2014 Membership - Update from Smed

Perhaps. The restrictions with regard to claiming seem to stem from accounting issues, so I'm not sure that they wouldn't have come into force in some guise anyway though.

Despite this, from what Smed is saying there is enough time as nothing is finalised. If enough people rally then more changes can still happen.

Edit: Reworded a little.

I dont know really. I think a line has to be drawn in the sand somewhere and doing another backflip will likely cause more issues.

I guess we should just be happy.

I know that I love this game and want it to succeed.

Tinuva450

So Smedley actually listened to the customers? WOW! Maybe he did learn something from previous fails such as SWG.

As was mentioned before, there's no need to be rude.

However, the problem with your post is that this is not a simple math problem where 2000 > 500 and that's all you need to know. This is actually an economics problem because the value of that 2000 token experiences diminishing returns. The number value of the token is largely irrelevant as there is little that can be purchased for more than 1000 SC and I think this verbiage muddles the discussion a bit (which I would guess was probably intended). Rather, if you view it as a "Free Item Voucher" rather than a "2000SC credit voucher" it makes it easier to remove the "math" component that many are hung up on.

Yes, the Free Item Voucher is great early on, if you haven't bought weapons with certs or rarely spent SC on the cosmetic items, because each month you can gear yourself out, but as the subscription matures or if you have already purchased many items, then the token is of limited use because there is little for it to be used on that is of value to you as you've already purchased it. At that point, you'd just be spending the Free Item Voucher on things that you never really cared about because you don't want to lose it or you'd cancel your subscription altogether.

This makes the straight 500 SC of greater long term value because you can store that and spend that as desired, even on multiple items and more importantly, it retains that value no matter how long you subscribe. Alternatively, you can save it for one of the many sales, such as the 1 SC members-only daily sales that happened during the holidays. In December, with my single 500 SC allowance, I was able to purchase a tremendous amount of items; with the Free Item Voucher, I would have only gotten one.

The fact that the originally proposed subscription worked against itself over time, reducing the incentive to keep paying each month was the biggest -- and fatal -- drawback. I am very glad they made the change to this new one.

Added this to the OP and adding it here for your viewing pleasure. There's a separate player-made thread created for this, but I thought it would be nice to share here as well.

If you had a discounted plan, you will still keep your plan. We are grandfathering in any previous plans. Woot!

With Everquest Next Landmark coming soon, as well as eventually Everquest Next I may start subscribing. I think this is a great idea.

Sounds like a great compromise to me. Not everything that the players wanted but enough to satisfy the vast majority and a solution to what the devs needed to fix. If we could only get Congress to learn how to do this we'd really be making some progress.

On Smed's note about increasing transparency...you guys should be more proactive to that end.

Inform the player base of proposed changes before they happen and encourage discussion and debate.

You already have a forum designed for that very purpose. Hell, it's even called a forum! That way bad feelings can be avoided (or at least decreased significantly) and everyone can be part of the solution instead of just complaining about it afterward. Then when the already agreed-upon changes are actually made, anyone complaining can be pointed to the thread where it was discussed incessantly for two weeks before any changes were made. (And then be scolded for not being part of the process.)

But again let me congratulate you on your response to everyone's concerns. That's good customer service.

Alright, Smed.

You won be back based on #3. I'll be re-subscribing this month, making year 2!

Thanks for listening!!

We'll do our best.

I don't know what is better about the 500 SC compared to picking an item that can be 4x higher value, so if someone could please explain that to me, that would be great.
My suggestion is having the option of choosing the 500 SC or the Pick an Item program.
There are still a lot of people (including me) who want to pick their item.
Please consider?

Hey Luperza...next time you speak to Smed, can you ask him why he insists on communicating with Reddit while ignoring his own customers. I mean I know it's been said (and apparently ignored) a million times already but why is stuff like this not posted on your "official" forums instead of copy pasted from Reddit?

I believe the requirement to log in helps to circumvent the trouble they're having with SC. If I read correctly on the AMA Reddit that Mr. Smedley hosted, the problem the accountants and business aspect of SOE are having is with the individuals that receive the SC bonus, hoard the funds but then never log in ever again... so there remains the large amount of SC on their accounts, unspent, which is a huge liability for SOE.

Thus far, the current solution in the works is that we must log in to claim, which will increase the likelihood that the SC will one day be spent rather than simply hoarding an amount and then leaving for good.

I'll send your feedback on up. Currently, the reason players like the 500SC option is because they can save it for a later date, after they claim it, if there are no items that they currently want.

I can understand your frustration here. This is one of the major things that I highly recommended to Smed. Here's the direct quote I posted in my report, "Community also highly recommends that, in the future, we make these posts on the official SOE forums and not on Reddit as it makes players feel that we do not value our own communication channels."

We aren't ignoring you. Some developers just feel more comfortable with different communication channels and that's what they personally like using. For Smed that is Reddit.

Hopefully, that sheds some light on the subject and I'll definitely continue pushing for more Official Forum usage by our developers for your ease.

Thank you, very much SOE. The change with #3 is very much acceptable (at least to me) - we do understand you have to stay profitable as a company.

Though, since we're going to need to claim it every month now - I imagine we could feasibly implement the system using the 2000SC monthly voucher, but give people the ability to buy a permanent 500SC with that voucher if nothing that month really stands out for us... especially for those of us who play mutiple SOE titles. Have our cake and eat it too - and you can slap another "Your game, your way" sticker on the format.

Although I will never understand why you thought that replacing the 500sc a month with the "pick one item under 2k sc" was a better deal...(part of me still believes that it was simply PR spin)...

...I appreciate that you are keeping the 500sc monthly and I don't mind having to log in to claim it since I log in almost every day.

(You might want to consider some sort of system so that people with issues who aren't able to log in for extended time could flag their accounts so they don't miss the 500sc since they are sill paying the monthly fee, I think this would be a nice customer service gesture especially for people in the armed services).

And although I am not interested in the other SOE games currently it might get me to try them sometime, and I think some SOE customers who haven't tried Planetside 2 yet might be tempted so I think making all subscriptions all access is a very positve thing.

I'm pleasantly shocked that you listened to the community on this one.

Alright Sony, now THIS is providing something of value! I like the new changes, looking forward to re-subbing and also checking out your other games.

Smed.

Man, Smed... you gotta relax. There are always going to be a loud minority of people who will complain that all you want to do is make money and don't care about your customers at all.

This is like... rule number one of service relateds jobs, m8. Don't take it too harshly. There were valid concerns surely, but the vitriol people spilled on SOE is just.. sad.

I, for one, am a huge fan of this change, regardless. The all access for 14.99 is amazing. You've doubled the value I'll be getting from my sub once Next/Landmark are out.

Piestro and Luperza just slaying it in here, jumping on responding to scores of questions/comments, seriously gfj guys. Thanks.

Quite nice. My only complaint is that it was originally posted on Reddit rather than on the official forums. Smedley could at least have posted here in an official function. If the developers are dissatisfied with the community's behavior, we can change!

I was seriously upset when I heard of the original plan. This sounds much better for me personally, as I wasn't really interested in the 1500+ SC items, you've got a +1 from me Lup. I don't mind having to claim my 500 SC monthly. I log in every day at least, just to make sure to get my Certs, so that's no big deal at all. I do have a couple friends that feel that the 2000 SC would be better for them. If it were possible, I'd suggest making it a choice you make when you begin a Sub.