Wardrobe, Can we have a shop item to unlock this please,

[LordLokai]

Topic says it all, i don't mind paying for it but restricting it to subs only is a bit annoying. I like my outfits, but i would gladly pay a one time fee to unlock this feature, i may not want to sub but i don't mind paying for things. This is probably at the top of my list of things that needs to be unlockable for free players, via in game purchases. 

[LittleWolf]

It's a top two reason for getting premium, they make it a one time fee item and premium value immediately drops. 

[LordLokai]

1 hour ago, LittleWolf said:

It's a top two reason for getting premium, they make it a one time fee item and premium value immediately drops. 

 

There issue is the way they designed Premium, with amount of costumes in game barring the Wardrobe behind Premium is sort of pigeon holing folks into subscribing... if i wanted to subscribe to a game i'd go play FF14. I play games like this for the " free " model and is absolutely no reason to have such a BASIC feature locked behind a subscription. You can put stuff like this on the item shop as an unlockable feature that you pay for, you STILL get your money with out making people feel like they have to toss various outfits... might not be an issue IF they didn't also limit item space behind more paywalls...

 

No reason this should be subscription only... its a core feature of the game... it needs to be unlockable for everyone via the cash shop end of story. 

[SinoH3]

I agree. The massive problem I see with restricting Wardrobe to Premium players is that the number of costumes you gain in game over time (as a non-member player) keeps increasing and in turn your bank/inventory size becomes more crowded with costumes and less space for important consumables and such that you will need for dungeons and higher level areas later on (even with the expansions you can buy). I would be absolutely willing to pay a one time fee to unlock the Wardrobe option.

[LittleWolf]

Isn't there something like a wardrobe bag in the game? I remember seeing something like this somewhere and believing you would store costumes in it to keep them taking only one inventory space. If that's not what they do, my apologies

[GeNK1]

For me it was one of the two reasons I've bought premium membership for. (Second one are queue times)

 

So it obviously works as intended.

[Erratic]

You can buy premium for about $5 bucks, store all your costumes in the wardrobe and simply leave them there. Once your premium member ship expires, the costumes will remain stored in the wardrobe. If you take the costumes out, you will have to put them in regular inventory, but so long as you leave them, there they will stay. This is great, cheap way of storing all the costumes and pesky accessories you're going to collect in this game.

[Callback]

It's the price of hoarding.  For free players, if you can't spare the bank space to hold them, you can always try selling the ones you don't use on the market board (or  I think you can also salvage if they really aren't valuable). Make some money and be able to buy the ones you DO want to use, or buy another copy of the one you sold if you change your mind later.  Gold doesn't take up inv space.  The only downside is you're subject to inflation as MMOs do, but you can get around that by immediately investing in some kind of stable item.

[Soulequilibrium]

I have absolutely no interest in all the bonuses the premium subscription provides, except for the wardrobe. I will not be getting premium. I would however get the unlock for the wardrobe if it was a separately sold item. I would even settle for single slot unlock tickets which increase the number of items you can place in the wardrobe by one, for every ticket used. This would grant those buying premium a significant bonus over those who buy tickets as the premium folks unlock the entire thing with minimum cost as long as they are subbed. For someone to obtain the same level of wardrobe freedom through tickets it would take significant investment but at least there would be an option. Thus I feel this additional option would be unlikely to detract from the temptation of obtaining a premium subscription whilst those who will not buy premium regardless are more likely to invest in tickets instead of just letting it be. Everybody wins, the players and NCSoft.

[Yxion]

I would laugh if they put an item in shop that cost same as premium to rent the wardrobe.

[Soulequilibrium]

Well naturally the tickets shouldn't be overly expensive. Frankly I'd prefer they'd just make the whole wardrobe part of the free aspect of the game as it's a big piece of the endgame for a lot of people. It's far more than a convenience thing. Just figured I'd put forward a suggestion for a  compromise because I doubt NCSoft would it free now, even if they are potentially shooting themselves in the foot with it.

 

This thread on Reddit had a great discussion about why the current model feels like a poor choice.

[BabygirlMinx]

The game is only F2P as an option.  When you see things that you want and eventually decide to buy it, be it by subscription or cash shop, it ceases to be a F2P game.  That is the nature of a F2P business model.  They put the wardrobe feature in the subscription because they realized its a valuable feature of the game that will gain them subscriptions.  You don't have to buy it and you can do without it and play the game just fine.  It's a luxury feature that would be nice to have but not necessary to play the game if you choose to do so for free.

 

Don't get me wrong, I would loooove to have this feature.  I'm just playing devil's advocate to try and bring some understanding.   

[TexMex]

While I 100% support NCSoft and their right to monetize the game however they see fit, I am on the fence about this one.  I am a premium player and I use the wardrobe constantly, at least once every 30 minutes, so i can't imagine playing the game without it.  I can think of two strong arguments for both sides, and honestly, I do not know which side is correct.

 

Why wardrobe should be tied into premium membership:

• As others have stated, the top 2 reasons for buying premium memberships is priority queue time and wardrobe access.  While there are some other benefits, none of them come even close to these top 2.  We are still in the launch week for this game.  Hype and interest are arguably the highest they will ever be in the game's lifetime.  In 2-3 months, the hype will start to die down, and bounce players (the people who tend to just bounce from one game to another) will move on to something else.  Queue times will no longer be a significant issue and one of the 2 main premium benefits will become effectively worthless.  Why would anyone choose to be a premium member then if the wardrobe can be accessed by F2P players through a one time fee?  The rest of the premium benefits are pretty weak to be honest.  They are all nothing but minor quality of life adjustments.  Think about how other F2P MMO's have done their pay models.  TERA does not even allow you to take a character to max level unless you sub. (at least they used to, last time i paid attention was over a year ago) SWTOR restricts the number of pvp matches and raids you can do weekly, as well as not allowing you to reach max level.  This seems a lot worse to me than just not having access to the wardrobe.  How does NCSoft encourage premium membership sales when their game gives away so much content for free once queue times are no longer an issue?

 

Why wardrobe should have a one time access option:

• Let's face it, cosmetics are MASSIVE in this game.  Hell, costumes don't even have stats, which effectively makes every costume in the game a collectible.  The sheer number of costumes and the extremely limited number of storage slots (even with large numbers of them unlocked) makes the wardrobe a necessity if you have any desire to collect the costumes.  Many players are even willing to pay upwards of $10 for one costume from the store in order to continue collecting.  The sale of cosmetics will likely be the number one source of income for this game and the one required feature to even be able to store those cosmetics is not accessible to F2P players.  How do you encourage players who do not want to spend any money to buy costumes when you don't give them a way to store them?  How does that make any sense?  In order for this game to succeed, you will need to be able to make more money than just what premium membership costs provide.  A one time cost wardrobe seems like an easy win in this situation.  Charge players to use the wardrobe (I could see the cost being as high as 1500 NCoin and still being reasonable) and then give them incentive to keep on buying your cosmetics from the shop and continue your sales.  

 

I have no idea which of these 2 methodologies will lead to more profit for NCSoft, but both of them seem reasonable enough to me.