My Ideas for the In-Game Shop: Max Profit!
I'm all for increasing AO's profits. However, I don't believe the proposed store would be maximizing profit. I want AO to be around for a long time and to do that it needs to be profitable.
So, here are my suggestions for what to do with the store that would be much better for the profitability of AO.
Don't sell things that sacrifice long-run profitability for short-run profits. Long-run profitability is much more important than short-run profits, as I'm sure everyone is aware. This doesn't rule out selling everything. Here's what you could sell that I don't believe would hurt long-run profits.
1) Tokens:
You can still sell tokens. I don't believe this will affect the game in the long-run negatively. I don't believe anyone is so proud of how many tokens they've farmed that they will quit and you will lose their subscription revenue if you offer these. Also, as population decreases, this in itself causes more players to quit because the game isn't as fun with less people and it lowers the new player retention rate as these new players don't want to play in an unpopulated world. This is an MMO after all. So, every small decrease in population causes even more future reduction in population, decreasing the possible subscription revenue, in-game advertising revenue, and revenue from the in-game item shop! So, avoid losing population as much as possible to maximize profit.
2) Experience Constructs:
Fine, no problem. Again, letting people level a bit faster is unlikely to cause a lot of people to quit.
3) Reset Points:
Selling reset points is fine. Again, this doesn't seem to negatively affect any aspects of the game.
4) Past Social and Veteran Items:
Sell the ones that people don't really have a problem with, don't sell the ones that cause a lot of uproar and may make people quit. I don't know a lot about social items but you can read through the many posts about the in-game store and figure out which social items people really don't want you to sell.
Another option might be that when you are wearing any piece of "replica" equipment at all, a small glowing green ball appears above your shoulder, or something like that. Just some effect that is unobtrusive but visible to other players. The effect might even look kind of cool in its own right, and it would make it very obvious that they hadn't "earned" at least one of the pieces of social they are wearing. Nevertheless, they still get to look cool and some people like social armor because it looks cool, rather than as a status symbol. With this, people would still want to buy social armor because it looks cool, and those that like social armor because of its "status" are appeased.
5) Time Limited Access Passes:
Sounds good; great way to bring some froobs into the fold.
6) Pre-Packaged Buff Items:
These "Nano Canister" things would probably be fine. Again, just don't sell the unique interesting things that people are really against, i.e. the Trader GMS tool etc.
7) DO NOT Sell Levels (At least, in its current proposed form... Read on for my proposal):
Selling levels will at least somewhat decrease how many people there are playing at the lower levels. This will decrease the retention rate of new players if they can't find teams or experienced people to help them and will anger some people and cause them to quit, again losing out on more revenue.
HOWEVER, what you could do instead is let the Experience Constructs scale up a LOT more in how much extra experience they provide. These would of course scale up in price too. This would still allow people to level amazingly quickly. However, don't let these higher level experience constructs be usable until some level, say, level 45. This way, the players that want to use these still have to go through the lower levels and new people will be able to team with them and learn from them, etc. This would allow for a greater retention rate of new players. The fact that the players that buy these high XP constructs still have to go through the lower levels at normal speed and still have to go through the higher levels (albeit at a blindingly fast speed) will also anger other players less, causing less people to quit. Also you might want to make it so these aren't usable past level 200.
8) DO NOT Sell Victory Points (At least, in its current proposed form... Read on for my proposal):
A lot of people value PvP in this game, and a lot of people don't. Selling victory points will definitely cause some people to buy them and then not PvP in BS anymore. BS is already in a fragile state, and this will increase the time that BS is dead which will discourage some PvPers and cause them to quit.
HOWEVER, what you could do instead is sell something similar to Experience Constructs but instead it greatly increases how many victory points you win in BS, either as a percentage of the amount won or a static + to all BS matches. This would ensure that no one will completely stop doing BS and would therefore not decrease BS's downtime as much. This is also more palatable to many players as people would still have to work for their VP so less people will quit.
Definitely do not allow people to buy victory points and make Ofab Yes-Drop as this means people can turn money into credits. This will cause some people to quit. It might be okay to make Ofab Yes-Drop if you use my "VP Construct" instead of buying VP. People would still have to work to get the VP to sell the Ofab and this is again more palatable to many players. This would also probably greatly increase how much BS runs as farming BS to sell Ofab would be more worthwhile with a greater rate of VP gain. It would also improve the PvP in BS as, with Ofab Yes-Drop, people would bring out their best toons to PvP with. Better competition is more fun for PvPers.
So that sums it all up. I hope people read this, I know it's a lot.
Edit: Added an idea for social armor.
