Silver/Vendor Items are Overpriced

[sabinati]

Sounds like a bunch of needless complication to me, when the real problem is that silver and vendor item prices need to be tuned. The simplicity of cash:silver is great and I don't think we should change the business model to include straight cash:item transactions. Would any of the previous posters still find their ideas necessary if the cash:silver exchange was 1:100 instead of 1:10, or if backpacks (for example) cost 1/10 of their current price in silver?

[APXEOLOG]

TotalyMoo started special thread for this but removed ut for some reasons

[Sevenless]

Sounds like a bunch of needless complication to me, when the real problem is that silver and vendor item prices need to be tuned. The simplicity of cash:silver is great and I don't think we should change the business model to include straight cash:item transactions. Would any of the previous posters still find their ideas necessary if the cash:silver exchange was 1:100 instead of 1:10, or if backpacks (for example) cost 1/10 of their current price in silver?

1:100 is maybe overkill I think? The issue is balancing convenience vs empowering paying factions. As for backpacks: Why sell them at all? We can make them ourselves quite easily. The one argument for items over just silver is the ability to sell things at a more favourable dollar:silver value without upsetting the economy.

Lets take backpacks, and for simplicity call it 1:100 ratio. Backpack costs 2.5$. Now we can sell backpacks for 2$. This would be a ratio of 1:125. But because it's only for a very specific item, the economy at large will not feel the impact of that silver ratio, but people will be able to acquire noob or vanity items cheaply and efficiently without mucking up the economy. In the same breath, you can't make them *too* cheap, or you'd have people buying the items to sell them in game for more money/$ input.

[mmo4gamer]

The current business model is pay to win or buying power. Most games are trying to get away from this, I'm not sure why this game is diving back in. While this game is mostly community driven expantion the pvp system still allows for much abuse by players that simply buy things they need for faster development. If you spend 50$ on the game, then get killed and lose everything by someone who spent 100$, even though we started at the same time and played the same amount of time he had double your skills and wealth, I would be vary upset. The way the game is designed I'm having a hard time finding something to sell, besides cosmetic looks for character, that wouldn't give a player some sort of advantage but I'm sure there is something that moves away from p2w.

[mmo4gamer]

Ya this cash shop is more a problem of pay to win or buying power then anything. The prices being overpriced is another issue. I would like to see a different money making model.

[Dopefly]

Sounds like a bunch of needless complication to me, when the real problem is that silver and vendor item prices need to be tuned. The simplicity of cash:silver is great and I don't think we should change the business model to include straight cash:item transactions. Would any of the previous posters still find their ideas necessary if the cash:silver exchange was 1:100 instead of 1:10, or if backpacks (for example) cost 1/10 of their current price in silver?

I would do either. But if the company wants to make money.. they could use the package system to get a little more of an investment, and the discount helps us too. More cash in hand potential for the company

[Qukatt]

In all honesty I am pretty much guaranteed to grind my own silver, other people buying silver is good for me cause they have more random money to give away on the time I put in to the game on their behalf (farming devil worts or blewitts or anything else)

On the other hand I'm very attracted to things like vanity items, starter packs, extra character slots and generally useless but handy crap that you can buy in the ncsoft shop for city of heroes or guild wars. Costume packs and vanity pets are my kryptonite as a freemium player. I have nothing but time and no rush to get through the game, if I die I at least know my real money isnt fully to waste.

That said I would also pay for a sort of inheritance booster that would allow an afterdeath alt to not only reclaim my land if possible but to be born with a decent whack of the skills I lost, more perhaps to start with the 100% of the skills I lost. THAT would be a good way to "milk" your hardcore pvper and the determined, perpetually lynched griefer.

Though I would say that of glutton boosts but not both angles

[kabuto202]

I think that the current business model in terms of silver:cash is fine. It's a great way to ensure balance in the game in terms of free vs paid users. Right now as it has been said many times in this thread, the prices need to be lowered or the silver gained need to be increased.

[MagicManICT]

Here's another wrench into the works of thought:

Would having a price at something like $2/100 be low enough to remove all silver taps in the game? People might be willing to buy silver more freely and spread it around to those unwilling or without a means of paying. Without those silver taps, then all coin generation in the game goes through a cash transaction that Seatribe/Paradox gets.

edit: I think that some people are overlooking the fact that the Company Store is still buying everything at the exact same prices as they were a day before the commercial beta began.

[Dopefly]

Is the ideal to have players buy instead of the shops? Silver needs to be in game, and since they lowered it with the savage charm/arrowhead nerf...they have to add it somewhere.