143 replies to this topic

[Fuin]

Valandir, on 01 June 2011 - 08:59, said:

That was not intended to be implied.

As long as items are group-items (achieved exclusively by raiding with a group of 3/6/12/24 ppl), they should never come to the store. So no 1st age items, and no raiding gear. When we can level up to Level 75 or 85, and 1st ages can be bartered for skirmish-marks, in other words, when these items can (ingame) get earned by solo-grinding - they can put it in the store as well.

Okay, that I understand and like, just thought that doing 3/6/12/24 man content mainly just requires more time and if it's okay to cut corners...

And what's really annoying me is the thought Turbine is already making much more money on people like Honvik described and don't need to push stuff like relics into store, yet the greed...

[Cillian]

I've asked on twitter if they can justify the decisions that is currently being discussed and how they can justify the price increase of server transfers from European servers to other servers, yet the US server transfer prices remain the same.

Lets see if I get a reply....

[MueR]

You won't. Twitter is public.

[Cillian]

Oh yeah because Turbine don't discuss anything in public. I forgot ...

[Ardhuial]

As far as I am concerned it was only a matter of time before something like this happened.

First it was exclusive mounts, then it was needing a scroll to take off relics, and now this.

[Vardiel]

I'm still looking for a (non-bannable) way of confronting Turbine and making it come out loud in game news sites. I don't want their actions to be forgotten and commented as angry dumb customer responses.

[Livyeth]

You could be the first on your server on beating new content coming out with a character named "Ipaytowin"

[Da Brudders]

If the store went one of these two ways, which would you prefer? Obviously, there are other directions but for the sake of argument....

1. Turbine adds a variety of End gear, Relics, Legendary Weapons in store for purchase as well as leaving the opportunity to acquire them in game through an average, moderate playing style (rather than infinitesimal chance drops).

2. Turbine adds Relics and certain other "advantage" items to the store that are exclusive and are not attainable through gameplay.


I would go with option 1 as I am not an uber player, enjoy the game mainly through exploring and don't use the store and never will other than to purchase future content. It doesn't impact on my playing style if others (who have little time or simply a lot of cash) decide to attain items through the store (although I am aware that others feel differently about this). To me using the store for advantage is like using using cheat codes to dumb down PC games. At first liberating but then soul destroying as it removes the challenge and reason for enjoying the game in the first place. With this option many would go the play to acquire route and a great deal would splash the cash, so Turbine would still win.

The second option (and one currently being implemented) is just plain wrong to me both financially and morally. Making everything available to everyone, whatever their playing style, is fair and still a money spinner. The idea of spending my non working hours grinding deeds to accumulate 5 and 10 Turbine points to scrape together enough for a Relic is obscene and is the polar opposite of my idea of what a game should offer me.

When I sign up on the Turbine forum I will use the following text (from Hurin in the original Turbine thread)  as my signature.

And. . . Finally. . . Begging

Please Turbine. As a loyal customer, and vocal advocate over the last four years, I'm literally begging you not to go down this road. Please don't disillusion and disappoint those who gave you the benefit of the doubt this whole time and stuck up for you even as the slippery slope started appearing ever more steep.

Yes, we can all make up our own minds about what's a deal-breaker for each of us as individuals. And ultimately, we can all "just quit if we don't like it." But, I'm asking you to please not force that decision upon us. Don't make us choose. Because we don't want to go. We want to stay. But many of us can't stay if this is the way it's going to be. Can't anything be done?

Hurin

[EMBX]

Da Brudders, on 01 June 2011 - 15:23, said:

If the store went one of these two ways, which would you prefer? Obviously, there are other directions but for the sake of argument....

1. Turbine adds a variety of End gear, Relics, Legendary Weapons in store for purchase as well as leaving the opportunity to acquire them in game through an average, moderate playing style (rather than infinitesimal chance drops).

2. Turbine adds Relics and certain other "advantage" items to the store that are exclusive and are not attainable through gameplay.


I would go with option 1 as I am not an uber player, enjoy the game mainly through exploring and don't use the store and never will other than to purchase future content. It doesn't impact on my playing style if others (who have little time or simply a lot of cash) decide to attain items through the store (although I am aware that others feel differently about this). To me using the store for advantage is like using using cheat codes to dumb down PC games. At first liberating but then soul destroying as it removes the challenge and reason for enjoying the game in the first place. With this option many would go the play to acquire route and a great deal would splash the cash, so Turbine would still win.

The second option (and one currently being implemented) is just plain wrong to me both financially and morally. Making everything available to everyone, whatever their playing style, is fair and still a money spinner. The idea of spending my non working hours grinding deeds to accumulate 5 and 10 Turbine points to scrape together enough for a Relic is obscene and is the polar opposite of my idea of what a game should offer me.

When I sign up on the Turbine forum I will use the following text (from Hurin in the original Turbine thread)  as my signature.

And. . . Finally. . . Begging

Please Turbine. As a loyal customer, and vocal advocate over the last four years, I'm literally begging you not to go down this road. Please don't disillusion and disappoint those who gave you the benefit of the doubt this whole time and stuck up for you even as the slippery slope started appearing ever more steep.

Yes, we can all make up our own minds about what's a deal-breaker for each of us as individuals. And ultimately, we can all "just quit if we don't like it." But, I'm asking you to please not force that decision upon us. Don't make us choose. Because we don't want to go. We want to stay. But many of us can't stay if this is the way it's going to be. Can't anything be done?

Hurin

The main problem is that with option 1 the community have given partly in if they accept it.
The statement was that end raid gear and stuff would not be in the store at all.

I let my principles count and cancelled my subs.

I cannot look in the future but I still believe that Turbine gonna put more and more of those kinda items in the store. Sure, not too much in one time, but slowly but surely though.

As long as people buy those items, and I think many will, Turbine gonna keep cracking at it.
I don't condem those people, but on the other hand LOTRO is not my game anymore.

I decided to not play the waiting game and waste even more time and money on a game I know I will leaving soon enough anyway after the next gear store exclusive.

My trust in Turbine is gone and as I said on the original Turbine forums, I don't do business with companies I don't trust.

[Laurinaohtar]

Max your stats faster! convenient... well yes I guess, advantageous... without doubt

[Validoom]

You have to remember what is coming down the pipe line.

The minute it was announced that SWG Server were to be closed in December you knew that the release SWTOR would be very close and a few weeks later you are now able to pre-order SWTOR.

SWTOR has been one of the most anticipate MMO's for some years and regards of whether you think it will be good or not, millions will sign up simply because of the hype and because it is Star Wars.

Turbine know they are going to take a bit hit in subscription numbers when SWTOR is released.

A lot of players who join lotro when it when to F2P switch games very easily, they do not have a strong sense of loyalty if you will.

We know this, Turbine knows this, hence the need to get every last penny from from them before they move on.

I fully expect to see more and more only store only items which will give you boosts in game in the next 6 months.

Once SWTOR is released I fully expect a big drop in player numbers and to be honest I don't see many coming back.

I will put my neck out and make a prediction for 2012 for Lotro.

I expect Turbine will announce server mergers with the EU servers being hit, the number of in store only items that gives an advantage in game to increase significantly.

[Fuin]

Well I'm not too optimistic about the future either as cash shop WILL expand it's offer. And it'll definitely contain more advantages and I think they'll sneak in with RoI, as it's perfect moment. New content and hyped people won't really care about it. But then people who still play LOTRO either don't care about shop or just like it, so it won't  be a big issue for them in 1st place.

[Doro]

When Moria was first released.

'Moria will include Lothlorien!'

Moria didn't include Lothlorien.


When DN was promised.

'A new multiboss 12 man raid!'

They gave us the turtle instead then we waited for DN.


Monster play was described as a main feature of the game.

'Become a servant of the enemy in player vs monster play!'

Monster play has pretty much been ignored since release.


When the Steed of Night was put in the store.

'The Steed of Night is now permanent!'

Later removed, saying that 'permanent was a poor choice of words... we meant temporary'.


Dragon raid was promised for the anniversary.

'A new dragon raid to celebrate our 4th anniversary!'

Dragon raid is postponed till Isengard.


The store is nothing new. When will people learn that Turbine are just liars and cheats?

[Raedwulf]

Doro, on 23 July 2011 - 23:20, said:

When will people learn?

That was all the words necessary...

[Hajile]

The tragedy of it is that this kind of business model, in a sector of the industry as notoriously fickle as MMORPGs, is decidedly short sighted. Doubly so as Turbine no longer seem interested in keeping existing players content and playing while simultaneously growing their market in fresh new directions. Which is what any rational company would be doing.

Instead, their business model seems to now be built on the wholesale replacement of their old long term customer base with a new one based on cyclical short term guests, with new groups periodically rotating in and out, spending a few months blowing money on the game and then leaving. It's a business model that will work as long as in those few months those 'guests' are spending more than the value of the sub fees Turbine would have earned for the same period on the old subscription model. That's quite a risk, as its gains could prove relatively short-term. If that's the case, it will lead to a spiralling abuse of the customer base as they struggle to retain their profit margins.

I think it's fairly obvious that we're already seeing that abuse, which strongly suggests that their new business model has been less successful than their PR would have us believe. Note that they have never released numbers, nor did they quantify any of their statements. So we have no idea if the F2P launch spike was comparable/greater/smaller than the launch spikes for Moria or Mirkwood. That's very telling. It could well be that previous expansion launches were more lucrative than the F2P launch, and that's why we're seeing them aggressively push the store and bring forward an expansion launch to September. Remember, all previous releases and statements have been based around expansions having winter launches. That's why the Isengard announcement was such a shock.

I think it's safe to say what will happen if they push things too far - people will leave, as they are already doing. And when people start leaving, Turbine will have no base of faithful long term players left to fall back on. Their only option to maintain their bottom line will be to squeeze the remaining players harder for more money. This would probably lead to more players getting the hump and quitting, which will lead to them squeezing the remaining players even more. And so on and so on, until eventually their entire business model is being propped up by a small group of players who are taking it up the backside in every conceivable way. And when that group decide they've had enough, or becomes too small, the game will simply fail. LOTRO will have been killed by Turbine's hubris.

One could convincingly argue that this has already started to happen. From there, the only way is down.

It wasn't so bad with DDO, in that it had nowhere to go but up. That game would have crashed and burned had they not gone free to play, and they bought that game a couple more years by doing so. But LOTRO was a healthy game, and it was amazing arrogance on Turbine's part to think that they could pull the same trick on a larger and, as it turns out, far more demanding and difficult to please player base. Their only mistake was in assuming that LOTRO's player base was identical to that of DDO, and that we would react in a similar way to similar changes. We didn't, and I think that surprised them, for all their big words. It feels like they're on the back foot.

I'm now starting to think that DDO will actually outlast LOTRO, as sad as that sounds. But Turbine will only have themselves to blame if that proves to be the case.

[Raedwulf]

Hajile, on 24 July 2011 - 02:10, said:

It's a business model that will work as long as in those few months those 'guests' are spending more than the value of the sub fees Turbine would have earned for the same period on the old subscription model. That's quite a risk, as its gains could prove relatively short-term.

An excellent post. My only real quibble is that you've forgotten to factor in one thing - Lifers. I expect that a substantial portion of the existing "old subscription model" actually isn't paying anything at all. And Turbine doesn't have to care about pissing us off, because we aren't revenue, and we can always come back whenever we feel like it.

Quote

And when people start leaving, Turbine will have no base of faithful long term players left to fall back on.

Again, Lifers. This is the one plus point we offer. Whilst we do not generate much revenue, because we will always come back, albeit in slowly declining numbers, we do help to sustain population numbers and therefore the feeling that LOTRO is "alive".

On the whole, though, I agree. I can't help but wonder if we'll ever get to Mordor. The game ought to have at least 3 & likely 4 years left in it. We've certainly got two more major expansions to come - Minas Tirith / Pelennor Fields; Mordor / Black Gate - and I imagine there will be other diversions mixed in. We could be yet find ourselves in the Dead Marshaes (more Limrafn *sigh*), heading out to Dale / Erebor, or meeting up with Aragorn to deal with the Corsairs of Umbar (I just hope they don't have us walking the Paths of the Dead. That really would stick two fingers up at the Lore). But will they have the wherewithal to do it properly? We've been on expansion-lite ever since the disappointment that was Moria...

[Hajile]

Raedwulf, on 24 July 2011 - 10:20, said:

An excellent post. My only real quibble is that you've forgotten to factor in one thing - Lifers.

Fair points about lifers, but the lifer problem perfectly highlights Turbine's reckless short-sightedness. It may be that too many of the 'old guard' players went lifetime, leaving them with little monthly revenue from subscriptions. To be frank, that's their own fault - if they didn't want so many lifetime players, from whom they see no cash at all after the first 12 months of their play time, maybe they should, you know, not have sold so many lifetime accounts! Perhaps they saw that on average DDO subscribers stayed subscribed for less than 12 months and again made the mistake of assuming that the LOTRO player base would behave identically.

More likely is that they saw the short-term gains and foolishly went for it, not considering the knock on effects. Which left them floundering in the long term and desperately scrabbling for some means of squeezing lifers for more money when it became clear that they were getting a free ride. The unfortunate effect of that is that they have no way of squeezing lifers without also squeezing subscribers, who are now complaining because they're basically being squeezed twice.

Hence my belief that they are actively trying to dissuade players from subscribing by making it more palatable to go Premium instead of VIP - on Premium you only get squeezed the once. Encouraging your players to stop giving you regular monthly payments in favour of a variable income like buying store points is about the dumbest thing in the world. Once again they are foolishly going for the short-term gains that are systematically alienating their entire player base, with no eye on the bigger picture. Once they have no VIPs at all except lifers, then we will see them seriously abuse the store.

Remember, using the store is irrelevant to Turbine - they currently have two revenue streams, one is subscriptions, and the other is buying points rather than spending them. If a player is not doing one or the other they are no good to Turbine. And if on average every player is not doing one or the other (or both) to the value of at least $17.59 per month, then the entire model is a bust and is less lucrative than having a sub-only game. Encouraging players to stop paying that guaranteed fee in favour of getting them to shell out unpredictable and variable amounts of cash for an unpredictable and variable period of time must play havoc with their projections. It's a monumentally stupid thing to do and will inevitably lead to store shills becoming increasingly pervasive and invasive.

Just like we are seeing already. Oops, Turbine, hope you enjoyed that six months of comparatively good press, because you're going to get crucified in the next 12.

[Raedwulf]

Hajile, on 24 July 2011 - 12:09, said:

...the lifer problem perfectly highlights Turbine's reckless short-sightedness.

Again, I have to agree with the bulk of what you say. The bit I've quoted is, though, very unfair, I think. I'm not known for speaking up for Turbine. I've hurled a fair amount of criticism their way over the years, CM too when they deserved it. But the Lifer thing wasn't reckless; it was a calculated gamble.

There is a massive development cost in bringing a new game to market these days. It's not someone in his bedroom any more, as it was in the days of the ZX80 / ZX81. Being a European player, my financial input is slightly off centre because of CM. I presume that CM paid a hefty licence fee to Turbine, and then recouped it from us.

However, ignoring the middle man, what you have at the start is a two-stream model. Turbine offer life membership at a sizeable price; they also offer the standard subscription model. The lifetime allows them to rapidly recoup a substantial portion of their development costs (including, lest we forget, a substantial licencing fee to the Saul Zaentz Corporation), which means the company doesn't fold. They're then hoping that the subscriptions will meet their projections to allow them to continue in the fashion they'd hoped. Unfortunately, I think their estimates were over-ambitious. That's why we've had expansion-lite ever since.

In short, I don't think they were reckless. I think they took a calculated risk. As it turns out, the numbers have come up short, which has meant an ever decreasing spiral of resource / content / release quality, up to the point at which WB bought them out. This, on the face of it, should mean that all those problems are sorted. RoI will show us whether that's really true or not, I think. If the content is lacking or buggy again, we will see the game atrophy. If they've got it right, for the first time in 3 years, it may find wings again & fly...

[Calendae]

Hajile, on 24 July 2011 - 12:09, said:

Remember, using the store is irrelevant to Turbine - they currently have two revenue streams, one is subscriptions, and the other is buying points rather than spending them. If a player is not doing one or the other they are no good to Turbine. And if on average every player is not doing one or the other (or both) to the value of at least $17.59 per month, then the entire model is a bust and is less lucrative than having a sub-only game. Encouraging players to stop paying that guaranteed fee in favour of getting them to shell out unpredictable and variable amounts of cash for an unpredictable and variable period of time must play havoc with their projections. It's a monumentally stupid thing to do and will inevitably lead to store shills becoming increasingly pervasive and invasive.

just out of curiosity ... where do you get your numbers from?

[Hajile]

Calendae, on 25 July 2011 - 08:40, said:

just out of curiosity ... where do you get your numbers from?

Guesswork and generalisation, really.

$17.59 is the cost of a one month subscription. If they're making less than that on average across their entire customer base, then they are making less per capita that they would on a standard subscription model. If that's the case then it was all a waste of time and they would have done better to not bother with all this cash shop nonsense, simply up their promotion of the game and attract more players under their old model.

Which is why they're clearly scrabbling to get more players to spend money on points - I don't think they are making more than $17.59 per player any more.