A Small Item Shop Update

[Ilaliya]

A Small Item Shop Update

I’ve previously promised to give a heads up before we start releasing new item shop content, so here is a list of new offerings we’ve been working on & that are currently in the pipe in some form. We’ve listened to a lot of feedback on these things, and basically the goal is to offer to players the things you want to obtain. And just to be clear, the prices have not yet been determined.

A Quick Word of Caution

Threads about the item shop in general have a tendency to grow contentious, so I want to head some of this off at the pass. So let’s just get this out of the way:

1. The goal of the item shop is to provide players with things they want to obtain. The AO player-base is extremely varied in this regard, and we try to have offerings that don’t necessarily appeal to everyone, but instead appeal to someone.
2. The revenue from the shop is reinvested directly back into Anarchy Online.
3. We are extremely sensitive to “pay-to-win” situations which are always a danger with any item shop in any online game, and we simply won’t cross that line. I can’t overstate this enough.

Upcoming Additions

These are the additions which we're looking at for the short term. It's currently targeted for the 18.5.2 update. There have been a lot of great suggestions on the forums (this sub-forum in particular), and we will be pushing out more additions in the future based on those suggestions.

• Breed Change – The Breed Change changes the character’s breed, and teleports the character to the surgery clinic. It resets the perks and IP (basically it’s a character reset). I talk about it a bit in this thread
• Garden Keys – This is adding all the Garden Keys to the item shop
• Heckler Juice – The character gets to drink the essence of Hecklers, and obtain an xp increase
• Combat Buffcans – We’ve packaged some of the popular raid buffs in a handy can format. Note players will not be able to obtain anything they can’t already, and all requirements are otherwise preserved.
• Gender Change – This changes the character’s gender and teleport him/her to the surgery clinic
• Grid Nanoprogram – Instead of buying the existing grid nano cans, the character has the option of just buying the program itself.
• Recall Beacon – Three versions:
  
  • Insurance Claim – teleports the character to the Insurance Terminal where he/she last saved
  • Rubi-Ka – teleports the character to Newland, Tir or Omni-Entertainment depending on his/her faction
  • Shadowlands – teleports the character to the garden, based on the key that is equipped
• Side Change – Changes the character’s side. Note this resets the faction, but the character still has to increase the new faction through existing methods. However, the character is spared having to grind down his/her old faction
• Twinking Buffcans – These are the out-of-combat cans. We’ve reorganized and changed a lot of the existing buffcans to make more sense. There were cans that nobody used, for example. And cans that were priced improperly.
• Token Board – We are adding subscriber-only versions of the Omni-Tek Honor and Clan Advancement boards. This board isn't sold in the shop (it's found in game). But creating more benefits for subscribers is a general initiative we're doing in conjunction with the shop improvements, so I included it in this list.

Some Insights

This is optional reading for players interested in the business side of things

Now allow me to “keep it real,” as they say. Obviously the goal of the item shop is to make money by providing virtual goods and services to players, where there is a demand. This is the goal of any functioning business. In an online game, there is an additional requirement of not shifting the core play experience (why people are playing the game in the first place).

So to be completely transparent about this, AO has a budget which is determined by revenue. This budget is what we use to pay salaries, buy licenses for software for developer use and licenses for software that’s directly integrated into our project, server and hosting costs, office space, hardware, advertisement such as google ads, etc, etc. So for example, we are looking at a 3rd party solution for rigging / animations with the engine upgrade. This is a cost that comes out of budget. Before the Funcom restructuring, we were “leasing” an additional render coder from a different project to help the full-time coder team that’s already on the engine. That came out of budget. Again, this budget does not come from the sky or from the whimsy of a boardroom meeting, it comes directly from our revenues because we are a cash-flow positive project.

I’m a gamer. I know how this goes. I think there is a tendency (myself included) to look at an item shop in a game and think that something isn’t fair because so-and-so player can pull out the credit card and buy X. The thing to remember for Anarchy Online is that the revenue will come back to the players directly in the form of new features and content, or planned features coming out faster or we get to increase their scope.

The classic project management triangle is: “Time, Cost, Quality: pick two.” So if you want things done quickly and of high quality, you pay a premium. If you want to get things done cheaply and of high quality, it takes a long time. If you don’t care about quality, you can get things done quickly and with a low cost. But we have to care about quality in an MMO – not caring about quality leads to all sorts of bugs and balance issues. This means we’re trading on time or money. More revenue coming into AO means things get done quicker, or we get more things. And this benefits everybody. That’s just how it goes. This is a primary motivation for doing anything at all. So I want you guys to know that this is revenue that goes directly into improving the game.

In Conclusion

We are of course very sensitive and open to feedback. Keep in mind many of these items originated as a player suggestion. Nothing is patched in, or turned on in the shop, or priced. The reason we’re posting this beforehand is that I said that I would , and to be able to listen to players & incorporate the necessary feedback.

[Aiken]

Indeed

Edit: Please ensure that the new recall beacon is in the Veteran Booth please, just like the others!

[Lazy]

alright, i'm going to break character a bit and post something non-trolling and constructive.

first of all, i understand the money issue and from the 2nd part of your post it feels a lot like your hand is forced by your wallets. that's cool. i understand that. mans gotta eat. but from a player perspective there's a few things i find frankly unacceptable and honestly i'm not even angry that i'm reading it. just... disappointed.

Combat Buffcans please refer to this and this (point #4 in particular) post. i understand in the first linked post he was referring to the regular buffcans not the new ones and that therefore it's apples and oranges etc. but if you REALLY think about it this is the biggest example of buying power currently in this cash shop announcement.

(assuming a hypothetical 10% of the ao population only pvp with raid buffs, or 1 person out of a 5v5 bs).

consider that if i wanna pvp with a raid buff i have to go do the raid. now i'm lazy so i dont do the raid but one or two individuals are less lazy than me and go get it. the overall balance of power doesn't shift too far in their favour due to more people NOT having the buff than having it. now imagine where for a few irl dollars johnny pewpew can skip the raid and get buff anyway. swipe credit card and away he goes. suddenly the number of pvpers goes up and i myself feel like my hand is forced into either paying to stay competitive or taking the time to do the raid.

and it's only a hop a skip and a jump from there to buying full CC sets. you know?

Grid Nanoprogram – either make it prohibitively expensive or better yet just lower the price a bit on the onetime use instant grids. or give vets access to a vetshop one. idk. everyone having access to grid feels a bit like a core mechanic change to me. and if you're doing that either give it to everyone available through something in game or only do the onetime use ones.

garden keys i dont really mind all that much tbh as i find them a pointless waste of time and never get them on any of my toons, but other people having garden keys doesn't inconvenience me in any way. but i can see how some of the pvmers might take offence so ./shrug.

before someone asks: "but how is THIS different from buying tokens?!" well you get tokens as you level anyway. someone levelling a toon will have 2500 tokens by the time they hit 220. having a 2500 board is "standard" gear for a 210+. having raidbuffs isn't "standard" and should never be, imo.

this is a bit of a rant/ramble and i appologise if it's a bit hard to read/follow but just wanted to voice how i felt about all this.


EDIT:

OTOH the breed/gender swaps are lovely. thanks for those. cna't wait to change my fixer <3

[Krisalee]

Oh, this is gonna be a fun thread

I actually like the addition of breed / gender change. Question: will side change allow sided characters to become Neutral?

[Ilaliya]

Oh, this is gonna be a fun thread

I actually like the addition of breed / gender change. Question: will side change allow sided characters to become Neutral?

There are currently two items associated with the side change:

• Premium Omni-Tek Application Form
• Premium Clan Application Form

If there is enough demand for a neutral version, I wouldn't be opposed to adding it however if we can do it in the right way

[Phargus]

[
Some Insights

stuff...

Nice writeup, but honestly this is not relevant to players at all. It's like your car dealer telling you your new tires are subpar cause one of the factory workers had an unhappy love afair, when what you should be doing is selling them a good product at a fair price. With one of the most expensive subscription rates around, having the item shop on top just seems greedy...

[nanoforcer]

Side change, do the tokens on the toon get "converted" to whatever faction you change to or do they get reset to 0 ?

[Lazy]

Side change, do the tokens on the toon get "converted" to whatever faction you change to or do they get reset to 0 ?

nah gotta buy those again

[Demoder]

I'm sorry about the harsh economical times Funcom is having (judging by press releases), and I realize you're trying to walk a fine line here. You're doing pretty good at that, with a few exceptions which I'll outline further on. I'm going to spend this post stating my opinion, and provide arguments for why I have that opinion. I'll start with the good/acceptable things, then continue with the bad/unacceptable things towards the end.

The Okay Stuff
Breed/Gender change
I'm simplifying a bit here, but this is something we've been told a number of times will be available once 'rebalance' hits. I don't really mind this being available in the item shop as it comes across as a convenience thing - a super strong IP reset point package, perhaps.

Heckler Juice
Doesn't sound too different from stuff which is already in the item store; It reduces the grind but doesn't let you skip it. Depending on stats, I'll personally go with "fair enough" on this one.

Side change
I'm okay with this as long as it doesn't let you do something you can't do with side change forms which are available through other means.

Twinking Buffcans
Had these been introduced 5 years ago I would've yelled off the top of my lungs about how these dimish the value of certain professions. Sadly, the state of the game have changed since then, which is also why I didn't complain when they were introduced in their previous form. Twinking is fun, but having to hunt down all the right professions seems to be much harder now than it used to be - and is sometimes virtually impossible - which may cause enough agony for people to give up, lose interest, and go play something else. Which would escalate the problem even more. Having these as a last-resort option don't seem too bad, IMO.

Recall Beacon
This is not too different to what's already available in the veteran shop, and as long as the new variant is made available in the veteran shop, I don't have too many complaints on this one.

The Bad Stuff
Garden Keys
Garden key quests are a very important part of the story line, and overall progression through Shadowlands. You also have to get to the zone, prove your worth by killing some monsters to get a insignia or three, preferably save in the respective garden and then start doing the quest. You have to prove you're ready for this content, because you have to survive it. I do not approve of letting people skip such huge amounts of content.
The garden key quests may be considered a PITA for some, especially if you've done them several times before. I recognize that. Heck, having 5 220's (several of which have all the garden & sanctuary keys) and about 30 alts of varying levels, I even *know* that is the case. But if you add a "pay to skip content" option for this, bazzit's quest (AI Tech 3) is bound to be next. And the sided shoulder pad quest (the one with the robot junk parts) would probably be the next in line after that again. It's a slippery slope. Once you start, you're unlikely to stop, because you already legitimized the concept with the garden key pack.

At a bare minimum, the character should be required to have visited the garden in question before getting the key.

Combat Buffcans
Buy buffs which were previously only obtainable through doing raids. This is a bad thing for several reasons. It dimishes the achievement/reward from doing raids in the first place. These buffs have acted as a motivator to get people more interested in doing raids, even if they are not all too interested in the loot. They've also acted as a small pat on the back for those who didn't get the loot they wanted.

I must also inform you that this is indeed pay-to-win content in the items shop. This stuff gives people a in-combat advantage which they would not have unless they put in the effort to do the respective raids. As the name states, it's a combat-compatible buff. Even if we only consider the time constraint on doing the raids, this will in many cases give people an advantage in PvP which they would not normally have.
You may argue that this is not too different from the currently available token & victory point packages, to which I have to agree. I'll refer to what I said earlier about a slippery slope though, as this is the perfect example of how that works.

Grid Nanoprogram
I didn't complain against the canned version of this, as they seemed restricted enough; You wouldn't really use them unless you really had to, because each warp was some amount of $ spent.
One of the identifying features of the Fixer profession is to be able to instantly go wherever they want. This nano makes that part of the fixers toolset non-unique. Anyone who flesh out some yet-to-be-determined $ will be able to grid whenever they want, how often they want. We've seen similar changes to novelty profession features, namely the 'crats bank access and traders GMS/GMI access.

I'm getting a bit tired of writing this, and I bet you're equally tired reading it: Once again, we're now observing the slippery slope. It has to stop somewhere before it gets too bad; I'd say that line has to be drawn before this announced change.

Some Final Words
When I read "We are extremely sensitive to “pay-to-win” situations which are always a danger with any item shop in any online game, and we simply won’t cross that line. I can’t overstate this enough.", I immediately thought "they're adding pay-to-win content". I was not wrong. I sympathise with your situation, I really do; You may not even have a real choice here. But this announcement is already making it clear you're taking several more steps in the direction of paying to skip content, and some first steps in 'pay to win'. If you continue down this path; And I am sure you will if you don't walk away from this path now; we'll most likely end up with a game where the economics will discourage fixing of broken/unpopular content, and maybe even encourage development of content which encourages parts of the population to pay to skip. Why fix something which people actually *pay you* to skip?
It's a very short-term solution. Pay-to-win and pay-to-skip reduce or eliminate the sense of achievement. As I understand it, the sense of achievement is one of the top things which make people play a MMO. I'm sure this business model works for titles which have large amounts of people coming through; this does not seem to be the case for AO though, or we would probably not need the twinking buff cans in the first place.

Thank you for reading this post. I hope you enjoyed the read as much as I enjoyed writing it.

tl;dr: Pay to win and pay to skip is bad. You're going there. Please don't.

[Krisalee]

The Bad Stuff
Garden Keys

I have to say I'm with you here, though I understand the WHY, it makes me sad to see these will be added, and the unlimited use grid nanoprogram.

I'll allow myself one small paragraph to bitch: A limited-use Garden Key would be fine, honestly. Good for 10 uses or somesuch? It worked for the limited-use instant grid item (which I don't have a problem with at all), would be enough to get where you're going and plenty enough to allow you to do the keyquests too. There, all done.

That said, and I want to be clear here, I get it. Funcom's putting in items that players have said they would pay for, and that money goes directly to the continued development of AO. When it all comes down to it... I want AO to remain cashflow positive for a good long while. I subscribe and I spend money from time to time on points not necessarily because I want teh phatz (though access to all content and extra shinies is very much worth what I spend), but ultimately, because I love AO, I know it costs money to keep running, and I want to support it in any way I'm able. If other people want to directly support AO by spending money on garden keys or the ability to meep as any profession, well... I can't complain about that too much, because it all helps keep this place running.

[Dysfunction]

I would LOVE the chance to make my character neutral again, that would be incredibly helpful to a lot of players with old twinks and people that got tired of omni/clan factions

[Lazy]

I have to say I'm with you here, though I understand the WHY, it makes me sad to see these will be added, and the unlimited use grid nanoprogram.

I'll allow myself one small paragraph to bitch: A limited-use Garden Key would be fine, honestly. Good for 10 uses or somesuch? It worked for the limited-use instant grid item (which I don't have a problem with at all), would be enough to get where you're going and plenty enough to allow you to do the keyquests too. There, all done.

That said, and I want to be clear here, I get it. Funcom's putting in items that players have said they would pay for, and that money goes directly to the continued development of AO. When it all comes down to it... I want AO to remain cashflow positive for a good long while. I subscribe and I spend money from time to time on points not necessarily because I want teh phatz (though access to all content and extra shinies is very much worth what I spend), but ultimately, because I love AO, I know it costs money to keep running, and I want to support it in any way I'm able. If other people want to directly support AO by spending money on garden keys or the ability to meep as any profession, well... I can't complain about that too much, because it all helps keep this place running.

the biggest problem iwth that is you can still, say, buy inf key on a level one, zone into jobe platform and have fixer meep you into inf garden whereby you skip every progression quest you'd have had to do to get there in the first place as a level 1.

[Saetos]

the biggest problem iwth that is you can still, say, buy inf key on a level one, zone into jobe platform and have fixer meep you into inf garden whereby you skip every progression quest you'd have had to do to get there in the first place as a level 1.

Exactly. And you can just use the other keys to bamf anywhere you wished to cart alts to leveling spots, getting them as high up as possible using Doc and Enf OSTs wherever applicable. Until Penumbra, there's no need for any progression or protection items (Adonis Abyss wouldn't come into play during normal leveling), and at 160 you can just grab a pair of glasses and boots and restart the engine again.

Hell, you don't even need a Fixer at all. There're Unredeemed and Redeemed pillars on RK. One click, and bam - now you're in Inferno. At level 1.

[Ilaliya]

Great feedback so far!

And thank you Lazy and Demoder for taking the time to write really in-depth comments

[drainbamage]

Nice writeup, but honestly this is not relevant to players at all. It's like your car dealer telling you your new tires are subpar cause one of the factory workers had an unhappy love afair, when what you should be doing is selling them a good product at a fair price. With one of the most expensive subscription rates around, having the item shop on top just seems greedy...

Seriously, this. I don't really care about Funcom's financial woes. I don't care if the lead dev is a "gamer". I care about the product I'm being offered.

If you're going to start shoving stuff that comes perilously close to pay-to-win down our throats then you should at least have the decency to make the game truly F2P and give more benefits (such as more free points per month) to subscribers.

Also I imagine this change means that we can forget about certain key quests being made less obnoxious.

[Loucretia]

Garden Keys.

The xp/sk for doing the garden keys was totally nerfed a few months ago on the basis that it was "inappropriate" for players beyond x levels to get a reward for doing those keys.

Lo and behold they may now appear in the shop.

This looks su****iously like the two are related.

Consider this.

Would anyone buy a garden key if by doing so they miss out on a decent xp/sk bump? Unlikely.

Would they do so if all they miss out on is a tedious quest with no reward besides the key? Quite likely.

I think most people appreciate that the game needs revenue. However, considering this is actually an expensive game to play you need to think carefully about what you nerf and then try to sell.

If you offered me an account wide 50% xp buff for a month for $20 i might take it occasionally, or a 1 month 1 toon xp buff of 50% for $10 might even work. You would have to be very careful not to nerf the current rates though as any creep towards making it a must have would be intolerable.

[Ilaliya]

Seriously, this. I don't really care about Funcom's financial woes. I don't care if the lead dev is a "gamer". I care about the product I'm being offered.

Let me be clear that there are no financial woes on Anarchy Online. The project is successful by any financial metric. There are merely realities of operating a business on the production side of things, and I thought it might be nice to offer players an insight into how things work. Because we do have players that are interested in the behind-the-scenes stuff.

The first line in the section is "This is optional reading for players interested in the business side of things" because I recognize it's not something everyone cares about.

[Krisalee]

the biggest problem iwth that is you can still, say, buy inf key on a level one, zone into jobe platform and have fixer meep you into inf garden whereby you skip every progression quest you'd have had to do to get there in the first place as a level 1.

Good point.

What if the item shop "Garden Key" was some sort of lore-ish item (call it 'Orb of the Keymaster' or something) that could be exchanged with one of the Garden Denizens in exchange for the key to that particular garden? That way you have to actually GET to a garden to use it.

[Irish]

A concern of mine is in regard to the garden keys. I fully agree with Demoder and Lazy's posts above... there is a thin line and I'm hoping it doesn't get passed by sliding down that slippery slope Demoder was talking about.

Here is my issue with it:
I see so many people on these forums and ingame wtb spots for inf key , or wts inferno key patterns. When this buy a key service starts , all of that is gone. It seems to be , in my opinion, that game content is being eliminated. I know there is still the quest reward advantages to the key quests, but honestly how many people are going to bother to do the farming or buy a slot for say 50-75m ig creds when they can say drop $20 rl creds to get it instead ? Not many. Then there are less ig creds on the person that busted their butts farmin the patterns, and maybe just maybe you will be able to find enough players to do the actual quest for the keys, because at least 60% don't need it anymore now that they bought the key! Demoder's quote that yes after 5 220's it does get monotonous is definitely true, I get that but how is it going to look to future new players when they look at the guide and go oh look I can quest for this key or hey I can drop 20, 30 , 40 bucks and buy the keys? Which path do you think they will take?

I do understand the need for funds to pad the expenses , but I personally feel that a few of these items need to be rethought.

[Gaveup]

Garden Keys – This is adding all the Garden Keys to the item shop
[*]Combat Buffcans – We’ve packaged some of the popular raid buffs in a handy can format. Note players will not be able to obtain anything they can’t already, and all requirements are otherwise preserved.
[*]Grid Nanoprogram – Instead of buying the existing grid nano cans, the character has the option of just buying the program itself.

Please do not sell items that otherwise require a raid to complete this will directly take away from the already small population that is actually using the content they paid for.

The Grid Nanoprogram while a good idea will greatly pisses off fixers, but with outdoor cities going away it will be welcome; although hopefully spending even more money on a already high priced game won't be the only way to acquire it.

What Lazy and even more what Demoder (can't believe we agree!) said really covers it so much better.