cash shop – Page 3 – MMO Fallout

Rift: More Perks For Patrons, Less For Everyone Else

Trion Worlds is improving Rift, provided you’re a paying member. If not, you might log in to find your game experience is actually worse off than when you left it. Trion Worlds has been making a few controversial decisions regarding how they monetize their games over the past week, each time noting the need to enhance revenues and support their titles with the conclusion that “it’s just business.” Today, the company announced new enhancements to Rift’s patron subscription. Subscribers will enjoy immunity to soul vitality loss, a 50% discount on auction house fees and commissions, stacking charges, rest experience, and queues for specific warfronts and dungeons.

In addition to enhancing Patron status, these changes are designed to enhance the development revenues of the game as a whole, supporting the game we all love. We are fully committed to the long-term health of RIFT, and exploring options such as these that will keep Telara evolving over time

If many of the things listed above sound like features that Rift already has, that’s because they are. In enhancing Patron, Trion Worlds is actively revoking features from free players that have been present since the game went free to play. Trion Worlds waved away criticism over removing access by free players by describing the features as “not necessary in order to play.” The changes to queues, for the unaware, means free players will only be able to queue for random dungeons.

These are of course beneficial and convenient, but not necessary in order to play RIFT. Therefore, they are the sort of thing we believe should be reserved for Patrons. When we reviewed RIFT as a whole this year, we identified this as an area we had overlooked previously. On a side note, any non-patron can group with a Patron friend, who can then select specific queues for the group. In this way, a Patron provides benefits to those around them.

(Source: Rift)

Trove Forces Cash Shop, Trion Worlds “It’s Just Business”

Trion Worlds has announced that upcoming updates to Trove will increase focus on the cash shop and reduce the ability to obtain certain things through gameplay. The announcement focuses on three aspects of Trove life: Cubits, classes, and patron. For starters, users will obtain cubits at a slower initial pace, with prices on the store going up and repeatable items heading into the store at some point. In addition, it will no longer be possible to buy classes with cubits.

Patron is Trove’s subscription program. To better advertise the feature going forward, players will begin seeing more promotions on the HUD and in the store,

We want to align the business of Trove with the game of Trove as much as possible. Some of you guys here on the forums even called us out this month on how our focus seemed to be trending towards the Chaos Chest rewards and not gameplay focused rewards. That’s a case where the balance has been getting away from us, and we want to make sure we are doing the most we can to both support Trove as a game and a business in a way that is aligned, not at odds.

The post also mentions requiring patron in order to access certain features. What those features are is unknown, Trion does not go into further detail. Later on in the same thread, it is revealed that those details have not been finalized.

Right now we’re looking for the right balance, once we have a final plan for exactly what Patron will unlock I’ll be sure to post it. While we work on that I wanted to get you guys advanced word that it was something we are planning.

(Source: Trove)

Rift Forces Cash Shop, Trion Worlds “It’s Just Business”

Is Rift having financial difficulties? It sounds like a loaded question, but it’s one that many are asking in regards to a recent update and Trion Worlds’ response to player criticism. Today’s update removed the ability to purchase earring slots and Planewalker: Water via runestones, a grindable currency, making them available only through purchases in the cash shop. While players are perfectly capable of grinding in-game currency to buy REX, many players have pointed out that the platinum limit on free accounts is lower than the cost of REX, making it impossible to obtain the items without first throwing some money down on your account.

Trion’s reason for the change has similarly been met with controversy, responding that “this is a business decision,” according to community manager Eric Cleaver.

Ultimately this is a business decision, to best support RIFT moving forward into the future. We’re on the cusp right now of RIFT’s 5th Anniversary, and we’ve got great stuff planned for 2016. But that stuff takes Engineers and Designers and CS and QA and a whole lot of other folks.

Having a large team producing amazing things is a benefit to everyone who loves RIFT, both those making it and those who play it. But making games like RIFT is expensive. and so we need to sell things in game to pay those folks. We try to offer a variety of services that appeal to a broad selection of folks. Sometimes we try one thing, sometimes we try another. But it’s always a learning experience.

Both Earring Slots and Planewalker: Water went through a number of iterations during development before release, and when Nightmare Tide did release we decided at that time to allow them to be acquired via either a substantial investment of time via Voidstones or with purchase of a Nightmare Tide Collectors Edition. It’s been over a year now since that release, and the team has decided to move in a slightly different direction with these unlocks.

Incidentally, the update comes alongside a change to Rift’s referral program, and no longer allows for players to use their referral points to purchase REX.

(Source: Rift)

Play Elder Scrolls Online For Free, Unless You Can’t

Elder Scrolls Online is free this weekend for anyone who has yet to make the purchase. Well, not everyone. Xbox One players should have no problem just getting in and starting once the weekend goes live, but everyone else is going to have some issues. First, Playstation 4 players can’t get in on the weekend at all. PC players are going to have to procure a key that will be available from various partner websites.

The free weekend runs from the 10th until the 14th this month. The lack of Playstation 4 access has been blamed on “technical issues” and the company hopes to have a free weekend for the platform when those issues are resolved. For others, the game is currently 60% off with discounts on cash shop currency.

(Source: Zenimax Release)

RuneScape Members Can Pick Up Free Bank Boosters

If you’ve had a hard time dealing with a lack of bank space, your prayers have been answered. As part of today’s update, Jagex has placed two bank boosters on the RuneScape cash shop for free to active subscribers. Members can currently get their hands on three bank boosters for free, a total of 150 extra bank slots. Also available for free to members is a golden chinchompa pet, thrifty title, zen resting emote, and water dance emote.

The bank slots can be picked up via the Solomon’s General Store page on the official website.

(Source: RuneScape)

Jagex Surveying Buyable Levels For RuneScape

Jagex is polling users to determine interest in buyable levels, although denying that there are plans to introduce the feature in-game. The question popped up in an official survey, which quickly made the rounds on Reddit, prompting a response from Jagex Mod Balance. The purpose of the survey is apparently simply for data collection, with Mod Balance noting a heavily negative reaction to the idea of buying levels.

The benefit of running this survey is that we can now say “x% of players didn’t want this to happen”, instead of “players don’t want this to happen” if anyone was silly enough to seriously suggest this.

RuneScape, at least under current management, has no plans on introducing buyable levels.

(Source: Reddit)

Jagex Silences Solomon Over Player Outrage

Jagex has reigned in an update relating to a cash shop sale after customers complained that the promotion was obnoxious. In order to promote a month-long Solomon Store (cash shop) sale, Jagex placed a Solomon NPC within several cities to banter on about his deals. Players criticized the NPC text as spam, noting that in many locations he was appearing next to town heralds who were also promoting the same sale.

In response, Jagex quickly removed the Solomon NPCs from all locations except his permanent home in Varrok, while town heralds are still promoting the sale at a less intrusive rate. Jagex has since apologized over Twitter, declaring the NPC placement to be a mistake.

RuneScape’s cash shops continue to be a hot button issue over the perception that content is being withheld from the game in order to be monetized over limited time Treasure Hunter promotions.

(Source: Reddit)

[Editorial] Gem Store Update Poorly Introduced, Response Even Worse

The latest gem store update to Guild Wars 2 has had players up in arms, and it’s hard not to sympathize with their position. Previously, buying and selling gems was a process that involved deciding how much you wanted to buy/sell, setting an asking price, and waiting until your order was filled. If you wanted enough gems for a Black Lion chest key, you could get it. If you had 124 gems and wanted an item that cost 125 gems, you could buy that extra gem.

If you can figure out what is wrong with the new gem shop interface in the screenshot above, you probably don’t work for Arenanet. Given that the trade shop was built to be flexible and user-friendly, the change to a system that is entirely based on fixed, inflexible increments seems counterproductive and quite baffling in its logic, but so far Arenanet doesn’t seem to understand why players would be angry about being forced to buy 400 gems minimum.

As seems to be the popular excuse, Arenanet blamed the update on new players not understanding the system, a problem that apparently only exists in Arenanet’s customer support tickets. Communications team lead Gaile Gray has not helped the situation by going on the offensive against players in the forums. In her first response, Gray explained that “very few people bought gems at smaller denominations.” Following pages of complaints and suggestions, Gray made another post making no acknowledgement of the previous suggestions and instead decrying “most” of the posters as nonconstructive ranters.

Ok, guys. Some of you are unhappy about this change, I can see that. BUT… quite honestly, most of you are sort of (I hate to use the word) ranting (sorry!) instead of offering suggestions.

The comment on this update being geared towards new players is suspicious at best, considering that the lowest increment of gems now costs 75 gold. How many new players are going to have 75 gold to spend on the gem store? None. The only impact that this could conceivably have on new players is to remove their ability to purchase smaller amounts of gems and funnel them toward buying the gems with real money.

Guild Wars 2 has a habit of introducing updates which beg the question “who asked for this?” The answer is usually a lot of unseen people who submit support tickets and then apparently never feel the need to discuss the matter anywhere else, because if you searched the forums you wouldn’t come up with many, if any, results.

Arenanet has already confirmed that an update will allow player to use either system to their choosing, begging the question on why it wasn’t just included in the first place.

Trion Worlds Reverses Labor Potion Changes

Trion Worlds has released the latest patch notes for ArcheAge, revealing that the labor point potion has been reverted back to its original 12-hour cooldown. This isn’t the first time ArcheAge has seen controversial items altered or outright removed from the cash shop, with Trion Worlds claiming complete control over what is available and at what price.

The Workman’s Compensation labor potion has been returned to 12-hour cooldown and price of 300 Credits.

ArcheAge is currently in head start with full launch on September 16th.

(Source: ArcheAge)

Funcom Management Pulled Mankini

Those of you who follow The Secret World likely already know the story, but last week saw the addition and sudden removal of a mankini outfit from the in-game cash shop as part of the April Fool’s day patch. Not only was the item removed from the game without explanation, it was also removed and a refund applied to those who had already purchased the suit.

Joel Bylos posted on the official forums to explain that miscommunication caused the

To be clear: the Mankini outfit (and the wetsuit) was definitely an April Fool’s joke, and it was always my intention to have them be available for a limited time only in the store. However, it was never my intention to pull them from players who actually bought these items. Unfortunately, there was a miscommunication between my team and Funcom management on how this was to be handled. Funcom management feels strongly that the Mankini outfit goes against what The Secret World intellectual property (IP) is all about and they did not want this item to stay in the game permanently.

Bylos assured the community that Funcom is working to ensure that such a situation is not repeated in the future.

(Source: TSW Forums)

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