136 replies to this topic

[Mao of DC]

Metafox, on 09 February 2013 - 09:24 PM, said:

You mean MC isn't legal tender? Is that why McDonalds wouldn't let me buy my food with MC?

I not sure does it say on it somewhere, "This note is legal tender for debts, public or private."? If not then no it is not.

I know you were being sarcastic but, this thread is so silly I decided to be silly also.

[Mr 144]

Obviously a lawsuit is ludicrous.

The default pricing however, is also ludicrous. It's just beyond the $14.95 (3000MC) threshold. I think it's unbelievable that no one sees this as gouging. It's like ordering a cheap burger advertised as $2, but the lettuce, ketchup, and mustard cost $5 each and are automatically added to your bill. Sure, you can order it plain, stripping away everything pictured. You still get your $2 burger, but it's definately not what you went in there for.

I love the mentality behind the new system, and the refund of both MC and C-bills was appreciated, but at the current default prices, I'll never buy them. Value is severely lacking in the default skin packages.

Either PGI does not understand F2P micro-transactions, or they are afraid they do not have enough content generation in there timeline to keep many small purchaces going. Either way, this is nothing short of a price gouging money grab at the moment, and quite frankly scares me.

Mr 144

[Vapor Trail]

Upper Left: Full on Phranken, total cost 3125 MC.

Upper Right: Total cost 1875 MC.

Lower Left: Total cost 1375 MC.

Lower Right: Total cost 850 MC.


And if you buy the 3125 version, you get three colors that allow you to put the same color scheme on any mech. So yeah, it's 3125 for the first mech, and 125 for each additional mech. Similar for the cheaper versions. Buy those colors and those colors are available for any other mech.

I've thought about the Phranken Red for a while... but I've got access to the PC gamer Red so I'm not really seeing the need. I went and splurged on an orange so I could make this:

Edited by Vapor Trail, 09 February 2013 - 09:50 PM.

[Skadi]

EVERYTHING Is subject to change...
Rules of the beta bro.

[Mr 144]

The breaking point in comparison is just a hair under 5 mechs.

5 phrankens @ 750 MC = 3750
5 phrankens @ 125 MC (single use) + 3000 MC (one-time global) = 3625.

It's funny the amount of defending. Excellent Smoke and Mirror marketing. The only way the new pricing is more economical, is if previously you went with matching paint schemes across most of your mechs. In that case, it's a huge cost savings. For those who had many different paint schemes on many different mechs and chassis's..it's a HUGE price increase.

They could easily fix this, and should have anticipated the problem in a micro-transaction economy, of cheap 1-time use paint colors. This would solve the unreasonable default pricing of schemes, allwoing for an upgrade to the global 1000 MC paints.

Single Use (500 MC colors) priced at 125 MC
Single Use (1000 MC colors) priced at 250 MC
etc...

This would maintain the threshold at 4 mechs, but allow tons of individual customization.

The goal of a F2P micro-transaction economy is to create small repetitive purchases that can net greater income than the seemingly large one-time purchase. This can be seen easily in MMORPG that also offer full-content subscriptions. It's almost more cost effective in most F2P games to buy the mid-level global unlocks.

*The full-subscription is rarely a good long-term plan, but results in instant access to everything with minimal initial investment.
*Mid-Level 'unlock for life' is the best long term investment, but expensive initial investment.
*Low-Level highly restrictive purchaces are desinged for repetitive spending (the nickel and dime approach). While not long-term player cost effective, they enable quick income from short-term or new players or the best money generation from long-term players.

As MWO is not really condusive to a full subscription service, the only revenue generation possibilities are 'lifetime unlocks' and 'Micro purchaces'. They seem to be only embracing one of the two non-mutually exclusive strategies. I think this is a ginormous mistake, both short term, and more importantly long-term.

Mr 144

Edited by Mr 144, 09 February 2013 - 10:51 PM.

[Ryvucz]

I hear Rowan Atkinson's McLaren F1 needs a new paint job too.

Edited by Ryvucz, 09 February 2013 - 10:42 PM.

[Jalak Bali]

Mr 144, on 09 February 2013 - 09:43 PM, said:

Obviously a lawsuit is ludicrous.

The default pricing however, is also ludicrous. It's just beyond the $14.95 (3000MC) threshold. I think it's unbelievable that no one sees this as gouging. It's like ordering a cheap burger advertised as $2, but the lettuce, ketchup, and mustard cost $5 each and are automatically added to your bill. Sure, you can order it plain, stripping away everything pictured. You still get your $2 burger, but it's definately not what you went in there for.

I love the mentality behind the new system, and the refund of both MC and C-bills was appreciated, but at the current default prices, I'll never buy them. Value is severely lacking in the default skin packages.

Either PGI does not understand F2P micro-transactions, or they are afraid they do not have enough content generation in there timeline to keep many small purchaces going. Either way, this is nothing short of a price gouging money grab at the moment, and quite frankly scares me.

Mr 144

You missed the part about the lettuce, ketchup and mustard are now all you can eat for one time fee.

It's expensive if you only used the colors ONCE. It gets infinitely cheaper the more you used it on more and more mechs.

[Mr 144]

Jalak Bali, on 10 February 2013 - 05:11 AM, said:

You missed the part about the lettuce, ketchup and mustard are now all you can eat for one time fee.

It's expensive if you only used the colors ONCE. It gets infinitely cheaper the more you used it on more and more mechs.

nope, didn't miss that at all....in fact I meticulously explained the breaking points for those that can read more than one sentence or post. And really? who want's lettuce, ketchup, and mustard without the beef? Really? total fail dude...

Mr 144

Edited by Mr 144, 10 February 2013 - 05:14 AM.

[Jalak Bali]

That next time you buy the burger you only pay $2 because the ketchup and mustard are free since you paid for them before. Did you read my second sentence?

Did you count how much it would cost to set up 5 mechs with Phranken camo+colors back then compared to now? How about 6? Is math too hard? Here, I'll help you out: 5 Mechs with Phranken is 750 times 5 in old pricing. New pricing: 3000 one time fee for 3 Phranken colors plus 5 times 125 for camo on 5 mechs. The difference goes up at a faster rate the more mechs you apply the camo. If you had less than 5 mechs with Phranken camo before, the new pricing will make it more expensive to get the same. But if you had 5 or more, you'd end up with MC leftovers. If you had 20 mechs with all Phranken, you'd get a LOT of MC left.

[SPencil]

Mr 144, on 10 February 2013 - 05:14 AM, said:

nope, didn't miss that at all....in fact I meticulously explained the breaking points for those that can read more than one sentence or post. And really? who want's lettuce, ketchup, and mustard without the beef? Really? total fail dude...

Mr 144

Jalak Bali, on 10 February 2013 - 06:05 AM, said:

That next time you buy the burger you only pay $2 because the ketchup and mustard are free since you paid for them before. Did you read my second sentence?

Did you count how much it would cost to set up 5 mechs with Phranken camo+colors back then compared to now? How about 6? Is math too hard? Here, I'll help you out: 5 Mechs with Phranken is 750 times 5 in old pricing. New pricing: 3000 one time fee for 3 Phranken colors plus 5 times 125 for camo on 5 mechs. The difference goes up at a faster rate the more mechs you apply the camo. If you had less than 5 mechs with Phranken camo before, the new pricing will make it more expensive to get the same. But if you had 5 or more, you'd end up with MC leftovers. If you had 20 mechs with all Phranken, you'd get a LOT of MC left.

[octatonic]

**** The OP's right. Someone better listen to the OP. Get Leonard "J." Kerensky on this.

[Willie Sauerland]

Best. Thread. Ever.

Edited by Willie Sauerland, 10 February 2013 - 11:04 AM.

[Metafox]

Vapor Trail, on 09 February 2013 - 09:49 PM, said:

Upper Left: Full on Phranken, total cost 3125 MC.

Upper Right: Total cost 1875 MC.

Lower Left: Total cost 1375 MC.

Lower Right: Total cost 850 MC.

You can get away with using 100% PC Gamer colors and get the whole thing for just 125MC, assuming that you can live with white bones instead of yellow bones. I like how even the camo system requires strategy and planning.

[Ter Ushaka]

[Wales Grey]

WOLF TooGoooD, on 09 February 2013 - 08:52 PM, said:

ive done some checking its illigel too sell you something in canada, take it back refund you with out asking you than charging 4x for it.

prior to patch i purchased the phranken skin for 750 MC

log in today after not playing for a while see patch notes about refunding me back for the skin, normally it would be not a big deal if the tech needed this to happen and i could purchase it back again.

go to buy it back and it now costs 4x the MC what the??

is this what we can expect if something becomes popular they will take it back and refund you then charge 4 times for it ???

this game company needs to learn to respect its Paying customers more...needless to say i wont be spending anymore on this game.

Uh, the price increase is only on the PERMANENT skin. The one-time-use version is actually cheaper now.

[fil5000]

Someone tell the OP that if you want to take legal action in an English speaking nation, it helps if you can communicate in coherent English.

[razzle]

I weep for people like the OP who are so poor they need to devote time to Phoenix Wrighting a ******* videogame company over a few dollars (that by the way was totally refunded).

Poor people are truly awful. Vote Romney 2016!

[Willie Sauerland]

Ter Ushaka,

Didn't somebody complain somewhere else about you liking your own posts? Does that mean I get in trouble for liking your post as well?

I wouldn't want to offend anybody...

razzle, on 10 February 2013 - 12:13 PM, said:

I weep for people like the OP who are so poor they need to devote time to Phoenix Wrighting a ******* videogame company over a few dollars (that by the way was totally refunded).

Poor people are truly awful. Vote Romney 2016!

You can get MC for food stamps now? I did not know this...

[fil5000]

razzle, on 10 February 2013 - 12:13 PM, said:

I weep for people like the OP who are so poor they need to devote time to Phoenix Wrighting a ******* videogame company over a few dollars (that by the way was totally refunded).

Poor people are truly awful. Vote Romney 2016!

Edited by fil5000, 10 February 2013 - 12:16 PM.

[Demoned]

in a sense we own nothing in this game, even skins and paint.
we only rent it.

they can take away, change as much as they like this way.