Cash Shop Incentives

[Niding2]

Trollbone. 3$. One use. Can only target KO'd players. Teleports the player back to their homestead. Changes the gender of the targeted character.

Basically, a visual alternative to killing people if you have unsettled aggravations. It could of course be "exploited" to change the gender of your friends for them, but since it's a 3$-cost for a one-shot item, that's all good.

[Dallane]

Trollbone. 3$. One use. Can only target KO'd players. Teleports the player back to their homestead. Changes the gender of the targeted character.

Basically, a visual alternative to killing people if you have unsettled aggravations. It could of course be "exploited" to change the gender of your friends for them, but since it's a 3$-cost for a one-shot item, that's all good.

that makes zero sense

[thearosen]

Here are my thoughts. The argument is to keep this shop from allowing players to "Play to Win". But what exactly is "winning" salem? In my opinion one of the most lucrative and greatest opportunities about this game is that it is essentially a game that takes two very different gamers and places them in the same playground. You have the PVP minded conflict driven competitive player (who is probably more vocal and concerned with a P2W model) and you have the PvE minded Minecraft playing sim-city building positive progression player.

As much hate as there is to the latter game-type any griefers who thinks that their life would be fun without the prey is just lying to themselves. As such any of the PVP players who are trying to "win" Salem should be fully supportive of any "advantages" that can be bestowed upon the Simmers as it is keeping their prey entertained and docile, thereby, increasing their own enjoyment.

All that being said lets identify fun or addicting aspects of this game that are farthest from "winning salem" and start there for the Cash Incentives.

Disclaimer: Before you go and say "X event leads to Y production which leads to Z killing people." go ahead and just press the back button now. Obviously, there is an argument that every aspect of this game can have a byproduct of a byproduct that leads to some kind of character development but that is not what I"m talking about here. I am talking about specific actions that are more than one arms-length transaction away from a PVP/combat/competitive altering result.

Terraforming
Wheel Barrow. Carrys 20X the amount of dirt. $25.00

Lighting Fires
Flint and Steel - Same as in game. Just let noobs buy it. $2.00

Self Closing Gates
Springs (mentioned in a previous I&I thread). Gates close after 3 seconds of being opened. $1.00 per spring.

Musty Compost Bin Board
When used to make Compost bins creates same object that fills 20% faster. $3.00 per set of boards to make one bin.

Lofty Baking Table Board
When used to make baking table causes dough to become rested 20% faster. $3.00 per set of boards to make table

10 Slot Backpack - $40.00

Olympic Torch - Burns 100% longer when at full fuel $6.00

Player Skill - Expert Mineoralogist - Chip 5% more Ore/Stone/Granite/Lime from boulders you have lifted/chipped - $100.00

Player Skill - Expert Lumberjack - Chop 5% more Wood blocks and boards from trees you have chopped/lifted - $100.00

Player Skill - Expert Cook - Gellatenous Lard spawns 5% more often - $100.00

Player Skill - Expert Gardener - 5% chance to gather 3 (or 4 with horticulture) plants from a gardening pot - $100.00

Player Skill - Expert Miner - Fires in a mine burn out 25% faster - $100.00

New Wilderness port for players without Rights of The Englishman - $1.00

100X of Black Asphalt paving (as seen in boston) - $12.50

Ability to "bank" Silver into your boston bank (Silver you already have) - $1.00 per 250 silver.

Instant Crime Drop and KO release for characters w/o Rights of Englishman - $2.50

A Bundle of TNT - Right clicking on a mine allows it to be destroyed (mine tile stays so victim can rebuild on it)- $7.50



Things I DO NOT believe should be in the store:

Anything that changes the anonymous nature of this game. Gender Change/Char appearance/name change etc. After everything the Chief has done I SHOULD NOT be allowed to "buy" myself out of it and/or pay money to be anonymous and infiltrate a guild.

Anything you can right-click to instantly give a prof. or skill.

Anything that increases your damage or humours over other players.


Conclusion:
I would buy pretty much every one of those things if they were available in the store and I would then subsequently laugh at every person who says "I won Salem" because I have a torch that burns longer than theirs. I also believe that just about everybody would buy or at least wish they could buy at least one or two of those items regardless of which kind of player they are.

Chief PeePooKaKa
MM Tribe

In all honesty Chief, I would buy just able all of those. They are all very very useful, but not anything that actually changes my ability to win. All the really do is cut back on production time a bit, not increasing the value of my production. I love the ideas, and you are correct about what not should be in the game.
Ontop of that I agree, in Salem there is no A group without B group. I once earlier today saw a pvp'er complain that he couldn't jump staright into pvp'ing without farming. Unfortunately the post was locked, but I felt the need to respond that "Oh... I didn't know that just because you wanted to be a doctor you didn't need to go to college. Grow up dude, you don't automatically become a good pvp'er in any game without doing the other"

[Grichmann]

Okay, I might not have been playing Salem or Haven for very long, but here are my thoughts since the topic interests me greatly, both in general and in how it applies to Salem.

First of all, anything with a practical value defeats the purpose of Salem as the crafting MMO. Everything practical should be craftable or at least purchasable with silver in Boston. Silver, in turn, should not be directly purchasable with real money, but it can be included in starter packs (see below) with limitations.
Purely cosmetic items are okay, even though I'm not personally interested in buying them, unless they're extraordinarily interesting. Making them indestructible or permanently bound to a character also contradicts the game's nature. "Rentals" that disappear after a week/month/year are just ugh. Just don't. I'd say, make such items very cheap - cheap enough that buying them again if you need to make a new character is not a problem for most players who'd buy them in the first place.
One thing that I would probably buy, capitalising on the game's permadeath, are starter packs like the ones we already have, to bypass the first few hours of a character, which can get quite repetitive. These should probably focus more on boosting a character's potential (such as raising all starting aptitudes and humours to an extent, but not granting any skills out of the box), with certain limitations: only one starter pack can be used on a character, before he sets sail to the New World, and only if there were characters on that player's account that already reached the stats granted by the starter pack. I hope you can understand what I mean by this. I'm a little lazy to write a full-fledged design document.

All that said, I'd still rather pay subscription for a game with a high impact potential like Salem.

[malaclypse]

Assuming you guys need to actually pay rent and hosting and then eat and drink afterwards, here are some suggestions for getting more of my hard earned cash, you greedy bastards!

Allow me to buy:
- A bank vault in Boston.
- A deep-pocketed purse
- A semi-decent dowsing rod
- A dowsing rod for finding limestone quarries
- A "hastily sold map" that allows me to teleport to random locations a certain amount of time (5, 10?)
- A claimstone with upkeep paid in dollar bills rather than silver
- A unique haircut (or 5)
- A unique face (or 10)
- More clothes to fan the flames of my vanity
- Noob food to boost my humours into the 20s or 30s.
- Other things that let me skip little pieces of the early game but not mid or end game.

And then finally make items bought with real world money account bound. If you die they go to your bank vault, assuming you had the good sense to buy that too. And your account-alts can all access the same vault.

Thanks!

- Post moved, since we already have a topic on this

[Niding2]

I feel the cash shop currently is far too expensive, and has too few possibilities. As a general cash shop philosophy, I'd advice low prices compared to the current ones. Lower prices lowers the threshold for purchasing, which hopefully should cause both more people to make purchases, as well as each purchaser buying several times.

I'd keep silver priced high still, to prevent an inflation of money in-game, but non-cash-related purcahses should be lowered. There should preferably be a lot of items in the $1-5 priceclass, with $10-15 for the big items. The founding father's pack could be $25 I suppose, even though I generally disagree with such high prices for a money model focused around microtransactions.

For me, the current cash shop is both ridiculously expensive, which keeps me from buying, as well as uninteresting as there's nothing I really want.

Since I'm staunchly against purchasing power (including the skill-including packages currently), I'd keep the cash shop to fun and vanity-purchases, aside from the silver. Instead of buying hats, as you can do now (through the mystery box), I'd suggest selling specific (instead of the current random system) hat skins for $1 which could be applied to any sort of head item. This would do three things - lower the price which should be lowering the barrier for puchase; force the skin to be re-purchased for every helm; remove the purchase of power the high-slot current cash shop helmets causes.

[CharlesM]

I feel as though more people would buy things from the cash shop if the prices were cheaper, as the price of silver is too high (compared from what you can get from selling items), and that the packs are too much for the few skills you get. $15 is not that much, but then it gives you just a few items that you could get in 2 days of grinding then it is excessive.

[Procne]

Some items to generate special decorative tiles:

- flower bulbs to generate flower tiles (in different colors)
- colored cobblestone
- wooden floor (outside)
- gravel
- heath
- marble floor

[tweenprinc3ss]

Having unstealable items is unecessary and goes against the spirit of this game. It is EASY to avoid death in this game. Be wary of strangers, and keep your switch character button on screen.

[tweenprinc3ss]

I thought people who are paying and buying stuff in F2P games are mostly those who have a lot of spare money and buy stuff on a whim. Or just prefer to speed things up with a boost from cash shop than to work in a game.

For example kid of some people I know - he sees something interesting in the cash shop and goes "mommy, buy me this", mommy pulls out her CC and bam, kid gets his hat for 15$

That's what we like to think. But the reality is people like my once friend Poat (Pronounced Poet and she damn well let you know that). Bipolar, very sick, working a **** McJob, and spent every single dollar of her disposable income on games (One f2p in particular of course, but the name doesn't matter much). She would regularly spend 100-200$/week on it to buy fame and fortune. She could barely afford rent and food, but she put that much into the game anyway. It let her live a fantasy life where everyone loved her (for her money) and she was a superstar. This is a classic profile of the "Whale" consumer in F2P games, and it's what both Paradox and much of the industry bank on for revenue. Kids crying "Mommy" do not spend 100$ + per month on games.

I've known a lot of people like this. I've got more stories if you're not convinced.

These people will always exist. If not F2P its magic cards, beanie babies, wtf ever. I think more people are like me, avid gamer, inspent about 100$ in 2-3 months while gettin established. No biggie, I have a job and a life.