Currency purchacing in shroud and percieved loss of value

Discussion in 'General Discussion' started by Doctorface, Sep 27, 2019.

?

What do you think?

  1. Good point,the coto buying needs to change

  2. It's fine the way it is.

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  1. A'chelata

    A'chelata Avatar

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    Not to mention I bought 2 coto bundles 3 months ago and STILL have not received my bonus for doing so and probably never will.
     
  2. kaeshiva

    kaeshiva Avatar

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    I understand that the mannequins have a performance impact.
    However from the point of view of the customer that is completely irrelevant.
    Its like a restaurant making bacon cost $10 a slice because its bad for you.

    You don't deal with the performance hit by charging an obscene price. This just causes customers to think you are greedy and trying to rip them off, regardless of your intentions. You come up with a way for it to be less of a performance hit, or another way to limit how many can be placed - for example, like making them count as containers rather than standard deco (which they've done). If that isn't sufficient then they should look at adding another sort of limit, like, dynamic item limits or something.

    The whole "performance hit" argument doesn't really convince me though, since they have made a crafted equivalent, and I could go make 500 of those and stick them all over my houses now if I wanted. It may very well be that it factored in to their reasoning, but that doesn't justify it.

    If you want to charge $10 per slice of bacon because its bad for you and you don't think people should be eating it, then stop selling bacon.
    If your customers really REALLY want bacon, and you really really don't want to sell it, at some point someone will fold: Either you'll sell the bacon at a reasonable price or the customer will go have lunch somewhere else.
     
  3. ldykllr

    ldykllr Avatar

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    Send Chris an in-game mail, I had the same issue but he sent them right away once I let him know I didn't receive it.
     
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  4. Fenrus MacRath

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    I disagree with you. It is not a completely different matter. In economic terms to look at anything other than the whole picture is to get a distorted view. If you will , please ask yourself why anyone would purchase crowns from the store at these inflated prices when it is a vastly better proposition to exploit the imbalance of gold in the economy by buying say 2 million IGG for $70 and then turning that 2KK IGG into cotos via one of the dozens of vendors selling off the huge stores of cotos already in game. When I quit a few weeks ago a coto was about 195 g, so 1000 cotos would be 195000g. and for the $70 investment you could have 10,000 crowns as opposed to the " BEST VALUE DEAL" of 10,750 cotos for $100.With that option being available, there is no reason to purchase new cotos from the store. NOW, lets draw that out a little bit and wonder at what point does Portalarium follow in their model for reissuing "Exclusive items" and make COTOs non transferable between players?
     
  5. Drilikath

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    Very valid point on the coto in game market, and eventual no trade
     
  6. Sulaene Moon

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    You're absolutely right. You can tell with examples like this Portalarium doesn't have much business sense.
     
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  7. A'chelata

    A'chelata Avatar

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    I have already let him know like 5 different times, he obviously doesn’t care. It’s just another scam way of selling cotos to make weekly payroll.
     
    Last edited: Sep 30, 2019
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  8. ldykllr

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    I don't think it's a scam and I don't think it's that he doesn't care, I just think he has too much to do. But, whatever, you have made up your mind and that's cool. Was just saying to try that, if you wanted your cotos.
     
  9. Spoon

    Spoon Avatar

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    Doesn't work like that though.
    A)
    The crowns has to come from somewhere.
    B)
    Lots of players prefer buying crowns from Portalarium over doing the two-stepper you describe from players due to perceived risk and inconvenience. Also most players aren't traders or find that as interesting as you and I and therefore they aren't necessarily optimizing such purchases.

    Here are some more in depth stuff on that:

    https://www.shroudoftheavatar.com/f...-all-just-the-same.153727/page-3#post-1225835


    Instead what we are seeing is the effect of churning this titles higher strata players in exchange for not enough lower strata conversion, then the devs misunderstanding the economics of that and taking action to prevent the plateau effect instead of focusing on creating a tiered economic model for their stratas.
    https://www.shroudoftheavatar.com/f...ng-the-vault-25apr.153848/page-6#post-1227067


    We have a very weird situation right now which cannot last.
    The crown price is actually going down - now it is at about 180 to 185 - for the first time since ever BUT the gold price is still falling. Which is kinda impossible in the long run since the situation you describe here is actually worse now than then.
     
    Last edited: Sep 30, 2019
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  10. Vladamir Begemot

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    And to follow up @Spoon, those Crown and Gold sellers are not Portalariums competitors, they are your CUSTOMERS using already purchased products in your game. Don't kneecap them in ANY WAY! The buying and selling of crowns and gold adds VALUE to the entire system. The Crowns were already paid for, let them do their loops until they are consumed by the system.

    Instead, continue doing what you are doing with the satisfied customers, who have found VALUE in the system and thus choose to keep being customers.

    Then figure out why long time customers such as @Fenrus MacRath are choosing to leave. Beat a path to his door to find out why! Plug those holes! Do some customer feedback polls that do not include watching us loudmouths, but take in everyone. (An in game poll is a great way to do it, and would probably draw some people back in just to take the poll.)

    And then beat a path to any new player of the last few months who didn't continue, with an email poll, offering up a Mojito if they log in and fill out a poll, and find out why they didn't continue! Fix those holes!

    In short, don't cannibalize your existing customers, that is the worst of all possible ideas. Keep existing customers happy and build your customer base.

    ----

    Main topic: I think they should have a $5 price point, and need to hook payments into the in game UI.

    $1 should buy you 100 Crowns, extra is a Bonus.

    The $9 monthly should get you that bonus.
     
  11. Cordelayne

    Cordelayne Bug Hunter

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    [​IMG]
     
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  12. OzzyOsbourne

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    Do me a favor and get your nose out of his b*tt.

    I run multiple businesses with over 450 clients. When I or anyone of my employees get an email from one of my clients, regardless of how big or small, they get an answer within 10 minutes. Regardless if we are busy or not.
     
  13. ldykllr

    ldykllr Avatar

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    Wow. No need to be hostile. And good for you for your business, truly. But you don't have to be so aggressive, I wasn't aggressive in my post, just posting my thoughts and opinion, just like he was.

    This is why I hate coming here nowadays.
     
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  14. Sulaene Moon

    Sulaene Moon Avatar

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    I'm still stuck on how buying my cotoas from other sources rather then Port is helping Port.
     
  15. Vladamir Begemot

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    Where do you think they came from in the first place?

    Here's a metaphor for you. You're a car company, you build cars and sell them. One day you see that your cars are out there on the road, being resold! What do you do? Do you 1) change your sales license so cars can no longer be resold? or 2) keep innovating, making better cars, and selling those cars?

    If you choose option #1, what will that, theoretically, do to your existing and future customer base?

    /methaphor

    Crowns have a huge value advantage over other in game currencies in that they have an actual value. They aren't just fluff. If someone wants to they can save up a bunch and turn them into actual dollars. The dfference between them and most other in game currencies is the difference between almost zero, and money.

    If you are printing Crowns, then, the last thing you would want to do is drop their value to almost zero. The correct move is to add more customers, more things for the customers to buy, and keep printing.

    Does it hurt Port to have people move the Crowns around a bunch of times before spending them? No, they were paid already. And according to the Time Value of Money, getting paid now and having to provide a service sometime in the future for the same price is always a win. The dollars Port got six months ago are worth more then than they are today, thanks to constant inflation.

    Even better, Port doesn't have a real liability! When someone finally spends those Crowns, they create a digital item for no cost and send it to them.

    The only thing that is going wrong at this point is customer base and saturation of goods. We're all coming out of our ears with stuff. We've all bought several models of the car, and all the options, and so don't need a new one every month. The answer isn't then to poach your existing customers until they leave.

    The answer is to grow the market. Don't decrase your value proposition. Decreaing the value offered is the opposite of a good plan, from a business perspective.

    Something that might be useful in increasing the value proposition is increasing the knowledge that it exists. There are a lot of people out there that have no idea the game exists or that they have the kind of freedom that we do in the game.

    Done rambling.

    Dont retreat! Your input is very valuable!
     
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  16. Sulaene Moon

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    The issue is that people bought/buy crowns when Port was selling them at a discount. Now they sell them at the cheaper reduced price for what Port sells them now. Yes Port got paid for them,but at a discount. Now I buy them from the off market rather then Port. The company is not getting my money, just the person who paid for them originally. So who is winning? The person who bought them at a discount and still sold them at a discount. Definitely not Port, I never gave Port one cent.

    Crowns should never have been made tradeable it takes money out of Ports pockets. What other MMO has tableable high value currency? Yes they all have gold, but the gems and other higher currency is not tradeable.

    You are comparing cars to currencies. In your example how could you keep innovating and make better currency? Bad metaphor.
     
  17. Sulaene Moon

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    Yes the game desperately needs more players to fix the in game market but more importantly it needs players to subscribe and buy things. The thing that Portalarium did wrong was not advertise. Emails to previous players is crap and anyone should have told them that. It's not advertising. How many old players did it retain or bring back, a handful?
     
  18. A'chelata

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    Thanks for your idea, but what do I have to do? Beg him?
    I have sent him in game mail, I have sent him discord messages, I have asked him several times about it in his streams.

    If he's so busy that he can't fulfill promises, maybe he shouldn't make promises that he can't keep. It's really bad business.

    The thing that Port did wrong was spend 5 years creating a game that 90% of their original backers didn't like and quit supporting. If we really had 10k players, most of these issues would be non-issues. We are where we are because Portalarium failed miserably. They may recover, in the end they may be successful, but it won't be because they did it right the first time.

    @Vladamir Begemot It's funny watching you say the same things that have been said for 5 years. Port never listened then, they won't now, they are on their own track and don't care what other people think. If they did, we wouldn't be discussing this.

    It's a little different when the margin is this close and you have to make payroll each week/month. They don't have much room for anymore error. If episode 2 releases and doesn't at a minimum double the existing population, then it's over for sure at that point, IF they even make it to that point.

    If the product was good, people would be here, word of mouth would be all that was needed, but the product isn't good, hasn't been good, and most of us don't have faith that the developers even understand what a good product is. Evidently it has something to do with grinding forever for little to no loot and then switching character templates every time Chris nerfs something, but then again, that forces players to buy more scrolls from the store to recover xp which translates into a few more dollars for payroll, so maybe it is a good strategy indeed, unfortunately, it doesn't work on me anymore, and I don't buy anything from the store anymore, and will be cancelling my monthly subs pretty soon as well.

    I've only been here since the beginning and in the past spent almost 10K on the game, think Chris cares why i'm leaving? No, no he doesn't. He's too busy figuring out new things to make people like me leave.
     
    Last edited: Sep 30, 2019
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  19. ldykllr

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    I agree with this. I'm not saying that he's not at fault - I believe that he shouldn't be doing the stream specials if he cannot fulfill the obligation of handing them out. I waited quite some time to get mine, so I understand.
     
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  20. ldykllr

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    And not retreating, not ever =p It just pains me that people are all grrrr arrrrrrrggggg. It's not difficult to engage in civil discourse.
     
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