Sounds like a good idea so far, I'll wait to pass judgment until we find out what the advantage of being a member will be to offset this change
Khalon, dude, we all read that too, but it sucks mate. Unless they’re saying existing members will get a better deal as a loyalty thing than new ones, it just sucks. And they aren’t saying that. It’s a really poor strategy in the short term. It might be amazing in the long term. But tell me you’re not defending this? Please?
Would be good to know when that will be. If the Membership update isn't happening until the Summer (vague time period), will members wait around long enough to find out what the perks are and why they are subbing with free episode out? Some might but then some might not. By then many endgame players will have finished most of the gearing/feats with Episode 40.
We will see that 1-2 months into the Episode actually im the best example my membership ran out few days ago since ive been busy i couldnt renew it but i was going to do it this week either way for now i probably will wait before i sub and see if the episode is good enough to sub if not ill stay premium. Get ready for the freeplayers with low skillpoints and low artifacts that will complain about Elite difficulty lol.
Remove ths stupid dumb seals of completion and seals of preservation this is the biggest trash feature this game have seen.
I figure you don't answer forum goers, especially no name brats such as myself but it seems interesting that you would release this episode for free. First off, I like the idea that you are doing this because ever since all the added extras that came with the first fifteen episodes were separated from their respective DLC's and added separately to the marketplace it seems like a moot point to class episodes as separate purchases. Furthermore, there are way too many episodes to justify having them as separate purchases at this point. It's nice to see that the company has been progressively warming up to the idea of having these episodes opened up for general consumption without the need of purchases. I understand that having DLC40 be free while having the latest in Elite content is definitely a point of contention, especially after the disputed release of Survival Mode but I feel like fixing the taxonomy and pricing of the episodes might be a first step towards showing some good will. As for the Legendary rework, I'm interested in seeing what you guys have to offer. I feel that even though Legendary has always been somewhat devalued, having more and more separate stuff added that requires loyalty points and is sort of necessary for progression might basically relegated this membership status to the state of being something nice to have more than anything. Either way, I'm curious to see what you guys do.
As I understand it, open episodes makes the episodes accessible without purchase/membership (for characters of high enougn CR, obviously) - but being accessible doesn't mean you get all it has. Even with open episodes, you still don't get access to all reward boxes, for example, unless you're also a member or own the episode - IIRC. If I'm understanding this right, the episode will be fully free, no purchase or membership necessary for any part of it (reward boxes and all). I'm questioning the timing of the announcement just before 1st April though...
It's a interesting conundrum, and one that Daybreak kind of dug themselves into when they introduced pseudo F2P, then went and introduced required paywalls artifacts. Had they just sold episodes at $15/$25 (depending on the content size) a piece like most other games DLC and not lock everything else (other than cosmetics) behind a paywall, that would have been a reasonable model. Had they made it so subscribers got better benefits like Seals of Completion, XP bonuses for artifact/augment leveling, and all episodes/powers granted when they released artifacts that would have been a fair deal as well. Unfortunately for long time now we've been stuck in this weird mismash of pay for a sub to actually play unhindered.. then pay more to actually be effective in game. No other MMO I've ever played comes close to the height of paywall in this game. It'll be interesting to see the revamp of the membership perks.
ok. not entirely unexpected. I do think that you should've announced the planned membership changes at the same time, though.
This seems an odd response to an announcement that the membership system is going to be revised soon. Would you be happier if they announced that the membership system won't be changed soon? How is making something free "taking away" something?
Sounds great so long as members get more value to their membership. Otherwise this is a slap in the face to people paying good money for membership privilages
Open episodes provides access to content, temporarily, with a doubled loot lockout time. Free means full access as-if-you-bought-it permanently. The event version is unchanged (not mentioned at all in this announcement). Event version is level-agnostic content for everyone for a limited time.
So... you were planning to open everything up in a few months anyways? Are you taking the approach as other companies, where the game is completely free, but there is only member perks?
This is where I can't fault them on their logic behind this decision. If you make someone pay for it now and then turn around and give it away to everyone in a couple of months... how do you justify it? It's much easier and friendlier to grant members something with the launch of Episode 40 (for example, a free level 23 Flashpoint adaptive augment so we don't have to grind as much, or perhaps greater currency rewards throughout to reduce grinding) as part of this.
