Do you really think you are going to see people subscribe when you screw your fanbase over like this. I am so disappointed and disgusted in Funcom right now. Way to ram us where the sun don't shine!
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This is just not true. It is a good thing she tested it (and she did NOT spend extra money because of the "content"...she said spare points), because it reveals what funcom is turning AoC into:
a casino.
Who was that other company again that made arcade gambling machines out of a popular stealth game series? But i thought them based in Japan, not Norway.
This is disgusting, Funcom. Fix this mess you created, and be grateful that you have such a loyal fanbase that is willing to stick through this games ups and downs.
Get rid of this P2W ********, this game is not for casuals and never has been.
Are you really sure? How many in your guilds are casuals? How many are willing to endure and experience the wipe and grindfest others had in encounters designed for experienced, wellspecced and wellgeared trinity core chars? Even if you use it for alts, how high is that percentage of rather new players wanting to raise alt raid chars?
Do not forget that you might actually gain new players having the equipment to be ready, but you will also loose a lot of players who are not willing (or too elitist) to go through all they already did again to raise new core raid groups. Not even mentioning those unsubbing or not raiding anymore out of principle. This has the danger of widening the gap between guild/friends/premade raiders and pug raids, because you will either be expected to have top gear now while at the same time have far less opportunity to get the equipment ingame.
If they wanted to appeal to casuals, they would have lowered the token cost or smoothed the "traditional" road (there you would actually still meet people, experience story and tactics and get practice in various scripted situations), not made stuff simply buyable. And with actual scripted bossfights and mechanics chances are, that even with top gear you will fail...but you have the expectations and incentive to go end raid tier, because you already have the full lower tier sets :( And i doubt many buy the shop stuff simply to help their guild and other players to boost them in lower tiers.
I am almost certain you're joking... but as a casual player let me stress out this new shop is a disaster:
1. It's ugly
2. It's empty
3. It's expensive
AoC community isn't a big one, for sure, but very devoted - if most of us will go away - who'll be left to play it? And since the game isn't very new-players-friendly I'm beginning to believe this is some kind of Funcom's sabotage... Who are exactly those new investors and what they forced you to promise them regarding AoC's future?
Let's talk about the people who have multiple alts & in-fact know the fights up to T5. What's the harm in buying T3 Gear for my toons.
Let's also talk about gross overuse of Combat Monitor; how more than half the raid (20+ players) are using it and the art of Raid-Leading is a joke now. That app is way more detrimental to this game.
FUNCOM ~ you did fine. Before you go doing something rash and take those items out; think about the players who have multiple alts and not enough time in the day to sit around for hours waiting to fill Guild Raids. HELL ~ who even does T3 anymore anyhow. How else you going to get the gear to get to T4?
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I am most certainly Not joking. I have a good paying career & very little time to play. So I appreciate the change. I know other players who echo my feelings.
If you do some research, you'll find that some people did ask for this.
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You would have a good point, if they accompanied it also with ingame changes. But as it is now, you raise expectations and endgame focus.
The pricing is actually very steep, to appeal to your cause i am sure it would have been better to lower token cost ingame, add more token conversions AND simply sell only tokens without the gambling mechanics. You could have even added a better quest system to make sure those signing for the higher tiers at least have some experience with similar mechanics from below (it might not apply to you, but people like you are certainly not the only ones buying the gear. Many will see it as a way to "skip" content...and might be very disappointed at the end).
I understand where you come from, i just doubt this will achieve what you aim for (experience the higher tiers or more available players for t4+ i guess). Good luck in any case (not sarcastic!).