Update Regarding In-Game Advertising

The biggest, brightest button is the unwanted "Upgrade Now" button. It is an over-the-top annoyance as well as the frequent reoccurring pulsing notifications to Upgrade Now.

This could back-fire.

You may want to rethink your player base expansion plan.

You should advertise the game more(put something to the "just updated" -thing) get ads to youtube with nice looking gameplay from the game, try to get ads to game magazines. But whatever you do DO NOT put ads to the games PM system because thats where people think "oh since you put it that way.. Bye" You can easily get people to play your game if you advertise it more on different pages like steam... Oh and BTW Give the ps4 users small taste of Planetside, like vids when some people are playing it, or maybe even a beta test(with disclaimers OFC)

I personally do not want any in game notifications asking me to pay.
I have paid in the past, and I'm sure I will again - but only if these notifications are permanently stopped.
Interruptions in the middle of a fight in this game are unacceptable - we are all aware that you can buy what you want.

I would love to know the stats on how many "I'M NOT GOING TO SUBSCRIBE NOW BUT I TOTALLY WAS UNTIL X" actually subscribed ...

Ah well. too bad you guys didnt just make a true sequel to Planetside 1 then i'd still be paying you a sub but i'm just one player. F2P model obviously is superior and makes companies boatloads of money.

I want to love this game. I had a subscription on and off and dropped a couple hundred dollars in SC purchases. But I haven't played for months because my computer runs this game at 10--20 fps, crashes, and I don't agree with what SOE is concentrating their development on. I've followed the game updates and forums hoping to see something worthwhile to bring me back in, but I'm continually disappointing. Now they are putting intrusive ads in the game. Boo.

You know what would bring me back?

1) Develop things the community cares about. Metagame, Resource Revamp, and Continents... Anything to give this game some meaning. Stop rolling out new camo's, guns, and vehicles. I know those things are what bring in the whale-cash, but I could care less about a new gun that has a slightly tweaked ADS or ROF. What I want is to feel like I've won something when I'm done with a fight.
2) Non-exploitative membership. People have said it above and I agree with their reasons.
3) No in game Ads for paying members.

I really want to want to play this game... But SOE continues to piss me off. What do we get in April? OooOooOo another balance patch.

I have a suggestion, from a game i used to play, adapted for planetside 2 why not put dynamic videos or just images on places where faction flags appear showing stats of on sale weapons, promotions, incoming events or already happening events for the faction that's dominating the area, like the big vanu symbol behind the capture point's wall on X tower replaced by a serpent promotional on sale text and image with purple styled background that will change to NC's colors and on sale weapon when capped by them, or turning one side of the NS vehicle ammo tower into a TV screen showing everybody their new pink crossbow, maybe that other old but on sale weapon. Perhaps even making it yell fun text when damaged enough

This is why I'm glad I'm not a shareholder of the junk stock that Sony has become. Instead of making a product that creates a positive experience and makes me want to keep coming back and spending money they're making a product that creates a negative experience in an attempt to force me to spend money.

I got a large group of connections(both IRL and gaming) playing Planetside 2 in the Repercussus outfit which numbers 59 players. Almost none of them are active any more....and it's not that shooters don't appeal to them and it's not that Planetside 2 wasn't a blast for us for a bit.....it's that the game entirely lacks connection and lasting appeal. The problem is not that it doesn't annoy the piss out of us to subscribe, it's that they all lost a reason to play and it's SoE's fault for not spending time doing the right things. Maybe they are all grazers and play lots of games and burn out you say. Well, we still play loads of DayZ together, tons of Warthunder.....we do WoT nights as well and we maintain a decent mine-craft server as well as our own multi-hundred slot TS server. We are gamers and you couldn't retain us.

Management has failed to deliver a game with lasting impact and a solid way of keeping us spending money. Who is Higby's boss and who is that person's boss? It's time for somebody to get fired because I'm starting to get mad that my favorite title in all of gaming has been ruined.

Edit: Outfit link. https://www.planetside2.com/players/#!/outfits/?outfit=37509488620605296

Why can't you see the actual percentage off of the 'members only sale' in the depot? I only get to see what's on sale, not how much it's discounte.
It's a missing opportunity to entice more players to membership.

I honestly didn't mind the ads at all, in fact I thought they were kind of cool lolz.

When the deployment/loadout UI loads, the Upgrade Now! button is shown instantly. The one that makes you spawn takes a while to load though.

Higby, stop with the bleeding heart crap. You cried in your post about how expensive this game is, blah blah blah... ever considered your dwindling profit numbers are because you and your inept dev team never actually listened to players bug reports, suggestions and feedback? Ever considered that the real problem is you guys keep throwing new crap out there without looking back and fixing what is wrong? You could have gone ahead and fixed bugs and streamlined the game without implementing constant new fluff that always causes more problems but no, you guys only saw big paychques and seem to only be motivated by greed. Oh and what was it called, operation something, fix the game, streamline, whatever... that crap should have happened from day one and instead you guys used a broken game as a method of advertising and hype because your subscribership was fleeing like rats off a sinking ship. You basically rooked more people into buying your severely broken game with more empty promises. I respect that this is a business and you want to turn profit, I get that... however let us examine a reasonable business model for the year 2014... or any year for that matter shall we?: Provide a decent service and you have customer loyalty. Provide substandard service and you will end up struggling to survive as a business.

You want our money, you need to provide more than pretty pretty skins and some crappy exp bonus and a severely broken game full of hackers cheaters and exploiters and broken game code and imbalance.

I am now going to go out on a limb and say I speak for probably over 90% of of the people who have ever posted on this website when I say the following...

stop putting the cart before the horse and F I X T H E G A M E and you won't need nags...

people will beat a path to your door, but if you keep treating paying customers like as though they are a joke and not to be taken seriously, one by one they will find a better game and you will be left out in the cold for profits, forced to make whiney posts about how expensive the game is. SOE had a bad rep from the Everquest one days and I see it has only gotten worse and worse

I don't see anything wrong with a little advertising.

This game feels less and less like a premium game because of **** like this. You say "it wasnt intended" but in reality it was a "bug" that SOE "ignored" because its a "marketing strategy" to act like the things were "on accident" and reap the subscriptions and apologize later. Been in marketing and see the same Sleazy **** every day

This my Friend THIS!!!! Games like Warframe, Hawken and others have drawn my attention nowdays GUESS WHY.

A) They dont act like after 6 months of beta the game is finished and release it pre-maturely. They are waiting until the game feels and plays like a Fully Developed HIGH QUALITY game before they go Whop its complete. (unlike sony who puts a game into beta when its in alpha stage and sends it into launch when half the game mechanics are still broken FFS)

B) They continually are working BEHIND THE SCENES on content that they KNOW will make the game better and more fun. Currently you ask the community about Everything! Seriously halting any progress by making game mechanics that should be set in stone DEBATABLE?

C)They dont try to conform to the masses and make decisions that are game breaking to rake in the money on a game that isnt even fully developed to launch. Most game makers know what they want their game to look like and yes ask about certain things but seriously there are key features that make a game what it is and should be developed and stop being questioned or avoided! (warpgates, hackable entry to basses and spawns, destructible spawn tubes, hackable vehicles etc)

D) When they release a patch they aren't free from bugs, but in the case of Warframe my main example they work around the clock and get 2-3 bug fixes within the first day to fix these not weeks!!!!!

E) They arent SOE and that really helps as after 12 years of subscriptions I'm loosing hope, SOE fails at every deadline and acts like its not a big deal.. Hello SOE every time you do that it ruins your image that much more and makes people want to play your games that much less

Oh great, another way to annoy paying customers. A "bug"? Excuse me while I sneeze *bull *****. Get better devs and someone who has the balls to tell marketing directors to piss off! And while your at it higby, resign!

The upgrade now button has finally been reduced to a less annoying size. And I haven't seen a pop up ad since the big spring sale weekend.

I feel that we have reached a happy medium between needing to advertise and going too far with ads.

While there may be the occasion bump in the road SOE has made and is still making a quality product that I am happy to support.

Well you need more alternatives, because obviously you're not seeing them.

You're putting forth game updates that are constantly broken and driving players out of the game. You're good at attracting players into the game, but you're also good at driving them out. It's like the proverbial phrase of throwing mud up against a wall, and hoping something sticks. I've heard countless testimonies from players like, "All my friends don't play anymore.", and "My entire outfit doesn't even login anymore." And that's personally true for me too: all my friends & my entire outfit are gone. A lot of mud is falling off.

Because of the bugs and de-optimization, you've placed yourselves in a vicious cycle of putting out fires by trying to release monetized, buggy, and unbalanced content as fast as you can. It it hasn't worked, and you HAVE cut back on development resources. This vicious cycle will just continue unless you do something different. It doesn't have to be that way.

From the launch of the game in Nov of 2012 to about April of 2013, bug squashing was horrendously bad. After April it became just "adequate", and then slowly eroded until you had no choice but to institute Operation Make Faster Game (OMFG). Then within about 6 updates after that, you basically eroded ALL the progress you made with OMFG.

Now I know the claimed #1 reason for leaving the game is being killed by unknown enemies from an unknown location without any method or time to respond. However #2 or #3 has to be this buggy, de-optimized game. And that's what needs to be addressed and prioritized now and forever more. And perhaps the players you attract - the proverbial "COD-kids" is the "wrong" player to attract giving you the misnomer-ed "#1 reason for leaving the game". A player base that largely will leave for the PS4 anyway. This is more of the "mud" that falls off the wall, versus focusing on the MMO/PC player base and it's needs. Because we're here in the millions. We do exist, and deserve some catering to. What most of us are NOT here for is to finance your PS4 development.

Big non-monetized content is a HUGE draw to this game such as Hossin, more continents, resource revamp, platoon/squad revamp, intercontinental lattice, outfit revamp, vehicle zoning, continent locking, etc. etc. Basically the rest of the Roadmap that hasn't been implemented yet... still... that would give us metagame galour. And out that huge injection of new or returning players, you get to enjoy that smaller percentage of players that support the game, that you were talking about, either for the first time, or returning their support. But when you deliver BROKEN crap, this injection of numerous players falls of a precipice within days and they leave the game again. And they don't commit to memberships, or buying Station Cash (SC), no matter how much you intentional or accidentally flash it in their faces.

You need to do the following:

• Deliver virtually bug-free, high quality content, or don't deliver it at all.
• Actually use the PTS server to it's fullest Here's how: (There's a thread written on the top 10 ways to do this, but I can't find it anymore.)
• Prioritize post-live bug-squashing and optimization forever.

Enough is enough.

Now. Do you want to make MILLIONS of dollars? Here are four things you can monetize with coding within a few weeks or less. (Hint: They're already on the Roadmap.)

• Certification Resets
• One-way server transfers from over-popped to under-popped factions
• Name changes
• KDR Resets

There. Millions. Boom. Now please deliver high quality content that attracts and retains players instead of losing that out your back revolving door.

Yeah, and I like the little sentences like "Nanite ain't cheap" or other things. It's a clever way to do than those old obnoxious upgrade now button. Props to them for listening and actually coming up with something visible enough but not too intrusive.

If you can't fix your game to make it run and play well, it doesn't matter how you advertise your subscriptions SoE. The answer will always be "No".

Even Nexon games are starting to look more balanced and complete in comparison to PS2.