Please add capacity before 2x XP weekend

Id do that, but I think we would be punishing the wrong people. Not everyone on freedom is bad. Since they have more people, the amount of [censored] is greater. I don't think their "Average [censored]" Rate is any higher than that of other servers.

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Wouldn't want to leave you out, although I've addressed this already: you don't refuse to fly, or go to ball games, or concerts just because some people have better access to those events. The argument that a significant number of people will quit because others have better access is specious.

[/ QUOTE ] I would buy your argument if that is the way it has always been. But you are proposing a change after five years that would decrease the value of the service people are paying for, yet still make them pay the same price. That is what would piss people off.

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The OP is an idiot.

He keeps talking about airline seats. First class seating is not really there to be bought (Although it can be, for outragously inflated pricing). The true purpose of first class seating is to reward people who are loyal to the airline and fly alot. about 95% of the people in first class are upgraded - h aving paid no extra for their premium seat. The other 5% are people with to much money that they are willing to pay anything.

If the flight cancels, first class and coach alike are in the same boat - the both have a ticket and will get the same service. Anything other than that and its discrimination and the airline can be sued.

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This.

I fly a lot. As in, a LOT. For the past six years I've been running my consulting business, I've had no prpblems maintaining at least Premiere status on United.

Know what that means? Sometimes I get to fly somewhere fun for free, because I book a lot of miles. Also, United gives me free upgrades, and sometimes I burn a couple to fly business or first class someplace. It's a nice little treat. And in my experience, based on chatting with other folks in those classes, very few of them paid for a full-up ticket; most of them, like me, are regular business travelers that are burning upgrades.

For the record the only celebrity I've ever seen on a commercial flight was George Takei. He flew coach. I sat next to him. Nice guy.

In any case, the OP has obviously never run a business. By way of establishing my bonafides, I've started and run or been a partner in six businesses, three failed, two were sold at a profit, and one I'm still running. The OP has no idea what it means to attract and keep a client base, and how you have to balance pricing against the known attitudes and values of your target audience. Given the target market of an MMO, it would be laughably stupid to implement the kind of "priority access" the OP suggests.

The solution to the OP's problem has already been stated many times, but I'll state it again - play on off-peak times, or roll on another server. That is the solution that the game already has in place. Deal with it.

They need to add a queue system if anything... Freedom has been locked at other times besides double xp and it is quite annoying having to click back over and over until a server spot is clear.

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have an answer for the problem of pissed customers that can't or won't pay for special access. He ignores that point completely

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Wouldn't want to leave you out, although I've addressed this already: you don't refuse to fly, or go to ball games, or concerts just because some people have better access to those events. The argument that a significant number of people will quit because others have better access is specious.

The argument to "play on another server" is just as weak: If you live in Boston and are an avid fan, and you could go watch a world series game between, say the Yankees and the Red Sox, but access was limited and you would have to pay more, would you go watch the Royals play the Indians in Kansas City instead? After all, its all baseball, right? Same game, there's really no difference, right?

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This argument is weaker.

Double XP is not limited to Freedom. It is not on Freedom one weekend, and another server another, like a baseball team that exists only in one city at a time.

Your complaint is that you want to go to a certain restaraunt. Well, the one on fourth and main is going to be full one weekend, but the exact same restaraunt serving the exact same food with the exact same specials two blocks away is going to have room - yet you refuse to go, because you ALWAYS go to the one on fourth and main, so they should kick some people out because you're willing to pay $10 for a burger instead of 8 (but not, of course, drive two blocks away. That would be unthinkable!)

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MB,

The freakin' hillarious thing is that he's not asking to "get into the restaurant that's full" as though it was never going to allow anyone else to get in that night. He's saying, essentially, "Hey, if I pay $10 for your burgers (instead of $8, or heck, instead of $4), will you go inside, grab that paying customer that's barely started their meal, and kick them out onto the curb, so I can get seated all of 2 minutes before I would have been normally?" There doesn't even have to be another restaurant involved.

The only real time that there is a significant enough load, for any length of time, for any server to cap-out is during DXP weekends. That would be, what? -- 2.5 or 3 days in a row, 3 times per year maybe. So, out of the 365.25 days per year, one or two servers may be capped-out as much as 7.5 to 9 days, and not even for all of those days (hours). That comes up to, at its maximum amount, about 2.5% of the days, one or two servers may be capped-out, not allowing immediate access (i.e., may have to wait 2 minutes). And what would be his suggestion? Pay extra per month/per year/one time to not have to wait an interminable 2 minutes to log in on 2.5% of all of the days per year? How much was that again? $20 for the year? $5 per month? Tell you what, I've got some oceanfront property in Missouri that I'd love to sell him, too. No, really -- it's EXCLUSIVE!

OP -- Do the math:

Say you offer Premium Access for $5/month, on top of regular costs (now $20/month, not counting SBPs and expansions). Ten percent of the players take you up on the offer initially, earning you an extra 3.3% more monthly revenues until they figure out that they're not really getting anything for it 97.5% of the time that they play. Figure it takes one DXP weekend to figure that out: one DXP/4 months = 3 DXPs/year. Maybe 1% keep it going. So your annual increase in sales is 1.4% directly because of this.

Oh, wait ... forgot to remind you that at minimum 5% of the player base quits because of the move, costing you 5% of your annual sales. And you've also increased the cost of doing business because you had to develop the queuing system and add another layer to billing and field more customer complaints... So now, you're pretty close to 5% in the hole, all to make less than 1% of your player base feel even more self-important...

Yes. Phenomenal business acumen. <slow clap>

If I could take your money and that of anybody else desperate enough to pay for this, and throw it into Paragon Studios, while only giving you a placebo badge to convince you that you're now SPECIAL, I would. However, I would not be party to any system that would exclude me or anyone else who's paid for access to this game because we didn't pay EXTRA, especially because the person paying extra was doing it because they couldn't bother to wait 2 freakin' minutes.

Let me give you another example of what that's like: Imagine an intersection with two directions having Stop signs and the perpindicular directions without. Traffic in the lanes without the Stop sign are travelling at safe speeds, but are packed fairly tight. A car comes up to one of the Stop signs and wants to get in the other lanes. They should wait until there's a gap to fit in, but they really don't feel like waiting even 30 seconds. They jump out into traffic, causing someone else to slam on their brakes and get rear-ended, but the car that ran the sign drives off without a look back because they got what they wanted, even if someone else gets hurt in the process.

And BTW -- that mindset is also why we have such a problem with gold farmers in this game.

I dont get why so many people are bashing this guy just because he wants a server pop limit increase. Or why you're telling him to go play on another server.

The hospitality on the coh forums is so charming now days.

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I dont get why so many people are bashing this guy just because he wants a server pop limit increase. Or why you're telling him to go play on another server.

The hospitality on the coh forums is so charming now days.

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How about because he only wants them to bother raising the limits for his server for his convenience and doesn't give a crap about anyone else, including yourself?

He's even changed the idea to a "let me pay for my special privileged spot during the special event to make sure no else can take my place if I log out" suggestion.

huh the cap could be raised on virtue too but freedom is really the only server that needs it. I think alot of people just find great pleasure in being a text bully. Like it really means anything though... half the time I don't take people serious over the internet but some of you make it look like its so damn personal.

popcorn, hot dogs, s'mores, ribs, snickerdoodles, ice cream cones and snow cones here. get your favorite snacks before they run out.


please feel free to copy this and paste where neccessary. it really is hard to get to everyone all at once.

oh and if you think of any other snacks add them to the list.

The hospitality toward newcomers or returning players who come back with valid, well-spoken and nonflaming requests or questions is amazingly good.

Those who aren't such posters, as the OP proves, will get what they came for.

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popcorn, hot dogs, s'mores, ribs, snickerdoodles, ice cream cones and snow cones here. get your favorite snacks before they run out.

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Haaaayyyyyyy. I saw you in another stadium. Um, Thread.

I'd like some .... popcorn. No butter. Salt. Thanks!

Ooh and a snowcone. That sounds good, it's hot today.

here ya go..... 2 snow cones since it's so hot.

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I dont get why so many people are bashing this guy just because he wants a server pop limit increase. Or why you're telling him to go play on another server.

The hospitality on the coh forums is so charming now days.

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Perhaps you should read the points he's so happily ignoring, like how the cap was put in place for a reason, that the extra hardware, etc. would be useful for only a few days a year and the like.

Or perhaps you should read the "Let me in for more money, hey, kick someone else off so that special ME can get in."

Telling him to play on another server? Well, that's easy - of course, it's also been covered (in the long cut and paste reply, among others.) Read that, as well.

And the attitude he's getting back by now is purely a reflection of that he's brought in.

See my Guides and Tutorials

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huh the cap could be raised on virtue too but freedom is really the only server that needs it. I think alot of people just find great pleasure in being a text bully. Like it really means anything though... half the time I don't take people serious over the internet but some of you make it look like its so damn personal.

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Part of the problem is that the OP has refused to accept the reasoning for the population cap that was given us by the Devs themselves.

The population cap is in place not because that is where it starts taxing the servers (Freedom and possibly Virtue already have more server hardware devoted to them to handle their higher populations), but that is where the server population starts to unduly impact the systems of many clients. Increasing the population cap will result in more problems with lag, mapserver, and disconnection issues for more players on Freedom and Virtue. The server hardware is sufficient to handle more players, a significant number of players' computers are not.

After this was explained (which the OP never acknowledged, but he did switch tracks), the OP suggested a new scheme where he could pay more money for "priority access," guaranteeing himself a place on his favored server, even if his logging on while the server is at the population cap will bump off another, non priority player. He followed this with a complete lack of understanding of the industry, and continues to think it would be a grand idea.

Here's a tip, OP, if it was such a good idea, why isn't WoW doing it? They have 13 million+ subscribers. If even 1 million of those subscribers were willing to pay $10 more per month to never have to wait in a server queue again, that would be another $120 million per year lining their pockets. Brilliant, right? Until you realize that if just over half that many people quit because they get bumped off of whatever they are doing (in the middle of a raid that took an hour to organize, say) because one of those priority folks logged on, Blizzard now loses over 500K subscribers, and has no additional revenue to show for it. This game's threshold for losing customers to ragequits is much lower.

Still a good idea? I think not. It is a horrible idea that deserves all the scorn thrown its way since it was proposed. The OPs defense of the idea by way of saying "I have more money that I am willing to throw at NCSoft, therefore I am more important than everyone else" has also met with much derision, and rightly so.

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I dont get why so many people are bashing this guy just because he wants a server pop limit increase. Or why you're telling him to go play on another server.

The hospitality on the coh forums is so charming now days.

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Perhaps you should read the points he's so happily ignoring, like how the cap was put in place for a reason, that the extra hardware, etc. would be useful for only a few days a year and the like.

Or perhaps you should read the "Let me in for more money, hey, kick someone else off so that special ME can get in."

Telling him to play on another server? Well, that's easy - of course, it's also been covered (in the long cut and paste reply, among others.) Read that, as well.

And the attitude he's getting back by now is purely a reflection of that he's brought in.

[/ QUOTE ]To add to this: There's also another, possibly unintended, benefit from the caps as they are. Ever since Freedoms started hitting the Pop locks I've seen folks actually start to dissuade new folks from 'the most populated server'. The lockouts are teh very reasons given, "You could go there, but you risk not being able to play your character at the busiest times."

Even with this, there are still a lot of folks that are running like lemmings to 'the only server that's not dead' and swelling there numbers further. The original post, and all suggestions in that vein, are at best a step and a half from just saying 'merge the servers and move them all to Freedom!' And I think we all know how well those suggestions go over.

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Even with this, there are still a lot of folks that are running like lemmings to 'the only server that's not dead' and swelling there numbers further. The original post, and all suggestions in that vein, are at best a step and a half from just saying 'merge the servers and move them all to Freedom!' And I think we all know how well those suggestions go over.

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I'll just nip this one in the bud before our illustrious OP or other well-meaning individual chimes in with how great an idea a server merge would be.

A server merge would be the death blow of this game, plain and simple. Here's the recipe:

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

Take 1 part customers that are angry because they lost character and/or SG names and quit, add 1 part players quitting because their computer can't handle the increased amount of information being thrown at it from a now jam-packed server, add 1 part 2xp lockouts with no other options available, and a large helping of outside perception of a server merge signaling a struggling game.

Bake for several months, remove the now smoldering corpse of a once viable game and serve.

Ooh you forgot, "bake in a horse-shaped springform pan".

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Ooh you forgot, "bake in a horse-shaped springform pan".

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But then it would have to be tenderized repeatedly with a blunt object before baking, thus slowing the cooking process

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If you live in Boston and are an avid fan, and you could go watch a world series game between, say the Yankees and the Red Sox, but access was limited and you would have to pay more, would you go watch the Royals play the Indians in Kansas City instead?

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Dude, if the World Series is on, it wouldn't be between the Yankees and the Red Sox ... they're in the same division, in the same league. And if the World Series were on, there wouldn't be a game in Kansas City.

Nice analogy, though. Your business acumen is equal to your knowledge of baseball.