2014 Membership - Update from Smed

Discussion in 'Official News and Announcements' started by Luperza, Jan 6, 2014.

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  1. RogueNewbie


    I'll mirror the sentiments of many of the other players who posted: thank you for your sincerity. I too am not a premium subscriber, mainly due to being unable to commit an amount of time I feel would make the subscription worth it, but have purchased plenty of in-game items, and am now considering subscribing just because of this post.

    Continue to be honest and open about your decisions, continue to listen, and heck, even argue or support the points, and I believe (and hope) PS2 will enjoy a long life. The one thing I enjoyed about PS1, and the reason I subscribed so long after its prime, was that the dev team was so engaged with its community. I was really saddened by the lack of engagement in PS2 when compared with the first game.

    But again, I believe this is a good first step towards something better and despite the lack of time commitment on my part, I definitely think the all-access sounds like a pretty good deal.

    Thank you again.
  2. DawnAndMe4evr

    Here is what I have come up with, as I am a returning member, and think this idea is awesome, hands down.

    The idea that you folks have come up with this change for a better "paper" report on income, my suggestion would be a 1 time total transaction equaling 2000sc.

    I will try to describe it as best as I can.

    1 time a month, a button appears on the UI for the market stating "Monthly Purchase"

    It records a total item value purchase up to 2k sc, and when the purchase ends, it greys out until the date of the next transaction in which they can again purchase up to the 2k sc. This will allow for smaller items, larger items, and if they don't use up all 2000, then they lose what is left from not spending it in that 1 transaction.

    It will safeguard the monetary gains for you, alleviate the accrual of sc, and allow people to purchase multiple things of smaller pricings then just 1 time to 2000.

    Everyone ends up happy.

    It is just an idea after reading up ALL of these posts over a 2 hour period.

    If the other systems have a value based store, the same system can apply across the board n the exact same way, alleviating those issues as well, making the field as flat and equal as possible for all players ALL THE TIME.
    • Up x 1
  3. LuceBree

    So I had cancelled my recurring membership when the initial no more SC/month bomb was dropped. Whilst I am very happy that you have undone this proposed change, I also noted that you mentioned the All-Access would now cost $14,99/month.

    I was going to go and sign up for that but was presented with a proud 19,99 EUROS (which, for our 'murican brethren, is more than 20 dollars).

    What gives? I'd like to start giving you my money again, but not if I have to pay more than my 'murican brethren. In fact, 14,99 Euro would still be too much, if in the US it costs $14,99. That would equate to roughly 11 Euros. In fact, I'll even give you 11,99 Euros! Now that is what I call generous on my behalf!

    Thanks in advance for your response! :)

    P.S I have colour-coded the currencies to make sure nobody gets confused! ;)
    • Up x 2
  4. Morgothic

    There are more players America I guess. They´ll always be the priority. Still a bit too much for what you really get in my book. But the bar is where its at. Like 10 Euro for an animated weapon. In some cases pretty much identical to the weapon you were holding just before so its not like you are paying for art or whatever. 5 years ago people would have laughed at the idea. Bottom line is you don´t have to pay. But it is laughable how highly SOE value thier work.
  5. Boogalo

    11 euro plus VAT would bring you closer to 15. I don't think the subscription changes are implemented yet.
    • Up x 1
  6. FieldMarshall

    Thanks for (re)posting this.

    Why doesent smed care about the PS2 community enough to atleast try to communicate on the "Official forums" though, thats what i'd like to know.
    It makes me feel even worse for the person that has to do the job of basically copying his stuff over because of it =[
  7. Spectralfx

    @Original Post

    As a Premium member, I must say that this kind of post is more than welcome, I am actually proud of this kind of message.

    When I have time to play Planetside 2 more often I always get a subscription for many reasons;

    1st: it helps level-ing faster (obviously)
    2nd: there is some Premium credits coming with it (I do have to say that the idea you came up with was fine by me!)

    And more importantly

    3rd: I want to support this kind of game and community.

    However, there is one catch in all that "you are a great company" talk of mine.

    I believe you are a greedy company, and will not be convinced easily; that you are not.

    The following point of view concerns Ps2 only, as I do not play your other games.

    Here is why:

    The price range of Everything when it comes to station cash purchasable Items, an example:

    "whatever-color" "whatever-Type" Camo - 1000 SC

    that is ... 10$ (Real goddamn money)

    For?

    A virtual Good, I also want to point out that if you want it on your Vehicle, Weapons and characters ... make that 30$ (Yeah because you have to buy the 3 types Separately)
    Listen up people working out there: This is Pure Madness. (Yet I am sure it works out great, regardless).

    On steam I could buy an entire selection of games for that price range during Sales ... Multiple, Complete Games!
    So basically, good luck with trying to convince me you aren't money Grabbers.

    SpectralFX out.
    • Up x 2
  8. Amarsir

    Right now and running through Feb 4, DCUO has an offer of 3 months Membership for $30. (Which will renew at that price every 3 months.). On February 4, membership automatically switches to be all-access. So if anyone wants a PS2 membership it makes a lot of sense to pick up that deal on Feb 3.

    The thing is, it's Planetside I'm looking to support. Even though it's effectively all-access I suspect buying through their promotion will look like DCUO revenue to the SOE bosses and that's not accurate. So while it makes no difference to me as a customer, I recommend the PS2 team put out a matching deal purely to protect their own sales figures.
  9. Smed SOE President

    Excellent post. I agree with everything in it except my favorite F2P model is what Valve is doing with Dota 2. Cosmetics plus cool stuff like watching tournaments. When I get into a game I obsess. Like a lot of you I bet. When I'm playing Dota 2 I am buying stuff partly to say thanks to Valve.

    Valve didn't start where they are now. They got their over time. I've said something like this before but I'll repeat it here. We would greatly prefer to make $500M by having 500M players each giving us $1 a year.

    We do recognize people have a choice in gaming. We are in a competitive environment and the reality is these games are enormously expensive to make. Our first responsibility is to make a great game for our players. But a close second is to generate profit for our company. If I didn't so strongly believe that #1 is HOW we do #2 I might become that greedy guy some of you seem to think I am.

    We look at the data we look at your feedback and we make the best decisions we can and when we are wrong I think we are pretty good about fessing up and correcting course. We are not afraid of that at all.

    In terms of posting on the forums.... I'll do more. I find reddit and twitter a little easier. Most of you don't know this but we've had an entirely new kind of forums being built for a long time now. It's been shelved repeatedly simply due to resources. It will be awesome when it's done. It's also fair to say that the forums tend to be more static and not enough people relative to the user base use them to reliably get the word out. I also find it's just easier to get the word out faster ( I've made sure my posts to reddit and twitter get cross posted).

    I like both barrels. I like dissenting opinions. I like to argue and debate. Harder to do when stuff gets moderated. It's easier for me to get called out on what players perceive as b.s. In those environments. The forums here are very constructive. I do read them daily. And I'll post more. But I'm still going to reddit and twitter for those reasons as well. Plus there are wonderful communities on both places. We really do have great players.

    Smed
    • Up x 8
  10. f0d

    so is there any chance the prices for items will come down? paying $7 for what is essentially a virtual hat is a little bit on the rich side since you could buy a real one for that

    i love the game and i dont mind paying for things i NEED (like weapons) but paying $7 (and even some cases $10) for virtual camo and cosmetics just doesnt bring out the buyer in me id rather just go standard looking for that price

    i dont think you guys are money grubbing BUT i do think you guys actually regret pricing things as high as they are now and are locked into them for some reason - any chance you could give an explanation why prices are so high on things?
    • Up x 2
  11. Smed SOE President

    Expect us to make some changes slowly on lowering pricing and seeing what happens. We are listening. We are experimenting and we are closely looking at the data.
    • Up x 15
  12. Amarsir

    Didn't SOE just shift to this version like a year and a half ago? I remember other games having to convert.

    (On that subject, I actually like these boards just fine. I can think of other game companies who have aimed bigger and fallen way short.)
  13. Smed SOE President

    Here's the issue around pricing - there are two schools of thought. Price items lower and make it up on volume or price items higher and sell less but price higher. If you're going to do the price them lower and make it up on volume you need high volumes of purchases.

    What we are doing now is a lot of sales and experimenting.

    So will we lower prices? Probably but it isn't an overnight thing. We can't make a mistake there. If we lower them and the volume isn't there to make up the difference we have a problem.

    Also.. And this is super important. We give a damn good f2p value in terms of what we give for free.

    Smed
    • Up x 8
  14. Smed SOE President

    Yes this is better than the old version. It still blows. All modern forums blow. It's an archaic holdover from BBS days. Where is the iPhone of forums? Where is that innovation. I did an exhaustive look a while back and couldn't find any so we started making our own.
    • Up x 6
  15. f0d

    more sales (and higher reduction in prices than just 50%) would be a good idea
    one thing i really liked was the members promotion over christmas - if there was more things like that happening (not just once a year at christmas) i would think i am getting much more moneys worth out of my membership - that was a fantastic offer (i purchased ALL the 1SC and 99SC items :) )

    the fresh meat starter pack bundle in the webstore is also a fantastic offer - i would also like to see more of these for similar prices ($1.99)

    more sales (especially if they are over 50% off) would be welcome :)
    (i also agree what we get for free is fantastic)
    • Up x 5
  16. Amarsir

    You do, actually. When I recruit people I tell them you have one of the best pricing models around. (In terms of tiers. Not a comment on specific prices.)

    I'm intrigued and impressed, but won't tempt you further OT at this time of night. :)
  17. RoyAwesome


    This is why I like reddit so much.

    Not the larger default subs (ohgod unsub from those right away) but the smaller, more focused communities like /r/planetside and /r/netsec.
  18. Smed SOE President

    Precisely. I think it has some of the best gaming communities on the net. But then I like 4chan too :)
    • Up x 4
  19. eldarfalcongravtank

    mr. president!:eek: it's an honor to see you post here.
    • Up x 2
  20. f0d

    oh well i guess we all have our own opinions on the matter
    i personally hate both communitys - especially reddit with all the badstuff that goes on and i dont visit there anymore because of it
    post something that a group of people dont like? then get voted down into oblivion no matter how truthful or helpful the post is

    no - i just stay well away from reddit now

    Please watch the language. -Piestro
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