My only request with this change, is that we up the number of character slots for accounts. I just did a headcount on my character slots, and I have 65 characters. Most of those slots are occupied with level forty or characters that I'm currently work shopping for leveling. I typically level at least 2 characters when a double XP event happens. That means that within the year I will be out of characters to level, and thus lose my primary motivation to play this game.
I would respectfully ask that the limit be raised to 100, to give me some more time to play my favorite game. I would be willing to pay a nominal price to increase that character limit, and even to buy characters slots to meet that quota.
Thats 24,500 Zen for those doing the math, or roughly $250 in new slots that I'd be willing to buy over the course of this game's lifetime.
Are these account-unlocked as per usual, or do they only unlock for the character using the tokens?
I'm no dev, but in the unlikelihood of devs being able to respond to you right now, I can let you know that the monthly reward items are account-wide if they're the costumes and the emotes. The Vanity devices would be character-only.
one week notice ....... i cant see the devs backpedaling on this dispite i think an almost 100% negative feedback , this makes me sad that they didnt want to talk to the players about this before now ,especially if they had had a year notice , this makes them look bad , either as disrespect or a lack of confidence , it dosent look good for them either way
I'm no dev, but in the unlikelihood of devs being able to respond to you right now, I can let you know that the monthly reward items are account-wide if they're the costumes and the emotes. The Vanity devices would be character-only.
Yeah, I was just worried that, among all this other stuff, they'd actually put effort in to make the monthly rewards you get via these tokens character-bound, to encourage more lifetime subs.
Greetings, Champions. After listening to your feedback these past few days, we're taking a harder look at this feature and how to better implement it. We'll have more news in the future, but for now this will not be launching on June 7th.
Greetings, Champions. After listening to your feedback these past few days, we're taking a harder look at this feature and how to better implement it. We'll have more news in the future, but for now this will not be launching on June 7th.
Good to know ya'll will be looking into a better implementation... just to be clear though...
there are realistically only 2 options that don't screw over a large portion of the player base...
option 1) Add Premium Pack, but don't remove subscriptions
option 2) Grant current subscribers permanent access to their existing Freeform characters at no additional cost, & upgrade any who have subscribed for over 800 days LTS status.
anything short of either of those 2 options risks losing a large portion of the playerbase.
as an LTS player with 58 character slots, neither of those options do anything to help in my personal grievance with the change, but they will go a long way towards retaining the existing subscriber player base after the change. Those of us who are annoyed about the 59 character limit are really a simpler bunch to appease... simply add a character cap increase token to the shop or something, even if it's a limited purchase item that we can only but like once or twice...
this is really a bit of an odd situation for us players to be in if you really think about it... we are quite literally begging ya'll to let us continue to pay you.
Greetings, Champions. After listening to your feedback these past few days, we're taking a harder look at this feature and how to better implement it. We'll have more news in the future, but for now this will not be launching on June 7th.
This is the first time I have EVER felt like my opinion matters. THANK YOU AmbassidorKael! xoxoxoxo
@ambassadorkael#6946 and @kaizerin : thanks for your efforts on this one, it is genuinely appreciated and we're looking forwards to hearing Plan B in the near future. All the Best!
Greetings, Champions. After listening to your feedback these past few days, we're taking a harder look at this feature and how to better implement it. We'll have more news in the future, but for now this will not be launching on June 7th.
Release the premium pack tho, that part's great o3o
> @"ambassadorkael#6946" said: > Greetings, Champions. After listening to your feedback these past few days, we're taking a harder look at this feature and how to better implement it. We'll have more news in the future, but for now this will not be launching on June 7th.
THANK YOU
now i can stop worrying about this and get some sleep >.>
annnnnd this might not be the place for it since it is a suggestion but... since you want to discontinue subscriptions and people have no issue with paying for more character slots, how about doing the following:
remove character slot caps + keep the removal of free character slot on hitting level 40 + allow freeform access to everyone + restrict new accounts to one character slot + remove premium from premium ATs (i.e. make them free)
and to make money off of the above changes do the following in the c store:
- 1000 Z (at least) per character slot and a pack of 5000 Z (at most) for 8 (at least) to 10 (at most) character slots
- 1000 Z (at most) per additional account wide costume slot and a pack of 5000 Z (at most) for 8 (at least) to 12 (at most) account wide costume slots
- 250 Z (at most) per retrain token and a pack of 1000 Z (at most) for 5 (at least) retrain tokens
- raise the cost for the new premium whatsit pack to 5000 Z
am prolly going to get some ire for the pricing buuuut i hope that trying to monitize off character slots and acct wide costume slots would be far better than solely / primarily focusing on freeform; people will always want more slots >.> i think
Your team has my respect regardless of what decisions are made going forward. You made the right move by reassessing the changes as a whole. There were decent elements of this update mixed up with detrimental changes that we borderline unacceptable. Needless to say, great work on whatever it took to at least get to this point. I would much rather be on the side of offering support than naysaying.
Greetings, Champions. After listening to your feedback these past few days, we're taking a harder look at this feature and how to better implement it. We'll have more news in the future, but for now this will not be launching on June 7th.
I hope that Cryptic and PWE do not take the wrong message from the community's outcry. There is nothing wrong with the Premium Pack and the items and features it came with on it's own. The problem that it has been associated with the termination of any new subscription services past the 7th--though I'm presuming that that, too, has been suspended--leaving existing subscribers on what is effectively a ticking time bomb for their rosters of freeform characters.
The problem is that the system recognizes two different kinds of Freeform characters. The Freeform Slot characters which can be purchased from the store for 5000 ZEN (at time of writing) and the Subscriber Freeform characters. Despite how they offer the same basic feature set (and create issues with the Onslaught Supervillain system due to their similarity) they're considered entirely different tiers of character.
There needs to be some backend work to make certain that the loss of subscriber benefits does not completely lock out long-time players from using their Freeform characters they made as a sub. Perhaps some sort of mass conversion in the database to replace Subscriber Freeforms with Freeform Slots.
tl;dr: Nothing wrong with the Premium Pack as it was, it's the end of subscriptions that's got everybody worried and\or angry.
Well, I suppose this is effectively the end of the Premium Pack, which would've been a boon to new players.
Eh, not necessarily. It's quite possible they'll still wind up eliminating subscriptions, or possibly modifying how they work (for example, eliminating the 1 month option).
Greetings, Champions. After listening to your feedback these past few days, we're taking a harder look at this feature and how to better implement it. We'll have more news in the future, but for now this will not be launching on June 7th.
Thank you very much for looking into this further. As a (VERY) long term subscriber (seriously, look me up, it's kinda nuts), I was afraid that I would lose everyone I had enjoyed playing over the years because of your dropping of subscriptions without any way to convert said subscribed Freeform characters into non-subscribed Freeform ones.
I'm looking forward to your changes and hope that it's for the best for those of us who have given you subscription fees month after month (instead of having gone Lifetime).
- Make those that are monthly subs after 27 months LTS automatically. They have paid enough into the system to get this prestige.
- Create an LTS installment plan, with payments every 1/3/6 months. That way you get gold, with a chance to get LTS if you pay enough. It works VERY well with real clubs.
- Instead of just taking away the monthly LTS costume bonus, replace it with making emote and costume unlocks (if any) account-wide for gold members. Not everyone opens lockboxes just for the costume parts.
- Instead of making Gold members lose any slots with the change, max out the slots one can get at each sub level. Free gets 2, and gold gets 59 (max). Any more, you pay for the slot on free, but LTS is maxed. I still haven't hit that limit.
Greetings, Champions. After listening to your feedback these past few days, we're taking a harder look at this feature and how to better implement it. We'll have more news in the future, but for now this will not be launching on June 7th.
This is good news. I appreciate you guys need to make money, this isn't a charity after all, but I think these changes as proposed would have been poison to the game. I'm glad you're rethinking it.
Well. If the goal was making money, then the Premium Pack is hilariously cheap to be honest. For all the benefits it has. Just the costumes it contains are more expensive altogether than the Premium Pack which has even more stuff in it. 1.500 ZEN ? First I thought it is a mistype of 15.000.
(Yes-yes.. I know they buy the stuff that a gold sub has, but you want to remove the sub, remember ? Then you just giving away stuff worth more than 15.000 ZEN for 1.500.)
If you want to make more money on players without creeping them away, then raise the price of the Premium Pack, keep the sub online and you are done. Customization is a price by itself. And giving away such a benefit like custom colors in an almost gold member pack for a low price is a waste.
My suggestion is simple.
Premium Pack:
- Everything you wanted to put into it
- Won't give access to monthly rewards
- Raise the price (around the level of one month sub)
Subscription:
- FF characters
- Monthly reward and ZEN
- The one-time free hideout for sure
LTS:
- Gain a character slot for reaching lvl 40 till the limit (59) (make the LTS more attractive)
- The general stuff of being an LTS
I'd say Monthly Sub and LTS should have exactly the same benefits. I'm willing to bet that Gold monthly sub revenue far exceeds LTS revenue for the game.
CO has lockboxes and I have zero doubts the money made from them grossly eclipses the money made form anything else. The Premium Pack being what you consider "hilariously cheap" might be a way to give people some neat stuff for cheap, keeping them around for the lockbox feeding frenzy.
Let's be real, digital items costs zero dollars as soon as they pay for the dev costs. Most of the stuff in that pack has long since recouped dev costs. Selling cheaper items to more people might be much better than selling expensive stuff to a small audience.
The Premium Pack is a great idea and I hope they launch it soon. As for what's in it - I would suggest adding a set of Daring Gear, or similar. We know how many newbies come out of the Powerhouse and struggle because they've not got the right gear (or not equipped their starter pack!) and I think you'd sell more equipment boxes later on if players got a demo of how important they are.
Just don't ruin the Premium Pack please, in fact release it while working on the Monthly Subs major issues
It's already a GOOD Quality of Life improvement for Silver players
Post edited by avianos on
POWERFRAME REVAMPS, NEW POWERS and BUG FIXES > Recycled Content and Events and even costumes at this point Introvert guy who use CO to make his characters playable and get experimental with Viable FF Theme builds! Running out of Unique FF builds due to the lack of updates and synergies! Playing since 1 February 2011 128 + Characters (21 ATs, 107 FFs) ALTitis for Life!
Well. You can see the interests of the players, I see the interests of the devs. My apologies, but opportunities are not cheap. It is business. Nothing to do with being kind with a "group of players".
There is the chance to sell stuff while keeping other groups of the game in good condition. This Premium pack is way too cheap based on how much are willing to buy. They are willing to buy it for even higher price.
Giving up the Subscription is a silly idea, since it is a monthly income.
This combination is total non-sense. Except, if the server is going to shut down in the near future. Then those steps are totally legit.
Giving up the Subscription is a silly idea, since it is a monthly income.
Except it requires them to maintain a separate billing system for it, with a number of bugs, and since it's money stuff, not fixing the bugs might not have been an option. For their other games, subscriptions were mostly a nonfactor anyway. At a certain point, maintaining their subscription billing system for the small number of players who use it is simply not worth the cost.
I suspect, if CO does retain something like a sub form, it will be changed significantly -- for example, it might become a z-store purchase.
Well. You can see the interests of the players, I see the interests of the devs. My apologies, but opportunities are not cheap. It is business. Nothing to do with being kind with a "group of players".
There is the chance to sell stuff while keeping other groups of the game in good condition. This Premium pack is way too cheap based on how much are willing to buy. They are willing to buy it for even higher price.
Giving up the Subscription is a silly idea, since it is a monthly income.
and people said FF Slots in Zstore should cost more and see what happened now, this came back to bite them on the butt
Premium pack is a welcome addition for silvers and something that should have been added years now, let people be happy and give more options to your playerbase
Don't try to change it
POWERFRAME REVAMPS, NEW POWERS and BUG FIXES > Recycled Content and Events and even costumes at this point Introvert guy who use CO to make his characters playable and get experimental with Viable FF Theme builds! Running out of Unique FF builds due to the lack of updates and synergies! Playing since 1 February 2011 128 + Characters (21 ATs, 107 FFs) ALTitis for Life!
Hmm, I aman LTS and have 4 full pages of characters (13x4 = 52) and an entire page of unused characters (another 13). 52 +13 = 65, which would take me over the character cap. If this goes into effect, will I lose those extra 6 slots? Should I make a bunch of generic heroes to hold those 6 extra slots and then pay to rename them when I get around to using them? Just don't want to lose the benefits paid for.
and people said FF Slots in Zstore should cost more and see what happened now, this came back to bite them on the butt
Premium pack is a welcome addition for silvers and something that should have been added years now, let people be happy and give more options to your playerbase
Don't try to change it
I think the Premium Pack is a good idea, yes. But selling it for a ridiculously low price while erasing the Subscription is really a thing which makes no-sense.
1500 ZEN is a lot cheaper than a month of Subscription, and it is a one-time buy. Meaning that, they will lose horrible much of income.
Let us say, 20 silver players buy the Premium Pack. It is 30.000 ZEN in a month, and it is one time. 30.000 ZEN is 6 players' Subscription cost a month.
I think there are more Subscribers than 6, though.
And what left after getting the Premium Pack? The life time for 300$ (200 in the moment). Who the hell on Earth would buy the LTS for that much ? No one anytime soon.
And we did not mention that how the current Subscribers will be disappointed yet. Losing all of their characters just under a smack ?
Yeah, they could convert their 50 characters into ATs, but they were not Subscribers for ATs. They were able to pay the monthly cost and they were glad with it. They definitely won't pay for LTS to get back their characters. Saying bye-bye to the game is most likely.
I'm actually curious since I also have reached the character slot limit, when I'll be able to buy the Premium pack what will happen to those 6 Character Slots? will they go wasted (not like I'm going to use them, but I do want to know) or will the system save them once possible the character limit cap is increased?
The only value I will be getting from this pack is the Power costumization and the 3 Inventory Bag Slots
I have already bought the resource cap limit, all the costumes on the list (except wired cyborg) and all the Travel Powers
Still... 1500 zen for power costumization is worth alone
POWERFRAME REVAMPS, NEW POWERS and BUG FIXES > Recycled Content and Events and even costumes at this point Introvert guy who use CO to make his characters playable and get experimental with Viable FF Theme builds! Running out of Unique FF builds due to the lack of updates and synergies! Playing since 1 February 2011 128 + Characters (21 ATs, 107 FFs) ALTitis for Life!
I'm actually curious since I also have reached the character slot limit, when I'll be able to buy the Premium pack what will happen to those 6 Character Slots? will they go wasted (not like I'm going to use them, but I do want to know) or will the system save them once possible the character limit cap is increased?
The only value I will be getting from this pack is the Power costumization and the 3 Inventory Bag Slots
I have already bought the resource cap limit, all the costumes on the list (except wired cyborg) and all the Travel Powers
Still... 1500 zen for power costumization is worth alone
You won't lose your character slots. It was told a lot of times before. You just won't be able to buy more.
And this pack contains more than just the color customization, do not forget that.
An administrator mentioned that, they will consider it over again... However the way he said that was equivocal. I wonder if the admin said that
"We will consider it a time... After the pack got released."
I think the Premium Pack is a good idea, yes. But selling it for a ridiculously low price while erasing the Subscription is really a thing which makes no-sense.
1500 ZEN is a lot cheaper than a month of Subscription, and it is a one-time buy. Meaning that, they will lose horrible much of income.
Yeah but, the Premium Pack doesn't include the most valuable feature of the game, FreeForm slots
Something that Monthly Sub and Lifetime do/did
It doesn't give you access to FF, you still need to buy the FF slots separately and they REALLY want you to buy and have access to the FF system, especially if you don't like Archetypes (which you still have to buy separately, along with the best Inventory Bags, more costume slots e.t.c)
So the Additional Silver character slots are pretty worthless
I'm actually curious since I also have reached the character slot limit, when I'll be able to buy the Premium pack what will happen to those 6 Character Slots? will they go wasted (not like I'm going to use them, but I do want to know) or will the system save them once possible the character limit cap is increased?
The only value I will be getting from this pack is the Power costumization and the 3 Inventory Bag Slots
I have already bought the resource cap limit, all the costumes on the list (except wired cyborg) and all the Travel Powers
Still... 1500 zen for power costumization is worth alone
You won't lose your character slots. It was told a lot of times before. You just won't be able to buy more.
And this pack contains more than just the color customization, do not forget that.
An administrator mentioned that, they will consider it over again... However the way he said that was equivocal. I wonder if the admin said that
"We will consider it a time... After the pack got released."
"
This... doesn't answer what I asked neither inform me with something I don't know
POWERFRAME REVAMPS, NEW POWERS and BUG FIXES > Recycled Content and Events and even costumes at this point Introvert guy who use CO to make his characters playable and get experimental with Viable FF Theme builds! Running out of Unique FF builds due to the lack of updates and synergies! Playing since 1 February 2011 128 + Characters (21 ATs, 107 FFs) ALTitis for Life!
+5 points to you guys for listening. I don't think many people were upset about the Premium Pack, so I don't believe anyone would mind if that still got released. I was a Silver player myself for about 6 years before getting LTS, so I think it's an amazing benefit to current Silver players(Maybe increase the price though. As stated before, some of the benefits in that pack, on their own, are worth 1500 zen).
My apologies, I'm afraid of that no accurate answer ever was made for your question.
However, based on the infos of the admin and moderator, "You won't be able to buy more slots after you reach the limit." They do not mention anything about you would lose the ones you get from other sources (Since the +slot after reaching lvl 40 will be deleted, only the ZEN store remains and the Premium Pack)
About the subject "Players have to buy FF slot in order to play FF"...
And what about the ones who have a lot of gold characters and now will have none ?
They won't accept such "change". Losing everything is unacceptable by all means.
We can wonder about "What if Arc wanted to get rid of the Subscription and make Premium Pack(s) with an LTS option which gives access for endless FF character making and monthly ZEN income ?"
It's like launching a game for total new players, because the ones who were (/ are) playing it definitely will leave it for good.
Does ARC think that, new players will come, buy FF slots (since the so called Premium Pack won't keep the servers up for sure) and play ?
It could be possible, but in that case ARC have to keep CO running by their own for long without any income. What is the problem with that ?
The problem is that 2 games already shut down just before CO started their weird campaign. It is very doubtful that ARC will keep CO running till a new player base will fill the game. Especially since it will be left by it's current disappointed ex gold members.
I'm actually curious since I also have reached the character slot limit, when I'll be able to buy the Premium pack what will happen to those 6 Character Slots? will they go wasted (not like I'm going to use them, but I do want to know) or will the system save them once possible the character limit cap is increased?
Based on how things worked when STO did their change (as they offered basically the exact same thing with the same limits set into place), the 6 character slots will go poof and vanish. Yes, you can still purchase the Premium Pack (and get everything else), and no, you will not get a discount on the pack because of it.
Based on how things worked when STO did their change (as they offered basically the exact same thing with the same limits set into place), the 6 character slots will go poof and vanish. Yes, you can still purchase the Premium Pack (and get everything else), and no, you will not get a discount on the pack because of it.
Aww darn it, I was afraid this would be the case
Oh well, not a big loss, once again I'm getting this pack only for the Power costumization
Thanks for the heads up
POWERFRAME REVAMPS, NEW POWERS and BUG FIXES > Recycled Content and Events and even costumes at this point Introvert guy who use CO to make his characters playable and get experimental with Viable FF Theme builds! Running out of Unique FF builds due to the lack of updates and synergies! Playing since 1 February 2011 128 + Characters (21 ATs, 107 FFs) ALTitis for Life!
Greetings, Champions. After listening to your feedback these past few days, we're taking a harder look at this feature and how to better implement it. We'll have more news in the future, but for now this will not be launching on June 7th.
Thanks for taking everyone's feedback into consideration and taking your time with this. You're probably already thinking about this, but since many Gold players migrate between games and come back to CO, there are lapsed customers that will be affected by your ultimate decision EVEN THOUGH they are not active in-game or in-forum right now and cannot voice their concerns.
The Premium pack was never an issue, nor do I think it should be changed. Subs/LTS were upset about the loss of free characters at 40 and the enforcement of the Character Limit Cap. The Pack, a, presumably, one time purchase, costs 1500 Zen. That equates to $15, which is the exact same price as a one month sub. You are getting several of the same aspects beyond the FF slots. So I have to disagree that it should be more expensive.
As for the other changes, I would say figuring out some way to increase the cap would be best, or at the very least, giving Subs a way out the gate to unlock their Gold Characters to use. People play this game to make new characters and use the Tailor, lets be honest here.
I commend the devs for listening to player feedback, but... As a one-time subber but current Silver player, I was really looking forward to that Premium Pack this week. Proceed with its launch, please, that is not what the people disliked. The general apprehension seemed to be about changing the way subscriptions work. I'd say, as some others have, release the Premium Pack as planned and then release whatever subscription changes later on, once you've figured out something that works.
"Should I make a bunch of generic heroes to hold those 6 extra slots and then pay to rename them when I get around to uing them? Just don't want to lose the benefits paid for."
You can just delete and stick a new toon in that slot. I do that all the time as I'm pretty sure I still have more slots from my gold sub days than I'm "supposed to" as a silver. As long as I don't log out or log in as another toon before I re-fill the slot, it won't disappear. You probably don't need to do that, but if you'd rather be on the safe side...
Digital items have a manufacturing cost of zero dollars. The items are worth whatever Cryptic feels like making them worth. Companies don't go F2P out of kindness but to make more money than a sub model brings in. Monthly subs clearly bring is so little money that it isn't worth keeping. People also like good deals. Six slots out of a current cap of 59 is a tiny amount. Most of the other stuff isn't of particularly great value especially the costumes. Costume sets now are MUCH better quality and those things are showing their age. Wouldn't be surprised if they didn't sell many now.
What sounds better owning items for the life of the game or renting items for the life of the game? Monthly subs are inherently unappealing to a lot of people simply because it's a rental. Most people probably don't even bother with a sub or only sub once in a while and would much rather have something like the Premium Pack. I know I would. I don't want to deal with the hassle of a sub and would rather just buy things as I have money and there are things I want to purchase.
I think the Premium Pack is a good idea, yes. But selling it for a ridiculously low price while erasing the Subscription is really a thing which makes no-sense.
1500 ZEN is a lot cheaper than a month of Subscription, and it is a one-time buy. Meaning that, they will lose horrible much of income.
You know, I'm not going to try to change your mind, no matter how wrong it is, but allow me to at least point out basic math.
1500 zen = $15.00 U.S. and is therefore already about the price of a month of subscription.
I'd accuse you of astroturfing if I had even heard of you before. I checked your profile, you certainly haven't had a lot to say before this thread came along, but you have been here since the current forum ate the old one.
Literally nobody else in this thread wants to increase the cost of everything to all players, just you.
Comments
I would respectfully ask that the limit be raised to 100, to give me some more time to play my favorite game. I would be willing to pay a nominal price to increase that character limit, and even to buy characters slots to meet that quota.
Thats 24,500 Zen for those doing the math, or roughly $250 in new slots that I'd be willing to buy over the course of this game's lifetime.
I'm no dev, but in the unlikelihood of devs being able to respond to you right now, I can let you know that the monthly reward items are account-wide if they're the costumes and the emotes. The Vanity devices would be character-only.
Yeah, I was just worried that, among all this other stuff, they'd actually put effort in to make the monthly rewards you get via these tokens character-bound, to encourage more lifetime subs.
Heroic Roleplayer @epelesker | PRIMUS Database Moderator | Brigade Advocate
Click here to check out my costumes/milleniumguardian (MG) in-game/We need more tights, stances and moods
Good to know ya'll will be looking into a better implementation... just to be clear though...
there are realistically only 2 options that don't screw over a large portion of the player base...
option 1) Add Premium Pack, but don't remove subscriptions
option 2) Grant current subscribers permanent access to their existing Freeform characters at no additional cost, & upgrade any who have subscribed for over 800 days LTS status.
anything short of either of those 2 options risks losing a large portion of the playerbase.
as an LTS player with 58 character slots, neither of those options do anything to help in my personal grievance with the change, but they will go a long way towards retaining the existing subscriber player base after the change. Those of us who are annoyed about the 59 character limit are really a simpler bunch to appease... simply add a character cap increase token to the shop or something, even if it's a limited purchase item that we can only but like once or twice...
this is really a bit of an odd situation for us players to be in if you really think about it... we are quite literally begging ya'll to let us continue to pay you.
This is the first time I have EVER felt like my opinion matters. THANK YOU AmbassidorKael! xoxoxoxo
[at]riviania Member since Aug 2009
Absolutely. I'm all for the premium pack.
Click here to check out my costumes/milleniumguardian (MG) in-game/We need more tights, stances and moods
Release the premium pack tho, that part's great o3o
My super cool CC build and how to use it.
> Greetings, Champions. After listening to your feedback these past few days, we're taking a harder look at this feature and how to better implement it. We'll have more news in the future, but for now this will not be launching on June 7th.
THANK YOU
now i can stop worrying about this and get some sleep >.>
annnnnd this might not be the place for it since it is a suggestion but... since you want to discontinue subscriptions and people have no issue with paying for more character slots, how about doing the following:
remove character slot caps + keep the removal of free character slot on hitting level 40 + allow freeform access to everyone + restrict new accounts to one character slot + remove premium from premium ATs (i.e. make them free)
and to make money off of the above changes do the following in the c store:
- 1000 Z (at least) per character slot and a pack of 5000 Z (at most) for 8 (at least) to 10 (at most) character slots
- 1000 Z (at most) per additional account wide costume slot and a pack of 5000 Z (at most) for 8 (at least) to 12 (at most) account wide costume slots
- 250 Z (at most) per retrain token and a pack of 1000 Z (at most) for 5 (at least) retrain tokens
- raise the cost for the new premium whatsit pack to 5000 Z
am prolly going to get some ire for the pricing buuuut i hope that trying to monitize off character slots and acct wide costume slots would be far better than solely / primarily focusing on freeform; people will always want more slots >.> i think
anyway, i need sleep; hope i made ... some sense
I hope that Cryptic and PWE do not take the wrong message from the community's outcry. There is nothing wrong with the Premium Pack and the items and features it came with on it's own. The problem that it has been associated with the termination of any new subscription services past the 7th--though I'm presuming that that, too, has been suspended--leaving existing subscribers on what is effectively a ticking time bomb for their rosters of freeform characters.
The problem is that the system recognizes two different kinds of Freeform characters. The Freeform Slot characters which can be purchased from the store for 5000 ZEN (at time of writing) and the Subscriber Freeform characters. Despite how they offer the same basic feature set (and create issues with the Onslaught Supervillain system due to their similarity) they're considered entirely different tiers of character.
There needs to be some backend work to make certain that the loss of subscriber benefits does not completely lock out long-time players from using their Freeform characters they made as a sub. Perhaps some sort of mass conversion in the database to replace Subscriber Freeforms with Freeform Slots.
tl;dr: Nothing wrong with the Premium Pack as it was, it's the end of subscriptions that's got everybody worried and\or angry.
Epic Stronghold
Block timing explained
Not sure why. There's no reason they couldn't just release the premium pack on its own. It's clear there would be a lot of sales.
My super cool CC build and how to use it.
I'm looking forward to your changes and hope that it's for the best for those of us who have given you subscription fees month after month (instead of having gone Lifetime).
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- Make those that are monthly subs after 27 months LTS automatically. They have paid enough into the system to get this prestige.
- Create an LTS installment plan, with payments every 1/3/6 months. That way you get gold, with a chance to get LTS if you pay enough. It works VERY well with real clubs.
- Instead of just taking away the monthly LTS costume bonus, replace it with making emote and costume unlocks (if any) account-wide for gold members. Not everyone opens lockboxes just for the costume parts.
- Instead of making Gold members lose any slots with the change, max out the slots one can get at each sub level. Free gets 2, and gold gets 59 (max). Any more, you pay for the slot on free, but LTS is maxed. I still haven't hit that limit.
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This is good news. I appreciate you guys need to make money, this isn't a charity after all, but I think these changes as proposed would have been poison to the game. I'm glad you're rethinking it.
(Yes-yes.. I know they buy the stuff that a gold sub has, but you want to remove the sub, remember ? Then you just giving away stuff worth more than 15.000 ZEN for 1.500.)
If you want to make more money on players without creeping them away, then raise the price of the Premium Pack, keep the sub online and you are done. Customization is a price by itself. And giving away such a benefit like custom colors in an almost gold member pack for a low price is a waste.
My suggestion is simple.
Premium Pack:
- Everything you wanted to put into it
- Won't give access to monthly rewards
- Raise the price (around the level of one month sub)
Subscription:
- FF characters
- Monthly reward and ZEN
- The one-time free hideout for sure
LTS:
- Gain a character slot for reaching lvl 40 till the limit (59) (make the LTS more attractive)
- The general stuff of being an LTS
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Let's be real, digital items costs zero dollars as soon as they pay for the dev costs. Most of the stuff in that pack has long since recouped dev costs. Selling cheaper items to more people might be much better than selling expensive stuff to a small audience.
[at]riviania Member since Aug 2009
It's already a GOOD Quality of Life improvement for Silver players
There is the chance to sell stuff while keeping other groups of the game in good condition. This Premium pack is way too cheap based on how much are willing to buy. They are willing to buy it for even higher price.
Giving up the Subscription is a silly idea, since it is a monthly income.
This combination is total non-sense. Except, if the server is going to shut down in the near future. Then those steps are totally legit.
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I suspect, if CO does retain something like a sub form, it will be changed significantly -- for example, it might become a z-store purchase.
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Yes, it makes sense. However it does not change the fact that the Subscription should be kept online.
I agree with your method.
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Premium pack is a welcome addition for silvers and something that should have been added years now, let people be happy and give more options to your playerbase
Don't try to change it
I think the Premium Pack is a good idea, yes. But selling it for a ridiculously low price while erasing the Subscription is really a thing which makes no-sense.
1500 ZEN is a lot cheaper than a month of Subscription, and it is a one-time buy. Meaning that, they will lose horrible much of income.
Let us say, 20 silver players buy the Premium Pack. It is 30.000 ZEN in a month, and it is one time. 30.000 ZEN is 6 players' Subscription cost a month.
I think there are more Subscribers than 6, though.
And what left after getting the Premium Pack? The life time for 300$ (200 in the moment). Who the hell on Earth would buy the LTS for that much ? No one anytime soon.
And we did not mention that how the current Subscribers will be disappointed yet. Losing all of their characters just under a smack ?
Yeah, they could convert their 50 characters into ATs, but they were not Subscribers for ATs. They were able to pay the monthly cost and they were glad with it. They definitely won't pay for LTS to get back their characters. Saying bye-bye to the game is most likely.
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The only value I will be getting from this pack is the Power costumization and the 3 Inventory Bag Slots
I have already bought the resource cap limit, all the costumes on the list (except wired cyborg) and all the Travel Powers
Still... 1500 zen for power costumization is worth alone
You won't lose your character slots. It was told a lot of times before. You just won't be able to buy more.
And this pack contains more than just the color customization, do not forget that.
An administrator mentioned that, they will consider it over again... However the way he said that was equivocal. I wonder if the admin said that
"We will consider it a time... After the pack got released."
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Yeah but, the Premium Pack doesn't include the most valuable feature of the game, FreeForm slots
Something that Monthly Sub and Lifetime do/did
It doesn't give you access to FF, you still need to buy the FF slots separately and they REALLY want you to buy and have access to the FF system, especially if you don't like Archetypes (which you still have to buy separately, along with the best Inventory Bags, more costume slots e.t.c)
So the Additional Silver character slots are pretty worthless
Its a good price for a Quality of Life pack
This... doesn't answer what I asked neither inform me with something I don't know
However, based on the infos of the admin and moderator, "You won't be able to buy more slots after you reach the limit." They do not mention anything about you would lose the ones you get from other sources (Since the +slot after reaching lvl 40 will be deleted, only the ZEN store remains and the Premium Pack)
About the subject "Players have to buy FF slot in order to play FF"...
And what about the ones who have a lot of gold characters and now will have none ?
They won't accept such "change". Losing everything is unacceptable by all means.
We can wonder about "What if Arc wanted to get rid of the Subscription and make Premium Pack(s) with an LTS option which gives access for endless FF character making and monthly ZEN income ?"
It's like launching a game for total new players, because the ones who were (/ are) playing it definitely will leave it for good.
Does ARC think that, new players will come, buy FF slots (since the so called Premium Pack won't keep the servers up for sure) and play ?
It could be possible, but in that case ARC have to keep CO running by their own for long without any income. What is the problem with that ?
The problem is that 2 games already shut down just before CO started their weird campaign. It is very doubtful that ARC will keep CO running till a new player base will fill the game. Especially since it will be left by it's current disappointed ex gold members.
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Based on how things worked when STO did their change (as they offered basically the exact same thing with the same limits set into place), the 6 character slots will go poof and vanish. Yes, you can still purchase the Premium Pack (and get everything else), and no, you will not get a discount on the pack because of it.
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Oh well, not a big loss, once again I'm getting this pack only for the Power costumization
Thanks for the heads up
Thanks for taking everyone's feedback into consideration and taking your time with this. You're probably already thinking about this, but since many Gold players migrate between games and come back to CO, there are lapsed customers that will be affected by your ultimate decision EVEN THOUGH they are not active in-game or in-forum right now and cannot voice their concerns.
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As for the other changes, I would say figuring out some way to increase the cap would be best, or at the very least, giving Subs a way out the gate to unlock their Gold Characters to use. People play this game to make new characters and use the Tailor, lets be honest here.
You can just delete and stick a new toon in that slot. I do that all the time as I'm pretty sure I still have more slots from my gold sub days than I'm "supposed to" as a silver. As long as I don't log out or log in as another toon before I re-fill the slot, it won't disappear. You probably don't need to do that, but if you'd rather be on the safe side...
Digital items have a manufacturing cost of zero dollars. The items are worth whatever Cryptic feels like making them worth. Companies don't go F2P out of kindness but to make more money than a sub model brings in. Monthly subs clearly bring is so little money that it isn't worth keeping. People also like good deals. Six slots out of a current cap of 59 is a tiny amount. Most of the other stuff isn't of particularly great value especially the costumes. Costume sets now are MUCH better quality and those things are showing their age. Wouldn't be surprised if they didn't sell many now.
What sounds better owning items for the life of the game or renting items for the life of the game? Monthly subs are inherently unappealing to a lot of people simply because it's a rental. Most people probably don't even bother with a sub or only sub once in a while and would much rather have something like the Premium Pack. I know I would. I don't want to deal with the hassle of a sub and would rather just buy things as I have money and there are things I want to purchase.
[at]riviania Member since Aug 2009
You know, I'm not going to try to change your mind, no matter how wrong it is, but allow me to at least point out basic math.
1500 zen = $15.00 U.S. and is therefore already about the price of a month of subscription.
I'd accuse you of astroturfing if I had even heard of you before. I checked your profile, you certainly haven't had a lot to say before this thread came along, but you have been here since the current forum ate the old one.
Literally nobody else in this thread wants to increase the cost of everything to all players, just you.
Still smells like an astroturf to me.