146552-rune-costs-way-to-op

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The cost of rune crafting and geting the right slots for gear is really  turning me off this game.... without having to buy  loads of service tokens and get  subscription going to earn more gold...the costs involved with runing gear and such is making me rethink playing this game.....its a monumental plat sinkhole that forces you to grind day after day repeatedly to afford to rune your gear........
 
even with them saying they will slightly increase drop rate in the bags this coming patch...I dont think it will help much....
 
It seems they have chosen runes to be thier money making gimmick inthis game and its extremely if not over the top expensive to do....
 
Just doesnt seem worth it in the end with what you have to go through to get those runes....just dont have the time to live in the game day after day grinding to afford to rune my gear!	
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			Must be ur first MMO, just so you know, wildstar is one of the easyer games that i know to get full BiS stuff.	
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just dont have the time to live in the game day after day grinding to afford to rune my gear!
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Or, you know, you could actually make a financial contribution to the game and stop being a whiny Freebot?
 
The game can't *exist* without money. While I might not like some of their skeevier tactics, Runes (and thus, Service Tokens) are how this game plans to survive.	
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Or, you know, you could actually make a financial contribution to the game and stop being a whiny Freebot?
 
The game can't *exist* without money. While I might not like some of their skeevier tactics, Runes (and thus, Service Tokens) are how this game plans to survive.
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Or, you know, you could actually make a financial contribution to the game and stop being a whiny Freebot?
 
The game can't *exist* without money. While I might not like some of their skeevier tactics, Runes (and thus, Service Tokens) are how this game plans to survive.
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			I partly agree with the OP. The rune system, especially with regard to fragments, currently is broken. In DS and GA, we're almost drowning in foci, while fragments are the real pain. Hopefully, next week brings the patch which should finally ease the fragment problem and bring rune prices down to more reasonable levels. Till then, I pity our new guys in the raid who get bombarded with new items and have to get proper runes into them.	
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I'm with Tex. Making runes costlier and more time consuming after making the entry attunement to raids much much easier is a step forward in my book. Raids are the pinnacle of end game content, they should both be challenging and time consuming. As Tex mentioned, they have to make money somewhere, if pressuring impatient people to spend money to make their raid advancement go more quickly is the worst they've got then thats fine IMO, especially since the raid content is some of the better content in game (I.E., its worth the money and / or time). 
 
They've already easy-moded the runes, I generally dislike slippery slope arguments, but we're already most of the way down the slope with Runes now.... any more and they might as well take the system out entirely. 	
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			I make 15-25 plat a day playing casually. The prices of repairs and runes are right.	
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Oh please don't mistake me telling you the *reality* of the situation as me *endorsing* the situation in any way.
 
I don't like F2P game models for *exactly* the reason we're discussing. Inevitably, the burden of keeping the game profitable rides on the backs of only a few players, while the vast majority of Freebots come and go without paying a penny.
 
The WildStar Model to Successful Profit Margins hinges on a these key elements:
 
1. SERVICE TOKENS: The *is* Numero Uno of the Big Ticket Items. The sneaky part is, they aren't overly expensive, so they hope that the low price point and nearly-required-to-progress-factor combine to make ALL players purchase them - and purchase A LOT of them over time. These Tokens put the burden on Raiders, high end PVPers and those who simply want the convenience - basically everyone.
 
2. SINGLE-CHARACTER VANITY ITEMS: This is Part Deux of the Unholy Trinity of Profit Makers. This taps role-players, completionists, collectors and those who just like cool junk. The single-character unlocks assures that the dedicated Altoholic forks over *way way way* more money than is reasonable for the EXACT SAME ITEM OVER AND OVER. This is also a pure money-grab as both NCSoft and Carbine are well aware that almost every other vanity item in every other cash shop in every other MMO on the market today is either account-wide or gives the option to MAKE it account wide. They have purposefully chosen this route and there is no other way to explain it than "pure cash grab."
 
3. UPSIDE-DOWN SIGNATURE/FREEBOT PERKS: Signature Service is not worth it for the long-term player and Freebot Status doesn't give the F2P player any perks. In this way, they want to temp new players to purchase a subscription and want to turn established players into pure cash shop purchasers. This ties in directly with Number One. The new player has little use for Service Tokens, but damn, that XP and Gold Buff sure would make like easier. The established player has little use for those buffs, but almost REQUIRES Service Tokens to continue playing. 
 
So there you have it. How to make money in an F2P Market, the NCSoft Way.	
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I make 15-25 plat a day playing casually. The prices of repairs and runes are right.
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{| class="blockquote"
Oh please don't mistake me telling you the *reality* of the situation as me *endorsing* the situation in any way.
 
I don't like F2P game models for *exactly* the reason we're discussing. Inevitably, the burden of keeping the game profitable rides on the backs of only a few players, while the vast majority of Freebots come and go without paying a penny.
 
The WildStar Model to Successful Profit Margins hinges on a these key elements:
 
1. SERVICE TOKENS: The *is* Numero Uno of the Big Ticket Items. The sneaky part is, they aren't overly expensive, so they hope that the low price point and nearly-required-to-progress-factor combine to make ALL players purchase them - and purchase A LOT of them over time. These Tokens put the burden on Raiders, high end PVPers and those who simply want the convenience - basically everyone.
 
2. SINGLE-CHARACTER VANITY ITEMS: This is Part Deux of the Unholy Trinity of Profit Makers. This taps role-players, completionists, collectors and those who just like cool junk. The single-character unlocks assures that the dedicated Altoholic forks over *way way way* more money than is reasonable for the EXACT SAME ITEM OVER AND OVER. This is also a pure money-grab as both NCSoft and Carbine are well aware that almost every other vanity item in every other cash shop in every other MMO on the market today is either account-wide or gives the option to MAKE it account wide. They have purposefully chosen this route and there is no other way to explain it than "pure cash grab."
 
3. UPSIDE-DOWN SIGNATURE/FREEBOT PERKS: Signature Service is not worth it for the long-term player and Freebot Status doesn't give the F2P player any perks. In this way, they want to temp new players to purchase a subscription and want to turn established players into pure cash shop purchasers. This ties in directly with Number One. The new player has little use for Service Tokens, but damn, that XP and Gold Buff sure would make like easier. The established player has little use for those buffs, but almost REQUIRES Service Tokens to continue playing. 
 
So there you have it. How to make money in an F2P Market, the NCSoft Way.
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Good grief, Tex. Do you really think we don't realize what Carbine and NCSoft are doing? Heck, I've pointed it out myself. One of the reasons so many of us complain about the rune system is because it is so exploitative financially. 
 
But when you come in telling a player that they need to pay up or stop whining, that sure as heck sounds like an endorsement.	
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{| class="blockquote"
Oh please don't mistake me telling you the *reality* of the situation as me *endorsing* the situation in any way.
 
I don't like F2P game models for *exactly* the reason we're discussing. Inevitably, the burden of keeping the game profitable rides on the backs of only a few players, while the vast majority of Freebots come and go without paying a penny.
 
The WildStar Model to Successful Profit Margins hinges on a these key elements:
 
1. SERVICE TOKENS: The *is* Numero Uno of the Big Ticket Items. The sneaky part is, they aren't overly expensive, so they hope that the low price point and nearly-required-to-progress-factor combine to make ALL players purchase them - and purchase A LOT of them over time. These Tokens put the burden on Raiders, high end PVPers and those who simply want the convenience - basically everyone.
 
2. SINGLE-CHARACTER VANITY ITEMS: This is Part Deux of the Unholy Trinity of Profit Makers. This taps role-players, completionists, collectors and those who just like cool junk. The single-character unlocks assures that the dedicated Altoholic forks over *way way way* more money than is reasonable for the EXACT SAME ITEM OVER AND OVER. This is also a pure money-grab as both NCSoft and Carbine are well aware that almost every other vanity item in every other cash shop in every other MMO on the market today is either account-wide or gives the option to MAKE it account wide. They have purposefully chosen this route and there is no other way to explain it than "pure cash grab."
 
3. UPSIDE-DOWN SIGNATURE/FREEBOT PERKS: Signature Service is not worth it for the long-term player and Freebot Status doesn't give the F2P player any perks. In this way, they want to temp new players to purchase a subscription and want to turn established players into pure cash shop purchasers. This ties in directly with Number One. The new player has little use for Service Tokens, but damn, that XP and Gold Buff sure would make like easier. The established player has little use for those buffs, but almost REQUIRES Service Tokens to continue playing. 
 
So there you have it. How to make money in an F2P Market, the NCSoft Way.
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I know, full-well, why there are complaints. I also know, full well, that of all the things that can/will/could be "fixed" ... Service Tokens and Runes For Profit are not going to go away. They might make it slightly friendlier (like they did with dyes ... and I mean SLIGHTLY friendlier) over time (and have said as much already) but if you think making Service Tokens less attractive to the point where they are obsolete?
 
Never gonna happen.
 
OF COURSE it's financially exploitative. Don't seem so shocked. This is business - and a floundering one at that. Drastic times called for drastic measures - and once they get a taste of actual profitability, do you honestly think they're gonna walk that back?	
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Or, you know, you could actually make a financial contribution to the game and stop being a whiny Freebot?
 
The game can't *exist* without money. While I might not like some of their skeevier tactics, Runes (and thus, Service Tokens) are how this game plans to survive.
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			I dunno...seems like the "costs" are incurred by the high end hard core gamers (the 1%'ers) and those who want to play with dolls and dollhouses. Someone has to cover the the overhead of F2P and those two groups seem like the ones who will actually pony up and pay. What's wrong with that?	
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At first blush, nothing seems inherently "wrong" about it, until you realize that the raiders and doll-housers have been here all along. We've been paying our subscriptions in good times and bad.
 
But now we are expected to support *everyone else* as well. Our dollars are now expected to endless;y finance people like the OP, who want everything free or cheap or like the "old days" when they might have played pre-F2P. And that means attempting to milk way more than $15/month out of us.
 
In fact, $15 a month is now a joke, compared to the people who bought MULTIPLE zBoards and Skele-Pigs over the last two events.	
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I dunno...seems like the "costs" are incurred by the high end hard core gamers (the 1%'ers) and those who want to play with dolls and dollhouses. Someone has to cover the the overhead of F2P and those two groups seem like the ones who will actually pony up and pay. What's wrong with that?
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The cost of rune crafting and geting the right slots for gear is really  turning me off this game.... without having to buy  loads of service tokens and get  subscription going to earn more gold...the costs involved with runing gear and such is making me rethink playing this game.....its a monumental plat sinkhole that forces you to grind day after day repeatedly to afford to rune your gear........
 
even with them saying they will slightly increase drop rate in the bags this coming patch...I dont think it will help much....
 
It seems they have chosen runes to be thier money making gimmick inthis game and its extremely if not over the top expensive to do....
 
Just doesnt seem worth it in the end with what you have to go through to get those runes....just dont have the time to live in the game day after day grinding to afford to rune my gear!
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{| class="blockquote"
I make 15-25 plat a day playing casually. The prices of repairs and runes are right.
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 grind day after day repeatedly to afford to rune your gear........
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Please stop the complaining. This is an MMORPG and it isn't crazy to assume you'll have to farm a little to get the stuff you want. A short farming session will be more than enough to get you most items you would possibly want, even signature service. So please, for the love of science, go away.
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			I dont understand what you need to farm ... 	
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I dont understand what you need to farm ...
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The cost of rune crafting and geting the right slots for gear is really  turning me off this game.
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