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
when this game decides to call it quits, I would like a fully functional offline version of the beta server and the ability for player made and run servers... so the game will continue 
Ignoring anyone is a mistake. You might miss something viral to your cause.
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People actually use transfers?
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Originally Posted by Venture
Using the transfer tokens has the same implications as spending points -- those tokens are then not available for transfers, etc.
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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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That would be true if transfers were not essentially worthless things. It's like a store telling me I can exchange used lotto tickets for money. Even if I can only use that fake money on a limited service, it's still a big step up in utility.
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Originally Posted by Venture
Using the transfer tokens has the same implications as spending points -- those tokens are then not available for transfers, etc.
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+perception and then make it not work in PVP.|
Originally Posted by MrHassenpheffer
for the price being charged I'd expect it to provide an aoe +tohit
that would fit the whole watchdog theme. |
Essentially worthless (other than noticing Sister Jocasta when her green triangle mysteriously disappears), so you don't have to worry about pay-to-win, but at least it wouldn't be the big nothing that it is now.
Sigh.. I said +tohit... I MEANT +Perception, and yes disable it in pvp.
Thanks
200 pp's and I'd buy it.
/signed
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Along with all the stuff I spent time acquiring, and my time is worth more to me than a couple of bucks. But that's the nature of playing an online game. One day it will all be gone, and I won't be able to take it with me when they go.
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Originally Posted by Fluorescent
My point being is this: It's spending real money on items you don't actually physically own. Which means if CoH just decides to one day call it quits, all the cool stuffs you bought is just gone.
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Perfect person to ask, so please be patient with me wise one.|
Originally Posted by Arcanaville
Along with all the stuff I spent time acquiring, and my time is worth more to me than a couple of bucks. But that's the nature of playing an online game. One day it will all be gone, and I won't be able to take it with me when they go.
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how feasible would it be to make this a offline pc game, with the possibility of online multiplayer... just without updates?
a <poor?> example would be something like command and conquer...
I guess what i'm getting at is I think there is a way or at least there should be a way to keep this game from vanishing into the ether.
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a taco bell chihuahua? o wait the taco bell chihuahua died and now is the burrito grande....
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Originally Posted by Niklarus
Meh. I'm waiting for the Combat Chihuahua.
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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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A question and a comment. |
Originally Posted by Dispari
Mmh, I don't know about that. Games like Modern Warfare have had people shooting and stabbing trained attack dogs for a while and they're still doing fine.
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Question: Aren't the MW games all rated M, other than the DS version of the first one?
Comment: I see a difference in reaction to the depiction of people stabbing things that are attacking them and people summoning a "pet" to strap a bomb to.
I've seen extreme reactions over less, is all I'm saying, and I wouldn't be surprised if PS were being forced to take this into account.
My postings to this forum are not to be used as data in any research study without my express written consent.
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The problem is that it's all proprietary software, which you're unlikely to ever get the right to run. Outside of that, it's not rocket science - equipped with a current build and documentation, it would be the work of an afternoon (or five) to set it up in a cloud environment. Running it on a PC is a significantly bigger challenge though.
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Originally Posted by MrHassenpheffer
Perfect person to ask, so please be patient with me wise one.
how feasible would it be to make this a offline pc game, with the possibility of online multiplayer... just without updates? a <poor?> example would be something like command and conquer... I guess what i'm getting at is I think there is a way or at least there should be a way to keep this game from vanishing into the ether. |
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When you pay a subscription, it is basically a deal between you and the gaming company to have permission to use their servers for a period of time. When the time ends you pay for more time. So If the game ends that deal ends.
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Okay, how is that any different from paying for any MMO in the first place? If the game shuts down, everything you paid for vanishes. Be it subscription fees, box sales or microtransactions, you're paying for the experience. Once it's over, the only thing you get to keep is the memories. This is neither unusual nor unsavory. |
I just spent my paycheck on twelve of the German Shepherd pets. Yes, twelve of them to support both the new model and to keep high prices going. I think this is a great idea personally, as it will cause more people NOT to buy them, making them rares, therefore making the people that buy LOTS of them uberl33t super VIPs who are better than everyone else, like me.
To everyone who has NOT purchased seven or more of said canine minion, get on your knees and kneel before Zem.
At 500 Points I'd want it to be something useful solo, like this:
The German Shepard pet is targetable and damageable, but has high defense and resistance (50% Resistance to all and 15-20% Defense).
The German Shepard pet has 3 powers:
1: Howl - this power causes it to shout at a critter that damaged it's owner, having a high chance of taunting the target for a couple seconds (enemies near the target have a small chance of taunt).
2: Scavenge - Moderate (10-15 second) recharge power that requires a defeated enemy: The power gives a random inspiration to the owner, and has a small (5%) chance of giving a piece of salvage or enhancement to the owner.
3: Rest - While the German Shepard is lying down, it's HP will replenish at a fast rate. It won't use this in combat.
Give it that, and I'll pay 500 points. Otherwise my cutoff remains 240.
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Originally Posted by Shubbie
Im very good at taking a problem and making it worse.
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There's nothing wrong with the price... if the dog did more. I'm not saying it needs to be a combat pet or anything like that. It's simply... kind of 'lame' in regards of what /I/ would want out of an animal companion. I was expecting a 'Tricks' or something. Making it roll over, or bark, or some such interaction.|
Originally Posted by Dr_Zemius
I just spent my paycheck on twelve of the German Shepherd pets. Yes, twelve of them to support both the new model and to keep high prices going. I think this is a great idea personally, as it will cause more people NOT to buy them, making them rares, therefore making the people that buy LOTS of them uberl33t super VIPs who are better than everyone else, like me.
To everyone who has NOT purchased seven or more of said canine minion, get on your knees and kneel before Zem. |
I wouldn't pay $5 to take care of someone's retarded pet. I'd expect to be paid, and this is no exception!
... Except if it were a Shiba or Corgi I'd be all over it so don't mind me.
PS: Print Screen/Paste your receipt.
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"I" don't buy stuff that I am not going to use. The things i'll use are those that fit into character concepts. Knowing there is a Dog pet, got me thinking of a Blind character that due to psychic ability does not need to maintain their guide dog on a leash, and in fact communicates non stop with their "buddy". Seems like a nifty Psi character to me.. andi might just get the dog to make that character!!.... Prior to thinkin on such things i was not going to get thedog... but i might now.|
Originally Posted by Celidya
I sure won't purchase that stuff, however, to give more precise "feedback" if it matters.
The issue is NOT about having something interesting for every player every week. I don't care much if what's on the store isn't interesting for me each week, however, i'd just like to see the good stuff being released instead of getting pushed back in the hope peoples will buy the other junk meanwhile. The only decent thing (and i mean, stuff that looks worth its price and worth a weekly release) for the past 3 weeks has been the autumn aura for me. While i didn't buy it as i'm not interested, i'm actually fine with it and it's a decent item in the market. The undead survival kit was an insult to anyone's intelligence, the dog is almost as bad though it had at least some dev time behind to justify 1/10th of the price (as i'm sure they'll release dozens of other useless pets on that rig to make some profit out of it anyway). Vanity item ? Hell i'll sure don't forget to make fun of anyone buying them and make some comments on the beast to make sure they think twice about buying such things later. They'll have a run for their money on being the laughing stock if they want to feel unique. Good thing, i've only seen one today on my server, and most of the peoples on the server chat were already making fun of it and adding that to the pile of useless stuff to avoid buying. Though i'm just wondering what's the point currently: infuriate and alienate the VIP playerbase while making some profit on newcomers who don't realize the real value of such stuff ? Because right now releasing such "deals" while on top of that providing awful support and updates full of bugs is quite a sure way to do it. And each week i see more and more regular players disgusted and angry at the market. So yeah for the very first time since i play this game i went from being confident and appreciating the Paragon team to feeling the same as in most other games. So now i just hope that the other new game coming out in december will drive all the free players and compulsive buyers away and bring some reality check to Paragon Studios when it comes to which part of the playerbase is worth pleasing, and where they'll get the money in the long run. At least make some "sales" and use common sense for marketing, or just pretend to not be such a bunch of greedy marketing guys, because right now the only thing i get out of that shop is that the team behind it doesn't deserve ANY cent that i don't find necessary for what i really need. That's pretty much like these little shops were you step in, grab the only item you want then pay and leave fast with a bad feeling because you know you just got robbed and had no other choice, rather than the friendly one where you feel like staying a bit and look what's on sale because it looks nice, it's priced fairly and the seller is friendly enough. Not exactly a good feeling and hardly a viable plan once all the "buy it now" crowd will move to the next game with all the cool kids on it, imo. |
Similarly I still havent gotten the CoT costume set. I'll need to see what it looks like a bit more and then maybe a week or a month from now, i might have an idea how to use it, THEN I will probably buy it.
I have certainly invested into the increased storage, and would infact love to see storage increases for Inspirations and Personal Vault storage. I have only bought the first increases to storage because of the price... but those increases have certainly made life much easier in-game ... I chuckle when a teamy has to "go sell" every second mission
.I will not rant about how this should be lower, or this should have more perks. I think it is much more constructive, to proffer my buying habits or motivations. If there was something I would suggest?
Base Packs.... lots of different flavoured base packs. I'd pay a gazillion points just for a Wallpaper pack with different prints, either double sided or made so can rotate and create Nice Thin Walls!!!.
Or Base Npc's bought as single character specific SG bound buys... make them randomly spawn in a door in-base and go on a random path every time someone zones into the base. Or tie them to an object, and give them a one-liner. You could sell different themed Npc's like Nurse, Doctor, Mehanic, Pilot, Doorman, Butler, Cop, Scientist!!!... bet people would buy Those no matter the price
Base pack: XXXX-room packs!!!.. a kitchen Pack with stoves, fridges, fruit bowls, plates in single, plates in stack horizontal, and plates vertically slotted. etc. Lounge room pack with a TV that shows the video feed of either rogue isles or Praetorian newsfeed loops..not sure if there are others in game(?). Bathroom Pack with a bath that has water in it!!.. A bed roompack with closets,beds, cushions, a rug or two!!!......
-.-
Those are things i would buy
.... well those and a shapeshifter powerset
Most people have an issue with the price of the German Shepard not that it is something being sold. There have been several things I have not been interested in and things I have been.
As Z said not everything is going to be for everyone. Which I think we all agree it is the price of the German Shepard and how the Paragon Market has been set.
It is the price from people I have talked to on 3 servers not the idea of the dog.
I can see this being cool with a lower price and a different animal from the people I have talked too. People are not against the idea of the Non Combat Pet but the price. PRICE.
Even here in this thread it is the biggest complaint. But this is a feed back thread does not mean all the feedback on the item will be what the company wants to hear but they should be listening.
We the players want this to work as much as the Devs.
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OK, not that I believe you but here goes.|
Originally Posted by Dr_Zemius
I just spent my paycheck on twelve of the German Shepherd pets.
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You spent your paycheck on twelve pets. That wording generally means you spent the whole thing... that means your paycheck was about $75... If you weren't yanking our chains - which I firmly believe you are - you have bigger issues to worry about than getting our worship.
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Originally Posted by Dispari
I don't know why Dink thinks she's not as sexy as Jay was. In 5 posts she's already upstaged his entire career.
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Technologically possible. Not especially likely. However, the longer the game lasts, the more likely it is that most of the technological assets within it will be sufficiently out of date compared to the current state of the art that when the game finally does shut down there's at least the minute possibility of convincing NCSoft to open the source to the game and release it to the community so the game could continue to run somewhere.|
Originally Posted by MrHassenpheffer
Perfect person to ask, so please be patient with me wise one.
how feasible would it be to make this a offline pc game, with the possibility of online multiplayer... just without updates? a <poor?> example would be something like command and conquer... I guess what i'm getting at is I think there is a way or at least there should be a way to keep this game from vanishing into the ether. |
But that's probably a thousand to one shot.
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No, when you pay a subscription, its exactly a deal between you and the gaming company to allow you to use both the hardware and the software that comprise the game, and to access and use the data within that game. Its spelled out in the EULA, and also obvious to most game players.|
Originally Posted by Fluorescent
When you pay a subscription, it is basically a deal between you and the gaming company to have permission to use their servers for a period of time. When the time ends you pay for more time. So If the game ends that deal ends.
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At least, that is what a subscription *used* to entitle me to. Under City of Heroes Freedom, a subscription specifically entitles me to access a certain set of assets and content of the game above and beyond what a non-subscriber has access to by default, and grants me a certain number of Paragon Points which I can use to unlock additional in-game options.
That's no different from the micro-transactions in the game. When I buy Paragon Points with cash, I'm paying for an in-game currency that I can use to unlock access to certain game features while the game exists. I'm not buying the dog in any sense of there existing some bits somewhere that I actually own. I'm just unlocking the dog for use by my characters so long as the game is running. That is no different from a subscription that allows me to access other game elements. I pay for access, and when the game is gone my access will disappear with it. I don't own a dog that will be taken away from me when the game shuts down. I have access to a dog that I will lose access to when the game shuts down.
I know what I'm spending my money on, and I'm fully aware of the impermanence of it all.
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Originally Posted by Zwillinger
And that's you. I promise you that many, many people found storage increases compelling, many, many folks found costume slots compelling...etc...
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Preface: I really am unlikely to have a beef with the market. I'll buy what I want and I won't buy what I don't want. It's all a bonus we didn't have before, I'm paying the same sub, more options, etc. I bought into that. (As long as the issue content for vips keeps coming, I'm happy.)
Second preface: I spent 5 years working at a company that sells purely digital downloads (3d art models/textures/etc), and I have two pieces of advice. The first is: you're right to be careful about sales, because people get trained to wait for sales.
The second is: be mindful that your competition is basically "everything else someone can spend their entertainment dollars on". You are competing against hollywood movies, dining out, music, other games (mmo or not), etc. You win by giving people "more" for their money. Let's say for example that you have an option to sell 2k german shepherd at $5, or 5k german shepherds at $2. Which is better? Well, 5k german shepherds. Because you're adding more value to the experience of more players.
That's my 2 points worth.
Which leads me to my final point: you may be tempted to look at the sales of individual items, and ask: "What is the most we can get for this item?" or "What price lets us get the best revenue from this item?" However, I'd say this is a very dangerous point of view.
- The more people spend on any given item you sell, the less they have for other things.
- The more value you deliver, the more likely someone is to spend more of their total discretionary cash on your items. Someone may only spend $5 to buy a german shepherd every other month, but if they can get a german shepherd for $2, and 20 hours of bonus xp for $2, and a costume code for $2, maybe they spend $6. The question is not: do you want to sell the german shepherd, the costume code, and the 20 hours of xp boosters for $2 each. The question is really: do you want $5 or $6 in revenue?
Of course, my example is simplifying the situation. Still...
Some people are going to be willing to pay tons more, but that doesn't make it the best option. We sold products that were $30 for years, and literally years after release garnered more revenue putting them on sale for $2. There really seems to be some hockey-stick line for certain products where people just buy them on a whim. It may be this behavior only kicks in for sales (because ours were not permanent price cuts; although we did buy out products we were brokering and then sell them dirt cheap and make it up on volume.) Running 50% off sales will not necessarily show you what you'd get for 80% off or 90% off. You may discover that you can see 1000 copies of a german shepherd at $5, but that if you sell it for $1, everyone and their mother buys it because it's just a buck. There are inflection points.
(But if you reach those inflection points by having sales, I cannot emphasize enough - people will get used to waiting for them.)
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I have a very large paycheck, and I live in my mother's basement. I spent the rest on taco bell and superhero feety pajamas. They were Kryptonite encrusted feety pajamas, and it was real Kryptonite, so they were very expensive. The only issues I worry about are finding time to shower and not getting enough followers on Tumblr.
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Originally Posted by Aggelakis
OK, not that I believe you but here goes.
You spent your paycheck on twelve pets. That wording generally means you spent the whole thing... that means your paycheck was about $75... If you weren't yanking our chains - which I firmly believe you are - you have bigger issues to worry about than getting our worship. |
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I'm only really familiar with one other game, but WoW's vanity pets are all $10; only the mounts are $25. CoH doesn't have mounts, but if they were offering a "pet" which you could ride like a travel power, you might be able to get 2500 points for it. (Or not. WoW also doesn't really have toggles, and the rocket board is inconvenient because of the detoggling.)|
Originally Posted by Thrillseeker
Last point: Other games have vanity pets. They have historicly charged up to $25 for them, and at most people could use them as an alternate mount for travel. The dog is 500 pts aka $6.25 approximate. There was as much complaints about those $25 pets in other games as there is about this dog, in ratio with the number of players we have. I don't think the Paragon Studios folks are going to drop the price any, except in sales. But I could be wrong. Have fun, folks! And be good... if you can't be good, be careful... or just play bull in the china shop! |
But then again, I've never really cared about the MVAS, the other vet reward pet, etc. It's cool that people like them. It's a funny thing about digital goods. Say I'd pay $1 on a whim for the dog. NCsoft is clearly better off with my $1 than without, but there's no way to really sell it to me for the price I'd pay, while still collecting a higher price from someone else who likes pets more. So it makes sense for them to price it so their total revenue is the highest, even if that means I can't get it. (*Sort of. I made this point in another post, but it's better really to maximize the revenue from all products, which may mean selling individual products for less, so people spend more of their overall budget on the CoH store goods instead of other entertainment.)
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Oho!
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Originally Posted by Dr_Zemius
I have a very large paycheck, and I live in my mother's basement. I spent the rest on taco bell and superhero feety pajamas. They were Kryptonite encrusted feety pajamas, and it was real Kryptonite, so they were very expensive. The only issues I worry about are finding time to shower and not getting enough followers on Tumblr.
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Do we truly own anything in the physical world either? Once you pass along from life to death it's no longer yours. Following your argument to it's natural conclusion, why spend money on anything tangible or intangible for one day it will all disappear.|
Originally Posted by Fluorescent
My point being is this: It's spending real money on items you don't actually physically own. Which means if CoH just decides to one day call it quits, all the cool stuffs you bought is just gone. |
The point is if you enjoy it for the time you have it, then perhaps it is worth the money (i.e. worth trading some of your life for, how much of your life depends on how much you get paid per hour of your life).
Not if they call it quits. When. This game will end. I'm not trying to call DOOOOOOOOOOM and saying it'll happen next week, next month, or even next year. And for that matter, by the time it does, I may no longer be interested in playing anymore, anyway. But this is not a case where this might happen, this is a case where this will happen, some day.
Personally, I'm not concerned with that. Money I spend on this game goes into my entertainment budget along with all other books, movies, collectables, etc. So as long as the money I'm putting into the game results in me being entertained, then that's all fine. However, people who want their investments to last in a permanent and indefinite sort of way, one day, will find themselves in a position where the servers are closed, and they're not going to get back the $6.25 they spent on a Wolf pet, or the $10 they spent on Titan Weapons, or any of those other things, and that's something they need to accept when they make their purchases.