I will admit the lockouts are unusually harsh for non-raiders this expac because there are only 2 group missions.
I don't mean this flippantly, but -- "That sounds like a player problem". If your group ONLY wants to spam-farm Gribbles, Gnome Memorial Mountain, Griklor, Zlandicar, When One Door Closes, etc. then that's a player issue. They COULD make it so there are NO missions worth repeating... but they don't. They make some more easily/quickly repeatable than others but have to temper the reward with lockouts to protect people from themselves.
The people who create the world. It's their world. This is how they want it to be played in. Sometimes they make changes based on player feedback when they can philosophically agree, but I will bet you cold hard cash that they will never simply remove all lockouts and leave all rewards in place unless they had a timeline for shutting down all the servers. It would make power increases too easy and kill the experience of the game.
Small game studios are having a hard time meeting historic expectations as costs increase, but revenue per user stays flat.
Lockouts are there to limit the amount of rewards that can be obtained from them. No, see my above statement.
lol, that’s such BS. Small studio struggles to under-delivers and now it’s the player base fault for not spending more money?
I am guessing he is alluding to the fact the flat subs <minus the perk system> haven't changed since like 2000. At least I know that quote has been floating around. Same with games costing 70 USD instead of 50/60.
The published data was around ~$36 per monthly active user. The user base has upped its spending. TLPs have also offered an incredible ROI for the studio. They have so many avenues for monetization. The players have continually put the up cash, premium expansions, additional accounts, quality of life features, etc. Don’t go around blaming the customer base for it. It’s more that they failed to manage the project by simplifying the deliverables based on staff resources. They have new staff give them simple mission variants to build off simple concepts kill trash, spawn boss, pop chest.
I'd be interested in knowing how many accounts pay for a subscription that way, and how many use krono they do not directly purchase, and would be largely unaffected by this. I havent paid for my sub (on any account) using $ since the first month of Agnarr, as an example. I've been getting by on krono I made playing there and flipping some prizes / chase expansion loot. I know there are a number of others who do the same.
No. Revenue per user is flat. There's nothing in that statement about fault. You're trying to see things that aren't there. I'll spoon-feed you, though. Ways to increase revenue per user: 1. Offer more features to purchase (perks) 2. Increase the price of existing features 3. Increase the price of subscription levels (some, all, etc.) 4. And on and on... Everquest is cheap. REALLY cheap. It was cheap in 2005 when it cost $144/year and it's cheap today costing $120/year. If that $144/year were to keep pace with inflation, EQ (all access) would cost $227/year as of December 2023. Daybreak keeps the game cheap probably because they know a LOT of people play on a budget and on budget computers. I’ll bet they’re smart enough to know that the average EQ player is well over 50 years old and quite possibly living on a fixed income, potentially with disabilities. Chances are that not only do they have at least a light grasp of the financial situation of their player base, but that they care enough not to gouge them. This isn’t Microsoft or Activision/Blizzard. They’re not a megacorp monolith. They’ve been working on this passion project for years… a couple for decade. Ya, I would’ve like a bit more content as well, but I also understand the difficulty of customer price management and operations. Sometimes, you have to deliver less to ensure something ships at all.
I have only ever played on subscription (along with my wife and our 3rd account). Almost all the players I know play on subscription as well. But, that’s just my experience. Birds of a feather, etc.
Same here, I play on sub. I Take into account that its only like $14 a month. Thats the price of a single movie (2 hours of entertainment vs a month). While I could work to not pay $14 a month and get kronos, I'm happy to support the game. Us having a subscription supports the game we play far more than using kronos does.
This would make sense if there weren't more avenues of revenue in the game than ever before (and reports show revenue per user is up). People are leveraging perks, microtransactions, etc. Just because the monthly sub remains cheap, it doesn't mean players aren't spending more than they were. Anyone who buys Hero's forge on their character is spending money on things that didn't exist in 2005. As with TS depot, dragon's hoard, various key rings, heroic chars, AP slots, mounts, illusions, potions, etc. DPG store and bag purchases are a big annual revenue stream on TLPs to not be ignore and certainly didn't exist 15 to 20 years ago.
In Everquest Beta the last two parts of this quest were same zone so you could buy, hand in and self power level. Tumpy was relocated to other side of zoneline. Zone times back then were...prohibitive. Lockouts on group content are silly. Like who cares? I can understand in current expansion progression, but ok, like I just finished the task, understand it and can help player soandso get it done, that's a win for future expansion sales.
Revenue per user isn't flat. I provided the spending the average spending per MAU from their buyout. Your statement I replied to said that small studios were facing high expectations while costs rise, but revenue is flat. Your statement implies fault with the customers not spending enough. They've done all of that. You also don't mention that don't have to pay for physical publishing and shelf space for stores. So, the old expansions selling for $35, were only make them $18. Now those expansions packs that had all the perks sell for $139 with no splits for publishing or retail. Users are spending on average $36/month, which exceeds the spending from 2005. No, MMOs stay cheap, FTP, B2P with shops because they're heavily dependent on having an extremely large audience. The higher the price, the fewer the people and the game dies off. The community expectations for this game are in the basement. The only franchise with lower expectations is Pokemon. Nobody here is expecting Blizzard or FF14 cinematics and cut-scenes with dungeons and full voice acting. True, but in this case they needed to be simple and reduce complexity to fit the with current resources. So, spare me the sad story of the little dev studio and the big bad community.
But after 25 years of clamoring, we got Personnas. Free Alts. Loss leaders for deeper monetization. /2075
