Cash Shop Inventories - why they're a terrible idea.

[Sephie]

Not many people settle for one look, one character, or even one account.

Permanent version of NX costs roughly 2x-3x the price of an expiring one. If you buy NX for every equipment slot, you will be paying for around a years worth of NX up front (say, close to 90k NX).

People who like their look will buy it perma because they plan to stay for more than a year; newer players or casuals may not even be here after a month but the value of permanent is enticing enough to buy. A side effect of buying permanent is that it will always be there and will be there to motivate players to come back to maple should they lose interest. What better way to motivate returning players than with a new class? A new class and the ability to use that Hyper Rock you purchased a while back.

What accessibility does is increase motivation: motivation to continue playing and motivation to try new things.

IMO, link skills are good motivating factors to try new things but fails at motivating players to continue playing. The uber brokenness of a class may motivate players to continue playing but it's somewhat poor at motivating players to try it. Transferable NX does exactly both. It may be more accurate to say that it fills in all the gaps and shortcomings.

[Bomber]

Everyone's arguing at a brick wall, it'll never, ever change.

And does that matter?
Are people not allowed to discuss things?

[Coogi]

And does that matter?
Are people not allowed to discuss things?

Apparently not.

[Bomber]

Apparently not.

According to nexon?
Nexon doesn't govern this site.

[Polantaris]

A side effect of buying permanent is that it will always be there and will be there to motivate players to come back to maple should they lose interest. What better way to motivate returning players than with a new class? A new class and the ability to use that Hyper Rock you purchased a while back.

To add to this; A side effect of NOT being able to transfer stuff may make people not come back because they realize that they'll have to spend far too much to get back into it without feeling handicapped for losing what they already bought.

[Seanny]

I will only be comparing my own experience here.

As a player who had expendable income every two weeks. (currently focusing my finances to issues currently)

I took a bit of time to compare my purchase habits to the closest comparison; another 2D side scroller known as LaTale.

Latale: All Cash Shop Outfits are permanent on purchase and shareable between all characters on account, can range from 15-20$ for a full outfit set. New faces and hair release WITHOUT requiring gambling efforts.

MapleStory: All Cash Shop outfits are either timed or permanent at inopportune times, restricted by class group.

My resulting purchase habits:

LaTale: Bought fashion items at least once a month at one point, will not hesitate to buy an outfit to 'inspire' a new character. Filled up the shop over the years to the point he's had to use one of his characters as a mule. Community as a whole has been known to buy coupons in mass to get new, cute faces and hair. Has witnessed that all active players will get at least one fashion set

Maple Story: Personally has only bought 90 day fashion for a new class only once (Mercedes), stopped playing it once set expired feeling that everything unique to the class had been experienced , Subsequent returns to the game usually result in sticking to his oldest characters, which have access to permanent sets. Has made attempts for royal hair/faces for several characters; does not experiment with changing/spending more on them after achieving one desired look. , witnesses such behavior by server community very rarely. There are many 'fashionless' players.


On a gameplay cash item comparison:

LaTale:All gameplay related items are tradable ingame: Instapotions, cash shop stat boost rings and costumes, super puzzles (the closest comparable to MS' Miracle Cube) Enchant Remedies (comparable to scrolling buffs) Exp potions and drop rate buffing potions

Maple Story: Still fairly restricted cash trading system.

My purchase behavior:

LaTale:Has about 3 mains he puts in the effort to gear for endgame, of 9 characters total, has once spent heavily on super puzzles and remedies consistently trying to top the stats of his endgame weapons on multiple characters. Community uses the tradable items as a form of legal RMT, allowing the company to secure extra profits from paying players by encouranging them to essentially 'buy for other players', prevent a too major 'cash gap' between spending and non-spending players by essentially 'sponsoring' them. and has successfully driven away gold sellers on 3-4 different occassions due to competition.

Maple Story: Has no interest in gearing anyone besides one character, due to the fact that cubing is extremely cost prohibitive and one high DPS char is all you need to experience all of the game's content. Would sooner just work up the meso to buy gear from already cubing players/ignore chaos version content. Nexon has yet to fully capture RMT profits aside from players who cube things TO sell, unfortunately, since all profits via nexon's current model is luck based (Gacha and cubing), Gold sellers still have a market in providing consistent payouts.



Maple Story is the Blockbuster of the MMO industry; other companies have already modernized their F2P models and judging by how most of them make gameplay related cash items tradable it must be effective. MS is probably the most profitable solely because of the population. If they averaged NX spending per person, I wouldn't be surprised if maple had the lowest 'per capita' spending of them all. Especially considering some players instead just buy meso/hacking tools rather than NX

[KhainiWest]

had the lowest 'per capita' spending of them all. Especially considering some players instead just buy meso/hacking tools rather than NX

Nail on the f`ucking head. If I were going to come back that is the avenue I'd take, it's just overall more bang for my buck.

[Stereo]

Nail on the f`ucking head. If I were going to come back that is the avenue I'd take, it's just overall more bang for my buck.

Another aspect of this is - the CSS boxes, and perm NX are wildly successful in the same group that has 38 att VSS and 30 att masks and so on. MS has a huge black market for NX and mesos and as long as people are willing to take that route (and it is consequence free) there'll be things bought that noone in their right mind would buy if they didn't have a million NX that they'd got by running a hack, or 10 billion mesos for $70 or whatever it is now. When you devalue the effort taken to get money, it's easier to waste it.



Maple currently doesn't have a good item trading system for any type of items - I'm talking a proper auction house ingame, where you don't have to walk around 30 FM rooms to find the items you're looking for (or pay NX for the privilege of using an owl, once).