Honestly SOE you would probably make more money just releasing the recruit a friend items

To the store. Not many people are going to make the effort to recruit 25 people. Thats a ridiculous number. Plus the community is hungry for a lot of those items. Like the recon camo.. Yum and the Foreman NC helmet. Oh god yes. You're sitting on a goldmine of SC mania. You should tweak recruit a friend to revolve around xp boosts. free station cash. Free server transfers. Free character slots. and maybe even a resource system where you can grant resources you have to a friend you recruited who may not have enough to get a tank or something. You can keep the decals. Just some thoughts.

Considering that everybody I harass now on a daily basis obviously wont be joining, my 2 options to get those items would be to either bite the bullet and create 25 dummy accounts and spend $250 on them, which I may add will not increase planetsides player count at all; or opening up a Craigslist ad offering people $20 a piece if they download and spend $10. The latter is more complicated and expensive on my end so I most likely won't do it, even if it means 25 possible actual new recruits.
Or they can save me the trouble and put it on the store where I will give them money anyways and I'll continue harassing coworkers and friends into trying to play this game.

Edit: I should note that I have never been terribly great at being a salesman. Probably the reason why I'm not in retail.

I'm still hopeful that they will release it all eventually. Maybe not next week, but in a month perhaps.

I'm sure people would buy, even if the new armor and camo were priced like the gold-plated and matte-black NS pistols, with the 1.5-2k price for each item.

For the Nc forman helmet id pay 2k no doubt

Its a promotion, who honestly cares? Don't have friends? Don't worry.

Have friends? Don't worry you're still bad.

I got the black one... and I know a ton of people who got the gold one.

Disposable income... folks got it.

Does feel that the paying players are being screwed again, iv invested lots of cash, played beta, alpha squad, lots of SC but I have no more friends to get into this game. So I'm not worth the option of some special items that I would pay for. The midway helmet being the one I particularly like but iv obviously not invested enough money on this game for SOE. This was a disrespectful and bad move, for any that don't agree with me then that's ur choice but to be honest I couldn't care less its how I feel.

I understand I am not forced to recruit people, and most of my friends have already started playing & paying in this. But then again I have spent so much money on this game already that cosmetic **** like this should have been accessible for any member that have subscribed for a longer period or spent X amount of $. Myself I have been Auraxium Member a long time to support this game, but I cannot say I am getting my money worth back and when I see this I am even considering about canceling the subscription. This practice is outrageous!

Exactly. SOE is probably turning away hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars in sales by their making some of these items into exclusives. I think the player base is, for the most part, old enough that they have the disposable income and love the game enough to be genuine impulse buyers. Even if the new helmets were still sold for, let's, say, 1000 to 2000 SC, the recon black camo and alternate digital camo for 500-1000 SC per faction, the weapons for 2000, and the decoration for vehicles around 1000 or 1500, SOE would get a lot more money flowing in from fans who love the game and have worked themselves up into a frenzy over how awesome these items are than they'd get from gambling on new little whales for a now-old game.

So basically...

"SHUT UP AND TAKE MY MONEY"

Am I the only one that finds this somewhat adorable, yet at the same time hilarious?

There is about 30$ at the least worth of stuff I want from the RaF.

SOE!

Well not "my" money. The only reaction I have to the rewards is with the recon black and that reaction is "guarded", because my primary character is VS and I'm worried that the NC and TR will be able to kill my Waterson brethren and I pretty easily while dressed like us. But given a lot of what's being said on the forums, and how much people have spent already, SOE is literally turning away from a pile of money.

Why would SOE sell the highly prized items outright for say...1000 SC ($10), when they can get players like you to spend $250 to get them? I really doubt they'd make more money by just selling them.
I'm sure their goal is to make money, and IF they get actual new players through the process, then that's just a bonus.

I don't think anyone is suggesting that they make it a "Forever Alone Bundle" for $10. Just put the items up individually for whatever their normal price would be compared to other similar items. I know on a personal level, the friends I have who would want to play and pay money, already are and have been since beta. So from me and my social circle, Sony is effectively getting nothing extra with this promo. However if they tossed up those $100 level helmets, maybe the MAX Lumifiber and the Reaver Lumifiber, **** even one of the new camos, for $10 a pop. I'd probably buy all 4 tonight. Bam, $40.

radarX has made several posts about SOE's intentions for this program in the Remove Recruitmet thread. Agree or disagree, I would point you in that direction for answers.

Also, the level 25 recruitment close face helmets will probably be available in a non platinum lined version to players from the depot. The heat MBT cannons and the black crystallized armor probably wont be however, at least for the time being.

The only people who will actually get all these items are Streamers, Youtubers, or the few people who are going to spend a day making alt accounts, which defeats the purpose of the program anyway. So you have those select people, then you have all of your loyal customers lining up to give you money. But who cares about those guys, am I right!

Because they would get far more people spending 10$ than people spending 250$.

How many people are really going to try and get the absurd amount of friends to get an item ingame?

Making items everyone wants but you have to jump through hoops is poor business sense when it comes to cash shop items.

People want it, give it to them.

Companies want money and I want shinny.

It is that simple.

I don't really think it's that simple. I do believe they'll make more money this way because we all know they'll get a lot of players to spend the $250, and then once the recruitment slows down, they'll put the same items in the depot and make money off of the rest of you.

tbh that's my hope. Just release them eventually.