Why are Crowns Tradeable?

Discussion in 'General Discussion' started by Brian4, Sep 12, 2018.

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  1. Brian4

    Brian4 Avatar

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    I'm not a financial advisor or even claim to understand how a gaming economy is created, But I keep coming back to my own thoughts on why did Portalarium make crowns tradeable. I feel if they were non-tradeable they would have an incredible revenue from them to help pay the bills. I can't be the only one that thinks this. Of course, the ones selling them back and forth are not going to agree with me. I'm just interested in hearing what people think about it. I'm a new player, I started after launch. And almost every day since launch there have been many signs of Portalarium not making enough money or cutting staff because of lack of money. Which is fine I understand that. But from my standpoint, there is nothing I need to buy from them other than the 39$ for the account. I LOVE this game. I want to be here when Surprise episode 6 is being planned. The only reason I wanted to upgrade to a lot bundle was for a cf vendor and dev forum access. Now it is considered cheap to just buy a CF vendor and a Town Taxed deed costs the same as a subscription based game even cheaper because Crowns are cheaper to get from players and not Portalarium

    This is in no way a hate thread I just want to know why people think Crowns should remain a tradeable item.

    Thanks
    Boo Ladedada
     
  2. Xee

    Xee Bug Hunter

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    Considering once a crown is used its burnt which is still profit to the company it would make sense to keep these in game. Also not all folks can afford to spend real money to get them so this opens up the ability for those players to use in game gold to buy the store items and the likes.
     
  3. Daxxe Diggler

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    They are tradable to prevent the notion that this game is pay to win. If the only way to get them was buy them yourself (or hope to get lucky to get one from a mob drop... many players have never gotten one this way yet) then the advantages they give a player would be a classic pay to win situation.

    So, since one player can buy them and then sell them for IGG... that gives other people an easy opportunity to grind the IGG for free and then it doesn't cost them real money to get them.
     
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  4. Brian4

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    I agree with you on this xee but at the same time they need something with microtransactions to help pay the bills and I feel they should have just made them purchasable only through them. Then the people who do buy them could sell whatever they get with them to people who can't use a credit card to get said items
     
  5. Brian4

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    This game is entirely made for people with money in every way :)
     
  6. Crowell

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    And then, it's still pay to win as long as the seller get gold coins... It's even a very good option to allow speculation.
     
  7. Lord Tachys al`Fahn

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    Demand doesn't decrease because they are tradable.

    If anything, it has made demand greater, as players that would normally either turn their noses up at it because of having to pay RL money for them, or not really afford the added cost, can buy them for free, increasing the target demographic somewhat.

    Also, these don't appear out of thin air... ok, yes, some do, but that amount is so ridiculously low as to be non-existent. I personally have looted probably a million monster corpses, only to find ONE COTO (non-gold, of course, I couldn't be THAT lucky) in TWO YEARS since permanence. As I was saying, these EFFECTIVELY do not appear out of thin air, so SOMEONE has to buy both the ones that get used on a regular basis, and the ones that get sold via player vendors.

    In the end, these are like Pilot's License Extensions in EvE Online... the SOLE SOURCE is ultimately the game developer, so why limit themselves to only those people who either don't see a problem with paying a tiny extra bit of cash for say, a week's worth of added benefit, or those who actually have a little disposable income? That would be ridiculously short sighted.
     
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  8. Jason_M

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    I agree with Lord Tachys al 'Fahn. Trading COTOs in game increases COTOs bought from the developers.

    Personally, I'm not especially inclined to spend real money on COTOs. Exchanging my own money for COTOs isn't the painful part necessarily, but changing my local currency to dollars does make the tears roll.

    But I do buy them in game, encouraging the middle-men to buy them from the developers, which is good for business.
     
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  9. Xee

    Xee Bug Hunter

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    My understanding is the drop rate is based on how many are in circulation. This explains why the drop rate is low as there is a lot out there on the market.

    On another note the benefit of having players sell them is one can get them cheaper in theory if the market is slow, but because there is so many people wanting them to use on the vendors vs buying them as its cheaper to buy from players at this time then the port store.
     
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  10. Nelzie

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    The only crowns that I have ever received from mobs have been an iron(?), a couple of copper (?) and a silver crown or two.

    Gold Crowns evaporate rather quickly and are only brought into game primarily through people putting money into the port's hands, either with the $9 a month subscription or through special purchases or direct crown purchases.

    The system works rather well. I'm using most of my stipend to handle the... exorbitant fees for a Village Lot. (1,000 gold per day is obscene for a player with maybe 3 hours a week to play.)
     
  11. Kain Darkmoor

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    There would be no point in even having them if they weren't tradeable. That is literally their entire purpose.
     
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  12. Arradin

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    This.
     
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  13. Oakenhammer

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    Last time I recall the system being explained is that the drop rate for COTOs is a server side limit of X per Y time period and not based on how many COTOs exist. There is a target frequency that Chris has in his mind for economic balance reasons so the rate must be tweaked periodically to align with that target.
     
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  14. Brian4

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    Just seems to me no-one wants Portalarium to make money only themselves. I'd love for them to just update the game make them untradeable and hail the storm. I have bnought cotos from Portalarium for the first month i was here till i found out it was cheaper to get from players. which I do I just wish my money had a reason to go to portalarium. I cannot afford thousands of dollars on virtual merchandise but I can afford multiple transactions over a period of time
     
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  15. Nelzie

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    You can buy COTOs during the Telethon and Friday Live Streams in order to be counted as someone who will receive the Telethon items. Most of these are decorations or items that can be converted into Forever Patterns that you can use to create unique looks for your character(s). Plus, money spent in the store means they can continue to develop the game, provide Episode 2, 3, 4 and beyond.
     
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  16. Roycestein Kaelstrom

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    Tradeable COTOs make it possible for players to never spend any additional $ beside initial game pledges/bundles/accesses to be able to buy the add-on store items, pay lot taxes at lower cost, repair their gears to the longer extend. That's how the dev pitched the idea of optional add-on stores and COTOs. Otherwise, much less people would buy in into this game.

    For the company to make more revenue, they need to focus on making game loop more entertaining and addicting, expand more player base and retain the existing ones. Any changes to existing features should weigh in more on how players would react or just be upfront about the future changes to the players and discuss before executing the changes.
     
  17. Earl Atogrim von Draken

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    You already got a couple of solid answers BUT! this is actually an interessting question for an economy deep dive if one comes up in on of the streams.
     
  18. Woodchuck

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    I still find the whole COTO selling within the game to be highly suspect.

    If COTOs rarely drop, and the only way to get them is to buy from the Add-on store high prices, then why are they being sold at a loss in the game for in-game gold??

    Why does there seem to be a never ending supply/flow of COTOs in the game?

    The previously offered explanation of players (shawn, tatania) spending their 15% store credit from their total game expenditures does not cut it. Especially when you quickly realize that they’d have to spend $10k on this game to simply get $1500 store credit which only gets a total of only 1725 COTOs. Yet, these COTO merchants are selling hundreds of COTOs daily and have almost never been out of stock in the 4 months i’ve been playing.

    Why isn’t anyone finding the never ending supply of COTOs weird? And why is nobody questioning this (except me!)?

    Did shawn & tatania spend $1M on this game? (and have loads of store credit)? Are they wealthy generous players that take pleasure burning money for the benefit of all SotA players?
     
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  19. Earl Atogrim von Draken

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    Because you are far more bright than all of us?

    Bad jokes aside, why do you have the feeling there is an endless coto flow?
     
  20. Woodchuck

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    because each time i goto their COTO merchants they are well stocked in my 4 months of playing?

    Are you implying that, one day, the COTO faucet will stop flowing?
     
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