Why all-in-one?

I think it's simply the practical choice for soe to include all of them. It cuts down production costs by a huge margin, because they don't need to ship two versions of the same product. Yeah, people who haven't been playing get the other expansions for free, but the way I look at is that I spent that time enjoying those expansions when they were still fresh and populated with people, whereas when they get in and play through all the older content, it'll be a lot harder for them to grab groups because people will be spending most of their time in the new zones.

What's so hard to understand about this? The price they charge is only the price of the expansion and the reason they include all the previous ones is because it is more efficient and saves shelf space to have only one box. It also makes potential new customers have an easier time picking up the whole game.

WeatherMan wrote:

Domino replaced Beghn, who had been with the team since launch. Frizznik and Ilucide also did some tradeskill stuff, but directly she replaced Beghn. I agree that she does a really good job and is a really popular dev, even if I don't agree with hardly any of her decisions. However, that doesn't change the fact that prior to SOE she had ZERO game developer experience, has no programming experience and replaced a guy who did. SOE may have some weird mantra about paying untested developers as much as tested developers with experience, but I doubt it.
Hiring people from your fanbase is "good" because it gets you players who are passionate about the game and its cheaper than hiring experienced devs. Unless, like I said, SOE pays its employees on some fairness scale, but since they use a QA team staffed mostly from a temporary agency, I doubt it.
Smaller team + less experienced devs = cheaper bottom line labor wise, even if you take longer between expansions.

I know this topic is getting heated, so please don't read any hostility into my post. I can tend to come off as an arrogant know-it-all from time to time... but that's just because I'm always right.

And on with the post....


Personally, I find the attempt to itemize the cost of a product into its base components when you don't have to ability to purchase the components in any other method silly.

The cost is $40 (give or take a penny or two) for EQ2 and access to all major updates up to TSO. That's it. Saying the update is free and the old content is what is charged for, or the old content is free and the update is what is charged for, or breaking it down to $30/$10 or $29.99/$10.01 is in the end pointless.

It's like going into a Marshalls/Walmart/whatever and seeing "1 Pair of Socks: $1.99; 2 Pairs for the Same Price." Now, when you get one pair of socks, the pair is a buck 99. When you get 2 pair, it is pointless to argue whether each pair is now 99 and half cents or if the first pair is $1.99 and the other is free. The 2 pair together is $1.99. That's what you have to pay in order to get it.

Another example is if you go to a nice hotel that has a number of 'free services' given for reserving the room for $299 a night. Technically, the services aren't free. The hotel just rolls the costs into the other prices, making them invisible on the final bill. In EQ2s case, there is only one item, EQ2 w/upgrades-up-to-TSO.

Now, did the price go up 10 bucks when the all-in-ones started? Yeah. Does that mean that you're paying 30 bucks for the upgrade and 10 for the old stuff? No. You're paying 40 bucks for everything. That's it. No further breakdown. End of customer pricing concerns.

The real issue is whether or not Sony should put out a cheaper upgrade version, on DVD or thru download, for those who already have the base system. In the end, their current decision is, unfortunately, 'no'. It's a business decision, and they obviously think they can get enough of the old players to pay for the single all-in-one product to make more money out of it. If they didn't think the customers would buy it enough, I'm sure they'd explore the other option. (This isn't a 'screw-em' mentality, by the way. This is how the company needs to operate. They're in it to get as much money as possible for whatever services/products they provide. Otherwise there is no point for them to create/upgrade/run the game.)

But look at it this way... if itemizing a fixed product cost is that important, pretend you're paying 40 bucks for the artwork on the cover, and the entire game is free. (Okay, yes... now I'm being a wisearse.)

Post above me sums it up perfectly.

The post above sums it up perfectly if for 9 years socks were $1 dollar at Wal-Mart and then suddenly you go to Wal-Mart to buy socks and instead of being able to buy 1 pair for $1 you have to buy 2 pair for $1.50. They could say "oh socks are $1.50 now, but you get a pair free" but it would be apparant that until they added the 2nd pair they were $1.00.

Torri@Lucan DLere wrote:

DoF came out 10 months after EQ2 launched, not six. It was $29.99.

Gage wrote:

The post exsample is totally of in the major issue that seems to be complty ignored because it proves you wrong.
The KoS and EoF BOTH had 2 versions available one with the old content and one without old content. They where both the same price.
So the correct senario is this
Two years ago you went to a Hotel that has 2 rooms available one is on the top floor and has free amenities. The other is on the same floor but and has no amenities. Both rooms cost the same $200.00. Is the person person getting the amenities "free" paying for them? nope because the price is the same for both people.
It is now 2 years latter and that hotel has discovered that the Two tier pricing was confusing and caused them many headaches, so they stopped offering the Room without the Free amenities, and just offered the room with the Free stuff. Sence the price has not changed in those two years and the person two years ago didn't pay for the free stuff THEN... then that same person would not be paying for the Free stuff NOW either.

Gage wrote:

Development Cycle and when something comes out are 2 differant things. DoF was IN DEVELOPMENT for 6 months. The first 4 months was spent by ALL teams fixing all the things that where wrong with EQ2 from launch, as well as developing the first AP, wich was done by the expainsion team NOT the live team.

Carteeg_Struve wrote:

Torri@Lucan DLere wrote:

Nope, both $40 a pop. I bought the stand alone.

So now you admit they used to have two teams and even though you're aware that they currently only have one, you're still trying to argue that development time matters as far as pricing goes. How silly.

You are ignoring the fact that the old content is free only if you are a new customer/buyer!
Obviously if you have been buying each expansion as it came out you are not getting anything free as you already paid for it but you are also not paying extra as you already paid for it
TSO costs the same if you are a new customer or an old, it is the new who is getting the bargain (or would you rather they offered 2 versions, one at $40 to current players and one at $200 for new players, would that make you happy?)
Grow up or sod off

kela wrote:

I didn't even complain. I just want to call it what it is. I paid it for EoF, I paid it for RoK, and I'll pay it for TSO. But I'm still paying for content I already own. I'm not changing your mind, you're not changing mine. Enjoy life in Norrath

I understand your concern about the price increase. Until recently, I was also concerned about the impact of $10 to my annual budget. I was afraid I might have to take a second job just to afford necessities like EQ2 expansions, but then my dad got a job making over $250,000 as a plumber.

I've only read the first page of this thread, so I don't know if anyone else has touched on this yet - but screw the price, I'm more concerned about having to download 14Gb of data just to get a 1-3 Gb expansion!
I totally agree with the concept of selling each EP with all the previous content, but there are still many places in the world that don't carry boxed copies in their game shops. My own experience as a British ex-pat living in Poland is that they just don't send the boxed copies out here, and anything with 'amazon' etc on the box gets stolen in an instant. So it really does hurt when I've got to download *everything*, all over again, every time they release. Even on a 6mb cable line it takes a lifetime.
This is why I came to the forums tonight; to ask if I could buy TSO digitaly as a seperate product. The Station Store doesn't *seem* to have it as such....

If you buy an expansion digitally there shouldn't be an extra download, all you need to do is patch the game as normal and it will be there for you to play, it is not like you are downloading the whole game all over again as the pather only downloads the new/updated files

Gage wrote:

Wow you really are lost.
29.99 for an expansion every six months equates to six months worth of dev time for 29.99.
39.99 for an expansion every 12 months equates to 12 months worth of dev time for 39.99.

There I approached it via two angles for you Gage. But this supports your point somewhat in that they are charging you an extra 10 dollars for six months more of development time, which means you're getting a massive deal tbh.
You must be a Verizon call-center employee. You certainly have the math skillz for it.

Yes I'm so lost because I realize it cost them more to pay a live team and a seperate expansion team than it does to pay the one team they currently have doing both.