Do you know why season tickets exist? Seating capacity and viewing position.
You may now think up a new analogy, I will wait.
The analogy works just fine....not my problem if you can't see it. You're talking about season tickets and I'm talking about the playoff game. I'm not going to go off-topic on a lengthy discussion about football tickets, but the analogy still fits financially, so....
Financially, a football club would make more money by not selling season tickets because they're still going to get the same fans every game. Why not hose them for as much as they can? In fact, those tickets with great viewing position would sell for a lot (ooo..note the emphasis...I can do it too) more money as an individual ticket. This is a direct parallel to Cryptic. Why offer a lifetime subscription if they're going to lose money?
Simple. The answer to both is the same:
- Guaranteed fan base irregardless of the quality of the product
Much like giving the season ticket holders dibs on playoff tickets as an appreciation for their loyalty, I'm saying give the lifers dibs on a location to post their suggestions as a token of their appreciation for the support.
If you can't see the parallels and still insist my argument is about importance or whatever else you feel I am insinuating, suggesting, or assuming...that's not my problem. I'm done my discussion with you regarding this because ....quite franky, I've just wasted my playing time tonight discussing something with you that you obviously aren't understanding...and now it's time to go to sleep.
Funny how none of your response now refers to me saying the opinion of paying customers is more important, yet you're not willing to admit you made a mistake. Instead, you quote me saying...yet again...that I'd simply like an area where suggestions can be made by people that have made a long term commitment (yes, that rules out monthers for the reasons I posted much higher up in this thread in case you didn't read those either).
I think this wouldn't accomplish what you think it would. imo, the main function of forums in any MMO is to foster a sense of community and to spread information among players. And even the spread of information is meant to be done mainly by players helping each other. This cuts the work of the MMO and makes people want to keep paying so they can maintain the games social relationships. (Yes, I know this is hard to believe when it sounds like everyone hates each other on the forums. Yet everyone keeps coming back for more)
MMOs like EVE and Warhammer (and now probably STO) with 100,000 to 500,000 subscribers can't have their limited number of devs (around 100 from what I've heard) monitoring and responding to everyone. Devs do browse forums but not really to decide what needs to be done. The forums provide feedback to the devs about the game, but only from a statistical analysis point of view. Subject trends will be watched for and plugged into statistical algorithms and the aggregated results will be given to the devs. Not a real personal process.
If there's a topic that the MMO thinks needs to be addressed a dev may respond to a post in the forums about that topic. But they will normally pick a post in a forum that will reach as many people as possible. Probably one of the methods for data collection would be to monitor forums for topics in their subject area. Threads about different types of uniforms posted in the Controls and User Interface forum would never get counted at all.
So my point to all of this is I wouldn't think lifetime subscribers would really want this. It could tend to isolate them from the rest of the community. If devs made a response to issues it probably wouldn't be in the lifetime subscribers forum because it wouldn't reach as many people as some of the other forums. And anything posted in the lifetime forum might be regarded of interest only to lifetime subscribers and not considered when devs are trying to keep as many people happy as possible.
But I wouldn't have any objection to it. As a monthly subscriber I don't think it would affect me in any way.
Much like giving the season ticket holders dibs on playoff tickets as an appreciation for their loyalty, I'm saying give the lifers dibs on a location to post their suggestions as a token of their appreciation for the support.
How can you still be so adamant that this is not special treatment?
However much you insist otherwise, you're basically asking for your voice to be heard first/loudest and you're basing it on how much money you have forked over to Cryptic as well as this feeling you have that you are "more loyal".
Besides, it looks like I am not the only one "misinterpreting" what you are asking for.
How can you still be so adamant that this is not special treatment?
However much you insist otherwise, you're basically asking for your voice to be heard first/loudest and you're basing it on how much money you have forked over to Cryptic as well as this feeling you have that you are "more loyal".
Besides, it looks like I am not the only one "misinterpreting" what you are asking for.
It is special treatment. I never said it wasn't. In fact, I specifically said to do this for a spedific group. That by pure definition is special treatment. Again, you misrepresent what I'm saying. Just because it's special treatment doesn't mean I think my ideas are more important that anyone else's....and that's where your problem lies. It's simply a "gratitude" if you prefer for supporting their company. Nothing more. If you read more into it, that's your problem.
When pre-purchase became available, they offered lots of incentives. Do they still offer these incentives to people that purchase now? For example, if you ordered Atari Digital Deluxe, you got:
500 Cryptic | TOS Uniform Set | Joined Trill | KHAAAN! Emote | Klingon Blood Wine Toast Emote | Unique Registry Prefix | Unique Ship Item: Automated Defense Battery | 30 Days of Free Play Time
whereas if you ordered from GameStop, you got:
Constitution Class Starship | 30 Days of Free Play Time
Did you refuse to redeem your pre-order gift because it was unfair to those who order after the game is released? Probably not. Why? Because it was an incentive....a bonus...a "thank you for supporting us even though you haven't seen our game yet." Does it mean you think you're far superior to those who buy the game now? I hope not...cause you aren't. That's my point....again...if you read more into it then that, then they are your issues to deal with.
And with reference to how quickly things drop "off the radar" here, this topic fell to page 19 in less than 12 hours.....I'm sure there's some good threads in there, but most of them are probably garbage. I wouldn't know because I won't sift through 19 pages of TRIBBLE to find something useful.
Comments
The analogy works just fine....not my problem if you can't see it. You're talking about season tickets and I'm talking about the playoff game. I'm not going to go off-topic on a lengthy discussion about football tickets, but the analogy still fits financially, so....
Financially, a football club would make more money by not selling season tickets because they're still going to get the same fans every game. Why not hose them for as much as they can? In fact, those tickets with great viewing position would sell for a lot (ooo..note the emphasis...I can do it too) more money as an individual ticket. This is a direct parallel to Cryptic. Why offer a lifetime subscription if they're going to lose money?
Simple. The answer to both is the same:
- Guaranteed fan base irregardless of the quality of the product
Much like giving the season ticket holders dibs on playoff tickets as an appreciation for their loyalty, I'm saying give the lifers dibs on a location to post their suggestions as a token of their appreciation for the support.
If you can't see the parallels and still insist my argument is about importance or whatever else you feel I am insinuating, suggesting, or assuming...that's not my problem. I'm done my discussion with you regarding this because ....quite franky, I've just wasted my playing time tonight discussing something with you that you obviously aren't understanding...and now it's time to go to sleep.
MMOs like EVE and Warhammer (and now probably STO) with 100,000 to 500,000 subscribers can't have their limited number of devs (around 100 from what I've heard) monitoring and responding to everyone. Devs do browse forums but not really to decide what needs to be done. The forums provide feedback to the devs about the game, but only from a statistical analysis point of view. Subject trends will be watched for and plugged into statistical algorithms and the aggregated results will be given to the devs. Not a real personal process.
If there's a topic that the MMO thinks needs to be addressed a dev may respond to a post in the forums about that topic. But they will normally pick a post in a forum that will reach as many people as possible. Probably one of the methods for data collection would be to monitor forums for topics in their subject area. Threads about different types of uniforms posted in the Controls and User Interface forum would never get counted at all.
So my point to all of this is I wouldn't think lifetime subscribers would really want this. It could tend to isolate them from the rest of the community. If devs made a response to issues it probably wouldn't be in the lifetime subscribers forum because it wouldn't reach as many people as some of the other forums. And anything posted in the lifetime forum might be regarded of interest only to lifetime subscribers and not considered when devs are trying to keep as many people happy as possible.
But I wouldn't have any objection to it. As a monthly subscriber I don't think it would affect me in any way.
How can you still be so adamant that this is not special treatment?
However much you insist otherwise, you're basically asking for your voice to be heard first/loudest and you're basing it on how much money you have forked over to Cryptic as well as this feeling you have that you are "more loyal".
Besides, it looks like I am not the only one "misinterpreting" what you are asking for.
It is special treatment. I never said it wasn't. In fact, I specifically said to do this for a spedific group. That by pure definition is special treatment. Again, you misrepresent what I'm saying. Just because it's special treatment doesn't mean I think my ideas are more important that anyone else's....and that's where your problem lies. It's simply a "gratitude" if you prefer for supporting their company. Nothing more. If you read more into it, that's your problem.
When pre-purchase became available, they offered lots of incentives. Do they still offer these incentives to people that purchase now? For example, if you ordered Atari Digital Deluxe, you got:
500 Cryptic | TOS Uniform Set | Joined Trill | KHAAAN! Emote | Klingon Blood Wine Toast Emote | Unique Registry Prefix | Unique Ship Item: Automated Defense Battery | 30 Days of Free Play Time
whereas if you ordered from GameStop, you got:
Constitution Class Starship | 30 Days of Free Play Time
Did you refuse to redeem your pre-order gift because it was unfair to those who order after the game is released? Probably not. Why? Because it was an incentive....a bonus...a "thank you for supporting us even though you haven't seen our game yet." Does it mean you think you're far superior to those who buy the game now? I hope not...cause you aren't. That's my point....again...if you read more into it then that, then they are your issues to deal with.
And with reference to how quickly things drop "off the radar" here, this topic fell to page 19 in less than 12 hours.....I'm sure there's some good threads in there, but most of them are probably garbage. I wouldn't know because I won't sift through 19 pages of TRIBBLE to find something useful.