Super Packs Update - 12/12/2011

Well, there's also the VIP/Destined One and Pocket D VIP badges, which require you to purchase specific game versions either to start or upgrade your account with...

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

Also every badge associated with Going Rogue...

-D

EDIT: Just to be clear, I'm not trying to single out badges here. I could also point out there are no story arcs in the packs. My point is just that if you're going to ask the playerbase to pay extra, it doesn't seem fair to single out only a few types of gamer.

Being the poor capitalist that I am, I'm uncomfortable asking some diehard fashionistas to subsidize my gameplay.

-D

And the Tier badges. Let's not forget those.

These aren't directly sold, i.e.; you pay money directly for these badges and only these badges. It's an incidental effect of the PRP/Old vet rewards, which is rewarding customer loyalty.

I suppose that the same argument could be made for the aforementioned badges (VIP, GR badges), but I'm not going to split hairs.

That's a shame, I'd pay for account wide Accolades.

I doubt I'm the only one.

I watched a guy in one of the larger freedom global channels repeatedly offer 100 million per mayhem mission exploration badge.

100 million each.


30 minutes after he started broadcasting, no one had yet taken him up on his offer.

See, I don't understand this. If a badge does not exist, then there is no need to collect it. And I've seen the hate the badging community lets forth when a new set of difficult badges are released; it makes the hate for the Super Packs look like mild indifference. Couple that with what seems to be general opposition to gambling with real-world money, and you'd have some intensely infuriated people firebombing the forums. Selling badges, whether directly or in Super Packs, would not make people happy.

What satisfaction would you get out of them anyway? The value of a badge is in the earning; if you could buy one, what value does it have except increasing the badge counter by one?

I was thinking of new, exclusive badges, but selling Accolades as an alternate way to get them is a fantastic idea. As much as I love the Portable Workbench, I'm never going through that work again.

(I'd vastly prefer they be sold directly and not in packs, but that's a separate issue.)

-D

"Customer loyalty" basically meaning "the payment of cash monies". This was the case since their existence, it's just become ever more apparent with the ability to cut Father Time out of the picture. But I admit it's not exactly the same as just directly selling a badge, even if the principle is ultimately the same.

Nor am I complaining about it. I might not even have noticed if not for the fact I'm bombarded with badge messages every time I make a new character.

Some people just like having things. Besides, badges also grant titles and can grant other game effects (e.g. Accolade powers or conversation options). It's true that selling badges directly devalues their use as a status symbol or career memento. Then again, restricting certain costumes (by in-game activity or money cost) penalizes the related character concepts, and that's considered acceptable.

Moreover, they can sell badges indirectly, too. The devs could offer badges for purchasing milestones - as they already do with the Paragon Rewards system. They could also add new content or game mechanics that have badges associated with them. Presumably the SSas will have a badge at some point, and it would be simple enough to add a badge for Catalyzing an ATO.

The question is if players who want those badges would be willing to pay enough for them that PS can make a profit on creating them. The whole point of Freedom was to do that. It's become routine with Costumes and powersets. It's being done with much less regularity (and quality, sadly) with story arcs, too. But so far it hasn't happened much with badges, and it's not clear to me that badges "must" be different.

Every player cares more about some aspects of the game than others, so if we're going the free to play route, I think it makes sense to offer products for everyone. Now I still despise the lottery angle, but either way the point is to let us pay for what's most important to us.


Just my opinion, of course.

-D

Actually only 1 badge associated with Going Rogue is directly bought:

Agent of Order / Agent of Chaos / Agent of Praetoria

Every other Going Rogue badge can be earned by any VIP/Subscriber.

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

And the lottery isn't a gamble because you always get a ticket out of it.

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."

The "everyone's a winner" lotteries are almost always a scam of some sort. The system can easily be abused by the sponsors by manipulating the chances to win. The majority of prizes are usually garbage that people don't really care about with only a few or just one uber rare prize. So it's still gambling, it's just been candy coated to make it go down easier.

Edit: Not saying our devs are doing this. From the info I've gotten in this thread they seem to be trying to avoid that type of shenanigans I described.

The two concepts are incompatible.

Let's say that there is a badge that is awarded for 'corpse blasting'; the Corpse Blaster badge. Getting that badge is proof that you have indeed x number of times.

If you can buy the Corpse Blaster badge, it no longer proves or even indicates that you have indeed earned it by blasting corpses.

Likewise, if there is a badge called 'Badge Buyer' that is awarded for spending 80 points specifically to buy it, then it doesn't make any sense for that badge to be awarded ingame, unless there is an ingame vendor you can actually buy it from with inf.

It'd completely destroy the badge hunting community. The whole point of it is to earn the badges ingame. Offering them for sale would completely defeat the purpose.

Also, badges and any other sorts of 'achievements' in any game are specifically designed to encourage people to do content they otherwise might not and to create a time sink so people might keep playing when they otherwise wouldn't have. Offering them for sale goes directly against the design of achievements.

Yet, you sell badges routinely with the ongoing "subscribe for 'x' months and get a badge" promotions.

Hi there, Zwil. I'm one of the folks only interested in the costume pieces. I understand that the rest of the pack's contents may hold value for some folks, just not me personally. Thanks for the attempt at some kind of in-game way of getting these packs. But sadly, it's still, "no thanks" from me.

I really hope you guys keep looking for a way to actually sell me the costume set. But no, I won't be buying a random chance at a costume piece, not with money, and not with a Reward Token. If I used a Reward Token and got no costume piece at all, I'd be furious to have wasted a token only to get nothing of value to me. I haven't used any of my tokens on the repeatable stuff yet, and have no plans to start with these gambling grab bags.

d

I think selling the accolade powers is somewhat different from selling the accolade badges, if they can decouple them. Badges serve no purpose beyond saying "I did this". The powers are usable in the game by people that hate badge hunting, so I think offering them a chance to buy them would be a good idea.

There's a huge difference. Badges aren't just things they decided to add to the game, and then decided how you'd get them. Its not like they said "lets add a Task Force Commander badge: now how should we allow players to unlock it?" The mode of awarding a badge isn't arbitrary: it exists *solely* to award for a specific activity. Each badge is bound to the activity that awards it. Allowing players to buy their way out of that activity damages the entire badge system in a way that is completely impossible for the costume system.

Costume parts are not normally bound to the method of acquisition. That's the exception to the rule. Badges are normally bound to the method of acquisition by design: that is the rule not the exception. Tampering with that in the badge system runs the risk of making the entire system pointless. That's not true for costumes.

While I agree, I would not mind being able to buy accolades outright, even if it meant that particular character never got a chance at the badge originally linked to the in-game method of getting it.

You are far from the only one. I would pay for accolades on characters and I personally know at least a dozen players who would as well (assuming a reasonable price).

I think it would be fair to say that we don't really care about the badges it takes to create the accolade as much as the accolade power itself. I believe I heard someone on the dev team say that they would consider selling the portable workbench. That's an accolade I would buy. And if they sold that as a temp power without the badges, couldn't they also sell Geas of the Kind Ones, Task Force Commander, Eye of the Magus, etc.?