Suggestion: Vanity initiative

Fortnite's business model is based around providing a free fun to play game and selling "Vanity" items. It has done very well. Please consider re-adding this into your business plan.

The only downside of a vanity revenue stream would be the development cost. There would be no need for re-balancing things unlike adding other things to the game. New vanity items will simply show who the trendiest (biggest spending?) person is.

The upsides are
1) Added fun for people interested in buying "vanity items"
2) Added fun for people providing "vanity items"
3) Increased revenue for MindArk
4) More 'Mark Up' for non-interested players

As things stand, UL clothing means clothing crafters / designers have very few real customer. This means textures, skins, and paint have little demand, and less MU.

I suggest having clothes wear out.

In real life a piece of clothing degrades a tiny bit every laundry cycle. In game clothing should fade and becomes less attractive over time while being worn. (Note: do not lower the TT value. This would look greedy) I suggest the average (of the top 25% of the player base) avatar's current playtime for 2 months be the base expected lifespan of clothes.

Most players with valuable clothes would take their clothes off after they put on armor, so their clothes would last more than the 2 months listed above. However, players could also 'patch' their clothes. They would get back 90% (Recursively) of the clothing's previous max appearance by using tailoring remnants. The remnants' TT value would be returned as shrapnel. There would also be single use (crafted) tools that would reset this counter with minimal TT but high MU (redulite & skin crafted) for people with very expensive or irreplaceable clothes. People with high cost clothes could use these to make their clothes last indefinitely, but still requiring clothing crafters, miner, and hunters in the process.

This should not ever change the effectiveness or wearability of buffing clothes - but their appearance is fair game.

There are many more ways to increase "vanity" appeal without requiring game play balancing: Better pets, masks, rare skills, real estate, permanent landmarks, named items, ect. All of these add to the social aspect without increasing costs for people who are uninterested.

2 pecs per change of clothes to decay ain't enough for you?!? geesh...

Have Mindark remove the blasted 2 pec unequip fee and most will start using clothing more...

Some clothes do decay in the way they look as the tt value goes down as things are currently...

They should eliminate that.

It's Bull$hit that helps no one but themselves (i.e. Greedy & irritating)

My point is to help craters

Having clothes wear out would be pure annoyance.

Why not put vanity clothing & pets in the webshop?

Colbey Kal said:

In game clothing should fade and becomes less attractive over time while being worn. There would also be single use (crafted) tools that would reset this counter with minimal TT but high MU (redulite & skin crafted) for people with very expensive or irreplaceable clothes.[/I]

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This has been the worst idea in the history of idea's, maybe ever.

There are just a very few peoples cares about clothes already, why would you make it worse?

Hego Damask said:

This has been the worst idea in the history of idea's, maybe ever.

There are just a very few peoples cares about clothes already, why would you make it worse?

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exactly.
This would result in a naked playerbase.


Why bother anymore to find a colorer and texturer, collecting endless amounts of paints and textures, just to have your clothes turn to dust in 2 months time?!?

Please not.

But this system already exists. The popularity of texturing limited items should speak for itself.

Hego Damask said:

This has been the worst idea in the history of idea's, maybe ever.

There are just a very few peoples cares about clothes already, why would you make it worse?

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I'm pretty sure many people do care about clothes, but the game doesn't allow to wear armor and clothes at the same time. Why buy clothes when you can't wear them during the hunt anyway? That's a killer for clothes. MA needs to change it, so clothes can change the appearence without having to take off the armor.

And no, MA should not put clothes into the webshop, players should wear craftable clothes to stimulate the economy.

Alukat123 said:

I'm pretty sure many people do care about clothes, but the game doesn't allow to wear armor and clothes at the same time. Why buy clothes when you can't wear them during the hunt anyway? That's a killer for clothes. MA needs to change it, so clothes can change the appearence without having to take off the armor.

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Depending how you mean it.

Many wearing a coat together with the armor set he uses.
Not many removes the armor when finished hunting, and equipp other clothes that cannot be used together with an armor.
I do it, most of the times i do it if even just stop hunting for a trade, that few pec wont kill me, but ofc its just wasted money, so i understand why others dont do it.

the game doesn't allow to wear armor and clothes at the same time

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Not true!
https://www.entropiauniverse.com/bulletin/buzz/2015/12/16/Ethereal-Armor--Barely-There,-Protection-Everywhere.xml?

It is on my bucket list, there are 1 set exist in the game, the rest and the unique wasnt sold as i have read about it in PCF, have no idea how much it was priced, as i remember the price was removed or not even written in the sale thread, and as i remember DannyO was the seller, so maybe i wont have chance to ask him about it anymore.

I am one of the very few players that does care about clothes, to the extent that I will purchase expensive materials to texture and colour my clothing. Cost in the price of any decent piece of clothing and it is not cheap. I spent over 1500 ped on my wazir pleat (you get a lot of the costs back).

I do not believe that the player base is interested in vanity items. A lot are hard core players or gablers who don't waste money on items that do not improve their returns.

I had been drinking. Degrading things people have invested into is a bad idea.

I agree it seems the customer base has become mostly gamblers. It wasn't always that way.

I do think clothing crafters are in a tight spot since they have almost no repeat customers.

Colbey Kal said:

I had been drinking. Degrading things people have invested into is a bad idea.

I agree it seems the customer base has become mostly gamblers. It wasn't always that way.

I do think clothing crafters are in a tight spot since they have almost no repeat customers.

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There are a ton of people who are just playing the game because they're having fun. Maybe you don't see them in the globals chat or lining the HoF list, but they're there.

As for the original topic, going free to play is I think pretty much the worst thing Entropia Universe could do.

Anselme25 said:

There are a ton of people who are just playing the game because they're having fun. Maybe you don't see them in the globals chat or lining the HoF list, but they're there.

As for the original topic, going free to play is I think pretty much the worst thing Entropia Universe could do.

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I'm returning from a year+ break after about 10 years of playing, so I'm rethinking everything. It seems that there are more people chasing the huge win than before, and fewer just playing for relaxing fun. Hopefully I'm wrong.

There appears to have been minimal development effort put into "fun" activities it seems. I would like to see more of them. Things that are profitable for MA, involve players that have put effort into areas other than hunting and weapon / armor / attachments crafting and involve resource gather. "Vanity items" would be a good place to start.


I never meant to imply "free to play" by comparing EU to Fortnite. Simply that there are plenty of people that are willing to pay enough for cosmetic things to sustain a very popular game.