No Trade Items and a possible solution

I saw that people were getting upset with the spider being no trade from the subscription reward bundle and it got me thinking. It seems when everything was moved to the coto store to simplify things, port may have lost some revenue. Im just speculating, but i personally don't buy anything anymore, where in the past i was subscribed and I would also spend $5 on something from the store during every stream to get the extra rewards.

Why not sell an item that allows non tradeable items to be tradeable. Not sure what you would call it exactly, but some kind of token that you apply to an item to make it tradeable. It could be something inexpensive like $1 or $3 and possibly depend on the type of item. Maybe small items are just $1 to unlock, pets and weapons $2, and larger items $3. So players that have no interest in moving any of these items can still use them and obtain them on any account. But a player like me that may want to transfer or even trade certain items could purchase this directly from the website for cash. The prices I used were just to show the idea and maybe should be less or more, that can be decided on by port.

This would eliminate the problem of people just making tons of free accounts to obtain items and also give us the freedom to trade and move items to different accounts. Other players just want the ability to store these no trade items somewhere other then the bank. I feel like this would be pretty useful and may generate some added funds to the game.

Any thoughts on this or a similar idea?

 

Makes the point of making them non tradeable moot. Port doesn't want to be competing with resellers for sales. Make them tradeable and a new player will buy from a departing player or someone who doesn't want it anymore and port misses the sale. Sure, port got paid for the item by the first player, but with non tradeables port would get two sales instead. Where they're coming from is quite rational, people who just dumped far too much money into a changing game just over gambled it seems.

 

@Adam Crow I've suggested this exact thing a few times now. Chris said this was one of the possible things that could happen on one of his recent streams.

 

it's like selling your old video games or electronics nothing new lol @CarlNZ

 

personally I think no trade items should be allowed in a chest so I can at least store them until later when I need them. Or at the bank without taking up a bank slot. And it does take up a bank slot currently. I think that would solve the problem and allow port to keep us from competing with them.

 

A decoration of any type should never be no trade, not something I bought and paid for in the store. I understand the subscription items and bonus stuff having the tag and not being able to trade it. Forces people to HAVE to subscribe to get these items. But when i pay for my subscription and then get my cotos, and then buy a decoration off the store, I should be able to do whatever I want with it at this point. I already paid $5 for a cabinet. 6 months down the road... I decide I do not like the decor so I change everything. But I have to pay more money to get rid of it?? I play video games to escape real life. Not be punished just like in real life. Its like adding a Tax to something.

Heritage Items, Prosperity Tools, other vault type things, all that being no trade and for a lesser price i can totally understand.

The only way i can see the Purchasable Unlocker could work is if the Cabinet i bought for $5 now was lowered to $2 No Trade, and then you buy the unlocker. But considering the price will not go down and then i have to purchase an additional item, It leaves me with the option i choose and many others, and that is to just not support the game. It is a shame but POT items are no trade.

Also just to add on to this for a great added request, Because the prices are so dang high $45 just to look at the entrance, maybe some kind of Preview system where you can place the item down in your home/pot make sure it fits, see how it looks before you buy.

 

My old suggestions have been that to be able to have a steady viable revenue stream then you need to target different tiers of customers differently.

https://www.shroudoftheavatar.com/f...ng-the-vault-25apr.153848/page-6#post-1227067

Quoting myself from there
"

So the trick is to find changes/features that increase your conversion rate/retention rate of the lower strata BUT which doesn't affect the higher strata.

Which also means that your product need to have things that cater to the different strata of players. Where you need to design specific features to cater to specific strata. Also vice versa if you intend for players to pay premium for luxury then you need to keep that luxury as a luxury.

If we generalize very very very broadly, then for the style of product that SotA is that would be
Top strata - Permanent items
Medium strata - Services/Conveniance
Low strata - Consumables
Free strata - earn regular tests of low strata items, and rare tests of Medium strata items through gameplay.
(If anyone don't get it of why those would be the case, then please tag me and I could start a new topic on that).

So if they want to have a free-to-play business model then to cater to that luxury strata they should follow that.​

"




If we apply those same principles to stuff like this, then back in the old days I tried to get @dallas into the idea that they really needed to get into getting transaction fees for trades. (Back then it was Store Credit and Gifting but the principle remains).
That way regardless of everything else then even when people left they would get a cut on the trades that generated.
(This is related to the plateau effect of permanent items).

So stealing my own idea from back then and mix it with your idea from now, then I would say that if they want a steady revenue stream then they should have a couple of different tiers of items.

(Top Strata) Imports

permanent items - free to trade (expensive deco stuff or legacy rares like pledge items etc, things that rich folks would love to collect etc)​

(Mid Strata) Domestic

permanent items - trade for fee (kinda expensive)​

(Low Strata) Bound

semi/permanent items - no trade ever (cheaper stuff)​

So for the Domestic items you can trade them in game, but you have to pay a Crown fee to do so, and they say so up front in the store.
Since they have the flag they cannot be put on vendors etc. But in the player Trade window you can pay crowns to add a Domestic item to the trade. Where the players would have to agree on who pays the fee, but which Port wouldn't care who did just as long as someone did.

This has a lot of long term effects in that you would see revenue in the amount of player trading going on.
Where any MMO naturally has players coming and going all the time.

Then they could add the "Domestic" flag to some of the login rewards etc, which in turn would start generating crown revenue when players start trading them around. So you'd even get revenue from free stuff you give away.
While the F2P crowd wouldn't care and their stuff likely dies with them.


So then the scenario would be:
Player Alfa

"not another nerf, that is it *tableflip* I'm out of here"​

Player Beta

"can I haz ur stuff?"​

Player Alfa

"sure if you pay the fees"​

Player Beta

"absolutely, I will just buy some crowns"​

Portalarium

"ka-ching"​

Funny these things, how they are kinda predictable.
Wonder where we would have been if I had been able to convince @dallas of that one back then.

Another thing I tried back then was the wouldn't it be cool if one could trade world wide bank to bank from the web ui for a fee. So that one wouldn't even have to be/meet in game to trade.
Now of course, with what we have now I'd rather tie it to the trade chat channel, so that you right click on someone in trade chat and can for a small (10ish) crown fee trade to/from anywhere in the world.

 

You'll notice very few video games let you resell them now days. That and it's not a physical product, it's access to something in a game. Of course it's better they don't pass profit from themselves to their players.

 

ya that's why I will only buy a steam game if it's 80% off or more lol

 

Well in this game even non luxury is expensive. A village house will run you $60+. Deeds of larger size cost hundreds of dollars, then you need a couple hundred dollar house, then a basement, then basic furniture (that you can't pick pieces from sets so you have to buy multiple sets to a get a table with six chairs); you can easily be looking down $1,000 for just a mid sized deed and house setup. Next we add the sub on top of that. New players are in sticker shock quickly. I can get a whole zone with a house and grounds and craft much of my furniture in ESO and pay $60 for all that. That is what the new players you want to draw are coming from. Then add bugs and poor quests/journal and why do you think they leave? While you cut prices from the webstore items when you put them on the crown store; it isn't really the case because of the crown package price points. I have to get the higher tier of crown package to have enough for a deco set; usually bringing this close to what it cost before cutting the original prices.

If Port wants the sale, stop expiring stuff, put it all up for sale and at a reasonable price; or rotate it in an out at the same or very slightly higher than it was originally. If its more common, then people won't be re-selling it or at least not at such a huge markup that Port misses out on a big new re-sale price. You don't need to make it no-trade at that point and if a player wants to leave then they can "fire sale" and it won't be a huge issue for Port. This way you don't have to remove the RMT that you promised would be always there; put a statement on the forums that buyers need to beware that Port can't support any issues with player sales. Port can do like GW2 does and create a function on vendors to sell crowns for gold and set the exchange rate to stop huge undercuts; but still allow a healthy trade, maybe increase the crown drop a tad to help offset this for players as well. Most games release new store stuff on a weekly basis to keep revenue up; things are expired but come back at the same price they were originally. If you want to give players some cool stuff, add it as a quest/discoverable item and mark as no trade; this gives everyone something cool at no cost to Port. Have an annual long (like you used to) fundraising event where everyone that contributes a set $, will get the rewards that won't be all ever offered in the store (or better looking skins). Have this event last a 3 days so players have time to contribute and not miss out. Gives people a little better sale point and helps you make some extra financing. Yeah they can re-sale that stuff for more, but if you give people long enough to contribute, that will flood the items in the game and reduce re-sale. You can also put maybe one of those telethon items on the marketplace, but not all of them, for those new players as incentive to catch next years. Don't do these more than twice a year, its too much fatigue on both the staff and players. Try not to have these at the same time as charity auctions so players have enough to spend for you. You can even tier the contribution price to get a larger set or double set of rewards from funds earned.

Next realize you have an old established community that will want different things over your new players that have yet to build themselves up. Don't penalize those groups, give subs a discount/early backers a year of free sub (based on pledge level). Bring back bundles that players can buy into and (smaller increment $ levels) increase over time to get to the bigger stuff. Your established players have been loyal and spent thousands. They should have your loyalty for theirs. You can adopt no trade loyalty rewards as well or loyalty currency (these items are fair enough to make no-trade).

Stop hammering the POT owners, these teleporters are a big bonus for them and you are making an already expensive thing for the game way worse. The deeds, deco, housing alone is painful for POTS without adding another $200 hit for a set of teleporters. I am all for adding a la carte for POT upgrades, this is a bit much $10 to $20 would have been more reasonable. While I get they were supposed to be supported by players moving into all these towns, there is no population to support that; this leaves them on their own. You gave them all this stuff to make cool content for players to come in and enjoy and you block that for them by hundreds of dollar upgrade fees with expensive deco. How about letting me use what I was given without restriction and adding new POT items a la carte at a reasonable price of $10, $20, etc. If you hide sandbox items behind price walls how is that helping players make the game more fun and look good for port?! POT owners are only a good thing for the game and the content they can create give the tools and a reasonable $ point.

I would say you are nickle and dimming us to death, but it feels more like Ben Franklin bleeding death.