2:21 am, September 7, 2014
0
Base Item Packs & Why I Will Not Be Supporting Them
Hey all! A little bit of explanation is in order...
There's been over 140 dissatisfied replies to Mepp's post announcing the Base Item Packs and his explanation that they are one-time purchases and are not account-wide redeemable or unlimited. Despite that, there's been no more Developer response or feedback regarding the Base Packs, which leads me to believe that it's a done deal and the Devs/Staff have stopped reading the relevant thread.
It's my intention to politely and rationally explain my own dissatisfaction with the Base Packs, why I feel the way I do, and to invite community discussion as to what kind of Base Pack pricing and features would be attractive for you the consumer, i.e. what would inspire you to buy the Base Packs?
This isn't a Poll or Petition, but it is my hope that if we as a community can present our arguments clearly and concisely, that it's something the Devs and SOE Staff can take away from (hopefully) reading the forums and learning how the active forum community feels about the Base Packs and what it would take for us to throw our full support behind these and future endeavors.
So without further ado, here are my personal feelings on the matter...
I was initially very enthused and excited to learn that the marketplace would offer collections of themed Base Items and Sets. Base decorating and theming has been a big passion of mine,and as anyone who knows me and has been into my various lairs, I put a LOT of thought and investment into gettming a base "just so".
However once the reality had been explained of how the Base Packs actually work and are priced, I was left feeling like a victim of a "bait and switch". Here's the indisputable facts regarding the Base Item Packs:
Peace, truth, out...
There's been over 140 dissatisfied replies to Mepp's post announcing the Base Item Packs and his explanation that they are one-time purchases and are not account-wide redeemable or unlimited. Despite that, there's been no more Developer response or feedback regarding the Base Packs, which leads me to believe that it's a done deal and the Devs/Staff have stopped reading the relevant thread.
It's my intention to politely and rationally explain my own dissatisfaction with the Base Packs, why I feel the way I do, and to invite community discussion as to what kind of Base Pack pricing and features would be attractive for you the consumer, i.e. what would inspire you to buy the Base Packs?
This isn't a Poll or Petition, but it is my hope that if we as a community can present our arguments clearly and concisely, that it's something the Devs and SOE Staff can take away from (hopefully) reading the forums and learning how the active forum community feels about the Base Packs and what it would take for us to throw our full support behind these and future endeavors.
So without further ado, here are my personal feelings on the matter...
I was initially very enthused and excited to learn that the marketplace would offer collections of themed Base Items and Sets. Base decorating and theming has been a big passion of mine,and as anyone who knows me and has been into my various lairs, I put a LOT of thought and investment into gettming a base "just so".
However once the reality had been explained of how the Base Packs actually work and are priced, I was left feeling like a victim of a "bait and switch". Here's the indisputable facts regarding the Base Item Packs:
- Each pack contains approximately an average of six base items per pack, though some are as few as one single item, and some contain up to ten.
- Each pack is priced around an average price of 450 SC. The lowest begin at 270 SC and the highest are priced at 1350 SC.
- All the pack contents are single-use redeemed only.
- All the pack contents are account-tradeable between characters on the same account before being redeemed.
- All the pack contents do NOT count for any feats or skill point progression.
- All the pack contents do NOT count for any contributions for League Halls prestige.
- Single-Use Redemption on these items would require excessive amounts of packs be purchased to even loosely furnish any standard-size lair (not counting Hide-Outs). We are talking dollar-amounts in excess of $60-$85 at a minimum.
- None of the items count towards any Feats or Character Progression. They are essentially "fluff" of the most cosmetic sort.
- None of the items were new or original, but are derived and collected from existing base items. No new developer man-hours or original creative work can be attributed to these packs that would justify the excessively high prices needing to "pay for themselves".
- The prices assigned to these packs are not even based on the game's toolset color-coded rarity, but rather on the Broker's economy with derived prices based on the skewed economies in-world. These are economies that were skewed and ruined by cheats, exploits, and duped cash and items. It comes across as being both lazy and exploitative on the part of the Marketplace scheme to price the packs in this manner and condones the outlying effects of the various cheats, exploits, and hacks that have happened in the past.
- Prior precedent with the Marketplace and buying cosmetic and "fluff" items has been that they were claimed account-wide with no limits on numbers claimed. This shift to a shared pool of redeemable items is new, unasked for, and comes across as a blatant attempt at encouraging more purchases for less content.
- Change the redemption-process to one of the following: (a) Go back to the precedent of cosmetic items being purchased and redeemable once each by any number of characters on the account, with no limits to the number of characters able to claim the items. This is contingent on the items remaining account-bound tradable, i.e. once claimed but not yet added to base inventory the characters on the same account may still trade/mail them to each other. Or (b) Make the items completely unlimited in the claim/redeem process. Once claimed they would be no-trade and no-sell, and be essentially locked into the character that purchased and redeemed the pack items.
- Substantially reduce the pricing structure on the current packs to a range of 25- 100 SC per pack. Make the Aquarium pack either a multiple set pack of four aquariums or make sure it's at the minimum price point of 25 SC per. Charging the maximum price for one single item just won't fly.
- A compromise pricing structure of single-purchase base items for 25-50 SC, with larger single-use "set packs" at 100 SC, and then "Designer Packs" that are unlimited use for 500-750 SC.
Peace, truth, out...
References
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