SWTOR. But TESO is not SWOTR, its a sub based only game that should not be moving in the direction of a Freemium game like SWTOR unless their plan is to become one, which is a slap in the face to everyone they are promoting the game to.
You guys do realize that its OK to like TESO and NOT like some of the things Zenimax is doing right?!?
I don't care. I won't be participating in the cash shop and a horse doesn't give a player an advantage in combat. I'll be getting one anyways, with the Imperial Edition.
I am not really worrying that much, pre-oredering to enjoy the story rather than worrying about the 20-years-long-term viablity. On the other hand, not surprised there is a rage since eventhoughGw2 doesn't even have a sub, people raged about the cosmetic store.
Comments
Whether by design or blunder, it's motivated me to go from pre-order to "wait and see". I have more to gain in waiting a month to see how this pans out than front-loading them $$ and having it turn sour.
I could be wrong on this, but I think the only 'skill' required is to own a horse...
I would agree with you ...
However my experience has been that it is just not the case. I mainly speak from SWTOR as it is really the only game I have played recently that has had a sub and a cash shop.
Everything cool / new was going into the cash shop. No way for subs to get them by playing the game the only way to get those cool things was to have someone buy them and put them on the GTN.. of course they give the subs a monthly allotment but when 100's of things are being added to the Cash Shop including quest & companions it makes the value you of that monthly allotment less & less.
I hope it does not go the same way here.
I would call it a bad move just because of the fact that so many non MMO playing TES fans may buy the game, see the sub they don't normally pay and then start seeing all these "real money" items for sale. It will just serve to drive more of them away.
I personally decided not to pre-order when I saw the CE containing a race. I can think of only one other MMO to do such a thing and that was STO which was a horrible game anyway. I cannot abide a sub based game that also has F2P pay walls to unlock content.
If I buy a game and have to pay a subscription the entire game better be accessible to me. Their now adding a horse leaves far too much open for this turning into a sub game with a F2P cash shop since it already has a pay wall (for a race) and that is something I will never support no matter how good the game is. That can be a genre altering event, towards the worse. We could end up seeing a sub based game with a full cash shop and that is something I shudder to think about, the COMPLETE corporate monetization of MMOs taking the worst of both worlds.
you know, once upon a time there was a game which did , well exactly what you described ? :P Allods actually removed one of classes mov speed buff (was party wide buff psy had) and nerfed mov speed before they added horses to the game :=) Funny thing is those horses were still slower than pre-nerfed foot speed so people did not quite like it.
so, never say never, because stuff like that happens in mmo world
but yea i still think its a bad move, as bad as selling day 1 dlcs, but as long as we support it with our wallets, companies will keep doing so, and they will probably come up with more ways to make us pay, on top of box price + monthly fee + expansions.
so just dont buy the dam thing and let them know what you think about it... which never works because even if they put it at $800 a pop there would still be people buying it :=P
Unfortunately we already have this and this is what I see coming down the pipe. For some reason a lot seem to support this, why is beyond me.
SWTOR is a prime example.
They first put a race/freedom to play any alliance in CE/preorder, now they sell horses, it will be interesting as you said what will be the full list of cash shop offers. It was not clumsy attempt to please players upset about CE horse, they could give CE a special model horse and drop the price of the horse in game if they wanted to do that. So get used to cash shops, after all think of poor zenimax executives and their right to a new shiny car so buy the game and enjoy spending in cash shop, like so many shills..sorry, i mean fanboys, argue on this forum.
To ride that horse bought from wow shop you have to have the riding skill in game which is payed in game money not bought in the shop. So does not count wow sells horses because you still have to buy the skill in game while in TESO having the horse is enough,no skill needed.
Regarding pets those are a little overpowered in pet battles I understand, so somepeople interested in that could argue that shop or blizzcon pets are pay to win.
By ignore it, you mean not buying the game because that's the only way to communicate your opinion to them in a way they understand.
I'm going to see a man about a horse
If Matt Fior hadn't explicitly, on many occasions, made it a part of his ESO marketing platform to not have a Cash Shop then you might have a point. Doing a 180 this close to launch has left a lot of people that were supporting his sub-only model with a bad taste in their mouth.
Meh....... for 5 gold, you can be up and riding though. That's almost literally mining one or two nodes, or gathering one or two herbs. It might as well be given to you. As far as pets go, the "best" pets in the game are still found wandering around. The Blizzcon pet is pretty OP, but still not the best.
Hey, what about people who get in with a guild of people who are highly motivated to get to max level and they just give the them a horse? I'd be like "Freakin' awesome guild!!" Still, you didn't work for it. There will undoubtedly be thousands of people riding around on free horses, in addition to those store bought ones and CE ones. THOSE are the REAL bad people
Crazkanuk
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Azarelos - 90 Hunter - Emerald
Durnzig - 90 Paladin - Emerald
Demonicron - 90 Death Knight - Emerald Dream - US
Tankinpain - 90 Monk - Azjol-Nerub - US
Brindell - 90 Warrior - Emerald Dream - US
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I was going to buy the Imperial Edition but them selling mounts turned me away from the game completely. I will now spend the money and support a different game.
The problem is they are actually selling items in game ( a mount ) when they said they would not do this.
The items shop in TESO was supposed to be purely cosmetic. They already greatly inflated the price of the horse in the game and gave an advantage to everyone who bought the more expensive copy of the game by making it FREE (or cost just 100 gold).
If they were selling skins for you to change the color of your horse then I would be OK with this, but not actually selling the horse.
I guess you could say....they are beating a dead horse.
/shades
Currently Playing: ESO and FFXIV
Have played: You name it
If you mention rose tinted glasses, you better be referring to Mitch Hedberg.
Unless your friends and co-workers classify collecting as many different cosmetic gear pieces as possible as "the entire game and it's content direction" they are just flat out wrong.
Peace is a lie, there is only passion.
Through passion, I gain strength.
Through strength, I gain power.
Through power, I gain victory.
Through victory, my chains are broken.
The Force shall free me.
Actually no it isn't. SWTOR is a former subscription based game that is now a Freemium game where a subscription is optional. it is not the same.
Also I recall the developers of TESO stating that the game will be monetized via a subscription and will only have charges for things like name changes. Personally I would not look at selling mounts as being a bad thing because other sub based MMOs have it, but with the CE containing a race, and it also being in the cash shop it has moved them from normal MMO sub practices to that of a F2P/Freemium game.
That is a line being crossed that should not be supported by any MMORPG player that prefers subscription based games over F2P games.
Playing: D3-RoS, ESO, part-time WoW
Played: Defiance, FF:RR, Tera, Ultima Online, GW2, EQ1, Diablo1-3.
Their cash shop does not just contain cosmetic gear, a lot of update content is locked in the cash shop, P2W items are in the cash shop, access to skills are in the cash shop. The last major update was mostly locked in the cash shop, this means he is correct.
And that is not necessarily a bad thing for a game like SWTOR. But TESO is not SWOTR, its a sub based only game that should not be moving in the direction of a Freemium game like SWTOR unless their plan is to become one, which is a slap in the face to everyone they are promoting the game to.
You guys do realize that its OK to like TESO and NOT like some of the things Zenimax is doing right?!?
/boggle
I am not really worrying that much, pre-oredering to enjoy the story rather than worrying about the 20-years-long-term viablity. On the other hand, not surprised there is a rage since eventhoughGw2 doesn't even have a sub, people raged about the cosmetic store.