As of early access launch, the cash shop is pretty much empty (no cosmetics, pets, and mostly consumables). Consumables include Resurrection potions (which allow revival on the spot as opposed to being teleported back to the nearest village), skill and stat option change scrolls, jewel extraction tool, name and appearance change coupons. Most of these items are also being given out as login rewards. I don’t have a “sensationalist click bait” title on my video or this entry because it really is up to each player to decide for themselves the state of this cash shop.
The key words that stuck out by the GM’s response was “for now”. Everyone has their own opinions on what constitutes pay2win. Myself, I tend to have an older school view where it’s when you can directly buy end game gear (that ability usually never makes it in the western versions). Additionally in most games, there really is nothing to actually “win” per se except top ranking which for some folks, is serious business.
Pay2convenience is what many cash shops now contain including the one in Warlords Awakening. Basically, what is normally coded as part of the game/system mechanics are moved into cash shop items (Black Deserts end game mechanics are designed this way where players can “buy back” that functionality/tuning). The fact that there is still this desire to keep such items in the cash shop, shows how that design ethos is ingrained in the minds of the Korean developers and leadership overseeing the publishing arms (I know what it is like to be part of a “hard headed” culture being of Japanese descent myself).
One of PLAYWITH’s selling points for making this game buy2play was the removal of cash shop items that were constituted as being p2w (they made no attempts to hide the fact that this was how the Korean version was tuned and how this Steam release would have also been had they made it free2play). This is a business mindset that is at odds with actually designing game systems that are truly non-pay2convenience (ala GGG with Path of Exile). This is why I am inherently skeptical of these Korean development studios/publishers claims when making statements about p2w (and now, obfuscated behind pay2convenience) when their design instincts are contrary to that.
The fact that these items can be acquired in-game (via login rewards or via in-game merchants using gold or some other form of token exchange) doesn’t excuse the fact that these items are still questionable because they do know there are folks out there who will utilize that ability to quickly short circuit the time sink that is involved. Ambassadors for example will be receiving $40 worth of cash shop credits each month (I could also be misinterpreting that part wrong but this is my understanding). 1,050 Kuni (their virtual in-game currency) costs $9.99 which means they’ll receive 4,200 Kuni per month. This right here provides a huge advantage in terms of the amount of scrolls that can be purchased versus someone who only sinks money into the base game. It’s no wonder there have only been a few ambassadors who have publicly come out against some of the perks of the program (I only know of two which includes one who stepped away). And even if internally, there had been more negative feedback against this setup, PLAYWITH still feels okay with it (which shows they are only partially listening to feedback).
Now let’s look at someone who is a whale and purchases a $1K worth of Kuni. That is a huge advantage when re-rolling Legendary tier items if they only bought those scrolls. This has always been one of the huge incentives of bringing these Korean titles over to the west as it is these small percentage of whales that were easy targets (plus many whales obliged because most never looked at it from the point of view of contributing to and supporting these poor business practices). That is why we’re at this point of seeing titles that have been brought back from the dead on multiple occasions (and in this case, the new publisher actually offing the game in their home region while peddling this to the west).
Now I have read all of the day 1 reviews and some of the negative ones which spout pay2win don’t do a good enough job of articulating why they feel that way. I’m posting this wall of text (and linking back to some of my previous ones) to explain my gut feeling that over time, PLAYWITH will slowly introduce more pay2convenience boosts along with cosmetic and pets with more desirable stats because bottom line, they need to be able to make money (that is, if the game even lasts that long). Myself, I am not ready yet to write a review for early access because I am still giving this company the benefit of the doubt (even in light of their absolute refusal to address the closure of the Korean server).
As I mentioned in my other post, these early access numbers are not sustainable considering the fact that they’ve shut down the Korean version and they need to at least re-coup the cost of purchasing the ELOA IP from NPICSOFT. They also have to pay for ongoing expenses related to actual operations during this early access period. The most loyal of former ELOA players will be sticking with this and defending it but lets be honest here; their numbers are seriously lacking (the early access numbers are bearing that out). PLAYWITH has 3 long months to prove they can actually communicate with those who aren’t ambassadors (like myself) who will give them actionable feedback (just stating “we’ll considerate it and pass it along” is not going to cut it).
This is why I suggested that unless you are really eager to play this or are just looking for something to cure that MMO itch, to wait a few weeks into early access before buying it (a better recommendation is trying to win a game key via the giveaways they have been and will continue to run throughout early access). I’ve mentioned the cost is reasonable; it’s not about that cost though as opposed to sending the signal that for a low enough price, westerners will buy into this “revive dead game with a different branding” business.
