Way to not read my post completely. Note the bold part that you clearly didn't actually read... I already adressed that.
Don't worry I read that. Then I ignored it because you saying "before you say" doesn't mean I can't just go ahead and say it anyway. There's nothing insane about the amount of questionite, because you're playing a video game to get it. If you don't enjoy doing that then the FF slot is irrelevant.
$15/mo is affordable to most people... $300 one time fee is not affordable to most people... $50/character is not affordable to most people... the cost that the Silver to FF token will undoubtedly have is unlikely to be affordable to most people...
Sales and questionite can reduce the price of a slot. I don't know why somebody would be so insistent on paying full price for those things.
The sales are irrelivent to the point of my post. Even at the discounted prices of $200 LTS and $25 FF slot, they are STILL not affordable to most people. $25 for a single character slot is too expensive.
As for questionite... not everyone has the time nor the patience to farm the millions of questionite required to purchase a FF slot... and before you say "they can just farm part of it to reduce the price"... it's still an insane amount of questionite to farm for just 1 slot. lets say you payed for half of the slot with Q and the other half with cash and bought it on sale... that is still almost 600k Q at the current exchange rate.
Also, just to be clear, incase you forgot... I have an LTS... I will never have to pay the exorbitant price for a FF slot... I will however never be able to buy more than 1 additional character slot after the 7th since I currently have 58 slots.
I wouldn't go as far as saying generous because it's not like we didn't sink a lot of money into CO, but yes that would be nice. Like I said it would be an appreciated commercial gesture.
It would in fact be generous because there's nothing unfair about expecting people to pay for permanent access, since all this time they've been getting the temporary access they've been paying for already. Just because a rental period ends doesn't mean you own the thing you rented if your accumulated rent equals the total value. Part of the value one gets from rental is the ability to have access to something they could not afford to purchase in full - every single subscriber received this value every month that they paid their sub fee. Simply put, they already got what they paid for and the company has no obligation to stack more value on top of those fees.
If I was renting you a bouncy castle for several months and then I decided to just give it to you for no further payment that would absolutely be generous. I had no obligation to give you the bouncy castle just because I decided I no longer wanted to rent out bouncy castles and only wanted to sell them. Giving people things with no obligation to do so is pretty much how generosity works.
It's a little something known as good faith business practices... any reputable company, when they change their service policies in a way that would negatively affect existing customers will either A ) grandfather in existing customers with the older policy and a grace period if they have to drop service in which to renew service under the old policy or B ) grant the older customers a significant deal upon switching over to the new policy.
In this case, they are removing a subscription service that many customers actively use. This isn't simply a change of policy, it is a removal of service. Sure, existing subscribers may be able to retain their subscription, but should their subscription ever end for any reason at all, they are screwed. There is no way to renew a subscription once it has expired under this new system, there is no sort of grace period to allow a customer to renew service, there is no deal offered to existing subscribers upon switching to the new policy either.
When a company makes a giant change like this to their service, it is expected that they will make every effort possible to retain the loyalty of their existing customer base. Generally these types of changes are made to improve profit margins and to help attract new customers. However, these types of changes have a very high risk of losing existing customers, so it is within the companies best interest to reach out and offer a boon to their existing customers to keep them from leaving.
Gotta agree here. Most people don't study/understand business at all and forget this very factor. A business doesn't have to show any gesture of good faith, especially in this climate where a business can tell you 'F U' and people will still line up in droves and purchase their goods, but that's usually for established corporations and businesses with a larger and more abundant consumer base, as well as a more well-known and higher-demand product. In regards to Champions, this doesn't apply as much.
Buffing everything to stupid high levels and nerfing everything to piss poor levels yields the same results, but not the same community reactions.
The mistake you're making is considering a fair exchange as an "F U". That usually means an individual is more likely scheming to try to get something for free than trying to apply real business sense to a situation.
To be fair, when you've been a sub for more than 4 years and you're told out of the blue that from now on if you want to keep your characters as they are it's either $300 for all your slots or $50 per slot we're dangerously close to a "F U" move.
Thankfully they're willing to revise their offer and come back with a (hopefully) better one soon.
Well, that's not what anyone was told. First off FF slots are not a method to keep your characters. It was "Buy LTS, or just keep your subscription active for the same 15$ a month you've been paying all along". Letting you keep things exactly as they are isn't exactly an "F U".
We can't be sure what they would have charged for the potential conversion device. We also won't know if there would have been a LTS sale immediately after the change either ( though if I were a suit I certainly would have done that ).
To be fair, when you've been a sub for more than 4 years and you're told out of the blue that from now on if you want to keep your characters as they are it's either $300 for all your slots or $50 per slot we're dangerously close to a "F U" move.
If you have been subbed for all that time, "more than 4 years", then you're told out of the blue that from now on if you want to keep your characters then you have to continue being a subscriber.
Spin my your bouncy castle analogy is terrible and inaccurate. Subscription services are not actually equivocal to rentals. A rental is temporary ownership and possession of a product or property. A subscription is temporary access to a service. They operate on different terms as well.
Most rental services operate on a rent to own basis, though many of them charge more in the end for the product through rental than to outright buy it.
Subscriptions however grant you ownership of any products delivered through the subscription service if any such products exist. A game subscription doesn’t actually deliver any products, though many count unlocked content as a delivered product and leave that on your account after your subscription ends.
If you want to make an analogy, it’s more like if I were to offer you internet service as a flat monthly rate with a high speed connection, I later added a pay as you go plan without the high speed connection, then today told you that next week I will no longer offer the subscriber service and if your current subscription expires you will be limited to the same slow speeds as everyone on the pay as you go plan. Of course there is a lifetime plan you could buy at an extreme price that you have already payed almost double of in subscription fees over the years that will still have the high speed connection. There is also a data limited high speed upgrade that you can buy but it costs 4x as much as the monthly subscription and has a very low data limit.
As a service provider I would be remiss to not try and keep my current subscriber base when making such a change. Those subscribers have been paying for the high speed service all this time. I can’t just remove the subscription service and expect them to take the change and accept it happily knowing that they are losing access to the service they were actually paying for. They had all these years to go to the pay as you go plan, but they chose to stick to the subscription due to its exclusive benefit.
Spin my your bouncy castle analogy is terrible and inaccurate. Subscription services are not actually equivocal to rentals. A rental is temporary ownership and possession of a product or property. A subscription is temporary access to a service. They operate on different terms as well.
Products and service aren't really that different when what you're talking about is the payment method. As I explained, the only reason I chose a bouncy castle was so that it would be some silly thing you don't need. You can change it to "daily head massage service" if you like.
Technicaly, the announced plan did "grandfather in" gold subs in the truest sense of the phrase. They could continue their subscription under exactly the same terms. The only thing that really changed is the removal of a free slot at 40, which I look at as the correction of a longstanding bug and I expect that to be done regardless.
What you are actually advocating is a sort of "loyalty reward" that gifts long standing subscribers with a free LTS. Which is a fine suggestion.
To me, the core of the matter is freeform. So, I have suggested that they make freeforms an account unlock from a one time purchase. Basically, treat freeform as a premium AT. I have further suggested that they then give that permanent unlock to all Gold subs as a similar loyalty reward.
No... You can't renew the gold sub. That makes it a phasing out of monthly subs with no replacement. Cryptic / PW isn't so dumb they don't realize people flip their sub on and off. They're probably counting on it so they can dwindle the numbers down until they can remove subs completely without much complaint. Why go to the trouble of preventing new subs while allowing current subs to stay if they weren't going to eventually dump the whole system?
PW especially likes to make long term plans. We're talking about the company that made a console division in anticipation of China's lift on the console ban. It's not just what's happening now, but looking at what the end game is with their decisions.
Comments
Don't worry I read that. Then I ignored it because you saying "before you say" doesn't mean I can't just go ahead and say it anyway. There's nothing insane about the amount of questionite, because you're playing a video game to get it. If you don't enjoy doing that then the FF slot is irrelevant.
My super cool CC build and how to use it.
Gotta agree here. Most people don't study/understand business at all and forget this very factor. A business doesn't have to show any gesture of good faith, especially in this climate where a business can tell you 'F U' and people will still line up in droves and purchase their goods, but that's usually for established corporations and businesses with a larger and more abundant consumer base, as well as a more well-known and higher-demand product. In regards to Champions, this doesn't apply as much.
42 40s, LTSer.
My super cool CC build and how to use it.
Thankfully they're willing to revise their offer and come back with a (hopefully) better one soon.
We can't be sure what they would have charged for the potential conversion device. We also won't know if there would have been a LTS sale immediately after the change either ( though if I were a suit I certainly would have done that ).
My super cool CC build and how to use it.
If you have been subbed for all that time, "more than 4 years", then you're told out of the blue that from now on if you want to keep your characters then you have to continue being a subscriber.
Whoever you are, be that person one hundred percent. Don't compromise on your identity.
Most rental services operate on a rent to own basis, though many of them charge more in the end for the product through rental than to outright buy it.
Subscriptions however grant you ownership of any products delivered through the subscription service if any such products exist. A game subscription doesn’t actually deliver any products, though many count unlocked content as a delivered product and leave that on your account after your subscription ends.
If you want to make an analogy, it’s more like if I were to offer you internet service as a flat monthly rate with a high speed connection, I later added a pay as you go plan without the high speed connection, then today told you that next week I will no longer offer the subscriber service and if your current subscription expires you will be limited to the same slow speeds as everyone on the pay as you go plan. Of course there is a lifetime plan you could buy at an extreme price that you have already payed almost double of in subscription fees over the years that will still have the high speed connection. There is also a data limited high speed upgrade that you can buy but it costs 4x as much as the monthly subscription and has a very low data limit.
As a service provider I would be remiss to not try and keep my current subscriber base when making such a change. Those subscribers have been paying for the high speed service all this time. I can’t just remove the subscription service and expect them to take the change and accept it happily knowing that they are losing access to the service they were actually paying for. They had all these years to go to the pay as you go plan, but they chose to stick to the subscription due to its exclusive benefit.
Products and service aren't really that different when what you're talking about is the payment method. As I explained, the only reason I chose a bouncy castle was so that it would be some silly thing you don't need. You can change it to "daily head massage service" if you like.
My super cool CC build and how to use it.
What you are actually advocating is a sort of "loyalty reward" that gifts long standing subscribers with a free LTS. Which is a fine suggestion.
To me, the core of the matter is freeform. So, I have suggested that they make freeforms an account unlock from a one time purchase. Basically, treat freeform as a premium AT. I have further suggested that they then give that permanent unlock to all Gold subs as a similar loyalty reward.
PW especially likes to make long term plans. We're talking about the company that made a console division in anticipation of China's lift on the console ban. It's not just what's happening now, but looking at what the end game is with their decisions.
[at]riviania Member since Aug 2009