2014 Membership Benefit Update

I think that's probably one of the biggest problems people are having with this. If we could do a "one transaction for 2000 SC" (but multiple items), it might still chafe some playing styles (how can you know in advance if you're going to need 3 different types of plants and a bread pan in advance?), but it would lessen the rage considerably, I think. :-/

That being said, it does seem a wee bit suspicious...let's hope they care enough about us paying customers still to keep our responses in mind. :-/

Uwk

i just don't see how that could be cost feasible for them. the best suggestions i think so far are:

1. just create an EQ2 currency

2. have us choose each month or so between 500 accruable or 2000 nonaccruable funds. even limit the 500 accruable to a max of 2000.


aside from all that i think we've finally pared it down to the root question: Why am I paying a subscription?

everything else seems to lead back to that.

That could work. ;->

Uwk

Will you please consider the newer players, including all the Heroics, who will be needing to master their chars all at once, instead of researching over the years as the older players have?

I've been playing 2 years, and have 7 chars approaching 95. If they each have 35 spells to master, that's (7x35=245) 245 masters I have to loot or buy with plat all at once, if they are even on the market. Or, if I buy all the masters for 250 SC each, that will cost (245x250=61250) $612.50. That would be great for Sony, but not realistic for me, it is too expensive to spend over 600 dollars to master out 7 toons. This is why I was hoping for double or triple SC at Christmas, so that I could get my toons mastered. I would have spent $150 or more on SC, if there had been a double or triple SC event.

If I research, it will take 35 months, or almost 3 years, to finally be able to raid. Who wants to let all 7 of their 95 toons sit around 3 years waiting to be able to raid? Those old timers who are fully mastered, have done so over the years they played. They didn't start 2 years ago, or in the case of the Heroics, 3 months ago. They didn't have to do all the highest level masters, all at once.

Also I see veteran players saying that they have more plat then they can ever spend. Well, I don't. I have a few thousand. So I probably will not be able to buy all 245 or so masters, even if I can find them on the market. I can assure you that most 95 masters cost more than a couple dozen plat.

Just hoping that the newer players, including all the Heroics, can be considered a bit too, in regards to all the 95 masters coming all at once. Double or triple SC was the solution I was hoping for, but maybe there is some other way, like quests for earning significant research reduction potions (of a few days, not a few hours) Thanks for listening and thanks for your patience.

What an odd question. But ok, I'll answer. Um, yes. I'd say this change may well affect a lot of peoples' spending habits, including my own.

Agreed; same here. :-/

Options are our friends, and always have been. ;->

Uwk

I have to say that since other Artists have said this, if PS turns out to become more effort for us than it's worth in returns SOE could see a drop in Player Created Content. If that gives any more insight to the scenario.

I have to say it concerns me that we are now waiting a 'few more days' for more details to roll out. What exactly does that mean?
Are they looking for ways to improve this 'benefit'? Or are we about to hear more news on how being a Gold subscriber is going to further lose its appeal?
The details surely must already be known by SoE. I can't imagine this was only decided in the last week, so why keep us in the dark?
It irks me. It is irksome.

They could have a lot of ideas floating around office, thing is they can't publicly say anything until the "higher ups" approve the plan and since this is directly related to profits of sorts this involves not only the teams on the game but accounting and all their charts.

TBH my playstyle would be 95% unchanged if I dropped to Silver.
- Character slot : I'm not maxed, I'm not even sure if I'll need to buy a char slot.
- Broker : I can't remember the last time I want to someone house to shop. No real "buying" restriction for me. Sale ? Meh, it's not like there's a ton of valuable item to put on the broker so I can live without (Granted this is easier to say when, like me, you already have a nice sum of PP )
- Mail : kinda annoying yes. Not that I use it much other to send items to myself when there's no bank or shared bank is full... My friends tend to have their Mailboxes permafull
- Chat channel : Is only restricted for Bronze, Silver can use them.
- 15% XP boost : well, useless for max level characters. I guess my adorns might level a bit slower...
- 10% Mount Speed : /shrug I started playing when the best mount was 40%...
- Double Token / Increased PP : The usefulness of it is already declining. Other than the 3K mount, I'm almost done with Etyma. Obviously this might change when they release the next expansion in almost a year so I guess being Gold for 1 or 2 months after a Xpack make sense for my playstyle.
- Item from Marketplace : All I have ever bought was small things (typicaly less than 200 SC per item) or Server transfert token. Unless they reduce the cost of Server Transfert to 2K and doesn't exclude it, I've really no interest in the 2K voucher.

For me at least the question isn't to play EQ2 or to leave but rather is it worth paying 15$/month and still needing to buy some SC vs Silver and needing some SC.

I fear that they thought this change would be accepted and welcomed. I feel that waiting a few more days to hear the finer details, is going to be nothing but bad news.
I don't believe for one minute that the details have not already been finalized. I feel they're working out the best way to present them, so they're seen as good rather than evil.

Just once it would be nice to get all the information at once. Whether we like the change/changes or not, the sooner we know all the details the sooner we can accept them.

The details will probably be out on Friday towards the end of the business day. That way by Monday most of the ranting will be over and people will be on to next catastrophe.

We fully anticipated there would be a ton of feedback due to how invested many of you are in your gaming experience. I'd hope you hold off thinking it's bad news until we detail what you'll be able to get.

It would be a HUGE change to the way I'd play, even with the recently lifted restrictions. In essence I LOVE the broker--that's my version pf PVP; figuring out holes in the market and filling them up and also decorating. I can do the latter without gold, but the loss of the market would even cut into that, since I buy/sell items to fuel that interest. I still quest and craft, but more sporadically than in the past and it's not the driving force keeping me logging in due to health making me log out randomly so often. I have one character of each class on my home server and some on Freeport when I took a serious look at what F2P would potentially mean if (and let's face it, when) it came to AB. I'm attached to all of those characters, even if many are still in their teens. Logging in and finding them locked would just bum me out. (On that note, I paid to unlock most of those and we're not sure if that makes them silver-accessible).

What does that leave then? If I get pushed back to silver due to this, I will log in occasionally to make sure my guild hasn't caught on fire (I am one of a multi-leader guild) but I can't send mail, so that kills that being very productive. Here's what it would change for me: I wouldn't really be investing any major time in the game, so fewer log ins. I won't be tempted to spend even one thin dime on SC to splurge if I'm silver, since I won't be around enough to enjoy those shinies. In essence, sure I can go F2P, but it will negatively affect their bottom line when we're talking about money from me and most other people I know that are displeased with the proposed change. I hate those "reminders" that pop up about gold too, but not enough to make me sub for getting rid of that alone.

Also, to address those who have called for pulling back and making F2P more restrictive again, I think they already opened Pandora's box when F2P came to all servers. I tried being silver only. Doable, but not that alluring, even with the fewer-than-before restrictions in place. Sure, some people can hack it, but I suspect that those of us who paid and got perks and saw them as a "thank you" or make-up gift for F2P on all servers (and those who don't like this change) are unlikely to fill up the server population for long. I'd reckon that bunch will be non-paying visitors from time to time at the most. Put my old sub money toward SC? No thanks. It was the spirit of that perk that mattered most and I don't see much to spend on without the perk offsetting the bad taste that a SC-driven game creates for many. It's a balancing act for sure. I thought theyd figured that out some time ago, but given all of this, perhaps not.

@RadarX (sorry I can't see how to quote stuffz)
Shouldn't you be going home now? Go put your feet up and have an ale or three.

And thank you for your presence in this thread.

Yes, my spending habits would differ. And I'll give you a very recent example.

This Frostfell, we got two different reindeer mounts. One white, one tan. 1950 SC each. I had some SC saved up from my monthly stipend...maybe just over 1000 SC. Not enough to buy either one.

Didn't matter, I liked them. I wanted them. What did I do? I bought enough Station Cash to buy BOTH of them. With a little SC left over. Because I already had that little seed pool of SC that I got for being a subscriber. It justified my spending additional money to add to the pool.

Now, if I hadn't been getting that 500 SC every month, would I have bought even ONE of those reindeer mounts? Nope. I'd have looked, longed, and left. Because looking at that fat goose egg SC balance of 0, I wouldn't have been enticed to add more to the kitty to buy two reindeer mounts I will rarely, if ever, ride outside the Frostfell holiday. I wouldn't have been able to rationalize the expenditure with 'well, I have some SC, I might as well add more'.

See, that's where you were getting my additional money, beyond my subscription. My ability to rationalize the 'add a little more' thought. And it doesn't matter from my side if the item is Player Studio or not. Nothing in the SC Marketplace is worth my money if I'm looking at a 0 SC balance, and paying a subscription. And it would have to be something truly incredible to get me to buy SC if I'm not paying a subscription. And from where I'm sitting? There hasn't been a truly incredible item in the Marketplace yet.

Unless you are adding a bunch of new items that we can get to the market there is NOTHING there now that makes this a good change for me even with NO exclusions other than PS.

Out of our 3 accounts I have already shut one down but we were debating that one anyway since it was seldom used, this was just the nail in coffin that made us finally do it.

The other two hang in the balance until further details are given but if you are relying on what is already in the market to swing me you will be sadly (and monetarily) disappointed.

I foresee some "new stuff" thrown in there at 2k just to shut folks up and buy them a few months .........

the saying goes, hope for the best, but be prepared for the worst.......i truly believe a lot of the anger shown here is due lack of info on the subject.....could you please tell whoever is in charge of that, to be a little more upfront about things in the future, cause a lot of these pages could probably have been avoided, if the upcoming change would have been announced with full details.

This exactly!
Except you put it to words so much better than I do.
Understanding this type of consumer behavior is what makes the difference between marketing and great marketing.
I would suggest SOE employ the latter .

Another thing that bears mentioning in this discussion (and yeah, I've read almost every post) is that by making gold less attractive, I wonder if they will loose the brunt of Krono sales. I know I bought them a few times for friends who couldn't afford to sub (two for Xmas this year). I can't see anyone whose not willing to invest in a gold sub for themselves (even if they bought them to avoid a stored credit card after the hack) buying them as gifts. Of course there is the allure to sell them on the broker too, but there's only so much to do with plat and it's not that hard to earn if you have tons of time to invest. On that note, wonder when they'll pull those from being sold on the broker. Hmm. I hope not.