Remove the referral system

For me I would say make it so certain things you do can also cause these to unlock. I really am of a mind to have some stuff that is rewarded for doing certain actions in the game (hell give the Medic a Bling Gun if they get X number of revives or whatever). I think it could add something by having some items that you can only get by playing the game instead of being bought by Certs or SC.

Maybe a 'loyalty' or 'retention' offer wouldnt go amiss either, reward the ones who are effectivley paying for the majority to play for free?
Or a combination of both?
If you want to sub, fine you get to purchase the locked 'special' items, if not you can refer a friend (or 25)?

Give people the choice?

ps thanks for the reply, always nice to see you guys on here

I have subbed in the past (6 months odd), and atmo not sure whether to or not again, something like this would be the carrot to get me to resub.

Very good points and I actually agree - The main problem being that the referral items are actually too good (I'd pay the SC in an instant) but I can't - So I have to ask around for 25 <- this is a big number - Gaming friends, not just friends but friends who actually play video games and have a rig that can run PS2, to join a free game and then pay 10$s. I'd rather create 25 fake accounts and pay for them myself, than annoy people with sign-ups.
Even world of warcraft had this referral system but that was just 1 <- friend and you got the mount. This is 25 - Social studies say that you can't effectively know more than 100 people and to say that 80% of them are your actual friends (that share your gaming interests) is stretching it... Keep a referral system (give the new players a boost and 1 camo) Imo it's more important that the new players get some awesome stuff than people doing it to grind "gear". Please leave the cool toys for paying customers.

Discmailer: This is coming from a quite social person with an extensive network...

Why not let people recruit their friends AND still be able to buy the stuff? Its not like people won't get their friends to play just because they are able to buy a cosmetic item.

and 10 dollars per recruit is braindead high for a game that is losing people by the minute. And still isnt nowhere near close to being optimized.

This is not the way to save PS2.

A retention program isn't off the table for the future and we'll definitely at least have subscriptions offers but who knows what might be included?.

I for one don't feel comfortable making a long term recruiting investment just to get a camo I want. You will alienate your loyal customers who buy things constantly, as well as have a subscription, by doing it this way.

Looking forward these items is why we play, we don't want to do extra work to get them.

Again, thanks for the reply.

Now im in a quandary, sub now or wait....

Exactly.

Perhaps such a retention system should be made, and should have been released alongside this recruitment system. The whole idea is to make PS2 a very long-lasting game right? The way to do that is constantly expanding the player base (right now everyone should be saying "duh").

But what you have now is a constant turnover instead of growth. The more you irritate your currently existing players, the more they will give up the ghost and move on to different games. Enter the concept of diminishing returns - the more people who get irritated and leave, the fewer people you have that will vouch for you and try to bring new players in.

This system is ill-timed and ill-conceived, and people have every right to be upset over it. Why show us all these goodies (that people like myself would pay SC for immediately), and then put them just out of reach? This is akin to dangling a tennis ball in front of a dog, then throwing that ball over a fence, where the dog cannot reach it. I, for one, do not have 25 friends who would be willing to play this game. So, even though I am a loyal, paying customer, there are things that you will not allow me to pay money for?

Seems like a very bad business plan to me. Perhaps you should look to Microsoft and the Xbox One to see what happens when loyal patrons feel like they have been left out in the cold.

Honestly, the biggest thing I would change is simply to implement a means by which long-term customers who have already recruited numerous paying customers to your service can have all their good work counted towards these rewards. I understand that this could be immensely complicated, but without such a mechanic those of us who've been actively supporting the game by bringing in everyone that we know who is interested in playing (and paying) will wind up getting significantly less than newer players who just joined the band-wagon. While active recruiting is the purpose of this program, many of us have already tapped out all of our social circles bringing people (and revenue) into the fold.

Maybe I'm old-fashioned, but that just doesn't strike me as a good message to send.

Maybe some of the same goods? Earn rewards long-term by subbing, or short-term by active recruiting. Maybe even roll them together to contribute to a collective pool of points that would allow people to gain progress towards rewards by mixing and matching contributions?

Streaming on Twitch is your new friend

So far we are not asking for thats specifically , We ask to be able to get at the very least , our foreman helmets wich we bougth the open face one expecting the one from the test servers and get Minus 1000 Sc ... Also we want to be able to buy the recon camo wich we also were aiting for that

This is primarly whats everyones at the first place ...

After that , we also ask to at least having a way as a member to have Acess to ANY items from Any promotion withing the MEmber exclusive Cashop programs , Because rigth now our member exclusivity is kinda gimicky and dont give us any advantages to be a members Cashshop wise

We dont want to have others specifics items just for members , we want to have acess to buy Any items from any promotions in the cash shop and having anothers way to get those than having to find 25 peoples since we already recruits as much peoples as possible ( like me Over 80 folks ) and on that more than 50 as spend 50 $ _500 $ not just 10 $

As much as this attemp is not a ( cash grab ) it really hurts your ployal players feeling and you guys should get that in perspective

Asking for peoples personal emails on twitch is UNLIKELY

Also to add - I already got a couple of friends to play this game and some of them are paying customers. This was done out of "love" to the game but now I have to freaking grind 25 people and hope they pay? Never gonna happen. These 4 friends I have playing the game where "recruited" through 100BR's. Effectively getting 25 people to play will not be realistic at all.

Down the road this may be a possibility but at this time these items will be available exclusively through our Recruit-A-Friend program. These are not game changing elements but cool items that will be fun for those folks who accomplish the requirements to own.

You could keep the recruitment system as it is. You are rewarding people with bundles of items as a reward. That's fine. But..why aren't all of these items for sale individually in the depot? You could be bringing in money right now on those items, while the recruitment option is there for those that want to save money and try getting the bundled rewards.

The problems is that you have choose the include our Foreman Helmets as well as recon camo and there you made Tons of peoples mad , Loyal custumers and i dont think its a good moove in my honest opinions :S

We have no more way to obtains 25 peoples we already recruits as much peoples as possible .. since techtest

Were is our reward ? .. yeah nonce and now whats we got ?

Kinda slap in the face , Hey you want the foreman helmets ? You guys said : Screw you , you want the Recon camo ? You guys said : screw you loyal custumers alpha squad buyers , member , Sc buyers , early recruiters your just not part of our new plan ..

By the way RadarX - I know this isn't your decision, and it must suck to have to deal with everyone's anger. I don't envy you.

I would suggest not using cosmetics as a reward. Instead offer certain levels of XP/resource boosts. Maybe even SC rewards. Anything but highly anticipated cosmetics that almost no one is going to be able to obtain.

In this day and age it's extremely uncommon with people out of school to have over 3-4 close friends to be honest. I may have talked to a bunch of people when I was in high school, but after graduating it cuts the amount of people many would feel comfortable asking to spend money on a game. Of those 3-4 it's even more unlikely they all have the same hobbies.

If you restricted the rewards to simply being something that could help you get by in the game it would be a more relaxed/fun experience. When you add shiny things that would sell perfectly fine on the market by it self it does nothing but cause an upset with your player base.

Also on the sidenotes , you arent forced to make Exclusive items for the recruitement refferal , you could make them just been free , free stuff is always good , if you afraid that peoples migth already have buy the items in it and dont want them anymore will still refer peoples like we always did , WE have suported this game a tons and we are really discusted about whats happen now

Refferal systhem isnt in beta ? so it is not even subject to change ? our feedback dont matter then ?