real cash shop idea

TheRealFaffnir

a good idea and one many have been looking for is the real cash ships that can be obtained, should be placed in the cash shop to be bought every single one of them ranging from say $30 to $100 allowing players to pick and choose which ships they want to buy, papaya gets a large income of money players get what they pay for and its not a chance to get a ship ur guaranteed this ship. would allow for much more flexibility of the cash shop in how to compliment the new tab for ship purchases, like adding in a section to purchase the colored paneling. and such

HeavyWater

This is an intrinsically bad idea. Of all the ways cash ships could be implemented, this is by far the most P2W option. At least a lottery makes it a bit less P2W by not guaranteeing you get exactly what/everything you want.

Being able to purchase any ship you want directly from the cash shop means you can pick and choose the best ships if you have enough money, placing those with the biggest budgets far ahead of everyone else.

e.g. 'Oh look, I have plenty of money to spend, let's go buy ROG while everyone else has FS ships or less expensive ones.'

THawk420

also going to take a lot of cash shop items out of the in game market not the way to keep f2p players

DanielFreedomHunters

As opposed to making all the ship available in the UWC Shop...

Make ALL ships buildable by players.  Let
shipbuilders be shipbuilders again, instead of ship improvers and upgraders.

Make
all ships, including Ticket ships, buildable by players at specific ports or company
colonies.  Ticket ships can still be bought, if you roll the dice with tickets but, also employ a system for shipbuilder to same ship, with the same lower requirements.  

To do this and actually increase revenue for Papaya:

A.  Create
3 types of new UWC items.  “Modification
Permit Tickets” (MPT), could be a ticket, like EA Shipbuilding Permits.  MPT would sell for UWC and there would be 3
types are:

1.  A
Ship Hull MPT would be used, when building hull that gives skill/attribute
bonuses, which normally come from ticket ship. 
Example: Metal Work + Teak Paneling + (Ship Hull) MPT = Large Flat Hull
(like for Schooners) w/ Wave-resistant armoring. 

2.  A
Sail MPT would be used to make improved sail parts.  Example: Large Gaff Sail + (Sail) MPT
Item+100 Silk Fabric = Delphin Gaff Sail.

3.  A
Ship Part MPT used to make improved ship parts. Example: Anti-rolling tank +
Admiral Cabin + (ship part) MPT = Shipside Tank

B.  Create
a different 3 types of new UWC items to reduce ship level requirements. 
“Ship Requirement Mod Tickets” (SRMT) would reduce levels requirements
for any ship. 

There
would be different SRMTs for each type of requirement: Adventure, Trade and
Maritime.

a.  1 SRMT
would reduce the guild level requirement of a ship by 5 levels.  With a cap on the maximum total requirement
reduction at -20 levels per ship.

b.  Example:  A Xebec requires 32/25/25... Use 2 adventure tickets and 1 Trade tickets and 1 MT ticket to reduce the requirement to 27/20/20.

C.  What
does this accomplish:

Players
go through dozens of ships.  They always want
better ships or get bored with their old ones.  So there would be a high demand for this
tickets.

This
would be a much-improved revenue stream for Papaya and more effective for the
players.

It
would begin addressing all the complaints about the old in-game economy and the
super inflated selling prices of ticket ships without flooding the market, with
unwanted ticket items.  

Players
could still pay billions of ducats for a fully modded and graded ship, with
level requirement reductions already installed OR, they could pay a few 100
million ducats for a high-end ship build, and use many more UWC items to create the parts they need, as well as lower the level requirements to what they need.

FlorianGeyer

I need some explanation here. Apart from piracy, how can UWO2 be a P2W game. What is to win with it. UWO should be played for the community and the fun. Serious, there is nothing to win like for example shooter games. Whatever CS weapon and armor provides you huge advantages in winning a match but how is UWO??

Still it doens't take away that I am against the idea of paid ships as well for different reasons such as we have discussed elsewhere on the forum while UWO was offline. You should check out some discussions on these topics on the general forum as well.

Flo

FrozenRuby

it would be a better implementation of making the ships buildable then anyone with high enough SB could charge what ver they want for ships and just ruin the market where as anyone could buy the ship they want instead of playing the lottery and getting nothing but items they will never use. i rather spend $50 on the game and get what i need rather then $50 worth of junk

FrozenRuby

and by making the ships buildable there would be no point having them in the tickets which would make papaya loose revenue

FlorianGeyer

And in both of the above cases ppl who are not able / willing to spent a single dollar are disadvantaged and u have an unbalance game in the end from their perspective.

I still conclude if u want to keep balance between a game that is fun for everyone, free to play and has a stable economy system OR a pay to win game that will eventually risk dying as it's founders "bought the game out"? To avoid so, a cash-shop should only offer fun, prestigious and small temporary booster items. None that gives enormous advantage to its owner and take balance out of the game what will make none- or limited founders quit and the P2W reputation will decide the games future.

The best items a game has to offer should be acquirable by anyone, by hard working and by teamwork, that's the way a game can be FUN TO PLAY! That's how a vast, reliable player-base that is even willing to spent a little more money for their fun is created.

At that moment when a gorgeous huge ships overtakes u with no trouble at all, it boosts your motivation and you set yourself a new goal rather than saying, "wtf another goldnoob is ruining my game, one more and I quit". That's what it would do to all those who quit lacking the money to play the game UWO can be.

Because it will create a bigger playerbase, affluent ppl are going to spend money to obtain the prestigious, limited booster and fun items in the cash shop just to show off their love for the game and maybe they will even sponsor some to their poor company members. That way it can work.

As long as CS items don't provoke the in-game economy to collapse sooner or later.

Yours Flo!

Seperallis

"This is an intrinsically bad idea. Of all the ways cash ships could be implemented, this is by far the most P2W option. At least a lottery makes it a bit less P2W by not guaranteeing you get exactly what/everything you want.

Being able to purchase any ship you want directly from the cash shop means you can pick and choose the best ships if you have enough money, placing those with the biggest budgets far ahead of everyone else."

The entire premise of your argument is false. The current lottery system is in fact the most "pay to win" of any possible system, because it ensures that only those with means can dump enough cash into the game to brute-force their way to the ships they want while in the meantime also benefiting by stockpiling ships they don't want that they then sell to others for over-inflated in-game prices, and thus get even further ahead than those without 30 ships in bank storage.

How much money have you dropped on the game? I've dropped a fair amount in my day in bottles, and while I don't consider it wasted money (I supported a game I like), I can count on one hand the number of ships I have received...none of which were either any use to me or of any value to anyone else. The fact that you can drop $20, $50, $100 or more on bottles/tickets and get nothing but trash is the exact thing that turns most people off to buying them again (or even buying them in the first place). This isn't about rich players, as the son of some oil prince in the UAE is going to get the ships he wants regardless of the system we use; this isn't about keeping him and other rich players from buying power, this is about Joe Somebody who works 9 to 9 down in the salt mines and just wants to sail in a nice ship during the hour or less of free time he has in the evening.

A direct-buy method shouldn't replace the lottery, it should augment the lottery. It should allow for a choice between the "cheap" thrill of the gamble and the more expensive but guaranteed surety of just buying what you want. I can guarantee you that Papaya would be making fistfuls of cash more than they would otherwise with just the lottery if people could just buy the exact ships, FS parts, equipment et al they want when they become available. Make it so the cash shop has the same items as the lotto...or maybe the lottery some exclusive [Insert Super Special Secret Item Here], if you're really soooo scared about your precious lotto.

"But I can't sell my ships for as much if everyone can just buy ships!" Yes, Self-important Ship Reseller #547, you are correct, and that's literally the only kind of person who would be "hurt" by the introduction  of a direct-pay method for buying ships. Those are the only people who could ever logically be against buying what you want, when you want. When everyone's able to buy power, then no one's paying to win...they're just paying.

Seems like a fair trade to me.

theedgedemon

@FrozenRuby making you waste lots of money in thing you dont really want is the lifeblood of free2play games so this has as many chances of passing as frogs raining.

HeavyWater

@Seperallis

 I'm neither self-important nor a reseller, but okay.

Yes, the system can be abused by anyone if they're willing to throw enough money at the game. But the bottle system has the benefit of injecting other items/unwanted/unneeded ships into the economy, meanwhile cash shop leaves only the cash shop players with good ships (which we can agree is the end goal of just about everyone, to have a nice ship) and keeps all other items out of the economy.

Have you thought about what it would be like if only cash players used NPCs while nanbanning? How much more money they would have in comparison with everyone else? No. You were too busy insulting me.

With cash shop ships, not everyone can buy power. Only those willing to pay, thus the premise your argument is based upon it fundamentally flawed. Or rather: you're wrong.

TheRealFaffnir

i guess your right just would like to get something useful for spending money on the game

Sipiath

I think the best cash shop implementation I've seen was in Core Exiles.  With very few exceptions, almost everything in the store was also possible to get in game.  The few exceptions were things to make life easier or make things more convenient, but didn't fundamentally change the nature of the game.

So yes, you could buy almost any ship in the game, but they had the same level requirements and stats as ones manufactured by a player or bought from an in-game merchant.  Ditto for basically everything else:  it streamlines the game to be able to drop some money in the cash shop to buy resource extractors, but it doesn't actually take that much time to buy/build one in-game.

The exceptions were things like fuel generators:  normally, you generator produces some small amount of fuel per hour, and when you run out of fuel you can't do much for a while.  The cash shop lets you upgrade that, so you can do more without running out of fuel.  You can only get them for cash, but for most players the limitation isn't actually fuel, it's time to play.  So they make things easier, but it's not game-breaking.  At the time I stopped playing, the highest-level, most accomplished player had never spent a dime of real money.

xibwiz

@FrozenRuby

and by making the ships buildable there would be no point having them in the tickets which would make papaya loose revenue

Yeah, unless what are sold are ship parts, and best materials. So one good example of those will be ornament wide ship, wich is used to make dragonhead ship.