I am very disappointed to see my favourite game have such high prices. I am very happy Kingsisle have worked on the game itself as a whole - better graphics and a new fresh intro are both awesome things.
1) Crown Prices:
I don't think you'd listen to me, but here is my strategic thinking. As of now, people would rather play on the test realm and get stuff for free, rather than paying loads of money on crowns, when you can just buy a membership for $10 per month or $80 per year.
You should revamp the crowns system, in terms of pricing. It doesn't seem fair to pay $5 and get 2,500 crowns. And then right after that, $10 for 5,000.
What do I see as fair in this case?
So, I will rather list what pricing I would make, even though I don't know your costs on your server equipment or anything, but granted, people will buy crowns more, so you would get money more than as of now.
Doing so will remind users there is a 50% increase in the $100 purchase, so it will be prioritised over the $5 one.
I mean, Gameforge are a third party, but crowns are cheaper there. €100 gives you 120,000 crowns, whereas here, for $100 you get 80,000 crowns. That's a massive deal breaker. 40,000 crowns. 50%. Sure, € and $ are not the same currency. But, as of now, €1 = $1.18 (18% more expensive than USD).
$118 USD gives you 120,000 crowns there, whereas you can get 80,000 crowns here for €85. Make your conclusion. To get 120,000 crowns here, you need about $160 USD. (that's a $42 difference). I can buy so many more things for $42 guys.
You are the first party that makes the game, so it is logical that things are cheaper here. Here the Level 50 potion pretty much costs $50, whereas there you can get it for €25 (about $30). That's a huge difference.
You are offering a digital product, a game. You are not offering something vital (i.e. food), so people are less likely to buy it if you overprice it. That's why I am making this point to make you reconsider.
The membership price could go a bit lower, but it's otherwise fine as of now. Even though there I can get €7/month, but here you get your first month for $5, so it's all good.
Okay, enough said for the above.
2) Dungeon drops.
One thing thing that annoyed me most - how rare some drops are. Deer Knight is something I never got from 200 runs on Loremaster and I still cannot get my Waterworks gear on my 7th run. Only got boots. Please, consider, at least equipment drops to drop more frequently and more parts at once. It feels bad knowing you got nothing and just wasted your time on it.
3) Report system.
What on earth? People can report anyone and that's great. But what's reportable? What's not? Anything on that? Make predefined reasons, let us write longer comments, make it reviewed by people. Don't apply account bans unless under extreme cases of NSFW speech. Else, perhaps just give a timed account mute from the chat for 14 days or so. Suspending someone out of nowhere sounds creepy and invasive, considering the high prices you have, I am repeating that again.
4) Chat filters.
Guys, I cannot even spell normal words like "whole". Ditch the filter, please. It's really bad. Let us talk whatever. At least the people over 18 should have access to some fully open chat so that they can see everything. Even cuss words. It's just annoying, please. Your player base is mostly adults, not even children. As for 13+, give them more privileges and stop enforcing them your American English writing standards. Some people like me would want to say "apologise" instead of "apologize" with Z. Remember, your English isn't the original or the only English on Earth. Children under 13 with parents permission - same as 13+. Without one - just like now + some very limited text chat (the one 13+ has now). Sometimes, you really need to think about your filters and how they affect communication. Let 13+ join VC, while in group.
Alright, I want to address each of your points that you made as a player, personally.
1.) Crowns Prices
This is something that doesn't really need to be addressed. If you want to play the game, you have options:
- Purchase a membership. It's $10/month. Occasionally it's on sale for $5/month. You could even spend $80/year to save $40 total over the course of that year. Considering most peoples' incomes are not limited to a couple hundred dollars this seems more than fair.
- Pay for each area as you go with crowns. This is more expensive earlier, but if you play the game for more than a few years you will actually end up saving on money. Although with this option you are still losing out on member benefits. I personally buy areas like Mirror Lake, Waterworks, Darkmoor, etc. so I have things to do if I don't happen to have a membership at the time.
- Purchase a membership and crowns. If you don't want to use that much money on a video game, then don't do it. Nobody is forcing you to spend. It's a premium currency, not to mention, if you do the Trivia everyday for a year you will have 36,500 crowns to play with.
You also brought up different currencies. This seems a little too much. The value of currencies fluctuate and constantly changing the prices of their products to fit those fluctuations is not worth the effort. Another point you made was that the game doesn't equal basic humans needs such as food, water, and shelter. You're correct on this point, but the game seems to be very lively right now. Several times now I have seen more than a full page of full realms. The current situation might have something to do with it, but that just goes to show how many people still play the game regardless of what their current prices are.
2.) Dungeon Drops
This doesn't need to be changed in the slightest. In fact, I find Wizard101's drop rates to be far superior to other MMOs I have played. Just because you didn't get your Waterworks gear on your seventh run doesn't mean you won't get it on the next or the one after that or the one after that. That is how farming/grinding works. You need to put in the effort to get the satisfaction of getting the drops you want. The game is not and should not just hand you the things you want without any effort.
For the Loremaster, aside from farming her, those spells can typically only be found in lord packs which are bought using premium currency. It makes sense that it would be far more difficult to get something like this as opposed to your typical gears at level 60, 100, and 130.
Also, your time is only wasted if you stop halfway through. If you keep going until you get your gear, how is any of that time wasted if you got what you wanted? If the process of farming is wasting time then you might want to find a different genre of game to play as that is a recurring theme in this game and many other games like it.
3.) Reporting
I personally don't think that this needs any work whatsoever. Maybe an increase in the amount that we can type in case it was something particularly obscure or vague that needs a longer description. In that case though it might not even be worth reporting in the first place. That being said, from what I am reading, it seems as though you are not in favor of suspending accounts that violate their terms of service. If you follow the rules you have nothing to worry about and therefore a non-issue. If you are not following the rules then you should get whatever punishment is warranted because you are actively and consciously making that decision.
4.) Chat Filters
This also doesn't need any work. If you are talking to people you do not know trough the game and its chat then it's completely valid to have filters. You may not be able to spell "whole" but you can still use the word "entire". There's nothing stopping you from communicating what you want to communicate. When I first started playing this game on another account so many years ago there were a lot of words that could still be used that are not able to be used now. This is because of people using them in ways to subvert the chat filter and therefore must be filtered entirely. We have no one to blame but ourselves for the lack of maturity when using the chat in game. Not to mention, if you legitimately know the people you are playing with, there are a number of ways to communicate with them via voice calls the most popular probably being Discord.
Overall, I think that these suggestions you have made are not necessary or healthy for the game. Removing chat filters would undoubtedly lead to a major influx of reports. Changing drops to be more forgiving and easy would make it so everyone has the best everything without needing to put in the effort and would cause players to stop playing before they even started. Altering crowns and membership prices is not something that needs to be addressed either. Although I wish some things that were added to the crowns shop could instead be a part of the base game, e.g. additional character slot, it is not something that I'm going to quit the game over.
Alright, I want to address each of your points that you made as a player, personally.
1.) Crowns Prices
This is something that doesn't really need to be addressed. If you want to play the game, you have options:
- Purchase a membership. It's $10/month. Occasionally it's on sale for $5/month. You could even spend $80/year to save $40 total over the course of that year. Considering most peoples' incomes are not limited to a couple hundred dollars this seems more than fair.
- Pay for each area as you go with crowns. This is more expensive earlier, but if you play the game for more than a few years you will actually end up saving on money. Although with this option you are still losing out on member benefits. I personally buy areas like Mirror Lake, Waterworks, Darkmoor, etc. so I have things to do if I don't happen to have a membership at the time.
- Purchase a membership and crowns. If you don't want to use that much money on a video game, then don't do it. Nobody is forcing you to spend. It's a premium currency, not to mention, if you do the Trivia everyday for a year you will have 36,500 crowns to play with.
You also brought up different currencies. This seems a little too much. The value of currencies fluctuate and constantly changing the prices of their products to fit those fluctuations is not worth the effort. Another point you made was that the game doesn't equal basic humans needs such as food, water, and shelter. You're correct on this point, but the game seems to be very lively right now. Several times now I have seen more than a full page of full realms. The current situation might have something to do with it, but that just goes to show how many people still play the game regardless of what their current prices are.
2.) Dungeon Drops
This doesn't need to be changed in the slightest. In fact, I find Wizard101's drop rates to be far superior to other MMOs I have played. Just because you didn't get your Waterworks gear on your seventh run doesn't mean you won't get it on the next or the one after that or the one after that. That is how farming/grinding works. You need to put in the effort to get the satisfaction of getting the drops you want. The game is not and should not just hand you the things you want without any effort.
For the Loremaster, aside from farming her, those spells can typically only be found in lord packs which are bought using premium currency. It makes sense that it would be far more difficult to get something like this as opposed to your typical gears at level 60, 100, and 130.
Also, your time is only wasted if you stop halfway through. If you keep going until you get your gear, how is any of that time wasted if you got what you wanted? If the process of farming is wasting time then you might want to find a different genre of game to play as that is a recurring theme in this game and many other games like it.
3.) Reporting
I personally don't think that this needs any work whatsoever. Maybe an increase in the amount that we can type in case it was something particularly obscure or vague that needs a longer description. In that case though it might not even be worth reporting in the first place. That being said, from what I am reading, it seems as though you are not in favor of suspending accounts that violate their terms of service. If you follow the rules you have nothing to worry about and therefore a non-issue. If you are not following the rules then you should get whatever punishment is warranted because you are actively and consciously making that decision.
4.) Chat Filters
This also doesn't need any work. If you are talking to people you do not know trough the game and its chat then it's completely valid to have filters. You may not be able to spell "whole" but you can still use the word "entire". There's nothing stopping you from communicating what you want to communicate. When I first started playing this game on another account so many years ago there were a lot of words that could still be used that are not able to be used now. This is because of people using them in ways to subvert the chat filter and therefore must be filtered entirely. We have no one to blame but ourselves for the lack of maturity when using the chat in game. Not to mention, if you legitimately know the people you are playing with, there are a number of ways to communicate with them via voice calls the most popular probably being Discord.
Overall, I think that these suggestions you have made are not necessary or healthy for the game. Removing chat filters would undoubtedly lead to a major influx of reports. Changing drops to be more forgiving and easy would make it so everyone has the best everything without needing to put in the effort and would cause players to stop playing before they even started. Altering crowns and membership prices is not something that needs to be addressed either. Although I wish some things that were added to the crowns shop could instead be a part of the base game, e.g. additional character slot, it is not something that I'm going to quit the game over.
I don't really agree in the slightest with you. Especially the chat filter part. I am 18, so everyone who is 18+ should be permitted to say what they want, as long as only 18+ players see it.
Undoubtedly, the easiest way to get people to talk to you on Discord in the game is just say:
A: "Do you have Discord? It will let us communicate easily" B: "Sure" A: "Click on join, then type in apple" A: "And press enter after that" B: "Done" A: "Now, type in wizard101 is a cool game"
*adds to friends on Discord*
But as for the crowns prices, I disagree. Completely. It's dumb to justify high prices. However, fair. I'd go about it this way then: Make more mega crowns sales, where I can get 160,000 Crowns for $80. That would make me buy them. Or even 160,000 for $100. Whatever.
I don't really agree in the slightest with you. Especially the chat filter part. I am 18, so everyone who is 18+ should be permitted to say what they want, as long as only 18+ players see it.
Undoubtedly, the easiest way to get people to talk to you on Discord in the game is just say:
A: "Do you have Discord? It will let us communicate easily" B: "Sure" A: "Click on join, then type in apple" A: "And press enter after that" B: "Done" A: "Now, type in wizard101 is a cool game"
*adds to friends on Discord*
But as for the crowns prices, I disagree. Completely. It's dumb to justify high prices. However, fair. I'd go about it this way then: Make more mega crowns sales, where I can get 160,000 Crowns for $80. That would make me buy them. Or even 160,000 for $100. Whatever.
It's fine that you disagree, but disagreeing does not mean you are in the right.
You have to remember that not everyone who has open chat is actually 18 years of age. You have to make a credit card purchase but that does not remove the possibility that someone is under that limit. Like I said previously, this isn't about censoring you from saying what you want to say, it's about removing the power to viciously attack and harass those that are playing the game with you. Just because you or I wouldn't abuse the system doesn't mean others won't as well. Simply put, it isn't as though the game is infringing on your first amendment rights, you can say whatever you want, just not through Wizard101.
I don't think I understand what that entire dialogue you have there is supposed to mean, but discord is an easy alternative that will allow you to literally type and say whatever you want to one another--all you need is your discord handle.
Thinking back on the report system, I think it could use a little work. If I'm understanding what you're saying, having a bulleted list of some sort to choose from could be better overall when selecting a reason for the report... and if none of the listed options fit your case you can type out your concerns in a section deemed as "other".
As for crowns prices, they aren't high; they're reasonable. After all, this is an online game with microtransactions. It makes sense that things would be hidden behind a paywall. The entire game is hidden behind a paywall. You can't go to a car dealership and tell them their vehicles are overpriced and that they need to lower them so they're more affordable. That isn't how this relationship between provider and consumer works.
I truly understand the frustrations of having to pay to simply play the game only to be faced with things that need to be purchased via crowns. They have gotten better at this though. I think membership benefits were an enormous step in the right direction and offer more to those who only spend on the subscription. However, if this still isn't enough to convince you that the prices, along with everything else I've tried to explain, are fine as they are, I have several triple-A titles I could recommend you that don't require any subscriptions or microtransactions at all. Just an upfront $60 price and you have countless hours of enjoyment.
can we be able to share membership with a family shared account, my mother think its ridiculous to pay two 12 month memberships, for both me and my brother.
why isnt there a tc up potion so many people would buy that please please please make it an additional 1000 with the tc and empower craze its an easy purchase
