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Much less likely to buy lifetime again
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Member, NoReporting Posts: 178,019 Arc User
Both my hubby and I have lifetime on CO and STO. We're both much less likely to buy Lifetime, preorder, or anything else again because the exclusives we paid for (at least as far as Lifetime goes, preorders aren't really paying extra) are now on the CStore.
This is not an "I quit" thread. It's not a rage thread. It's not a "I hate Cryptic" thread. It's a "just going subscription and not buying into exclusive item hype next time" thread.
Yes, I know the playable Borg isn't up, but the CO Lifetime -> STO mirror universe exclusive is up.
Ultimately, we're not upset. We're just going to ignore any offers of exclusive items when making purchasing decisions around Cryptic or not. This is a pretty big blow considering we essentially paid a total of about $1200 collectively between the two of us.
He cares less than I do, I only care enough to now read "Exclusive" as "Paying $300 for Early Access For Something That costs $3 Just a Few Months Later"
That is to say that at least my husband and I don't suffer from the hyperbolic discounting fallacy that Cryptic's marketing team seems to be relying on at this point.
This is not an "I quit" thread. It's not a rage thread. It's not a "I hate Cryptic" thread. It's a "just going subscription and not buying into exclusive item hype next time" thread.
Yes, I know the playable Borg isn't up, but the CO Lifetime -> STO mirror universe exclusive is up.
Ultimately, we're not upset. We're just going to ignore any offers of exclusive items when making purchasing decisions around Cryptic or not. This is a pretty big blow considering we essentially paid a total of about $1200 collectively between the two of us.
He cares less than I do, I only care enough to now read "Exclusive" as "Paying $300 for Early Access For Something That costs $3 Just a Few Months Later"
That is to say that at least my husband and I don't suffer from the hyperbolic discounting fallacy that Cryptic's marketing team seems to be relying on at this point.
Post edited by Unknown User on
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It is located under item 12. Purchases of the Terms of Service
Didn't you pay less for the Lifetime Sub than the newer people did?
I did, and for me, that's enough.
That's more or less my attitude. It's just that when they put something on a sales pitch and call it "exclusive" when they're just going to sell it for literally 1% the price a few months later... It's more the principal of "can you rust them if their marketing team self redacts it's own propeganda?"
You might not can trust them to keep the items exclusive, but you can certainly trust them to provide the game/sub you paid for. So when it comes to future Cryptic products I might be interested in, I obviously am not going to make any purchase decisions based on BONUS items, but I have no fear at all about buying the actual product itself.
I'm a bit confused, because it appears that you are indicating that the only thing of value you received from Cryptic for your investment were "exclusives".
Didn't you pay less for the Lifetime Sub than the people who bought it later??
I'm pretty sure you saved $$$$$.
Use that to buy a MU uniform today.
This also isn't a lawyer thread. It's about confidence and trust. I fully expected the stuff to be eventually made availible. They did that with the preorder runs on City of Heroes, so even with experience I expected it. But I didn't expect it to occur this soon.
It's also a matter of trusting the advertising propaganda.
I'm on your side of the fence on this Nagus...thanks for helping me see the light.
That and these f'in doomsday threads are getting old, lol.
MMORPGs are:
1- Not long-lived like people think they are.
2- Filled with unforseen future money sinks.
First of all, MMORPGs are still video games. That they have a lifecyle or playability longer than, say, Pac-Man or Mass Effect 2 is pretty radical enough. But the word lifetime plays on your perceptions. A great example is Lord of the Rings Online. A lifetime sub was offered for that game. It was a huge chunk of change up front. And the word lifetime makes you think it will last as long as Everquest or World of Warcraft. But that's not the case. Treat a lifetime sub as a 2 year sub, and anything past that is LUCK.
You do that and you realize it's not all that great a savings.
LOTRO's going Free To Play.
I paid for about four to five months of subscription service to LOTRO. And who knows, now that it's free I could go back and play it some more. Or not. But I spent less on the game.
Because MMO's are like that. You leave. Just like you stop playing any video game.
And you come back to it. Just like a lot of gamers fire up their old favorites and take them back out for a spin.
But you don't pay for the months you're not playing when you do that. You cancel. And re-sub. And save money.
The other thing is ... there's going to be future money sinks. In MMORPGs they're usually called EXPANSIONS. Lifetime subs do not cover the cost of expansions.
This is a hard lesson to learn. And it sucks to learn it the way you learned it OP. But take heed. You have now learned this lesson. MMORPGs are fun. And you can enjoy the ride. But don't be fooled by the word "lifetime" in the Lifetime Sub offer. It's not what it seems. It's not a great value. It's not a great savings. It's why they have to offer OTHER PERKS to push people into buying them in the first place.
Save your money. Play MMORPGs one month at a time. Or if you really like the beta or the demo ... quarterly. Anything past that and you lock yourself into an expensive investment that doesn't reflect the viability or stability of the video gaming industry at all.
Hooray for reading a post in it's entirety. I already have it because of the CO lifetime account. My main lament is no longer having anything to say "Yes, I have a lifetime account on both games." It would at least be nice to have a title or something to say "lifetime on CO as well". But I'm not going to complain too loudly. So I saved money. What do I spend it on? The rest of the preorder options. After that? Then what? Oh well.
I don't feel they need to do this to keep me happy. I am happy the way things are playing out. I just offer an alternative to try and please some of the player base. Of course I realize even this will displease some. It is the nature of the universe that not all beings can be pleased all at one time.
As much as it kinda sucks for me to no longer have exclusive access to this cool awesome item that practically no one else in the game had, as well as the other preorder and store bonuses that people can now purchase, overall I'm happy we can get them now. I hate the idea that there is content in the game that I will never, ever, ever have access to just because I didn't preorder from the right place or buy at the right time.
It was the right thing to do, even though I personally am wounded by it. Look at the larger whole.
So it's not about the terms of your purchase.
It's not that former "exclusives" are now available in the C-Store.
It's not even that you're surprised by Cryptic's move, as you're aware they've done it with other games.
It's just that they put these items in the C-Store too soon?
I'm still confused, as the above post doesn't seem to reflect the concerns you stated in your first post.
HOORAY for creating this epic fail of a thread.
Not gonna complain "too" loudly, just create this thread?!?!
HOORAY for pointing out the fact I was just trying to say you saved $$$ and yeah, that is actually worth something...more than the uniform in fact, rofl.
Enjoy your river of tears, like I pointed out I was kind of bent, but someone point ed out it's just pixels, not really worth crying over if you enjoy playing the game.
I can complain quite loudly and in a much less civil tone. I have done so in the past.
I'm not pronouncing doom. You must have a problem with reading comprehension. Either that or you must have a problem with being able to see things as anything other than black or white. I'm simply stating that the practical consequence of what's been added to the cstore is that Cryptic has lost credibility. It's not doomsday. It's not the end of the game. It's simply that Cryptic lost some credibility with my household today. This is a bad thing. It's mild as far as bad things go, but it's still bad.
However, if you think that any bad thing must automatically be "OMG! DOOMSDAY!" then might I suggest someone else's thread? I'm being very even tempered about this here and I don't appreciate you trying to goad me like that. I might also point out that goading is infraction worthy. I know about that one first hand. Believe me. Please try to be civil alright?
Those are your personal expectations. The fact of the matter is that they can do anything they want at any time with their property. Just because they released them this soon doesn't make it wrong. When you purchased your stuff those items were exclusive and stayed exclusive until today. There was nothing that said how long they would remain exclusive. The advertisements were not misleading, but perhaps your view of them was. I'm not talking about you specifically, this applies to many people who feel cheated.
You'll be able to play both of those games for years to come, and to me, that's where the value of the Lifetime Sub lies. It's not in the Mirror Universe Uniform perk, the Liberated Borg Species, or any other special perk.
Meanwhile, lots of other players were wanting some of those items, and missed out on the opportunity to get them. We feel that allowing those players the opportunity to get them is a good thing.
Thanks,
Stormshade
Yeah, I understand. Honestly, I don't think exclusives are very wise anyway for exactly those reasons. And I'm not really very upset. It's just what happened with the cstore today is going to factor into my future purchase decisions. Other people may experience hyperbolic discounting, but I don't. I'd rather bide my time and get it at 1% the cost. If you think about it, that's almost exactly the ratio there. 1% the cost. Personally I feel the CO MU uniform is priced too low. It should be maybe 1000 CP, not 280...
I mean seriously, the Gamestop preorder TOS Enterprise is 1000cp and the mirror universe uniform is about a third that... It just seems... odd...
Wow. Thank you for responding in a thread. And for posting this. It's been stated similarly by many players/customers, but was dismissed in those discussions because it wasn't coming from someone at Cryptic.
What you say here makes sense. It really does. People are still going to be upset about this issue. There's no way around that. But again, thank you for posting this.
Bonus items are bonus items. The purchase was for the sub. Makes sense to me.
you keep saying 1%. could you give an example of an item that you paid and is now 1% the cost?
I can appreciate that. But if I may ask, if this is the case, why haven't say, the STO Lifetime Borg gone up into the store? They've been exclusive for the same period of time as the MU uniforms (A bit longer when it comes to the huge delay the female MU uniform I use had in being put in)? Just seems odd how one set of player purchases is treated different from another.
Nicely said StormShade. I especially agree and support your last paragraph.
Makes sense to me too... now. Six months later. After the fact.
I'm not bitter about the bonus items hitting the C-store, but I will certainly be more cautious about spending extra on items that (as history has demonstrated) might be cheap or free a few months later.
Well, the CO lifetime account was $200, the MU uniform is now roughly equivilent to $3. The only way to have that uniform was by having spent the $200, so ineffect, even though the price went to the CO account, it is essentially a $200 uniform since it was never priced separately from the rest of the CO lifetime package. It's not exactly 1%, sure, ok it's 2-3%. So my estimate was still it's pretty close and a rather mind bogglingly small fraction of the original price that you had to pay to get the uniform.
Sorry I'm not trying to hurt your feelings, but it doesn't take the Hardy Boys to decipher the meaning behind this thread. Yeah...like the 1000 other threads before it, just overstated.
Sorry again, but we all get it.
Wait ... you just said you understood what Stormshade was posting. Part of that was that the money you spent ...the 200 bucks ... was for the subscrption plan.
The item was just a bonus.
So the 200 dollar value isn't tied into the "bonus" item.
That's what Stormshade (and quite a few vocal posters in a different 400 page thread) is getting at.
I don't expect that to change your feeling on this issue. To make you any less upset or frustrated. I totally get why you're upset about it. But to follow the post, and understand what Stormshade is saying, means to grasp (however grudgingly) that he's saying the money you spent wasn't for the bonus item. The bonus item was a free bonus gift given to you for buying the 200 dollar lifetime subscription plan.
Great post, it's just tough to make people understand this.
so if you had the NX-registry before they let everyone have a chance to get it you get the 80 c-points...and so on
this costs cryptic nothing and stops most people getting upset on both sides.
i feel let down that they didnt leave it longer its far to soon to release such items, it wouldnt be an issue if this game was a pure cash shop game.
but its a greed-machine. subscrition, for what? so far most of the things that have been released need extra money to be able to use...
im GLAD i have a lifetime to this game, i love star trek and hope one day this game will be up there with the best.
but so far all this game is only for the true fans, there simple aint enough content and when there is you have to buy half of it all over again.