Continuation of the previous now locked thread. Please try and stay on topic so it doesn’t derail
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On the wiki we have the items of the bazaar, but I cannot see an indication of the starting price they were sold. Does anybody know where to find such information? I started to take screenshots of the prices, but missed too many of them to compare the evolution of prices.
It doesn’t matter if the pricing is ridiculous. If you think the pricing is ridiculous then you are not the target audience. You are irrelevant to Tencent’s income stream. The target audience is the people who fork over fistloads of cash for buggy nonsense. RIP Conan Exiles.
None of us who edit the wiki buy anything from the bazaar or want to waste our times having anything to do with it. There was a fairly long stretch between the bazaar’s introduction before the wiki even acknowledged its existence.
Pretty much all of what information on the bazaar actually can be found on the wiki is added by a bot. If information is unavailable to Testerle’s datamining, like individual prices, you will have a pretty hard time finding it on the wiki.
Unless the bazaar becomes worthwhile, that is not likely to change, but, despite the dev blog saying they were looking into adjusting their prices, the bazaar is not showing any signs of improving any time soon.
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I’ve been playing quite a bit of Everquest 2 lately and that is a game that added in an ingame shop around 17 years ago, and one of the first games to do so. Its changed very little since then and given that the game is entering its 20th year and has yet another expansion on the horizon. Its probably not far off the mark.
Many of the armor sets are similar priced to CE. As well as some of the furniture and weapon skins. Two things to note however that are extremely different between EQ2’s marketplace and CE’s bazaar.
The first one is that all cosmetic items in EQ2 are non-functional. Weapons deal only 1 damage (and most have an appearance slot restriction), armor has no stats (and likewise have to be equipped in an appearance slot), and housing items such as chests, drawers, cabinets, wardrobes, dressers, etc do not have storage (you have to get these from dedicated tradeskillers in that game).
The second one is when you purchase one you get the item directly. And you get exactly one. Like they’ll have some furniture pieces that cost like $0.10-0.50USD, but you get one and if those are building blocks to make something. It racks up quick. Unlike in CE where you unlock a recipe to build as many as you wish.
Playing a few other games over the years has led me to believe that the CE bazaar is NOT overpriced when compared to similar stuff in other games. What is likely is that cosmetics in general are overpriced in the whole market of games.
I suspect this is by design. This offers a level of exclusivity that drives the value for their buyers higher than it would be if it was more accessible. I mean think about it like this. If there is a cool looking item for cheap, and while you like the look, if its valued low enough that everyone on the server is using it. Its not really so enticing. I mean does everyone here want their characters to look like everyone else?
I’m not defending the prices, but I am pointing out that goods and services bought for vanity’s sake are going to have a higher price tag to ensure some level of exclusivity. This has always been a point of contention among gamers because there is a decent subsection that believes that the best looking items should be the hardest to get, and not simply got by a rich kid with a credit card. Because even among those who don’t buy cosmetics, they still want some level of uniqueness.
Where companies are trying to balance things is finding the sweetspot between selling enough of an expensive item versus how much they would get if they just made it cheaper so everyone could buy it. Because lets face it, we’re not going to buy everything all the time. And I say ‘we’ here I mean the entire playerbase. There will come a point of saturation.
So its not how much a new item will sell when its available. But how much all items past, present, and future will sell. There’s going to be some who will buy everything no matter what. There’s going to be some who buy nothing. Then there’s going to be everyone else in between, and the target there is to sell as much as they are willing to buy, and to not oversaturate them to where they don’t buy anymore.
The irony is that the largest contributor to sales are the never-buy folks. When they run around in vanilla gear or make buildings out of vanilla materials… or maybe even use 3-6 year old DLC items that everyone owns, they increase the value per currency for those who will buy.
By making these items even more unique, increases the chances that someone who has the disposable income for an item they want will actually make the purchase.
Which makes that quoted statement somewhat false. The never-buyers are the target, sort of. They are the bait. As they play, as they build, others see their stuff and think they can do better if they just spend a little crom coin. By not buying but continuing to play, they feed right into the system as the ones who designed it intended.
If your intent is to enjoy the game without buying anything and are content with others supporting the development and generally just don’t see the value in the prices listed. Then you’re good to go. This is probably most people.
If you’re morally or ethically opposed to the practices of the bazaar. Or don’t wish to financially support the company or its owners. Well then playing the game is probably one of the worst ways to voice that opinion. The only way to win is not to play. Though in my experience, most people’s thoughts on the ethics and morals never align with their actions (on everything, not just monetization in video games) and they lack effective convictions.
They’ll bandwagon and give lip service among their little friend groups about the evils of RMT or that of Funcom in this example. But they’ll happily keep playing away, effectively letting them put a billboard on their computers for them.
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Question. In EQ2, after buying an item, can you share it with others, or give it away if you want? Also, is there a way for you to track your purchases without having to write to the staff? (I mean, the name of your purchased items somewhere on a recipe, not just the trace of transaction from your bank account to the company).
You cannot, they are no-trade. You can trade it to another character on the same account and same server if you haven’t equipped it yet.
Not really, no. There is a tab in the market place for recent purchases, but it doesn’t appear to show everything. It seems to be there in case you wish to rebuy something rather than track purchases.
Alright, thank you.
Very insightful analysis Taemien, and you are probably right. As a long-time player of Conan I hate the way the game is going. Development decisions are largely misaligned with what I want out of the game, bugs are worse than ever, and they just keep milking the bazaar. I bought most of the DLC before I lost all faith in Funcom (right before Nemedian). I want to support the game and would even pay a monthly fee, but Funcom’s mismanagement of the game is bad enough to drive me away from the game for long stretches.
Sadly the game is rather unique with no competition so I keep coming back. At this point although I still play, I can’t play on official servers as Funcom has completely ruined the experience there through a combination of bad design decisions, bugs, and the fact that server performance was destroyed so severely with Ch2 that official PvE servers can’t even handle 10 simultaneous players. Now I just play solo.
So at least I can take some shred of comfort knowing I am no longer part of the “don’t have” crowd that makes the vanity crowd more motivated to keep buying! 
When a bazaar-item can cost the same as what you would spend 1 week on food, then calling the prices insane isn’t an exaggeration.
All it resulted in was that I didn’t buy anything there at all. Had it been like half the price, I would be buying an item here and there (the ones I liked the most). With the DLCs it was different, so I bought all of them.
On top of that there are tons of beautiful sets of clothing, armors, weapons, pets, building sets etc available for free via mods.
So why should one spend a penny on the bazaar now again? 
Usually I don’t post much in here but this time I like to make an exception.
What prevents me from buying Bazaar stuff is the lack of information!
I want to know:
- the tier from building elements (including strength values)
- the tier from benches like the Turanian Stove or the Aesir Blacksmith bench
- the specs from armors (are they light, medium or heavy and which buffs they have)
- same for weapons
- etc…
The question is, why I should spend money when I get useless crap?
Another issue which is preventing me from buying stuff is the nerf of all the animals since 2.9. They are absolutely useless as companions now. In earlier days I played hundreds of hours using animal companions and it was great fun.
Why should I give a single cent for any Bazaar item including an animal today?
PS: I’m playing video games for over 30 years now and I have no problem spending money on them, but I like to have some positive feedback when I buy stuff and this is clearly missing here.
I know, I know, probably no one from Tencent will read this but one never knows.
Happy hunting to everyone.
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