New Market Item - All Class Steeds for $150

[Tomeoric]

My 2 cents:

- $150 for horses... no way. Lifetime accounts were just a little more than that (see below).

- Anything mega-priced better be account-wide, otherwise it is not worth it.

- I'm not buying anything mega-priced that is a consumable, ie. something when used it is gone after use (scroll, tome, etc.).

- Lifetime accounts, bring those back as a high priced item and I'd consider that.

- Unlimited or nearly unlimited storage or wardrobe space, I'd consider paying a premium for that.

[Lauralda]

Oh yeah - lifetime accounts, I could pay for that
Same thing re: housing. Besides decor - the ability to generate your own neighbourhood, or own more than one house per account...

[featherfur]

A lifetime account is the only thing I can ever see paying over $100 for.

Horses at $150, not a chance. Not even $99. *If* they included account-wide warsteed cosmetics, I would start to be tempted at around the $50-$60 mark.

But then I am such a cheapskate that Limorel is still riding the default warsteed, waiting for a way to get some of the stupid color bundles on sale. To date I haven't spent real money on a single cosmetic item, unless you count my paltry 30 wardrobe slots.

[featherfur]

A lifetime account is the only thing I can ever see paying over $100 for.

Horses at $150, not a chance. Not even $99. *If* they included account-wide warsteed cosmetics, I would start to be tempted at around the $50-$60 mark.

But then I am such a cheapskate that Limorel is still riding the default warsteed, waiting for a way to get some of the stupid color bundles on sale. To date I haven't spent real money on a single cosmetic item, unless you count my paltry 30 wardrobe slots.

[Lhinnthel]

I would buy a lifetime account for $100 - $250 in a heartbeat. Also, housing upgrades are high on my list of wants, especially free placement of items or at the very least many many more slots to place items into. I would also pay for more storage, I need more wardrobe and shared storage space and would love to give Turbine my money to buy those spaces! (and more than a measly 10-15 at a time!) I like Byrcha's stables idea!

This horse pack though? Not for me. I would rather have the one class steed for my character that actually goes with her class. Even if all of the warsteed appearances came with the pack, it's just too steep of a price to shell out all at once for something that is just cosmetic.

[Carica]

Kiralynn of Rohan wrote:

There has been a lot of interest in offering much higher priced items. If Turbine was going to convince you to spend $40 or more on something other than an expansion, what would it be?

I'd pay for a fiddle/violin instrument. No, seriously, I would.
The addition of a single sustained string instrument would enrich the music scene SO much it's not even funny.

[Cennwyn]

Carica Berrywine wrote:

I'd pay for a fiddle/violin instrument. No, seriously, I would. The addition of a single sustained string instrument would enrich the music scene SO much it's not even funny.

I will pay Turbine $100 dollars for a fiddle right now.

[Dannigan]

Kiralynn of Rohan wrote:

There has been a lot of interest in offering much higher priced items. If Turbine was going to convince you to spend $40 or more on something other than an expansion, what would it be?

I've put some serious thought into this and here is what I've come up with - a character boosting kit. Some items might include treasures that already exist (like xp boosters, etc.)., but there are a few new ideas I would like to see:

1. A slayer-deed boosting item (perhaps a pocket item, so one cannot also buff xp?). Let's say the item had a daily ability to double one's slayer deed for an hour at a time?

2. New faces and hairstyles for our characters. Guild Wars 2 very recently (like this week) put out exclusive hairstyles and colors for those willing to spend their equivalent of TP for them (which can be purchased with in-game gold, mind you).

3. One-shot items that allowed bound items to be become unbound. Non-LIs, perhaps level 50 maximum, but teal quality or lower. This way, one could pass down a piece of jewelry, shield, cloak, or what-have-you to another character, perhaps with a bit of text that displayed, "handed down from <character>".

4. An item that allowed a character to keep their current LIs when upgrading to a higher tier of LI (say, 85 to 95). I imagine Turbine takes in decent money from selling the items that help one upgrade their items (the Relic Removal Scroll, for example), so I recommend a trade-off. For example, perhaps the LI could keep its name(s) and legacies, but the legacies would start over at tier 3, the damage type would be lost (reverted to Common), the Crafted Relic destroyed, and the relics removed. The benefit being that this is still the very weapon you had in the previous expansion. Sentimental value is a powerful factor to this player.

5. A crafting-gathering tool that allowed for bonus base materials when you used it. Say, a minimum of 3 ore per node instead of 1.

I think it's fun to create goodies! Thanks for the opportunity and question, Kira! =)

Honor and fun,
Gori a.k.a. Dannigan

[`Tinki`]

I might pay $15 for a hobby horse.
I might pay $30 for housing that mimicked Oblivion.
I might pay $30 for a LI weapon that I could upgrade to higher levels.
I might pay $15 for each additional hobby if there were such a thing.

[Andeon]

sorry if this deviates from the immediate question/topic, but the discussions about how much is too much for this/that/theotherthing has prompted a thought in my mind...

*MY* biggest issue with paying for things in an MMO, or in LOTRO specifically, is that I still think of this as a computer game, more or less. To me, a *complete* computer game is around 60$ worth, roughly (some are, of course, *worth* considerably less, and some are much cheaper and arguably worth considerably more). 60$ is the current "market value" of video games at this point, and, whether its right or not, that's the number I have in my mind for a *complete* computer product.

So, of course, in my mind, it's just about mind boggling, that someone would ask for 150$ for cosmetic horses for a video game. That's like asking me to shell out 30$ for the horse armor dlc that the community made for the oblivion horses. It was a nifty idea, and executed nicely, and certainly worth *some* real money (although it was available for free from the modding community which was even better), but it's only a small fraction of the experience of a *complete* game - which, in my mind, is only worth a fraction of 60$ - so, if I pay 30$ for an add-on, that add-on ought to equal about half the game experience, again, in my mind.

Now, it's obvious that the cost of LOTRO is considerably greater than 60$. Expansion content alone means I've probably paid about 180$ for LOTRO, and that's not including the nearly 6 years of 10$ a month that...that I've...spent on...

good holy...how much money have I spent on this game?

Andeon <----- needs a moment




anyway...point is I've spent way, way too much money on this game, but it still has, in my mind, a relatively solid value - I've paid 180$ plus lots more for hours and hours of game content - I've paid for quests, I've paid for armors, I've paid for regions, I've paid for stories, etc, etc, etc

horses, while fun and nice, are but a tiny, tiny, tiny fraction of the overall game experience, and in my mind, their cost should represent the tiny tiny tiny fraction of the overall amount of money that the game is *worth*

now, this isn't necessarily *right* - the cost of developing the horses, for example, may represent a good deal of content/investment by turbine - but I can't really know that now, can I? All I can really appreciate, is the overall impact that those horses have on the game as a whole, plus perhaps a small increase in value based on how much I personally may love horses and new cosmetic looks for my horsies. And that overall impact is very, very, very tiny, compared to the rest of the game content.

And this seems to be why many of the conversations about development priorities come in. Lots of people have been, and many I suppose still are, worried about the Turbine Store's impact on the game. Now, *I* don't feel like the store intrudes on my gameplay much, so I haven't complained much, but, again, as I said above, what if making horse cosmetics really HAS represented a significant cost/time investment by Turbine? well then, maybe horses SHOULD be more expensive - but, couldn't they have poured that cost/time development into, lets say, the HOUSING ITEMS we've all been clamoring for for years. THIS is why, I think, we have such vehement detractors of the turbine store - they're not *really* offended by Turbine offering kooky festival hats and pretty (and pretty expensive) horses - but they ARE concerned that all the time, resources and effort being poured into those relatively minor cosmetic alterations to the game are detracting from more...substantive...content that we could all be playing with, and I think that *is* a valid concern.

I'm sure almost all of this has been said before in one form or another - but since the topic came up, and it's slow at work for the moment, that thought came up in my head, and I figured I'd pass it on, as it was more or less relevant to the topic at hand...

[Kiralynn]

My biggest source of frustration is that they treat horses like a major source of income, releasing class and monthly steeds, plus extra gear and dyes, but then don't bother to put polish on them. Other than expansions, there's nothing that costs as much in the store, is there? Yet, you can't ride properly, control speed accurately, jump over fences without rubber-banding on war steeds, dye some of the items right, and so forth. If they're so darned lucrative and important, why not give them proper treatment when it comes to bugs? It's like the Q/A-Bug department and the folks designing stuff for the store don't talk to each other.

[Aedon Durreah]

Housing, do away with hooks and allow free form decorating. Also some means to expand your house a room or two. Basements, stables, workshops. Some of the things that could bring a neighborhood to life.

[featherfur]

Kiralynn of Rohan wrote:

It's like the Q/A-Bug department and the folks designing stuff for the store don't talk to each other.

That might very well be the case ... it's certainly been true for many companies that I've worked for over the years. That, or else they have an interdepartmental priority war going on ...