My revised solution to bringing new players to CoX.

Ahhh after all the posts i racked on my last topic i thought " why deviate".
What if when they release Going Rogue they release a new low price to help bring in more people ( this time i am in no way implying we need them.) like say 10$ a month.

$15 a month is hardly expensive. A single work day pays for a whole month of this game, and this game is worth way more than the standard price.

Because unless they immediately applied that rate to every single current player, people would get mad and leave?

If they didn't, they would be taking a heck of a risk to try to expand their player base. Generally, giving discounts to new people that irritate the older players gives you less players than you had at the beginning, as well as fewer older players recommending the game in the first place.

Of course, if they did give everyone that rate by extending existing subscriptions or something, it would be okay as long as they could live with losing 1/3 of their current revenue (until they get more players, of course).

And are they refunding everyone who purchases in advance?

Again... $15/mo isn't expensive. Not just saying that as "Oh, I have a job" but as "Hell, I could afford it when I was unemployed WITHOUT income or major savings."

Besides, price-wise, getting into the game is cheap. Both the Architect Edition and the Mac edition, new (on the PlayNC site) are $20... and that includes the first month of game time.

Price is not an issue for bringing people in.

Edit: Hell, dropping the price - ESPECIALLY after bringing out a paid-for expansion, namely GR - would probably keep people *away.* Why would they drop the price after a big investment? First thought I'd say would be that the game development will be slowing, with the game going into a "maintenance" mode instead of getting further actual development.

So, dropping the price could actually be *harmful* - outside of the obvious "directly lowering their own income."

See my Guides and Tutorials

The only thing I could possibly see working for a "cheaper" subscription, is to have subscription rates basically.

for $10/month you can have (-4) character slots per server, with the maximum you can expand to per server of 12.

Possibly also allow for like $20/month base of (+6) slots, max of 60.

(I forget what the base is, if it's 10 or 12..)

Not saying they SHOULD do this, just that it's the only way I could possibly see it beign a viable option.

I admit I pondered lower priced models too to attract more players, and more to keep old players at it for its so nice but the imcome that needs to keep flowing and reputation are problems of course.

Now what I COULD see is lowering it for veterans, and a higher amount of people making up for the lower costs, like,

You brought one paying new player to the game: Pay only 14$ per month.
After two years of paying: Pay one dollar less or get special non-character-related non-ingame-mechanics-related goodness when you pay full (lots of extra slots, stats of your characters, homepage for your char or SG, no market purges, ...) (that you might otherwise have to pay extra for).

Or a discount price for "Basic" account that does not include AE (can join AE missions on a team but not select nor create them) and Going Rogue if its fully optional content as I understand it, but I also understood the latter wont be for free either way.
So I guess they better stick with what they planned, they're likely experienced enough in it.

The reason I don't want to see them lower the price is simple. If you cut income, you have to cut something else to keep the profits up. I hate to say it, but that would most likely mean they will have to cut back the number of people working on CoX.

I tend to agree with so many of the posters above; I don't think neither the cost to buy "Going Rogue" nor the cost of the monthly subscription to be so high, that we are loosing players. If we are loosing players, is because new games are being released, and folks just want to try them; thus not a reflection of how good or bad CoX is. I been listening to the chat at Champions and I am starting to see players returning back to our family from Champions on Line, Warhammer and even AION.

Now how do we grow our game, that is an awesome question to make. Pragmatically, COX lacks true national TV advertisment such as WoW does. Imagine getting a few celebrities endorsing CoX, and watch our numbers explosively swell. Imagine Megan Fox as a Dominatrix, The Rock as a Tanker... mmm, I like that..Can you smell what the Rockster is cooking?

Giggles

Stormy

I don't think that this will help at all...the game already costs next to nothing to purchase. The subscription rate is also pretty normal and comparable to other MMO's(and not that expensive either) out there and I don't think that the prize tag has anything to do whether or not people will play this game or not.

i dont think the price is really the choice.

they need to advertise GR lots, u see people who pay for wow expansions for example. its not cheap but they advertise it and make people excited for it.

And mind you CoX flopped as much and utterly as it did in Europe because it came out the same time as WoW there and while WoW was advertised for all over the place Cryptic or NCSoft Europe thought that CoX didnt need any advertisement at all because people would learn of it on there own, somehow. If I recall correctly.

(I DO recall that ads for WoW were all over the place yet cant recall ever having seen a CoX one, and that WoW was quite popular here form the start. Plus that I thought it was the only game of its kind, where thousands of players play together online back then.
I only learned of CoX at all when friends form the US told me about it, and when I tried to get it it wasnt sold anymore around here in Europe, because it was such a flop.
I learned then that I needed the US version anyway to play with my friends as the Europe version is its totally separate own game, with different client, but I took a trial on the Europe version and it had a whole four whopping servers, one in German, one in French, and two in English. Mind you, Europe has WAY more citizens than northern America. But CoX was a flop here from the start. And likely so because hardly anyone ever found out about it.)

If someone is unwilling to pay 15$ a month they are very unlikely willing to play 10$ a month. That's just someone that doesn't like paying per month to play.