Black Desert Online’s cash shop is rather pricey which is the one complaint I personally have with it. The 3$ reduction between CBT2 and launch doesn’t deserve a weak smile, 29$ for a cosmetic costume in a game that offers very little variety in armor styles is tough. I don’t quite understand it either: assuming I am not the average MMO customer, Daum could make a lot more money by lowering prices by 50% and have more than double the people grab one or two costumes instead. But that’s a question for the economists and all those who have real insight into spending behavior in Korea versus Europe or North America.
Other than that, BDO’s cash shop served for many an outcry selling a ghillie suit and lucky underpants which are supposedly very pay-to-win in an endgame that never comes (no level cap?). Sorry, doesn’t interest me in the slightest. And Eri is very angry at herself for buying pets and inventory space because that made a company that’s delivered a beautiful and huge game a couple of extra bucks after “only being buy-to-play”. If it’s any consolation, I too have bought a few things in the cash shop when I really didn’t have to. I’m not sorry, I am enjoying my time with them. Why is spending a few bucks in a game you enjoy a question of moral guilt? Hellou.
The whole thing is starting to wear me down too because basically, not even f2p or b2p MMOs are supposed to have cash shops anymore nowadays. Screw the effort, size and maintenance of a game that’s run 24/7 across four continents. Fallout 4 can costs 70$ but god forbid an MMO that costs half that box price has a cash shop with few useful items! Where are we getting this notion from that MMOs must be financially self-sufficient for years without any subscription or shop? Where did PA or Daum make a statement that the game isn’t gonna make another dime after you bought the box? If there’s any false advertisement going on, I am not aware of it.
What do you mean I shouldn’t have bought this armor?
They can’t even sell cosmetics in shops anymore. Cosmetics are after all content to somebody (I love outfits okay)! So are pets and other conveniences, no matter if they could be acquired by other means if people did the research or had a bit of patience towards their “sandbox progression”. Okay, pets are off-limits in BDO the way most other things aren’t. Inventory space can be expanded another 30 slots just by playing the game and then there’s a whole list of things you can do via storage expansion and alts once you actually figure out how it all works. It’s fiddly yes but it also serves the underlying “realism” of the game that dictates towns should have individual storage or that characters can’t binge-craft for hours for example.
Only, we don’t want to figure out how it all works. We’re used to WoW convenience levels and always getting the best of everything and every MMO that comes out must start there. No thanks! I don’t want another themepark epic-lol-wins MMO like WoW. I don’t need the best pet, I don’t need to purple everything. Yeah, the weight limit annoys the shit out of me – I’ll see about that. Maybe I should just get a cart, you can actually do that. Almost every problem has a solution further down the road in Black Desert. And the exceptions aren’t real problems for me, either.
What are they gonna sell if they can’t sell cosmetics or dyes, can’t sell inventory or weight limit increases, can’t sell extra character slots (because they actually too matter in the game)? They can’t very well sell uber-potions and they can’t sell anything that’s already easily available ingame. And to their credit: there are no lottery-box-for-epics shenanigans going on in BDO’s cash shop, whereby someone could potentially burn endless cash on an illusion of greatness. I would rather it stayed that way.
And don’t get me started on subscription MMOs now because WoW and FFXIV too sell “content” by above definition in their cash shops on top of charging monthly.
……
Okay, that was a bit more than equanimity maybe! I keep finding myself in the same position for years when it comes to MMO payment models but truly, Black Desert offends me not. At the end of the day I decide what I consider good bang for the buck in a game and in the business of fun, no one’s defining any price tags but yourself.
Sorry, Syl, but I think you’ve created a strawman here of some hypothetical person who wants to be the best and the prettiest and have everything for free.
If you buy anything in the current BDO cash shop, you are telling them that $30 costumes and $9 pets and .50 random dyes that you can use once (only for one character, mind you, not your account) are okay.
I don’t care about being the best or whatever. I care about not supporting shady business practices that hurt the consumer. I care about getting the same value for my gaming dollars now that I got five years ago. At some point we just accepted that predatory cash shops are the only way for a game to make money, and it’s not true.
Nothing shady about it, it’s straightforward and optional? Something like BDO is a great deal more value than games 10 years ago that cost me 120$ a year plus another 40$ for the box. Subs are not the better deal for me, not on paper and not for a long time. I think people who prefer subs prefer them because they have ‘exactly the same’ (options) as everyone else. I don’t need that….it’s a hell of a lot cheaper that way.
I agreed the prices for the costumes are high, then again 9 bucks for a pet is completely okay in my book (if someone needs three pets to ‘optimize’ that’s their problem). You can pay around 50 bucks in the cash shop to get the few relevant items, then turn your back on it forever and explore the game for everything else which is actually there. If you ‘need’ dyes right now – yes, you must buy them. What if there weren’t dyes in the game at all, would you stop playing? And again, what are they supposed to sell instead, assuming they may sell something? Every item is important to somebody.
Repeating the same straw man doesn’t make it any more valid. It’s not about the fact that they’re selling things, it’s the predatory design inherent to the specific things that they are selling.
@Isarii
And repeating I am using a strawman doesn’t necessarily make it any more valid, either. 😉 How is this particular shop predatory? Or are we rolling on the assumption all MMO shops are predatory?
The very definition of ‘shady’ deals is that the customer isn’t given transparency and information about the deal. What’s not transparent about 9$ for a pet?
Check my comment below on that one. Assuming you read this one first.
Yep. The cash shop doesn’t bother me at all. If I enjoy BDO and want to support the game further, I’ll put some more money into it.
That’s the same thing I did with GW2 back when I enjoyed the game. When I stopped enjoying the game? I stopped playing and buying stuff. Pretty simple.
Myeah this is generally how I roll. What I pay for sub-games is my okay-zone to spend anywhere.
I absolutely loathe this defense of predatory monetization practice. Literally no one – no one on the entire internet full of people holding absolutely insane opinions of every variety – is saying that companies shouldn’t make money. So why write up an entire post defending that? It’s a blatant and absurd straw manning of legitimate concerns.
There are two big types of monetization that people are concerned with, and both are present in Black Desert.
First – coercive monetization based on the relieving of pain developers intentionally inflict on players to drive sales. In Black Desert, this is primary done through inventory and carry weight requirements (and the gross inclusion of both, so that players have to make two purchases for the same effect). You add a lot of loot to the game, don’t let all if stack in a logical way, and don’t make enough inventory space available to players who don’t hit the cash shop. Developers have a lot of metrics to track this facet of gameplay – they know exactly how long a player can go before running out of space, and they design the game around making the player suffer if they don’t buy the expansion.
Beyond that, the game inflicts additional pain through the very process of looting due to the lengthy animation and unnatural UI interaction involved, then offers relief by selling pets to loot for you. And you don’t just need one pet to loot for you – no, you need three!
It’s crazy that players are so unsophisticated as to not recognize that these systems are designed to inflict pain on them until they pay up in a predatory and anti-consumer way.
Second – items that unbalance the game by giving players who pay a competitive advantage over those who don’t. In BDO, this is the ghillie suit and, due to the game’s unlimited level cap and items that increase grind efficiency (like experience boosts, pets looting, etc…). This bit is pretty self-explanatory.
In both of these examples, the primary reason players buy is because they are either inconvenienced into doing so, or at a disadvantage if they don’t. It’s not because they enjoy what they’re purchasing, it’s because they feel they can’t enjoy the game they’ve already paid for without it.
That’s the fundamental difference between a game selling a pretty hat someone wants and predatory monetization. You’re paying to end the suffering, not to add something new to your play experience.
I am generally a very unsophisticated MMO player and blogger. You just have to put with that I’m afraid. 🙂 I’ll do my best to formulate my answers to you in great sophisticatedness.
– and the gross inclusion of both, so that players have to make two purchases for the same effect.
wrong. no need at all to make purchases for either unless you have the patience of a grasshopper. I already mentioned alternatives to these problems. There are people in the game right now (am guilded with several) who would explain to you that these ‘inconveniences’ are what constitutes harsher sandboxy MMOs for them because they are forced to travel a great deal more for example, to empty bags. You ignore the fact we all have different playstyles. They put alternatives in the cash shop which could be seen as a boon or compromise. If you now feel like you ‘need’ to make the purchases….okay. But don’t say there weren’t alternatives. If there wasn’t a cash shop at all, we’d not have this conversation. You would put up with the game and call it tough and not assume all they’re doing it for is the shop. /shrug
What is ‘pain’ to you is not pain to me. The very notion that I am coerced to buy three pets or cosmetics in BDO is absurd. I looted manually during the beta a lot and found it interesting due to exactly what you call pain. So, there’s no area loot. I use a pet now and I enjoy it a great deal primarily because it’s cute. If I ever have three pets, it will be because cute. I must be doing the game wrong because clearly, I should worry about optimizing my looting speed and get three pets right away.
– That’s the fundamental difference between a game selling a pretty hat someone wants and predatory monetization.
Only it ain’t. because there are virtually no items left in MMOs that aren’t considered important to somebody, so much they shouldn’t be cash-shop only. Selling cosmetics is unfair to RPers and cosmetic fans, selling +1 luck is unfair to competitive players, crafting boosts are unfair for traders, et cetera. If all playstyles are equal, there is no “just a pretty hat”, do you realize this?
Again, if it’s not okay to sell convenience and cosmetic items in a shop, what are they supposed to sell? Or maybe just not be f2p/b2p at all? This always seems where these discussions are going because clearly, all cash shops fail. Clearly, subs are much better (not).
We won’t get agreement on this. As a consumer I am a harsh advocate of controlling my own buying power and dictating the market from there. I buy when it seems fair and good to me, I don’t buy when it ain’t. Nothing anyone can do differently.
Don’t try to make this into a discussion of sandbox vs themepark or convenience features, because it isn’t. I’m fully on board with sandboxes, and have railed against just about every convenience feature ever introduced to an MMO.
But that’s not what this is.
This is like if an MMO introduced fast travel, but only in a cash shop. This is like if flying mounts were only unlocked if you paid. This is like introducing an unlock for LFD/LFR that’s only available to players who fork up cold, hard cash.
Black Desert didn’t say – hey, we think small inventory sizes introduce an element of travel and decision making into our game! – because if they had, then they wouldn’t be selling unlocks on the cash shop. They decided to set the inventory size low to inconvenience players into purchasing upgrades.
This is not a feature. This is predatory cash shop design.
Now you say this isn’t pain for you. Sorry, this my fault. Back to being sophisticated consumers. That’s not my term. That’s the industry term. Or “fun pain”, more specifically.
“One of the tricks of the trade is something developers at Zynga — which created FarmVille — used to call “fun pain” or “the pinch.” The idea is to make gamers uncomfortable, frustrate them, take away their powers, crush their forts — and then, at the last second, offer them a way out for a price.”
http://www.npr.org/sections/alltechconsidered/2013/10/30/241449067/how-video-games-are-getting-inside-your-head-and-wallet
Did you not realize that this is intentional? I mean, the developers behind these tactics aren’t even trying to hide that this is how these games are designed. You can find countless articles discussing fun pain systems by industry professionals.
So sorry for the confusion. Pain isn’t my word for it, it’s literally what they call it.
As for you bringing up cosmetics that don’t affect gameplay – I *specifically* mentioned that as a counterpoint that doesn’t create a problem. Great for the game’s long-term health? Probably not. But it’s not coercive, and I don’t have a problem with it. Please don’t project arguments on me that contradict what I’ve already said.
“Black Desert didn’t say – hey, we think small inventory sizes introduce an element of travel and decision making into our game! – because if they had, then they wouldn’t be selling unlocks on the cash shop. They decided to set the inventory size low to inconvenience players into purchasing upgrades.
This is not a feature. This is predatory cash shop design.”
Exactly! That’s why there is no cash shop option to buy out of PvP. They decided that’s actually a thing that they want in the game.
“But it’s not coercive, and I don’t have a problem with it. ”
yeah you don’t, others do. cosmetics are a big thing in an MMO like BDO that has little armor choice. you simply ignore what you don’t care for and then judge me where I do the same.
And I don’t know what Black Desert did or “didn’t say”, I’ve not talked to them about it. Naturally all these companies engage in more or less subtle design to keep players playing & paying; everyone does. There’s still nothing shady about selling convenience items in shops, especially for things you can also unlock ingame.
Now convenience is just that: it’s convenience and therefore relies on a degree of inconvenience/pain to be sold. You seem to be at odds with this concept, I am not. It affects gameplay marginally – there was a time when the line was drawn only at p2w.
Nobody cares about shop items that are neither useful nor convenient nor shiny. It’s silly to suggest they can’t sell anything that matters, because everything matters to someone. So again, what’s the alternative and how am I getting the short end of the stick here just because instead of subs, I bought a few basic items?
Bringing up issues other hypothetical people have with other hypothetical cash shops in other hypothetical games isn’t helpful to this discussion.
You say I’m ignoring what I don’t care for and judging you for doing the same. That’s incorrect. Selling a pretty cosmetic item and predatory monetization/pay-to-win (BOTH of which are present in BDO) are not the same thing. I have already drawn a clear line differentiating between them, but I’ll reiterate.
– Selling a cosmetic item is selling a player something they want that adds to their game experience.
– Coercive monetization is designing a game to inflict pain on the players until they pay up to make the pain go away. It doesn’t add something to their game experience, it just removes an obstacle that was deliberately placed there.
There is a HUGE difference here.
Yes, there was a time when people were only against pay-to-win. I remember it to. You want to know a distinguishing feature of that time?
Developers weren’t designing their games are inflicting pain on their players because coercive monetization hadn’t even been invented yet. This is newer than pay-to-win; the reason we didn’t oppose it back then is because it didn’t even exist. It’s not the community who has shifted here – it’s the companies that have devised new insidious methods of extracting cash from their player base.
And to answer your final questions:
“Nobody cares about shop items that are neither useful nor convenient nor shiny. It’s silly to suggest they can’t sell anything that matters, because everything matters to someone.”
That’s not what I’ve suggested at all. Please stop with the straw mans. The fact that what they’re selling matters has nothing to do with the problem, as explained above. I’ll go over it once again in response to this:
“So again, what’s the alternative and how am I getting the short end of the stick here just because instead of subs, I bought a few basic items?”
You’re getting the short end of the stick because you’re playing a game deliberately designed to make you suffer until you pay, and what you’re paying for isn’t new content, it’s the removal of obstacles to your enjoyment of the game’s base content.
“Beyond that, the game inflicts additional pain through the very process of looting due to the lengthy animation and unnatural UI interaction involved, then offers relief by selling pets to loot for you. And you don’t just need one pet to loot for you – no, you need three!” – Opinion
“You add a lot of loot to the game, don’t let all if stack in a logical way, and don’t make enough inventory space available to players who don’t hit the cash shop.” – Opinion
“It’s crazy that players are so unsophisticated as to not recognize that these systems are designed to inflict pain on them until they pay up in a predatory and anti-consumer way.” – Belittling those who don’t agree with your opinions
“In both of these examples, the primary reason players buy is because they are either inconvenienced into doing so, or at a disadvantage if they don’t. It’s not because they enjoy what they’re purchasing, it’s because they feel they can’t enjoy the game they’ve already paid for without it.” – Opinion
The Facts:
-Daum is selling stuff in a cash store.
-Some people don’t like it.
-Some people don’t mind it.
-Some people don’t care.
@Hive
/nod
It does seem to me that we all have very different definitions or maybe tolerance ranges for these kinds of things. I’m glad you got what I was trying to say at least, I am definitely somewhere between don’t mind and also don’t care where BDO’s shop is concerned at the present time.
I do also very much think my opinion is just as valid as the next person’s. 😉
@TheHiveLeader – Actually, not a single one of those was an opinion. Those are well known facts about how games are designed. You know, as evidenced by the link I posted where a wildly successful designer discussed using those techniques.
Just because you don’t want to recognize that they’re facts doesn’t make them any less true, and you can’t just dismiss them as an opinion because they make you uncomfortable. At the risk of being a massive pedant, I’d encourage you to give yourself a quick refresher on what an opinion is at some point.
RIght on, Syl. Also for the record, folks….
EQ1 year one cost = $50 box plus 1 year of sub $179.88. This equals $229.88.
BDO cost = $30 and there are some costumes and pets in the cash shop that offer a small boost to certain quality of life aspects (small xp buff, looting, small buff to stats maybe). These items cost $30 and $9 respectively.
If you level three characters this would equal $30 + 90 + 27 = $147 which could be all you pay for the game if YOU HAVE TO HAVE THE ABSOLUTE MOST BESTEST WHATEVER IN THE WHOLE WORLD AND SCREW THAT PERSON OVER THERE IF THEY HAVE A SMALL XP BUFF AND I DON’T.
Really? Really people? C’mon now. I too miss the days of subscription only games. I do not argue that point because subscription only is much simpler. But Black Desert just doesn’t upset me. Call me an apologist then, I guess.
My personal maths are similar, so yes. I do think this is a lot more about playstyles though and also our attitude towards spending and buyer’s power. Everyone is just talking from their personal PoV of what matters to them and what seems predatory to them. So do I – so do you. If I don’t like the prices, I don’t get anything it’s that simple and in fact, the only thing anyone can do.
You know what the great thing about the old days of MMOs was? Cost predictability. Even with WoW, I know what the cost is, and that everyone is paying it. That helps keep those costs reasonable.
F2P games, B2P ones like this don’t have that. The stats show pretty clearly that in most F2P games, most people pay nothing. That leaves those who do pay to pick up the slack, so they had better be prepared to pay more. Thus, we get absurd pricing like this.
Why wouldn’t they? If over half your player base won’t pay no matter what the price is, it doesn’t make sense to sell an “upgrade” in the cash shop that does nothing other than remove suck *deliberately put there by the devs* for $5. People who are hooked on the game and willing to open their wallets at all are pretty likely to pay more. So, lets make it $50 instead. Sure, some will balk at the price. Enough won’t that you come out ahead, and those people are shouldering the load for the freeloaders.
And of course, that’s ignoring that the devs just deliberately made the game worse, in order to sell something to remove that suck. Since it’s working, expect them to do it again in the future when people all have that upgrade already and revenue suffers a drop, because you can’t fund a game on cosmetics forever. The precedent is pretty clear, and the industry shows which way this stuff tends to go.
Thanks, but no thanks. At least with WoW, I know Blizzard is trying to give me the best experience they can for all our money, rather than advertising it as “free!”, and then deliberately gimping it until I pay to make it go away.
This kind of business practice makes me happy I’m back to playing games like D&D instead of MMOs. The dungeon master never shows up and says “tonight’s session will require you to go back to deal with inventory every 10 minutes unless you give me $5.”
Syl, I think that your obvious love for the game itself might be blinding you to some of its self-evident shortcomings. Yes, it’s a very picturesque and beautiful world and yes it’s offering a kind of MMO experience that’s hard to find elsewhere. Yes, it will have been expensive to produce, will be expensive to maintain and naturally the developers will need to recoup their costs, cover their ongoing expenses and make a reasonable profit. I don’t think anyone is disputing that, which is why the Strawman Argument issue is being raised here.
None of that, however, gives the developers carte blanche to charge whatever they like for whatever they like, regardless of previous precedent or going market rates, without experiencing pushback from their potential customers. I work in a bookshop. Customers are not, contrary to popular belief, gullible marks. Different customers have different price sensitivities but they all expect both a minimum level of respect and a rational approach to pricing.
If, as you contend, “You can pay around 50 bucks in the cash shop to get the few relevant items, then turn your back on it forever” then I don’t believe many people would be complaining. A $30 box price plus the equivalent of three or four months’ subscription and then years of cost-free Black Desert gaming would clearly be extremely cheap but does anyone really believe that’s how it’s going to be?
Isn’t it much more likely that, as the sales of new boxes dry up, as they inevitably will, and the numbers playing reduce, as they inevitably will, a cash shop that’s already considered quite harsh by current genre standards will be tightened even more? The game supposedly undershot expectations in the East, after all; the developers will be wary of waiting too long to cook the not-so-golden goose.
For me it has nothing to do with money per se. I have two subscriptions to Daybreak Games, costing around $300 annually, one of which hasn’t been used at all for over three years and the other of which gets used for maybe a total of six or eight weeks a year. I pay them because I like the company and enjoy supporting it. Developers of other MMOs, such as GW2, for example, which I have played for thousands of hours, have had next to no money from me at all.
I look at each case on merit. Do they sell something I want? Is the price reasonable? Are they showing appropriate respect to me as a customer? If the answer to all of those is “Yes” then I’ll pay happily. If the answer to just one is “No” then they get nothing. If you feel that Daum are selling something of value at a fair price in a respectful manner, then by all means give them money. Having browsed their cash shop I can’t say I believe even one of those things to be true, which suggests to me that the response of a wise consumer is pass on the offer as it stands in the hope that it will be improved.
@bhag
I feel inclined towards the game right now, that much is for certain. I have however defended cash shops and f2p for years, so to me it feels like a very dead horse BDO or no. I agree with you completely that each of us individually defines what their fun is worth and it’s completely okay there’s pushback by those who are unhappy. I wouldn’t fight cheaper items, for the record. 😉
Where it starts getting difficult is when MMO players go from “dont sell p2w items” to “don’t sell convenience items” to “don’t sell anything I care for including cosmetics” and thats not some random figment of mine, that’s what’s happened. In a way it’s fair too; cosmetics/dyes are important content to somebody. But that really raises the question how cash shops are supposed to make any bucks at all when clearly, nothing is okay and everything should be convenient from the start. If it’s not, we call it deliberately flawed. You really can’t win this one.
And I can’t judge a future version of the shop in fairness, I can only judge it the way it’s today? Today it seems alright to me and if I’m spending another 50-100 bucks every year, that’s more than okay.
@Tridus
It’s a good point about cost predictability. I also would never claim f2p or cash shop games in general are for everybody. I put the onus of controlling my spending on myself but obviously it’s a control I take for granted and I don’t have personal problems that may prevent me from it.
That said, all of us can only really judge on the basis of what a product does for them. Playing BDO is cheaper for me than a sub game and even if it wasn’t, I’d get something in ‘return’, right?
The prices could definitely be lower, am not advocating for them to be so high. I can live with them though and I think it’s okay to sell convenience items (for which you require a degree of inconvenience, right?).
The prices have to be high in this business model, though. Assuming BDO follows the industry norm, a very large swath of players (potentially the majority, as it is in many F2P games) won’t spend a cent in the cash shop. The math just dictates that if less than half of your customers are paying at all, they’re going to have pay more.
It’s arguably worse in competitive F2P games like Game of War, as people who want to “win” at that will be dropping absurd amounts of money, but the math is the math. If you’re paying and I’m not, you need to pay for both of us.
In general, though, I don’t find game design where they deliberately make something worse and then charge to fix it very compelling or upstanding. They’re charging a tremendous amount of money to do what amounts to changing a number in the database, effectively putting it back to what it was before they decided to shrink it and charge for the difference.
If you’re ultimately okay with that business practice, then go nuts. It’s your money. I won’t be following along. I will say that if XCOM 2 charged me $9.99 for the 6th soldier slot on missions, I would not have been very kind in my review.
@Gypsy_Syl good post. I do like the link of spending $ at cash shop is similar to a monthly sub. Got inventory because I want to, no regrets
@_Grimsley @Gypsy_Syl I pay a sub to Eso because I like the benefits that come with. That’s it. I truly think they have a good model
My problem with the cash shop model illustrated here to some extent: When something is funded through the cash shop, the cash shop becomes the focus as the game must drive you towards it in order to succeed and survive. And then it has to get you to buy again and again, because without a subscription model they have to get repeat business somehow, until the whole game is an intrusive ad to buy their stuff.
You hate achievements, I hate constant reminders to buy stuff at least as much.
I wouldn’t deny anybody their livelihood, but I shan’t support that system with any of my own cash.
That’s fair! And you’re spot on – there’s a crux in the cash shop per se (oh god I said per se). That’s what I tried getting at, once there’s a shop we also have a hundred different ideas of what it should sell and someone’s always “worse off” or then everybody is. There’s never gonna be a “virtuous” above-all-reproach shop I don’t think by virtue of what it must achieve. There are shades of grey though which each of us must decide for ourselves. I weigh “cash shop game vs. sub” and try keep it even.
RT @Gypsy_Syl: I wrote a counter-rant on BDO cash shop and think people need to stop themeparking every MMO out there, thanks 😀 <3 https:/…
RT @Gypsy_Syl: I wrote a counter-rant on BDO cash shop and think people need to stop themeparking every MMO out there, thanks 😀 <3 https:/…
/popcorn
@Gypsy_Syl @Psychochild Do yourself a favor and ignore the one guy who is obviously trolling. Trolls gonna troll.
@PaganRites @_Grimsley @Gypsy_Syl And I prefer the hybrid, give me both. I LIKE the Swtor, Wildstar, ESO model.
RT @Gypsy_Syl: New Post! “#BlackDesertOnline: Cash Shop Equanimity” – https://t.co/ikx6rd4By8 ..yeah sorry not sorry. #bdo
Haha, you know I’ll hate cash shops… And for good reason as well. The crux of my point was that after spending over 100 on a game I shouldn’t still have a comparatively crippled experience.
I think the guille suit is a good representation of BDOs intentions. They designed the karma system to limit pks and provide consequence yet they allow a cash shop item to completely avoid that. They just don’t seem to care what impact the cash shop has on the game and this is a very slippery slope to tread.
I guess I’m more upset ad will because I do enjoy the game. I love the combat and it has a nice world feel but it’s these silly cash shop things that temper my interest
Now I’m not saying they can’t sell convenience, or costumes – thats just silly, but they should be providing a better balance there. Stuff like picking inventory or weight. Not having your pets deleted if you want the higher tier. Being a bit more generous with everything in game really so it doesn’t mean frustration to play at a higher level. They just seem to be trying to Monticello absolutely everything and after spending stuff on the boring account restrictions, I no longer feel good enough to spend further.
It’s like with say TSW, buying outfits, pets and such into hat game makes you feel God, so you are more likely to spend more in the future. Gamed that make you feel bad about it, or at least more like paying your tax accountant you’d probably be less likely
Heheheeee….yeah I get that. There’s stuff that annoys me about the game right now that the shop actually can’t fix. Well am glad you’re enjoying the game anyway, indeed it has great potential and let’s hope they don’t start ruin stuff further down the line.
The breeding penalty on the pets is really silly, just means am not gonna do it. So glad I heard about it before getting 2 pets of the same family.
“They designed the karma system to limit pks and provide consequence yet they allow a cash shop item to completely avoid that”
What is the cash shop item that prevents negative karma?
Bit late to the party but here is my 2c!
I don’t like cash shops in general and I think the cash shop in BDO is very predatory like others have said here. Only cash shop I ever liked is GW2 and Arenanet is making lot money despite not being predatory.
Anyway I treat all cash shop games as subscription games. I allocate £10 at the start of every month and only use this “fund” to buy anything from the cash shop. I have to admit that I have mixed results here! Hopefully I will have self control and won’t fall prey to Daum business practices but only time will tell!
@lost the guille suit makes it so people can’t see your nameplate, and thus the red splatter that you’ve pk’d people. Doesn’t prevent it, but certainly removes much of the consequence of being a killer.