The proposed Experiment

Now in the Two handed weapons thread I pointed out that last year, the game probably cost me in the region of 50 whole English pounds ontop of my subscription thanks to Going Rogue and the booster packs.

Now my proposed Experiment for when Freedom comes out is this (if I haven't buggered off to the sequel to game that has the name rhyming with Build Bores, which is looking damn tempting at the moment, not because of Freedom but because the game itself looks damn tempting).

1) I will Purchase £50 of points right off the bat when its released, no more, no less, however I will be seeing the inclusion of the 400 point stipend that VIPs get per month.

2) These points will be spent on everything except vet temp powers (which you'll use the seperate reward points for) and time limited temp powers (ones with x number of charges etc which just seem like a waste), these will be spent purely on things that would have either come in a boxed expansion or a booster.

The point of this experiment is primarily just to answer the question:

"Is the game going to cost me more than it use to?"

From the moment Freedom is released until exactly a year after I will have to run this experiment. If the year comes to a close and I still have points remaining from that initial purchase, the answer is No, it has not cost me anymore than it did the previous year.

However if, at any point, I run out of points then the conclusion is obviously the opposite, yes the game has cost me more than it did during a year when a full boxed expansion was released.

That's a good experiment idea. Make sure to keep us posted as you go, too.

With apologies to Gabe and Tycho:

Now do a quickly and messily done edit of their Hellgate: London strip.

I played a game with a rather similar business model a while back. VIP players got access to tons of stuff, extra character slots, special points to buy things with, all that good stuff. Premium players were those who had bought some things and got some extra bonuses. Free players got an extended free trial. The first month that I played the game, I spent close to 100$ on random stuff that I felt like I needed to enhance my playing experience. Then I realized that I wouldn't have needed to spend that money at all if I had just subscribed. So I signed up for a subscription and enjoyed playing the game without spending a dime for the next three months. 100$ in the first month. 45$ for the next three months total. Pretty sure things are going to be the same here. Given this type of business model, I'm pretty sure subscribing/being a VIP is going to be worth it.

Keep in mind that this was in a year with a boxed expansion so hence the inflated price already, I'm also being rather generous as there were probably only 2 booster packs released last year (feel free to correct me if I'm wrong), So 25 for Going Rogue, an additional 5 for the Going Rogue bonus back (Alpha and omega costumes etc.) and an additional 10 for the booster packs only comes to £40.

So I'm giving myself a little over that, I very much doubt they're releasing a boxed expansion (which was 2 years in the making)+ Booster packs + normal issue updates level worth of stuff within a year of Freedoms release.

Hmm still a point taken..

I so it comes down to value for money, if I've spent £50 and got not much to show for it beyond costumes and 2 Powersets, that would be a poor return on the initial investment and a sign that perhaps Freedom doesn't offer decent value for money.

However if my £50 has bought me 5+ new powersets (which would have been an unprecedented level of powersets released even for a year with a boxed expansion) and a whole heap of costumes (talking atleast 3 boosters worth here if not more) then yes, Freedom is value for money in that regard.

@OP: brilliant idea, mate. I can't wait to see the results.

@GG:

Quote:

Originally Posted by Golden Girl They've already said that they have "hundreds" of items ready for the store

Hundreds of new items? Or are a lot of these things like Greek letters and such?

Lewis

Ah...that's probably what I'm forgetting, considering I didn't buy the Party pack (because it's terrible) and I managed to snag both the Origins Pack and Animal Pack for free (yay contests), the only one I paid for were the Mutant and Steampunk in that period.

To complete the experiment, be sure to include empyrical data on whether you felt your purchases were money well spent.

Hmm good point.

I mean now they've split up the boosters down into Costumes, normal emotes, costume change emotes and temp powers as seperate items.

The only reason I get the emotes is because they're already included in the pack, I don't usually consider them worthwhile to purchase, like the Party pack I think was a terrible idea and thus didn't purchase it.

Hmm things to consider.

I think the correct way to do it is this:

Make an exhaustive list of every new thing you got last year: How many missions, costume pieces, powersets etc... Also calculate how much you spent on the game.

Then in the next year, try to duplicate that list as closely as possible and see how much money you have spent. Another thing you will find is how long it takes you to get the exact same amount of stuff.

EDIT:

Really, this should be repeated over another year too.

We've been told for a while now that SexyJay has been really busy, but not seen that many costumes to show for it. I'm of the mind set that they've had him working away on content for inclusion in the store, in addition to the pieces seen on new enemy groups. Depending on how much they have stored (in addition to putting the currently available pieces into the store from all the booster packs and such) it remains to be seen if what they have can cover up to their new pieces made.

They've also mentioned that the problem with booster packs is that they might come up with a neat idea, but have no pack to put it in, and have people expecting packs to come with emotes, auras, costume change emotes, a power and the pieces. With this new system it sounds like they'll be able to release themed stuff without the other stuff, and release individual bits (such as for people who want the super tailor access to change body types from the science pack)

I'll personally have to see what kind of costs there are, and may just decide to chuck an extra few pounds at the game every month. Or use some overtime payment to get a chunk of points (which also reward... Reward Tokens from the Paragon Reward system IIRC.)

A lot of this is going to come down to "wait and see". You're entitled to your suspicion. I've been just a little surprised at how positively the forum community is taking the news, but certainly there is always cause for concern in a transition like this.

I hate to drag out an over-used term like "agile" to apply to this, but I think it does apply here. This strike team approach means that the focus won't be so much on "Issue XX" or "Booster Pack SuperStuff". Instead, it will be on smaller, highly focused end-products that will stand alone or in small packages. One benefit is that it will allow for faster distribution of the new content and less reliance on completing an entire package of goods before announcing and selling something.

There's plenty of room for things to go sour, but it's too soon right now to do more than speculate and hope for a successful transition for everyone; players and developers.