Guide: Premium Accounts and Paragon Rewards.

Introduction.
What I've outlined below is taken directly from Zwillinger's post in the Issue 21 Open Beta Sections (his examples of what each tier gets) with a few additions and is formatted for an easier read.

The basic cost.
The following shows what a player starting in Issue 21 without any retail package will have to pay to fully unlock a Tier:

Tier 1: $0
Tier 2: Variable. Owning a Retail Code, or first purchase of Paragon Points.
Tier 3: Approximately* $45 above Tier 2.
Tier 4: Approximately* $90 above Tier 2.
Tier 5: Approximately* $165 above Tier 2.
Tier 6: Approximately* $270 above Tier 2.
Tier 7: Approximately* $375 above Tier 2.
Tier 8: Approximately* $480 above Tier 2.

* Due to factors like buying Paragon Points in bundles, getting a bonus token for a year's subscription, and where you are currently in the rewards shrub, I can only show approximate figures.

Each $15 can be either subscribing for a month or buying 1,200 addition Paragon Points. Note that any Paragon Reward Tokens earned (converted from the Vet Rewards Program, bonus for having subscribed for a year, or the additional Reward Token for owning a retail copy) will decrease the above by $15 for each Rewards Token you have.

How to earn Reward Tokens.
All players (Free, Premium, and VIP) will get 1 Reward token. Additional tokens should be granted by the following means:

Before Issue 21 goes live, you will get:

• 1 Token for having any type of retail edition you have. You can earn this token ONCE. So if you have multiple retail editions on your account, you only get 1.
• 1 Token for each Veteran Reward badge you have.
• 1 Token for every 4 Veteran Rewards badges. If you have 5 Veteran Reward badges, you only get 1 token, not 1.25 tokens.

• 1 Token for your first purchase of Paragon Points (little as $5 for 400 PP).
• 1 Token for each month you subscribe.
• 1 Token for each 12 months you subscribe.
• 1 Token for each 1,200 Paragon Points you BUY (not the free stipend).
• 1 Possible Token if you have not previously applied a retail code if you find a retail copy of the game that can upgrade your account.

Triumph: White Succubus: 50 Ill/Emp/PF Snow Globe: 50 Ice/FF/Ice Strobe: 50 PB Shi Otomi: 50 Ninja/Ninjistu/GW Stalker My other characters

Updated original post with a few clarifications.

Triumph: White Succubus: 50 Ill/Emp/PF Snow Globe: 50 Ice/FF/Ice Strobe: 50 PB Shi Otomi: 50 Ninja/Ninjistu/GW Stalker My other characters

A couple of "undocumented" features.

Premium players even if they are Tier 8 have a smaller Storage limit than VIP Players.

Global Tells are restricted until Tier 4 rewards despite getting send/receive tells at Tier 2, and "Global" system at Tier 3.

Even if you're Tier 8 in the paragon rewards, as a premium player if you're an Operator in a channel you can not invite others, can not silence, and can not boot others. Basically, a Premium Player that is an Operator has a pretty star and nothing special about them over a regular channel member.

I heard that the trench coat used to be a vet rewards feature? I don't see it in this list and I do not recall seeing it in the costume selection. Am I getting something mixed up?

These are the rewards for owning X number of tokens. The rewards you get for slotting the tokens are not listed. Trenchcoats are the reward for slotting your second token - this only requires obtaining one token, since every account starts with one token in the Rookie place.

http://paragonwiki.com/wiki/Paragon_...m#Trench_Coats

Quote:

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.

Thank-you for this is easy to follow.

Okay, so devs, ask yourself: Is this model maybe a bit TOO greedy? I'm going to suggest the answer is yes, and explain why. Feel free to offer your counterpoints, if you have any. I'm sure many would be interested in what you have to say. Disclaimer: I was only looking up the Premium rewards for Tier 8, found out it was Large Insp drops (oh boy!) and then started running the numbers. It's come to my attention that your Premium customers are not getting anything close to a full value for their investment, whether they are starting today, or have been subscribing for years. Here's why:

Let's say for a minute that you've been playing since day 1, never let your subscription lapse, have everything you can possibly think of in terms of game items, and still continue to pay for whatever new doodad they come up with in the Store. This person is your cash cow. They aren't going anywhere, and you've given them plenty of reasons to do so over the years. Then you tell them that, even though they have what, 40 tokens leftover (I have no idea how many would be left after you fill Tier 9), they still cannot play their Incarnates unless they subscribe, which is a minimum of $12 or so a month, if they pay a year at a time, and $16ish for the "common man" who pays month to month because he/she wants to keep the lights on. That's not a huge loss for most of us. Incarnate seems almost ridiculous when you consider most of these people are already fully IO'd and godlike without a level shift and insane powers that add interesting pets, procs, buffs, and AoE attacks. To me, you peaked at alpha, and everything else was sort of downhill from there. Eventually there are going to be TFs that will probably vaporize any lowly alpha-only player with his/her measly +1 level shift. But I digress...

A person on day one would be smart to just buy points. For a one-time investment of approximately $500 (according to your numbers), that person would have a huge amount of points to spend in the store, and all the tokens necessary to enjoy almost everything in the game. VIPs currently get signature story arcs and Incarnates as the truly wonderful benefits of being a VIP, but how much is that worth, exactly? Is the cost of producing this new content SO high that you need to milk us twice, firing out new powersets at 800 points a pop, and letting us know that we still need to maintain our subscriptions? It doesn't take a rocket scientist to see that's double-dipping, a faux pas in both social situations when lowering a carrot stick into the ranch dressing, as well as when trying to demonstrate that you actually care about the customers who are keeping YOUR lights on.

I doubt you'll take me seriously when I tell you this, and that's fine. I'm just putting it out there for you to ponder. There's an organic, cooperative way to do business, then there's the wrong way. If you feel like your subscriber base is suddenly slipping, I encourage you to not simply think of the competition out there, because in this particular niche of MMOs, you currently have none, nor of the age of the game, which while valid, because of the new content you inject quite rapidly, again would probably not be your root cause. Symptoms such as these often distract from the core problem, which I think in this case is not realizing that people have already spent quite a bit on this game, and should, at some magical dollar amount, be able to play their Incarnates at full power. I don't argue that Signature Story Arcs are fine to place in the store, and as I write this, they are on sale (all seven) for 1200 points. This is EXACTLY the way to go about it. $5 is maybe a little high for some, but eventually if a person is patient, they can get it for less than half that.

There absolutely no reason not to implement this strategy, preferably at Tier8, and lump that lame Large Inspiration bonus in at some lower Tier. If a person is at Tier8, they're more than likely not relying heavily on insps anyway unless they're farmers, and nobody with a fully functioning brain is suggesting you ever cater to farmers, as they obviously affect your bottom line.

Thanks for reading, I hope you will give my suggestions some serious consideration!

-sk

I appreciate it, ZM. I was thinking the same thing when I looked at where I was posting this message. I'll see about getting it put over there, or contributing to an existing thread.

Thanks!

I just want to say TY for the breakdown of Tiers for Premium. Thats one thing they really never let you know before hand and I have to admit its intimidating to think all your characters are going to loose their IO bonuses you have spent trillions on equiping...

I have 30 tokens sloted and 3 @ Tier 8

So since I have Lifetime access to the Invention System from completing tier 7 Basically when I let my account VIP go I am not TOO adversly effected... Other then loosing Incarnate system which I have not been doing much of anyhow cause I lag so bad on any trial in the game.

And of all my 50s, most I have retired and not been playing at all anymore, focusing instead on my lowbees and mostly playing alone cause no one is interested in doing anything BUT trials on my server...

I got 25 characters on my main sever and like 6 on the VIP only server which are retired...
Obviously No need to mess with Exaulted when i let my VIP lapse for a bit, and should have more then enough character unlock tokens to unlock the ones I am working on... I think I now know everything thats been holding me back from dropping VIP for a little while...

Boy I'll tell you what though NCsoft sends some nasty Scare tactic messages for you NOT to let your VIP go... Its was ONLY here on this thread that ANYONE was able to tell me at what point I had Lifetime access to the Invention System for Premium without doing it first and finding out only then. So Thank you...

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