P-Store Feedback that bears repeating

I'm sure there are already numerous threads about this BUT this bears repeating again and again to whomever at Paragon or NC Soft is managing the Paragon Store till you guys get this right:

There should be a simple easy to locate button that any visitor to the store can press to see with absolute clarity the very newest releases in order of their release. Yes today the pilgrim hat did miraculously make it to the front page of "Featured"--but it is at the bottom of the page below street justice & enhancement inventory ??? because I can only view "new" items ordered by price, best selling or alphabetical. bwuh??? And then when I click the "New" tab, this is what I see in order on the front page: Valkyrie Smooth Boots, Vanguard Shoulder 1, Vanguard Shoulder 2, Character Server Transfer. And that's sorted by "best selling." We all know none of those items are "new" in any meaningful use of the word.

It's absurd that this aspect of the store interface currently is as poorly executed as it currently is. As a potential and semi-eager customer, I should not have to hunt and peck through a zillion pages or jump out of the store interface, log in to the forums (that still log me out between each visit despite resetting my forum password) and then check the beta boards to see what item might or might not be in the store based on what has been in testing.

To be absolutely clear: there should be a page that, on today in particular, would show a release history from newest to oldest along the lines of:

• Pilgrim Hat - released 11/22
• German Shepherd - released 11/15
• Autumn Path Aura - released 11/8

One could perhaps forgive the mediocre UI on AE, but the equally poor one for the Paragon Market is just CoH power-blasting itself in the foot.

I find the Paragon Market interface to be counter-intuitive at best. How would I pick out a single piece out of a costume set, or how would I find the complete costume set? I am sure it can be done, but my initial efforts at doing so were an exercise in frustration. So as SilverAgeFan notes, we have to look things up in the Forums or on CoHTitan and then search them down in the Market.

I understand that when I cannot find something in the Forums, the snarking about my Search-Fu being terrible can provide laughs, and the Devs probably do not lose a wink of sleep over it. But when I am trying to give the Devs money and it is very difficult to do so... that is madness. It should be a simple, easy process, and if it is not, that is revenue down the drain. The Market should be such that even a stumblebum like myself can get rid of my cash in a good cause, ie, making CoH profitable.

The Paragon Store UI was designed by the offspring of a cretin and a moron, obviously. It's awful. Impulse buys are one of my things, I'm infamous for it among my friends. The paragon Store UI has cured me of that in terms of CoH it seems.

Don't you want more of my money, NCSoft?

Eco

Quote:

Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow [The Incarnate System is] Jack Emmert all over again, only this time it's not "1 hero = 3 white minions" it's "1 hero = 3 white rocks."

Other things I would like to see improved:

- The 'Buy Now' and 'Wish list' buttons really should go away on one off items I already have (costume parts, power sets, ...). If it can track those things on your account, then why not on the market?

- If individual costume items are part of a complete set or bundle it should be included in their description.

- A minor thing, but: If I select, for example, Powers -> Power Sets I would like to get a complete overview with all available power sets. Now I have to select again Melee/Ranged/Support before I even get to see one. The same for Costumes -> Costume Sets. I know you can select 'Costume Bundles' here to get an overview, but less clicks is better, so that category would become redundant. There are a lot more categories were an instant overview like that would be an improvement imo.

I honestly don't know if I could design a worse UI than the Paragon Market one if I tried.

I'm a veteran player, and usually know what I'm looking for when I enter the store, and I still have a difficult time finding what I'm looking for. Today being Tues., I was looking to see if anything new was out, and found I could buy Street Justice. Or, under new, Valkyrie Boots (which I've had for what, 2 years?). Heaven forbid I was a new player. I'd be totally lost! (Whereas, being a vet, am only partially lost )

That's just sort of silly.

I would like to see things like costumes or IO's listed first by bundles/sets, with a sub-file under the bundle/set for the purchase of the individual pieces.

I'd also like to clearly see what I already have, and what I don't have. What about making the "buy now" button red, to show that you have this item, when it's a non-repeatable? For the heck of it, I tried to buy something I knew I had, and found it wouldn't allow me to actually purchase it. That's good! But how about letting me know I can't buy it before I go through 3 or 4 screens? Why not show that you're the honorable folks at Paragon we know you to be, and refuse to let me purchase something I've already got? Or, if it's a repeatable item, offer a prompt saying "you have already purchased this item. Are you sure you want another one?" Honestly, these small things would show an awful lot of good faith for customers. Besides which, if the items were listed as I previously suggested, AND the "buy now" buttons were red, I could very easily identify what I haven't yet purchased in that category. Not only would that be helpful for me, but it would be like waving a red flag in front of a bull to all us collectors who MUST have the complete set!

If I'm not moving too far afield, I find the descriptions of items to be not especially informative. A nice sales pitch in there would be helpful. Don't just tell me what it is. Tell me how I use it, what it does for me, and why I now find that I really need it!

Despite the harshness of the criticisms posted, I really do hope someone is reading this. What the posts are trying to say is PLEASE LET US GIVE YOU MONEY!

Paged UIs are sooooo 2002. A scrolling list would be much better. Load the first page worth, then do the rest in the background with AJAX as necessary. Use anchors on each item to make sure to return the user to the position in list if they navigate away and then back.

"Add to cart" shouldn't navigate you away to a different page, it should just... add it to the cart. And let you keep browsing so you can easily buy more stuff.

For goodness sake hide items you already own. Link costume items to the packs that they're part of and vice versa. This is the web, there's this thing called hyperlinks...

I forget who, but the developer who maintains the store descriptions said in the panel at the summit said he was limited to something like 480 characters. Why on earth was a brand new system designed that way?!

Search! Google understands this. Why should I have to navigate through pages and pages of items if I'm looking for something in particular and can type 4 letters to clue the system in?

I know you guys are using a full embedded web browser based on WebKit, you can do better than this old school CGI rubbish.

I get the impression that the market interface was contracted out to either a third party or a different business unit -- you guys really need to have direct control over this stuff and an in-house web developer, because the poor market UI could really hurt your bottom line.

>_>

<_<

http://tinyurl.com/CompleteParagonMarketListing

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nethergoat it's NEVER too late to pad your /ignore list!

I have to agree with all of the above. My last visit to the store resulted in my having to alt-tab out to do research on the forums and 3rd party sites to confirm that the items I wanted to get were indeed included in the Costume Pack I was considering.

Why on earth can we not get an itemized listing of what's in a pack -before- purchase? I shouldn't have to hit the forum and try to find a player created thread listing it, nor should I have to use Paragonwiki or the like.

I've seen items on there that seemed interesting, but without knowing what's in them, I'm not going to purchase.

One good example is the Magic Bolero cap. My kiddo bought this single item and we know how expensive it is to buy this item by itself. I just cringed when I found out she could have gotten that cape inside a costume pack for half the price. Makes me wonder if the lack of clarity is more a deliberate marketing strategy and not an oversight or poor coding.

Really a poor show there, if that's the case.

A few days ago, I purchased the cape and aura unlocks. I don't want to say how long it took me to find those, either, it's just embarrassing. When I couldn't find it in any of the categories that seemed logical to me, I used the search "capes, unlock" - and found myself back to pages and pages of capes that come from costume sets that I already own. *sigh*

I finally found it, but could not tell you where. And the thing is, they were really cheap. 180pp apiece, which I think is a fabulous deal! Real money, that's what - $2.00?

Do I think others out there would be buying this in droves? Yes, I do. But it's hard as heck to find, even when you know exactly what you're looking for. It's only via forum discussion that I understood that this purchase worked on ALL my characters. Forever. That, for around two bucks, I would never have to spend an hour traipsing all over the city on street hunt after street hunt, trying to find Rikti monkeys in Crey's Folly who won't kill me ('cause that is a seriously depressing thing, getting offed by stoopid MONKEYS!), and ending up on rocks outside frigging Terra Volta, to find the only DE I know of I can defeat on a level 30 squishy.

I wonder how many other gems I've bypassed? I really do wonder... but not enough to try to navigate the store again for awhile.