Start supporting the Black Market again.

@shybandit521 You seem to have some misconceptions regarding the Plunder Pass which in turn has made you make some bad conclusions.

To begin with, all items offered in the Plunder Pass were going into the emporium to begin with - they were never planned for the regular stores nor the Black Market. You complain that you buy it then have to earn it...but fail to realize the content you "unlock" you are getting at a significant discount, some of it also being available before it will hit the Emporium. And if I remember correctly, the Black Market is being phased out and all the content there will be shifted to the other outposts/seaposts. That is why there has been no updates on that for a few months. There is no specific Plunder Pass content, it is Emporium content you can get at significant discount.

I fail to see how you feel you are being punished by this. All the content is cosmetic to begin with, so you get no boost from any of it. You have access to all the content that was there at launch as well as all that has been added afterwards. Nothing is cut off from you, other than some specific cosmetics that are not necessary to play the game and are completely OPTIONAL. Furthermore there is the free portion of the Seasons where you can earn other cosmetics by playing the game and completing certain tasks - so you WILL be getting rewards without having to shell out further money.

this is all tied to cost of production

we get free dlc and free content all we have to do to experience current content and content to come until the game dies is buy the game content and dlc takes time to produce aswell as cost alot of money to make

take games in the early 2000's

starcraft for example a game i used to play religiously as a child created by blizzard during their small days when they weren't a major gaming company and were small

they had a unit which could greatly slow down and weaken any unit almost indefinently this hurt alot when used on a late game unit which costs alot of resource and population points if you had a stack of late game units its better to let them die than to wait out the effect which took literal minutes to disappear it took them almost 2 years to get this tweaked updates and content in past games were rare and far inbetween due to cost and no way to actually make up that cost realistically

back then (expansion packs) as they were called then was the only way to continue earning money after the initial buyers who wanted to play the game had bought the game or make a completly new game or sequel to past games

the first ever microtransaction made was by bethesda in 2006 which was an elven horse armor released as an experiment to test the markets reaction to (dlc content) it was a massive success despite a huge overwhelming backlash

we all complain about microtransactions but end up buying them anyway which is why it works

but back then continued content was always pay to play all of it

free content and dlc is usually only possible with great funding and microtransactions is simply a way to fund it there are plenty of cosmetics to unlock without the use of money and with great patience you can even unlock emporium stuff through ancient skellies

to provide us free content aswell as dlc AND a way to earn paid currency without actually having to pay for it is alot and i think the trade off for it is fair they focus a bit more on keeping their launch off goal and we get fewer but still great cosmetics and content from time to time

I can see what OP is saying. I have noticed a decline in shop items, I have so much gold and not much to buy. I say this as someone who buys frequently from the europium so I do not mind supporting the game at all in that way and also I understand why Rare added it. I would just like to see the shops in game continue to get some cool stuff aswell.

@expsnailer said in Start supporting the Black Market again.:

@jollyolsteamed said in Start supporting the Black Market again.:

this is all tied to cost of production

we get free dlc and free content all we have to do to experience current content and content to come until the game dies is buy the game content and dlc takes time to produce aswell as cost alot of money to make

take games in the early 2000's

starcraft for example a game i used to play religiously as a child created by blizzard during their small days when they weren't a major gaming company and were small

they had a unit which could greatly slow down and weaken any unit almost indefinently this hurt alot when used on a late game unit which costs alot of resource and population points if you had a stack of late game units its better to let them die than to wait out the effect which took literal minutes to disappear it took them almost 2 years to get this tweaked updates and content in past games were rare and far inbetween due to cost and no way to actually make up that cost realistically

back then (expansion packs) as they were called then was the only way to continue earning money after the initial buyers who wanted to play the game had bought the game or make a completly new game or sequel to past games

the first ever microtransaction made was by bethesda in 2006 which was an elven horse armor released as an experiment to test the markets reaction to (dlc content) it was a massive success despite a huge overwhelming backlash

we all complain about microtransactions but end up buying them anyway which is why it works

but back then continued content was always pay to play all of it

free content and dlc is usually only possible with great funding and microtransactions is simply a way to fund it there are plenty of cosmetics to unlock without the use of money and with great patience you can even unlock emporium stuff through ancient skellies

to provide us free content aswell as dlc AND a way to earn paid currency without actually having to pay for it is alot and i think the trade off for it is fair they focus a bit more on keeping their launch off goal and we get fewer but still great cosmetics and content from time to time

I'd be on board with what your saying of the OP didn't have a point about them shifting primary focus to microtransactions. Sure we get a skin here or there but the emporium get loads of love and now a plunder pass, which is just discounted emporium skins smh.

I'm all for supporting a one time payment game where dlcs are released fairly regularly for free through cosmetic microtransactions, BUT to be fair to both sides the dlcs are fairly small, some of which are just additional commodations and re-used re-skined content. Oh yeah I'm sure it cost so much to write a handful of text, copy and paist designs and animations, and re name it...

by doing some research to try to get a rough estimate what a game could cost to make i found some really good examples to tell you that YES even a copy paste can cost you your boots

in an article i read just about gaming budgets and what some games of smaller portions costs to make

i found this example shenmue III was made at the cost of 10mil¤ and if i do some calculations i personally would have to work until i become 373 years old to afford such funds through normal means (work side jobs) until i could make a shenmue remake

additionally on the article i found that they stated a good rule of thumb is that it costs 7,000¤ per developer a month (obviously not only their salary though) but the software and engines aswell as hardware and gear and other means to make content would cost per individual

But bigger games also have to factor in marketing costs which can be the same or more as the cost of development plus licensing costs for music paying expensive actors and just generally being a bigger and more expensive-looking product than anyone else

you are paying for a great investment that has potential to earn you more money than you can ever throw away in 10 life times its literally a huge risk making games because you can't even know if they game will sell its not like ordering a sandwhich that you end up disliking because a sandwhich is cheap but games and its contents are not cheap

By no means do I mean to bring hate on Rare but, where is the funding going exactly? Is it just not enough to pay for better content? Or are they pulling the typical developers strat and using this games microtransactions to fund a different project. Who knows.

as stated above creating content is not like ordering a sandwhich

say you are making a game with 30 other people you aim to make the game really good with great attention to detail and mechanics that just works perfectly and items cosmetics and other things

now first the 30 developers you hired to help you make your game would require you to buy some pretty beefy rigs for 30 people to handle the software to create the 3d models for your game (oh and you also need to pay for the 3d modeling software which usually take monthly subs for 30 people) you are already looking at thousands of money spent now the rigs and gears needed to produce content will obviously not be a one time payment

As time passes and technology advances you'll need to upgrade to stay relevant so think of this as a atleast 30k worth of maintenance upkeep

you need to hire actors for your game to voice your characters each demanding a different sum for them (obviously the more famous the actor the higher the cost but also the higher the popularity)

you also need to pay for prop designers and props and materials to make the props

aswell as art designers to give your developers some insight on how you want your game to look like when they design it

and you also need to pay for a composser to give your game a sick soundtrack aswell as pay for his gear and software

and you need to pay lisencing and marketing to market and lisence your game

great now you promised your playerbase free content forever! how are you going to fund all of this?

i need you to stop taking the first glance road and think about it

if developers didn't put alot of work into the content put in microtransactions why would people buy bad looking poorly made cosmetics?

you also got to realize that people who buy things wants their moneys worth and if i spent 30¤ on a virtual shirt it better have wings and glow like a sun

All in all the dlc we have received so far in the games lifespan are fun and it's nice that they are free, but one can only wonder why they seem so little. Honestly I think it's the emporiums fault, it's more expensive than it need to be and it gets more love than the game more often. Microtransactions kill games because developers realize that they can do minimal work for maximum profit, think about all the content in the SoT base game before any dlc was added. Then take the original price and divide the price into what each item, quest, mobs, ect... would cost individually. You'll see that compared to microtransactions your getting a steal by buying a game, and that when compared to actually developing a game and worth while content, the developers who sell cosmetic microtransactions are robbing us blind haha! Everyone who plays a game want to experience it all at some point or another, that dosn't mean they will but they want to, even the cosmetics. Even people who hate microtransactions will buy them if they like a game. Sure some people won't but let's be real honest here, most people will even if it's only once. Microtransactions make developers lazy, because it pays well for minimal effort. Not saying thats what's happening to Rare but I'm also not saying it isn't.

wrong microtransactions do NOT kill games this is a hastily made up judgement call if said cosmetics was pay to win then i would agree

and they are not robbing anyone blind me for example i bought the game before the emporium was even concieved you got your money's worth when you bought the game any content we get here on out is completly charity its literally charity

i feel like its the same as complaining about the food who someone makes for you when you have no food to eat on your own

you to this day have to pay nothing to continue to experience future content however small content is

At the end of the day they are a business, profits matter more than anything to them. One can only hope that while it being their main priority, that greed dosn't blind them to what makes gamers stay, comeback, and most importantly become life long fans. And that comes from blood, sweat, and tears poured into hours and hours of overtime and late nights developing the most fun and innovative content at a reasonable price. The dog I bought, yeah that $6 was not worth 3/4 of the dlc released, honestly the only dlc worth more than $1 that has been released are the tall tails and DR. I would have paid $10 per both of those dlc, every other dlc to date are IMO worth $1 or even less. With that in mind a dog shouldn't cost $6, what it took maybe 4hours to develop the dog then another 1 hour to make a few different models, and then another half hour to re color them.... You could make the argument that the cost helps pay for all that free dlc and sure it does, but umm, I'm no financial advisor or anything but I'm pretty sure when one items price can cover the cost of like 4+ dlcs development and then some after just a few dozen sales.. something's not right.

3/4 of dlc only worth 6$? "Ungrateful people forget what they are not grateful for" is a great quote to respond to this because yes 3/4 worth 6$ as you underestimated the price to be is still 6$ that you get FOR FREEEEE they are giving it to you out of their own goodwill it doesn't matter if its 1 cent or 10 million its FREE you don't have to pay a penny to enjoy the content

but seeing as you do not understand gaming value i shall refrence my question to you above about making your own game if you set your prices so low with such expenses you'd go bankrupt or wouldn't even make up half the value you paid for

a succesful company needs to not only double the earning but almost quadruple the earnings to make a great success to afford the next installment of games to be made and to grow

Conclusion is I have questions about the current funding they have and where it's going because on the surface it dosn't look like it's going to the game.

i think thats the problem you only scratch the surface but you don't try to dig through and look at it and appreciate the many great things we got and keep getting with the only downside being they also focus on optional cosmetics in the emporium