Why do devs keep making these retarded cash shop MMORPGs that all fail?

[EchoedTruth]

Originally Posted by Noselacri [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Has there ever been a pay4power MMORPG that wasn't a complete and utter fiasco?

Neverwinter had its soft release yesterday (the open beta scheme where they launch the game but reserve the right to excuse all problems with "it's still beta") and it's just blatant pay2win.

You can buy all sorts of nonsense with cash, like full heal potions with 200 charges when the normal potions available in-game are more like WoW's potions: fairly costly and heal you for like 30%. Since potions have almost no cooldown in Neverwinter, you can literally eliminate the need for a healer if you pay the dollar bills it takes.

If you die, you can click a button to insta-rez yourself right there for 5 Zen (half a dollar) and you can buy the in-game currencies with cash. You can also buy shit like AoE rez scrolls, bonus packs with insanely overpowered low-level gear, and all the other typical thinly-veiled pay2win shit.

Everything can technically be obtained via gameplay, but of course they've designed it so it takes so long it might as well not be possible. The aforementioned 200-charge full heal potion? Estimated time to grind: 55 hours at current Astral Diamond to Zen conversion rates.

You also have to buy bags with Zen (or grind for days and days and days to get enough AD to buy the Zen) and high-level companions have to be bought as well. Anyone so inclined can swing the credit card and buy their endgame purples that way, or exp boosts that let them level from 1 to 60 in an afternoon.

Needless to say, this game will be dead within the month. My question is: why the shitting fuck do idiot developers keep making games like this? Is it really profitable or are they just failing over and over, making the same mistakes as the last thirty groups of morons did?¨

It's a real shame because the gameplay is kind of fun but who in their right mind is gonna make a serious commitment to a game that quite literally lets people buy cheat codes for $$$?

Is this an expansion to the current D&D? Looks pretty awesome... hope it's not pay2win. Path of Exile is great because of that.

[Noselacri]

No it's a new game set in the same Forgotten Realms setting and with gameplay that's vaguely inspired by D&D. It's not D&D, they just made it look a little like it on the surface with the stats and such.

It's 90% pay2win. Depends a bit on your interpretation of pay2win, and some don't think it is unless there's actually stuff you can only buy for $$$ that's better than the best gear that can be obtained via gameplay. It isn't as bad as that, but it's pretty close. It's clear that the game is just made to try and funnel people towards the cash shop before they inevitably quit after a month.

You can purchase the RMT currency called Zen, with which you can buy a number of things ranging from bags (which, aside from like two quest rewards, can only be obtained by buying with Zen) to mounts and companions (basically like modern EQ's mercs) to an in-game currency called Astral Diamonds. ADs are like a separate currency from the largely useless coppe/silver/gold standard. You use AD to buy high-end items and can also trade it for Zen on the AH.

You can get AD by refining some crystals that you get from doing dungeons and such, but you can only create 24k AD per day, and you're not even guaranteed to be able to get that much in the first place. The conversion ratio of AD to Zen right now is something like 500:1, and a 24-slot bag costs 1500 Zen. That's 750k AD for a bag, you can't get them in any other way. It's 800k AD for just the tier 2 mount, I don't even wanna know what the higher ones cost. Actual gear costs even more than that, per piece. You can also get AD by selling stuff on the AH, but clearly not in amounts that make those prices reasonable. It'll take weeks and weeks of grinding just to get basic shit like bags and the best companions, not to mention gear. You can get gear from dungeons as well, but who is gonna take a game seriously when people can just legally RMT the best stuff?

It's just a cash grab game. It's not even great gameplay, it just has nice controls and physics. The content is literally just 5-man dungeons, including the endgame, and everything is 100% on rails. The itemization and class specs are super primitive and there are only five classes at the moment, with only one tank and one healer. It wouldn't be a good game even if it wasn't pay2win, but it could have become decent if they actually add content at a decent rate. The cash shit will kill it within the month, unfortunately.

There are all kinds of other examples, it's not just about bags and mounts. Crafting is barely viable if you don't pay extra to speed it up, for instance. You only have two fucking character slots unless you buy more. A goddamn respec costs 200k AD, that's the better part of a week's worth of AD for ordinary players. Basically everything is made to be so retardedly expensive that it's effectively impossible unless you pay their absurdly high cash shop prices -- the 24-slot bag mentioned above cost $15 per, and fucking keys to open lockboxes you find in the game cost $1 each and can only be bought with actual cash. Their forum fanboys keep insisting that it totally isn't pay2win because there's nothing that's literally unobtainable without paying, but in reality it's all carefully designed to be so prohibitively time-consuming to do for free that you feel like you only have two choices: pay or quit.

[MrSparkle001]

Isn't it the same people in charge of Star Trek Online? That game is a pay to win fiasco. It even has that ridiculous lockbox system where you buy keys for boxes that may contain that rare item you want but probably contain crap. It's basically gambling and some people are dumb enough to spend hundreds of dollars on it. Seriously, wtf?

The astral diamond mechanic sounds exactly like STO's dilithium mechanic. It's a ridiculous system.

It all reeks of asian cash shop MMO mediocrity (which most asian MMOs are lately), and if I'm not mistaken they are an asian MMO company so they're doing exactly what's expected, only they're fucking up beloved franchises. Star Trek? Doesn't get much bigger than that franchise but they fucked it all up. Neverwinter? It's beloved. Seems they fucked that up too.

(this game sounds way too much like Star Trek Online. So disappointing)

[Swish]

Popular franchises have all taken a dive I'd argue.

Star Trek, The Matrix, LOTR(O), Warcraft (while successful, the lore has been generally bent/twisted/ruined)...probably a half dozen others, D&D online?

Stat Trek is a special one though, people pay way over the odds for anything Star Trek related - DVD/Blu-ray boxset prices are just the tip of the iceberg, some signed photos go into the $1000s. What's another $100 to people like that? All because its Star Trek. I find that sad and amusing.

[Mandalore93]

I actually really enjoyed LOTRO through the first expansion. I feel like they really nailed the lore and feel of that universe extremely well in a very hard to hit category such as MMOs. The cash shop has become a bit bloated but most of that is cosmetic or just the free to play options to try and catch up to what the subscribers get.

[Rhambuk]

Originally Posted by Swish [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

All because its Star Trek. I find that sad and amusing.

Makes me sad to think that there are people with this much money to throw away on literally nothing, nothing, nothing...

Some people shouldn't be allowed to decide what to do with their own money

[SamwiseRed]

matrix online was kinda cool. pve was repetitive so all the bluebies eventually got bored and left leaving a gankfest behind. lots of pvp to be had which was good. i liked the idea of 3 faction pvp (like sullon zek) and continuing the storyline from the movies was pretty interesting although we never got to see neo. before i quit Morpheus got assassinated.

[myriverse]

Is there really a difference between "pay4power" and paying extra for an EQ expansion that will no doubt include NO DROP items? I want Sleeper's Tomb loot, but I don't wanna pay for Velious! :\

[Rhambuk]

Originally Posted by myriverse [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Is there really a difference between "pay4power" and paying extra for an EQ expansion that will no doubt include NO DROP items? I want Sleeper's Tomb loot, but I don't wanna pay for Velious! :\

If you had to buy velious, then buy st loot.

[skorge]

who cares, either way shit gets sold for cash even here on p99 RMT goes on (see the first main thread on the homepage), the company might as well try to make some money off of it instead of others...that way they are more likely to put more in to make the game better (fix bugs faster, etc)...everyone is entitled to their own opinion; and no i havent made cash on a game since dark age of camelot in 2000 or 2001; in the end it still comes down to is it a good game or not?