Pricing, Gender Exclusivity, Gender Inequality, Genderlock, Accessory Slots, etc


    You speak for no one but yourself. Should keep that in mind. Market research to determine price points is a real thing, understanding value propositions is a real thing, giving feedback is a real thing. No one is "Crying" about anything.


    The average price of cosmetic items tends to be 8-12 dollars for costumes. Mounts are 15-20. This game in many cases exceeds that pricepoint. Given their userbase, they are assuming these pricepoints will maximize their profits, but I haven't seen data in my many years of working in the games industry, support this. Unless of course you're assuming prices based on what an outfit would be worth at a <1% chance in a lootbox. Then these are a steal.


    The game is higher priced than normal, providing feedback on a per color sku in app purchase for their pricepoint is exactly the kind of feedback they need. They have metrics to see how much they're making and why. The main complaints on Steam reviews are 1) Translations 2) Price of cosmetics


    The pricing of half of the costumes in the store at the moment is slightly higher than what the $20 pack would be, which forces some one to 1) buy the higher pack 2) make multiple purchases. It's incredibly inconvenient and impacts the perception of cost. Aligning these and making the pricepoints more palatable will lead to more conversions overall.



    Either add something to the discussion or move out of the way. You've already trolled your opinion.

    You dont have a leg to stand on, because ur whole argument is flawed.


    The average price of cosmetics is 30$+ in MMOs that are not 10-15 y.o.
    BDO aprox 30$.

    Elyon aprox 25-35$.

    Same with New World, almost certainly the same with Lost Ark.

    Between 50$ and 250$ with Ashes of Creation.

    Sometimes u can wait for deals, aniversaries and what not to get them cheaper but thats their standard pricing.


    If anything this game is cheaper then any other MMO thats been recently released, properly updated and looks decent enough. I mean you're welcomed to go to a 15 y.o. game that plays and has worse animations then mobile games and pay 12$ for a costume.

    Ugh I guess games are truly going down the drain (for me). Everything is limited everywhere, and the prices are ridiculous. Tho it's nothing new. FFXIV has done it for almost a decade now, so why should I be surprised. (I blame Mobile games)

    But well, apparently "crying" over it gets more feed back. If I compare this thread, to the ones i've made which included suggestions for changes~
    So yea i guess "crying" is the way to go here.

    Treviz So, in short, you are in support of ripping off ppl?

    I don't know how some people think these prices are justifiable at all.

    - They're not dyeable.
    - Not account-bound for the Fox race.
    - $50 just for a bikini, lol.

    How many people who buy the outfit would even care for its ability to bound to another gender?

    Why aren't outfits gender/race-wide account-bound in the first place? There's no reason to exclude them at all. We're already struggling with having to buy multiple outfits due to them not being dyeable. It's not like everyone is going to play (or at least want to play) using the same color scheme on other classes.

    In FFXIV, the top outfits are $18. Dyeable, account-bound. Available for ALL races, genders.

    This game is a bit similar to BDO, doesn't mean it's right though.
    At the very least, in BDO, there are lots of sales and cheap options. Typically around $30 or less. In my opinion, this is a little pricey because they're not account-bound. At least they're also dyeable. It's hard to defend BDO, too. They're greedy and known for it.

    Additionally, it's pretty scummy for Gameforge to host an event to provide them for free temporarily just so that they can entice players to buy it. Of course they can, as it is marketing, but it feels like they don't care about their players. It's easier to like a company when they actually feel like they care about the players, their experience/enjoyment. FFXIV does a good job of this. (I play both games, so please no "go back to FFXIV" comments) I enjoy SOLO a lot, gameplay-wise, and I enjoy wearing cool outfits while playing, but I would like to feel like Gameforge values us as players.

    1) The minimum wage you just mentioned is less than 300 euros in my country. And yes. That is --> in the EUROPEAN UNION <-- And it's not just my country being like this. The entirety of Eastern Europe is similar. So educate yourself before spewing such condescending and discriminatory comments from your throne high above in a country that probably never had communism run through its economy.

    2) Um.. okay? It is subjective but even then the options you have in-game are like 10 outfits. Everything else is cash shop only. 10 out of hundreds. How much people are going to like one of those 10 better than those other hundred+.. Do you not see this as removing content from the game to put it in the cash shop? Every old MMORPG to this day has WAY more cool armors and weapons you can actually farm for in-game.

    3) You like to mention other MMOs a lot. How about a history lesson then? Back in the golden ages MMOs had NO CASH SHOP at all. No cosmetics. No p2w items. Nothing. And you know what? They were doing better than they are now. There were less online video game players overall back then and the MMOs were more populated and popular in the gaming community then than they are now. Therefor your whole argument about "this is the gaming industry!!!" doesn't really make any sense. If it is obviously getting worse and not working why do you support the current systems?


    Also this is a forum. We are discussing an issue with the game in hopes that the developers take a notice of it. This is not complaining just for the sake of complaining (aka crying as you say). So you appearing outta nowhere with an argument that is essencially "stop crying" brings absolutely nothing to the table. I'd even wager to say you are trolling.

    Quote from Phaendar

    To quickly pitch in and clear up one misunderstanding, hopefully without interrupting the discussion much:

    Quote from Toraseishin

    I would buy multiple outfits at 2750 coins - even some recolors. SOLO offers a lot of amazing designs and emotes and I want to build a collection. But seeing outfits at 4.1-4.9k immediately turns me off.

    The reason the swimsuit is priced so much higher is that it is unlocked for both genders. While with other outfits you would have to buy the outfit for either male or female (or both, for double the price then), this one is automatically unlocked for all characters of the account and therefore priced higher. Whether that is then worth it is of course worth a debate and I'll let you get right back to it!

    This is an absolute poor excuse for the price increase of the outfit. Yall are purposefully gender locking outfits to increase profits, and then using the excuse "its for male and female genders" to justify the price increase.

    Additionally, GF time-gated the swimsuit outfit you get from in game in hopes that players will simply buy the outfit to make it permanent. This is extremely egregious business practices, and honestly, your going to make less money if you continue down this path.


    If you want to increase profits, make prices of cosmetics more reasonable/affordable for the majority of people. Right now, prices are for whales, and whales are not the majority.


    Lets include the previous community manager statement as well "We don't force you to buy it :)" by this logic your saying "we dont force you to pay for cosmetics so you dont have to buy them"

    What a load of crap. You also dont force us to play the game at all.. so if you use the same logic, your not forcing people to play, so why play at all? This is an absolutely terrible concept for anyone who wants to make profits, and there is no excuse or justification for the price hikes.


    Seriously, with this kind of thinking, you're going to run this game into the grave..

    1) I come from Transylvania a region in Romania, a contry ravaged by communism. My workers in RO earn 10-40% on average more then my workers in the UK, because they work better in the same amount time. That being said there are good workers everywhere. Originating from eastern europe I know a thing or two about lazyness and how the people in easter europe are, the vast majority not everyone.


    2) There are about 20-22 armors in the game, out of which subjectively 12 of them look like crap. At this very moment there are 9 outfits in the shop (with other different dyed options)... subjectively half of them look like crap.


    3) History lesson when u know nothing about MMOs, the first MMO ever released cost 12$ PER HOUR of access, with no initial box price. This was back in 87-89' when 12$ where as valuable as 50$ or more now. From there on stuff like Ultima online allowed people to sell their in game houses for 7-8k$ even 20k$, there was a famous "hacker" that paid his Univercity fee's by stealing peoples properties and selling them. After that almost every single MMO released included a predatory cash shop with extreme P2W mechanics. The more popular ones like the likes of Silk Road, Conquer, Perfect World, Forsaken World, Lineage2, Aion and countless countless others... with the exception being WoW in 2004 that had a subcription model. U know nothing about the golden age of MMOs or their monetization. The ones that provided a fair playing field were and still are a rarity!


    All the decisions involving our version are predetermined by the chinese developer and they are following the release schedule they did at the initial release, crying on the forums changes nothing, especially when u are crying over 20pounds.

    Educate yourself, get a job and paying 20pounds for an outfit will not seem like the end of the world.

    Quote from Treviz


    Educate yourself, get a job and paying 20pounds for an outfit will not seem like the end of the world.

    Even with a decent job, I do not want to be spending $50 on an outfit that isn't dyeable, isn't race account-bound, and doesn't even come with a hairstyle. You have no self-respect for yourself, and you're part of the problem, honestly.

    1.) what country you come from or what kind of democracy your country has. It honestly means nothing in regards to this post. so you get zero sympathy from me


    2.) your opinions on what looks good and what doesnt look good means nothing in regards to this post.


    3.) The fact that you assume people are not educated and dont have a job is hilariously ignorant and hypocritical. I make good money where I live, but that doesnt justify the egregious pricing and business practices Gameforge is doing.

    1) So you'd give 30 euros on top of the 40 for the game for an outfit that isnt account wide, only for one gender and not dyable out of your 350 euros monthly salary? You support this pricing?

    2) Uuum, okay? I agree? That was exactly my point? There are so few outfits in-game that realistically not a lot of people are going to like them in comparison to the hundreds of the ones in shop hence why I call this removing content out of the game in favor of the shop..

    3) I'm not going to argue with you about games history - there were different business models. I know most of them. You should drop the bad habbit of assuming stuff about people. Facts are games were a lot less predatory than they are now and they were more popular because of that and that was my original point. Do you disagree? You like the current system better?


    That last statement was just ignorant af. I (and I presume everyone else here) can afford every item on the cash shop. The problem is the items have low value because of the high price, not that we are poor uneducated nyerks as you like to paint us to be.

    To be fair:
    1) The majority of outfits are account-bound, but gender exclusive. This is the way it has always been in the Chinese version, and is no different here. I have no problem with this.
    2) The swimsuits from the event are also time-limited in China. In fact, I believe the time-limit for ours was extended compared to what China has (1 month CN vs 6 months NA/EU, I think).
    3) The cash shop swimsuits are account-bound and are available for both genders, which I believe is the case in China as well.

    With these things in mind, the only thing Gameforge is guilty of is jacking up the prices to ridiculous amounts, and inconsistent pricing of recolors.
    I also agree that this swimsuit being "available for both genders" is a poor justification for the price. I can almost guarantee that the majority of the playerbase plays only 1 gender, exclusively (which is generally the case with most MMOs). So if we want this outfit, we have no choice but to pay DOUBLE the price that the outfit is supposedly worth, regardless of whether we play only 1 gender or not.

    For example, I only play male characters. So if I want a swimsuit for my male characters, I have to also pay for the female variant that I would never ever use? I could spend those additional coins on another outfit I actually want and would actually use instead.
    We already have a system where nearly all outfits are gender-exclusive and account-bound. This system works. So why should the swimsuits be any different.
    They should be split and sold separately like everything else.

    The gender issue aside, these swimsuits are incredibly basic and don't even come with a hairstyle or emote or anything else. It's a bare-bones outfit listed for nearly $40 worth of coins. It's absurd even with the "both gender availability".

    The mermaid/man outfits are listed for the same ridiculous price. But at least they are intricate and come with a major emote and player card feature. However, the playercard thing was SUPPOSED to be just a "bonus" and not an excuse to price gouge. Other outfits ALSO come with major emotes, but are listed for reasonable prices like 1.9-2.75k coins (roughly $15-$25).
    In this case, they also used the popularity of the outfit as an excuse to price gouge, instead of keeping the price consistent and letting that popularity speak for itself via purchase numbers.
    It's no surprise how many players wanted that outfit, but immediately wrote it off once they saw the insane price. I was one of them who went from; "Sure, I'll buy it when they put it in the shop" to "Absolutely no way in hell".


    Ultimately - players understand and appreciate the non-P2W, account-wide, cosmetic-focused monetization. Players understand that it could mean slightly higher than average prices for account-bound outfits. Players want to support this game and this type of monetization. But most players don't appreciated getting ripped off and taken advantage of.
    It's bad for reputation, it's bad for business and it's bad for morale.

    most players don't appreciated getting ripped off and taken advantage of.big words.if u got ripped of its just because some of the reasons i explain later in the text.its a common thing that if buy more CC(or any other ingame currency in any fucking other mmo) u got a bonus.mostly in terms of buy more and u get a better value out of ur money. so if u top up for 50 its in your "reasonable" price range just a little bit higher.so idk why u complaining. its not like they need any sort of monetization. and its absolutly fine. its fucking obv that if u top up 100 times the offer for 10bucks à 300 coins u paying a shit ton of money. and yes even the thing oh 4k coins for 25bucks damn some left i buy 900 for 30 extra. and then crying is just stupid. these are absolutely normal buisness methods u face everywhere where u have shops like this.

    Quote from senorchang

    most players don't appreciated getting ripped off and taken advantage of.big words.if u got ripped of its just because some of the reasons i explain later in the text.its a common thing that if buy more CC(or any other ingame currency in any fucking other mmo) u got a bonus.mostly in terms of buy more and u get a better value out of ur money. so if u top up for 50 its in your "reasonable" price range just a little bit higher.so idk why u complaining. its not like they need any sort of monetization. and its absolutly fine. its fucking obv that if u top up 100 times the offer for 10bucks à 300 coins u paying a shit ton of money. and yes even the thing oh 4k coins for 25bucks damn some left i buy 900 for 30 extra. and then crying is just stupid. these are absolutely normal buisness methods u face everywhere where u have shops like this.

    I lost brain cells reading this.

    Well it is what it is i guess.. I decided to trust Gameforge one last time considering their track record in the other games i've played under them as publisher, and i'm dismayed to see they haven't changed a bit. They obviously don't expect this game to last long term, so it seems to me they're just going to roll content out slowly while constantly adding these outfits to appeal to the whales.


    I regret dropping a few hundred £ on this game now, since it's just a shallow daily grind at end game. I'm actually starting to develop the opinion that the low cash shop prices at launch were just to bait players in, and now the real prices are going to make an appearance.


    So sadly i think i'll be uninstalling the game now before i get more invested monetarily, good luck to anyone that plans to ride this out but i can see this ending in disappointment guys.

    Quote from Malvictus

    Well it is what it is i guess.. I decided to trust Gameforge one last time considering their track record in the other games i've played under them as publisher, and i'm dismayed to see they haven't changed a bit. They obviously don't expect this game to last long term, so it seems to me they're just going to roll content out slowly while constantly adding these outfits to appeal to the whales.


    I regret dropping a few hundred £ on this game now, since it's just a shallow daily grind at end game. I'm actually starting to develop the opinion that the low cash shop prices at launch were just to bait players in, and now the real prices are going to make an appearance.


    So sadly i think i'll be uninstalling the game now before i get more invested monetarily, good luck to anyone that plans to ride this out but i can see this ending in disappointment guys.

    I'm certainly not at this point yet, but I do understand where you're coming from.
    This is my first experience with Gameforge, and it has been far more positive than it has been negative - especially considering what I've become used to from other publishers. I give credit and praise where it is due, and same with criticism.

    I sincerely hope they prove us wrong and/or learn from this with future cash shop updates and general game treatment. SOLO is a fantastic game overall, and I have high respect for the developers. I hope you give the game another chance if this turns around.

    Putting skins in the shop is fine and dandy, but they still need to remember to also give players more skins for actually playing the game or else the playerbase will vanish. Because why would you play if you can't earn anything nice? Just take a look at FF14, where the most beautiful weapons are only available for grinding and doing content: and people will grind and do that content, because they want that stuff. But SOLO right now? Teasing us with time-restricted outfits we can wear for a few days before we need to go to the shop to buy the permanent stuff with real money doesn't make we want to play more. Putting all the decent housing stuff into the shop also doesn't make we want to level up my housing area.


    Offering nice stuff to buy in the shop is fine, as said. But when there is no reason to play, I don't need to buy a outfit from the shop in the first place - because I won't see my characters wearing it.

    Quote from Phaendar

    To quickly pitch in and clear up one misunderstanding, hopefully without interrupting the discussion much:

    Quote from Toraseishin

    I would buy multiple outfits at 2750 coins - even some recolors. SOLO offers a lot of amazing designs and emotes and I want to build a collection. But seeing outfits at 4.1-4.9k immediately turns me off.

    The reason the swimsuit is priced so much higher is that it is unlocked for both genders. While with other outfits you would have to buy the outfit for either male or female (or both, for double the price then), this one is automatically unlocked for all characters of the account and therefore priced higher. Whether that is then worth it is of course worth a debate and I'll let you get right back to it!

    That makes sense (aside the fact brought up by Byokko that another outfit has the same cost) but what feels off here is doubling down on an event cosmetic that is... temporary. I personally don't care about this outfit but I can totally see how people aren't happy about this.

    Quote from Phaendar

    To quickly pitch in and clear up one misunderstanding, hopefully without interrupting the discussion much:

    Quote from Toraseishin

    I would buy multiple outfits at 2750 coins - even some recolors. SOLO offers a lot of amazing designs and emotes and I want to build a collection. But seeing outfits at 4.1-4.9k immediately turns me off.

    The reason the swimsuit is priced so much higher is that it is unlocked for both genders. While with other outfits you would have to buy the outfit for either male or female (or both, for double the price then), this one is automatically unlocked for all characters of the account and therefore priced higher. Whether that is then worth it is of course worth a debate and I'll let you get right back to it!

    Are the mermaid outfits also unlock for both genders?