Item Shop Discussion Forum

[Gorathon]

From the perspective of a primarily PvP player, I'd say selling time is great if it cuts out hours and hours needed to do PvM activities so that they can get to their preferred activity. The issue i see with this, as someone that spends 97% of their time engaging in PvE, is that as a PvE player I'll lose people to play with.

Anything that is put into the item shop that means that people don't do the content (or do less of it) ... is a negative for me as a player.

If people are buying items from an items shop and therefore not doing the content, what type of effect do you think that has on those of us that do the content?.

Having hung out with you and your orglets I can testify that you are not lacking for folks to team with. Having noticed your efforts to build teams for others' benefit, I can understand your concern about losing potential teammates to "money for time." It's clear to me (and a great many folks I suspect) that you are not worried you'll have no one to team with, but that the concept of teaming will disappear.

I will say that maybe's it's for the best, then, that you don't plan to resub. Not for my benefit, or for your org's benefit, but for your peace of mind. I noticed today the new bundle they're advertising: 20K VP+1K tokens account-wide, including future toons. Unless they make 'em NODROP you will have significantly fewer folks grinding tokens and VP...I mean significantly.

be civil to each other, we're all in the same boat.

The difference being, to use your analogy, is that while most folks are trying to bail waiter overboard, a few are content to sit and blow on the sail and insist that they're helping too.

[Traderjill]

[I would appreciate less "doom & gloom" theories as to what may or may not be added to the Item Shop between now and the end of time, and more about what IS currently available in the Item Shop and what WE (the playerbase) would like to see added (with a seasonable explanation as to why).

I don't mean this to sound rude, but what you'd like to see us talk about here is not relevant. I'm going with what the producer of the game posted:

This forum will have posting enabled like any of the other discussion forums, as we want to encourage general community discussions about the shop as its own feature which, like any other, is here to add value to you guys the players.

I feel that my comments and responses have been completely in line with discussing the itemshop, as its own feature. The fact of the matter is that I personally do not feel it s adding value to the playerbase and additionally I've been listing my concerns regarding already announced future additions. I also posted a seperate thread listing the type of items that I, as a player, would be interested in seeing in the itemshop and would purchase.

I feel that the yesdrop items that have already been added that can basically be mass duplicated (roll new alt, trade, delete alt, rinse and repeat) and thrown into the marketplace is ridiculous and I agree with whoever said that funcom might as well just sell credits because that's how a lot of players utilize the itemshop (as a way to legally buy in-game money).

In terms of future additions, I think I've been clear on my stance regarding the addition of nodrop or unique weapons/armor or even yesdrop items of value being added to the shop. Similarly I believe my position on the "level up to XXX" items that have been proposed (already added to the database.. guess they're just waiting for the right time to release?) is also clear.

Again, not speaking for anyone else...I've yet to not be calm when discussing this topic and to be honest, I doubt anyone else posting here is upset either.. at least from what I'm reading. Doom and gloom? No. But the insta-level items is a strong indicator, to me, of what direction Funcom is going in with this itemshp and yeah.. I'm going to comment on it.

I guess its all about perspective.

[shamenOTC]

...or buy them with credits or VP, or loot them from S42...

You are confusing single skill resets with "full skill resets" a single reset bought with vp/creds or looted in sec42 allows you to reset a single skill, this does not include abilities.

A full skill reset which you can't buy in-game for vp/creds or loot them, resets all skills including abilities.

It's the "full skill reset" I would like brought in-game, lvling a twink in order to get a full skill reset is not an option.

[Aeliniyah]

Neither E-bayed or from FC, nor a troll. I make a valid point but people cant seem to get it. You talk about not having people to team with if items were added to the items shop but how many times have you teamed with someone on a city raid except for a city daily in the last few years? How many lox teams do you see running? Or people on lft for these? I rarely see anyone on lft for city raids, and as for Lox its always people teaming with the same people and not inviting off lft. Most people don't invite off lft for beast either, its always a select group doing beast for what they want or to sell loot. For leveling well that's easy, pocket teams with org or friends in it from 1 to 200 easily, 200-220 is mainly org m8s or dual logging and getting a couple randoms to fill the team. So right now as it stands the amount of teaming without people you know or people from org is almost non existent, for everything high level there are raid bots.

Can't you see that what you just said is one of the biggest problems in AO atm?

I left AO immediately when the item shop was first introduced. It was only the last nail in the coffin. There was many other small annoyances stacked up during the years that led me to cancel.

A few months ago i came back, opened both my accounts for six months, and played actively for a couple of months. After that i haven't bothered to log back on even though i still have my accounts open. The reason is simply the difficulty of finding people to do content with. I'd like to do all those things you mentioned, WITH a team (be it random from LFT or org team or co-op or whatever). But since it's borderline impossible to get a team going for anything, i don't feel the urge to login anymore.

And btw, about that "valid" point of yours: You've only had one argument so far, which you repeat like a broken record, while Jill, Soap, Surm and even Masta and many others gave you good counterarguments, which you completely passed without commenting any of them yet.

And about the topic at hand: Selling anything else than 100% social stuff with IRL money is wrong. It takes away the sense of accomplishment from the people who obtained said levels/gear/tokens/vp/creds the "hard way". Take away the sense of accomplisment and you see many more people leave.

The "WoW kiddies" who want everything on a silver platter and NOW, won't ever play a 10 year old game with bad graphics and complicated mechanics anyway. Not even with updated engine.

[Carlonel]

I noticed today the new bundle they're advertising: 20K VP+1K tokens account-wide, including future toons. Unless they make 'em NODROP you will have significantly fewer folks grinding tokens and VP...I mean significantly.


The difference being, to use your analogy, is that while most folks are trying to bail waiter overboard, a few are content to sit and blow on the sail and insist that they're helping too.

All of the items you get in bundles are nodrop. I think anything account wide is also nodrop from what i have seen but i havent bought to many things from it.

[Carlonel]

Can't you see that what you just said is one of the biggest problems in AO atm?

I left AO immediately when the item shop was first introduced. It was only the last nail in the coffin. There was many other small annoyances stacked up during the years that led me to cancel.

A few months ago i came back, opened both my accounts for six months, and played actively for a couple of months. After that i haven't bothered to log back on even though i still have my accounts open. The reason is simply the difficulty of finding people to do content with. I'd like to do all those things you mentioned, WITH a team (be it random from LFT or org team or co-op or whatever). But since it's borderline impossible to get a team going for anything, i don't feel the urge to login anymore.

You're helping validate my statement with that. The reason there aren't teams isn't due to the lack of people, there's plenty of people. But everyone is trying to get the gear they need so they only want to do specific things, or do things solo. I would much rather do everything solo not only cause its faster then finding people most of the time but i also don't have to worry about if the other person needs the same thing i need. Pisses me off when i farm for something for a while and then team with someone and in the end they get what i needed and I'm left farming some more.

Take away the sense of accomplisment and you see many more people leave.

How will me buying an item from the shop take away your sense of accomplishment? You don't have to buy the stuff, you can do it the old way and farm. Wont you farming rather then buying when you have the option give you an even greater sense of accomplishment? You can say i didn't buy that i farmed it.

[Gimpeline]

I left AO immediately when the item shop was first introduced. It was only the last nail in the coffin. There was many other small annoyances stacked up during the years that led me to cancel.

I did the same. Came back a few days ago
It's a shame that the WOW kiddies that is used to get everything handed to them invading AO. Guess every game now days needs a item shop for the lazy people that cant be bothered to play the game, but just want to skip to endgame experience and then troll the forum with "There is nothing to do QQ".
"I have done it all on alts, and don't want to do it all over again" So what? So have I.
"I have a job and cant play that often" So what? So have I. You don't need to get to endgame in one week.
I would really hate to see AO becoming a "pay to win" game.

[Traderjill]

You're helping validate my statement with that. The reason there aren't teams isn't due to the lack of people, there's plenty of people. But everyone is trying to get the gear they need so they only want to do specific things, or do things solo. I would much rather do everything solo not only cause its faster then finding people most of the time but i also don't have to worry about if the other person needs the same thing i need. Pisses me off when i farm for something for a while and then team with someone and in the end they get what i needed and I'm left farming some more.

I don't think there are plenty of people but I do agree that the existing playerbase is severly thinned out by the number of things there are to do at TL7.

That being said, there are other ways to promote teaming and many such suggestions are listed in the Game Suggestions area. Let me point you to one: http://forums.anarchy-online.com/sho...22&postcount=5

Going "to heck with it.. just sell them the stuff" is kind of the "we give up on the game stance" imo. You're asking funcom to fix the symptom and not cure the cause of the ailment.

[Carlonel]

I did the same. Came back a few days ago
It's a shame that the WOW kiddies that is used to get everything handed to them invading AO. Guess every game now days needs a item shop for the lazy people that cant be bothered to play the game, but just want to skip to endgame experience and then troll the forum with "There is nothing to do QQ".
"I have done it all on alts, and don't want to do it all over again" So what? So have I.
"I have a job and cant play that often" So what? So have I. You don't need to get to endgame in one week.
I would really hate to see AO becoming a "pay to win" game.

Wouldn't be a pay to win game, will just make it easier for people who don't have the time to spend farming. Don't see how adding some items into the shop would have any effect on endgame experience, nobody wants to see items like BoC or RBPs in the shop. And endgame in a week? If you work and have limited time its going to take months to get a character endgame, talking 100s if not thousands of raids to get your armor, many beast raids to get your weapons, then so many days/months farming symbs, buffing items(which a few needed ones can only be obtained during certain times of the year), and all of your other hud/util items needed. So no were not talking about becoming endgame in a week, talking about cutting some time off of the whole process. Even if you play all day every day its going to take a long time to get everything you need. How many times do you have to do this before you get bored and quit like the majority of the people have? PVP is non existent due to people wanting to be setup to compete. If you do BS or other pvp and your not setup good enough its going to ruin your pvp experience and your not going to want to do it anymore which is part of what killed pvp in the game.

[Carlonel]

I don't think there are plenty of people but I do agree that the existing playerbase is severly thinned out by the number of things there are to do at TL7.

That being said, there are other ways to promote teaming and many such suggestions are listed in the Game Suggestions area. Let me point you to one: http://forums.anarchy-online.com/sho...22&postcount=5

Going "to heck with it.. just sell them the stuff" is kind of the "we give up on the game stance" imo. You're asking funcom to fix the symptom and not cure the cause of the ailment.

The whole reason the item shop is there is to also bring in more income, without this income you think the game is going to ever go forward? So if they decided to scrap the item shop and increase the subscription fees would you be up for that? I bet not. They have to make up for the loss of income due to people quitting somehow and selling items in the shop that nobody wants isn't going to help. They need to add more items people will buy and items people will buy more often to make money.

[Aeliniyah]

Wouldn't be a pay to win game, will just make it easier for people who don't have the time to spend farming. Don't see how adding some items into the shop would have any effect on endgame experience, nobody wants to see items like BoC or RBPs in the shop. And endgame in a week? If you work and have limited time its going to take months to get a character endgame, talking 100s if not thousands of raids to get your armor, many beast raids to get your weapons, then so many days/months farming symbs, buffing items(which a few needed ones can only be obtained during certain times of the year), and all of your other hud/util items needed. So no were not talking about becoming endgame in a week, talking about cutting some time off of the whole process. Even if you play all day every day its going to take a long time to get everything you need. How many times do you have to do this before you get bored and quit like the majority of the people have? PVP is non existent due to people wanting to be setup to compete. If you do BS or other pvp and your not setup good enough its going to ruin your pvp experience and your not going to want to do it anymore which is part of what killed pvp in the game.

The trick is to fix the CAUSE of the problem, not fixing the symptom. If you just let people buy the gear they need, there won't be anyone to team with to get the gear by PLAYING the game. It won't fix anything, only make things worse in the long run.

Like many people pointed out already, the key is fixing the real reason why people feel the need to skip large parts of the game. They need to make teaming and leveling more appealing. There's numerous suggestions about how to achieve that in the suggestion forums. Making all/most thing buyable will not fix anything. New people coming to the game want to PLAY the game, not bypass most of it by using RL cash. Ofcourse the previously mentioned "WoW kiddies" actually might want to skip most of the game anyway but meh... can't help that i guess.

[Gimpeline]

Wouldn't be a pay to win game, will just make it easier for people who don't have the time to spend farming. Don't see how adding some items into the shop would have any effect on endgame experience, nobody wants to see items like BoC or RBPs in the shop. And endgame in a week? If you work and have limited time its going to take months to get a character endgame, talking 100s if not thousands of raids to get your armor, many beast raids to get your weapons, then so many days/months farming symbs, buffing items(which a few needed ones can only be obtained during certain times of the year), and all of your other hud/util items needed. So no were not talking about becoming endgame in a week, talking about cutting some time off of the whole process. Even if you play all day every day its going to take a long time to get everything you need. How many times do you have to do this before you get bored and quit like the majority of the people have? PVP is non existent due to people wanting to be setup to compete. If you do BS or other pvp and your not setup good enough its going to ruin your pvp experience and your not going to want to do it anymore which is part of what killed pvp in the game.

ZZzzzZZZZ As I said. Lazy WoW kids are invading the game. Work for your setup instead of buying it. It makes the game more interesting. If you don't have time to play the game, find something else.

[Awikun]

I have been playing AO for over 6 years (3 years I was away). I came back almost 1 year ago and I still love AO. I have only 1 x 220/30/70 and I still miss some items on that char (ACDC that I can only hope to get from Collector as S42 raids are non existant, and 3 or 4 alphas).

AO is not a race (at least for me) and from what I know one of the biggest difference between AO and any other MMORPG is average age of player. AO has a very mature (or even old) community majority of players I know have families, jobs, etc. and can not spend 5, 8, or 10 hours everyday. I think that majority of players could easily afford to buy any item from ingame store but ......

it would destroy all the fun and feeling of acomplishment.

If FC need more income then I have a great suggestion.

IMPLEMENT NEW KIND OF SUBSCRIPTION - HOURLY

1. Make a new subscription at the same price as 1 month that allows 50, 80 or 100 ingame hours (make your own analysis to select the right number)
2. Allow all accounts to buy this kind of subscription including froobs (and of course paid accounts)
3, When such subscription expires then transform this account into froob status (but allow to keep all items already equiped), but for example all SL/AI/LE items nanos would not be usable.

What would FC gain?

1. Some froobs would be able and willing to buy some hours to get better items
2. All paid players whose accounts expired would be able to lurk in as froob and/or buy some hours to check from time to time if/when rebalance hits servers

THAT MEANS THAT YOU WOULD INCREASE PROBABILITY THAT ONE DAY (AFTER NEW ENGINE AND REBALANCE) THEY WILL COME BACK.

[Carlonel]

ZZzzzZZZZ As I said. Lazy WoW kids are invading the game. Work for your setup instead of buying it. It makes the game more interesting. If you don't have time to play the game, find something else.

Has nothing to do with being lazy, has everything to do with the fact that doing it on at least 6 char already its a waste of time, it gets boring and just makes people want to quit the game. And accomplishments are nothing in AO, once you do it so many times its just a hassle, o wow now my 10th character has 4000 tokens yay, yay just got my 10th set of ai armor w00t, no there is no sense of accomplishment once you do something enough times. And as i have said nobody is forced to buy anything from the item store, the way everyone talks its like you wont be able to farm for stuff anymore and youll be forced to buy it instead. If you want to farm for items thats you, some of us would rather have the time to enjoy the game by playing with friends instead of doing city raid after city raid every day, or other things we solo cause who wants to come team with you all day every day doing city raids for your bots? Nobody cause if you can solo a city raid why do you need to bring other people in who are going to expect loot? Hell lets get rid of the item shop and increase the subscription fee, ill pay 25$ a month for each of my accounts if it helps keep AO going and they fix the drop rates.

[Mesa]

Carlonel I got the solution. You post less on the board, than we could save some nerves and you would have more spare time left to play the game to get your lewt.
Problem solved.

[Carlonel]

Carlonel I got the solution. You post less on the board, than we could save some nerves and you would have more spare time left to play the game to get your lewt.
Problem solved.

I"m at work, have all the time i need for posting since i cant play.

[Dagget]

Item needed to add - books!

The social Items section has handbags and plushies for the hand but no books - needs 2 or 3 variations of a book or group of papers/books to hold.

Also need to add some small 'invisible' item so you can appear to be empty-handed

[Otansaanpas]

how about a little experiment, lets add burden and lusts to itemshop for 1 month and see how many times beast is killed on that month?

[Utopian]

Kind of on a slight tangent...

For everyone who dislikes the Item Shop selling "power" by whatever definition you want to use - what is your stance on selling lootrights? Isn't it functionally the same thing - i.e., a toon getting an item they didn't deserve by doing the content?

I see no difference from buying an item from a player or from the shop - relative to the question of making the accomplishment feel cheapened (as been discussed). And don't use the RL cash vs player credit transfer argument. RL cash<>credits have been in this game for the 4 years I have been around. Some of the FC decisions for the Item Shop just made it worse.

Look at number of players offering whole pf loot for sale - Beast/APFs/Alappa/Alb - to me, that is a major problem and a reason why regular folks can't get teams and items to enjoy the game.

[Raggy]

Kind of on a slight tangent...

For everyone who dislikes the Item Shop selling "power" by whatever definition you want to use - what is your stance on selling lootrights? Isn't it functionally the same thing - i.e., a toon getting an item they didn't deserve by doing the content?

I see no difference from buying an item from a player or from the shop - relative to the question of making the accomplishment feel cheapened (as been discussed). And don't use the RL cash vs player credit transfer argument. RL cash<>credits have been in this game for the 4 years I have been around. Some of the FC decisions for the Item Shop just made it worse.

Look at number of players offering whole pf loot for sale - Beast/APFs/Alappa/Alb - to me, that is a major problem and a reason why regular folks can't get teams and items to enjoy the game.

Completely Different.

Lootrights require people to do the content.
Buying fabricated items out of the shop, does not.