From Reddit: "PSA: Buying premium ships on sale for cheap doubloons... it might be over"

[xenopathia]

5 hours ago, MrConway said:

we genuinely care about our players and want to do right by them - anything else would be super stupid on our part anyway.

Hi MrConway.

Could you please explain the 35% sudden increase in the premium shop for Turkish players? Are you aware how inaccessible your products now?

 

 

[MrFingers]

5 hours ago, principat121 said:

• prices for camos in the premium shop more then doubled
• risen prices for collection containers
• ship packages inflated with useless stuff to push the price
• compensation "nerf" for doubled premiums as mentioned in this thread
• power creep with new ship (lines)
• strip off the possibility to buy most of the premium ships ingame with gold (which lead to #3)
• ...

While a lot of improvements were made towards QOL-improvements for the EU-playerbase, I also sadly have to agree with these points. It's not so subtle one wouldn't notice it.

[NothingButTheRain]

7 hours ago, principat121 said:

I do not want to start a new argument and independed from the last intimation, but that is your view on one side of the medal. An other possible side is that mindfully players recognize intensified effords to "milk the cow" in the last year.

1. prices for camos in the premium shop more then doubled
2. risen prices for collection containers
3. ship packages inflated with useless stuff to push the price
4. compensation "nerf" for doubled premiums as mentioned in this thread
5. power creep with new ship (lines)
6. strip off the possibility to buy most of the premium ships ingame with gold (which lead to #3)
7. ...

And these are all together no "coincidences" - this is a whole new orientation of the business model "WoWs" and IMHO ordered from the top level. With this in mind every new "incident" will cause waves (of dissatisfaction with the game) and this diappointment will lead to such threads like this one here. No judgement from me, but just an observation.

Haven't the camos also gotten better? It 'could' explain higher prices?

The collection containers do seem more expensive but don't they also contain more stuff then the old ones?

#3 I can agree on. But perhaps some people prefer the ease of such a purchase? But it's probably not my cup of tea.

I'm not getting #4? I suppose you are referring to the closure of the option to get cheaper ingame doubloons? I think the reasons stated by (I think it was) Conway did sound plausible, that it hurts their business and the large scale in which it started to happen was costing them for something that was unintentional?

The power creep is a thing of games made by WG, but frankly I think they did a pretty good job balancing the lines that came after the Brit BBs. Their premiums also seem to have (more then once) gotten kinda lackluster reviews, but I don't think any of the most recent ones are grossly OP like the premium carriers, Kamikaze, Kutuzov and payfast are?

 

I do have to say that I don't know what prices were like a year ago? Maybe they were much more cheaper back then. But frankly I think WoWS is already a lot more friendly to players who are on a tight budget then WoT is.

 

Of course they want to make money and perhaps they sometimes do it in ways that are...questionable. It's your hands on that wallet, keep it tight if you don't want to pay.

As long as they listen to us and take us seriously and don't start turning the thumb screws...but it's a good thing to have people on their guard so things stay balanced in some way, while keeping the game experience pleasurable and a quality peacetime activity.

 

As long as it isn't pay 2 win, I still consider this a game (unlike WoT maybe which to me has lost its charm in search for more $$€€€).

[Juanx]

8 hours ago, MrConway said:

 

If you want to cling to your belief that we try to sneak this kind of thing past our playerbase (as if that would work) then be my guest. Contrary to what some think, we genuinely care about our players and want to do right by them - anything else would be super stupid on our part anyway.

 

Just to reaiterate, its nothing personal conway, you are just the bellboy.

 

But, where have I read this before? Ah yes, every 2-3 months, after every snafu you guys cant "foresee", even tho you messed up 8-12 weeks before in very simmilar ways...

[MrConway]

On 6/22/2018 at 8:19 PM, Juanx said:

 

Just to reaiterate, its nothing personal conway, you are just the bellboy.

 

But, where have I read this before? Ah yes, every 2-3 months, after every snafu you guys cant "foresee", even tho you messed up 8-12 weeks before in very simmilar ways...

 

Yes, and it probably annoys us more than it annoys you ;)

[MrConway]

On 6/22/2018 at 4:40 PM, xenopathia said:

Hi MrConway.

Could you please explain the 35% sudden increase in the premium shop for Turkish players? Are you aware how inaccessible your products now?

 

 

 

I think there were some issue due to currency exchange rates present, this should however have been solved and the prices normalized. If not, please send me a PM.

[mrk421]

Analysing some of the arguments trying to justify the policy change, I have to say, I see some potential issues... I'll try to make it as short as possible, but it will be quite a long one, so apologies in advance.

 

First of all, I want to make clear, that I fully understand and agree with the argument that "you're not supposed to buy a ship you already own". Considering that you can't have more than one copy a ship in your port, purchasing a ship that you already own, makes zero sense. So at first glance it would seem logical to do a check on the player's account to see if they already have the ship they intend to buy and not allow you to purchase it again. I don't know how much latency such a check would add and if that's a valid argument for why it's not been done, but even if it was doable, there are a couple of other reasons why WG might not want to implement such a thing:

1. I totally buy the argument about gifting ships to private accounts - it would probably violate some privacy laws if it was communicated that the owner of a private account that you want to gift a ship to, already owns said ship. Obviously, if you purchased the ship for yourself, there would be no problem legally, however ->
2. WG has in the past, and probably will again in the future, offer several ships in the same bundle at a discounted price. The prices of these bundles can be quite attractive... Preventing people from purchasing a bundle, because they already have one or more of the ships that are included in the bundle would mean a loss of revenue for WG so would not be in their interest.

So what options do they have?

• To take your money and not give you anything in return, because you already own the ship? Don't think so, as that would be fraud and they'd go out of business real soon.
• To give you a refund/partial refund for the parts you already have? Well, that's not really in their interest, because ultimately they need the money - so a refund is not a very likely option.
• In case of gifts, to just take away the possibility to gift in-game goods to other players? Well, that would again cut into their revenue, so not really an option they'd take - although it would get rid of any potential legal issues.
• To give you another ships of equal or greater value instead? Well, that's probably not in the customer's interest, because it might not be a ship they're interested in. Plus, such a system, too, could then potentially be abused.
• The option chosen by many other companies, is to credit your account with 'shop credit' - an in-game currency that can only be spent in their store - in the amount that would correspond to the value of the goods you bought. That's how WG used to do it as well, and that's probably the most reasonable compromise.

But with this announced policy change, WG has chosen another option. They will still give you 'store credits', but only in the amount that corresponds to the fraction of the ships value that you payed for. So, for example in case a ship is discounted by 30%, you'd be credited with 70% of its full doubloon value in doubloons. With this change, they'll essentially stop treating their customers equally: the same 'discounted' bundles/ships will be available to everyone, except some people who buy them, will get a discount and others won't - now I'm not sure if that's even legal. Now they at least promise to be transparent about it and by changing how they advertise those deals, they can probably avoid any legal issues; but at the very least they'll be sending a loud message that they value their loyal supporters/customers less than new ones. Which is a shame.

 

Therefore, ultimately, I don't think the new policy is fair to the customer and I'd urge WG to reconsider. But that's not going to happen, as they've already made up their mind, so I guess all we have left to do is show our 'appreciation' with our wallets.

 

PS. On the subject of gifting. I'd really appreciate to get an answer to that... If I purchase a discounted ship/bundle as a gift to a private account and the recipient already owns one or more of the ships that I gift them, will they be credited the full value of the gifted ship(s) that they own in doubloons or the discounted one? Because if it's the latter, they are getting cheated out of some doubloon value that they were supposed to receive and I should be eligible for a refund; but if it's the former, then it will just be another loophole in the compensation system and make this whole policy change moot. @MrConway?

[MrConway]

On 6/26/2018 at 1:24 AM, mrk421 said:

PS. On the subject of gifting. I'd really appreciate to get an answer to that... If I purchase a discounted ship/bundle as a gift to a private account and the recipient already owns one or more of the ships that I gift them, will they be credited the full value of the gifted ship(s) that they own in doubloons or the discounted one? Because if it's the latter, they are getting cheated out of some doubloon value that they were supposed to receive and I should be eligible for a refund; but if it's the former, then it will just be another loophole in the compensation system and make this whole policy change moot. @MrConway?

 

We configure the compensation for each ship in a package, so the compensation for gifting duplicate ships is the same as when you purchase them for your account.