Premium Players get less than expected!

Not true, but it requires a different model. The first major MMO to go "freemium" works like this and got more subs after the transition. But there content was gated behind a one time purchase. New content keeps being added and is available for free to subscribers. The price of all this content is quite a few months of subscription, and coupled with the hassle of buying it separately, a lot of people chose to go for subs.

Another alternative is to have things which need to be bought multiple times. Another game limits spell power and equipment, but allows you to buy the ability to equip or upgrade a limited number of them. You have to buy that every time you want to equip such equipment. People who don't like subscriptions can live with that, while people who want to use these things often and don't mind subbing can do that. Plus there's also a lot of other stuff you get.

There's no shortage of working models which don't completely gate abilities behind a subscription. That doesn't mean that Freedom's model is bad, just that it's not the only viable one.

Not remotely. You're forgetting that a sub does come with a monthly stipend. Eventually you could buy the incarnate content with that stipend.

You are now hearing this as Dr. Aeon /em lectures.

Blood Widow Ricki * Tide Shifter * T-34 * Opposite Reaction * Shaolin Midnight * ChernobylCheerleader

Entropy Legion * Hyperion Force * Hero Heights

For the record I'd be fine with an Incarnate License ONLY for Premiums, NOT free players, or allowing premiums to play with the alpha slot. Not trials though.

This much I can agree with, as I've actually stated a few posts back. Give them the first two tiers of the Alpha slot, which is what GR might have been released with.

Likewise you'd have to include that in the GR package now, or maybe just as a new item.

But you can't sell access to the level shifts, other iPowers, or the iTrials, except perhaps as a license like the IO system.

Did you read anything else I wrote? As I said, this is one aspect of the game that subscribers get. It is not everything they get by a longshot. That monthly stipend is just enough to cover buying the monthly story arcs that are being released in order to retain access to them after you leave. So if you want to be a free VIP we can just take both the story arcs and stipend out of our equations and see what's left. I still see a server (the only thing I don't think you should be able to buy out of), a lot of character slots, greater inf space and inventory space, a powerset, an expansion, free access to the full incarnate system (all 10 slots and all levels of power within those slots) and access to a zone's worth of stuff as of right now. And since you don't have to spend your monthly stipend on those story arcs in order to keep them once you're gone you also get free money towards new powersets, travel powers and costumes.

In addition you are assuming that Incarnate would be bought in a single shot whereas there are numerous ways that it could work without gating behind a subscription. The invention license is of course one model of this. As is EQ2s model of not allowing certain rarity of equipment unless you pay for unlockers for each piece (in this case paying to unlock each paragon slot as well as each level of incarnate powers would suffice).

As I said, yes some people would buy out of subscriptions, but that doesn't mean that they will not be paying a large sum of money to do so and won't have to continue to pay afterwards in order to get all of the things VIPs get. Personally I do think its a travesty that VIPs are not receiving future powersets for free and I think this should be added to the VIP list of things they get for free. However, there are still a ton of reasons to subscribe.

I would be terribly amused by all of that if I didn't think you actually believed it.

Where does the evidence for the third bullet point come from? I don't take that at all from what Positron said. New iTrials will be published, and when they do, people will flock to them, especially when they're associated, directly or indirectly with new slots. Edit: OK, we do have to assume they won't make many more iTrials that go over like Keyes. If they do, the whole thing is toast.

Even if bullet three is true, bullet one invalidates the notion that giving premium players access to incarnates would meaningfully affect that outcome in any case.

This on the other hand I don't agree with. I think it's fine that we now get to pick and choose what we're willing to pay for. Had I had the choice I never would have paid for Dual Pistols.

You don't need to use the subscription model to consistently get money out of a player, and even a VIP banking their points for going Premium can't replace their subscription unless they have very narrow interests - and even then, they're going to run out of points eventually. Even if they don't re-sub when that happens, they will have spent money on the game at some time and contributed to the player base.

I think the store could sell 30-day licenses to access each trial. A player could buy a Keyes license to see what it's like; or a former subscriber might come back and drop $2 to see a new trial that just came out, and they're not yet sure there's enough new stuff to warrant subscribing. Premiums could be limited to only using Incarnate powers during trials, so they get much less utility out of them than subscribers - but they still get to play with them, like a video game console in a department store, the ultimate goal being "Mommy will you buy this for me?" (Except most of us probably have the ability to buy stuff for ourselves, of course!)

Although that doesn't address the issue that Incarnates are beyond the sight of Premiums without getting them to pay first, but that can be addressed without negating the value of a subscription, too: a Free or Premium account could get a voucher on their first 50 that grants them a 30-day BAF+Lambda license. An Incarnate Trial trial, if you will. What would be wrong with that?

Edit: And now after posting I see you've made another reply about license-based Incarnates. Curses!

Let's pretend here for a second. Let's say each slot costs $15 to unlock and comes with the first tier within that. Then add $5-10 per tier, per slot (let's say $5 for the first two and $10 for the last two).

That's $150 to unlock all of the slots and $300 more to get all of the slots filled to top tier. Are you saying that people should not be allowed to pay $450 to get full access to the system because you think everyone would stop subbing keeping in mind all of the other things subscribers get?

I don't think this is the case. I think we will still see the occasional power set released free for VIPs, but probably at the rate at which we used to see them. Just as Issue 21 brought a free-for-VIP power set (Time Manipulation) and purchasable powers set (Beam Rifle). I expect we'll see more power sets released per x period of time, but most will be purchasable to cover the added development/resource costs. Then we'll see a power set or two per year that are released as free for VIPs.

I hope.


As for the rest of this debate, I am of the mind that there has to be a middle ground rather than "all or nothing." The simple window-view of the Incarnate system will nurture a "haves vs. have nots" situation, which may be enough to inspire some Premiums to upgrade to VIPs, but will probably inspire resentment amongst the majority. Resentment usually results in either indignant complacency or outright rejection. In other words, Premiums will either feel that they are going to "stick it to the man" by deliberately not upgrading to VIP despite wanting access to the Incarnate System, or feel that they can get their ultimate power trip elsewhere and leave.

While I do not support nor wish to be around either of those attitudes, if the Powers That Be want to entice people to upgrade to VIP status, the Premium players need a taste of what they are missing rather than just a window view. Let's be the one that actually offers a free sample of one layer of that delicious 5-layer-cake in the bakery window!

A dev talking about a feature under development before release is not proof. That is just a dev talking about a feature under development.

If the advertising copy and the box didn't say incarnates included it wasn't included in the final release then.

This is also assuming CoX is a "game in a bottle". If nothing new is ever developed for it then yes, subscribing would be pointless. If on the other hand, new content is developed and Premiums never got access to it, then there would still be a nice incentive.

I don't understand.

Yes

Like it.

I lold

I don't think you get how the Alpha slot works.

I don't understand how YOU think it works.

After running Remiel's arc you could slot the Alpha all the way to tier 4 purely through random Shard drops and the Notice of the Well from the Weekly Strike Target. Indeed, I DID on at least 6 of my toons.

Yes but they said it would take ages, it does not do so. You get the slavage for the Alpha slots from doing Task Forces (to my knowledge not locked to premium players), it takes a maximum of free weeks unless you are a villain/rogue in which case it takes two weeks.