Discussion: 63 And 66 Month Veteran Rewards!

I'm paid up for the next year. I have my subscription set to auto-renew. I'm more than willing to wait and pay for the next four years to hit the five-year rewards.

I'm annoyed that, by the time I do, there will be nine-year rewards that I still won't have.

Because I didn't subscribe to the game from the day it launched, I will never have all the veteran rewards, no longer how long I play. I will never be able to "show the dedication and earn them" enough, because there will always be four years of rewards that I will not have.

Why is this so hard to understand? Anyone joining the game right now will have five years of rewards they will never have. Someone joining a year from now will have six years of rewards they will never have. The longer the Veteran's Rewards program continues adding new rewards, the more rewards will be forever out of the reach of new players.

A game cannot continue on the back only of continuing players. Without new players, the game will inevitably stagnate and die. The longer the Veteran's Rewards program adds options and perks that new players will never gain, the greater a disincentive it will become for new players.

Imagine the game continues for another five years as it is now, and a new player comes along thinking they might want to play. Can you imagine how learning that there are forty items - costumes, powers, base options, pets, everything that makes the game great - they will never receive simply because they hadn't heard about the game ten years ago (or are too young to have ever possibly played the game ten years ago) might be discouraging, enough that they might decide to try a different game instead?

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It is far cheaper to retain a customer than to win a new one or to bring back a lapsed customer. That's basic marketing.

For those worried that they can never "catch up" to the older vets, they should hope that's the case. Because holding on to the older vets helps ensure the game continues for the newer players.

Also, some new players may be more likely to go to soon-to-be released Cox competitors. So the dangling carrot of rewards for longevity makes good marketing sense.

Likewise, some vet players may drift away from CoX for those online competitors ... so its not a given that they will be around forever so that newer players can never catch up.

(With all the great changes to CoX lately, though, I hope that doesn't happen ... though I must admit to some curiousity myself about the DC universe online.)

What's more, some vets may be in a similar situation to newer players ... because they have opened second accounts that their vet awards don't apply to. They also have to wait.

This is no different than waiting for more and more rewards from your American Express Card or Frequent Flyer Program. You MUST reward those who stick with you. As a company, they are your bread and butter.

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It is far cheaper to retain a customer than to win a new one or to bring back a lapsed customer. That's basic marketing.

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In some businesses. I'm not sure it applies to this one, because the things done to retain customers are pretty much the exact same things done to attract new customers and returning customers - new updates, new content, new options. The continuing issues serve dual role at retaining and attracting customers.

The Veteran's Rewards can serve the same purpose.

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For those worried that they can never "catch up" to the older vets, they should hope that's the case. Because holding on to the older vets helps ensure the game continues for the newer players.

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A MMO, like a country, needs both to retain as much of its current population as possible while also attracting as many newcomers as possible. A MMO, unlike a country, cannot count on the birth of new customers to retain its numbers.

Attracting new customers - and at the very least not driving them away - is more important than retaining existing customers.

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Also, some new players may be more likely to go to soon-to-be released Cox competitors. [...] [S]ome vet players may drift away from CoX for those online competitors ... so its not a given that they will be around forever so that newer players can never catch up.

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Unless every Veteran player leaves, creating Veteran Rewards for which there are no recipients, newcomers will not "catch up".

I'll also point out that your statement here: "Newcomers will leave, and veterans will leave" pretty much puts both groups in the same boat, making retaining either one equally important.

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You MUST reward those who stick with you. As a company, they are your bread and butter.

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And I'm not saying they shouldn't. I'm saying they shouldn't do so in such a way that disincentises new players.

TL;DR section -

A suggestion: morph the Veteran's Rewards so that they reward both newcomers and veteran players. Continue adding new rewards every three months so that the long-standing players continue to reap benefits for their continued subscription. But instead of leaving the system as it is, thus ensuring that newcomers will have benefits and options forever denied them, implement some kind of dedication reward for those that joined later and stuck with the game.

After a year's subscription, or with a year's subscription, or some similar mechanism that demonstrates a newcomer's dedication to the game, offer double Veteran's Reward credit; thus if you pay for a year's subscription, over that year you will accumulate two years of Veteran's Rewards. Of course, this will cap out once you've "caught up" with the existing veterans. This will allow dedicated newcomers to eventually earn the same benefits as long-standing players, while allowing the incentives to continue accruing for the existing veterans.

Surely the number of veterans who find this scheme wholly unfair and untenable will be small enough to be absorbed by the newcomers and returning customers it will attract.

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TL;DR section -

A suggestion: morph the Veteran's Rewards so that they reward both newcomers and veteran players. Continue adding new rewards every three months so that the long-standing players continue to reap benefits for their continued subscription. But instead of leaving the system as it is, thus ensuring that newcomers will have benefits and options forever denied them, implement some kind of dedication reward for those that joined later and stuck with the game.

After a year's subscription, or with a year's subscription, or some similar mechanism that demonstrates a newcomer's dedication to the game, offer double Veteran's Reward credit; thus if you pay for a year's subscription, over that year you will accumulate two years of Veteran's Rewards. Of course, this will cap out once you've "caught up" with the existing veterans. This will allow dedicated newcomers to eventually earn the same benefits as long-standing players, while allowing the incentives to continue accruing for the existing veterans.

Surely the number of veterans who find this scheme wholly unfair and untenable will be small enough to be absorbed by the newcomers and returning customers it will attract.

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But, but, but...this suggestion is logical and makes sense! BAN IT, BAN IT NOW!

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Basically too many 50's to count, but I'm generally a brute/scrapper/tank kind of guy.

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I have no idea how it would work, but it sure would be nice to have some mechanism to allow newer customers to "catch up".

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This is already implemented and functioning for all players. It's called an "active subscription". The newcomer has exactly the same fair and balanced opportunity to earn these vet rewards as someone who's been around for 63 months. That's why it's called a "Veteran Reward": It indicates a very small but thoughtful freebie thrown to a player who's subscribed to the game for X months.

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In addition to the Honorable Badge, each character can claim a power that, when activated, will completely remove any map of Fog of War.

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!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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TL;DR section -

A suggestion: morph the Veteran's Rewards so that they reward both newcomers and veteran players. Continue adding new rewards every three months so that the long-standing players continue to reap benefits for their continued subscription. But instead of leaving the system as it is, thus ensuring that newcomers will have benefits and options forever denied them, implement some kind of dedication reward for those that joined later and stuck with the game.

After a year's subscription, or with a year's subscription, or some similar mechanism that demonstrates a newcomer's dedication to the game, offer double Veteran's Reward credit; thus if you pay for a year's subscription, over that year you will accumulate two years of Veteran's Rewards. Of course, this will cap out once you've "caught up" with the existing veterans. This will allow dedicated newcomers to eventually earn the same benefits as long-standing players, while allowing the incentives to continue accruing for the existing veterans.

Surely the number of veterans who find this scheme wholly unfair and untenable will be small enough to be absorbed by the newcomers and returning customers it will attract.

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But, but, but...this suggestion is logical and makes sense! BAN IT, BAN IT NOW!

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Your enthusiasm aside, the proposed system faults on the following points:

1. The proposal offers a weighted bias on "newcomer" players vs veteran players, insamuch that it negates the concept of "veteran" player and replaces it with "economically-well-endowed" player.
2. The proposal also has no effective way of determining who's a newcomer, and who's an oldbie who unsubscribed for a period of time and is rejoining. That's a lot of account work for the Devs to do to figure out who should get what benefit.
3. There's no real explanation as to why offering "accelerated" benefits to lesser-subscribed players is an actual benefit to the gaming populace.

In short: It's decidedly one-sided in approach, because it focuses on benefiting the "new" player while disregarding the veteran player, which is exactly what "veteran rewards" is designed to reward, impartially and wide-field, in the first place.




Still reading? Not ragehating me quite yet? Good.

Having said that, I have a different proposal that keeps in the spirit of veteran rewards without breaking the system as flagrantly as previous proposals have done.

Currently, rewards are tabulated on a month by month basis, where X MONTH = Y REWARD. For some players, the rewards for the "interim" months aren't nearly as useful, or as desired, as the "milestone" months (the bi-annual rewards, basically, which tend to have more swag attached to them).

My proposal:

For each 3-month period, a user can choose one valid reward for up to one year in that timespan. Once the 12-month period has been reached, they are then eligible for rewards, per milestone, for up to one year following, and so forth.

For example: A new player, who starts today, can choose one reward from the 3, 6 or 9 month reward milestone pool, up to but not including the 12 month mark. So, at the 3 month mark, New Player can choose the "Trustworthy", "Faithful", or "Dependable" reward pool. Once chosen, the remaining two are available until the next milestone; and so forth. At the 12-month mark, they will have the 12, 15, 18 and 21 months rewards available for their annual pool, and so on.

Benefits: Flexibility in choosing what rewards matter more for you in a given year. It maintains a sense of controlled progression while accommodating specific needs for the player.

Disadvantages: It would require a rebuild of how the rewards are disbursed on a player. Asking the Devs to reinvent an otherwise-functioning wheel would make this a low priority option. But since we're assuming the Devs can "just write this" to appease our needs, this is my calm and controlled submission to accommodate all players, both old and young, without completely gutting the design concept.

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The real purpose of VRs is to entice players to keep paying and playing.
Every player knows that in less than 3 months, there is another little perk waiting for them, if they stay.

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Actually, the fact that I will never get all the Veterans Rewards, that there will always be another reward out there that I'll want and will never get to makes the Veteran's Rewards completely ineffective as incentive.

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For some. But I suspect not for the majority of players.

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Your enthusiasm aside, the proposed system faults on the following points:

1. The proposal offers a weighted bias on "newcomer" players vs veteran players, insamuch that it negates the concept of "veteran" player and replaces it with "economically-well-endowed" player.

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The "economically-well-endowed" player still needs to subscribe for long periods to garner any rewards. To get three years of reward, they will still have put in two years of time.

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2. The proposal also has no effective way of determining who's a newcomer, and who's an oldbie who unsubscribed for a period of time and is rejoining. That's a lot of account work for the Devs to do to figure out who should get what benefit.

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Why differentiate? Returning or new, the benefit to NCSoft, the game population, and the community are the same.

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3. There's no real explanation as to why offering "accelerated" benefits to lesser-subscribed players is an actual benefit to the gaming populace.

In short: It's decidedly one-sided in approach, because it focuses on benefiting the "new" player while disregarding the veteran player, which is exactly what "veteran rewards" is designed to reward, impartially and wide-field, in the first place.

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The entire system already benefits the veteran player. Does the fact that some other players might, in three years, enjoy the same benefits you enjoy right now, while you continue to get three more years of benefits, really bother you that much?

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The entire system already benefits the veteran player. Does the fact that some other players might, in three years, enjoy the same benefits you enjoy right now, while you continue to get three more years of benefits, really bother you that much?

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Yes, because it breaks the concept of the system as being a "veteran reward" structure.

I don't mind making wiggle room to benefit players (see my proposed method, for instance, and let me know what you think), but destroying a concept just to shower benefits on impatient players who think the rewards are the POINT of the system is NOT something I can support or even entertain logically.

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If your problem is "impatient players", how about they just stop adding new Veteran's Reward after the 72-month mark (or some other, near-future cap)? Then newcomers and returning players can eventually earn all the rewards, after staying subscribed for a period of time. That alternative appeals to me as well.

Your alternative does not, because the issue is not wanting a reward sooner, but wanting all of them eventually. So long as new rewards are added, the current system will never allow that.

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If your problem is "impatient players", how about they just stop adding new Veteran's Reward after the 72-month mark (or some other, near-future cap)? Then newcomers and returning players can eventually earn all the rewards, after staying subscribed for a period of time. That alternative appeals to me as well.

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Okay. Why is this a benefit to all players?

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For each 3-month period, a user can choose one valid reward for up to one year in that timespan. Once the 12-month period has been reached, they are then eligible for rewards, per milestone, for up to one year following, and so forth.

For example: A new player, who starts today, can choose one reward from the 3, 6 or 9 month reward milestone pool, up to but not including the 12 month mark. So, at the 3 month mark, New Player can choose the "Trustworthy", "Faithful", or "Dependable" reward pool. Once chosen, the remaining two are available until the next milestone; and so forth. At the 12-month mark, they will have the 12, 15, 18 and 21 months rewards available for their annual pool, and so on.

Benefits: Flexibility in choosing what rewards matter more for you in a given year. It maintains a sense of controlled progression while accommodating specific needs for the player.

Disadvantages: It would require a rebuild of how the rewards are disbursed on a player. Asking the Devs to reinvent an otherwise-functioning wheel would make this a low priority option. But since we're assuming the Devs can "just write this" to appease our needs, this is my calm and controlled submission to accommodate all players, both old and young, without completely gutting the design concept.

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I like it. However, while it's a good thing to get rewards "one year ahead of time" (mind the quotes), it still doesn't fix the problem of never-reachable rewards.

I'd still add a hard limit.

Given your proposal, I'd add that, if a player has more than, say, 5 years of subscription, they could choose *any* reward available at any milestone, even the newest ones. This way, newcomers who get dedicated to the game by playing up to the hard limit are able to get the newest rewards (otherwise unreachable), and the veterans still have the advantage of having MORE rewards, quantity-wise. With this, VRs could be added forever.

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I'm annoyed that, by the time I do, there will be nine-year rewards that I still won't have.

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Stop being annoyed. End of problem.

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Because I didn't subscribe to the game from the day it launched, I will never have all the veteran rewards, no longer how long I play. I will never be able to "show the dedication and earn them" enough, because there will always be four years of rewards that I will not have.

Why is this so hard to understand?

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It isn't. It's just a bad, unconvincing argument.

Here, I will hand you all of the vet rewards right now, but you must also age five years overnight.

Veteran = time spent. Why is this so hard to understand?

Go to work for a company and ask for a 20 year pension on your first day. Go into the military service and ask for an honorable discharge on your first day.

Vet rewards are not about money, they're about time. So you won't ever get all of the vet rewards, so what? In my workplace, there are people who started here a lot earlier than I, who will eventually get a 30 year retirement package. I will never get that much, I worked a few other places. I'm not in a snit about it, that's just the way it is.

Also, the later vet rewards are not must-haves, they're cute little things that are nice little gifts. You don't need them.

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Goldbrick 50 inv/ss tank
Other 50s: Power Beam, Rocky Mantle, STORMIE Agent, Matchless, Major Will, Knightmayor, Femstone, Space Maureen, Crimebuster Ako, Dr. Twilight, Doc Champion, American Gold Eagle

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If your problem is "impatient players", how about they just stop adding new Veteran's Reward after the 72-month mark (or some other, near-future cap)? Then newcomers and returning players can eventually earn all the rewards, after staying subscribed for a period of time. That alternative appeals to me as well.

Your alternative does not, because the issue is not wanting a reward sooner, but wanting all of them eventually. So long as new rewards are added, the current system will never allow that.

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This is true to the same degree for all rewards, not just Veteran Rewards.

I say "to the same degree" because there is a loophole never acknowledged in the iterative argument that an indefinite veteran system prevents players from "eventually" getting all the rewards, simply due to the fact that one day the system will be shut down and prevent players from achieving all of them. The devs could simply state that if the game were ever to be shut down they'll autogrant all the veteran rewards to the remaining players at least 24 hours before the servers close.

Under those circumstances, players have the same chance to receive all the veteran rewards in the same sense they have the same chance to eventually receive all the other in-game rewards, in fact they have a higher chance because that chance is 100% under that policy if the player plays indefinitely. That's not true for all the other in-game rewards.

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In my workplace, there are people who started here a lot earlier than I, who will eventually get a 30 year retirement package. I will never get that much, I worked a few other places.

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You could work 30 years, and get the 30-year retirement package. If the company has a required retirement age, that's an entirely different issue.

It's not like the company will have a 60-year retirement package after you've put in your 30 years that you still don't qualify for. Your analogy isn't really analogous.

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Go to work for a company and ask for a 20 year pension on your first day. Go into the military service and ask for an honorable discharge on your first day.

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This isn't even close to what I'm asking for. What I'm asking for is for either the goal posts to stop moving, or for a mechanism to compensate for the head start if they won't.

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What I'm asking for is for either the goal posts to stop moving, or for a mechanism to compensate for the head start if they won't.

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Why? That's what we're not getting here. How does this benefit the playerbase as a whole?

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To remove the disincentive that unachievable rewards can be to newcomers.

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really craptacular. rethink the FOW thing because its its not even like gettig socks for christmas... its like getting some walnuts or an orange. Terrible reward idea.

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To remove the disincentive that unachievable rewards can be to newcomers.

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I talked to all of them. They all said they're okay with how it is. I can ask again if you like?

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What I'm asking for is for either the goal posts to stop moving, or for a mechanism to compensate for the head start if they won't.

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That's unfair to me. I would like the vet rewards to continue indefinitely, and I don't think a vet reward system should be un-veteranized in some way simply because there are people who feel left out.

A vet reward system is SUPPOSED to be non-inclusive, that's why it's called a vet reward system and not a "we're giving all the rewards to everyone at day one just because you stamped your feet and complained" system.

I'm way behind every other MMOs vet reward system, should they have one, and if I should ever join another MMO with a vet reward system, I'll just ignore it.

Grousing about the "unfairness" of the vet reward system comes up every once in a while, and thankfully the devs ignore it every time.

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Goldbrick 50 inv/ss tank
Other 50s: Power Beam, Rocky Mantle, STORMIE Agent, Matchless, Major Will, Knightmayor, Femstone, Space Maureen, Crimebuster Ako, Dr. Twilight, Doc Champion, American Gold Eagle

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really craptacular. rethink the FOW thing because its its not even like gettig socks for christmas... its like getting some walnuts or an orange. Terrible reward idea.

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Are you kidding? I can't wait to be able to remove the Fog of War from zones. What would you suggest instead, yet another free costume change?

-Bux

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"Don't cry because it's over, smile because it happened." -- Dr. Seuss

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To remove the disincentive that unachievable rewards can be to newcomers.

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See, that's the thing though. These rewards aren't unachievable. They can be achieved by anyone who stays subscribed to the game long enough. You just want a mechanism to allow you to catch up to others who have put in more time than you.

Sorry, but that's simply not going to happen. You don't NEED to catch up to us, you just WANT to. Learn patience. It is not an outdated concept.

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A vet reward system is SUPPOSED to be non-inclusive, that's why it's called a vet reward system and not a "we're giving all the rewards to everyone at day one just because you stamped your feet and complained" system.

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I am now far more bothered by the twisting of my statements into "everyone should get everything right now" than I am by the Veteran's Reward system. I never suggested that.

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really craptacular. rethink the FOW thing because its its not even like gettig socks for christmas... its like getting some walnuts or an orange. Terrible reward idea.

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Are you kidding? I can't wait to be able to remove the Fog of War from zones. What would you suggest instead, yet another free costume change?

-Bux

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I agree. I am looking forward to it as well. Of course I know all of the maps (even most mission maps) by heart now. But that doesn't stop my OCD from kicking in and forcing me to clear every single map before I move on to the next with every single character I play.

Like all Vet Rewards (Boxing costume, Samurai costume, Free Tailor Sessions, Free Respecs, etc.), Reveal will be infinitely useful to some and utterly useless for others. That's how it should be.

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