Looks like part of the NDA for the in-game store/cash shop system has been lifted, or least is loose enough for someone to put up the following explanation for the economic model to be used in GW2.
1. Aesthetics criticism: that's a lot of arrows and colors and boxes for a flow chart that doesn't give much information. Seriously. This guy needs to learn how to design flow charts better.
2. I do not like this Bind on Equip. This sounds like an awful idea. This means we can't say use the epic sword of slaying +1 until we out level then sell it to a lower level character (or just donating it to a lower level character). This does not promote casual play. Either drop rates increase or I foresee much pain in trying to figure out should I equip the damn sword or sell the thing. =.=
3. Dungeon only currency makes me want to hit something. I hate this "if you want this specific thing, you'll have to play through this dungeon and be hardcore" bullshit.
4. I notice a distinct lack of coin to crafting material exchange. This does not bode well either. If this is going turn into another "farm 400 scales" bullshit...I am going to just straight up skip on MMOs until someone comes up with a game that doesn't require 500 hours for a piece of shiny.
5. Costumes in cash shop is slightly better, although I will have to actually see the costumes first before I make a call. I'm hopeful but wary given how crappy the costumes turned out in GW1.
Speaking of, for the beta weekend, if possible, I'd like to learn a little more about this crafting and how integrated into the game it feels. Will we have to farm for crafting or is it a bonus mini-game gold sink?
I'm actually not too worried about Bind on Equip as it's pretty common to MMO's. PWE has it, STO has it, and it doesn't seem to affect the casual-friendliness of the game. You just need to make it so that the skin is a fairly common drop or easy to make.
Dungeons - well, supposedly there's also easy dungeons like the puzzle dungeons. Since the system uses tokens instead of a specific reward tied to a specific dungeon (at least, that's how I think it works), that should be fine.
The presence of a player exchange will pretty much ensure that crafting materials can be bought. The question will be the how much people charge... Hopefully it won't be as bad as PWE and will be more like STO.
Eh. I just don't like the idea of BoE. The point of binding on *anything* is to limit the transferability for whatever reason. And if there is a limit, that means the game is trying to promote increased play of something. Which I don't like.
Dungeons - I'm going to guess here, but the easier dungeons will probably be worth less tokens and the more difficult dungeons will be worth more, kind of like how rep points and z-tokens work in GW1, and I hate both systems. Still better than forcibly making you run a dungeon for end-dungeon shiny (especially when said shiny is a chance drop).
Crafting - I'm hoping for a crafting system that's not equipment centric. Crafting foods and booze and consumables is more fun than crafting eq.
With BoE, I think the point is to make EQ a goldsink (karma-sink, resource-sink etc.). Otherwise you're never actually paying for anything more than what you are currently using, because the old stuff can always be sold off to lower level characters. I'm just saying I can see where they're coming from on this mechanic. And if done well (like how STO does it) - where getting a certain skin of a EQ is easy/cheap, just getting the ++1 stat version of the same skin is expensive/hard - there shouldn't be much of an issue.
I'm going to put off judging the dungeon rewards until they're all up on wiki for me to look over...
Crafting - actually we know that EQ can be crafted; there are videos on this from that thread I linked before. The main question I think is how crafted EQ matches up versus random drops, versus karma-bought EQ, versus any other reward based EQ. I get the impression that crafted EQ have very default skins but generally better stats, but that's mostly speculation at this point.
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branchandroot
(no subject)
Date: 2012-04-23 02:44 am (UTC)2. I do not like this Bind on Equip. This sounds like an awful idea. This means we can't say use the epic sword of slaying +1 until we out level then sell it to a lower level character (or just donating it to a lower level character). This does not promote casual play. Either drop rates increase or I foresee much pain in trying to figure out should I equip the damn sword or sell the thing. =.=
3. Dungeon only currency makes me want to hit something. I hate this "if you want this specific thing, you'll have to play through this dungeon and be hardcore" bullshit.
4. I notice a distinct lack of coin to crafting material exchange. This does not bode well either. If this is going turn into another "farm 400 scales" bullshit...I am going to just straight up skip on MMOs until someone comes up with a game that doesn't require 500 hours for a piece of shiny.
5. Costumes in cash shop is slightly better, although I will have to actually see the costumes first before I make a call. I'm hopeful but wary given how crappy the costumes turned out in GW1.
Speaking of, for the beta weekend, if possible, I'd like to learn a little more about this crafting and how integrated into the game it feels. Will we have to farm for crafting or is it a bonus mini-game gold sink?
So...yeah.
(no subject)
Date: 2012-04-23 08:05 pm (UTC)Dungeons - well, supposedly there's also easy dungeons like the puzzle dungeons. Since the system uses tokens instead of a specific reward tied to a specific dungeon (at least, that's how I think it works), that should be fine.
The presence of a player exchange will pretty much ensure that crafting materials can be bought. The question will be the how much people charge... Hopefully it won't be as bad as PWE and will be more like STO.
(no subject)
Date: 2012-04-24 06:34 pm (UTC)Dungeons - I'm going to guess here, but the easier dungeons will probably be worth less tokens and the more difficult dungeons will be worth more, kind of like how rep points and z-tokens work in GW1, and I hate both systems. Still better than forcibly making you run a dungeon for end-dungeon shiny (especially when said shiny is a chance drop).
Crafting - I'm hoping for a crafting system that's not equipment centric. Crafting foods and booze and consumables is more fun than crafting eq.
(no subject)
Date: 2012-04-24 08:31 pm (UTC)I'm going to put off judging the dungeon rewards until they're all up on wiki for me to look over...
Crafting - actually we know that EQ can be crafted; there are videos on this from that thread I linked before. The main question I think is how crafted EQ matches up versus random drops, versus karma-bought EQ, versus any other reward based EQ. I get the impression that crafted EQ have very default skins but generally better stats, but that's mostly speculation at this point.