Random thoughts about being premium

So my main account turned premium (tier 4) saturday and I thought, hey, why not, may as well experience what it's like.

- IOs vs SOs: I mostly use common IOs with a few uniques or cheap sets thrown in while leveling, so the downgrade to SOs may not have been as big to me as it might for others, although it was noticeable - solo. Get on a team, even a two or three person one as long as there's a buff/debuff AT, and the performance loss is indistinguishable.

It sort of makes the game more balanced as a single character isn't able to annihilate everything without effort as soon as level 30-35 or so, but on the other hand certain imbalances that are masked by IOs become all the more apparent.

- access to specific features: this one is confusing. There doesn't seem to be anywhere ingame listing what is possible to do, the only way to check is trial and error or looking up that topic from the beta boards. The order in which some features are given seem a bit ackward. For example, you get market access at tier 4, but can't use IOs until tier 8, so you can theorically buy things that you won't be able to slot, and you won't have the slighest indication of that up until you try to do so.

It was nice to see that I could do most important things I tend to do with mere tier 4, which is less than 2 years of paid time if I recall correctly ; tell people, invite to a SG, use global chat channels, get in Praetoria, play AE, etc..

- misc stuff: being forced to keep the shop button on the screen at all times doesn't make me want to shop, and in games that do something similar I purposefully not pay anything, whereas I've shelled hundreds of bucks in other MMOs that didn't try to advertise their paid features.

Yesterday, I clicked on VIP to check how it went, perhaps reactivate... The slow and sloppy experience of trying to login ingame, with all the performance issues compared to a standard website, made me stop at the login confirmation screen where it asks you those two questions. That's one delayed sub/sale.


Am I going to stay premium? No, I play enough those days that I'll probably reactivate very soon, perhaps even today (using the webpage, not ingame, thank you very much).

For that weekend I did not see my enjoyment of the game decreased any, once you remove the fluff that is IOs and incarnates the core game remains pretty fun - loot has of course its purpose, something to "work" towards and keep playing, but making your own costume and beating stuff up is the most fun part if you ask me.

Premium mode is nice for casual play, and at the same time complete enough to entice to VIP (i.e. "how much time per month am I playing this again? $15 for those extra features really don't seem all that much considering that"). Thumbs up from me, with the caveat that you'd really want to make the information more available / understandable to players who may not be as invested in the game.

I have to agree about the tiered unlocking; they need something explicit in game that says "When you complete this tier you unlock access to X, Y & Z". I can't even find any official documentation that explains it anywhere, all I've found outside of random forum threads is this: http://paragonwiki.com/wiki/Paragon_Rewards_Program

Just the thought I had today, that the game really could use a list of what's enabled on the account. (Well, apart from emotes and costumes, perhaps, as that would dominate the list disproportionately.)

I also agree about the in-game sluggishness of all web related stuff, either account related or the store itself. Quite a bit of patience is required, which isn't conductive to spending money.

I'm not bothered at all by the shop button. I just moved it to the top between the menus and I don't even notice it. Also kept the reward button near it. I haven't played a lot on my laptop yet (only 1366x768 res), but far as I remember it didn't bother me much even there, once I moved it out of the way.

Yes, reward level 4 is just 15 months of play, so it's not that hard to get. Me, I'm not going Premium, I'm going Free for now. I'm just curious how it'd feel trying to get a character to 50 on a free account.

The shop buttons being constantly 'In Your Face' appears to have been the deal breaker for at least one of my friends that shocked me by coming back.

I'd touted up Freedom with them, they expressed only passing interest as time has given them a family etc. So I was shocked to see him on my Global list.
Sent a /Tell and he replied that he was just checking it out to see and didn't want to get me excited. That things seemed smoother in places and more complex in others.
Somehow though, in the ensuing day and a half he got overly fed up with the restrictions, even after buying points.

I think he was tier 3.

Last thing I heard from him concerning it was that he just didn't feel like being slapped over the head by the constant reminders to spend money. If he didn't feel pressured by it, he'd probably get back into the game and end up either resubbing for a period or pumping money into the store every month or so.

We're way past the drawing board though, alas. The 2 biggest issues I have outstanding are with the limited chat options avail to Free and the inability to remove the store and (pointless) reward buttons for Premiums.

I understand why they want it to be like that for non ViP's. I totally endorse it being mandatory for Free accounts. Premiums however should have the option to remove it. They have already proven that they;

A) Know how to access and use the store.
B) Proved they are willing to spend money on the game.

Giving them the option to remove it would go a long way towards retaining the positive image we've had for all these years. An image of putting community 1st.

*Shrug*

Guess we'll see how it pans out. I'm crossing my fingers that it only hampers the enjoyment of a small minority instead of the majority of returnees...

Unfortunately, while that option is available for VIP accounts, it purposefully go away as soon as you drop down to Premium. You can still hide the Rewards button, but not the Shop one. That is the gist of my complaint.

The pay-wall around IO's seems relatively odd, considering that's a feature the average player is going to run into at level 10. And it's an awful lot of money before it becomes permanent (and it's pointless messing with it at all until that time).

It might be better to have some sort of tiered system where different rarities unlock at different points? That way the level 10 noobie can make his L10 damage enhance but the end-game IO's are still cordoned off.

It would also be really nice to have a server (Justice?) marked as being oceanic. Not actually hosted there, not restricted, but just something to get sleep deprived US people and people in that timezone in the same place. At the moment it's all pretty dead (of course full f2p hasn't started).

Everyone having a personal super-group as an extended bank is also pretty sad. Great way to build community.

I don't really understand the lack of ability for non-VIPs to remove the store icon. I mean, I can certainly imagine someone thinking it's a good idea, but I also think that someone was deeply mistaken about that good idea.

My Kid's account was reactivated as a premium account last week. I would not want to play as a low reward premium. The VIP is a far better deal if you are under t7 rewards. He did a respec and lost all of his IOs, and is now begging for me to get him an IO license. I am pretty sure after that he will ask me to replace all of his lost common IOs.

The button really is pretty small and unobtrustive. If you want an "IN YOUR FACE CONSTANTLY" store interface, try LOTRO. :P

Hmm I will agree that the Store button is a LOT more in your face than it needs to be.

Heck in most other games of this nature, the store is listed with the other inteface options (character info, inventory etc.) and while it might do something like shine or glow, it's a lot less intrusive.