
Originally Posted by
HunterGreen
But we'd never rally behind that kind of idea because of that one part where Turbine charges us money for the add-five-min-levels scroll. So instead we end up stuck with the mess we have and have to make the best of it. And we propose lots of wonderful solutions from our side of the table that are all money-losers for Turbine and thus are never even going to get listened to.
This is the wrong attitude, IMO. You're indirectly placing blame on the players. It's not the players' job to propose ideas for WB-Turbine to monetize; it's WB-Turbine's job to create product and provide service that is desirable for consumers to purchase. Player suggestions are really to provide a wide field of creativity in terms of solutions WB-Turbine may not have considered.
On the product side, I'm talking about polished content and well-tested mechanics, well-written quests, well-scripted instances. On the service side, I'm talking about stable servers, support services, bug fixes, and so on.
Rather than thinking about a discrete solution like LI post-level-cap "causing WB-Turbine to lose money," you should think of the combined product/service MMO success in terms of player attraction and retention. Attraction and retention in the broad scheme of things for a player means weighing many various experiences of the game in a cohesive economic decision. For a number of us, for example, that means the LI variable is weighing down our enjoyment of the game in the long-term sense, and quite noticeably such that we don't look forward to each subsequent level cap raise.
Having player-friendly mechanics that might cause redundancy or irrelevancy for a specific item in the store does not mean they will destroy WB-Turbine. What it means is that WB-Turbine should consider solutions to remove/reduce barriers of enjoyment (within reason--no need to nerf everything to heck) and monetize other aspects of the game (within reason) to make up the difference, if necessary. Travel convenience. Housing with the upcoming revamp. Storage. Cosmetics. Whatever.
Having player-friendly mechanics that might cause redundancy or irrelevancy for a specific item in the store still has a higher priority for both attraction and retention of players who will spend for other items and future expansions because we enjoy the game more as a whole. It's better to look at this as a big picture. And I personally see the LI system as a big ol' blotch on that pretty Middle Earth picture.
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