What is new in the store, armors?????

[Ruschi]

players have given us feedback that there is a sparcity of gear on the AH at these levels and they wanted an alternative. We're trying to accomodate that.
So, I applaud your decision to kick start the gear market on your server. Options are what it's all about.

I'm surprised if this is the case. I've managed the lower levels without any crafted or instance gear whatsoever over several alts-- it was not a problem. In any case, if players are desperate for better gear there are ways to get it which don't involve the AH, and DO involve healthy interaction with the community.

[Link64]

I'm surprised if this is the case. I've managed the lower levels without any crafted or instance gear whatsoever over several alts-- it was not a problem. In any case, if players are desperate for better gear there are ways to get it which don't involve the AH, and DO involve healthy interaction with the community.

This.

I've leveled several characters over the years to max level and I never used the crafted gear or anything on the auction hall. In a couple hours after obtaining such an item, I would find a quest reward that was better. You go through the levels far too fast to justify spending anything until you get close to the level cap. That makes those who might buy this new gear from the store doubly foolish. They will waste their money and encourage Turbine to expand the market, further degrading the game.

When you have the option to buy your gear directly from Turbine, what incentive do you have to run instances or raids for the same? Sure they are fun the first few times but after a while you're only going in there to finish your armour set or find an elusive teal drop. Having bought those things, people will grow tired of the game content faster, putting more pressure on Turbine to pump out more content before players get bored and move on to another game. Even if you yourself choose not to buy the gear from the store you can't help but be affected by the consequences of this. Unless you are in a kin full of people that all agreed not to buy, you will have less people to run content with as those who bought their gear will be tired of running the same old thing. And crafting? Crafting will be dead at last if it was even truly alive to begin with.

[StavroMuellerBeta]

At this point, Turbine has two options. They can attract new players in a revolving door style game, or they can keep the old players happy. They could take a third option, do both, but they seem unable to do that (they're trying, but they've failed miserably).

If they take the first option, the revolving door, they get a constant stream of new players. Since accounts no longer expire, each and every account created can be counted as active indefinitely. With the constant stream of new players, they always have a fresh batch of players who aren't aware of the issues at end-game.

These new players are shown lots of shiny stuff in the store for "only" 995TP, but they see that each slayer deed only gives them 5TP. With a little bit of math, they see that the one thing they want can be earned through two hundred slayer deeds of 40+ mobs each (at the lowest tier), or only $15 on the credit card.

Once that credit card has been pulled out, Turbine has their money, and the player is just a freeloader until they leave or pull out the card again.

Then there's the second option, keep loyal customers. This option is a little trickier, since older players will leave over something as trivial as a changed run animation.

For these older players, many of whom are lifers, recurring subscription VIPs, or former VIP premiums, the potential for revenue is minimal at best. Those with a recurring subscription do give $10 per month, so that's $120 per year guaranteed, but the profit ends there. Many lifers have been freeloading since before F2P was even in the picture, so the average profit from them is as close to zero as to make no difference. And the former VIP premiums have many of the store perks grandfathered in to their main characters, so the profit potential is minimal at best.

In order to make a profit form these older players, Turbine would have to put in things they would want. Since most already have all the horses and cosmetics they could ever possibly want, the profit potential is limited to expansions and end-game stuff.

Expansions give a profit when bought from the cash shop, but many VIPs used their saved up points, so that represents zero profit for Turbine. So what can they do to get more profit form these players? The obvious answer, at least to those who make the decisions, is to sell the things that players spend time grinding for.

Players grind for relics, so they sell relics and relic removal scrolls. Players grind for legacies, so they sell legacies. Players grind for virtues, so they sell virtues. Players grind for gear...

But this brings up the obvious "pay to win" arguments, so what can they do now?

Well, they have the old guard, who represents minimal profit, yet complains the most. And they have the newbies, who represent a high amount of profit per player, yet virtually never complains.

Between these two groups, who would you keep?

From Turbine's point of view, getting rid of us old timers serves two purposes. They get rid of all the freeloaders, which takes care of issues of lag and customer support. And they get rid of the complaints, which they perceive to scare new customers away (which is why every thread mentioning this gets merged into a topic 73 forums down, while praise and veneration sticks to forum number four).

Unfortunately, every word they say is carefully calculated in such a way as to get rid of the freeloaders. A protest this large isn't something they wanted to avoid, it's something they've wanted for a long time. For every person who leaves, that's one less complainer on the forums to scare newbies away. For every premium and lifer who leaves, that's one less freeloader taking up valuable server resources.

Personally, I'm not giving in. This may be a slippery slope, but I've got my sled waxed down and ready to go, I'm going to enjoy this ride all the way to the bottom no matter how many trees or rocks they throw in my way.

[Macroscian]

31 pages of mainly DOOM-sayers?

Free-to-play was supposed to kill the game, the DOOM-sayers said.

Relics in the store was supposed to kill the game, the DOOM-sayers said.

Store exclusives was supposed to kill the game, the DOOM-sayers said.

Tweaking the skills was supposed to kill the game, the DOOM-sayers said.

[Bryos]

Massively raised its eyebrows at the Turbine move:



LotRO reverses policy, plans to sell PvE stat gear through the store

"In July 2010, Massively was told by Turbine that the then-coming LotRO store "would not sell any gear with stats attached." And while the studio has so far kept to the letter of the law, it has fudged the spirit of it with the sales of stat tomes (which boost stats independently of gear) and the addition of statted gear to PvMP (monster play).

Consider the law cast aside today..."

"While the gear in question has reasonable stats, it certainly raises the specter of the game's heading toward pay-to-win territory by having it for sale at all."

http://massively.joystiq.com/2012/01...through-the-s/


Said post is the third most popular in the last 7 days.


The majority of comments there view the move by Turbine negatively.

[GV-Tanith]

31 pages of mainly DOOM-sayers?

Free-to-play was supposed to kill the game, the DOOM-sayers said.

Relics in the store was supposed to kill the game, the DOOM-sayers said.

Store exclusives was supposed to kill the game, the DOOM-sayers said.

Tweaking the skills was supposed to kill the game, the DOOM-sayers said.

Not at all. A proud, pom-pom waving "fanboy" here. But one who is displeased with both this change of a previously stated policy and the sneaky manner in which it was announced.

[Anoir]

Im laughting so hard right now how hard Turbine is failing atm.

This is just so hilariously terrible Turbine how your dealing with this issue, cmon your suppose to be pro's at trying to make people buy useless stupid things and then make everyone happy about this...

And merging all threads into one making a one big huge 2-3 languages mess was just the frosting on this Epic Fail

[Cyterian]

31 pages of mainly DOOM-sayers?

Free-to-play was supposed to kill the game, the DOOM-sayers said.

Relics in the store was supposed to kill the game, the DOOM-sayers said.

Store exclusives was supposed to kill the game, the DOOM-sayers said.

Tweaking the skills was supposed to kill the game, the DOOM-sayers said.

I think the vast majority of these posts are not "this will kill lotro" but rather a more personal "this is the final compelling factor for me"


There's is a difference between a crazy guy waving on of those "the end is near" signs and a someone who decides to pack it in.



Here people have been mostly rather well reasoned, civilized, and generally expressing displeasure with the direction lotro is taking not because it will end the game (i.e. doom) but rather that it is morphing the game in a direction the bulk of those who have lent their voice do not care for.

[Treadstone87]

31 pages of mainly DOOM-sayers?

Free-to-play was supposed to kill the game, the DOOM-sayers said.

Relics in the store was supposed to kill the game, the DOOM-sayers said.

Store exclusives was supposed to kill the game, the DOOM-sayers said.

Tweaking the skills was supposed to kill the game, the DOOM-sayers said.

I'm not quite certain that plugging your ears and pretending everything is always fine all the time is a much more preferable alternative to "doom-saying".

A much more reasonable approach to life is to try and keep an open mind instead of swinging to the extreme constantly.

I think any reasonable person would see the addition of stat armor to the store as a step down the wrong path - especially since Turbine went on the record in July of 2010 to say that they weren't going to add stat armor in order to avoid giving wealthier players too much of a leg up over others.

"I expressed the general player concern over whether the store will give the moneybags-player too much of a leg up over others. I was told that they're being careful not to offer any unbalancing buffs or items -- for example, Turbine decided from the start that the store would not sell gear with any stats attached. There will, however, be purchasable tomes that give your character a one-time bump in a particular stat (such as vitality), but these bonuses are more designed to aid a low-level character than a level-capped one."

Slippery-slope arguments were premature and silly back when Turbine was still at the top of the hill, but we've been watching them come down that slope for a good while now.

The only question now is where they will stop.

[Hurin]

31 pages of mainly DOOM-sayers?

Free-to-play was supposed to kill the game, the DOOM-sayers said.

Relics in the store was supposed to kill the game, the DOOM-sayers said.

Store exclusives was supposed to kill the game, the DOOM-sayers said.

Tweaking the skills was supposed to kill the game, the DOOM-sayers said.

What did the QUAKE-sayers say?

(all-caps is fun!)

[Turukano]

I disagree with the merging of threads.
One thread was about the actual armour in the Store. About the details, about the change that it'll bring to Lotro.
The other was about whether this can be seen as advantage instead of convenience and about the overall state of the entire Store.
Two very different topics if you ask me.

[Darmokk]

31 pages of mainly DOOM-sayers?

Free-to-play was supposed to kill the game, the DOOM-sayers said.

Relics in the store was supposed to kill the game, the DOOM-sayers said.

Store exclusives was supposed to kill the game, the DOOM-sayers said.

Tweaking the skills was supposed to kill the game, the DOOM-sayers said.

The new armor has been requested because there is none on the AH for those levels. The reason for that is that the diminishing player base has less crafters and less customers, while AH listing fees stay constant for the very short time that the auction stays up. This makes it a sucker's game to post mid level armor on the AH, all that you do there is lose the listing fee, maybe lose the item if you play TOR for 2 weeks and don't pick up your mail and at best waste your play time.

The rest of the things you so correctly list are what let to some servers being so empty that the economy (player to player economy via the AH) has essentially collapsed except for certain items, mostly consumables and high-level items. Don't be mislead by the number of people on /glff or crafting in Moria hubs. Those are players who have huge investments in this game and won't easily leave (as Fernando Paiz so correctly pointed out in his Pax East keynote). But bread-and-butter players who level up after joining the game? Different matter.

Just do what Sapience suggests: check the AH postings for non-consumable items for that kind of player, in the mid-twenties, when you decide whether you keep going.

[Lainalagos]

I think the vast majority of these posts are not "this will kill lotro" but rather a more personal "this is the final compelling factor for me"


There's is a difference between a crazy guy waving on of those "the end is near" signs and a someone who decides to pack it in.



Here people have been mostly rather well reasoned, civilized, and generally expressing displeasure with the direction lotro is taking not because it will end the game (i.e. doom) but rather that it is morphing the game in a direction the bulk of those who have lent their voice do not care for.

Indeed, very well put. This won't kill LoTRO, but it kills it for me, I no longer care to play content controlled by a company who has proven they can no longer be trusted. I use Middle Earth to escape lies and greed of everyday life, not deal with yet more if it.

The lack of love given to RoI was glaring when compared to all other areas of the game. Crafting, and important area of the game for me has been nerfed to death. The stat tombs were questionable. The lootboxes were a cheap ploy not worthy of any respectable game company. Reversing a cast iron promise on gear in the store was the final straw.

For the best part of a year I've spent Saturday morning happily playing LoTRO for hours. Today I discovered I still had a very modded version of Morrowind on my laptop and will spend some time in that world for a while now. For what it's worth I was premium and quite happy to drop TPs on content, cosmetics and even the occasional grind reducer (though I resented it). I would have paid good money for additional, quality content - more instances, more hobbies, even cosmetics - but not this mess.

[Darmokk]

Massively raised its eyebrows at the Turbine move:

LotRO reverses policy, plans to sell PvE stat gear through the store

"In July 2010, Massively was told by Turbine that the then-coming LotRO store "would not sell any gear with stats attached." And while the studio has so far kept to the letter of the law, it has fudged the spirit of it with the sales of stat tomes (which boost stats independently of gear) and the addition of statted gear to PvMP (monster play).

Consider the law cast aside today..."

"While the gear in question has reasonable stats, it certainly raises the specter of the game's heading toward pay-to-win territory by having it for sale at all."

http://massively.joystiq.com/2012/01...through-the-s/

That is more interesting than it appears at first. Massively has never been hard on Turbine in asking questions, and Massively has so far always been happy enough to just re-print Turbine gospel, e.g. the non-answer on the forum database security breech.

This is a big step for them. Maybe they figure Turbine won't have any advertising money soon? Or maybe Massively now thinks they have a problem because one of their own articles was proven wrong and their own credibility is threatened?

[Hurin]

Slippery-slope arguments were premature and silly back when Turbine was still at the top of the hill, but we've been watching them come down that slope for a good while now.

I think you have that wrong. If those arguing the slippery-slope are proven right (and they are), then their arguments weren't silly, they were prescient.

Anyone who took the time to think through the business model, MMO industry trends, a dash of human nature, and basic economics could see all of this (and more) coming. So much so that it wasn't ever really a slippery-slope argument. Rather, it's more a statement of fact in the face of folks just willfully pressing their hands to their ears and droning: "Nuh-uh, it'll be fine. Nuh-uh, it'll be fine."

And they'll keep doing that right up until Turbine is selling 1st Age symbols in the AH. And then some will even defend that too. Because it's easier than adjusting one's worldview or admitting they were wrong.

--H

[Ryen]

Also, I have to wonder... how is it that relics for LI's being sold in the store didn't render this kind of uproar, but a couple of dinky chest pieces did? Did those relics not have stats attached to them? What about the Finesse scrolls? What about the various buffs and boosts? Where was this level of outrage then?

This has started out small and has gotten out of hand now. The point of the store was to offer convenience is Turbines own words but this is basically making the game lets buy this instead of lets play. It starts off with LI items, stats, and it just keeps growing. The point isn't just about this one item only people have been fed up for a while now and its just getting worse.

[Darmokk]

At this point, Turbine has two options. They can attract new players in a revolving door style game, or they can keep the old players happy. They could take a third option, do both, but they seem unable to do that (they're trying, but they've failed miserably).

If they take the first option, the revolving door, they get a constant stream of new players. Since accounts no longer expire, each and every account created can be counted as active indefinitely. With the constant stream of new players, they always have a fresh batch of players who aren't aware of the issues at end-game.

These new players are shown lots of shiny stuff in the store for "only" 995TP, but they see that each slayer deed only gives them 5TP. With a little bit of math, they see that the one thing they want can be earned through two hundred slayer deeds of 40+ mobs each (at the lowest tier), or only $15 on the credit card.

Once that credit card has been pulled out, Turbine has their money, and the player is just a freeloader until they leave or pull out the card again.

Then there's the second option, keep loyal customers. This option is a little trickier, since older players will leave over something as trivial as a changed run animation.

For these older players, many of whom are lifers, recurring subscription VIPs, or former VIP premiums, the potential for revenue is minimal at best. Those with a recurring subscription do give $10 per month, so that's $120 per year guaranteed, but the profit ends there. Many lifers have been freeloading since before F2P was even in the picture, so the average profit from them is as close to zero as to make no difference. And the former VIP premiums have many of the store perks grandfathered in to their main characters, so the profit potential is minimal at best.

In order to make a profit form these older players, Turbine would have to put in things they would want. Since most already have all the horses and cosmetics they could ever possibly want, the profit potential is limited to expansions and end-game stuff.

Expansions give a profit when bought from the cash shop, but many VIPs used their saved up points, so that represents zero profit for Turbine. So what can they do to get more profit form these players? The obvious answer, at least to those who make the decisions, is to sell the things that players spend time grinding for.

Players grind for relics, so they sell relics and relic removal scrolls. Players grind for legacies, so they sell legacies. Players grind for virtues, so they sell virtues. Players grind for gear...

But this brings up the obvious "pay to win" arguments, so what can they do now?

Well, they have the old guard, who represents minimal profit, yet complains the most. And they have the newbies, who represent a high amount of profit per player, yet virtually never complains.

Between these two groups, who would you keep?

From Turbine's point of view, getting rid of us old timers serves two purposes. They get rid of all the freeloaders, which takes care of issues of lag and customer support. And they get rid of the complaints, which they perceive to scare new customers away (which is why every thread mentioning this gets merged into a topic 73 forums down, while praise and veneration sticks to forum number four).

Unfortunately, every word they say is carefully calculated in such a way as to get rid of the freeloaders. A protest this large isn't something they wanted to avoid, it's something they've wanted for a long time. For every person who leaves, that's one less complainer on the forums to scare newbies away. For every premium and lifer who leaves, that's one less freeloader taking up valuable server resources.

Personally, I'm not giving in. This may be a slippery slope, but I've got my sled waxed down and ready to go, I'm going to enjoy this ride all the way to the bottom no matter how many trees or rocks they throw in my way.

+rep

I think it's much simpler than that. Revolving door style customer base gets the same content all over again. You don't have to develop anything new, ever again.

It's not only that Turbine's low staffing can't keep producing new things for players who have seen it all. They can't do it without introducing bugs in the more complex codebase. And let's be honest, a huge number of people think that the original pre-Moria game is best, a much smaller number likes Moria (many liked Moria's vastness, not really the content that much) and everything west of the Misty Mountains is obviously rated lower than the original levels 1-50 by most players.

I ask you: why bother making new content? And even the working new content, the spoiled existing player base doesn't really like. So why bother? You have a pool of 1-2 billion Internet users that can enjoy the best content you ever had without you lifting any (non-marketing) figure and they will never know that it might have been even better years back.

That is also the reason why Turbine keeps merging threads, and the more unreadable they get the better. They want casual sniffers not to pick up any of the problems and just start playing the damn game. It doesn't matter to them how many forum regulars get into a rage, and if they do a rage quit, even better.

[Celebria]

The only thing I can't buy for my LIs right now is the LIs themselves. But that's only a matter of time before 3rd, 2nd, and 1st Ages will be available in the LOTRO Store in a wide variety of styles and colors.

Already nearly everyone I've spoken with or run with in-game buys all their relics, scrolls, and bells and whistles for their LIs from the Store cause they find it so difficult to get these items the old-fashioned way by playing or with skirm marks. And some things, like the relic removal scroll, I've never even seen drop in any instance, raid, or from any mob, so...

Yeah, the Store is now our one-shop LI stop.

[myfreezr2]

My reaction to store-exclusive armours: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r2xDJ...ure=plpp_video

For reference, this was my reaction to Tier 7 stat tomes: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vZkco...eature=related

[Treadstone87]

I think you have that wrong. If those arguing the slippery-slope are proven right (and they are), then their arguments weren't silly, they were prescient.

Anyone who took the time to think through the business model, MMO industry trends, a dash of human nature, and basic economics could see all of this (and more) coming. So much so that it wasn't ever really a slippery-slope argument. Rather, it's more a statement of fact in the face of folks just willfully pressing their hands to their ears and droning: "Nuh-uh, it'll be fine. Nuh-uh, it'll be fine."

And they'll keep doing that right up until Turbine is selling 1st Age symbols in the AH. And then some will even defend that too. Because it's easier than adjusting one's worldview or admitting they were wrong.

--H

I was certainly one of the people who had a bad feeling about the store, but prior to the conversion to F2P, I had a very positive opinion of Turbine. If asked who my most trusted MMO developer was, I would have said Turbine. At the time, I knew of F2P and the dangers of cash shops, but only due to having messed around with some very shoddy Korean MMORPGs.

I didn't think Turbine would ever go this far. If they take it slow enough, they can stealthily introduce more and more gear to the store while slowly reducing the amount of gear introduced through new content.

[Treadstone87]

My reaction to store-exclusive armours: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r2xDJ...ure=plpp_video

For reference, this was my reaction to Tier 7 stat tomes: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vZkco...eature=related

Mine: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=umDr0mPuyQc

[DaBrudders]

31 pages of mainly DOOM-sayers?

Free-to-play was supposed to kill the game, the DOOM-sayers said.

Relics in the store was supposed to kill the game, the DOOM-sayers said.

Store exclusives was supposed to kill the game, the DOOM-sayers said.

Tweaking the skills was supposed to kill the game, the DOOM-sayers said.

Meanwhile, back in the jungle.....

About 2 years ago the animals blessed with a lot of intuition got spooked and ran away after smelling unseen lions.

About 18 months ago the animals blessed with a modicum of intuition got spooked and ran away after hearing unseen lions.

About 12 months ago the animals blessed with a shred of intuition got spooked and ran away after seeing distant lions.

About 6 months ago even the animals who weren't blessed with any intuition got spooked and ran away after seeing lions.

Today, the plains are increasingly empty but there are still a few wildebeest, chewing cud, smiling happily, oblivious to the leaping lions.

The other animals, now wise to the lions, look down at the wildebeest with a mixture of amusement and pity. They often reflect on the demise of their favourite MMPORG LOTRO. From "PC game of the year 2007" to Golden Turkey in 4 short years.

[Khafar]

Turbine's definition of "advantage" seems to be something like "Equippable End-game Gear" (based on both what they've sold for DDO, and on what Fernando Paiz said at a game developer's conference). They aren't selling end-game gear here or in DDO, and I don't expect them to ever do so.

Below that... I'm just not going to be very surprised, especially if a lot of players buy it. The Store is there to make money, and if assorted "fluff" isn't selling all that well, you can absolutely expect them to start offering things that sell better. If my company knew of a legal way to increase profits by (say) 10%, knowing full well that doing so would make some of our current customers unhappy... I'm pretty sure they'd do it. And if that prevents another painful layoff, I'm not sure I'd even argue with them.

Khafar

[StavroMuellerBeta]

31 pages of mainly DOOM-sayers?

Free-to-play was supposed to kill the game, the DOOM-sayers said.

Relics in the store was supposed to kill the game, the DOOM-sayers said.

Store exclusives was supposed to kill the game, the DOOM-sayers said.

Tweaking the skills was supposed to kill the game, the DOOM-sayers said.

Lotro will never go free-to-play, the defenders said.

Lotro will never sell relics in the store, the defenders said.

Lotro will never sell any non-cosmetic items that aren't also in the game, the defenders said.

Lotro will never sell armor with stats, the defenders said.

Is it really doom-saying when the doom-sayers were right all along?

[Ronigard]

Turbine's definition of "advantage" seems to be something like "Equippable End-game Gear" (based on both what they've sold for DDO, and on what Fernando Paiz said at a game developer's conference). They aren't selling end-game gear here or in DDO, and I don't expect them to ever do so.

Below that... I'm just not going to be very surprised, especially if a lot of players buy it. The Store is there to make money, and if assorted "fluff" isn't selling all that well, you can absolutely expect them to start offering things that sell better. If my company knew of a legal way to increase profits by (say) 10%, knowing full well that doing so would make some of our current customers unhappy... I'm pretty sure they'd do it. And if that prevents another painful layoff, I'm not sure I'd even argue with them.

Khafar

The one possibility that I now see open up (maybe), is that 'last season's gear' will become available in store at some point. By which I mean: gear from Moria and Mirkwood, and after the next expansion, the Isengard stuff. So nothing current, but a way to 'catch up' with the elder players.

It seems a possibility at least.

But current end-game gear? No. That gear is the reason for capped players to keep playing between expansions and updates. So if you sell that, you void your own end-game.

I'm still not exactly sure why this selling of gear bothers me so much as it does. Objectively it won't impact gameplay. And if I say 'it feels wrong', this is a weak argument.

The store never bothered me before. I never felt I needed anything from it to advance my characters. I felt the extra storage was a true convenience. As are some of the boosts. Crafting accelerators are actually very nice to get through some tiers.

Are those things really that different from low level gear? Are they really?

Again, objectively they are not.

Is it the broken promise, then? I don't know about that either. Things change. Markets changes. Companies must adapt or die. It's not realistic to expect a company to *never* break a promise. So I can sorta kinda live with that without getting up in arms about it.

So if I follow my rational side, this should be no problem whatsoever. There is nothing about the store bought level 20 gear that impacts my experience. My main is at 75, and I can craft anything I want for my alts. I will never *EVER* need that gear. And I don't really care if others buy it. It does not affect me at all.

But it bothers me.

I guess the reason it bothers me is that it is another step away from a 'clean' pay to play model.

I *love* the idea of quest packs and a la carte content that's yours forever. For many people this is an awesome way to play: they buy a questpack and for that single payment they can take as long as they want to finish it. No obligatory subscription, so more freedom to hop in whenever you want. More people playing, for less on average but more on total. Brilliant.

And I was lead to believe this was working. They *where* making more money. The game *was* more successful.

So why is it now necessary to start nickeling and diming players? Don't the quest packs make enough money? That wasn't the impression Turbine gave. So then it is starting to look greedy when they try and find money under every virtual rock.

Again: objectively this all won't affect the gameplay. But it feels like unnecessary greed and that is upsetting to me.