Customer Service Announcement: Premium Membership

So 43 pages of people saying they want to keep there SC has not hit home with you yet? This is what we signed up for, to have the choice of what and when we want to spend the SC, don't you understand what is being said here by the members?
Also many have signed up for long term memberships and SOE are changing there Terms with 30 days notice to a lesser offer and if people cancel they lose there benefits.
Many members actually do pay extra as well as there SC.

So i dont think you post got missed, just ignored.

As for your idea, can we have a thumbs down vote on the forum please...

Please don't get me wrong. I would by far prefer them to keep the old system, but that is NOT going to happen. I only prefer 0sc over the 2000sc 'coupon' WHICH CAN NOT BE SPENT ON PLAYER STUDIO ITEMS.

To be honest, the last few years ever since EQ2 went free to play, the subscription plans (and the games for that matter) have gone down hill in my opinion.

Bring back Pay to Play and bin this F2P crap...

Cx~

It will happen if enough members stick together and voice their opinions and do as they said, cancel their membership, i have, i did it Saturday out of protest. If everyone stops there membership, what do you think SOE will do?

I don't believe even SOE would belligerent and ignore this thread, if they do then i hope people do cancel there memberships.

There are only a few 2000sc items, and i dont want a Gold gun, not great with my camo. I don't want to be told i have to use it in one month ( why on earth would they stipulate that ) and when i buy something for 500sc i lose 1500sc?

This is not a fair deal for members, its all one way benefit and offers US nothing, its disgusting and bloody insulting to the players.

Maybe i have a different swing on this as im a company director, not a big company but i deal a lot with suppliers or partners and if they came to me with a offer that takes away all the benefits i wanted, do you think i would do business with them again?

Like wise, if i treated my customers this way, i would not have a job left, they would all leave. So im looking at it from a different aspect than just a game, i want and so 99% of these members, to be treated with respect as loyal paying customers, not a bunch a gamers who don't have two brain cells to rub together.

As more players reach BR100 and no longer need the boost provided by the Premium Membership, I worry how this change will affect the profitability of the game. Are micro-transactions that strong that it overshadows the monthly fee people pay?

I still believe that this change has less to do with Planetside and far more to do with the EQ:N release that is coming soon. PS2's F2P model worked so well for SOE America that they must believe that they can give players a worse deal than we started with and increase their profit margin at the same time.

I do not think there is anything sinister happening here. It is just a corporation tweaking its pricing model because they have not found the magical 'pain point' where consumers will stop handing them piles of money.

Me too, 3-4 days before my sub renewal
I feel sorry for the guys who took the 6 month or 12 month subs. I luckily only have to suffer 1 month of this rubbish before I cancel.

It didn't get lost in the shuffle, it is simply an even worse idea than the one SOE originally posted, but will be collated with the rest nontheless. What you are saying is to completely remove the single real benefit whatsoever from being a continual subscriber to the game, correct? Someone who is financially committing to the continued development and improvement of the game. Lets just completely screw those guys over, right?

Few people will pay for a subscription - assuming same price is in effect - without some high value perks of being a member. The current 'perks' of extra loadout slots, priority queuing, and even resource and XP boosts are not worth the monthly fee on their own. Member deals still require SC funds to take advantage of, they can't be bought at a reduced cert cost. So what, if no currency (either game specific or SC), would you offer to really entice players in and make them think "wow, this is an amazing deal just for supporting the game"?

With this in mind, perhaps slightly off topic, to my knowledge SOE has never really distinguished their members from free / SC only players in any way. No free members only items (that are COMPLETELY unavailable to free / SC only players), no members only styling / armour, no members only anything. Why not?

Agree basically, I cancelled my sub yesterday, BUT:
How likely is it after they send out an email to every subscriber explaining this change IS taking effect, that the corporate suit that mandated this change is going to 'change their mind', take back the change, and then send emails out to all subscribers "oh yeah never mind we're not doing that after all."

The damage to their corporate image has already been done (in most peoples minds like you and me having cancelled accounts), why would they back down now and take even more egg on the face?

I don't have a PS2 account, however, my EQ2 account got cancelled yesterday. Along with many according to the EQ2 forums.

If they made the subscription actually worth paying for (as you propose) they wouldn't be in this mess. The 500 SC was always a 'promotion' (their words) not part of the subscription.

If you honestly feel that a 2000sc coupon with all of it's restrictions is a better deal for you and the game as a whole that's your opinion.

I have no doubt Piestro and Luperza will bring as much to the table from this thread (and all the others on the other SOE games this affects). I have zero faith that any change will be made on this issue with less than 20 business days til the effective date, emails having been sent to every subscriber, and the number of cancelled subscriptions. I for one won't be resubscribing even if they make no change at all.

Well done for cancelling, so if all the members that are unhappy do cancel, will SOE have a business model? Take in mind there are many players that do not use the forums and indeed some will continue to play but if we gauge the reflection of the players from this forum, many will cancel to for the very reasons we all keep telling SOE.

They will not be the first or the last to say "with reflection we took on board your comments and you valued opinions" and change there mind. Personally, i think they should do, sooner rather than later and pull back some credibility from this.

Don't get me wrong, the 2000SC coupon with the associated restrictions is a complete failure and does neither us as customers or the game any good at all. Unless things change, I will be unsubscribing in March. I would have already done so but it seems I auto-renewed in December for 3 months. And by change, I mean an improved membership offer has to seriously represent amazing value, flexibility and choice in Planetside 2. The new membership offer has none of these traits.

I agree with the guy who said: if you wanna make more money, put the subs up, and give us more SC to compensate. More boosts are no good to veteran players. I am BR 60 ish and i have most of the weapons i want, bought most of them with certs. Lots and lots of certs. What i want now are cosmetic items. And i read its the same with a lot of the vets. This deal is great for new players who wanna get their hands on all the more pricy guns. But you guys dont want just the newbies to have subs.

Ya dont want to create: Are you a newbie? Get a sub to have all the stuff a pro has.
or: Memberships are for newbies, sod that crap
You want to reward long term players but again, want to avoid pay to win.

Have membership give better access to SC items, especially cosmetic, and you will create: Woah, that guy looks cool, i guess he is a vet. Just a couple of month subscription and i can have some of that if i choose.

Yes i have spent some of my SC on weapons over the year. But i also make a jokey facebook post, screenshottign what your sunderer could look like if you spent £60 on it (or whatever the figure was) It looked amazing but you couldnt justify the cost very easily.

I now have that amazing looking sunderer, for a fraction of the price. How? Daily sales, passive monthly SC and patience. I was rewarded for being a reliable contributor (rather than dumping a bucket of cash and then nothing else) and for having patience with the daily sales system.

True, some people dont care about their appearances in game, they will probably spend the SC on weapons and the certs on armour/vehicle upgrades. Your original setup accommodated both types of people. To carry this vein on, we need the option of how to spend our stuff, and as it stands, 1 cosmetic item, community made or no, shouldnt be the same price as a weapon. And i say the "same price" as it would cost 1 month token. (theoretically)

I wasnt gonna reply to this forum as a lot of people have said stuff i agree with. But people have also suggested ideas that i dont. So theres my 2 pence (we dont have cents).

More station cash for more monies. Seems like a good idea. OR for those people who have very little income at times, so a mini membership? How about slightly smaller boosts and less SC for less monies? I'll leave the details about who that would work to you, but you would be accommodate to those who say: "wha? I cant afford this new membership, the old one was already at my limit!" or "Wow the membership got even more expensive, looks like i will never be getting one." Target more people! Not all of us have deep pockets.

I dont like the idea of giving us members only cosmetics. Why? Because atm there is no way to tell if someone is a member or not. That is a good thing. I have seen reddit posts about people who dont want their outfit or whatever to know they are a member. for whatever reason. Dont lable these people if they accidentally pick a members only cammo. this type of thing coudl also create a gulf: "hay, I was killed by a guy with members cammo." "bloody members, stomping everyone. I hate it when members turn up, we loose the battle!" <- Ive seen this kinda crap in my own outfit, people saying that others are paying to win. I am constantly saying, how do you know they have bought any SC at all? That generally shuts them up. Dont do anything that could potentially create a members vs non members divide. There are plenty of games that already have that and its not nice.

I would also suggest "full price bundles" so that members can get an equal amount of gear/equipment as they do now.

I think the whole issue is that limiting people to a single item a month significantly lowers the value of the benefit.

I will give you a specific example:
The Galaxy bundle for 1200 SC. With the current system in 3 months you can have it and 300SC left over.
With the proposed system it will take 4 months and you have nothing leftover.
To take that step further, 4 months plus the bundle under the current system gives you 800SC, enough to get a total of 6 items total and 100 sc, whereas the newly proposed system leaves you with just the 4 on the Galaxy and nothing leftover.

For those that are patient, the proposed change is of significantly lesser value. 3900sc worth vs. 2400 sc worth. You can make the argument that the new system will get you up to 2800 SC worth (4 items of 700 sc each), but it is still less than the 3900 (with 100 left over) you get from being patient waiting for sales that I think most members have learned to be.

If you made bundles priced at full price that fit under the 2000 SC coupon and made them only purchasable with this coupon that would be an obvious increase in value, or at least an equivalent value if they were in the 1000+ sc range. It would supplement the current daily membership sale items. (I wouldn't replace the daily member half off sale, it might cause another riot on the forums)

So, instead of just slapping together gold versions of everything (which likely would cause another riot here, make sure to offer something of equivalent value to what they are getting now.

My final suggestion is, work on doing a better job of managing customer expectations up front. I know this is really difficult with the costumer base here, but the more mature adult players I associate with were equally upset by, and opposed to, the new change as it was presented. So there is clearly work to be done here.

I just created a support ticket.

In which I ask for a definite answer if already running and paid long time subscriptions will keep the terms they were signed under.
If this is not the case I asked for a refund of my remaining subscription time.

Please note, I am convinced that the 500 SC are a fixed and agreed upon part of my subscription deal and that I got deceived into thinking that. Labeling the 500 SC and god knows what else as "benefit" that thus apparently can be changed at will by SOE, without my consent, is not acceptable for me and it was not discernible when making the deal.

I would like to ask you to write to support for a refund or requesting to honor the original deal of the subscription you signed.

I am sure I am not the only one who finds it unacceptable that SOE takes our money and then suddenly changes the deal we paid for.

So much this.

Right now I'm reviewing feedback from last night and finishing up my reports from the weekend. I'm sure we'll have meetings this morning, and hopefully over the next several days we can get messaging put together to address some of the feedback we have recieved. I don't want to promise any time table as things are still fairly early.

Virtual goods are like every other non essential good; their worth is entirely based in the eye of those who want them. For example I wanted an Underboss, so I paid for it. I don't want a Jackhammer enough to pay for it right now (I might later though, I have one on a second account and it's pretty sweet). One was worth the cost of purchase to me at the time, the other wasn't. Of course now, right after Christmas and my daughter's birthday and my Wedding Anniversary all occurring within 8 days of one another, every purchase is getting examined more closely. In the future the value of my money will decrease (as my supply expands), and the fun of shooting people with a particularly vicious shotgun will increase.

To some an alternate paint scheme is worth the additional cost, to others not so much. Ideally we have offerings that appeal to all types of customers. I've noted this down however.

We do lots of reports all the time. This is an important subject though so we are doing extra reporting. We'll of course have multiple meetings on this topic over the near term.

It didn't get missed , every post in this thread is read multiple times and by multiple people. We appreciate the feedback.

They need to make new episodes. I'm going through withdrawls.

Looking for a pain point is a terrible idea if you run a service/entertainment based company. If you find it, the results are never good.

It's in the suggestion list now.

As referenced in the Email and original post, this benefit will change for all eligible players as of February 3.

Thanks,

This is why in Canada there is the consumer protection act. Changing the terms of an agreement must be resigned by the customer or it is void.
ie. Refund or lawsuit.
But $ony is safe from things like this since they are based from Japan.

don't you mean here come the 2000SC weapons that are ONLY worth 100SC at MAXIMUM!!!!