Originally posted by Betakodo

Originally posted by azzamasin

OMG you do realize every single MMO for the last 8+ years has offered some sort of early release incentive right?

I said it to you before and I'll say it again. Double check your facts. Every single? More like barely any over the past 4 years. Maybe Guild Wars 2 was your first MMO? The game didn't charge $200 bucks to access the game 3 days early, all you had to do was pre-order the game.

Hey, I'll use your own words : "Double check your facts." yourself;

Neverwinter didn't charge $200 bucks to access the game 3 days early.

It's the "Guardian" pack you are talking about, which costs $59, and it's not just offering an headstart, there's much more to it.

OMG: so you see...$59...Just like Guild Wars back in the day!

Have a good day, Sir!

5days early access, all beta weekends plus friend invite. and a unique playable race... for 200 bucks sounds a tad rip-offish. 

unless everything in a founders pack can be purchesed later or accessed ingame after "grinding". the founder pack is a tad insane for my tastes.

while nothing provided in the either 3 of the founders shows it self to be overly p2w or OPing..  if the drow class and other pet/mounts/perks can not be purchesed later on or gained ingame... then they would be a tad unfair to other people who dont have the means to afford 200+ usd for a pack.  i my self would not pay 200 bucks for half of that stuff. but thats just me, while i agree a game should be allowed to make money to support it self, as the packs are being valued by the company selling them.. they could claim the pack is worth 1000usd and charge you 500 usd for it :/ 

most of these "DLC" packs games are putting out now.. would have been given out as free download content in the early 2000s..so in case of being "hurt" it hurts furture game titles as people buy up these over priced "DLC" packs that really arent worth half of what is being charged for.. 

Lets put it simple.

Giving any amount of money for the game that is going to be f2p is re*****d.

I would understand that game is b2p so eventualy you ll have to buy it if you wanna play. I understand that some ppl whave lot of money and dont care like someone on the 1st page of this post explained perfectly but in general it is bad for the community in whole.

30% of ppl who bought it are fans of D&D or NWN or whatever and 70% are hype kids with "Timmy got it so Sally need to have it too"  attitude. Insted of all goodies in that $200 they should put WIN MAcro for all classes so the kids will even consider understanding the game.

Now let say that that packs are awesome and it is a good thing, lets look of all the junk you got:

Mount and Pet = ok that is fine ppl like to have that kind of things

Rest = junk you ll never use

1 Coin for respec = This is something you will realy need and you get only 1 !!!!

If ppl think that that race, mount and pet will be exclusive.... i don`t think so. When cash shop hits live it will be all aveable to other ppl.

It is a game.

I would much prefer everyone to be on equal footing - even if this is not P2W.

Just give everybody the same chance at stuff.

How would you feel if you are playing chess and you put down your wooden chesspieces and your opponent puts down ivory ones? Not very much fun even if it doesnt change the game.

On me these practices have the opposite effect: I will not spend a penny on the game out of principle even tho I can afford it. Their loss?

GW2 is the same: you feel that the economy is manipulated in a way to oh so gently push you to the cash shop.

I just didnt buy anything. (and I wouldnt begrudge them a subscription or something else; I would probably pay it)

Let's just dive right in to paid beta, cash shops, and microtransactions. Let's all be real and call a pre-purchace for beta what it is. The only way I would be cool with a cash shop is if EVERYTHING in it was availibe via in-game means as well. If you want to sell xp boots and other time saving things that would aid more casual people go nuts. If I see some awesome flaming cloak or mount on the cash shop there has to be a way to get it from playing the actual game.

Sadly all these greedy, lazy, companies want is to sell you a 25$ sparkle pony and have everyone clicking in anticipation.

A better question would be how is the founders pack helping the game?

Originally posted by nilden

Let's just dive right in to paid beta, cash shops, and microtransactions. Let's all be real and call a pre-purchace for beta what it is. The only way I would be cool with a cash shop is if EVERYTHING in it was availibe via in-game means as well. If you want to sell xp boots and other time saving things that would aid more casual people go nuts. If I see some awesome flaming cloak or mount on the cash shop there has to be a way to get it from playing the actual game.

Sadly all these greedy, lazy, companies want is to sell you a 25$ sparkle pony and have everyone clicking in anticipation.

A better question would be how is the founders pack helping the game?

lol its helping fund the servers. Answer the OP question, how does it hurt YOU?

Originally posted by Bladestrom

Originally posted by nilden

Let's just dive right in to paid beta, cash shops, and microtransactions. Let's all be real and call a pre-purchace for beta what it is. The only way I would be cool with a cash shop is if EVERYTHING in it was availibe via in-game means as well. If you want to sell xp boots and other time saving things that would aid more casual people go nuts. If I see some awesome flaming cloak or mount on the cash shop there has to be a way to get it from playing the actual game.

Sadly all these greedy, lazy, companies want is to sell you a 25$ sparkle pony and have everyone clicking in anticipation.

A better question would be how is the founders pack helping the game?

lol its helping fund the servers. Answer the OP question, how does it hurt YOU?

So it's taking away possible quests and grouping content in order to give them more money.

stamps feet and demands what that other little boy has.

Not getting something you cant afford is not taking something away from you.    Do you walk into a shop and feel outraged because you can only afford the 50" TV, and not the 50 inch tv with backlights?  ofc not.

Originally posted by Bladestrom

Originally posted by nilden

Let's just dive right in to paid beta, cash shops, and microtransactions. Let's all be real and call a pre-purchace for beta what it is. The only way I would be cool with a cash shop is if EVERYTHING in it was availibe via in-game means as well. If you want to sell xp boots and other time saving things that would aid more casual people go nuts. If I see some awesome flaming cloak or mount on the cash shop there has to be a way to get it from playing the actual game.

Sadly all these greedy, lazy, companies want is to sell you a 25$ sparkle pony and have everyone clicking in anticipation.

A better question would be how is the founders pack helping the game?

lol its helping fund the servers. Answer the OP question, how does it hurt YOU?

um actually it funds nothing. before a game goes live in any form (alpha/beta/gold) the server housing is already paid for in advanced. its one of the requirements from hosting providers to be paid upto a month inadvance before any data is "active"

so 1000 people paying 200usd for the hero pack pays for nothing but the management team to go to vegas and well what happens stays there.. the only time this is remotely different is when you deal with indy teams who have super small budgets and only pay for server bandwith once a month.. (like old pirate servers) but even still the founder pack wouldnt be paying for that, in this case. 

if it was.... well i would be more worried that the game isnt going to be finished and you are infact paying 20-200usd for a pre-alpha then..

Originally posted by evilastro

Originally posted by Bladestrom

We are talking about luxury extras here, not basics that everyone needs access to (fruit) which will be affected by normal economics likke supply and demand etc.

 A better analagy is a cinema that allows people to go in free, but to cover the cost of allow all those people going in free they are offerering leather seats at the back with services.  Now we have people going in to the cinema and watching the latest films for free but whining loudly that its not fair that they cant get services.  I would say for god sake enjoy the film you are getting for free and stoip looking over your shoulder at what other people have.

 Spot on. What they are offering is incentives for people to invest early in the game. It's not just those items that you are getting, you are also getting in-game currency to spend later, along with the listed exclusive items for founder packs, which accounts for the value of the packs.

The game is 100% playable for free, yet theres all the self entitled whinging going on that people who pay get premium services. Well duh. How do you think F2P games are going to work? If there is nothing to buy, they make no money, and there is no game. People on here need to stop being so incredibly dumb.

Personally I would have prefered a B2P model so all these cheapskates who have no intention of spending any money at all can just bugger off.

$200 up front before you even had the chance to play the game, is not an investment. It is a gamble. You hope that the game ends up interesting enough for you to use those items.

But how many games that sounded great on paper during development turned out to be buggy and released prematurely?

They are just selling you a $ 200 promise. This is nice for an indie company that has trouble getting financial backing for a great idea that they want to turn into a game. But for a major games company it is nothing but a (strangely effective) way to get money before they have to deliver.

My problem with this? I really wished those big gamescompanies would stop trying to cash in by dangling popular ip's in front of gamers' eyes and then sell a promise.

But instead start delivering games first which then are received so good that we will shell out our cash without having to gamble based on a promise.

Originally posted by someforumguy

Originally posted by evilastro

Originally posted by Bladestrom

We are talking about luxury extras here, not basics that everyone needs access to (fruit) which will be affected by normal economics likke supply and demand etc.

 A better analagy is a cinema that allows people to go in free, but to cover the cost of allow all those people going in free they are offerering leather seats at the back with services.  Now we have people going in to the cinema and watching the latest films for free but whining loudly that its not fair that they cant get services.  I would say for god sake enjoy the film you are getting for free and stoip looking over your shoulder at what other people have.

 Spot on. What they are offering is incentives for people to invest early in the game. It's not just those items that you are getting, you are also getting in-game currency to spend later, along with the listed exclusive items for founder packs, which accounts for the value of the packs.

The game is 100% playable for free, yet theres all the self entitled whinging going on that people who pay get premium services. Well duh. How do you think F2P games are going to work? If there is nothing to buy, they make no money, and there is no game. People on here need to stop being so incredibly dumb.

Personally I would have prefered a B2P model so all these cheapskates who have no intention of spending any money at all can just bugger off.

$200 up front before you even had the chance to play the game, is not an investment. It is a gamble. You hope that the game ends up interesting enough for you to use those items.

But how many games that sounded great on paper during development turned out to be buggy and released prematurely?

They are just selling you a $ 200 promise. This is nice for an indie company that has trouble getting financial backing for a great idea that they want to turn into a game. But for a major games company it is nothing but a (strangely effective) way to get money before they have to deliver.

True, but its still optional as it does not affect ME as a player who will not buy it, so its a non issue, e.g I dont get angry because someone else has something that i cant have.  To go back to the cinema analagy, they are paying for the leather seat before they know how good the film is - thats their choice, i still get to see the film for free regardless.

If the free seats were made of brick and had poor line of sight that would be a different story (and some bad cash shops/mmorgs do go for brick seats (psst SWTOR)

Originally posted by Bladestrom

Originally posted by someforumguy

Originally posted by evilastro

Originally posted by Bladestrom

We are talking about luxury extras here, not basics that everyone needs access to (fruit) which will be affected by normal economics likke supply and demand etc.

 A better analagy is a cinema that allows people to go in free, but to cover the cost of allow all those people going in free they are offerering leather seats at the back with services.  Now we have people going in to the cinema and watching the latest films for free but whining loudly that its not fair that they cant get services.  I would say for god sake enjoy the film you are getting for free and stoip looking over your shoulder at what other people have.

 Spot on. What they are offering is incentives for people to invest early in the game. It's not just those items that you are getting, you are also getting in-game currency to spend later, along with the listed exclusive items for founder packs, which accounts for the value of the packs.

The game is 100% playable for free, yet theres all the self entitled whinging going on that people who pay get premium services. Well duh. How do you think F2P games are going to work? If there is nothing to buy, they make no money, and there is no game. People on here need to stop being so incredibly dumb.

Personally I would have prefered a B2P model so all these cheapskates who have no intention of spending any money at all can just bugger off.

$200 up front before you even had the chance to play the game, is not an investment. It is a gamble. You hope that the game ends up interesting enough for you to use those items.

But how many games that sounded great on paper during development turned out to be buggy and released prematurely?

They are just selling you a $ 200 promise. This is nice for an indie company that has trouble getting financial backing for a great idea that they want to turn into a game. But for a major games company it is nothing but a (strangely effective) way to get money before they have to deliver.

True, but its still optional as it does not affect ME as a player who will not buy it, so its a non issue, e.g I dont get angry because someone else has something that i cant have.  To go back to the cinema analagy, they are paying for the leather seat before they know how good the film is - thats their choice, i still get to see the film for free regardless.

If the free seats were made of brick and had poor line of sight that would be a different story (and some bad cash shops/mmorgs do go for brick seats (psst SWTOR)

I realised that I didn't explain my problem with this, so I edited my post to add my reason.

Originally posted by Bladestrom
Stamps a bit more.

Look here young whipper snapper!! Back in my day we paid this thing called a subscription and didn't get milked like cows by NONE of this ere cash shop hugga-ma-lu. We all got along just fine and had innovative games not just WoW cloner-a-ma-jigs.

Hehe and i did too, until I looked back and reaised I had paid Blizzard over £600 in subs, and thats just to get the privilege to start the game up!  <<Mugged

Originally posted by Fendel84M

Why does it seem like theres a lot of people so incredibly butt hurt over the founder's packs? You don't have to buy it, I really don't get it.

Edit: Fixed a mispelling thanks to a concerned user.

Well let me preface this post by saying that I personally did not like what Cryptic did with the Champions or Star Trek universes in their games. I also felt that STO in particular suffered badly from its developers worrying more about quickly recouping their investment and turning a profit, rather than staying anywhere near true to the franchise they were using or making a game that was fun. This also meant they focused more on creating new content for the cash shop rather than creating a reasonable amount of new "free" content in what at the time was a subscriber based game. And judging by how angry I remember people being on these and other forums back then many others felt the same way I did.

So that baggage right there is most likely what is driving the outcry over the founder packs. A bunch of people who feel they were burnt previously by Cryptic are thinking "Oh great those bastards are at it again."

Now for me personally as a self labeled "Cryptic Hater", I'm not sure if these accusations are fair. Cryptic is selling some exclusive content that isn't needed to enjoy the game, and giving the rest of the game out gratis. I don't really see a problem. Doesn't harm me in the slightest. And though I haven't played the game yet, just from what I've seen in game play videos I think this game has the potential to make me hang up my "Cryptic Hating" spurs. Have to wait and see how things go at launch.

OK there's the sugar coated "reasonable" bit. Now onto the tinfoil hatted "doom and gloom" portion of the post.

Funnily enough however I think there may actually be someone who could be hurt by the $200 founder pack. And that someone is Cryptic themselves. Let me explain. First off I think what has made the Neverwinter brand name so popular isn't the actual D&D game world, but the fiction novels that were created in that setting. And the character who is arguably the most beloved from these novels is Drizzt Do'Urden. So by that logic the drow race is probably the most desirable feature of the game to many people. I feel that Cryptic hanging an exclusive $200 price tag on the drow race certainly has the potential to bring in some quick cash up front, but I also feel such an action has far greater potential to piss Neverwinter fans off, and lose them what would have otherwise been happy customers. And if at some time Cryptic does allow another way for people to gain access to the exclusive Drow race, I imagine that will spark outrage among the founders pack purchasers. And since Cryptic did something quite similar with some excluive ships in STO I don't feel we can safely discount the idea they could do the same with Neverwinter.

Yup forgetting the price for the moment I agree that the most attractice part of the package is access to dark elf elements, and if that was accessable later then it would be an insult to the buyers of the 199.99 pack.  If I could afford it, I would be looking at it as an 'early access' pack to the dark elf which would probably not be enough to tempt me.

Getting some guarantee that this content would remain unique would be a much better focus for people concerned with this pack.