I wrote the following on Friday, the 14 of December, 2012.
I’ve come to realize that I love Runes of Magic, Taborea, my guild The Black Tower, the Community Management as a whole (Dio, Nyte, Kharrma, mentors), and well, sometimes I even love my enemies in the game. But lately, I feel, the players have been wronged. It is not a fault of any of the people previously mentioned, but rather what has been nicknamed, for lack of better terms, “the sales team”.
The sales and marketing department of Gameforge isn’t bad. I’ve played games from them before, they are ok. This made me wonder why in the world was it when Frogster was taken over by Gameforge things went so poorly. The player population is almost at a standstill. New players are rare (and to be fair, it’s been like this for a long time) and old players are leaving at a faster rate.
This can be broken down to two issues. On the one hand, there are no advertisements for this game. It has been years since there has been. What’s worse is that Runes of Magic isn’t even listed on the Gameforge site. (See:
http://en.gameforge.com/games/gamelist ) This won’t get you very many new players. This isn’t what this topic is about, however. I’d rather pick my battles for now.
On the other hand, you have a department that is making the game not enjoyable for existing players. The sales we’ve been getting are an abomination and unreasonable. I’m not saying make everything cost a single diamond, I just want to be given a chance to improve on my game play and get back to what it should be for most people; a game. The fact that this is a free-to-play game means the revenue has to be had from something. And as I mentioned earlier, Gameforge isn’t stupid when it comes to this idea. What they don’t get, I’m going to guess, is this game we have here, Runes of Magic. Their inexperience with this game is costing them players. Whether they don’t connect with the majority of the player base when they play, IF they play, is something I can’t note. I can, however, state and list their flaws, as I see them, as constructively as possible.
So here it goes..
On July 5rd, 2012 a post was made regarding changes to the item shop (
http://forum.us.runesofmagic.com/showthread.php?t=72778).
What looked like a good deal would end being a slap in the face. Yes, purified stones would be reduced to 19 diamonds per stone on regular price, down from the previous 25 when they were on sale. However, at the concern of non-established players, the prices of many mounts were doubled, including the Flame and Star mounts. Others were simply absent outside of gashas, the most notable example is undeniably the best mount in the game, the Rune Disc. All house chests were also doubled in price. On top of that, the ruby bonuses for many items were reduced. The ruby bonuses for items on discount sale were nonexistent as well as the rubies from phirius token sales. One of the most crucial items in game, the advanced bind lifter, was completely gone from the item shop only to be put up on special sales.
This was all two days after (July 3rd, 2012) an announcement was made concerning Frogster being integrated and acquired fully by Gameforge (
http://forum.us.runesofmagic.com/showthread.php?t=72706).
The following is based on information posted on the Special Offers part of the forums.
Since this time, to my count, Advanced Bind Lifters have been on sale as a separate item four times and three times in packages.
(7/27, 9/7, 10/15, 11/30 as an individual; 8/24, 9/28, 11/19 in packs)
This is an item that was normally on the shop at all times, that a lot of the market relies on. You can’t simply remove this from the game with repercussions. You now have a limit on gear that can be transferred and sold at any given time. The regulations on this type of market is bad for growth of a game.
There has been a diamond sale increase six times.
50% - 7/13 and 7/30
150% - 8/10
110% - 8/31 and 10/31
120% - 9/28
Comparatively to almost every other weekend with double diamonds a year plus a few ago. Most of these sales last a day, if that. Notably the 150% diamond sale was five hours long with three hours notice. Eight hours from first notice to end of sale is too short. Most of my guildies work shifts longer than this. If you don’t give people the opportunity to buy diamonds, they won’t buy them much like you miss every shot you don’t take.
Plus 6 jewels have been on sale twice individually and twice in packages.
Individually – 8/6 and 10/3
Package – 8/24 and 11/19
Plus 12 jewels have been on sale once individually and twice in packages.
Individually – 9/22
Package – 8/24 and 11/19
Plus 16 jewels have been on sale twice individually and twice in packages.
Individually – 7/6 and 10/22
Package – 8/24 and 11/19
Note that the only time any perfect plus jewels on any kind were on sale was on the ruby shop (11/19) or in packages (12/15). The limit this puts on many players is enough to quit as it is. If you can’t plus gear, you’re pretty much useless.
Purified fusion stones were on sale twice in their own packages and twice in with other items in packages.
Individually – 8/10 and 10/12
Package – 8/24 and 11/19
Probably the single most important item in the game no longer being sold on sales on a regular basis hurts the economy. Luckily the price was reduced, but many players won’t budge unless they are in the form their normal packages.
Mounts were on sale three times. One time, 8/8, they had a lot on sale, including the Rune Disc. The other two sales were a mount for 20 diamonds (the dinosaur thing) and a beetle. Both of these were sales that lasted less than a day. The earlier sale on 8/8 lasted 30 hours. Probably the most important investment any player can make is a good mount. The rune disc was completely removed as previously noted, and the second best mounts, the Star and Flame, were doubled in price. Not the best way to get new players into the game when the most important and lasting investment at any level in the game costs $20.
A big mistake is that you can’t offer something that is game changing and then not put it up in the future at the same exposure for new players. What I mean, by examples below, is that once something is available and widespread, you cannot simply stop its availability.
Such examples can be the highly noted, discussed, and valued GM food such as egg rice dumplings, little magic biscuits, and hot stew. These in particularly need to be distributed on a regular basis or else the supply in game by players give them an advantage. They either are getting financial gain over it or are using them to get physical advantage over anyone who doesn’t have them, including players who had no opportunity to get them. There are literally thousands of egg rice dumplings in the game being stored by a few players. If they are not distributed to the rest of the community as a free item, then these players will have an advantage for YEARS to come.
Another example is titles that you could once buy and are no longer available. While it is a minor thing to many people, this can play a crucial part in the game. They do put sales up for new titles, examples being the one that gives better TP, EXP, and loot %. I am talking about ones that were put on sale a while ago. Most of them were useless but there were certain titles of use, for example, one called “What are you looking at? Never seen a bad guy before?” which gave the user +10% movement speed and +50 dexterity. This hasn’t been up for a long time and serves a disadvantage to people who were not able to get it at that time depending on where you are in the game.
I’d say one that is quite bigger than titles would be runes. A year ago we were introduced X runes. Since then, I can’t remember a time where they were put on sale again. I believe they were (but I honestly can’t remember), but it hasn’t been in the past 6 months. Instead, we’ve received VIII runes, twice on 7/20 and 10/8. We did get to experience the newer runes in VII form, which was a good change. However, without the X runes, newer players won’t be able to live up to players who took advantage of the X rune sale.
Staying with runes, I’d like to point out the uncertainty of giving us recon and shield runes. While you did make a step with giving us a poll, I don’t really see how it was needed. Going back to the whole “once it is in game, you can’t take it out”, all you are doing is limiting anyone without recon runes. They are in the game, and they are going to stay there. There’s no way to remove them, so you are pretty much limited to the only action available: sell them.
And, well, this point is kind of a point I’m hesitant to make, mainly because holidays are mainly a country thing, and the servers are a continent thing.
I’m impressed by the way Christmas is being handled, mainly the Advent Calendar. However, I want to put in perspective that these are North American servers that have celebrated many holidays only celebrated in certain North American countries in the past, e.g. the United States celebrating Thanksgiving and Halloween. Can we not continue this trend? We were given sales during Thanksgiving, but compared to the past years it was terrible. And Halloween was also a letdown, with the only thing being down were costumes on sale with pets packaged in (not that anything could compare to last year’s Halloween). And like I said, I’m impressed with this Christmas stuff. However, I’d like to point out that we’re getting this with all the other servers run by Gameforge. The EU and AU servers are both getting this too. So am I to expect when other countries don’t celebrate holidays, our servers can’t either? I’m not belittling the AU and EU servers, but rather saying maybe the three different set of servers could celebrate their holidays on their servers, such as Thanksgiving(US and Canada) for NA and Australia Day and Anzac Day for Australia and German Unity Day for EU. I could list out holidays for each, but I think the picture is clear for this one that people who run the events for each set of servers need to know information about that region.
The devastating thing is the lack of control over the economy and the crazy inflation that was started in chapter 4 and predates Gameforge’s involvement. However, it has been a year and a half and a gold sink hasn’t been provided. The fact that players have billions and billions of gold is, like I previously mentioned, devastating. And not to me necessarily, because I get by, and I understand what I need to do, but could you imagine telling a new player that many players have billions and billions of gold. That’s heartbreaking and demoralizing to most new players. I should know, I’ve had to tell many people that. You’d think you could make a decent gold sink in a year and a half. Moreover, you’ve limited the ones that were made to the point where they no longer work or are no longer in game. Case in point would be Owenstein and Eve that can both be implemented by Gameforge but haven’t been to their full extent. Owenstein is still in game from time to time. I’ve seen him in the last 6 months, but what he offers as of late does very little for many players. The best one that was up for a long time was Pegasus Surprise Orb, which offered new players the chance at a mount, but gave everyone the chance at 50 transmuter charges, 40 transport runes, or 40 home sweet homes, with the let down of exp/tp charms and potions. My personal disapproval comes from Eve. It was up for a week and it’s not like it was announced previously, aside from the beta testers of chapter 4. So with that being said, it was one of the greatest things that were ever in the game. I mean, it provided a way for people with any amount of money in game to get runes whenever they wanted, it was the best gold sink, and no one complained about it when it was there.
Now we can go over the estimated price to gear a toon with cutting all corners possible, meaning you’d want to work rather than pay more. But what we won’t do is consider item that are on sale all the time on their discount prices, until the end. We also won’t be +16’ing any gear. This is going to be a rough estimate, and I know my way of doing it will be picked apart by everyone. If you want to provide your own estimate, I’d love to see it. If I think it is better than mine, I’ll probably use it.
I’ll start by going over the basics. There are 15 pieces of gear to any given toon. To select classes there are more, such as scout with a bow, knight with shield, etc. There’s going to be one weapon, five accessories, one set of wings, and eight pieces of armor.
Starting with the weapon, most people go to T10 now, so assuming you take the long road with t5 stones over the expensive way with t4 stones, you’ll need 1,092 transmuter charges. We’ll round up to make it an even 1,100 since you’ll be buying in sets of 10 to 500 at the normal price of 1 diamond per charge.
That is 1,100 diamonds.
To drill it with 4 runes, it’ll cost 123 diamonds and 100 rubies just for the drillers. We’ll calculate all the runes at the end.
1,223 diamonds and 100 rubies.
To plus it, we’ll need at least 5 Sun Jewels – Faith. They sell them in sets of 10 for 45 diamonds. We’ll assume we can make it to 6 with these, even though, I doubt we would.
We’ll need at least 5 Advanced Sun Jewels, which are 5 for 89 diamonds. We’ll buy 2 since we need to get it to 12, not 11.
1,446 diamonds and 100 rubies.
Now we’re onto our wings.
For the actual wings, you’ll have to most likely fork over 150 rubies.
1446 diamonds and 250 rubies.
Drillers will 19 diamonds, 39 diamonds, 89 diamonds and 100 rubies respectively.
1593 diamonds and 350 rubies.
We’ll once again assume we can to +6 with 10 +6 jewels, no perfects which will be 55 diamonds.
We’ll also assume we can get to +12 with two packs of 5 +12 jewels, at 99 diamonds each.
1846 diamonds and 350 rubies.
Now, it is time to start our first piece of gear. We’ll need 6 purified fusion stones for 19 diamonds each.
1960 diamonds and 350 rubies.
Now we’ll do all five accessories, and add them into the above number.
To drill one accessory, it will cost 5 diamonds, 19 diamonds, 35 diamonds and 60 rubies respectively.
To plus it, we’ll do one pack of +6 for 25 diamonds and two packs of +12 for 69 diamonds.
To stat it, we’ll need six purified fusion stones at 19 diamonds each.
For one accessory, that is 336 diamonds and 60 rubies.
For all five, that would 1680 diamonds and 300 rubies.
That brings us to 3,640 diamonds and 650 rubies total.
We’ll leave that number alone and do the armor and add it in much like we did with the accessories.
To drill one armor piece, it will cost 5 diamonds, 19 diamonds, 35 diamonds and 60 rubies respectively.
To plus it, we’ll do one pack of +6 for 25 diamonds and two packs of +12 for 69 diamonds.
To stat it, we’ll need six purified fusion stones at 19 diamonds each.
For one piece of armor, it will be the same price as one accessory at 336 diamonds and 60 rubies.
For all eight pieces, this is 2,688 diamonds and 480 rubies.
To finish up, we’d be at 6,328 diamonds and 1,130 rubies.
For a full set of gear…
- That hasn’t been plussed past 12.
- That was miraculously plussed with only non-perfect jewels.
- Can only be tier to 5 at the most (lack of puris to get to 6+).
- Doesn’t have any runes in it.
- Will be outdated in the expansion, which would only be about the max of 6 months away.
We now have 60 rune slots to fill. I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt and say you bought all 60 when the new runes were 12 diamonds each. That is 720 diamonds.
We’re up to 7,048 diamonds and 1,130 rubies.
For $100, you can buy 3,150 diamonds when they aren’t on sale.
That’s a good $200 when diamonds aren’t on sale for gear that will be outdated 6 months in most cases.
I will point out, that you could say buy diamonds when they are on sale, buy the items when they are on sale.
But when was the last time you saw a person with only T5+12 gear, that got that from never using a perfect plussing jewel, in an endgame instance.
And you could also say that they could earn the stuff in game. You don’t have to buy everything. Unless you’re getting all the above from phirius tokens, someone does. If you never buy diamonds from ROM, but instead buy them from other people for in game gold, they are, simply put, the middle man in all of this. They pay for diamonds that you use for both of your in game benefits. And I don’t remember ever buying enough purified stones to gear even one piece of gear with tokens.
In conclusion, the “sales department” is a complete failure. Not because Gameforge doesn’t know how to sell, but Gameforge doesn’t know Runes of Magic. The people who are running sales obviously know very little about this game even if they play it, which I’m going to assume they don’t. You have to be passionate about the product you’re selling or else the consumer won’t buy into it. You can’t take a sales associate from one product and tell them to sell another product they don’t know anything about much like you can’t expect someone who knows how to play one instrument to know how to play a different one.
Hire someone who knows Runes of Magic.
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Since I've visited last, this thread has had negative 4 new posts! Keep it constructive in this thread guys.
