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I understand that you want PVP to be fun for everyone who wants to do it, but there are factors beyond just money spent that affect that too.
1. People with laggy or intermittently bad internet connections will generally lose a lot more than they win, but you can't solve that on your end as a designer. Beyond that there are ways that having a SLIGHTLY better/faster connection will be an advantage to some player that you can't eliminate, as I see it.
2. The player who has played religiously for like 5 years will have accumulated more stuff than the player who has played for only 6 months. Assuming they BOTH want to be as competitive as possible I don't see how you could help the newcomer except by offering a faster track to getting gear by paying for it, that way the new guy can achieve a build perhaps on par with the veteran a lot faster. I mean the build strength of a toon can't go up forever, it has to level off somewhere, and what we're really talking about is how much time it takes to get there. In this sense the paid fast track versus slower free play is really just causing the free player to have to grind longer for the same stuff. So you're not nerfing their guy, you're just making them work harder to get to where they eventually need to be.
3. Despite any effort you make to create parity among PVPers and their toons, there will be differences between classes, builds, and gear anyway which you can't avoid. Creating a "weight class" system, at least as a suggestion to the players that "pitting this build versus that one is no contest, be advised, and please make an effort to keep it fair, you guys" is about the best you can do anyway. If people armed with guns are apt to go looking for a knife fight so they can ROTFL-stomp everyone, then that's a function of the PVPer mentality in and of itself. They're their own worst enemies in that regard. What they SHOULD do, if they really care about parity, is go looking for a reasonably even match-up. They never do. They look for someone they can easily beat up on for fun.
4. CoX wasn't, in it's heart and soul, a primarily PVP game, and I don't think CoT ought to be either. MMOs are better left to be PVE games and PVP is better suited to the First Person Shooter genre, in my opinion. You always end up with people either A) complaining that their toon doesn't work the same in PVP as they do in PVE because of the "nerfs" or B) PVP is totally unfair and not worth doing because some powers are totally unfair in PVP despite being more or less okay in PVE.
5. You COULD nerf all gear in PVP such that all set bonuses are turned off, all powers do maximum damage based on generic IO levels of enhancement, all procs are turned off, all toons are treated as being the same level, etc etc and take gear out of it entirely, and that would solve the problems caused by vets versus newbs and payers versus non-payers. Nobody screams for that either, because they WANT to be able to build it better than the other guy, which is actually inherently unfair if they can, so you're right back to square one. I would make a system like this at least optional so that you can claim "look, you've got the 'parity' button right, there, so use it".
Edit:
6. I'm not talking about straight-up selling IOs to people, or recipes, or salvage, I'm more about just selling mission/trial/TF content you can do that might give higher drop rates of XP, Inf, salvage, recipes, etc. If there are any unique or special bits of gear (like temp powers, Warburg nukes, etc) that you could get out of a premium raid, I would be okay with making that type of stuff "non-PVP-able" in the sense that it's greyed out while PVPing or whatever.
R.S.O. of Phoenix Rising
The suggested packages part should have been mentioned in your previous listing a bit more clearly to help avoid the issue of only being able to select each individual perk.
My main concern of sectioning off each perk individually is where a player may unintentionally pick a perk or group of perks that don't lend themselves to operating within the game very well resulting in frustration. And instead of saying "well that was dumb of me to pick A and not B", some may say "why the hell would they let me pick A and without needing B?"
I absolutely see what you're going for, Segev. With options ranging from "full sub", "suggested packages of perks", and "individual perks", just for the month-to-month end of things, I'm willing to bet we'll see a fair amount of the packaged pieces more than the a la carte items month over month (people do love value meals after all). Ultimately, the devil is in the details as they saing goes. I'm willing to say I'm tentatively on board with the idea, just concerned about the possibility of allowing for unintentional frustration on the player's part.
[hr]I don't use a nerf bat, I have a magic crowbar!
- Combat Mechanic -
[color=#ff0000]Tech Team. [/color]
Avoiding unintended frustration will be part of our responsibility in designing the system, yes. Making easily-seen suggested packages, clearly defining what the various microsubs are, and making sure that no microsubs are useless on their own will all be important.
[color=#ff0000]Business Manager[/color]
[img]http://missingworldsmedia.com/images/favicon.ico[/img]
You're correct in that up to a point there is little a developer can do about this and the game can't be designed around laggy connection speeds after a certain point. While there is some interesting research being done in ways to reduce / eliminate connectivity to the server on a developer's end its not yet proven technology. This isn't even a valid point toward the discussion of what a developer places into their monetization model to prevent pay to win over pay to play and pvp parity.
There is a difference between someone who has been playing for a long time and someone who hasn't and it has little to do with who paid and who didn't during that time. The same could just as easily be said of a non-subbing player playing for 5 years having a better build than a non-subbing player who played for 6 weeks.
Time played compared to money spent in a game that is not designed to favor money spend over time played is not a valid point in this discussion.
Build parity and power design has very little to do with the current discussion of the monetization model.
While this is your personal opinion and you have a right to it, there are and have been MMOs with a heavy emphasis of PvP that are not first person shooters.
Again how we handle power design and PvP parity has nothing to do with the monetization model which was what Segev was speaking toward.
While it would lend itself to less possible build to build disparity, on the surface it doesn't quite elimiate it either. It also is severly limiting to those who desire to play purely in PvP and advance their character. It also can result in a barrier of entry just as much as allowing all that stuff to be active in PvP can because suddenly the PvE player who is used to certain things happening a certain way with this build suddenly doesn't. The farther you go down that rabbit's hole, the closer you get to developers specifying down to each power pick based on which class is chosen for the player's PvP build to "ensure parity".
Players will always figure out what builds works best for them in a given situation. It is our job to ensure that the mechanics and systems work in such a way that there are as many valid choices. Building a character toward optimal PvP should take as much care as building toward optimal PvE. People could complain that their build isn't good enough compaired to another in either situation, PvP tends to bring this out more because there's a live person as the opponent.
Even so, this is more of a derailment of the discussion at hand. The point Segev was making was that those who pay a sub are not paying to have automatically better builds or better performance over those who don't pay. They may be paying for advantages that make it easier to get to making a better build, allowing for the possibility of doing so on less time in comparison to those who don't pay, but again time played compared to those who paid are not necessarily equivalent.
[hr]I don't use a nerf bat, I have a magic crowbar!
- Combat Mechanic -
[color=#ff0000]Tech Team. [/color]
Radiac, you lost me with Pay to Win.
I do think people are being overly obtuse when viewing the micro-subscription model. Its a "rental" model that allows you to rent only the aspect of developer made content you want. You want all the costumes unlocked, then buy the costume micro-subscription. You want all the personal base building unlocked, buy the base builder micro-subscription. You want all the FX and animations for frameworks unlocked then buy that microsubscription. If you want unlimited access to endgame story expansions then buy that micro-subscription.
How is that not simple? Rent what you want.
Crowd Control Enthusiast
Pretty basic and clear.
Just wait a few months post-launch before adding that Mission Packs perk : )
[img]https://i.imgur.com/26pBVBG.png[/img]
([i]Currently developing the Sapphire 7 Initiative[/i])
The accessible features and sub-systems for each perk level will drive the decision-making. Meaning, folks are going to lock-onto whichever perk levels include their 2 or 3 gotta-haves and then just add whatever else best balances affordability and fun.
[img]https://i.imgur.com/26pBVBG.png[/img]
([i]Currently developing the Sapphire 7 Initiative[/i])
I think the way to get people to buy subs is to have a structure like Segev's, BUT have each level contain an extra $2 perk, so you can pay an $8 sub and get $10 worth of stuff.
A lot of people want several things in each tier enough to pay for them, but not all of them, and with Segev' structure, they just spend $10 and buy a la carte from the 3 tiers. If by paying $16 they get enough value by getting twice as much stuff, they may decide to make the marginal investment and have their "nice to haves" as well as their essentials.
[color=#ff0000]Tech Team and Forum Moderator[/color]
[img]http://missingworldsmedia.com/images/favicon.ico[/img]
Okay, so in an attempt to remain on-topic with monetization, let's assume you're at least kicking around the idea of theoretically charging for some things:
1. The pay-per-run Trial. You pay to do it, you get better drop rates on XP, Inf, etc and maybe even some stuff you can't get anywhere else (warburg nuke, jellomen pet summon, etc)
2. The pay-to-enter PVP match, tournament, king of the hill contest, free-for-all, whatever. 1 v. 1, teams, whatever. You have to pay to enter, prizes of some kind go to the winner(s).
Now, if the PVP action that happens drops gear only found in PVP which is designed for PVP and the gear that drops in PVE is gear designed to be good in PVE, you COULD end up with a system whereby the dedicated PVPer doesn't even bother with pay-per-run PVE trials and the dedicated PVEer doesn't do many pay-to-enter PVP events. People do their preferred style, mostly, and get rewards for it, but those rewards are best suited to that play style anyway.
On the other hand, you could make all PVP events free to enter and have them drop PVP gear while having pay-to-run trials and TFs that drop PVE gear.
Either of those systems eliminate the problem of Pay to Win as it pertains to PVP. Possibly the simplest solution would be to simply turn off all slotted set bonuses and procs while actively engaged in PVP. You still get drops for defeating stuff, you just can't actually benefit from that stuff while in the ring, to ensure a degree of parity.
While I understand how Pay to Win is unfair in PVP, there are ways to monetize PVE content based partially on gear drops etc, and still have parity in PVP as I've demonstrated and I don't think its a problem in PVE, because we're not fighting each other there in the first place.
CoX had Incarnate, and I believe (fuzzy memory) that you couldn't use any Incarnate powers in PVP. Id' be fine with that too. Just make all the extra goodies you can get by playing pay-to-run Trials and TFs non-PVP-useable stuff. So you pay, you run a TF, you have the usual chances of getting the usual gear drops like anything else, and whatever ADDITIONAL extras you get out of the paid-for TF run (which are added to entice ppeople to pay for said content) are not allowed in PVP matches. That's "problem solved" right there, isn't it?
On the general subject of PVP parity though (off topic, I know) I don't see why it's okay to have the 5-year veteran be able to outclass the 6-month rookie every time based on accumulated gear from time spent while it's NOT okay to let the high-roller pay through the nose for missions and trials that have the chance to drop gear at an accelerated rate. That vet will be able to beat that rookie for a long time until the rookie's gear catches up, which could take months or longer, and I think that's just as frustrating for the rookie as being out-spent is to the budgeteer who doesn't want to spend money on extras. I'm not a PVPer though, so your guess is as good as mine.
R.S.O. of Phoenix Rising
What you could do is have each item on the menu with a listed price to buy it, then as you add more stuff to your cart, you get progressive discounts for "buying in bulk". So like if you added up ALL of the microsubs, you maybe arrive at $25 per month, but in reality, you're only paying $18 per month after the discounts that kick in. I think Segev or someone might have already said this actually, fuzzy memory.
R.S.O. of Phoenix Rising
If you want to reference a subscription similar to ordering off of the menu, first understand that the menu usually has an entrée that comes with two sides. Drinks are optional as you can easily get a glass of water for free. Deserts and appetizers are optional as well. I don't go into a restaurant and expect to pay for each individual ingredient used to make the meal and then have to pick and choose which ones I want to leave out because that will lower my price to a more affordable price.
So I don't go in and order a steak, loaded baked potatoe, and fried okra and then say, "Hmmmm.....I can't afford all of that at your $14.99 price. So I think I'll not have the mushrooms on the steak, leave off the bacon bits and chives on the baked potatoe, and instead of deep frying the okra could you bake it instead so I don't have to pay for the oil used to deep fry it? That should make the price about $9.99 that way, which I can now afford."
That's ridiculous!
Also, if I'm going to a restaurant to eat, I'm bringing enough money with me to be able to afford whatever I want to order. Otherwise, I'm staying home and cooking for myself.
Oh, you made me laugh though! Whee. Thank you for that.
I got chills! They're multiplyin'. And I'm losin' control. Cuz the power, I'm supplyin'. Why it's ELECTRIFYIN'!!
I'm going to expand upon the basic model Segev gave us.
Model 2:
Perk A (Access to all Costumes) costs $1.50/month.
Perk B (Access to all Animations) costs $1.50/month.
Perk C (Access to all Archetypes) costs $2.00/month.
Perk D (Access to all Emotes) costs $1.00/month.
Perk E (Access to all Powers) costs $2.00/month.
------------------------------------ Everything above this line is what would comprise the $8/month subscription tier
Perk F (Access to the Auction House) costs $2.00/month.
Perk G (Increased Inventory Storage) costs $1.00/month.
Perk H (Increased Auction House Storage) costs $1.00/month.
------------------------------------ Everything above this line is what would comprise the $12/month subscription tier
Perk I (Access to Mission Creator) costs $2.00/month.
Perk J (Access to all TF's/Guest Author Content) costs $2.00/month.
------------------------------------Everything above this line is what would comprise the $16/month subscription tier
Now, if we go with more than likely the basic things people will absolutely want for sure we would go with packages C, E, F, I, and J. That would pretty much give us everything we'd most likely like to do for about $10.00 a Subscription. That is obviously a pretty short list. Problem, also, is Segev has mentioned that there are certain things he'd rather not see included in a Sub package as he feels they should be bought as one-ofs. So WHAT exactly are you planning on making a Micro-Subscription? And if the most important things people want are placed in the cash shop as one-of purchases, WHAT is the point in having a subscription? If Character Slots, Powers, Costumes, and Archetypes are in the StarMart then why would I even bother with trying to Subscribe? All I'd have to do is go buy the Archetype, Power, Costume pieces, and Character Slots I need to play the game and then never pay a dime again. Perhaps toss you $6.00 a month to access Auction House, Mission Creator, and run special Content. Do you really think you'll be able to survive on $6.00 a month?
I got chills! They're multiplyin'. And I'm losin' control. Cuz the power, I'm supplyin'. Why it's ELECTRIFYIN'!!
oOStaticOo, I don't think the restaurant analogy was made in terms of ingredients but in terms of available menu items. For instance, maybe I [b]want[/b] spaghetti, a soda, and a slice of cake for dessert. Let's say that costs $12.50. I'm trying to cut back on spending, so I'll ditch the cake and have water instead of soda. With just spaghetti, I'm now only paying $6.00 which is all I can [b]afford[/b]. It's not ideal, but it's acceptable.
In practice, I'll probably spend on subscriptions like I spend at restaurants: I get what I want then hand 'em my credit card for however much it's worth. This is essentially how you described your own restaurant funding. In a perfect world, everyone would be able to do this.
However, not everyone has the luxury of spending like that. If a player wants the City of Titans experience at a lower cost, they'll have to make sacrifices. A menu of microsubscriptions would give players the option to spend on a subset of features they [b]want[/b] while paying an amount they can [b]afford[/b].
I don't think a menu would be too complicated or too granular, and it sounds useful and straightforward to me.
I understand that, but that's the thing about ordering from a menu. You usually get a package out of it. Burger, fries, and a coke. One price. Entrée and two sides. One price. Sometimes they even have Appetizer, Entrée, and Desert all one price. Usually that price is pretty low. Burger, fries, and coke. $6.99. Entrée and two sides. $14.99. Appetizer, Entrée, and Desert. $19.99. I have never gone to a Restaurant that I've had to piecemeal a meal together to eat. I'm not saying there aren't any out there, but they usually try to simplify it for their customers.
I got chills! They're multiplyin'. And I'm losin' control. Cuz the power, I'm supplyin'. Why it's ELECTRIFYIN'!!
The analogies are getting thick, but let me respond to this:
1. People are smart enough to read menus and comparison shop for things they want at prices they're willing to pay. Your argument that this is all to complicated is quite frankly wrong, as far as I've seen.
2. You bloody well CAN order ingredients in a restaurant. You can pay for toppings on your pizza by ingredient, you can pay for extra cheese, you might have to pay extra for chunky blue cheese dressing on your salad, you can pay extra for bacon on your subway sandwich or "double meat" for that matter, the list goes on.
3. Segev has already stated that you can take the system he has in mind and offer bundles that would take the majority of the thinking out of the picture for people who want the game to offer them "good advice" in the form of bundles of stuff that make sense together. This means that you've got your subscription levels and individual microsubs and have more options and more freedom to pick and choose what you want and what you don't want. I go to a diner almost every week and get the breakfast platter, which comes with coffee and juice and have to tell hem every time that I don't want EITHER of those and would prefer diet coke, a conversation about the bill ensues and I either get a nice waitress who will just give the sodaspop to me without charging or one who will stand on the letter of the law and simply not bring the juiice and coffee and charge me for the soda. If Segev were the manager of that place I could adjust that purchase to my liking when I order instead of having to make "substitutions" that try to go off the menu.
4. You can order a combo meal from McDonalds, OR you can order just a burger, or just a small fries, or just a coke. They have prices for everything individually and for comboes of things that people will likely want as one bundle. Segev is ready willing and able to offer that same type of thing to the customers in the form of microsubs and bundles, as far as I can tell.
R.S.O. of Phoenix Rising
If you need to think of it in the resturants analogy and subscriptions at the very least you can categorize it as:
Dollar Menu (single perk month to month access)
Value. Meals (bundles of perks month to month)
Entire Menu (all perks month to month)
Only here there wouldn't be any multiple ordering off the dollar menu of the same item (for micro subs).
Value Meals would be suggested combos but you could make your own.
And either the larger your monthly order is or after a certain point you also get store credit with your monthly order to use in the store.
[hr]I don't use a nerf bat, I have a magic crowbar!
- Combat Mechanic -
[color=#ff0000]Tech Team. [/color]
To further abuse this restaurant/dollar menu analogy.......
If you order off of the dollar menu (which btw is no longer everything a dollar), you don't get the same value as you would if you ordered an Extra Value Meal. Are we going to get the same treatment in regards to that? If I piecemeal my order I pay for exactly what I piecemeal, but if I were to order a pre-made Micro-sub would I get a better value from it? If that is the case, why order off of the dollar menu?
Let's compare.
Individually. Double Cheeseburger with bread, meat, cheese, pickles, onions, mustard, and ketchup. $1.62. Medium order of fries, salted. $1.62. Medium Coke with ice. $1.32. For a total of $4.56 + taxes.
Double Cheeseburger Extra Value Meal with all of the above bundled up $4.27 + taxes. Savings of .29 cents. That is a 6.4% savings.
May not seem like much to you, but every penny a person can save is exactly what they will try to do.
Point I'm making here is that an a la carte/dollar menu idea is not always the best value. Sure it may be easier for a person to get exactly what they want and fit within a certain budget, but the Extra Value Meal will actually be the better choice. This is why I never order from the Dollar Menu when I go into a Fast Food chain. I know I'm getting ripped off if I do. Hence why I am so resistant and hesitant to get behind this whole Micro-Subscription model idea. I want my money that I spend to have value. Everybody does.
I got chills! They're multiplyin'. And I'm losin' control. Cuz the power, I'm supplyin'. Why it's ELECTRIFYIN'!!
What I believe Segev is getting at here is while yes, the per perk micro sub may not be the best value, it allows for people to pay for the perks that they want.
There will be suggested bundles which is an indication that players can piece together their own bundle.
He's stated previously the idea is to lower the floor for what people can pay and raise the ceiling for what people can pay. The most affordable option (the option of lowert cost) may not be the best deal on its own, but if someone can only afford a dollar or two per month to put toward exactly the perk they really like, Segev wants to make that an option for those people. If someone wants a specific set of perks, at some point they become a bundle with a better "value" or they begin to get a Stipend of Stars or both.
[hr]I don't use a nerf bat, I have a magic crowbar!
- Combat Mechanic -
[color=#ff0000]Tech Team. [/color]
Not sure if this is a good idea at all. Making essential game play optional for money leaves a bad tast for the whole game. With essential game play I mean all powers missions and alike. After all, we are not talking about a free to play game. Paying a basic monthly subscrition should give you access to the whole game and most of the bells and whistles (read costumes, emotes, power effecs and power animations). After all, you're paying a monthly subscription to get all new missions every month (or at least issue).
A different issue are additional costumes - the way CoX handled it was great. They where nothing one realy needs, still, I bought each and every pack.
Same goes for emotes and animations - including redundant powers. This means different Animations/Styles/Costumizations of existing powers. For example the ability to wield an AK47 instead of an M16 for some gun fighter type while game relevant stats are the same. Similar for traveling powers (nightcrawler vs. jumper teleport) or every other.
My opinion here is not only on classic CoH and other MMOs based, but also when analyzing fremium web games. Games who give full unlimited game content to free players and let paying player just get additional items/perks not influencing the game play do perform significant better (in turn over) than games selling in game advantages.
H.
I'm bad at breaking up quotes into pieces, so I'm going to respond to Raffzahn's points one at a time, with regular quotation marks:
1. "Making essential game play optional for money leaves a bad tast for the whole game." Why is one paid-for task force here or trial there "essential"? You're not required to do it. Lord knows there were people who played CoH who didn't bother to do the Signature Story Arcs or the Incarnate content in CoX (both of which cost money to unlock in some way) and the guy who lead my SG was a self-avowed dedicated soloist who rarely did TFs in general. Assuming all players, sub or non-sub have enough different missions etc to get them to the level cap without having to pay for anything extra, I personally define anything beyond that as "not essential, but perhaps attractive" content. I get that some people are completeness who want to do ALL the missions. I don't agree that ALL the missions should be provided to all players for no added money, ever, beyond the initial purchase of the game. I believe that new content ought to be able to be monetized so the company gets rewarded for producing it and make MORE of it for us, and of better quality. If you insist on not paying for missions and stuff as they get released in the future, you're essentially telling the company "don't bother making any more content for us, because we won't buy it". Demanding that it be provided anyway, for free, will get you crappier content than you would get otherwise and less frequently, in my opinion. In your zeal to have 100% of what content exists for no additional money, you sentence yourself to a world where you most likely get a lot less new content in general and lower quality content when it does come out. You're killing the thing you love by starving it of resources (i.e. money).
2. "With essential game play I mean all powers missions and alike." So you're saying you think they shouldn't charge money for new power sets as they get made either? CoX did that too, and I disagree here as well. I did pay money beyond the monthly sub for the Demon Summon set to make a mastermind character, which I thoroughly enjoyed. Would it have been a better deal for me, personally, if it had been simply given out to all subscribers as soon as it was ready to roll out, sure, but the company would have suffered then. They paid people to design and build that power set and now you're going to deign to tell them that they can't charge for it? You're being pretty generous with everyone else's hard work there. I think the if the company feels the need to monetize new power sets as they come out, they should be able to do so, because that then ensures that they'll continue to make more new power sets so as to be able to sell them to us. Again, continued cash flow into the company for various things ensures more of those things get made.
3. "Paying a basic monthly subscrition should give you access to the whole game and most of the bells and whistles" I agree with his, in spirit, though the devil is in the details, namely what you consider "bells and whistles" and how many is "most" of them and which ones count as "the game" and which as "extra", etc. But what about the people who buy the box and don't pay any monthly sub? What do they get, in your ideal world? What is the advantage or extra stuff gained by the person who pays $50 to buy the game agrees to pay a monthly sub after that as compared to the persons who pays the $50 and then says "I absolutely refuse to pay you any more of my money, ever." Because I think the divide between those two people ought to be fairly substantial. That said, you can't make the game frustratingly difficult to play for the non-sub player either. A certain amount of quality of life is probably necessary even for them.
4. "Games who give full unlimited game content to free players and let paying player just get additional items/perks not influencing the game play do perform significant better (in turn over) than games selling in game advantages." I assume here you're measuring success in terms of number or people playing the game? I don't. I measure it it terms of whether the game is fun to play and profitable enough to the company producing it to make it worth their while to continue to produce it. You could have a million players, and if all of them are spending zero dollars a month to play, you know how much money you're getting every month? Zero. I call that abject failure. Again, it's very easy for someone not involved in the company and with no knowledge of the operating costs and whatnot to just declare "BLANK should be free" when you didn't work full time for a year to make "BLANK" and you're not the one trying to pay rent on the monies generated by "BLANK". For starters, this company is not a huge corporation like NCSoft which can invest internal funds into a thing for 5 years of development then roll it out priced to beat the competition and hope it blossoms in a year or two to the point where it makes some money in the long run. Second, the superhero MMO market is a much smaller market than the fantasy MMOs that people are comparing it to. That's not a fair comparison, really. WoW, LoL, Neverwinter, Guild Wars, etc are all in the fantasy market and there's enough room for all of them, so it would seem. I don't think the super-hero market is nearly so big as that, and for what size it does have, you've got a lot of dedicated fanbuys out there who are only interested in a game if it has Batman, or Wolverine, or the Punisher, etc in it. This game will be the one superhero game that doesn't have a tie-in for any established brand in the form of a movie connection or comic book, or TV show. So in your own, admittedly small, niche, you;re starting out one step behind the competition.
R.S.O. of Phoenix Rising
Again, you are assuming that the only thing that will pay for content is by buying content. There are other things that MWM can sell as well and make money. Respecs, Character slots, ATs, Powers, Costumes, Enhancements, Pets, Vanity objects, Inspirations, etc. It may be cheaper for MWM to make costumes, sell them for a large profit, then use that profit to drive the content team to develop new content. Some of these items need only to be made once. Then, after that, you will have repeat buying that will eventually go beyond paying for that one item to have been made. That is nothing but pure profit at that point.
You keep getting hung up on thinking that if people keep buying costumes then it only encourages developers to only create new costumes. New costumes will be made regardless. New fashion is always happening. People like to have greater customization of their characters at every opportunity they can. I'm trying to say to you that you can use the profits made from creating new Costumes, new Pets, new ATs, new Powers, new Vanity Items, etc. to encourage your content team to develop new content. Money made is money made. Is it not? Does it matter really where that money being made is coming from? Is the money better if it's made from selling content instead of selling new Auras?
I'm suggesting, and so are a lot of other people in this thread, that if you keep the content free so that everybody will be able to play it you'll have a happier player base. A happier player base will be a player base more apt to spend money. They will be more apt to spend money on "frivolous things" because they don't have to worry about saving up money to buy something else instead. Those "frivolous things" may be a lot cheaper to create and sell than content is. Is that really so hard to wrap your head around? Or are you just really that gung ho on making sure your idea is the only way anything is ever done?
I got chills! They're multiplyin'. And I'm losin' control. Cuz the power, I'm supplyin'. Why it's ELECTRIFYIN'!!
Hmm.. is that like the Needs Vs. Wants argument they teach kids in grade school? ;)
So Needs are 90-98% Free?
Wants are 100% Pay?
So what falls under Needs and what falls under Wants? :/
At some point in the future that will be nice.
At some point in the future, those famous author written missions will be nice.
I'm concerned that the price at launch of a sub (and therefore everything else) is designed to cover running costs, wages, paying authors for content.. because there aren't enough of us for that.
I'm not saying you should all work for free but you should be looking at minimum viable product and low running costs. Oh and also.. with only 10k of us (maybe) at launch, you may be looking at working for free until the game starts to make a profit.
If you need more money, pretty much everyone has said sell a box. You already sell some merch. Do launch packages like Neverwinter did (stupid spider / horse / in-game pet, forum titles etc.). Borrow a 3d printer and make models of game characters. People love them.
May be a bit late for a Christmas money-making sale, shame if so but there's always New Year. Get some artist-signed prints on the shop. Christmas cards! Well not if it's not Christmas.. Easter cards! Birthday cards! The card that tells your friends "hey there's a new game coming out soon".
The really good thing the game has going for it right now is that you have no loans / investors to pay back. You have us who are willing to invest more and who aren't asking for a profit based return or for shares in the company, we just want you to make something for the same reasons you want to make it.
I dunno, it feels like we're telling you how you can make money and you're just telling us how much it will cost us to play.
If people won't pay enough to finance its creation, it is not worth creating.
/Segev
Need : to be able to log in and play most-all of the content with most-all of the playerbase.
Need : the same rewards as everyone else
You have got to be able to play all the TFs
You have got to be able to do tips
You have got to be able to access all the contacts except if those contacts are soa/warshade only. (see wants)
Want:
If you can't play sig story arcs or incarnate trials without paying... then fine.
If you can't play warshades or soldiers of arachnos without buying them.. fine.
Access levels:
less access to base builder - can't build the biggest base, can't access all the items, can't invite as many people..
less access to the market - maybe limit the amount of in-game currency you can have?
less access to tailor - not as many free tokens, changes cost more, maybe even no access unless you paid for it.
less character slots.
Access levels should be purchasable and be straight forward. If you pay to be a base builder or use the market there are no levels of that.. you get what the subber gets.
Tailor tokens and character slots can be bought as micro transactions, as a sub and included in the highest level sub.
Cash shop:
respecs / costumes / insps / enhancements etc. especially badass restricted AT costumes. People are then paying for the AT and then again for the badass outfit.
I would be completely opposed to running a TF if it required me or someone else to have paid for it. Or I'd farm it and increase the have / have not gap. Neither scenario is in the spirit of CoH.
If people won't pay enough to finance its creation, it is not worth creating.
/Segev
Most people seem to be on the same page as me regarding how the "menu of microsubscriptions" idea will work. Regarding what the various items will be... the things oOstaticOo listed have a lot of "access to all..." in them. That's not quite the right way to look at it. For one, things like archetypes and powers are better sold as one-offs. I know oOstaticOo says he'll buy them and never pay another dime, but it should come as no surprise that the one-off purchases are not "every archetype at one low price," but are "each archetype individually." Just like going to a toy store and buying action figures: you get them individually. Even "boxed sets" are rarely all the action figures that will ever exist in a line.
Character slots, respecs, etc. will also be one-off purchases...but obviously, you can KEEP buying them to get more. Sure, everybody has a point where they decide they have "enough" character slots, but that point is different for everybody.
Access to the Auction House - that is, the player-to-player market - can't be paid-only; it is a key mechanism to the concepts behind letting free players get access to Stars by selling to other players. Increasted AH slots? That's actually an excellent candidate for a microsubscription (as are additional inventory slots). These can be rented at a handful of Stars each for a month, and you just get as many as you need for your convenience. If they lapse while you happen to have them "occupied," your maximum inventory space decreases. You can take stuff out, but you're told your inventory is still full until you get down below the number of slots for which you're subscribed.
Access to all emotes is a rare exception where a microsubscription to cover that (or to cover large subsets thereof) might be valid. Renting those makes sense, and doesn't lock up a character if the microsubscription lapses. One probably could still also buy emotes individually, to permanently have them.
But I have little concern over somebody who buys all the archetypes, all the power sets, all the costume pieces, etc., and then "never pays another dime." Not only will more of each come out with time, but that's going to be a HUGE up-front investment, probably more money than even a year's subscription. "Everything" is, after all, an awful lot. If you want to spend that kind of money, you're a very welcome customer, and we're happy to have you play the game as much as you want without spending any more. Especially if you still want to buy our Summer line of costume pieces for next year when they come out...
[color=#ff0000]Business Manager[/color]
[img]http://missingworldsmedia.com/images/favicon.ico[/img]
You COMPLETELY missed what I was saying. If I have to buy each AT individually I will ONLY buy the ONE, or TWO ATs, I desire to play and not buy any other ones. So will a lot of other people. This isn't like Pokémon where I gotta catch em all. This is, "Okay, I can't play everything so I'm just going to choose the ones I want to play the most." Same goes with powers.
That was EXACTLY what I did with DCUO. I only played the available free ATs and Powers. I thought there were some other cool DLCs that were out there with other powers to play with, but they were not worth spending the money on them. So I just stuck with the free ones only.
I got chills! They're multiplyin'. And I'm losin' control. Cuz the power, I'm supplyin'. Why it's ELECTRIFYIN'!!
Dont feel bad Static... Admit it, We 'R' Cheapos. ;)
Will you Join the Cheapos SG of mine. Of course the SG outfit is made out of Rags. :P
And so are the majority of the people in the world. "A Penny saved......."
I got chills! They're multiplyin'. And I'm losin' control. Cuz the power, I'm supplyin'. Why it's ELECTRIFYIN'!!
You are definitely one type of player. If you're satisfied with the free - or just one or two purchased - classifications, then I'm glad for you that you can get what you want. What you seem to be saying to me is that you don't mind having your desire for just one or two things exploited and overcharged; this seems counter-intuitive to me.
If all I want is Minionmancy, and the person from whom I seek to buy the right to play a character with that specification realizes this, I will be annoyed if he decides, "well, I get more money if I make him pay $15/month for just that than if I charge him $5 for it once and let him play it forever. Sure, he's also getting these dozen other things for that $15/month, but I know he doesn't want them." Meanwhile, I think that person is being foolish. There WILL be people who want all 13 of those things. They will only be paying $15/month for them...and for any new ones you ever come out with. They could have been paying $65 for those 13...and then another $5 each time a new one comes out.
So not only do I lose Segev's money when he says, "screw it, $15/month isn't worth it for the one thing I want," but I don't get more money for all the other things I put out there for those paying $15/month. I've capped what they'll pay.
Moreover, if they suffer some economic setback, and they lapse, now they can't play their characters. Since they can't play, they go find something else to do with their time while their money is short. It is much harder to regain a player than it is to retain one; if they could keep playing because they bought it, they would still be playing when their economic situation improves and they could afford to buy things that have come out in the meantime.
The goal here is to make sure that we never lose players due to their finances faltering. We want to retain them so that they will keep playing and, when their finances stabilize once more, they still have all the excitement and emotional investment (not to mention financial investment in all the stuff they bought) that they had before they had to cut back on their spending. We don't lose players to economic hardship, and we don't see a cascade effect of their friends playing less as they have fewer people to play with.
[color=#ff0000]Business Manager[/color]
[img]http://missingworldsmedia.com/images/favicon.ico[/img]
I was going to try to argue the case back, but screw it. I'm done. You win. I'm out. This does not sound like a project I am willing to try to support anymore. I almost left a little while back, but some of my friends convinced me to try to stick with it and try to present my case better (which obviously I am not). So good luck.
I got chills! They're multiplyin'. And I'm losin' control. Cuz the power, I'm supplyin'. Why it's ELECTRIFYIN'!!
Really?
That's what you're going with?
It's nice that you care but basing your pricing structure in the face of opposition from your biggest investors.. I'm just.. I dunno.. seriously?
I'm gonna go lie down.
If people won't pay enough to finance its creation, it is not worth creating.
/Segev
On the one hand, we DO care, because the initial goal of the project - the thing which got it started - is to provide a home for players who lost their preferred one. On the other, there's a purely economic motivation for not wanting to lose players who are suffering temporary economic setbacks. As I stated (though it probably was lost in the wall of text), it's harder to regain players who've stopped playing than it is to retain players who are still playing. And if we can retain them through their financial difficulties, they'll still be around when their finances improve and they can afford to spend money again.
I get that people just want to pay a "full subscription" and be done with it. I'm sad if we do lose players over it (though I hope they'll still come and play the free side of it). But a full subscription just is not viable with a smaller customer base. It caps our potential earning-per-player, and it excludes players who might buy a few things but couldn't afford the "full subscription."
oOstaticOo, I don't know why you're so offended that you can get what you want with a one-time purchase and be done. I hope you'll reconsider when we actually have a game out for you to play. We will welcome your purchasing just what you want, even if that's all you ever do buy.
GH, I'm not sure what makes you think that "our biggest investors" are 100% represented by those who oppose the more flexible pricing structure. I'm seeing more than just me supporting it.
All I can really say is that I expect people WILL be able to get what they want through the pricing structure proposed. The precise details of what WILL and WILL NOT be for sale, what will and will not be always automatically free, are still in work. We are not going to nickle and dime you to death, but we will have the abilty to spend as little or as much as you want on the game, so we can broaden our base of players as much as possible while letting those with deep pockets support the game as much as they are willing.
[color=#ff0000]Business Manager[/color]
[img]http://missingworldsmedia.com/images/favicon.ico[/img]
Let's see if I have this down
The game will require an initial purchase to play.
The initial purchase grants permanent access to
* some archetypes
* some powersets
* some emotes
* some costume pieces
* auction house
* player-player chat
* basic missions
The player will be able to permanently unlock via purchases
* Additional archetypes
* Additional powersets
* Additional emotes
* Additional costume pieces
* Consumables (respecs, xp-boosters, drop-rate boosters, etc)
* Additional mission sets
The player will be able to temporarily unlock
* Additional auction house space
* Additional crafting space
* All emotes
* New missions
There will be microsubscriptions for the "rent" items
It is possible that microsubscriptions will be grouped into packages, with some discount over individual purchases.
This all seems reasonable.
I'd like to suggest that "renting" access to set bonuses is reasonable
(basic acc/damage modifier would still work if rent not paid, unlike CoH)
That is a very succinct summary of things, AcceleratorRay. Thank you. ^_^
In addtion to additional auction house spaces over the baseline, extra inventory (as in, what your characters can carry before having to store/sell/trade/consume the items in question) slots will likely be available "for rent" in microsubscriptions. Like AH spaces, the idea will be that you can rent exactly how many you want.
[color=#ff0000]Business Manager[/color]
[img]http://missingworldsmedia.com/images/favicon.ico[/img]
Would you also consider the ability to pay more and permanently unlock slots (costume, storage, auction house, character, etc)? And/or have permanent slots as some part of veteran's reward system?
Then your product is too expensive.
Also the rest of the team will also be sad. They thought they were going to get paid.
Actually you are going out of your way to exclude people who want to sub. Which is still a requirement under kickstarter rules so good luck with that. Sub plus cash shop and some other entry points does't exclude anyone. The aim should be to encourage people to regularly pay a sub when they don't rather then just giving you the odd dollar here and there every couple of months. Unless you believe the free to play player will give you more than the sub a month.
Potential earnings per player.
I'm a player. I want a subscription model, I represent an actual income stream, guaranteed, I'm also likely to buy things from a cash shop. I'm likely to buy merchandise. I'm likely to just give you money during development.
I'm a player. I am playing for free. I'm playing a variety of games and just drop in to this one from time to time. I couldn't give a rats ass about hats and guns. I won't ever buy anything.
They both have potential but your decision making tree is broken if it doesn't figure out the actual likelihood of a player actually realising that potential.
If people won't pay enough to finance its creation, it is not worth creating.
/Segev
I pulled this into the mod room for a bit to discuss, because a lot of people had concluded how we were set up for revenue based on what was being suggested by several people. I could have wiped it, erased the thoughts presented here, locked the thread, but instead I decided on reiterating something forgotten in all of the discussion.
When we began this, we went with the promise of no rental, no halvsies, no being able to take away something once earned. In all of this discussion, on all sides, that promise has been forgotten. This ties our hands in some ways - several of the microsubscription models Segev loves don't make sense without keeping the big picture in mind, and a lot of details which are not yet released.
What can be done has to keep in mind what we've been promising from day one, that the goal is to keep the power in your hands. Now, this subscription may be multi-tiered, with a better stipend/discount attached to each tier, but it remains the same model.
Many microsubscription models which were proposed over the past several months fail in meeting our obligations to the community, to our kickstarter backers, and the promises we made ourselves. Segev is fully aware of this, and has worked hard to keep these things in mind while developing his model. It is to offer more selection than the basic stipend with early access subscription we presented in our kickstarter. And more options are always good.
Technical Director
Read enough Facebook and you have to make Sanity Checks. I guess FB is the Great Old One of the interent these days... - Beamrider
Well now, that certainly simplifies and focuses the discussion.
Should ultimately make customers' decisions simpler too.
[img]https://i.imgur.com/26pBVBG.png[/img]
([i]Currently developing the Sapphire 7 Initiative[/i])
For the sake of clarity purposes, can you please outline what that does and does not contain? This way we will hopefully not make the same mistake of assuming something that has been said. That hopefully we will put this horse to rest and stop kicking it. Also please dissuade further discussion of monetization methods or monetizing certain parts of the game from other players. I'm all for discussing ideas and suggestions that will help to improve CoT, but there should be a limit on exactly what should and shouldn't be brought up. As has been witnessed, monetization is a very heated area.
I got chills! They're multiplyin'. And I'm losin' control. Cuz the power, I'm supplyin'. Why it's ELECTRIFYIN'!!
In our kickstarter we went over our base subscription model somewhat.
That plan is for a Buy to Play model with an optional subscription and cash store. The difference is in that the "purchase price" includes a few months of subscription service equal to the price of the purchase ($45 purchase gives 3 months VIP subscription). What a subscription offers is two fold, early access (getting access to new goodies a few weeks to a month ahead of time) and a cash store stipend equal to the VIP subscription price + 20%. ($15 sub gets you $18 cash store stipend). Purchases fall into one of two categories, consumables (double XP, temporary PvE minions a la blobby, etc) and permanents (costume pieces, power themes, etc).
The goal is to make almost everything in the cash store also available in-game through unlocks tied to badges. But while store purchases are account-wide, in-game is character-only. Think the old cape mission. Imagine if you could purchase a perma-unlock for them. You'd not have the associated badge, mind you, so people could always check if you played for it, or just bought it - for those who are badgers like I was. That's the general model.
The numbers are still floating somewhat, but is the general idea. It may include other elements, we'd like it to, but that is not yet determined.
Technical Director
Read enough Facebook and you have to make Sanity Checks. I guess FB is the Great Old One of the interent these days... - Beamrider
Thank you very much.
I got chills! They're multiplyin'. And I'm losin' control. Cuz the power, I'm supplyin'. Why it's ELECTRIFYIN'!!
It is a bit sad, since I really think Segev was on to something there.
But a promise is a promise.
Could someone who is on the up and up about the relevant information explain why spending the lump sum each month on the "full" subscription is good and being able to spend a smaller amount each month on a "micro" subscription is bad? Is the problem that it would be difficult, or impossible, to provide a stipend for micro-subscriptions?
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[font=Pristina][size=18][b]Hail Beard![/b][/size][/font]
Support [url=http://cityoftitans.com/comment/52149#comment-52149]trap clowns[/url] for CoT!
I dont know... But, $6 to $8 /mo minimum should be there. Weather it be a Sub, or many small Micro Subs. My feelings. ;)
All this talk of Subs made me hungry. :<
Keep in mind, we're not finalizing subscriptions, be they VIP, micro, etc, until the middle of next year. The MMO market is evolving, and any nailed-down bits we have which are more solid than the vague general idea just will not be ready before then. Segev has solid ideas on microsubscriptions to explore, we have the existing framework to work off of, and the final form is not yet knowable at this time.
The problem of frank discussions so far out remains the same - people take those in-progress ideas as the final result.
Technical Director
Read enough Facebook and you have to make Sanity Checks. I guess FB is the Great Old One of the interent these days... - Beamrider
Oh, my mistake. Upon re-reading I see that I glossed over the "most of the microsubscription models" bit and thus assumed microsubscriptions were entirely off the table.
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[font=Pristina][size=18][b]Hail Beard![/b][/size][/font]
Support [url=http://cityoftitans.com/comment/52149#comment-52149]trap clowns[/url] for CoT!
Oh heck no. Some of them work really well. Others can work with tweaking. But getting them before fully developed can give conflicting, or confusing, ideas as to what they are.
Technical Director
Read enough Facebook and you have to make Sanity Checks. I guess FB is the Great Old One of the interent these days... - Beamrider
In terms of getting people to pay for a full sub, or an option idea for a micro-sub (mSub), is locking F2P to a set Max Level (plus other ideas).
I've seen this in other games where the max level on F2P is generally less than 1/2 - so a Max Level 50 game locks F2P to level 20 for example.
What I would be interested in is if CoT had this Max Level Lock but instead gave MORE levels to F2P.
So for example CoT will have Max Level 30 at launch. F2P allows the player to reach Max Level 22-24. This means they get to play almost all the content and get almost to the top of the Power Tiers, but if they want to get to Level 30 and all the max level content, Enh, etc then they need to Sub or mSub.
If they get a character to Max Level 30 with Sub or mSub, then decide to stop subbing then THAT character stays at Max Level - they don't loose levels or access to the character. Any other character between 22-24 and 30 (numbers are example only) stay at that level and stop earning XP (or earn XP up until Next Level XP -1XP).
So even after the 3 month AutoSub that is included in the Box, that includes all content, players can still learn/enjoy the game to a "satisfactory" level and make up their minds about if the game is worth (to them) Subbing or mSubbing.
When I tried out the Star Wars MMO it was F2p Locked to level 20. When I hit 20 I felt that I hadn't played enough of the game to know if it was worth not only my money but also my time, which is getting more limited and more important (Im now engaged, building a house with my fiance', trying to plan the wedding, kids are on the agenda [don't tell her I called it that!], the new house is a 1.5 hr train ride from work, etc) so I have less time to play games then I once did. I cant play CoT for 5 hours every night like I did with CoH. If I have a few games to play I have very little time to devote to a game so let me get to know MOST of the game but still give me an opportunity to pay for more.
Thank you for your time :)
The Phoenix Rising Initiative Rules Lawyer
There comes a time, then, when you have to define what you're actually paying for so that you can define when things that were "paid for already" would become subject to "takesies-backsies" which we want to avoid.
For example, if you write a new Task Force in year 3 and you tell people "only subscribers can access this via the full sub or the one microsub it requires" then a person lets their subscription expire, you're effectively "taken back" the access to that TF which that player used to have. I personally don't consider THAT to be a violation of the "no takesies-backsies" rule because access to a thing is not the same as owning the thing. It's not like a power set or a costume piece that is so integral to the character that you're effectively locked the person out of their own toon via the lapsed sub.
By the same token, you could have a "VIP club" map in the game where only people who paid a certain level of monthly money get to go there, everyone else is locked out until they agree to pay a monthly microsub or full sub or something.
Given the above examples, hypothetically, if you DID have a TF that was "microsub/full-sub only", you COULD then charge people a "ticket to ride" fee for ONE run of that TF, the idea being that people who don't want to pay the microsub for a month's access CAN still do that content for a less efficient price structure, that is buying a ticket to do ONE run of that TF each time you want to do one. If you only do one or two TFs a month you're saving money, if you do a lot more you're encouraged to SAVE money by paying the monthly sub or microsub. I think that's how the subs and microsubs ought to operate in general, giving you more for your money by scaling up the amount of stuff you get when you agree to subscribe. This mitigates the problem of fracturing the community (the "you can't come with us because you're not a subscriber, sorry" problem). Letting the team members ride on the leader's subscribed access also alleviates that. There are some options there, I feel. I don't personally know which method get's the company more money in the long run, charging ticket prices for people who want to do a premium TF one time or making them find a suitable team leader buddy to give them the "in" they need.
In that "buddies ride free" system you are effectively saying "only a paid sub or microsub player can START a TF team" when you do that. You COULD also make each person doing the premium TF get AT MOST ONE "buddy" they can bring along, so that at least 50% of each TF team will be paid subscribers. I don't know.
In any event, I don't feel that new mission arcs and new trials/TFs, which are thing you might repeatedly run through with different toons should be considered "buy it one time and own it forever" type stuff. I would relegate those to "subscribe in some way and you get access to this, don't and you don't" then maybe sell tickets to runs of TFs one at a time or let the cheapskates sponge off of the payers, whichever you think makes you more money in the long run, frankly.
One thing that system WOULD do is encourage people to go out and tell their friends to buy the game, so that THEY (the ones already playing, and presumably not paying for a sub after the initial 3-months) would get to use their newbie friends to access the premium content. So there is some merit to that, in that it get's people selling the game to their friends. I worry though that you eventually end up with a bunch of players none of whom wants to be the guy who has to pay a sub and everyone is looking at everyone else like "are you gunna pay a sub? Because if you do, then I don't have to, so.......?" and it turns into a 500-way standoff of people not wanting to be THAT guy but wanting to be in good with THAT guy if he's paid for the month. I think this might build resentment in one or two directions. The non-subbers resenting the fact that they have to recruit someone to let them into the premium content and the paid players resenting the fact that there are so many people who want to get that for free when we're paying for it. The MMO genre already has enough hatred heaped upon the noobs by the vets, this might add to that significantly. At least with the "everyone has to buy a ticket or be a subscriber" system the person buying the ticket can, in fact, lead and/or start the TF (ticket not used up until the first mission of the TF is completed, etc) AND the effect of veterans resenting the freeloading noobs (and noobs resenting the freeloading vets) is no longer there either.
Again, whatever makes the company the most money, long term, all things considered is probably the best option, and I have no clue what that is really.
I also like the idea of limiting how many buy and sell slots the non-sub player has to just one of each. This makes them have to buy and sell stuff faster so as to do a lot of purchases and sales in series, compared tot he subscriber who can have 10 or more deals cooking at any given time and can this afford to drive a hard bargain and wait the market out, etc. This gives the subscriber better negotiating power over prices, effectively.
I could see giving the subscribers a costume/avatar builder that has more features than the one the non-subs have to use. The color palette could be say 16 colors for the non-subs and something more like THOUSANDS of colors for the subscribers, etc.
I think a personal lair is something you might have to pay a sub to be able to make and access after you make it, or maybe YOU can still use it but nobody ELSE can if you're not paying a sub, I don't know. Or maybe you have to pay a sub to be allowed to access OTHER people's liars but you always get access to your own.
I don't know how SGs and bases might work in terms of subs and whatnot really. The "Group ownership" thing is tricky to deal with. If one person is the founder of the SG, you maybe have to get that guy to pay a sub and if he doesn;t then the SG base goes dark and loses functionality, but you can still access it if you're in the SG, I don't know. One thing you can't do is offer people added storage space of stuff in their SG base then cut the off from accessing that when the SG leader doesn't pay up for the month.
R.S.O. of Phoenix Rising
I agree with Radiac that IF we lock some missions (of any type) behind a Sub or mSub then it is ok of access is removed once the Sub/mSub expires as the player can still use their character with the powers/animations/enh/etc in the remainder of the game of which there is so much more.
So lets say for example (and again this is JUST an example) CoT has UberCarnate stuff at level 30 only and this requires a Sub/mSub. I stop paying for the Sub/mSub and cant do the Uber Trails, but I can still do "Standard" Level 30 TF/Missions/etc.
The Phoenix Rising Initiative Rules Lawyer
Hmm.. maybe it should be a one time purchase for that toon. I dont like it being a Sub, or even a M-Sub. :{
Soooo, will there be a rule that makes things gotten from a Subs, M-Sub, account wide? :)
Izzy I would ASSUME that anything that is Subbed/mSubbed would be Account-wide.
I'd rather the Max Level Unlock be a Sub/mSub feature. If you want the last 20% of levels accessible then pay a Sub/mSub. Hell with my 50 characters in CoH (over half at level 50) having to remember that once I got to level 40 I have to pay (again) to allow my character to level up would be a constant smack in the face reminder of the payment.
Also what happens if I delete the character in CoT after paying the One Time Purchase? Do I get a voucher for my next character to hit Level 22-24? I would say No.
The Phoenix Rising Initiative Rules Lawyer
I think the problem of letting people buy a whole mission arc or TF or trial by paying for it just one time is that you end up making a lot less money that way, over time, because that option is eventually a lot cheaper than charging an ongoing subscription of any kind. If the "premium missions/TFs/trials" microsub would be $2/month versus a one-time sale of say $10, $20, or even $50, you're eventually going to make less money with the "buy it once" deal than you will with the "pay the ongoing microsub" deal, it's only a mater of time.
Another angle on this is that the "pay for it one time, own it forever" model is less than ideal for missions/TFs/and trials in the sense that once you've sold that to someone, you have the problem of wanting to keep it up to date and well maintained, but you really shouldn't be tinkering with a TF or trial that you already sold to some people. Take the Sister Psyche TF for example. They changed who was giving it and what it actually was more than once during the life of the game. If they wanted to do any of that kind of updating or whatever to a premium TF that people had paid for, they'd be tweaking a thing AFTER you bought it, thus making your initial purchase a thing that later gets affected by developer whims after the fact. You might have liked it BETTER before the changes and demand they restore it to the original version, the one you THOUGHT you were getting when you "bought" it in the first place. Or maybe they DON'T retcon that TF for YOU, but they stop offering it to people and instead offer a NEW version that's up-to-date with the current in-game backstory. You might feel annoyed that they're making you buy the same thing again, and others might be annoyed that they cannot buy the OLD version, etc.
I feel that missions, TFs, and trials are not a thing you can buy and own, for this reason, and that you're only able to sell access to that stuff in some way. That is, you sell it as a service that is offered on a "use it as much as you want, but only while you're sub is paid up" basis, because that allows the devs to tweak stuff after the fact and because it probably means more money coming in for the company than the other option.
R.S.O. of Phoenix Rising
If the content is repeatable then I can see your argument Radiac about it not being viable. But the thing is, even CoX did "buy once, play unsubbed" content purchases. The Signature Story arcs are an ideal example of this.
So whilst you were subbed you could play them. If you unsubbed you lost access to them. But you could also buy them, on a piece by piece basis, or if you were prepared to wait, the entire stack in one go.
But the thing is, tinkering the content I wouldn't have a problem with it. If there are bugs/balance issues with it, then I feel that no matter its status, it should be fixed. Why should "bought" content be exempt from fixes.
Of course, large scale changes to it (for story line reasons a different contact gives it out later on), then I feel that the NEW version would be a totally different version. Maybe the old original version could only be played by people who had bought it originally via oroborus; and if need be offer the "NEW AND IMPROVED" version to the old players as well as a way of saying "this is because we changed it a load, here is the new version for you for free. The old one is still there if you want to play it".
There is nothing stopping MWM from doing this. Hell, it would at least give the older players the benefit of something. A loyalty bonus as it were. And if MWM really wanted to, they could sell BOTH version separately to the *new* players. There are ways around this problem. Hell, you look at World of Warcraft who have changed whole zones for everyone. Cataclysm did a lot of changes for the "vanilla" players, that you just couldn't avoid. Quests were trimmed/changed over time. New stuff added, towns were changed. Even though they might have been subbed from the start, but not bought ANY of the expansions they still had change forced on them.
Just the vets got the advantage[1].
[1] Just like how those who were subbed to CoX post Going Rogue eventually got it free... and when the game went F2P, they got Going Rogue included. They didn't even need to buy it in the end. The players who joined post Freedom though, they had to pay for it.
I really wish this thread had remained deleted. Right now I hope it gets locked. This really isn't something I feel we should be trying to discuss. I can see this thread getting out of hand once again.
I got chills! They're multiplyin'. And I'm losin' control. Cuz the power, I'm supplyin'. Why it's ELECTRIFYIN'!!
I think I'm going to lock this thread for a while. There's some good things in it, some bad things in it, and it's certainly useful, but it's run its course.
[color=#ff0000]Project Lead[/color]
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