Item Shop Discussion Forum

[Ilaliya]

Hey guys,

I wanted to talk a little bit about the purpose of this forum.

Some of you may have noticed that there was a bit of spring cleaning in the in-game shop. Mostly this was removing old seasonal content, and eliminating some of the clutter.

Moving forward, we plan to increase the activity in the shop - being more consistent with seasonal offerings in terms of when they come online and when they expire; having a regular sale schedule; new items in the shop; and also rolling out new features and updates to the shop itself. We also will be taking down items that simply don't sell very well, as there's no reason to stock the shelves so to speak with items that nobody wants to buy.

That being said, this forum is intended to be a venue where we (the developers) can make announcements about what's on the horizon, so you guys know what's coming and also so things can be discussed by the community. These announcements may be of the form "Heads up, such-and-such item is being removed from the item shop in 3 days" or "This item is going on sale for a week!" or "We are looking at adding this major feature in the next few months." We'll also use this forum to make the community aware of known issues as they come up with either the item shop, or the items in the shop.

Conversely, this forum should also be a vehicle for you guys to tell us when you notice an item is bugged or broken, either in the general case or specifically for your character. Note this is not the same as discussing exploits, and the standard forum rules still apply. 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.

[haxi]

Consider lowering the prices across the board. Everything in the shop is overpriced IMO.

[Firasting]

Consider lowering the prices across the board. Everything in the shop is overpriced IMO.

+1 (3rd character required to post this)

[TheCatlady]

I just hope that the items are staying "social" as much as possible; Experience items and "canned buffs" give those an advantage already that have the bigger wallet in RL, I would hate to see a "2-class-community" inside the game... "What, you couldn't afford -place item of choice here- ... you poor bugger suck!"

[Gridpain]

I would hate to see a "2-class-community" inside the game...

You mean, like froobs and paying players ?

[shamenOTC]

Please add buyable full ip resets to AO, whether it be the ig shop or the vet shop.

If you guys dont realise, the alternative when out of full ip resets is either live with it(in a game of twinking,this often not an option) or to reroll the toon.

Im sure adding it to the ig shop would be appreciated by the playerbase.

[whitey]

Consider lowering the prices across the board. Everything in the shop is overpriced IMO.

Sure, but some items are higher priced with good reason.

On the other hand, some social items (the social armour sets in particular) seem to be a bit high.

We also will be taking down items that simply don't sell very well, as there's no reason to stock the shelves so to speak with items that nobody wants to buy.

As has been said already, some items are actually very desirable, but not at the listed price. It's not that nobody wants to buy them, it's just that they are a bit too expensive.

[Louderer789]

Do you have any data suggesting that the item shop attracted more income than it repelled?

[Mastablasta]

Consider lowering the prices across the board. Everything in the shop is overpriced IMO.

Bump. Especially if you live in the EU. 100 FC points is 1 euro. That means a random set of social gear costs 3 euro. You can buy full games for that price.

And it's the same across the rest of the items. 50 euro for an ingame item is pretty steep.

[Gimpeline]

Wasn't the item-shop window also meant as an in-game web browser/tech support as soon as some issues were sorted out?

Edit: Found Means post about it http://forums.anarchy-online.com/sho...87&postcount=1

[Dragocze]

I agree about price of items. You should set price more carefully. You can also make some price adjustment script.

Example:
every month
- increase price of 20% most selling items by 10%
- drop price of 20% less selling items by 10%
- if any item profits dropped and its price has been changed last month -> set price back to most profitable price.


Profit should be calculated per active player or something similar. So player fluctuation wouldn't poison statistics.
Also there could be some modifier for calculating, what is most selling item. If you want some items, to be more rare.

This example is my 5min work. You should hire economist and psychologist. Give them some time to create more complex model/script.

[Mireiawen]

Consider lowering the prices across the board. Everything in the shop is overpriced IMO.

Got to agree on this. At least social stuff should be affordable to most people, duplicating virtual items shouldn't be much of work and selling more should cover the smaller income per item.

[MajorOutage]

More items should be account-wide, not per-character.

If you guys dont realise, the alternative when out of full ip resets is either live with it(in a game of twinking,this often not an option) or to reroll the toon.

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

[Thecrow91]

remove it all together
stop trying to suck the last cent out of people

[Windguaerd]

In my recent "Dreams of Anarchy - New Year, New Visions" article at AO Universe I wrote about the Item Shop, you may want to take a read Ilaliya.

[Windguaerd]

remove it all together
stop trying to suck the last cent out of people

Sorry, but I believe the Item Shop is the current MMO Standard to increase revenue to keep the game online. A lot of new MMO's already come with a similar in-game or website based shops where you can purchase items, and sometimes even in-game currency for real cash.

It's something that has to do with a simple explanation.

MMO's need money to survive. Servers, are not free, Developers don't work for free (at least in any company that has shareholders), Hardware & Software, is not free, Office space is not free, everything adds up to this question "Is this profitable enough to keep our shareholders happy, otherwise we need to close it and use the resources on another project".

Companies NEED to be profitable, otherwise... they go out of business. Do I like everything FC does? hell no. Do I want them to close AO or go out of business, hell no.

We all knew when Means announced the Item Shop things would change a bit. He actually delayed that as much as he could, but there was a point where it was either the Item Shop... or else. He made the right decision, and did his best so that it would not unbalance the game.

Of course, players always find a way to go around rules. Buy tokens which can be traded and sell them to players for creds. In other words tokens=credits, and indirectly, anyone can buy credits with a few dollars which is exactly what Means did not want.

Sometimes, you got to take the bad with the good, because the good outweighs the bad.

The Item Shop is here is to stay, if you don't like it, then don't buy anything. Let others make their own choice.

[Merit]

Please, please be mindful of the 'pay for power' issue... know it'd sell, but can ruin a game fast... :/

[Awikun]

I have never ever spent 1 cent in ingame shop and never will !!!

I would be more than happy to pay 50 Euro or even 100 Euro for AO2 with new engine and rebalance !!!

So I would suggest you move your resources from ingame shop to engine/rebalance.
Ingame shop may only kill AO faster (if you make some mistakes and your customers decide to cancel subscriptions)

New engine and rebalance will bring back some of old customers (who canceled) + it can generate more income from new customers than some social crap from ingame shop.

[Brampfine]

Item Shop Discussion is ur highest priority ?

we have problems to start / finish successful different raids by reason of low population
i miss some content what i pay for with my 17,19€ monthly.

i cant pay for one year, cause dont have this stack of money,
but i can quit AO for the next 6 month to save some money to pay a 12 month special offer.
if u like that ok.

see u soon

[Carlonel]

I have never ever spent 1 cent in ingame shop and never will !!!

I would be more than happy to pay 50 Euro or even 100 Euro for AO2 with new engine and rebalance !!!

So I would suggest you move your resources from ingame shop to engine/rebalance.
Ingame shop may only kill AO faster (if you make some mistakes and your customers decide to cancel subscriptions)

New engine and rebalance will bring back some of old customers (who canceled) + it can generate more income from new customers than some social crap from ingame shop.

And how do you think they are paying for the rebalance/engine? The loss of paying players im sure has had a significant impact on funcoms finances. The item shop was a superb idea, of course people are going to hate it but at the moment it generates the much needed income funcom is missing at the moment. It also provides players with a way of obtaining items they would not otherwise be able to obtain in the game. Nobody is forced to purchase items from the shop, its your decision to buy or not to buy. But don't come on here and post your nonsense because you object to funcom trying to make money to keep the game going.