Thoughts on Allods Online’s Cash Shop

Allods Online goes live on Tuesday February 16.  Closed beta quietly ended yesterday with only a few send off events.  Overall, it’s good that beta is over and that we’re moving to launch.  Things were starting to become stagnant and the community grew restless.

The Euro beta is still going on until tomorrow and, unlike the NA beta, the EU players get to explore the cash shop and buy anything they want for no charge.  A few of the K&G Community members are playing in the beta and are bringing back tremendous information for us to pour over.   It seems like the Allods Cash shop will be all about purchasing temporary and consumable power for your character in the form of potions and elixirs.

These potions have restrictions on what they can stack with and come in multiple types.   This form of cash shop is most definitely “pay to win”.  However, the core of your character is unchanged by what you buy.  What is spent in the cash shop to strengthen a character is consumed and lost and nothing persists.  This type of pay to win seems a lot better than a more permanent option like we can see working in Runes of Magic.  In RoM you pay to win and your character remains powerful after the purchase.  Most items purchased from the cash shop can be placed on the AH.  This will allow people who do not want to spend RL money to get them by spending gold.  It should have an interesting effect on the economy.

Chests can be purchased from the cash shop as well. These offer a random rewards ranging from gold to potions, gold dust, gold chips, respecs, and other things like the rare bonus rubies available during limited in-game events.  This functions are a lottery type purchase but still does not permanently increase the power of your character (aside from the rare ruby).

Perhaps the biggest pay to win advantages of using the cash shop is the rune combination items.  Using the cash shop you can achieve level 9 runes and socket them into your gear.  However, these will cost $250 for a 5% increase to damage or defense each.  A level 10 rune costs $1000 ($600?).  My personal take on this is that if Bill Gates wants to pimp himself out and kick my ass then I’ll happily bend over.  I don’t see this becoming much of a problem for me.

As noted by our EU tester friend, the potions that you purchase do not seem to make a huge difference.  I think this is a point to stress.  I’ve made it to level 40 and seen what increases to stats can do.  An increase of 40 stamina or 40 intelligence isn’t like going Super Saiyan.  It’s a nice increase but from experience I always felt like my stats were too low.  These potions would make things feel “just right”.   You’re not goign to one shot anyone and you’re not going to suddenly shred through mobs at a rate that makes you feel godlike.  Yes, stacking alchemy AND cash shop pots will show marked improvement.   But when your potions wear off,  that’s it.

Perfume is still the big ticket item with the biggest increase to performance.  Increasing health by 40% (if the information I have is correct) will be big.  However, again from the experience of a max level character, I question how importance of simply increasing health.  I’ve fought people who are my same class who have less than half my HP and they roflestomped me because they had more endurance and agility.  Where will the powerhouse cash shop boosts come from?  It will come from those who drop money on the alchemy potions, the cash shop potions, and the perfume.  Try as they may though… they’ll never be able to defeat two people.

This temporary and consumable power model may work.  I do not like nor do I condone intrusive cash shops like this one, but the game is a great one.  I will report more on the cash shop with first hand experience after launch.

  • I’m not surprised or turned off Allods by any of this news. We all knew they had a CS and we all knew the type of things that would be available in it. If this CS was present in a different game that wasn’t so well put together, I would be upset.
    As it stands right now though their is enough drawing me into Allods that what the CS has to offer doesn’t bother me enough to not play. Of course this could change come OB, but from where I sit now the game is worth my investment.

    I will buy from the CS, but no more than the amount I budget for myself.

  • As do I Epiny, but I do agree with Keen & Rybnik on their observations.

    I’m looking forward to OB and can only hope that things are still going smoothly in 3 months time.

  • Actually from playing on other f2p games my limited experience is that the playability of it depends on the control of the economy. If there are enough money sinks in the economy to keep inflation in control, then people will auction CS stuff in a reasonable rate in the CS. However if the influx of money (in-game currency) is great enough that everyone has a surplus (thus its value goes lower) then AH stuff will run so expensive that few will be able to get them through in-game means.

    This is why I think FoD mechanic has everything to do with keeping inflation under control through a money sink, as well as limiting the amount of chests you can get per day, etc…

    The economics of this game will definitelly be interesting to watch – it will probably be THE factor in its sucess or failure to catch the western audience.

  • Isnt the info on perfume more than a minor increase in HP? Reduced CC time, Reduced damage from DoTs, Reduced amount of ticks..etc

    Pay 2 Win is still pay to win whether 30 minutes or 30 days.
    I’ll still play, but I’m not going to convince myself a bad cash shop is anything other than that.

  • The Allods shop isn’t bad at all really. You can easily get 1 perfume per level 40 character a day from the new daily (Introduced in version 5). And paying absurd cash for a small advantage is fine by me. Heck, if Bill gates wants to fund my gameplay for several months in return for 10% extra damage I won’t complain.

    All in all, cheaper than any subscription game by miles, excellent community, and a great game. Allods isn’t diying anytime soon

  • @Terroni: Not a minor hp increase; a big one. I don’t have details on the other effects.

    While both are pay to win, there is a definite difference between buying things of permanence and things that are temporary.

    The difference is obvious between buying an epic sword and buying a potion that increases your strength by 40 for 30 minutes.

  • “Pay 2 Win is still pay to win whether 30 minutes or 30 days.”

    Terroni, that’s what Wolfiebr is getting at though. If the economy works correctly, EVERYONE will have access to the Cash Shop items. In effect, you’ll be able to either purchase the Cash Shop items via the Cash Shop with real cash or via the auction house with in-game gold.

    So yes it will be “pay to win” but no more different than in WoW when if you didn’t show up with supplies to a raid (i.e. food, potions, funds, etc) then you were scorned upon. Only difference though is instead of being forced to grind in-game to keep your supplies up, you’ll have the option to purchase them from the Cash Shop quickly and easily. Big win for the casual gamer in my opinion. And again hardcore gamers can still avoid paying real cash by just grinding gold in-game via mobs, instances, and crafting/gathering and then just buy the Cash Shop items via the auction house. Again assuming the economy works correctly as Wolfiebr indicated.

  • You can purchase those. They’re called “Water of Death” for talents and “Water of Life” for stats. They also drop out of chests and from bosses in instances.

  • So far I couldn’t tell ANY difference on NPC dot ticks with perfume or without perfume, couldn’t find anyone to test player dot ticks though.

    Maybe it is something that only happen for the 60sec buff you get when you first use perfume and get the martyr’s blessing?

  • “Maybe it is something that only happen for the 60sec buff you get when you first use perfume and get the martyr’s blessing?”

    Ah, ya that could be it! Definitely need to test that out.

  • @Toot: Yes. That’s rank 3 patronage which you’ll get closer to 40 I think. That’s the info we have anyway. I’m hoping that everyone has it all terribly wrong and it isn’t that much but it looks like it will be.

  • It all comes down to prices. If for $20 a month one can get all the main benefits then everyone wins. I certainly don’t expect to play for free.

  • I agree with Toot. It’ll be annoying to have to make sure im well perfumed and have (at least) alchemy potions before I jump into pvp, but the deciding factor is how much it will all cost.

    If you can play 3 hours a day of pvp for $10 a month it will be a reasonable alternative to p2p, but anything significantly more and it’ll probably make me reconsider allods.

  • I agree with Tim here. Allods is going to be my 3rd priority after WoW and Magic The Gathering. So for me it shouldn’t cost more than those 2 games combined.

    And trust me, it’s hard to beat MTG’s cost…

  • @Toot: I worked out the math to be about $12 per month to “max out” your potential in PvP. Want extras? Bump it to $14 and you’re set.

  • Gotta be honest, not a big fan of the cash shop idea especially for pvp. You shouldn’t have to buy items to be better in game, it makes the payment each month a little too unpredictable for me. What happens when you have a solid night of pvp over the weekend and have to pay more than $12 a month. I hate the idea of someone having a slighter edge in a fight because their wallet is thicker. How does that promote fairness? Sure it may be minimal, but it’s something and more about the principal than anything.

    I mean in all honesty it’s a good attempt to break away from the average 14.99 a month business model, but I would rather pass for something a little more set in stone. I’m hearing rumors from the EU version from this person or that, too much speculation, not enough real answers.

  • Good post. Didn’t think they were going to launch so fast after beta.

    I don’t mind the CS item info we’ve gotten so far, but then again I’ve turned the corner and am willing to pay to play f2p games. My only worry would be that it gets confusing as far as what you are buying, what needs to be bought, and if its worth buying. That is RoM’s failure: you never know WTF you should be buying and it keeps you scared from spending.

  • “I hate the idea of someone having a slighter edge in a fight because their wallet is thicker. How does that promote fairness?”

    In WoW, I hated the idea of how someone could have a much better edge in a fight or in a raid selection because their in-game wallet was thicker than mine and thus they could afford all of the better crafted gear, as well as easily maintain their raiding supplies. I always felt how does that promote fairness when that person can play 24/7 and yet I can’t?

    Well it looks like the tables have been turned and I as a casual gamer can finally benefit from it in a game like Allods. I mean if people don’t want to pay real cash they can just farm everyday like they would have in WoW to get an advantage and make lots of in-game gold to buy Cash Shop stuff off of the auction house instead.

  • @Nollind: Are we really going to get into that whole debate of casual vs. hardcore advantage? That’s like saying someone who spends 10 hours studying for a test vs. someone who does it for only 5, that’s an unfair advantage. But, Whatever.

    I for one am scared a bit on the cash shop, it can go horribly if not enough people purchase items and Allods has to pull some strings that make it a little bit more satisfying to spend your $$. Time will tell though.

  • Nice post Keen this is exactly what was on mind this morning.

    Hopefully people who don’t spend money in the CS will still be likely to have/use perfume via an alternative method, AH or quests, ect.
    I just hope that every player will still be able to play competitively (if they put in the effort) regardless of their wallet size.
    I also don’t want perfume/CS to be an excuse, i.e:
    “He only killed me because he spends RL money to win.”

  • All sounds very strange. I’m not sure I like the idea of buying temporary items… but then that’s maybe a good things as it will stop me from spending cash on the game.

    It does raise a lot of worries about the develop making powerful, “I win” items in order to sell more stuff at the cash shop though and if that happens, it could ruin the game completely.

  • I played up to Level 27 in CB. I had a really great time and I will very definitley be playing Allods in my long-term MMO rotation.

    I am certain that I can get everything I want out of the game without spending a cent in the cash shop. The thing I liked best about the combat was how slow it is. The more I lerned about ways to speed it up, the less I liked it, so the last thing I am going to be doing is paying money to make it go by faster.

    I couldn’t care less if I win or lose in PvP. I like PvP but I’ve never been able to take it seriously. Losing is just as amusing as winning most of the time, anyway.

    The only concern I have is the long debuff after death. If that pretty much requires cash-shop spending to overcome then that might be a problem. Other than that, for my playstyle I don’t think the cash shop is relevant at all.

  • I will play the game come launch and will be spending some money in it when i feel it’s necessary. I liked the game too much and will try it.

    If by spending around 15$ per month i am able to stay competitive i consider that to be a competitive price. I just don’t get why don’t they make a more “direct” subscription plan where people pay per 30 minutes chuncks of time and not by items in-game.

  • The casual vs hardcore sideline here sounds like justification for buying gold in a normal game. I guess it’s acceptable in a f2p though…

    I figure if I’m on a PvE server the only real cash I’ll need to spend is for a bag and a bank box, till 40. I fear this alone will have them adjust their model to affect a broader scope of players. I’ve never heard of a p2p raising fees, but I have heard of f2p changing the cash shop.

  • I’ll never touch a FTP CS game, but one think I’m confused on is why paying for temporary power buffs is better than paying for permanent power buffs as Keen seems to imply above.

    Doesn’t that just mean you’ll be using the cash shop more and therefore paying more since those power buffs wear off? If i was in to this kind of game i think i’d much prefer paying for a permanent power buff/item as opposed to something that only last a few hours or days or whatever then wears off and you need to buy more. That seems like the worst kind of cash shop to me.

  • Agree with Jordan whether it’s a sword buff or a potion doesn’t change the analysis it’s a meaningless distinction

  • There are good buffs for PvE players as well, for instance if you level up and find your gear lacking in a particular class defining stat it is easy to complement.

    Also, there are only 4 stats that scale linearly (meaning that they always give a benefit), those are STR for melee damage, INT for magic damage, STA for health and WIS for mana. All other stats have “caps” and extremely high diminishing returns. For instance if you are level 40 and get around AGI, you will still dodge and block just about the same as the person with 480 AGI, or perhaps .9% less – hardly gamebreaking.

    Also since both perfume AND runes act as a percentage increase, you can’t rely on those to be competitive. If you are decked out in blue/green gear and using perfume and runes you might still have lower damage and health than someone decked out in legendary gear, which you can only get through playing the game and which then reduces the necessity of using the cash shop to remain “viable” or competitive.

  • I am just really pissed of with the perfumes in the cash shop. Not only because it is apparent that they implemented this to rip money of people but also because it reduces CC time, damage from DoTs and the amount of ticks.

    I was planning to play a Summoner focused on DoTs damage and this affects my spec choice.

  • @Pedro

    One of our members found some testing done by the guys in Primal Instinct and supposedly the tool tip is wrong and it doesn’t affect DoTs in that way.

    @Cove

    We know already that excuse WILL be used no matter what happens in the game.

  • @Terroni: When it boils down to it, gold sellers and cashshops are essentially selling the same commodity – Time.

    What the cashshop sells is largely inconsequential if players with time on their hands can acquire the same items in-game which is meant to be how Allods is setup. However I can see a system like this being heavily exploited by gold sellers undercutting the cashshop, like in Runes of Magic.

  • Like Warden said Pedro the reduced dot damage is unproven at this point and sources lean towards it not being a reality. If it does turn out to be true then it will be a BIG negative for me and many others. We will just have to wait and see, and hope the dev team has the good sense to not let it be implemented (assuming they have any control at all over it).

    The perfume issue that so many are up in arms over is more complicated than it seems on the surface. Fear of Death (the debuff you get upon death that lasts for x time and reduces stats by X%) can be removed or negated in a few ways.
    One way is to purchase perfume from the CS for RL $’s or from other players via the AH where you use in game currency (gold) for the purchase. Using the perfume you can “pray” to you’re martyr which gives you an HP buff and makes you immune to the FoD mechanic for X minutes.
    The other way of removing FoD is to pay X amount of gold to a spirit healer (I think that’s what they were called) and they will remove FoD from you, but you recieve no hp boost. So while at first glance the perfume seems like a money grab from the developer (which it is, they do expect to make money with the game after all) they have also very kindly afforded alternate ways for it to be removed outside of buying from the CS.

    (Values removed from above entry because I can’t recall exact amounts.)

  • You are dead on mate, as I tested the shop on the EU server myself, I really can’t see many issues cropping up. It isn’t that bad. I have a few screenshots on my little blog if you need to check them out.

  • “Are we really going to get into that whole debate of casual vs. hardcore advantage”

    Dietx: I think it relates but lets forget about it then. You still can’t ignore the fact that whoever has the most funds, whether real cash or in-game gold, has the definitive advantage within MMO games today.

    That’s the simple point I’m trying to make. You can’t say its unfair that someone with more real cash has an advantage without saying someone with more in-game gold has an advantage as well. They go hand in hand. So the “unfair imbalances” will always exist.

    That said, I don’t like it any better than you, but that’s how most MMOs operate. Whoever has the most funds can purchase the better gear and supplies. At least in Allods, non-cash users aren’t left out in the cold, as they still have the option to purchase cash shop items via the auction house.

    I mean if anything (and sorry for bring it up again) the hardcore gamers who play 24/7 will have the definitive advantage in that they can choose to play without having to spend real cash because they have more time to farm gold in the game via various means.

  • Rybnik: While I have no problem with FOD being implemented, I think how it’s implement is what upsets me a little bit. Instead of it being level-based as to how longs it affects you, I wish it was a standard equal time for everyone (i.e. 5 to 15 minutes top).

    The reason for this is that at lower levels, it’s a viable option to wait it out, so as to not spend the cash. At higher levels (35th to 40th level), you really have no choice but to spend the cash or use perfume because it lasts over a half hour. I mean other than it being the end of the night and you need to go to Novograd to sell stuff and restock supplies, I can’t see anyone actually waiting out the FOD at higher levels.

    BTW I need to confirm this but I believe you can’t even just log out and come back a half hour later, as the buff will still be with you (i.e. you need to wait it out in-game). Need to verify this though.

  • @Nollind- I agree that the duration could use some tweaking. I think as it is now it’s 50 minutes, this could/should be lowered to something more reasonable without negating the need to buy the perfumes. Ten minutes is too short as most people will just wait it out, fifty minutes is far too long and pretty much forces you to remove it if you want to compete in most activities. I’d say that a 15-20 minutes timer would make if harsh enough that people will still want/need to buy perfumes and short enough that people who don’t can wait it out by crafting etc. Lot’s of mmo’s have a rez sickness like FoD, FFXI and LoTRO off the top of my head. The trick is for the developers to find a balance for FoD between mild annoyance and debilitating debuff. I think the key to that balance is duration.

    I also think the idea of scaling the time of FoD to player lvl is a gret idea, or maybe not introducing the mechanic until lvl 20+ when PvP becomes more common.

  • What actually worries me more than the CS is that most F2P games seem to come with a super-intrusive anticheat rootkit like GameGuard or Punkbuster. I hate those things, and they usually don’t even work. Anything like that on Allod?

  • I’ll hold my breath over the Perfume not affecting the DoT’s. We still don’t know if it will affect them or if the tooltip is going to be changed. But besides the 40% health increase and the removal of FoD i don’t think it affect game balance in any other way.

    As for FoD. I don’t think it should have a fixed time period. I like the fact that it is way more forgiving at lower levels when players are still learning how to play. But at max levels it definitely is way too harsh.

  • FoD will not go away when you log out as of the newest Russian Patch. Also, cash shop potions counters will stop while you log out so if you have to log out because of somethign and just poped a potion, you will still have the buff when you log back on.

  • I’ve played ’em all. Any game that offers any potions of any kind that gives you a stat increase, in any way, for any length of time, through CS only, is a bad idea(even if those items can be sold in AH).

    If these can be sold in AH and the economy balances out to a somewhat equatable trade-off of in-game currency to the cash shopped item, then it may be okay. But others have already tried this, and it has failed. Shaiya required millions to purchase one of their stat increasing items that lasts for one hour. For people who pay nothing to try to attain these, it takes many months, and that’s playing moderately every day, to afford just one of these.

    Even still, your in a fight with same gear, but one uses a stat buff?

    RoM doesn’t offer any pay for power, at all. They only offer pay for progression. The things you buy equate to the exact same things you buy in-game with earned gold. The only difference is your skipping the time to earn that gold, and just buying it. You still have to do all the work to craft your gear. They offer no power advantages at all, which is nice. You can’t buy any potions that increase stats. You can buy potions that increase speed at which you gain EXP and TP, debt removers(that will immediately remove your EXP debt in lieu of working it off in-game)

    Their economy that has developed puts everything within, what I refer to as, fair-reach without over kill. It won’t take you months to earn the diamonds to decorate your house or buy fusion stones. In my server, I can spend 3 hours gathering in between questing and trade for enough diamonds to buy a piece of furniture with a TP or EXP bonus attached, or 6 hours for clean fusion stone(or use that gold and buy like dozens of in-game fusion stones).

    players on game forums usually give you very slanted opinions based on extreme cases of playing. They want things, and they want them immediately, not a month from now or even a day from now. They want it now.

    the truth is, buying fusion stones doesn’t set you that far apart from someone upgrading with in-game fusion stones. Same goes for jewels. I’ve been in a few guilds, talked with them and others on vent, there was quite a mix of payers and non-payers all with good gear, and this is only speaking of the horribly tiny percentage that care about pushing that envelope until it rips, and being as good as the game allows, in the shortest time possible.

    Heck, I’m almost to the point now, that my gear is getting very good(my non Item Mall gear). I’ve been playing for a year and will no doubt soon have people screaming at me that my gear is so good because I “bought it”. Most people don’t even know. Even in other F2P it was always the same. No one really knew who spent. It was all vague calculations. It’s even harder when you realize a person can buy some of that super geared stuff, that another player made, in the AH. I could go now and find some really nice stuff that would bump me up quite a bit, that someone could have calculated as costing lots through item mall only work.

    As a side observation. Most players that dislike Item Malls, are the ones who think they have to care so much about them. They instinctively believe that they matter, and therefore put all there chips into one pot. They are also the players who play the most(pessimistically speaking, these are also where the players with lose morals come from and will become goldbuyers and hackers/botters)

    If your goal is to follow along a social theme of being the best, therefore you want to do whatever it takes and strut around killing until the current community in your server starts to see you as the “number 1 killer” or whatever, then you will have a strong pull to use the short cut items. That’s why they are there. But some games, like RoM, offer everything in-game.

    If you removed the cash shop, nothing would change. You’d still have people that play longer and seek to achieve the top, it would just take longer. I.E. there’s a player in my server named Inporylem(or something) who is extremely geared out. Now yes, I’d agree he probably used Item Mall(but I technically don’t know what combo of in-game and CS he may have used, he may have bought half-way from an older player who quit RoM and then continued to gear the stuff up) and If I want to make it my goal, I can continue to gear up without CS and become equal with him in power. And it won’t take me years either. That’s important to note. A former guild mate, before Ravenfell was released, had some of the best stats possible in the game on all his gear and he never paid a dime.)

    I am a huge fan, heck I’m a RoM fanboy, but part of the reason…their cash shop is the most congenial, and well balanced I’ve ever seen.

    Good items that work well, are firstly EXP potions. time limited that let you gain EXP at a quicker rate.

    Some of RoMs items, that work well for their systems:
    Debt removers(debt isn’t crazy anyway, one set of dailies at your level will remove all debt)
    Increase EXP and TP gain
    Skill reset stones(let’s you take only the TP you have currently gained and re-spend the points to re-spec, you get one free at like level 30 or so).
    Big Angel Sigh which waves debt for 24 hours, if you during that period.

    Another thing I’d note is cash shops are balanced, most of the time, on the specific game. An HP buff for them won’t work in another game because of the speed you progress, or availability of similar items, and many other reasons.

    I am very interested in Allods because it seems like the second F2P ever, RoM being the first, to do this AAA style game play.

    What it is going to take is about a month. yes trust me, it will take about a month for both the economy and signs of item mall success or failure to start becoming apparent to the community and devs. This gives ample time for beta testers and first timers to get in and for both free and payers to explore while reaching level cap, and for the economy to show positive or negative signs, or if it will even reach a balance within that time. That’s why I’m not going to Judge Allods until I’ve played it awhile.

  • @Jeremy S.

    Keen doesn’t play RoM and it’s pretty much impossible to convince anybody that doesn’t play it.

  • I am all in favor of exp potions in a level capped game. Hell they should offer a 500 USD potion that automatically brings you to lvl 40 equipped with all of the best quest rewards gear and flashes the player’s name on global chat with the title “INSTANT WINNER!!!” after it. If it helps the company make money then allow impatient players to exploit themselves.

    I never understood the appeal of trying to madly burn your way through content just to level faster than eveyone else. I actually like to take my time and enjoy the game. The power leveler mindset reminds me of people who meta-live by going to see talented bands, but spend all of the show texting their friends about it and documenting their presence with photos to put on their Facebook walls; luckily these people have short attention spans and tend to leave at intermission.

    In any robust MMO there will be players above and below your level prior to hitting cap, and it makes no difference to me if a stranger hits level 10 in a week as opposed to my 10 days. I actually feel kind of let down when I level out of a zone or hit cap, it feels like it is time to move on…

  • Somehow there’s an idea that because Allods has these “temp” items, there’s a difference.

    Every F2P game has been like this. This isn’t the exception, it’s the norm, and continues to be the same conversation that pops up in the wake of every new game.

    One popular idea is that this game, as if somehow unlike them all, offers only temp. items unlike some that sell swords that are permanent. As far as my memory serves me, no game has ever sold an actual piece of equipment or a weapon with stats- at least not permanent, and there’s no difference between a sword that lasts and hour and gives you a stat bonus, and perfume that lasts 50 minutes and gives you a stat boost. What had been popular is that there have always been items that altered stats on a temporary basis. For the most part those never work well. They work better in a PvE only MMORPG and worse in one with PvP, but still aren’t very popular.

    It’s an ironic situation. What some think are paying toward a permanent better increase in a character while other items are only temp. Are quite the opposite. A game like RoM’s Item Mall feeds only the speed at which one can progress. Just because a person CAN be stronger after “X” amount of time, does not mean that the item mall sells something that offers permanent increase. But a CS that offers “temporary” stat increases, even if a player can eventually get their hands on them in-game, will equate to buying permanent upgrades that are clearly above and beyond the reach of people not using the CS because players will always have them active(in essence it would be no different than if they bought a permanent sword that offered a % increase in HP). You will be playing and others will always have those buffs, always. There will be players who seemingly spend thousands of dollars, whether through hacking, fraud, or really paying. But if an item gives a stat buff, you may as well mark it as permanent, because from a non-payers side, you will always run into them, and a handful will never ever be without them. In a game that will have PvP and possibly ranking systems, that is a bad idea.

    The only thing I’m trying to convince anyone of, is to not listen to the loud minority when it comes to the philosophy of how Cash Shops work and affect an MMORPG. Most today actually only offer cosmetic items. When I say that I think RoM’s is the most congenial, it’s not just a simplified blanketing of how it works. Once you see how everything in the game interacts with everything else, and then add each separate Item Mall item to it, you’ll see there was a lot of thought put into what to make and how to implement it to support and enhance game play without offering a power boost. The Item Mall is actually a valuable game play system, not just a revenue stream, plugged into, or attached to the game.

    We’re not talking about making a “WoW” then saying “Okay, that part there, now take it out, and we’ll offer ways to get that content with the item mall”. Lot’s of F2P games operate deeper than that. While you can take away the CS and RoM will operate fine without it, by having the CS it actually adds the potential to enhance game play, even for people who never pay.

    I’m just “using” this thread as my sounding board, because it’s popular and in the spotlight.

  • Well I’ve decided that I won’t be playing the game. For a few reasons (I find the leveling pretty boring), but the cash shop just confirms my decision. We were told many times that the cash shop would not include items that give people a competitive advantage. This is not how it turned out. It shows their view on what the cash shop should be and I really dont like it. I’m all for them having a cash shop but they totally mis-represetented how they would run it. Allods is out for me

  • Don’t forget perfume isnt the only way to get rid of FoD, this is what i read on the official forums:

    “Gold is gathered easily and removing the FOD costs 4 gold(at 40) it aint some game-breaking mechanic.”

  • Keen, you make light of it but you’d be surprised how many people would shell that $250 out at the higher levels of the game. Not sure how allods bonuses work, but it’s usually not the no-skill or casual people that tend to spend that kind of money, but the hardcore. So if you are going to try and be competitive in the upper tiers of pvp you may run into more cash shop twinked characters than you think.

    Stat boosts in general are a very bad idea, its better to have something like double exp potions since they dont change the player, just his rate of advancement. Especially with PvP. You decry advantage, but what happens when the player has those stats high, and also buys a cash shop potion, or the reason it is so high is because he used one prior to the fight?

    I think you’ll start to see issues like this in open beta, as the population increases.

  • @Dblade –

    Bingo.

    This will not be an issue immediately. However, lets wait about 30 days. LOL. I think quite a few are going to be in for a shock when they find out what some are willing to do to be competitive.

    And as you said, it won’t be those who “suck.” It’ll be the hardcore PVP crowd. Having stat increases, permanent, in a PvP game that’s limited by cash not time, is the most asinine thing i’ve heard yet.

  • Keen, why on earth didn’t you mention Fear of Death and what the perfumes will be used for? i.e. removing a debuff that can last 45 minutes at cap level. Reading some of the posts on it, it sounds like the intention is to drive people to the cash shop in order to retain their in-game gold.

    Outsiders like me can’t really tell the impact or if it’s fixed, but that’s a huge problem if it’s being decribed accurately, much more than twinked pvp characters.

  • It was mentioned about 100 times.

    Fear of Death isn’t an issue. Perfume is an issue with the buff it gives, not for curing FoD.

  • @Keen: The cost of removing FOD is said to be around 4g (its the figure Ive encountered most on the forums). Seeing as you’ve actually hit level 40 in CBT, how much money is that? Put it in perspective. Is it like 4g in the vanilla WoW economy?

    To everyone else, I read on another blog that going by the russian to north american conversion $10 will grant you about 50 hours supply of perfume. More than enough time to pvp every month. And for those random deaths, you can always just pay the gold (provided its not that big of a money sink).

  • It.s 3.5g at level 40. I had nearly 400g after picking up and selling NOTHING. Greens sold for 10g to a vendor. 4g is like repairing your armor after you die in WoW.

    Keep in mind it is significantly cheaper below 40 and the timer is also significantly lower.

    Again, imho, FoD is not a factor to worry about compared to the effects perfume give as a buff.