Is greed over shadowing hardwork by devs

I'm not editing this quote from my phone but I need to respond to this sunk cost crap.

People who have been subscribing (that includes me) and people who have purchased episodes have gotten exactly what they paid for - access to the content. If the game went 100% f2p tomorrow, they all still got what they paid for.

That being said, I do believe compensating subscribers and those who purchased episodes in some way would be warranted. I laid out what SWTOR did in an earlier post and something like that would work just fine here if they ever drop membership.

Yeah, technically you're correct. People paid, and played. But you're not taking into account human emotions and the way they respond to slights. Perception is just as important as legality.

Someone used the example of the PS4. On release people payed $400 or so in November 2013, now, four years later, it costs probably close to half that. So by your argument, people shouldn't care how much it costs now since they got what they paid for. Fair enough. That's kind of like the really old episodes 1-5 being given free to PS4 players.

But now imagine if Playstation totally changed the system and started giving everyone (now, in 2017) free PS4s. Totally free. In exchange, all PS4 players would be required to purchase each game at twice the normal price. The gaming system is free, the games cost double. How do you think people would feel who had already paid for everything to suddenly find out it was all for nothing, and would now mean increased costs for them?

By giving out purchased content for free to everyone, the devs simultaneously devalue all those past purchases, and also have to make up that money from somewhere. So what are people who subbed in the past going to think when the game turns in Aion, for example. How would they react to suddenly having even more horrific drop rates, or p2w artifacts that give you access to more powerful abilities, etc.

Or do you think the devs would just call off membership and expect nothing in return?

Legally, did people get what they paid for? Yep. Heck, the people from Marvel Heroes who started their sub 4 months ago got what they paid for legally. Do you think they're happy though? Value is just as important to cost when it comes to customers. People aren't stupid.

I searched for the SWTOR post but couldn't find it.

Just one last thing, I'm not trying to defend the current membership status. I agree that the company seems to be double dipping by putting SP in time capsules and turning them into progression. That bugged me so much that I quit. I'm merely having a hypothetical discussion about the probable effect on the game were they to completely scrap the membership model. Would it have been better if they'd have started with a different model? Hard to say, probably.

To tell you the truth, I wish they'd have never invented the feats for progression system in the first place. But it seems like sweeping changes to any of that stuff might be dangerous. And the real question is, does it even change anything? Do the open episodes really do anything for player retention? Does giving more and more stuff to free players really work?

Only the devs know the balance on that one. At the end of the day, it's their game, and their responsibility if they mess it up, lol. That's not on the players.

At this point, I'd be happy if they actually made trolling a real thing, but I guess people who play troll roles don't buy enough time capsules to warrant fixing it, lol. Oh, well, that's something for another thread, and another time.

Hey, now there's a great example.

Imagine if the devs suddenly decided to award free players all feats and sp from past episodes to even the playing field. Automatically.

Or if they could buy packs of episode feats from the marketplace.

One could also argue that the people who spent time getting all those feats (including LPVE ones) shouldn't be upset. After all, they haven't lost anything, right? They got what they paid for. If other people get them with 0 effort or as an enticement to join, why should they be upset, right?

Somehow I doubt that would fly. Maybe it's just me and my old-fashioned self, though.

Imagine if Mepps went to your house and stole your bike! OMG!

Not even touching that one, lol.

Well last year I did buy replay badges on sale in bulk. But this year didn't really seem like a really good sale in replays this year. At this point I'm really trying to find a excuse to buy something. I don't like the sale on stabilizers since it gambling to me.

If they had a sale with MC and replay badges I would spend over $100 easily. I see there being a lil stingy with replays this year.

I don't know what it is but it seem like destiney2 and DCUO are trying to be a lil to sneaky with there MC for the holidays.

I guess I spend over $100 on warframe mirage prime access. I'm a proud whale that like to support the game. But if your not willing to budge and give ppl what they want then paying for membership is good for now.

An overshadowing of lack of hard-work, is usually do to a lack of hard work lol. You know that gif with the dog in the burning room? Everything is fine....

I was like that. As a student, no way could I get D marks. I was working too hard, in my mind....Part of getting better and evolving is admitting to your flaws. DCU has not evolved or adapted since its' inception. "Everything is fine"has been the motto.

You get out what you put in. Put little money into this, sure you could make more than you expend. However, put more into this, there is potential to make much more. Like i said, an mmo using unreal 2 had body proportions; Marvel Omega had far crispier combat and models. Why is that?

"Everything is fine" Though; may just be my perception...And they are not open for suggestions regarding the cash shop, that is a lie.

I had a suggestion to put the dated lockbox items in the MP, since LB are a thing of the past. They want nothing to do with the MP.

Such a very very long thread.
I can't read all these but as just a personal respond to the first texts, I'm gonna say "You Are Wrong".
If you're feeling something like jealous to members, just don't feel like that.
I've been playing DCUO for about 3.5 years and I've got my first membership a few month ago because I'm PERSONALLY not able to adds card, but since I've been a member the ONLY thing that matters for me is the Market Place's off prices and lock boxes, I even didn't choose one of the locked powers and my characters powers are from the first 6 powers.
And now I'm haven't been a member for 1 month, and the only and only thing which could have annoyed me was that my lockboxes expired and I could not have use the Black Friday's sale.
Yeah sure I like to do the newer missions, I was really feeling u need while I couldn't play new raids, alerts, duos and... but I say again I'm PERSONALLY not worried about them because I have a lifetime to play whatever I want but sadly lockboxes expire.
And this is actually what membership means, Everything free for YOU, but not forever.
If you want the contents forever membership is not what you need, go and pay for whatever you want and own it forever.
I'm gonna barley say that the Memberships are the BIGGEST way for Daybreak to make money and if they make any changes for them that players don't like them, they will make a lot of less profit by giving up of some players to not pay for membership anymore.
And by the way in this about 1 month while that I hadn't membership like I said I was only worried about 2 points, and there was no difference for me about times that powers are open or not or whatever like that.
Membership are something cheap that you must buy if you want to play, and actually Memberships force all contents of the game to be free for you, memberships are your friend not things that eat your money, if the contents of memberships change the price of a lot of things in the market place such as subblies and powers and episodes and actually everything except just a few styles will get higher and more expensive.
As just sentence, All contents of video games must be free, and Memberships are just a few cheap things which are the Best and the Easiest way to have them, and everyone has to pay for that if their gonna play as long as everyone else who has done it since DCUO came out.

Let me say this.

The whole TC thing is fine because everything is purely cosmetic. Nothing inside gives you an advantage over another player outside of the skill points that come inside those.

That being said the SP differential between getting all TC skill points and not getting all TC skill points is around 50+ skill points which right now is not a game breaking difference.

The problem is that DCUO marketplace is terrible. Compared to other F2P games on the PS4 DCUO has one if not the worst marketplace and they make up for that through the TC system.

I take long breaks from DCUO because everytime I come back to it I notice that the best things are located in the TC or they are located in the broker at extremely high prices which pushes away new players that I try to get to play, or old friends that I try to get to come back to the game.

Now that there are several other MMO options on PS4 along with F2P MMO options DCUO has fallen short to what it means in terms of quality content and material.

I am hopeful that will change with the dropping of the PS3, however I doubt that the TC and ongoing devalue of the legendary membership will stop anytime soon

Imo, many of their issues are developmental in nature. Doing X will require much work essentially means, we cant do it....I doubt money is an issue, because their vision was always a fancy logo over substance. I wonder how much of that 50 million budget actually went into the game...

I am not that hopeful dropping the ps3 will fix much of anything, because a great deal of their issues do not involve the ps3. Not to say cache is not a big deal. Just not for them.....

Please just forgive me because of a few fast typing mistakes.