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VIP pause
unitakira
Member, NW M9 Playtest Posts: 75 Arc User
As much as the rewards from VIP are limited, the only worth it things are keys and travel. What really drives the rip off knife in, is the fact you cant pause your VIP.
I purchased a 6 months VIP a while back, got about a month and a halfs use of it because a month into it, I was recalled to work.
4 months away and no way i could simply pause my VIP timer.
so here is some feedback a pause ability on the VIP and its Timer would be epic!! if cryptic and PWE can get pass the greed and upmost disregard for player satisfaction that they always put first in developing anything for the game.
I purchased a 6 months VIP a while back, got about a month and a halfs use of it because a month into it, I was recalled to work.
4 months away and no way i could simply pause my VIP timer.
so here is some feedback a pause ability on the VIP and its Timer would be epic!! if cryptic and PWE can get pass the greed and upmost disregard for player satisfaction that they always put first in developing anything for the game.
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I think this potentially could even drive sales to be honest. The amount of players that do not log in daily and hence are effectively ruled out as customers for VIP has to be higher than the losses you make from pausing the subscription. Currently probably only players that can claim the key daily subscribe anyway. So you won't lose any of those, but gain a lot more casuals.
I think you could make it really easy: If a player does not log into the game between two resets, the day does not count towards the VIP subscription. I get that it would take away the incentive to log in daily, but on off days I personally don't do anything other than claiming the key anyway. So it's not like the game gets a whole lot of playing time just because I have to log in once. Unless they count player numbers by simple log-ins per day, I fail to see how the game really profits here. It's more annoying than anything else.
As alternative you could sell slightly higher priced VIP packages that offer the "pause" feature. Or daily VIP. Let's say 50 ZEN. So if players want more flexibility, they gotta pay more.
> +1
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> I think this potentially could even drive sales to be honest. The amount of players that do not log in daily and hence are effectively ruled out as customers for VIP has to be higher than the losses you make from pausing the subscription. Currently probably only players that can claim the key daily subscribe anyway. So you won't lose any of those, but gain a lot more casuals.
>
> I think you could make it really easy: If a player does not log into the game between two resets, the day does not count towards the VIP subscription. I get that it would take away the incentive to log in daily, but on off days I personally don't do anything other than claiming the key anyway. So it's not like the game gets a whole lot of playing time just because I have to log in once. Unless they count player numbers by simple log-ins per day, I fail to see how the game really profits here. It's more annoying than anything else.
>
> As alternative you could sell slightly higher priced VIP packages that offer the "pause" feature. Or daily VIP. Let's say 50 ZEN. So if players want more flexibility, they gotta pay more.
From the player/consumer perspective: More value, flexibility and less cost to me?
Sure. Great idea.
Viewed objectively as a business model for Cryptic's perspective: no way in hell.
Expiring VIP=revenue for cash-strapped Cryptic.
VIP is a subscription or lease of a service over a fixed term.
Businesses almost never willingly allow customers to pause or delay their payment/consumption term at will... not without charging you for the convenience.
Can you pause a car lease on days you are not driving?
Pause your apartment rent on nights you spend at your girl/boyfriends' place?
Money as side, such a system would validate and even encourage people to take "vacations" from the game. Blasphemy, in their eyes.
I like your idea, but they will never do it.
I am Took.
"Full plate and packing steel" in NW since 2013.
But quite bluntly, if I wasn't able to claim the keys daily, I wouldn't be a VIP. Because while the incentives are nice and all (I'd definitely miss the sign-post the most), it's the daily key that makes all of this work for players. If you can't claim, you shouldn't sub. So either Cryptic gets a ton of subscriptions from stupid players (which you cannot rule out) or they don't get that actually adding a pause or short-term subscription would actually generate more customers while you'd pretty much retain all of the current ones.
> As mentioned before, they should just give us the option to reclaim daily lockbox keys we missed out on from the Reclaim Agent in Protectors Enclave.
I wish.
"Should", "could", sure... but why WOULD they?
VIP is both a revenue stream (zen purchase) and a driver for player logins.
If they give players the option to store daily keys they will lower key sales AND encouraging players NOT to log in every day... two outcomes Cryptic will NEVER willingly allow.
@loboguild 's suggestion is the closest thing to a realistic alternative:
Sell a new VIP "On/Off" package.
But that is something called Market Segmentation.
The consumer (you and I) still bear the cost in the end.
Not trying to shade you, OP.
I have been a Cryptic critic for years.
Unless this somehow translates into more zen sales, don't hold your breath.
I am Took.
"Full plate and packing steel" in NW since 2013.
If there was a chance you could have been recalled, why buy 6 months? If you didn't know that you could be recalled, then I would chalk this up to 'lesson learned'. But asking the company to implement a feature so you can *not* use their game service on your schedule doesn't make sense to me. No offense.
VIP has a ton of value beyond keys and travel. Go play on preview for an hour if you don't see it
It's sort of like mail-in rebates. They could be made a ton easier, but they won't be, cause they expect people to forget and fail to send it in. Cryptic wants you to forget to login and collect - cause then they win a little.
The house always wins. Pretty sure you would be hard pressed to find any subscription-type service that would let you suspend/pause service.
This is what I don't get, because a "pause" option or 1-day subscriptions would actually translate into more ZEN imho. You can kinda compare it to the ever-growing "on demand" services. People are less and less willing to buy into a long-term subscription, but more into "buy what you need when you need it", even if that comes at a higher price overall.
I had a similar issue earlier this year. My VIP ran out five days before a one-week vacation. Easy for me not to renew VIP because I would lose seven keys vs. gaining five. And Cryptic lost five days of sub vs. getting five days of sub.
It's a retention mechanism, you have ViP, you want to login to get your keys, and you may want to buy additional stuff, keys, and/or progress in the game.
Making the ViP pausable will break it's most valuable aspect as the said retention mechanism and as self paying (via AD) it will be a loss as the main goal is to not inflate AD but to provide incentive to use real currency.