The Cost of Convenience
I don’t really want to get into another argument with Keen again, but when the nature of Allods Online’s cash shop came up within one of his post threads, I couldn’t help but give my $0.02.
Let me start by saying I think Allods Online is a fine game. It’s very polished and delivers on a lot of features other MMOs have failed on. Although it’s way too much cute-on-cute for me, I can see the appeal. I hope it does well.
One of the reasons I won’t be playing however, is because I’m expecting some serious burns down the road with the cash shop.
It’s cool to sell convenience items on your cash shop. It’s not cool to directly inconvenience your players to send them to the cash shop.
Allods Online has introduced a “Fear of Death” debuff, reducing stats by 25% after leaving Purgatory (already a delay on your death). You can remove the debuff via gold or via a cash shop item (perfume). The perfume can also be obtained in-game via a daily quest. The debuff isn’t much different than the sort you may find in any MMORPG, except for one key difference: It’s really long (scales by level, 45 minutes at lvl 40). Stacking it is exceptionally nasty.
In WoW the death debuff is a decision pivot: “Do I go back to my body, or do I take the debuff and go somewhere else?” If you decide to accept the debuff, it will likely dissipate during your travel time, since it’s only 10 minutes. Players suffer with the death debuff in WoW. In Allods Online, it’s an imperative to remove if you reasonably wish to keep playing (at least at the higher levels).
It’s a clear push of inconvenience to get you into the cash shop and not a good indication for this game down the road. Players can decide if it’s a big deal to them or not. I generally agree with Keen’s summation that a death penalty is a good thing, but clearly this is a case of business model directing the gameplay.
That’s the idea of microtransactions isn’t it? To make the cash choice seem small and then add more later. A little bit here, a little bit there. Already players are calculating that only ~$22 would keep you lush in perfume per month, which makes me do a double-take, because there’s no coincidence that’s just slightly higher than a normal subscription fee.
That’s my $0.02. Or maybe that $0.02 is getting paid to gPotato?
. . .
If you’re curious to try Allods Online for yourself, they’ve opened up closed beta for a few extra days to everyone that signs up. See allods.gPotato.com. Just do me a favour and don’t send me screenshots of your gerbils, okay?
No real argument that we could have here. We’re in complete agreement. The debuff lasts too long. It should be lowered to somewhere near 10 or 15 minutes so that it still stings but not that it becomes a game stopper.
The gold that you need to pay at level 40 when you die totals at 3.5g. To give you an idea, that’s about the average cost to repair your armor in WoW when you die. None of us really like repairing armor in WoW, but if we don’t we can’t play anymore. Since there is no armor durability, I just equate the two equally.
Speaking purely on principle and not in practical application, I agree that anything you’re sent to the cash shop for out of necessity is wrong.
The sentiment is not lost on perfume though. Where the perfume comes into play is not the death penalty but in the buff the perfume gives. It increases HP by 20% at rank one patronage. That’s no small buff. That’s a push to the cash shop big time, but not for the death penalty. It’s to be ‘as competitive’ in PvP.
So actually, the problem is much worse than you’ve indicated here. gPotato is working with Astrum Nival during these testing phases (which is why I think they extended the beta) to see if a better solution can be erached.
I’d say there’s still a gameplay difference between WoW’s repair costs, it’s less of a death penalty than a gear tax (money sink) for experienced players– But you’re right, the end results for most players is more/less the same.
The PvP aspect I hadn’t considered much, I haven’t tried PvP in Allods at all. That’s a significant point and just seems like a double-whammy. If they lowered the debuff to 15 minutes or less and reduced the PvP buff, that would reduce my scepticism.
I can’t help but think of Jeff Strain’s opinion that gameplay is inherently designed around a game’s business model.
So, WoW costs $15 a month and punishes a player for dieing.
Allods Online, completely free to play if a player chooses, punishes players for dieing.
Personally, I don’t see the problem. The argument that a micro-transaction game can’t do something that may make a player pay to play, is like arguing that Blizzard should have to give players loot for paying their subscription.
@heartlessgamer: There are some not-so-subtle differences in how it’s been implemented compared to a subscription-based game, which is pretty much 100% my point.
WoW’s death penalties have gameplay implications. Allod’s death penalties have a cash-shop lean to them.
Whether you think that’s a problem or not is up to you of course. It just really illustrates how the business model can dictate game design.
*shrug* So is the reliance on rep grinds, Achievements and raiding and other enormous time sinks in subscription MMOs.
It’s been interesting to see what Global Agency has done with its business plan and game design. “Persistent” effects are monetized via subscription, but the core gameplay is built on a one-time purchase like Guild Wars. Game design absolutely depends on the business model, in *all* business plans. That, in itself, isn’t a bad thing.
Absolutely subscription games also are affected by their pricing model. That was sure critiqued a lot when UO came out as successful.
Just like anything else there are pros and cons. In some cases, I really like what’s being done with cash shops.
What makes me nervous is the trend this has taken in the markets where it started, in other parts of the world. Rich-kid-wins isn’t my idea of good gameplay. Allods isn’t in that direction yet, but it’s only just launching and this is an example of a foot in the doorway.
Wow, the first game that wants to affect my real purse through virtual death. I do not like this, as the idea is clearly driven by one incentive: To make people buy the perfumes to get rid of the nasty penalty.
Interestingly, you are the first to mention this. All others said the cash shop is really fine and made no detailed statements about it.
I’m curious as to whether anyone has bothered to calculate how much the death penalty “costs” in WoW. If it’s either a time sink or a gold sink (sometimes both), and gold sinks are themselves time sinks, and we’re paying for the time we play the game… how much does it actually cost us to die in WoW? It’s certainly going to be a wide variance given different playstyles, but if one were to compare the death penalty dollar cost of a hardcore WoW raider compared to the same sort of player in Allods, I wonder how they would compare.
I don’t particularly like the Fear Of Death debuff, and I’d prefer a repair cost for a gold sink (naturally including repair widgets from the Item Shop if we’re going thataway), so I’m not really defending Allods on this one… just noting that death has a real cost in any game. We’re just used to ignoring the cost in a sub model because it’s already been paid with the monthly bill. It’s a sunk cost, rather than one we have to keep addressing. The psychology shifts how we look at it, for better or worse.