Remove the referral system

I just want my Closed Foreman helmet, the one I've been patiently waiting for since it first popped up on the test server several months ago.

If the rewards were just fancy exclusive skins for items that are also available on the marketplace (the lumifiber max armour, MBT turrets and white NS weapons are fine in my opinion) then it wouldn't be a problem, but the camo and helmets are things that we have seen previously and have all been waiting patiently for, only to now be told that we need to convince up to 25 people to pay $10 each in order to get.

It ******** all my dam friends don't play video games im only 21 you actually think my friends play video games the **** is this crap? It selfish what they are doing all the awesome cosmetics that we been asking for are only available if we recruit people lol?

Here are the issues I see with the system.

• 25 players @ 10 dollars each seems like an arbitrary restriction

This one is a problem because of the fact that its arbitrary, as someone else proposed, the amount should be fluid. 10 accounts that buy 25 dollars each are possibly better customers than 25 people who only buy 10, they both net the same amount of money, so i dont see why there is a limit here.

What If you have a single rich friend who ends up putting hundreds into the game? People do it, that one person may spend more on your game than the entirety of someone elses referall roster.

• No Retroactivity

This one is self explanatory, It flies in the face of people who busted their butts getting people into the game to have those promoters now be told "yeah your 20 friends werent good enough until now." It leaves a bad taste in peoples mouths.

IT also encourages people to game the system. The intent is that these 25 people will become regular customers, but the fact is, people will make 25 dummy accounts and spend 10 dollars on each one to get these. Then they will never log into these other accounts again. Meaning that the referall program just failed. It gained 0 new customers because someone felt like they had to make 25 dummy accounts to get the items.

• Bad communication to the community about this system and its rewards.

People had been speculating that a rewards/referral system was coming when the new tank cannons were datamined months ago. This was tagged as referal in the item name so it was pretty clear, but other things, some camos etc, have been coming along, being shown on the PTS and things and suddenly they are rewards exclusives. This makes players angry and frustrated.

• People are willing to give you money for these items NOW

People all over the forums have been salivating over the tank cannon models for months now, saying they will happily buy them. These players are already customers and want to spend more. Why is a new players 10 dollars so much better than an existing customer? Nothing garuntees the new people will stay (or not be dummy accounts) while a player who has already invested alot will keep investing and has a vested interest in the games continued development

My proposal

Consider making the referall item art available as cosmetic purchase in the depot. I would say that you could reskin the items, but entirely new gun geometry and helmets etc are something that would sell quite nicely and should not be exclusive to referalls. You should consider putting items that are sought after into the depot with a skin that is almost the same as the referall one if you feel its "too much" to sell the same thing out to your already paying customers.

The benefits of this are

-Increased sales from existing customers who are already loyal to the game and will likely be return shoppers.
-Increase in the number of players who become paying customers who already play the game, some of these cool items may be all you need to turn that free to play guy into a supporter.
-Overall I would wager you make more from this approach than the referall program would ever make you as it is now.

Lastly, I would suggest addopting a bundle based rewards system for referals and allow the amount of accounts/moeny spent to be fluid. That is to say, if you got that one 250 dollar friend to play, then i dont see why he cant earn you these bundles.

Personally i have spent a decent amount of money on planetside, not a huge amount but I have spent money to buy camos and guns and such. I have been tight pocketed lately because I want to see how SOE Handles the game moving forward I think I speak for many others when I say, badly handling simple things like this program will keep more pockets closed than open.

I would prefer if the system was based on a certain amount of time played for the referal to count, rather then money spent. I assume there has to be some system to prevent people from making accounts by them selves, and that would work just as fine. Obviously it would be better for soe if everyone who got refered payed money, but maybe they will later on if they like the game?

depressing.

Me personally... I won't be purchasing anything or renewing my sub till there is an equally awesome MBT HEAT vanity model for me to buy. $200 dollars is just too expensive for recon camo and the new mbt vanity cannon.

I suggest making all the rewards, except the decals and gold trims, purchasable in the depot for maybe 1.5 times the price of a an equivalent item. You can keep those as rewards too, but this way other people have different methods to obtain the coveted items. And if you wanted you could slightly distinguish between those bought in the depot and those received by the referral program (maybe make the referal rewards shinier/gold/chrome) like you did with the ESF gold trim fins.

IF NOTHING ELSE, please make equivalent/similar depot versions. I only planned to buy one camo and that would've been the Black Crystalize. Sure, it has a substitute but that one costs 1000SC, when 700SC (200SC+ than regular camo) would be more reasonable

The system can be redesigned to track the amount of SC a player spends in the game, as well as the overall length of time a member has been a paying subscriber.

Think of it as a hotel's rewards card - it doesn't automatically hand out incentives; instead, it tracks spending habits of each client and derives a monetary value for each individuals to compute rewards.

It can also be tied into a "come back to the game" program after someone had already canceled their account. "Come back this week and play 3 hours to qualify for this Pixel Camo" - play to win.

Plenty of players have already spent considerable amount of money in the game. Think of the folks who had already created dummy accounts - if I am a business owner, I would love to have these dedicated customers. Rewarding them is a form of relationship building - why are customer service representatives covering lucrative clients taking them out dinner and entertainment? The clients will reciprocate in-kind and do more business

Reward players who are "good customers" - let them purchase the items if they want, or hand them out if they unlock a Vulcan and two new rifles, or sign up for 3-month recurring membership, for example.

They would probably make more money by just letting us buy it like everything else.

I am willing to pay for the in game items. I am, however, not willing to act as a substitute to you all advertising like a proper company.

I agree strongly with this statement. Make it a rewards program based on how much money you have used to buy SC. This would be awesome. If you give reward incentives for buying even more SC, then it will make players feel more eager to spend money because buying SC wouldn't be a flat "I bought X station cash, I spent X station cash, and received Y items". Instead, there would be an added, "now what's coming up next?!" appeal.

Or, you could make it a separate program...

These are some awesome suggestions. Keep it up.

THIS exactly

Lets say at least for those who as register since day one like me , and who already invite and convince tons of peoples to get into the game and spend moeny on it to suport it ... We dont have 25 more friend left to invite we already invite everyones we can


Agree on that Every 15 dollars ive spend in this game, should grant me the same reward as the refferal systhem ...

And for now the Recon camo black and Grey and the foreman helmets as to be Obtainable via SC no matter what and Should not Be Exclusive by any mean this is a true slap in our face

Unfortunately....

"PlanetSide 2Verified account‏@planetside2
The rewards are exclusive to the recruitment program. ^Hiro"

https://twitter.com/planetside2/status/358052629689020418
Well not another penny for for station cash/cosmetics for SOE From me

First off, despite a lot of the emotion flying around, this is a good programme to start. It conveys that you guys are actively trying to build the community and move PS2 onto bigger and better things.

I've had experience with League of Legends refer a friend system. Which was abusable sadly, through requiring only game time, and not a lot at that. It also didn't have anything in it really worth bothering with, at levels attainable to normal gamers, even hardcore gamers. I'm sure someone at SOE researched similar systems, and you've overcome a key pitfall that system had; being abusable for free, and it also seems a good move to give rewards to the friends as well as the referrer.

However, LoL didn't put it's best cosmetic content of the time into the programme.....

Although I'm easily not fussed by most of the stuff in the programme, and it is definitely good to have exclusive content in it, it will motivate poeple, but I think the quality of some of it, might be harming your standing with current customers; people might be thinking "free, exclusive content that is far better quality than stuff I've bought". I can see that being annoying. Also the existence of some stuff only in the referral system, with no current equivalent in the depot or plans for equivalent; MAX lumifber and MBT cannons. Literally everything else you can look at and say "well there's camo and helmets in the depot already, there's even similar looking black camo and identical non-gold fins etc, there are loads of decals, and NS weapons." For those two you can't say the same, something that will irritate, to different degrees, current paying customers who've invested in the game, and thus supported its development this far, and even for sometime to come.

Secondly and I know this is true for me, most current player's friends who would stay and pay, are already here. It would not be impossible, but extremely difficult, for me to even make 5 more people start from scratch and pay, even if I made it a serious effort. As others have pointed out, not everyone who you refer will be able to run it, not everyone who can run it will like it necessarily, and not everyone who likes it will like it enough to invest and stay. If I had to use my own "recruitment rate" I'd say it's around 20-25%, with another 20% currently F2P, and with no intention currently of paying (gripes with game mechanics, balance etc). That means you're talking about referring a potentially large number of people to the game.

tl;dr
1. Good idea for showing players, current and prospective, that you are serious about growing the game.

2. "Exclusive versions" of currently purchasable content is good. [helmets, camos, NS weapons, decals, gold fins, boosts etc]

3. "Exclusive content" - with no analogous cosmetic, currently available or planned, is likely "bad". In that it will irritate current customers. [MAX lumifiber/MBT cannons]

4. Vets will find this extremely difficult to get anything from.

I cant tl;dr this bit so....

Lastly it seems to marginalise, quite badly, people who've supported the game strongly to this point. The loyal soldier bundle was nice, and I received it, I wasn't a member, so I got membership. Not because membership was super effective, it is nice however, but because a random reward like that really made me feel good about the game. Incentivizing current support is especially crucial in PS2, since it's us that constitute the community that welcomes new players in game, and us that gets them settled in and fighting in their role.

It seems kind of weird to reward so strongly new players, yet neglect long standing supporters. In an analogy - political parties wouldn't do it; banks that do it often struggle to retain solid customer base, packs of apes wouldn't do it. The psychology of people feeling valued, is powerful indeed - as I gave you my personal example just above. Conversely, the psychology of people who perceive being neglected, or devalued, in favour of others who are are seen as not having earned such status, is clearly evident in this thread and many others, I wouldn't underestimate it.

A lot of good points I agree with, but this point is my main problem with this referral system. I have already recruited most/all of my friends to the game that I think might be interested, and most of them stayed. Several spent some cash, a few 100€ and more.
I might get some more friends to start playing, but they will only play casual and most likely f2p.

*shrug* well, I won't be to upset about it, but as Aethestis said it just leaves a bad taste in the mouth that those who were promoting the game during the (not always smooth) launch will be left behind - again - its not SOE specific, its just referral systems that start AFTER the games have launched.

I agree with 90% of the suggestions being made here. I'm a member of the group who has already spent tens of thousands of SC on this game, and I have already gotten all of my friends with systems capable of playing this game to play it. I do not see why these vanity items cannot be simply tagged "-R" in their name and have equivalent non-referral versions available in the depot.

1. Make the referral rewards available through other means. This would be a great way to reward membership (particularly long-term membership).
2. They don't motivate me to try to recruit people, since 10 people x $10 is not easy to begin with, and as a long-term member, I've already recruited everyone I know with any interest.
3. I'd give a mutual exp boost for bringing in one person, with more/bigger exp boosts for bringing in more people. If you bring a friend into an MMO, you want them to feel like they're progressing quickly... even if it's only a 1 week +50% exp boost.
Or give the recruiter/recruit some bonus Planetside-only SC. When I do get someone started in the game, I don't want to tell them "Yeah you can't use most of the weapons and your character's weak, but keep playing".
Maybe a 'choose your own camo' token for recruiter/recruit as well, so they can walk around in matching outfits if they're into that.

yeah but it shouls start with showing respect deserve for those who try to build up this game at the first place , i mean many of us already advertise and bring as much friend as possible into the game

We dont have as much peoples left as lets say a new players who is 17 years old and , can bring some of his facebook and friend into the game ...

Everyones i know , know about this game lol because ive spread the word on it even before the tech test ... so everyones i know have register to the beta , ive bougth like 10 PC gamers magazine to get some keys for few my friends , and ive create 2 Steam groups and a Platoons on origins to even get some BF3 players to play this game ...


So at least making so if you create your accont like before december and have more than X friend who have spend SC then you should get those reward or at least Been able to buy those for SC at the very least

Or like i said in my thread about it

Making that Membership owners , have acess to ALL items from any promotions in SC cash shop , so at least we can buy those items if we are members

Thing is this program is GOOD no ones denied that .. It grant Items For free to recruit members that also great

But we ( those who have already advertise the game for ages now ) been able to have or Buy those items ( especially the foreman helmets and the Recon camo )

But at least , if we are actual member lets say members Before this promotions , we should be able to have acess to those items at least in Sc cash shop

Or Membership owner have to have acess to the (( Vaults )) Any cosmetics from any promotions are Obtainable for members in SC cash shop