Discussion: Featured Items at the Paragon Market - 11/15/11
By
Abraxxus,
Posted on: 2011-11-15 11:36 in News, Events and Announcement Discussion
I'll wait for the Corgi or Shiba.
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/This! Maybe give half a dozen breed skins with the pet and the option to buy packages of more - or individual - skin(s). |
Originally Posted by Blackleviathan
Ditto here with the targetable and renamable too along with inherit controls like an mm for like fetch eat, attack heel follow stay go-to. Maybe more animations like sniffing ground, ear moving listening stuff. Rolling around, occasional barking here and there. But not have it where you have to totally maintain like feed etc. that would be blah.
And yeah the customizing of colors and maybe not like create a vet pet for every breed but have an option in costume to put the skins of breeds there that would cost less than making an entire new vet power. |
I might never have actually used the pet (yeah, i'm looking at you MVAS, Rikti Mokey, Mekman, etc) but I would have likely bought it to support the concept.
But 500 pts for a single breed that does nothing other than bounce around behind you. Nah, cheers, already got several of those for 'free' that I don't use.
Still nice looking though.
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Yes, I do not think they understand impulse buying.|
Originally Posted by Zombie Man
<shakes head>
Has anyone in Marketing there ever done *retail* marketing? Because what you are describing is a huge marketing fail.
Marketing and advertising for retail, which is what micro-purchases are, is a different creature than marketing and advertising for subscriptions. Not having something new on sale on a consistent basis is not good for your bottom line. |
If you look at top grossing items at the various app stores that have come into being for iPhones & iPads or Android stuff, it the quality inexpensive stuff that grossing the most. I'll looks at stuff for that and happy spend a buck or two for apps there.
Look at iTunes or Amazons music store, songs are around a dollar.
I bought an iPad to start reading kindle books from Amazon and discovered they are selling lots of stuff for1 or 2 dollars so bought several items on impulse from they.
Instead of pricing stuff for impulse buys, Paragon Studio seems to be pricing stuff like DLC for other games but the model they seem to be using is Oblivion Horse Armor pack and people torn Bethesda apart for that. Bethesda learned their lesson from that and for Skyrim, is only promising large content packs for that, not $6.25 for a do nothing vanity pet.
Honestly, look at all the stuff they have on the Paragon Market, if they cut prices to 1/5 of what they are now, I would start buying stuff on impulse. With the current pricing, I only going to buy what I really really need so like 99% of what they are selling, I going to ignore. They can not be making up for high price for what they are losing in volume. This is virtual stuff that not costing them any more to sell 1.000 copies as it is to sell 1.
This is a service-oriented business, and it's all
about keeping the player happy over the long term.
So you have to listen and pay attention. If a large
portion of your playerbase is screaming about
some change, you be wise to listen. - Raph Koster
I'm really on the fence over the little guy.
I really want to buy it, I can justify the higher price this once, as it had to be a bit trickier to create from scratch.
So I don't mind paying a little more than normal to reward that increased work.
I'd expect future pets that use the 4-leg rig should be priced a bit lower though, as the rig is already created and just needs to be reskinned/animated.
That is my catch22. I want to buy it for the reasons stated above, but fear that if I do, instead of sending the message that I want I'll instead be sending the message that this price is acceptable for all future pets of this nature. I'm not willing to take that risk, therefor I have to pass sadly, for now.
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Waiting doesn't seem like a bad idea really, the new path aura isn't two weeks old and its price dropped from 120 to 80 to fit inline with all the other offered auras. It really wouldn't surprise me if similar happened with this.
It is a shame, I'm thrilled by the new model and looking forward to what it'll bring to the game in the future. This initial offering is just a misstep though ;9
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Except you are forgetting stipends. Both games have the same stipends.|
Originally Posted by Brillig
How else are you going to interpret:
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So, after 26 months of 400 points, that is 10,400 points for that player. They are also a lifetime player (that company is losing money on that player if they don't buy additional points) so they are getting more of a discount than we are. BTW, 14000 for a single character, 22500 for account slots.
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Originally Posted by Brillig
And it's not intellectually dishonest to calculate based on the bulk rates as, unlike sales, those are available all the time. If you wanted to you could, of course, calculate things in the most disadvantageous way possible. But unlike some, I prefer to do a reasonable comparison.
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But as you said, you can choose what you exclude or include to slant things.
That is why I left it at straight dollar values and the same items.
Triumph: White Succubus: 50 Ill/Emp/PF Snow Globe: 50 Ice/FF/Ice Strobe: 50 PB Shi Otomi: 50 Ninja/Ninjistu/GW Stalker My other characters
The dog pet is a super cool item, but very much not priced in my price range.
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Ah good, introduce more irrelevant factors. |
Originally Posted by Snow Globe
Except you are forgetting stipends. Both games have the same stipends.
So, after 26 months of 400 points, that is 10,400 points for that player. They are also a lifetime player (that company is losing money on that player if they don't buy additional points) so they are getting more of a discount than we are. BTW, 14000 for a single character, 22500 for account slots. |
Let's see, the other game has lifetime subscriptions, therefore, in an infinite amount of time, anything in their game is free, so everything in this game is overpriced.
Seriously?!?
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| I'm not getting into a full compare contrast, as that is against forum rules. You aren't factoring in the lifetime subscription and sales. |
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But as you said, you can choose what you exclude or include to slant things. That is why I left it at straight dollar values and the same items. |
At least I looked at four points of comparison.
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Lion a tiger and a bear? Oh My! | I bought the dog as support for the 4 legged rig, I hope we can see more pets in City, perhaps even an Animal Mastermind... (3 Lions, Two Tigers, and a Bear?)) |
=) in all seriousness i would have bought German Shepard at 80 pt. i finally caved because has good animations but not on both of my accounts just one. .saving my points for whatever after titan. titan i don't like so i am not buying skipping this power set.
or ill wait the store enters Christmas,etc discounts which is soon to buy my least favorite stuff....
as Ood Sigma said....We will sing to you, Doctor. The universe will sing you to your sleep. This song is ending. But the story never ends.
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Hey, you brought the discounts into this. I was comparing only dollar for dollar with no discounts at all. Apples to Apples. You started introducing other factors.|
Originally Posted by Brillig
Ah good, introduce more irrelevant factors.
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Originally Posted by Brillig
Let's see, the other game has lifetime subscriptions, therefore, in an infinite amount of time, anything in their game is free, so everything in this game is overpriced.
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Originally Posted by Brillig
Here's the singular fact. You chose to make one comparison and chose the data point that supported your bias.
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Triumph: White Succubus: 50 Ill/Emp/PF Snow Globe: 50 Ice/FF/Ice Strobe: 50 PB Shi Otomi: 50 Ninja/Ninjistu/GW Stalker My other characters
Came here to express my feedback. Hopefully it will be read.
Saw the dog. Was impressed by the dog. Saw the dog's price tag.
Yeah, 500 PPs for a cosmetic item like a pet is way too much. You can buy a costume bundle for 400pps.... 100 less then for this one item. While I think the dog is pretty impressive and would be cool to use for RP purposes, it's not worth the current price tag.
Things like this need to be 200pps or less. Considering it's one item-like an emote- I would even hesitate to say it should be 100PPs or less. Hopefully you guys will see some sense.
Oh and here's another thing that bothers me- Powers should not be on the market. Well not power sets anyway. The reason I say this is simple- Since we have bought the game and the VIPs pay a monthly fee these features of the game should be readily available to any and all players. Powers are in my opinion a core part of City of Heroes and don't belong here. If you want to charge for anything else, I have no problem with that.
Also to the players: Blindly buying in game items got us to the point we are in. The moment the Devs announced the micro-transaction, was the day we all should have realized that this was where the game was headed. Now the company is more interested in making items for the market then actually fixing and testing the issues in game... which led the sloppy patch we just had.
If you think the micro-transaction is really all that great, read this and think about it.
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news...w-Up-Kills-MMO
Dog is impressive, price not so much. especially for just one skin. It surprises me the only “products” I have purchased since the launch of freedom are the global unlocks of capes and auras.
I have to agree with the general consensus here... I like the dog, I'd buy the dog (even as a non-combat vanity pet, although I really don't like pure vanity pets for the most part). I'd love to help support the development of the 4-legged rig and it's potential uses.
But at 500 pts, I just can't justify that expense. Even at a lower price I'd have to debate it for a PURELY vanity pet.
Again, I'd really like to buy the dog, I just can't do it at anything like this price.
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Sorry, wasn't paying attention when I wrote that. Was still thinking of enhancement slots. Which are $20 each.|
Originally Posted by Snow Globe
Just to be very clear on the pricing:
Costume Slot #6 = 800 PP or $10 Costume Slot #7 = 800 PP or $10 Costume Slot #8 = 800 PP or $10 Costume Slot #9 = 800 PP or $10 Costume Slot #10 = 800 PP or $10 $50 total. |
Costume slots are too expensive as well, or I would have those by now.
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Originally Posted by PRAF68_EU
Dispari has more than enough credability, and certainly doesn't need to borrow any from you.
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Meh. I'm waiting for the Combat Chihuahua. 
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The dog is a fun item, well worth the $5 I spent for 400 extra points.
I don't understand people who say, 500 points is out of my price range. Support the game by throwing $5 into the hat every once in awhile, and you might just be surprised what you eventually get back!
The more resources we give the developers, the more options they can give us in-game: that's the virtuous cycle. Something for everyone!
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More stuff I don't want produced at a rate that results in massive bugs?|
Originally Posted by Cold_Bob
I don't understand people who say, 500 points is out of my price range. Support the game by throwing $5 into the hat every once in awhile, and you might just be surprised what you eventually get back!
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It's a business, not a charity.
Man, some people are so bitter...
This thread: am I the ONLY person happy to see something brand-new in the game yesterday? I mean -- a four-legged rig! $6.25 for a dog companion, but more importantly, now that the rig is in the game -- think of all the things that can be done with the new rig!
Charity is all the "free riders" I support each month with my 7-year subscription. Business is hoping some of them (in addition to you and me) eventually buy something to support the game as well!
as a VIP, I have no problem with paying for "extra" goodies but things like this, the GS, I don't see as a goodie. More of a loose costume piece than anything. Now if he ran with a stick of dynamite clenched between his teeth set to explode once enemy targeted then yes, worth the buy.
A surprising number of my friends (rp and non-rpers alike) have or plan to purchase the dog so, at least for them, it wasn't too expensive. The rp'ers main complaint is that they can't use it with Walk and the dog isn't fast enough to keep up with high level characters running. If we could at least get the vanity pets back to being click powers instead of toggles, or speed up the dogs to match their owner's non-sprint run speed, it would make them very happy.
Personally, I won't be buying it even if it is very cool. I don't have enough points to get what I want now much less have 500 to spare for that.
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It's good that you "appreciate" it, because it bears repeating. You have a number of small/cosmetic/lightweight purchasable features on the market that cost MORE THAN THE GAME ITSELF. Clearly, no one on this project has worked retail before.
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Originally Posted by Zwillinger
Thank you, and I appreciate that
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I know this probably won't get read, and more likely will simply get torn apart (which is one of the reasons I very rarely frequent the forums anymore), but I specifically came to give my 2 cents on this issue.
I was one of the people who bought the dog using monthly VIP points. I looked at the price and said to myself: Damn, that's really expensive... but it'll be a good companion for all of the other vanity pets I have now. In other words, I take silly pleasure in bringing out an army of vanity pets occasionally.
Imagine my surprise, then, when I found out that I couldn't summon the dog to meet my MVAS or my demon. This was evidently part of the patch on November 10th that I missed while reading through the lengthy patch notes. A quick poll of others who happened to be on suggested that none of them had noted this change, either.
So why? It's not like the pets are unbalancing; they de-spawn on zone, aren't targetable, and don't have powers. I realize that the buff pets are an exception to this, but they seem to draw aggro better than tanks (or even blasters!), and have 5 hit points.
Everyone has different reasons for playing CoH. I gained a small amount of pleasure from just being able to spawn a handful of vanity pets, and now I can't. It's a small cut, but it's a cut nonetheless, and it guarantees that those kinds of purchases are now completely off of my radar screen. It's obviously not enough to ragequit over, but it's one less thing tying me to the game.
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Just so you keep in mind that I'm not saying that people shouldn't buy it at that price.|
Originally Posted by Lothic
I just hope all you guys who are complaining that the "price is too high" for things like this vanity pet dog realize that for every one of you who are complaining there are probably like 5 or 10 people happily buying it for all those "too high" prices.
Paragon Studios is a company out to make money. They are setting the prices for these things at exactly the right points for them to maximize their returns. Sure we have seen that they have lowered the prices of a few things here or there, but the majority of the items for sale have stayed the same. What does that tell us? It tells me that there are plenty of people out there buying most of these things for the supposedly "too high" prices. Why on Earth would a business sell something for $1 when they have plenty of people willing to pay $5 for it? That's exactly what's happening here. So if you're mad that the items for sale in the Paragon Market are too expensive don't blame Paragon Studios, blame your fellow players who seem to be willing to throw all their hard-earned money at it. *shrugs* |
Nor am I saying that people won't buy it at that price.
All I'm saying is that I won't be buying it at that price.
The statements it's too expnsieve and it's too expensive for me are not equivalent.
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- Mahatma Gandhi
Still CoHzy after all these years...
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That would be when the wedding pack was announced, and I and others did realize this was where the game was heading and said so. It's nice knowing I was right the whole time...as usual.| Blindly buying in game items got us to the point we are in. The moment the Devs announced the micro-transaction, was the day we all should have realized that this was where the game was headed. |
The dog is too expensive. Most of what's on the market is too expensive. I just deleted and re-rolled (same AT, etc.) a level 32 character because it wasn't worth $10 to rename her. Yes, I have enough stipend points saved up to pay for a rename but that's the same as spending the money, as those points then wouldn't be available for something else.
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500 points?
LOL.
Q. Just wondering Posi, where are the new dance emotes we were told would come with GR?
A. Positron: Whoops, my bad.
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