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Technically true, but this presumes the intent of the 87 month reward is to get the one month subscriber to keep subscribing. Its the 3 and 6 month reward that is the incentive for the one month subscriber to keep subscribing, just as its the 27 and 30 month reward that is the incentive to keep the two year player subscribing, and the 87 month reward is there to keep the seven year vet subscribing.|
Originally Posted by rsclark
And it's irrelevant. From a player perspective, in order for it to act as an incentive to continue subscribing, the player would have to now only know that they would still be subscribing in 7 years, but also know that the game would still exist in 7 years - in a field where that is exceedingly rare.
It's like that ****** in Mexico City who promised to love me forever if I bought her that diamond ring. Somehow it wasn't a great incentive. |
Its true those rewards become increasingly unreachable and more importantly focused on a smaller number of players which is suboptimal, but its not problematic simply because its not reachable by brand new players: its strictly speaking not intended to be. Rather, its problematic because the pyramiding player population addressed by each higher layer creates problems when it comes to creating appropriate rewards.
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Wow - 2004|
Originally Posted by rsclark
And it's irrelevant. From a player perspective, in order for it to act as an incentive to continue subscribing, the player would have to now only know that they would still be subscribing in 7 years, but also know that the game would still exist in 7 years - in a field where that is exceedingly rare.
It's like that ****** in Mexico City who promised to love me forever if I bought her that diamond ring. Somehow it wasn't a great incentive. |
Anarchy Online - 2001
FFXI - 2002
EQ2 - 2004
Star Wars Galaxies - 2000
City of Heroes - 2004
Eve Online - 2003
And those are just off of the top of my head. I've no doubt I could come up with more with some research. This idea that the short lifespan of a few poorly funded and/or poorly designed games is somehow proof that all games have a short lifespan is a load of peanut butter.
If you want to quibble, Star Wars Galaxies is, in fact, closing down this year but the reasons aren't about the profitability of the game, they're about LucasArts wanting no direct competition for KOTOR. If KOTOR wasn't coming out then Galaxies would be running merrily along making money for SOE.
If your point is that vet rewards take a long time to "earn", well, I won't argue with that. The thing is, that I've never known a single person who enrolled in a MMO because of some vet reward that was multiple years down the road. I'm going to wager that you don't know anyone like that either. Vet rewards aren't intended to spur sales. They're intended to spur retention.
In any case, when Freedom launches we won't have "vet rewards" any more. Paragon Rewards can be earned very quickly if someone is so gung ho about it that he or she is willing to buy thousands of Paragon Points. There's actual choice involved as opposed to a situation where "I have to wait two years for IO's, why bother even subcribing?"
As to those IO's - there's also the choice of taking out a license for the cost of a Slurpee or a king-size candy bar. If unable to part with a candy bar, the player also has the option to buy the scaling IO's from the market.
I sympathize with your view on this up to a point, but realistically it's a pretty short point. I'd like to see purchasable vouchers for individual characters. Otherwise, I have to say that the current system is not only a good deal; it's way better a deal than any other company that's done this kind of conversion would have given you. Most others would have simply solved the problem by saying "You want inventions? VIP is that way --->".
You or our theoretical returning player may not be 100% happy with the choices but having a choice is way better than having no choice.
In regards to Manoa's point, depending on when you left and how long you had played, returning players could have radically different opinions about the Premium tier.
For instance they left the game before the CoH/CoV merge and only had one of the games, then they get access to the other one now for free a potential plus, but not for those who had purchased both games or played after the merge.
If they left before IOs and the Market or AE, then not having them isn't a loss as it would be if they left after those systems were added but hadn't played enough to unlock them with the Paragon Rewards they have.
Same can also be said with Controller and Mastermind access or EATs which they don't get at all.
So returning players may or may not find an experience like they had before they left, but for free. But as Arcanaville says that's a good thing as the devs would prefer them to subscribe or buy access to those missing features because that leads to the devs getting paid rather than looking for work.
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Or pay by the year, like I do. Even LESS :-) |
Originally Posted by TerraDraconis
You can buy access to incarnations. It just costs $15.00 a month to access it.
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I'll keep paying them for it until they MAKE me leave.
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I do think that some of the restrictions imposed upon returning players (not all premium players but former players that left) will turn them off right away. Chief among those are the blocking of 2 ATs (controllers and MMs), the lack of IOs, and the limited number of available characters.
I understand and appreciate that there needs to be some significant limitations or else a bunch of current subscribers would just stop paying. But if I came back and I wanted to play my favorite characters and found that they were blocked from access or were technically stripped of IOs, I would say "pancake it!" and go back to doing what I had been doing in my CoH absence.
If some of the posters on this forum don't recognize that more than a few returning vets will have a similar reaction or don't care . . . *shrug*. I would hope that Paragon Studios and NCSoft at least care enough to consider it.
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Originally Posted by Father Xmas
In regards to Manoa's point, depending on when you left and how long you had played, returning players could have radically different opinions about the Premium tier.
For instance they left the game before the CoH/CoV merge and only had one of the games, then they get access to the other one now for free a potential plus, but not for those who had purchased both games or played after the merge. If they left before IOs and the Market or AE, then not having them isn't a loss as it would be if they left after those systems were added but hadn't played enough to unlock them with the Paragon Rewards they have. Same can also be said with Controller and Mastermind access or EATs which they don't get at all. So returning players may or may not find an experience like they had before they left, but for free. But as Arcanaville says that's a good thing as the devs would prefer them to subscribe or buy access to those missing features because that leads to the devs getting paid rather than looking for work. |
It's one thing to look at the information about what's going to happen when Freedom goes live and make an informed decision that they don't like the way it was set up so they aren't going to return, and completely another to make no attempt to find out what's going to happen and then whine because they assumed it was going to be something that it isn't.
Paragon Studios has made no secret that the game is going to be a hybrid business model with tiered access.
My problem with the system, as I understand it, as I said earlier, is that it seems like it would hinder the social aspects of the game. For example, I told my friend the game was going to be f2p, and he expressed interest. However, If its overly hard for him to team because he cant send tells, or start teams, or join SG's, he very well would lose interest and get a bad impression of the game and never try it again. Lack f community has killed many a MMO, and we need to do everything possible to build ours more.
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Did you tell him that the free game was going to be deliberately limited in scope and he could buy additional access without subscribing for an ala carte fee? If not, you may have set a very high expectation this game cannot meet.
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Originally Posted by CommunistPenguin
My problem with the system, as I understand it, as I said earlier, is that it seems like it would hinder the social aspects of the game. For example, I told my friend the game was going to be f2p, and he expressed interest. However, If its overly hard for him to team because he cant send tells, or start teams, or join SG's, he very well would lose interest and get a bad impression of the game and never try it again. Lack f community has killed many a MMO, and we need to do everything possible to build ours more.
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Honestly; this has already been my experience. A number of my IRL friends who can no longer justify a subscription given their intermitent playstyle (or reached that point some time ago and stoped subscribing) have said to me that they were interested in playing again in the 'Freedom age' but once they understood what they would be cut off from (namely the bulk of their characters) they said 'not going to bother'.|
Originally Posted by Bionic_Flea
I do think that some of the restrictions imposed upon returning players (not all premium players but former players that left) will turn them off right away. Chief among those are the blocking of 2 ATs (controllers and MMs), the lack of IOs, and the limited number of available characters.
I understand and appreciate that there needs to be some significant limitations or else a bunch of current subscribers would just stop paying. But if I came back and I wanted to play my favorite characters and found that they were blocked from access or were technically stripped of IOs, I would say "pancake it!" and go back to doing what I had been doing in my CoH absence. |
If 'preimum' is intended to encourage players to spend money in the 'ala-cart' shop and lure people back into subscription, then, at least in these cases, it's already failed. Weather this is significant in the greater scheme of things or not, I have no idea, but it's my data-point at least.
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Any returning player who expects "Free Premium" access to give them everything they would have had as a paying customer is just being stupid and should be hit on the nose with a rolled up newspaper.|
Originally Posted by Manoa
But the problem is the fact that returning Premium players are returning with the expectations that this is a free to play game that has three account tiers (whether it is or isn't F2P is neither here nor there, and whether anyone feels their expectations are justified or not is neither here nor there, I'm not going that road of argument, only talking about consumer perception). They expect certain restrictions because they're not paying, but the stuff listed as "Limited" on the account matrix is a wee bit vague. So they don't have a clear idea of what to expect.
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If you return to a game that has an active subscription model still and can play without paying money then you are clearly going to be getting an experience that is less than that of a paying customer. I don't think there is anything unreasonable or shocking about that.
Again anyone who returns plays for free and then rage quits because they can't have it all for free is not a player that is someone who should be in the game. They are better off rage quitting over it and going away.
And really there is only a small group of players who will be inconvenienced by this. It isn't even the vast majority of returning players probably under 5% of those who might return and even those are likely to be the type to investigate what does Premium mean. If they have invested that heavily in an IO build they are the type who does research first.
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The failure is more your's than the games. The moment your friend spends $5 to buy any points in the store he gains 1 token to unlock chat etc. If your being a good friend you tell him that he can play the game for free but the experience is somewhat limited. The less limited the more you spend up to unrestricted for subscribing.|
Originally Posted by CommunistPenguin
My problem with the system, as I understand it, as I said earlier, is that it seems like it would hinder the social aspects of the game. For example, I told my friend the game was going to be f2p, and he expressed interest. However, If its overly hard for him to team because he cant send tells, or start teams, or join SG's, he very well would lose interest and get a bad impression of the game and never try it again. Lack f community has killed many a MMO, and we need to do everything possible to build ours more.
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This is not a failure of the game but instead a failure of you to properly align your friends expectations to what they will find.
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I'll bet your friends who are actually interested in looking at the games will quietly try it anyway since it is free. The rest of them are just using the who Premium thing as a polite brush off.
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Originally Posted by Pendix
Honestly; this has already been my experience. A number of my IRL friends who can no longer justify a subscription given their intermitent playstyle (or reached that point some time ago and stoped subscribing) have said to me that they were interested in playing again in the 'Freedom age' but once they understood what they would be cut off from (namely the bulk of their characters) they said 'not going to bother'.
If 'preimum' is intended to encourage players to spend money in the 'ala-cart' shop and lure people back into subscription, then, at least in these cases, it's already failed. Weather this is significant in the greater scheme of things or not, I have no idea, but it's my data-point at least. |
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Okay, but here's the thing - Your friends are past subscribers and have some veteran rewards. That means that at least some of the restrictions may not apply to them. They should at least login and see how many paragon reward tokens they have, and what that gets them. They may find that it's not so bad as they imagined.
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Originally Posted by Pendix
If 'preimum' is intended to encourage players to spend money in the 'ala-cart' shop and lure people back into subscription, then, at least in these cases, it's already failed. Weather this is significant in the greater scheme of things or not, I have no idea, but it's my data-point at least.
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Okay, that's the second time that Commie Penguin has been told that it's his fault that his friends "don't understand" or some such. |
Originally Posted by TerraDraconis
The failure is more your's than the games.
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The game should sell itself. If it's complicated enough that people are put off by it then that's a problem. It may not be a problem that anyone cares to address but it's still a problem; or a "challenge" if "problem" is some sort of loaded word.
It's not his fault that his friends don't like the idea of being unable to communicate, or of being restricted from having full access to their characters in the case of the other poster. That's not some shortcoming of a player inadequately describing the game. It's a shortcoming of the game itself, at least in relation to the expectations of those people that were turned off. There were approaches that the dev staff could have taken that they purposely did not take. It's THEIR fault that these friends of the Penguin decided that it was not worth their time to even give it a try.
This is a marketing challenge for Paragon Studios that they are not investing a whole lot of visible effort into meeting, so far. Whether they ought to put more effort into it, I can't say - I don't know their goals. Maybe they truly just don't care and are focused on new member sales.
If they really want those old players back, then they ought to be implementing a plan to explain the new system in glowing, positive terms and to offer some kind of incentive to come back and try it out.
However you slice it, a lost sale is the fault of the salesman, not the customer who's doing his best to recruit other customers.
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All MMOs have the shortcoming that many people refuse to pay for them or play them. That's understood as a truism. The question is how much bribery should be consider reasonable to win back players who are recalcitrant. Personally, I think that with a few exceptions they are doing more than what's reasonable.|
Originally Posted by SlickRiptide
Okay, that's the second time that Commie Penguin has been told that it's his fault that his friends "don't understand" or some such.
The game should sell itself. If it's complicated enough that people are put off by it then that's a problem. It may not be a problem that anyone cares to address but it's still a problem; or a "challenge" if "problem" is some sort of loaded word. It's not his fault that his friends don't like the idea of being restricted from having full access to their characters. That's not some shortcoming of a player inadequately describing the game. It's a shortcoming of the game itself, at least in relation to the expectations of those people that were turned off. There were approaches that the dev staff could have taken that they purposely did not take. It's THEIR fault that these friends of the Penguin decided that it was not worth their time to even give it a try. This is a marketing challenge for Paragon Studios that they are not investing a whole lot of visible effort into meeting, so far. Whether they ought to put more effort into it, I can't say - I don't know their goals. Maybe they truly just don't care and are focused on new member sales. If they really want those old players back, then they ought to be implementing a plan to explain the new system in glowing, positive terms and to offer some kind of incentive to come back and try it out. However you slice it, a lost sale is the fault of the salesman, not the customer who's doing his best to recruit other customers. |
It isn't CommunistPenguin's job to sell the game (unless he volunteers to evangelize it), but contrawise if he's suggesting Freedom has more features for free than it actually does, the failure to meet expectations is not Paragon's failure. Its not his fault if his friends decide the value proposition is not worth it. Its only his fault if he isn't accurate about describing that value proposition, and frankly again with extremely few exceptions the value proposition has been explained by the devs in sufficient detail so as to make current misunderstandings impossible to avoid with reasonable explanation.
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I didn't read the rest of the thread.
I have several friends interested in the free version of this game. I posted a link and short message about the free version on Facebook recently and got about 15 replies from various people saying they wanted to check it out. Their levels of experience with MMOs are extremely varied. I think of the 15 maybe 1 or 2 might end up sticking around for a little while, with most others creating a few characters here and there.
One of the biggest flags for me is that I have tried to recruit many of these same people to the game before, and for various reasons they have decided not to join. For only a few of them was the game completely unknown. Most had played it in some capacity at some time in the past, in some cases on my actual game account.
Here is a breakdown of a few of the individuals:
- The former WOW PVPer. Known to be a "hardcore" player. Has joined me recently in several other Free To Play games. Says he played this game once before and found it "sub-par" to WOW, but also says he hasn't seen it since 2004. Huge fan of strategy games (Civilization 4 in particular) and of min/maxed characters. Expressed a desire to play "pet" classes but says he is unwilling to pay for them. This is the player who recruited me to WOW for a 1 year or so stay. Long term prospects: 3/5.
- The former GameMaster. Brief ex-co-volunteer of mine from a game we both worked on several years ago. Known for strong character creation. Interested mainly in PVE with PVP. Always seemed to enjoy the more interesting classes. Prospects: 4/5.
- The best friend. Female in her early 30s. Huge fan of Star Trek, Buffy, and similar shows. Avid fantasy reader. Has never played a MMO, but loves the character creator for CoX, which she has played on my account. Favorite video game is The Sims. Enjoys Facebook games. A bit shy in online environments and probably unwilling to talk to other players much at first. Long term prospects: 2/5.
- The video game tester. Male, late 20s. Loves all things video game, including (maybe especially) MMOs. Loves City of Heroes, which he has played on my account, and has to be dragged off of by his girlfriend. Already a Free Player of other games. Plays so many games he's generally unwilling to spend much on any one of them. Long term prospects: 5/5, but will be very hard to get cash out of.
- The visual designer. Female, late 20s. Loves watching the boyfriend (the tester, above) play games. Loves the CoX character creator. Also likes how easy this game is to play. Long term prospects: 2/5, or as long as boyfriend plays.
- The little brother. Male, mid 20s. Extremely experienced with video games and MMOs of several years ago, like Ultima Online, but plays much less frequently now. Responded to post about game becoming 'free', with "Oh, hell yeah." Long term prospects: 4/5.
IMO the limited chat and tell thing will be a major turn off to these players. In almost all cases they would be joining the game in part because they know I play it and want to play with me. If they are unable to communicate it will be a huge turn off. In about half of cases these players are used to other MMOs and what they are allowed to do.
I'm unsure about the IOs portion. I will say that if I came back to a game that I used to play and all my armor was 'turned off' and the only way to handle it was to pay money or delete the armor, I would not come back. I think it's crazy to penalize a build after the fact. IMO free/preem players should not be able to slot new IOs. IMO having them turn off when they are already equipped would be an extremely bad business decision.
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Like Arcana said, if I start selling the game to my friends with features that are not available, it's my fault, not the devs.|
Originally Posted by SlickRiptide
If they really want those old players back, then they ought to be implementing a plan to explain the new system in glowing, positive terms and to offer some kind of incentive to come back and try it out.
However you slice it, a lost sale is the fault of the salesman, not the customer who's doing his best to recruit other customers. |
But onto your other point: do you really thing there won't be mass emails once VIP Headstart ends promoting this to anyone who has ever had a NC Soft Play Account? It will be promoted in glowing terms there with links to explanation of benefits most likely. If a player doesn't take the time to read those, I really can't fault the devs or the marketing team for that one.
And what other incentive is needed? "Come play this old game you used to play... FOR FREE" is a pretty damn good incentive.
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Don't market it that you have to pay or delete. Market it that YOU HAVE A SECOND BUILD....USE IT! Swap over to build #2 and you have a whole new SO layout to utilize. If you ever subscribe, or pay enough to unlock inventions through the rewards program, then swap back to build #1...et voila!...ready-to-play IO build!
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Originally Posted by Oedipus_Tex
I'm unsure about the IOs portion. I will say that if I came back to a game that I used to play and all my armor was 'turned off' and the only way to handle it was to pay money or delete the armor, I would not come back. I think it's crazy to penalize a build after the fact. IMO free/preem players should not be able to slot new IOs. IMO having them turn off when they are already equipped would be an extremely bad business decision.
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Originally Posted by Dispari
I don't know why Dink thinks she's not as sexy as Jay was. In 5 posts she's already upstaged his entire career.
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Most F2P games are limited in scope but allow things like tells. It's actually pretty similar to the new model we are transitioning too, they limit class and content, but allow players to communicate freely and join guilds. Anyone who thinks that they will get everything for free is an idiot. But you have to go back and look at what the goal is in going to a F2P Model. Are we just trying to bilk existing customers out of more cash or are we trying to build a larger community, many of which will move from free to premium to vip? I think that by limiting the social constructs of the game we are limiting how big a community we can build.
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Originally Posted by Arcanaville
Did you tell him that the free game was going to be deliberately limited in scope and he could buy additional access without subscribing for an ala carte fee? If not, you may have set a very high expectation this game cannot meet.
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Jay Doherty: Yes, there was this one night that I was ready to go home but had to drop the browns off at the super bowl before I left for home. While on the throne it hit me. I stayed for a few more hours and that why we have the pain pads in the game.
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Originally Posted by CommunistPenguin
My problem with the system, as I understand it, as I said earlier, is that it seems like it would hinder the social aspects of the game. For example, I told my friend the game was going to be f2p, and he expressed interest. However, If its overly hard for him to team because he cant send tells, or start teams, or join SG's, he very well would lose interest and get a bad impression of the game and never try it again. Lack f community has killed many a MMO, and we need to do everything possible to build ours more.
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Originally Posted by CommunistPenguin
Most F2P games are limited in scope but allow things like tells. It's actually pretty similar to the new model we are transitioning too, they limit class and content, but allow players to communicate freely and join guilds. Anyone who thinks that they will get everything for free is an idiot. But you have to go back and look at what the goal is in going to a F2P Model. Are we just trying to bilk existing customers out of more cash or are we trying to build a larger community, many of which will move from free to premium to vip? I think that by limiting the social constructs of the game we are limiting how big a community we can build.
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Originally Posted by Arcanaville
This game is not attempting to execute the conventional F2P model.
That makes this observation about as relevant as saying a successful barbeque attempts to infuse smoke into the meat. In the conventional F2P model, it doesn't matter how much stuff you give away, all that matters is how much stuff you intend to entice people to buy. As long as you have a pipeline of stuff on a sufficiently deep treadmill, its completely irrelevant what you give away. Its a numbers game of trying to get as many players as possible under circumstances where a sufficiently high percentage will buy something, and that percentage can be low. But in a hybrid model with VIP subscribers, it *does* matter how much stuff you give away, and what stuff it is, because the more you give away and the higher a percentage of the core stuff you give away, the more you devalue subscriptions relative to ala carte purchases and freemium play. That's why no on subscribes to Farmville. People can debate whether this is or is not a free to play game based on silly semantics, but this isn't about labels. This is about whether this game intends to focus first on its subscriber base, and then create a free/ala carte game from a subset of the subscriber game that is not an identically complete experience so that VIP subscribers always have an advantage in their breadth and quality of gameplay. If you're a VIP player, City of Heroes Freedom is as much about you as the current game is now. If you are an ala carte Premium player the game is offering you the ability to play less game for less money, where you get to choose what you want to get and what you can afford to give up. If you are a completely free player, then this game is offering you a look around. Have fun, but don't complain about what you get for free. Or complain, but know that you're complaining about what you get for free, and make note of the fact we don't allow you to complain somewhere the rest of the players have to see. Oh, and just in case I wasn't clear the first time: This game is not attempting to execute the conventional F2P model. You'd think this was both obvious, given how many people manage to successfully *prove* Paragon Studios isn't actually doing what you'd expect if they were attempting to execute the conventional F2P model. |
The other thing to keep in mind is that the totally free player (never has bought anything, never does buy anything) is getting basically what Trial accounts have gotten for years but without the levels capping at 14.
If the game spit out 20 dollar bills people would complain that they weren't sequentially numbered. If they were sequentially numbered people would complain that they weren't random enough.
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not everyone is looking to spend money right away on a mmo. I played DDO for months and never spent a dime. But if you make playing with your friends a chore, then you will just scare away your customers. There are enough F2P games out there that we shoudnt have to give our friends a breakdown on what they can and cannot do. Basic expectations based on industry standards should be enough.
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Originally Posted by TerraDraconis
The failure is more your's than the games. The moment your friend spends $5 to buy any points in the store he gains 1 token to unlock chat etc. If your being a good friend you tell him that he can play the game for free but the experience is somewhat limited. The less limited the more you spend up to unrestricted for subscribing.
This is not a failure of the game but instead a failure of you to properly align your friends expectations to what they will find. |
Jay Doherty: Yes, there was this one night that I was ready to go home but had to drop the browns off at the super bowl before I left for home. While on the throne it hit me. I stayed for a few more hours and that why we have the pain pads in the game.
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Originally Posted by Aggelakis
Don't market it that you have to pay or delete. Market it that YOU HAVE A SECOND BUILD....USE IT! Swap over to build #2 and you have a whole new SO layout to utilize. If you ever subscribe, or pay enough to unlock inventions through the rewards program, then swap back to build #1...et voila!...ready-to-play IO build!
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I think saying nothing about it at all is the best decision, because if the more experienced players find out about it its one more thing that will keep them from playing. But the chat issue will BY FAR be the biggest turn off. If that isn't changed between now and public release I will be embarrassed by proxy. Other free to play games I have joined some of them in allowed sending tells and chatting. The Help channel is not going to cut it, and IMO it's a bit mortifying that people think that is going to go over well.
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If you're using the the same definition of F2P that Paragon Studios is using...|
Originally Posted by Texas Justice
Since you keep telling your friends that it's going to F2P, it's important to keep Arcanaville's large type in mind.
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Originally Posted by Zwillinger
A "traditional" Free 2 Play game is just that...completely free, completely supported by MTX's.
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As long as there's a core group of players willing to subscribe to the game and NCSoft can make enough money to maintain a profit margin on it, it will be here for them to play.
It's like that ****** in Mexico City who promised to love me forever if I bought her that diamond ring. Somehow it wasn't a great incentive.