Hi everybody, yes it's a pretensious thread i know, but maybe it's worth the try.
Many speak here that you can play the game for free and still achieve legend, but that's not truth, it's a paid game, and even the ingame system of trade zen for Astral Diamond favor the owners of zen. But the point of this thread isn't criticize but bring a new... way of play Neverwinter Online.
What i suggest here is a paid server, or a vip server if the name fits better. You pay monthly for the right of play in this new server(or from 3 to 3 months or another system, it's just a suggestion). give 1 week free (or 2...3 or a month, also another suggestion) to stimulate people in subscribe for the vip server.
The point of a vip server? Make everything be credit card free there except the monthly (or another time lapse) paid subscription fee. Any item you want in this server must be worked ingame to be obtained.
It's a suggestion and i know some people (maybe several) aren't going to like the idea, but then, it would be one among four servers only to be vip. You who are reading this disagree and think the idea would not develop well? World of Warcraft kinda of disagree with you
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If not this way, i would suggest some Tibia alike vip server, where the server itself is free, but some areas are restricted for premium users (still would be a credit card for items free server).
While at first people would think this as the ramble of an free player, when you get too much advantages and the game get too easy, normally people lose interest in that game, while atm the packages and zen market make a lot of money from what i'm seeing, an no item zen vip server would keep money flowing in the long term if the developers intend to make this game a long term MMORPG of course.
Comments
There is obviously something to this FTP model or so many games would not be FTP. I suppose the player base is not large enough for subscription, but FTP will eventually drive out a portion of the fan base. That loss must be smaller than than the micro transaction gamers that pop in and feed the machine.
While I have no real answers, and have never played WOW, I too wish for a subscription based server. As a long time DnD fan (yea since the early 80's) and player of every BG and NWN and every expansion along with years of Persistent player created worlds gaming through NWN I find it hard to believe there are too few willing to pay to make this a feasible money maker for Cryptic. And lets face it, money makes the world go 'round. Whether your paying to play or paying your internets bill, it takes real world currency to operate anything.
The actual packs also are outrageous, $200 for an pack is totally disproportionate when you can get 2 PS3 new released top games with this value, in fact put a bit more coin on this and you get the PS3 itself.
f2p makes companies more money than p2p and it requires less effort ...
lets say u have a monthly subscription of 25 USD for this vip server u say but no credit card items.
There are some ppl that pay 100-250~~ in a matter of days,so why would they do it?
Also making this p2p would mean player base much less and to increase it they would actually need to spend way more effort on game content which i not see happening^^.
As i said i will never pay for items inside the F2P system, but i would pay for monthly (or a set ammount of time) game subscription inside a vip server. That's the way i think, if one or two thousands more think as i do, maybe that's more than suffice to justify a new approach of the subject by Cryptic or whomever hold the current copyrights of the game.
http://venturebeat.com/2013/06/17/final-fantasy-online-director-defends-monthly-subscriptions-in-the-golden-age-of-free-to-play-exclusive/
What would an reasonable amount would you consider enough to pay for a monthly sub for everything?
id pay up to $49 a month.
It's not Cryptic, it's PWE, which owns Cryptic. It's their business model for all of their games, full stop. They're not going to change that to make a sub model.
It's one thing to speak in grand terms about some lofty ideal, but getting down to the nuts and bolts of this P2P server is another thing entirely. What about account-wide stuff? Would it not be available on this server if I already bought it on here? I can exchange AD to Zen on one server, then convert that Zen back to AD on another one. Would AD simply be absent from this other server?
The devs would have to invest a lot of time into converting anything relating to the Zen or AD stores into using other currencies, or being unlocked via another method.
And whenever I see someone talk about "Pay to win" I have to wonder what you are winning by paying. You are getting stuff a heck of a lot faster, sure, but someone can still get the same stuff for free, (if they're patient).
Regardless, I think this falls into the "good in theory, unworkable in practice" category...
"Is it better to be feared or respected? I say, is it too much to ask for both?" -Tony Stark
Official NW_Legit_Community Forums
By the way, yes, ppl would need to play the game to get what they want, normally we need to work to earn things, the hard way is the another of the main points of a vip server.
Everything related to zen would be kept off this server, in reason of that transtactions between servers would be forbidden evidently, otherwise people would credit card in one server to feed their character in the vip server.
About the work the devs would have to make the changes,... well, they're paid for this.
To end, the talk about "everything in zen can be obtained in game" that's not truth, it's the greatest fallacy of this game. Yes you can get zen items, with days of ingame work, giving away your hard worked ADs to someone that paid for some items or even for the zen itself and by his liberality, decided to trade those paid products with you with an absurd extortion value.
But, if this idea EVEN has some attention and maybe got an implement, don't worry cos from 4 servers, 3 are going to be still F2P (free to purchase), so this isn't going to affect the gameplay of anyone that like this system.
All this idea would do is trade the group of elitist/self-entitled people we currently have with another. Yes, prices in the stores need to be adjusted even more. Yes, the ability to instantly buy T2 gear upon reaching level 60 needs to be looked into, but changing 1 form of monetization for another isn't the answer.
Adding all T1 and T2 gear to the seal vendors is one way they could do things, (BoP of course). Better limits on people spamming zone chat, and harsh punishments for exploiting are other steps that could be taken.
"Is it better to be feared or respected? I say, is it too much to ask for both?" -Tony Stark
Official NW_Legit_Community Forums
But, what does this argument has to do with the removal of credit card paid items?
In fact i have to say that, isn't people whom are elitist, is the PWE system itself, but as you said that you don't buy items, i don't understand then why being so against the idea presented here.
About trade a group for another, there's some truth in that, in the actual servers, who credit card more has more, in my proposal, whom play more (or play well) has more, but unless you have a way to please Greeks and Trojans, i don't see a problem in have both systems, 1 server with VIP subscription and other 3 with the actual f2p sytem.