Map Stash Price and Ethical Behavior

I don't know man. I see no technical limitation why the Maps tab can't hold all the things from current spiky War maps to old guy John Keys' insanely-rolled 1.0 white fragments he-never-had-the-guts-to-actually-attempt.

Plus Unique Maps are a pain with this Tab, when you can put one Olmec in but not the other.

There was a post in some thread here, about Map Tab being a paid solution to a development mistake i.e. the mess of holding maps in a regular tab (even if it is a paid premium) and trying to search or sort them.
personally, I'd feel more comfortable if GGG give any player who beats Act 10 Kitava for the first time a basic maps tab, and there will be a paid version with extra features similarly to premium vs. regular, or extra capacity.

The real meme here is people think that variations of stash tabs is more p2w then literally stash tabs being for sale day 1 of game release.


?????

Did they somehow trick people with a stash tab that only hold maps vs stash tabs that hold everything since day 1 release? People invested 1000s of dollars and grew the game when literally stash tabs model was still heralded as one of the best f2p models in the game.

Slight variations of the day 1 model suddenly change it?

Adding MORE CONTENT over the years that has a lot more items dropping isn't some sort of magic trick to force the game to become p2p or p2w, it's a byproduct of them literally giving you large amounts of free content updates.

Idunno how people debating about ethics and misrepresentations when they don't even know basic history of the game. Game updates must be so good that we are now looking at random things to complain about. Legit only community that complains that the game company gives them so many free updates and new items that they feel they have to buy extra stash space to keep up.

Byproduct yes. but the ethical way is to adjust the model accordingly as new content gets added.

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johnKeys wrote:

Byproduct yes. but the ethical way is to adjust the model accordingly as new content gets added.

Also ethical is in terms of how they conduct business towards the customer and the law, not literally being the shining example of ethical and superior judgment. A company is there to make money, not be morally just and perfect.

Giving you extra stash tabs because they added new items in the game isn't ethical or nonethical :V It's business decisions if free shit will give you more customers and money vs not doing it.

(Ethical) Moral principals in society vs Ethical in a business are two different things.

true, a company is there to make money. but I was drawn to the game not only because of its quality but also because of 2013 GGG's revolutionary financial model.
most of the money they got from me was on silly MTX that doesn't even look good. just because I wanted to give them something for their hard work.
I do have stash tabs of all kinds, but that's less than 40% of my purchases.

P2W doesn't have to be EA's fkn loot boxes. it can be more subtle.
but that doesn't make it non-P2W or "ethical".

Only problem i have with stash tabs in general is that they are mandatory to be able to "enjoy" game.
I dont mind giving GGG my money but after spending 200$ on stash tabs i don't feel like i enjoy gameplay more. I only paid for convenient garbage that should be free/obtainable in game/much much cheaper.

It's like 200$ spend (a lot where i live) and my character still looks bad so i must spend even more money. I would be so much happier if i could spend my money only on cosmetics rather than stash space.

Other problem is that with every update you need more and more stash space. I paid for convenient but it feel worse and worse. Currency tab, essence tab, div tab, map tab, regular tabs and more will ba added (soon fragment tab).
GGG really must find a way to make sorting items easier or in the future after every map we will have to deal with 20 special stash tabs to sort our things.

Can you play this game until the servers go down without paying?
Yes, you can.

Can you win this game without paying?
No, because you can not actually win this game, paying or non-paying!
(You may have your own little concept of what 'winning' is, but that is pretty much irrelevant)

I laugh a lot at silly people when I see threads like this :-p

OP is full of BS.

Most of the arguments presented in OP are weak or misleading. I will tackle just few because I cant be arsed to go over them one by one.

Shards argument is completely wrong because specialized shard tab was not available during one period of the game when you would need it the most-Essence League. Only in this specific challenge league we were showered with so many essence shards that managing them has become tedious and detrimental to overall gameplay. This was reflected in player feedback and GGG said they will avoid similar situation in the future. They released shard tab later along with few other specialized stash tabs but it was at the point when such stash tab is far from necessity--frequency of essences in end-game is so low that my essence tab is half-empty at the end of any given league. Even further to this, most of the essences are junk with little value, therefore, you might not even pick them up. Really worthy pieces of essences you might want to store are limited to a small handful (10-12 at max).

The game itself is free to play, nobody can contest that. Argument can happen around pay to win, however, since PoE does not offer any MTX that directly impacts your gameplay performance, nothing in the store makes your character hit harder, last longer or move faster it is also simple decision for me to make. Furthermore, GGG has developed content update model that regularly releases new challenge leagues that offer fresh start for all participants. This content is suitable for seasoned veterans or for complete newcomers. You start from scratch so it does not matter whether you have 50 premium tabs or none. GGG gives you 4 stash tabs to start with, which is perfectly fine to experience the game.

Stash tabs are convenience matter. I very well recall my early times with PoE when I was storing crafting currency in 10s and 10s of stacks in my normal stash tabs. Time has changed. You can convert such currency to more valuable currency ever so easy due to sites such as PoE.Trade and proliferation of tools/mods automating item management.

I have much heavier heart at GGG for their lack of interest in developing in-house trading system for so long than the fact they sell stash tabs. I also have mild gripe with GGG's loot boxes because they are borderline gambling but luckily GGG's implementation of this cancer on gaming industry is limited in scope and content can often be bought later as a standard MTX.

All in all, PoE is as ethical about its funding model as it get. If anything, PoE is a victim of its own success because such funding model is not suitable for ongoing and long term operations. GGG has grown into a big company with 100s of people working on the game, directly or indirectly, which also increased their demand for funds. GGG must push new MTX on the market to ensure operating capital.

I would prefer option that would allow for small recurring payments on regular basis from dedicated players--this would create a stream of revenue that would be predictable and reliable. This new model would, however, require some way of rewarding these players without compromising MTX market too much. Since such option is not available, I purchase supporter pack once in a while and sit on those points indefinitely. GGG got my money as a show of appreciation and if there is anything of interest to me later added to a market, I can buy it.

Anyway, I just repeat start of my post: OP is full of bollocks.

maybe I shouldn't have used the term "P2W" directly.
it tends to always draw the Philosophy Professors going "what did you win? lol kappa trololo".

my opinion is Tabs at this point smell fishy, and not because of Krillson.

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johnKeys wrote:

maybe I shouldn't have used the term "P2W" directly.
it tends to always draw the Philosophy Professors going "what did you win? lol kappa trololo".

my opinion is Tabs at this point smell fishy, and not because of Krillson.

The boat long sailed through.

The game is directly modeled as large amounts of mtx sales to make up for your ugly character + stash tab sales since beta/day 1 of game release, in which it was herald as one of the best f2p game in existence.