The Daily Grind: What's the most ridiculous microtransaction you've seen?

@BubleFett I'd disagree and say the Freeblood Vampire race and special abilities of EQ2.

http://eq2.zam.com/wiki/Freeblood_%28EQ2_Character_Race%29

You buy the unlock for the race, then have to purchase special abilities separately. a race should be part of the darned game proper as a free unlock for the expansion!

@BubleFett

Agree w/ STO. Having to pay a full monthly fee and still be nickle and dimed to death for content is BS.

@Lucid Renegade

You're not being nickel and dimed for content. You're being nickel and dimed for fluff that doesn't amount to a hill of beans in terms of gameplay other than your character might look cooler doing stuff.

Maybe the ship classes can be said to be a little over the top in terms of price, but I'm not a hardcore PvPer so I can't say that my game has been adversely affected by NOT purchasing them.

@BubleFett I disagree. Those items are fairly priced. You don't HAVE to buy the ships here what you see listed is skins to apply to ships you earn in the game.

@BubleFett

Completely agree on STO, the game was lacking ship options and fluff at launch, especially on the Klingon side. Despite the lack of those options, they quickly spammed their players with offers of ships and fluff. Not to mention that the C-Store is and has been their top priority of developing despite the lack of content.

The EQ2 Vampire "race" is a disgrace as well. And let's not forget about the WoW Sparkle Pony that inspired STO and EQ2 into creating their own $25 items. I do find it funny that a lot of EQ2 Raids won't let players who are using the Vampire race.

@Mainer82

WHY? Why do you pay $15 every month and tolerate this? It is absurd! Where is your $15 going? What does it get you? Patches every once in awhile? That's it? Fixing a game that should have been good at launch? Patching's become an excuse to push out a game that isn't ready, because we'll pay for it that way. Because on every other subscription MMO in the market, until people started allowing it to happen, when you paid for an MMO you got the whole thing. It was the only way to justify paying for a game every freaking month. There was nothing devs would keep from somebody who paid for his subscription. Now we've got "useless" items that don't matter, whose creation takes precedence over patching and new meaningful content because there are people dumb enough to buy them. They've got your $15, they might as well flip ya the bird, too, since you're paying cash for "things that don't matter" on top of that.

@BubleFett

I just started trying out the STO free trial. Now that I saw the cash shop... ugh.. think I'll move on. I was a bit put off by the limited ship customization in the trial - but I figured if I leveled up more options will become available. Now I see that you need to 1) pay your monthly subscription, 2) level up, and 3) pay more $$$ to the cash shop in order to get an enterprise looking ship.

Personally I want a Chandley class myself... but ugh.. such a brazen cash shop no thanks.

@Victor Stillwater
Freeblood costs $65 if you buy everything piece by piece. As far as I'm concerned, that's the winner of "most ridiculous microtransaction."

@DataShade

And lo and behold, you all paid into their game when you bought their games for $50, then they said "ok, now you have to pay us every month to play the game, even though you bought the game for $50". Quite simply, you all created the "boom" of Pay To Play games, and now you're getting nickled and dimed even further, and being slapped about like a belligerent child.

I'm sorry, I'm laughing on the outside, and I'm weeping on the inside. Laughing because you pay to play the games, and weeping because it became an industry standard. I know they need money to keep the servers running, but good God. Just release the extra stuff as freakin' Adventure Packs/Expansion Packs. I never, ever had a problem buying expansion packs, but now you pay the Boxed Game fee, the Expansion Pack fee, AND the Monthly Fee.

Don't like it? Then stop paying it. Quit. Show them that you won't STAND for this crap anymore. It's happened in a few P2P games already, and they FLOURISHED. LOTRO's community predicted the end of the frelling world. They're still alive! But just watch out. A crappy F2P system that nickles and dimes (EQ2, Champions) exist. Stay the hell away from them, because if you buy, you keep the nightmare alive.

@nomoredroids

To quote a circus exhibit owner "There's a sucker born every minute."

This single phrase is what allows devs like cryptic to get away with it. But nomoredroids is right, by buying this garbage you are A) allowing them to exist, and continue to make crap and profit from it.. b) give incentive's to other companies to resort to the the same low stooping practices.

The best way to fight against companies is with your wallet, something so many people in this country fail to grasp let alone try to understand

@ShivanSwordsman

Isn't this the nature of MMO? If you're reading this site I would assume you subscribe to this same type of service. The idea is, we are playing a game that is constantly updated all year and should save money in comparison to the average gamer who lays down 50-60 dollars per game and buys multiple games each year.

I agree, though I've never played it, that those STO Micro transactions are crazy. I don't mind micro transactions, because I play league of legends which is built on this model, but anytime you have to pay to unlock that much of the game its ridiculous.

@Ocho

I agree 100% I basically gave up on Vindictus because of this. Almost all of the MT items are rented. REALLY? I need to pay you 5 dollars to "Borrow" some armor for 2 weeks??? Then for holidays they released a limited edition permanent version, which cost something like 30+ dollars. So for this item, I need to pay what a full retail game costs a month after release?

If you want to base your company off of MT instead of subscriptions, more power to you, but if you want to base it off of subscribing to MTs... I will decline.

@Ocho Rental MT should really be called what they are, subscription fees.

Answer to myself ...
(where is the edit button???)
I just hope they wont go that mad with CO cryptic shop ...