UPGRADE NOW!

Okay, that's pretty annoying.

I am a fully maxed out premium member and it still affecsts me.
Every I dont know half hour or what ever a thing like a squad invite pops up thanking me for being a loyal member...
I like supporting the game and it gives me 'some' benefits but seriously Its annoying even for me.

Instead of bugging me by putting a pop up message even to 'thank me' (thanking via a automated computer script hardly seems like a thanks anyway) why not give people more incentives to sub or stay subbed instead of bugging us? That is incentive NOT to continue subbing.

EDIT: lol Clever you!

well i understand that they may need to "bring forward" a little their premium feature, but placing the HUGE button on the resupply one is pretty lame, for when the ninja following mouse cursor popup is planned?

on $100+ pfft thats nothing. Dont you know this game if F2P ? $1000 is the minimum

I..I've been playing SOE games for ten years now so I've seen them do all kind of stupid stunts. (and boycott them (and EA) but make an exception for Planetside 2)
But this I can hardly believe. So when you don't pay you get a pop up to harass you but when you DO pay you get a similar pop up but thanking you?

(I haven't seen any ads, and I'm not premium, and I think this whole thread is an April fools joke)

This latest update makes me with I was subscribed to the game.

So I could cancel my sub and show how ridiculous this is.

It's a f2p game the devs need money, I couldn't care less if they want to advertise in game for it. Seems like a fair thing to do imo, maybe the ad could be a tad smaller but it's inclusion I have no issue with

"EFFECTIVELY never run out of resources" - nice modifier. Are you sure you don't want to go with "LITERALLY"? No? No? Why is that? Because you know it would be a lie?

Protip: You can "effectively" never run out of resources if you play well too.

Nice pic - now who's putting up strawmen to beat down?

This is what I will now refer to from here on out as "I'm doing you a favor just by being here!" argument. The problem with this line of thinking is that in the end, "just showing up" doesn't pay the bills. Every Free Player MAY contribute positively to the game, then again they may not. There are plenty of players who log in and do nothing but troll others. And there are plenty of players who don't set out to troll, but never the less create a negative game play experience for others. In the end, that may end up just being a wash. If you are talking about "bodies on the field to shoot at", well then they most certainly CAN be replaced by bots.

But, no matter their actual contribution to the game environment, Free Players ALWAYS create a cost for SOE. Servers and bandwidth don't come cheap. And now that Net Neutrality has been struck down in the courts, service providers like SOE face real financial threats from greedy telecom providers. It's only going to get worse.

That's all great and all, but that sort of development doesn't happen overnight and it doesn't come cheap. It helps if people watch the "Work in Progress" stream to understand the amount of effort that actually goes into creating these things. And that doesn't even include the bask-end coding.

Planetside needs to maintain profitability, or those things you think are the "only reasons to spend money" won't ever happen. Placing an add in the UI is simple and was likely done over the course of a week or two. They also likely did it as a step towards an overhaul of the entire UI in the "main window" area. People generally don't consider things like that, they just prefer to get mad and ascribe it to sinister motives.

I apologize for nothing. The devs are doing what they feel is best. Unfortunately, the forumside community assumes this game is supposed to be built by committee and anything they don't expressly approve of is automatically bad. I think people are too sensitive about this stuff. It's not hurting anyone. I also think it is naive to think you can play a Free to Play game without it "pestering" you at every turn to become a subscriber or make a purchase. That is the nature of the beast. That is not apologizing and that is not shilling, that is accepting reality. The embarrassing thing here is how people are flying off the handle for such a non-issue.

Finally, I think that if the devs leave this in-game for a couple of months, no one will even care anymore. It'll just become a part of the scenery.

The irony of the whole UPGRADE NOW nonsense from SOE is how they're showing such desperation these days to get people to sign up for a membership. Its not a healthy or good thing by any means. Whether you're a member or not today, its a pretty ominous sign that the game might be on somewhat shaky ground.

Really if they wanted to do in-game ads (whether their own or third-party to generate ad revenue) a much more effective method would be to design posters and billboards that fit inside the game's artistic theme. They could even design some to periodically rotate through different displays automatically.

Yes, integrating ads/product placement with the artwork has a lower immediate visual impact than just shoving a pop-up in the player's face, but that's a good thing because pop-ups are jarring and immersion-breaking, two things you don't want in a game.

Another thing it does is it gives you convenient props to make the game world look "lived in". Vending machines, boxes laying around, a parked delivery truck (an ANT? XD), stuff like that.

Just something to keep in mind. While this is certainly characteristic of SOE Marketing, the devs have no say in this. All they can do is implement what they've been told to. Just clarifying for people. I <3 our dev overlords (mostly).

Just in case this wasn't posted yet. "So yeah, you did well, but do you know what you could have earned with membership?" Only the UPGRADE NOW button is missing.. guess we will see it with next week's update..

What a healthy attitude to have in the face of things you disagree with. Just suck it up, you'll get used to it!

I think it's an unhealthy attitude to build mountains out of mole hills.

With my membership, 6 month boost, and Double XP weekend, I'd have cleared 10K with that run. If only you had upgraded.

The mole hills were ads on the launcher, then the depot, then the stats screen, then the loading screen. It doesn't take a mountain to ruin a lawn, one too many mole hills will do that just as well.

UPGRADE NOW

I spent like 45 seconds just confused at how to change my class because of that UPGRADE NOW button.

It's enough that I'm reminded of how much I could have gotten with premium membership after death, (Some games do this and I'm totally okay with).
But really, the button is seriously way out of place.

Might as well add flashing lights and candy crush ads in the game while your at it.


So what of the people who purchase stationcash instead of a membership? I for one hate the idea of a monthly membership. That's why I stayed away from many MMOs. Is the only way to get rid of the nagware is to subscribe?

Plus, there's other ways to show the benefits of membership than shoving it into everyone's faces. For instance, I don't even know the discounted price of the membership sales. So I give 0 cares at discounted it is.

Maybe that analogy would apply if the ads hurt the game in any way, but they don't. They don't hurt you. They don't hurt anybody. You just don't like seeing them. Given enough time, you won't even notice them. And that was the point.

Oooh, vending machines eh... or Soda machines containing "UPGRADE NOW!" soda?


Perhaps they could even add destructible billboards with the Upgrade now text on it on one side.. and on the other side, it would have that classic text with a man on it pointing at you saying "I want YOU...(And in small text)- To..", you walk over to the other side and wham! "UPGRADE NOW!"



Hm, actualy while on the train of thought of the whole Upgrade now stuff.. I imagine they could troll us on april 1st quite hard with this.
How you might ask?

What if they turned the explosions into confetti and bandoliers that have the "UPGRADE NOW!" text on them?!

Or even worse.. what if a flashbang for example had its flashbang effect removed and instead, the flash would force a giant pop up ad on your screen that literaly would just say "UPGRADE NOW!" on it?!
It could be the most annoying, yet most lethal grenade in the history of planetside 2 as we know it..


Hah, im just joking, SOE would never troll us all in such ways! ...right?