Posted 21 September 2012 - 11:46 AM
In the cash shop, I'd like to see... (all prices are examples and would, obviously, require fine-tuning)
Mech vouchers:
$4: any light mech; $5: any med mech; $6: any heavy mech; $8: any assault mech
These are already present in the game in the form of the Founders packages, so it wouldn't be difficult to implement. However, it's a bit redundant what with being able to buy mechs with MC.
Bundles
A mech bundle would be nice. Pay a certain amount and get a couple pre-determined mechs. A Founders' mech bundle would make a lot of sense, especially after the Founders packages are no longer available.
I think players would appreciate a Starter bundle coming available at release, as well, similar to the Founders packages.
Cosmetic Items
Skins have been mentioned a lot. They could be offered per mech (buy Woodland Camo 3 for the Commando) or globally (buy Woodland Camo 3 for all mechs). Skin bundles would also make a lot of sense; get all the Woodland Camo skins for a bit less than it would cost to buy each one individually. Camouflage, parade skins, rainbows with fluffy clouds, art deco, all kinds of different things. Limited-time offers, weekly sales, the works.
Custom paint should include team-colored variants. It's just a simple re-color so there isn't that much to it but if I buy a "Walking Keg" skin for my Urbanmech, I demand to see "Walking Keg" in red rather than a generic, flat red paint when I load into a team game. You know how MechWarrior 4 changed whatever paint you selected to a generic, flat team-colored paint? That was awful. Don't do that, especially if we're paying extra money to look pretty.
Badges & Decals
To this end, there should probably be a couple different places for these badges to display (a slot for a personal badge, a slot for a team/clan/guild badge, a slot for a House badge...). Some people like rainbow unicorns while others are going to want the same Davion logo they go a tattoo of back in '99. It'd make sense to sell certain themed badges individually and in discounted packs, like with skins. I do like the idea of being able to upload a custom badge, have it approved by a moderator, and implemented into the game, but I'd want other people to see it, too.
Rent-A-Server
I figured I would hate this in Battlefield 3 but it's actually a pretty cool feature, and it's a nice way to keep money coming in. Individuals effectively rent the rights to admin a server. You can set the map rotation, victory condition, whatever. One problem Battlefield ran into was that they stopped hosting vanilla servers and everyone who rented one set their games to last about two hours -- make sure to keep vanilla servers up!
Premium Clans/Guilds/Teams
I want to start by saying that you should be able to set up and maintain a basic clan for free. Expanded features may be worth paying for and I could see separating them into a couple different cost tiers.
Unique, custom badges have been suggested many times already. Each clan that registers and pays for premium should get their own custom unit badge (subject to moderation). Include one badge upload the first time a clan goes premium, and then maybe charge a small sum if they want to change it later.
Other possible benefits for clans that go premium:
20% C-bill bonus for all members in pre-made matches only.
Tournaments and a monthly ladder for premium clans with better rewards than freebie competitions.
Each premium clan gets its own rented server.
Each premium clan also gets a private channel in the MWO VoIP server (15 slots or so would make sense, with matches going up to 12v12 and a couple slots left for loafers).
Free tournament vouchers. If you are going to run tournaments that require some sort of buy-in, I think both individuals and clan members who are paying for premium status should get in for free.
Sales, Discounts and Promotions!
Because they're fun and get people to buy something when maybe they normally wouldn't.