I didnt said that. Its profitable because is demonstrated. http://www.pcgamer.com/league-of-legends-has-made-almost-1-billion-in-microtransactions/ for example. Whatever, im sure you will repeat that argument about MOBAs and MMORPGs being inmature, so i guess theres no sense keep talking, i think people can think about this conversation by themselves 
, im out.
Dense arenāt we. Yes cosmetics are indeed profitable in a match based game but not in a persistent game like this.
How do you come to the result that cosmetics arenāt profitable for such games?
Itās possible to sell headgears, dyestuff and different hairstyles, itās also possible to customize the whole equip or the weapons with different colors or glowing effects. It would be even possible to customize the look of the companions or to implement a pet system or sell new mounts in a cashshop. Especially in games like TOS itās more important for players to have an individual look than it is in games like LoL, because they will spend months of playing time with the same character. In Ragnarok Online people spent millions of zeny for useless and just cosmetic headgears for which they had to grind for weeks or sometimes for months. In Final Fantasy A Realm Reborn they sell dyestuff, clothes and pets and the people are buying them. And it is possible to buy a scroll to change your race and redesign your look which is also just cosmetic andā¦ the people are buying it.
Sure in some games you also have to pay a monthly fee, but the publisher wouldnāt spend time on cosmetics if they werenāt profitable.
priority item display in auction, free hide-name display and maybe you edited it, but i remember that you were talking about no interest deduction in the auction house and earlier you said that premium account users should be able to repair their equipment for free. So overall they can safe a lot of money and they are able to sell items in the auction house way cheaper than any other players. result: they have more money. So it is easier for them to upgrade equipment, to buy a companion and to train him and they are able to buy better equipment at the auction house earlier than other players. I donāt know your understanding of p2w, but in my world it means that I have an advantage in the game progress even the slightest.
Wow is p2p and you can buy cosmetic stuff ( Race Change, Name change, mounts, pets). Guild wars 2 is a b2p and they sell cosmetic crap( costumes, pets, etc). Cosmetic crap is the way for money. Do these mmo examples help drive the point home as well as the league of legends post? If not, then i am afraid you are the dense one.
I was reffering to the above suggestion of making a cosmetic only cash shop in a F2P MMORPG. Again another dumb one who canāt tell the difference between a MOBA and an RPG.
Path does keep growing it keeps getting bigger in population. The expansions manage to keep up with Diablo 3 no problems itās consistently in the top 25 games on twitch it has probably one of the most solid communities out there right now.
I think though youāre over estimating the development cost for ToS. This isnāt WoW and itās never going to be WoW. The quests arenāt going to be flashy. The mobs are essentially aRPG mobs with some pretty simple AI. And in their current state so are the bosses. Art looks great but itās shell shaded weāre not talking photo realistic here.
When ToS expands itās content itās just going to plop down a few NPCs and toss in some a few mobs and maybe some dungeon puzzlesā¦ Weāre not talking about adding flying mounts and a system to drop bombs on monsters from a wyvern to do a daily quest.
Gears does just fine with a team of ~30 and I doubt ToS is very different in size. You think they got an army of 100 designers and artists in there? I could be way off base but I imagine they have a team of about the same size.
Edit: I may also add cost of living in South Korea is much less then an American or most European cost of living. I doubt their team costs 1 to 1.
I would like to suggest that premium accounts get a free reacharound from IMC, so we can at least be pleasured while IMC ā ā ā ā ā us in the ass with P2W.
People donāt understand that cosmetic not matter what game genre, makes money.
If the gameplay is good, the game is balanced, and has its unique contents, the money will flow.
But no, āmobas, fps, arpgā are not ToS.
Well here my message to these kiddos :
People will eventually support the game with cosmetic stuff. How can i argue that ?
The numbers will argue instead of me:
What both games have in common ? Cosmetics. Nothing else.
Even CSGO is making money with cosmetic.
I dont wanna hear about crappy mmos that are struggling to survive with āpremium goodiesā. You want milkycrap preemium sheet ? Go playstore apps and get raped there.
Let this game be AESTHETIC/COSMETIC ONLY for cash features.
You get it 
Iām glad some people in here arenāt crazy.
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Justā¦ Just some peoples are too selfish and refuse to view premiums account as a feature, not āpay to winā How about, just a premium account that allows the userās chat/name (in game) + forum name color be in a different color instead of the original one + a exclusive costumes for only premiums(disappear once not premium) also something like twitch.tv but iCoins as a reward for monthly subscription. 10$ = 5$ worth of iCoins(To make a differences from a supporter and a iCoin buyer cus if ratio is 1:1 everyone will get or maybe no iCoins at all) and each month you contingently supporting, your color changes to a different color. EX: Orange(1 month) -> Yellow(2 month) -> Gold(3 month+) :\
or cute/awesome chat bubble for premium? 
At least for me itās about my friends and who I could get to play with me if they do an abusive shop. If the game was just a flat cost and it being a steam gameā¦ Np, my group would just up and gift a few copies to people. We buy games for each other all the time.
But since itās F2P that shop is a big issue it can really divide our group. I can think of maybe only 2 people that tolerate Gravityās cash shopā¦ And no one that tolerates PWEās cash shop. But if its just cosmetic or minor convenience np Iāll bring in everyone and probably start up a guild with my 10 or so guys and girls that are the core part of my community. And I think my guild would end up paying more in then just the 2 guys that could tolerate a somewhat abusive shop. I got a guy that loves buying all the swag cause he loves that stuff and heās loaded cause he works 60 hours a week and spends freely to justify the hard life style. Heās the type thatād fork out the 1k$ to design a unique item for PoE. But he wouldnāt invest in the game unless we had a presence there.
Lol what top 25 in twitch keep dreaming, if you really think taht game is successful then go play it for life just donāt birng its crappy cash shop anywhere.
Again in an MMORPG no-one is gonna buy cosmetic if they canāt even level up. Give me a successful example of An MMORPG(Massive Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game) that has a purely cosmetic only cash shop. And by successful I mean a game that gets content patch atleast once a year considering Aeria Grand Fantasia can do this Iām being very merciful here.
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Yes, selling comestics is profitable.
But is ONLY selling it enough to keep the company alive in the long run?
My answer is no way.
I think thereās no F2P MMORPG in this world that still survives with JUST cosmestics cash shop.
Mostly their cosmetics have bonus stats or something that affect the gameplay.
Surely thereāll be no one that will buy same cosmetic for him/herself twice.
Just imagine how many cosmetics they must provide to be able to interest players to buy.
They need to release new cosmetics every single month or even week.
So let me state this again:
COSMETICS-ONLY cash shop is NOT ENOUGH in the LONG RUN.
People need to keep buying them for the company to be profitable or even alive.
And itās impossible.
I have no problem with paying as long as itās not become P2W.
Itās just like making a donation but with added benefits.
+1 for something like a base +10% exp rate gain, nobody is going to pay monthly for cosmetic increases. Unless it meant any-time access to a Dressing Room feature that allowed constant changes to your character (that otherwise might take a barber coupon/etc). Even then, too minor of a thing for me to consider subbing.
Iām less about āadvantageā and more about QoL stuff like the exp gains. Someone that just pays for some experience boosters could overtake my if I spent less time playing through my month then they did in a few days using those boostersā¦ and stuff like that most likely will be able to be traded in-game, pushing out RMT and allowing people to just sell crap from the shop to other players (as it happens in likeā¦all games now)
I donāt think putting something like an āautorouteā feature behind a paywall will ever be okay though. No premium ācontentā or features.
If there are VIP bonus dungeons, or anything like thatā¦then maybe something like a daily tableā¦something like this :
Allows both paying and non paying players to access a bonus dungeon daily. It does give the Premium members another daily/bonus run, but itās just another thing to entice.
Even then, of course this kind of thing will a problem with peopleā¦like anything that gives even a minor āboostā will soā¦who knows whatāll happen.
http://www.twitch.tv/directoryā
See them up there all the timeā¦ and top 10 when they add new contents since there are a lot of major streamers that always end up back on PoE.
2ndly stop trying to draw the line between ToS and classic MMORPG it isnāt. Itās isometric with camera lock, shell shaded, and combat has more in common with secret of mana and aRPGs then WoW. So less resources devoted to art. Weāre not drawing custom art for every pair of gloves and boots and not art thatās ment to be looked at up close either. Youāre not worried about players crawling in and out of buildings either. ToS even runs a channel system and does zones itās not a massive conjoined world. You donāt need super servers. And most of whatās going on is client side thatās why when we press left we go left immediately and weāre not waiting 70ms for the server to give the OK.
Now lets talk about Grinding Gears moreā¦ Cause people seem not to understand just how well that game has done. Since release PoE probably tripled the amount of skills in the gameāthat not even considering the exponential nature of their skill system when you combine the support gems. The amount of custom bosses also sky rocketed. Especially with the end game map content. Rogue exiles thatās another 26 or so custom bosses that randomly spawn out in the world. New zones about 13 of them along with custom bosses tied to those new zones and voice work and art for that. 30 Corrupted areas with their own set of corrupt bosses, which includes unique art and abilities. Oh and then a crafting system that came with new quest system and another gob of custom enemies and custom bosses tied to crafting quest system. A hideout system where you get to design your own base. Lets add up the total end game maps to: 91 maps for end game each of those maps with their own bosses a couple special maps with 6+ custom bosses with unique art and mechanics. Point is GG puts plenty of content they do their job and they get paid well for it. They certainly could do a better job to hype the content they are adding and maybe put more content in for the casual pre-end game players but bottom line is they work hard. Itās a full 30 man team. You add up how long the game has been out and how much stuff theyāve tossed in the game you start to see how many spell effects get made a week how many unique bosses they add the numbers are high. And they havenāt been stagnating either the systems theyāve added to the game over the years had added new depth.
Yes it keeps the community growing when you donāt abuse them. And companyās have proven that you can make money that way. And again read above before you start drawing lines between ToS and games like Tera online for development cost. Bottom line is this game doesnāt have a massive development team like FFXIV or WoW and it isnāt appropriate to give them a team of that size either.
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Auto-path? Has some RO Renewal player accidentally been allowed to post? Thatās one of the simplest ways to inhibit immersion.
Regarding the 200th post on IMCās business model, you can speculate all you want but above all their strategy depends on their own resources.
If they can assemble a creative, talented and productive designer team they could monetize the game solely on graphical enhancements, like costumes, hats, scarfs, bags, shoes, accessories, hats, auras, effects, emblems, subweapons, emojis and poses, minigames, hats, etc.
If they donāt have or canāt hire an efficient enough team, or donāt expect the necessary player count on their server they will have to divert to products affecting the gameplay.
However, discussing what direction IMC should or will take is ridiculous as long as we donāt know the priorities of the developers and - again - the resources available to them.
It would be more helpful to emphasize the mistakes they and their publishing partners made with Granado Espada. Looking at those cash shops I doubt people would have concluded Kim doesnāt like p2w games.
This is getting OOT. This will be my final reply here.
No no.
Your point is not valid until you can give a living, real-life example of MMORPG that sells cosmetics-only cash shop that still alive and kickinā in today. Because thatās what my point about.
Iām pragmatic and I believe in practices rather than in theories or assumptions.
My words are based on my experience as an MMORPG player and game developer for years.
So let me state this for the second time in case you missed it:
COSMETICS-ONLY cash shop is NOT ENOUGH in the LONG RUN.
People need to keep buying them for the company to be profitable or even alive.
And itās impossible.
Back into the original topic. My reply is:
Access to VIP pub is good but it doesnāt need to be accessible only to premium user.
You could probably just sell the premium furnitures to customize your pub interior yourself.
Or even better make housing system.
The standard house & furnitures is viable from quest / craft.
Like those Airship in ECO.
I love their game story, design, and monetization.
Heck, even i still think thatās only F2P MMORPG out there thatās not P2W.
Almost all main game contents are accessible by casual players.
Itās not pvp-oriented & really meant to be played with others. Itās doesnāt really matter if you really have imba character or not.
i support Miss K premium service description. yes it kinda useless and better put donate button but ā¦well as some of you said donate but āwith extra giftā
premium pub? why not. dont give me a crap about how it divide community. a pub just a place to hangout and i dont think it even restrict free user from chat with you ( whisper etc etc). let premium user get place to hangout.
in town autopath? well sure as long it in town ONLY
loop emote animation? never see it ever give advantage over free user
juke box? very great idea and i like it ( im from granado espada player) . yes yes you can use media player but does it matter? small thing for some of you but its huge feature for others
free hide name display I support. since i hate people keep pm to book the item or ask where farming location already happen a few times in other mmo. not everything need to be shared since this is online games.
priority item display is a no. since this give chance of advantage.
ps: i read all post and some of you guys keep thinking cash shop=premium service. what Miss K describe more like thank you gift for donate which non game breaking ( except 1 thing i list)
let be honest, this game not create and will be host from fairy dust+pray+magic. f2p will always get cash shop and this premium service just for players with extra money to donate to dev. people throw you extra money will make you give better service + game update