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
Still questioning the Premium rewards, though, seems like the badges aren't quite worth the price.
The only thing that really bothered me was the prices, which are even steeper now (maybe not by much, but it's still not a welcome change for someone who didn't mind getting extras). Well, that and the premium perk sounding like a free item and turning out to be more like a tenth of one, requiring players to spend money in order for it to be of use.
But in the end it will make me spend less, so oh well. It's nice that most users seem placated. :P
It’s tricky being in a position where you can’t satisfy everyone no matter what you do, but I really appreciate the effort for compromise!
I will be grabbing some turnips in the future next time there is something new!
I also appreciate that you listened to community feedback and thought about it, and implemented changes accordingly. Communication and transparency is SO important in gaining consumer trust and it is a good step in the right direction that you are communicating.
I would also agree that Premium needs some more perks compared to what it costs for me to feel like it is a worthwhile investment of my money, however that is another discussion.
10 items for 1800 turnips. [Not guaranteed an entire set, but very easy to sell the items you don't want and buy them in the market place] +1 Free item Claim
(With this system you could end up with an entire set + 4 extras to sell or give to friends)
Option to get the entire set for 1800 turnips, bypassing the gacha system entirely.
---------- Now ----------
6 items for 2000 turnips. +1 Free item Claim
Most people will have the goal of collecting all the items, so this really isn't better. I preferred the way it was before. This only really made it better for people who may only want a one or two items out of the set, but worse for those who want to collect the entire thing.
I think it would be cool to be able to get a random item/random spins for 180, or pick an item for 200.
Also, for those of you saying this was 'illegal gambling', it really isn't. As someone who has had to study/research this exact issue in video gaming, it was really one of the fairest gacha systems i've ever seen. It is not gambling because there are other ways of getting the items, or you could bypass the chance system and get each item. There was really no gambling about it. You could purchase 10 random items for 1800, or 6 guaranteed items for 1800. You can also buy them from the market place and trade with other players. The system would only be considered law breaking if the system was designed in a way to force you to use the gambling system to get the items. [i.e. Items are account bound, can't be purchased in the marketplace with non-premium currency].
In general, I need to praise the splitting of the monthly set into half/half premium/nonpremium. The large potato sink should be really good for the economy on the whole. Setting a foundation that premium isn't the only desirable currency is a smart move. I think will benefit the site's health overall! Thank you, staff!
The premium perks improved a little bit, but I'm sure as more features are implemented, more perks will be added as well, thank you for the updates!
I do like some of the suggestions that people offered of having an option to spin for a cheaper price at a risk/reward for getting duplicates (which can be at least sold for potatoes and allows people who don't/can't spend money to have access to these items), and a set, higher price for the items themselves if they only want one or two pieces of the set rather than the full one and don't want to risk the RNG.
Most of all I am glad people are being listened to.