New C-store Prices.

System

I suspect the prices are more or less set but i think most of the prices in the store are too high. I know everybody will pretty much say that as who wants to pay more than they have to right? I'm not business expert but in free to play I imagine you want everybody to be spending money and some of the higher tier items just seem way too much and will put many people off. There is not much point doing free to play if the prices are so sky high than no one really wants to pay for them. Casual silver players probably wont want to splash out on them, so its just the players we have now. They were high before for what you got in return and some have gone even higher. Surely you want a larger pool of players buying reasonably priced items than a small group buying more expensive?

Now I like the fact lower tier ships are now much cheaper. That's goods and I applaud that but upper tiers need work in my view.

I would have it as;

tier 1 -240 (as is)
tier 2 - 400 (as is)
tier 3 - 600 (currently set at 800)
tier 4 - 800 (none in the store to check yet)
tier 5 - 1000 (these are the level 41 ships, things like the orion and gorn ship, maybe the nebula and excelsior if they are still RA)
VA/LG - 1200 (currently 1600-2000) this should cover all of them including the MVAM and garumba even with their fancy animations to keep it uniform. if you must have them be more expensive them have them at 1400 points).

At the very least I think that if that does not work for you then at the very least golds should be getting some discounts on high end ships so they are at least no more expensive than they are now. the 400 points extra month stipend was originally a sort of thank you for still subbing even though the game is free, but that extra is just wiped out by an increase in costs.


This may also get changed but its not very clear which ships are for RA's and which are for VA for example.

I'm ok with the price of costumes going up, I can live with that as they stay with your characters all the way though your play unlike ships and they were quite cheap before. Much like champions it might be nice if a few of the more canon versions were unlocked for golds free, but thats just an idea. Most golds probably have them anyway already.

Archived Post

Its not the prices going up that causes me concern, but the simple fact that as a subscriber there seems little incentive to subscribe. Keep the prices as they are, but offer those that subscribe a discount across the board on these ships, etc, like the 20% sales but on a permanent basis. This, along with ship tokens at various levels, would show that Cryptic/PW actually do appreciate those willing to subscribe. It still does seem like many companies do (particularly phone companies and a currently situation i have after 10 years with them /sigh), that they no longer value long term customers as opposed to bringing in as many as possible, as quickly as possible, and offering those people the better deal.

The LTS 400 point a month does not seem as generous as it initially did, especially considering there are many of us that have not had their LTS for a great deal of time (10 months in my case). With just the Stipend on its own, you could be looking at almost half a year to obtain a ship. I just wish Cryptic understood that there were thousands of people who put their faith and support into this game, along with their wallets long before F2P was announced. I want them to succeed, and bringing in more players is a good thing all round, but don't forget those that got you to this point in the first place. There are far better models out there that show a clear difference between a F2P player and one that subscribes, so why are we not seeing this here?