Monthly Shop & Premium Changes!
Hello everyone, we are happy to be back with a major announcement regarding our plans and changes for the monthly shops and premium account upgrades! We sincerely apologize that we couldn't get this post out to you all sooner, as we needed time to discuss this matter with the team as well as to make sure the coding aspects of our decision would be possible in the backend. As always, thank you so much for your patience!
Originally, our vision was for the site to be a quaint dress-up style game with spinny gumball-type machines to get fun prizes from, as many of us had fond experiences and memories of these when we were younger. This concept was the inspiration behind all of our shops, including the monthly ones! When we released the very first test version of our Turnip monthly shop during beta testing, we got a lot of helpful feedback that eventually led us to make the following changes and additions to the feature during closed development:
Genuine effort was put into trying to find a happy balance of all of the suggestions we received during beta and our original vision for the feature. We had hoped that these changes would remove the harmful aspects of an RLC chance machine, particularly with the addition of the ability to buy a full set of Pai's items for a set price; however, we've read through and listened to all of your recent feedback and have realized that this was not enough. It was never our intention for Dappervolk to engage in harmful aspects of RLC chance machines, so we have decided that it is our moral responsibillity to remove the chance aspect of this feature.
Changes Going Forward
Starting on August 1st, 2020 players can expect to see the following changes to this feature:
Tied in with our Monthly Shop changes, we'd also like to add some additional upcoming perks to our Premium Badge that will be added from August 2020 onwards!
We will be posting the updated Premium Perks information into a thread in the Site Announcement forum, which will also be linked to from Agnes' Perpetual Shop.
Thank you for all of the patience you've afforded us thus far as we work to improve Dappervolk! We're excited to bring you more fun events and build upon the site step by step over time!
- Offered all Turnip monthly items in one set price box.
- Allowed for future opportunities to obtain retired monthly items instead of retiring them permanently.
- Lowered the spin price in Pai's shop, taking into account that turnips are based in CAD.
- Extended the free item claim expiration limit to 3+ months.
- Made spin points non-expiring.
Genuine effort was put into trying to find a happy balance of all of the suggestions we received during beta and our original vision for the feature. We had hoped that these changes would remove the harmful aspects of an RLC chance machine, particularly with the addition of the ability to buy a full set of Pai's items for a set price; however, we've read through and listened to all of your recent feedback and have realized that this was not enough. It was never our intention for Dappervolk to engage in harmful aspects of RLC chance machines, so we have decided that it is our moral responsibillity to remove the chance aspect of this feature.
Changes Going Forward
Starting on August 1st, 2020 players can expect to see the following changes to this feature:
- "Pai's Machine of Wonders" will change to "Pai's Shop of Wonders"
- Pai's chance machine will change into a permastock shop (all items at a set price with infinite stock for that month), with free claims and purchase points intact from June & July's records.
- Each item in Pai's Shop from August onwards will cost 200 turnips and will be purchaseable individually.
- "Spin Points" will be converted into "Turnips Spent" which will not expire; each spin point will convert into 180 Turnips Spent.
- Users will be able to claim a free item after spending 2000 turnips in Pai's Shop.
- Free item claims will still expire in 3 months and work the same way they do now.
- Since we're changing Spin Points into Turnips Spent, premium users will receive +600 Turnips Spent bonus per month in Pai's Shop of Wonders.
- Premium users will be able to use a premium-only forum post border through the duration of their premium status.
- Premium users will get +1 additional wardrobe save slot for a total of three additional saved outfits for premium users.
We will be posting the updated Premium Perks information into a thread in the Site Announcement forum, which will also be linked to from Agnes' Perpetual Shop.
Thank you for all of the patience you've afforded us thus far as we work to improve Dappervolk! We're excited to bring you more fun events and build upon the site step by step over time!
Comments
Good additions to premium too!
The Dappervolk team mentioned the fond memories of gacha they had growing up, and I understand because I also grew up with them in certain places; however that is exactly the kind of statement that makes me worry for young people. Dappervolk received a very strong response to the RLC gacha because of those of us who are aware of its place within a larger context, which is that of the game industry as a whole. The game industry has been implementing more and more gambling mechanics in their games (even games for children) in increasingly predatory ways over the years. Children are growing up accustomed to a manner of exploitation of which they should not be accepting. Since I myself grew up with similar mechanics, I can say that you really don't question it when you're young. That is a very dangerous mentality to grow up with. It is literally trying to condition you to become a gambler.
Outside of that, I was scared for Dappervolk's longevity because I am also a former TinierMe user, an avatar dress up site that used RLC gacha as well. In Japan it was obviously very successful, but their English website only lasted for about three years, over the course of which I saw the user base turn increasingly bitter towards the website for its unfair practices as it became harder for people to obtain premium currency; and in the end, the RLC gachas had a negative effect on the trade market anyway, since eventually no one was trading for anything else that wasn't also a premium currency item. Free site currency gacha items were worthless unless they were rare, retired items. Anyone who started out on the site at that point would be too late to the party, since getting free premium currency was not as possible as it used to be, and premium items were only circulating between premium users at that point. I don't remember if the site closed simply because it wasn't making enough money, or if it was because the users of the site were hounding the site with complaints and protests so often, or both...
I don't know how to make it easier for free users to trade for premium items. I just wanted to mention that even with a gacha in place, it didn't necessarily mean premium items would be more accessible for free users. Dappervolk is trying its best and I wish it all the best. I want to see this site succeed and last for a long time in a healthy way.
And to the people upset because they can't get the "rush" of the rng anymore.... maybe consider that you're not immune to gambling addiction.
(PS; I don't personally feel like there will be a problem with potato only users getting these items cause there will always be people who buy premium currency/items to get non-premium stuff faster, and people who just plain buy something and get bored of it :P )
Im going to frankly hard disagree with you because I will say that while I'm extremely grateful staff has given consideration to a very large and active majority of users views into consideration. They had not given a response of listening to the user base sooner. It was upsetting to users to not be given any feedback regarding a big number of similar views in a reasonable amount of time. Staff has responded accordingly but when the issues first presented itself, the response was later timed then sooner given to relied the userbases concerns.
I, as well as many users do not like the idea of a premium gacha. I certainly don't like the further idea that I need to interact with the marketplace just to get premium items that should be included in a bundle advertising half but not all. While I am still hesitant to support the site in such a way because it's not asking much to include all 12 with a bump of price, I will say I'm happy to know they are listening to criticism.
Right now it's a grindy, time-gated struggle to progress and get those dress up items- only to not use them in favor of ugly messes for the sake of stats. Maybe eventually the wardrobe will feel more like a form of fun and expression, and less like a utility.
i know what the (purported) goal behind making turnips untradeable, but.. as it is, premium currency trades are still occurring- just, now they've got additional risk of unsupported transactions. you guys mention 'moral responsibility', but between this whole gacha fiasco and the situation several backers have found themselves in re: what appears to be intentionally misleading info on the KS tiers for early raven and up- i don't have a whole lot of faith in the current administration's 'moral character'. additionally, every interaction regarding that has come off as rather... manipulative- in the same tone as, well... to say the gacha aspects resemble nostalgic gumball machines is true, and while it may be the intent; not acknowledging the incredibly blatant fact the turnip shop was an (illegal for minors, for good reason, in many places) gambling mechanic is just intellectually dishonest. i don't believe for a second it's possible that that was a genuine oversight- rather, like an increasing number of things, misleading statements are being employed very purposefully.
granted, perhaps not maliciously so, but... that's what i can't help but feel, and the longer I've been on DV post-official launch; the more stuff like this that happens; the more my interest dwindles. which is sad because i love everything about DV other than its (frankly manipulative) approach to RLC matters.
in any case, i think it's just important to note that not everyone will be placated with this when the core issue has not changed a bit.
especially because another way the currency hoarding issue could be completely avoided, AND fix the very sus aspects of turnip shops, by just capping the amount of turnips any user can have at any given time. to be completely honest, atlus USA'S poor attempt at removing the homophobic jokes from persona 5 came off more earnestly than this update, despite the fact it's now just a different flavor of incredibly awkward.
the majority of your players are teens; plenty are minors; and they're the ones who are most vulnerable to gacha gambling. but the fact that there's also many adult players means this kind of thing.. I'd have fallen for it at 16. but now? no. no way. I'm very sorry if this comes off as rudely accusatory.
...I'm prepared for this post to be deleted, lol