Gold Crowns Purchasable Items

So I'm doing my check-in of progress of SOTA after a few months hiatus and I come across the list of NPC vendors with Gold Crowns Purchasable Items on the website. While looking at the list I went thru a quick succession of thoughts in this order:
1. Wow that's cool. Those that can't afford to buy items in the add-on store can now get some of the items thru in-game means (COTO drops/buy COTOs with gold from players).
2.Hey that Viking Village house I purchased is now cheaper if I would have bought 100 COTOs for $85 and got it in game. I got screwed over by supporting early.
3. Meh just another in a line of percieved lose of value to the pledges/support of those of jumped on earlier. What can you do. Port needs to keep making money if this game is ever going to get where we all want it to be.
4. Hey this could open up some interesting ideas.

So here are a couple of ideas of how the NPC Gold Crowd vendors could be improved upon.

A: Since add-on store items are no longer meltable, if it's not already possible, how about the COTO NPCs buying add-on store items back for COTOs. Same price as they sell the items for. (They sell the Viking village home for 100 COTOs so I can sell the vendor my Viking Village home for 100 COTOs). You could have it so they buy back for less COTOs (10% maybe) but I think the fact that buying 100 COTOs from the store is cheaper is enough of an offset. So in essence the COTO NPC vendors become a way to "melt" add-on purchases that have been claimed.

B: House exchange. Make it so houses of the same COTO value can be exchanged for each other. Make it so I can change my 100 COTO Viking Village Home into a 100 COTO Elven home. maybe add a small transaction fee of 5 COTOs.

C: With the recent recipe changes (teachable and discoverable) and add-on store items being sold in game for COTOs, I would like to see crafting recipes for some of the add-on store items be added. They sell Ornate Wooden Streetlamp for 15 COTOs. Why not have a COTO vendor sell a recipe for crafting that item? It could cost 50 to 100% more than the item itself and be a non-teachable, non-discoverable recipe. It could also be use limited (5-10 uses) per recipe purchased. And those who have previously bought the item can get the recipe free in their claim rewards (yes I know that option would be a possible logistics mess).

Anyone else have any thoughts/ideas in regards to the COTO NPC Vendors?

edited: to add use limit to idea C.

 

One thing to remember if you're involved in pvp is that items purchased through the game with COTO's are lootable. Items that are purchased through a pledge or the add-on store are not. For people involved in pvp this may add extra value to these items. For people not involved in pvp, I agree that the math doesn't work right.

 

Interesting I hadnt thought/known about that. That does in some ways keep value to original add-on items.

But this topic was less about my first reactions about loss of value and more about the three ideas to expand the functionality of the vendors. Any thoughts on those?

 

I love point B. Exchange with small transaction fee.

 

I think your idea about allowing exchange of homes (for example) with a fee is a good one. But that might be better for down the road when we have a much larger population and our funding is not supported by the secondary speculative market like it is now. We don't want to hurt those people because frankly they're probably are largest source of funding. If we allow for exchange of items (even for a small fee) that's great for joe average consumer, but it's not good for Portalrarium. Imagine for a moment that they just spent weeks creating new content and they put it out in the store but everyone in our small community simply pays the fee to exchange instead of paying the full price?

I think C is a great suggestion too. However it does allow players to mass produce the items and then flood the market with them. So the recipe would have to be of limited use. It's hard for me to think of a way that could be balanced so that 1. it's worth it to purchase in the first place (since you're getting multiple ornate whatevers for a fraction of the price) and 2. it needs to not flood the market so people actually buy the item in the add-on store. We probably need to think about this one a while longer.

Option A sounds good too. But I wouldn't want NPC's to buy back anything for the same price. That's just an exchange program wrapped up in a different way. It would have to be at a small fraction of the price, maybe 15%. So it would give you a discount on purchasing new stuff, but it would be an overall loss for the player. I can't see a way that it would balance well for the economy and Portalariums need to make money without that kind of arrangement. Maybe it would only be in effect when there was a discount offered in the add-on store. Really though, this is probably not something that makes a lot of sense.

One idea I had recently though was allowing player vendors to perform an action function. I could see where this would help drive down prices for players of add-on store and rare items.

 

Yeah I agree about a use limit. After posting Ive been debating adding a use limit to the recipe idea. I was thinking in the 5-10 use range. Maybe double the uses (10-20) if they add recipes to the items bought for cash in store.

I also thought about adding a small transaction fee to idea A as well but figured the ability to buy 100 COTO for $85 in the store would offset the need.

Overall you bring up some very good points.

 

When they first introduced the stone blocks, they were available in sets from the add-on store. If you bought a set then you would also get all the recipes. There was such an outcry against add-on store items being craftable that they replaced them with the dark stone version in the add-on store (which are not craftable).

 

yeah i remember that. but thats why I added a use limit. I see them being available ingame for COTOs on par to being craftable on a limited basis. As someone who has had a plan to be a Master Furniture Maker since I bought in, I would gladly pay real mony to get COTOs for the recipe or buy the items in store if they came with the recipe.