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Cryptic - if AoY were B2P, would it be worth $40?
farranor
Member Posts: 559 Arc User
I learned yesterday that Rift - another F2P game - is charging for its next expansion. This expansion includes a new level cap, several new zones, new abilities, and so on. It is only available as a cash purchase, without an option for using the tradeable "cash-equivalent" currency, putting it firmly into B2P territory.
This got me thinking about what that expansion will offer vs what AoY offers. AoY provides a new faction and a few new queues, and the faction is basically an extended tutorial (which you can only replay by starting a new character) for an existing faction. I don't count the new ground animations because they are broken (along with many other ground animations since AoY hit, actually). I don't include the "temporal agent" stuff, either, because it is 1) only available as a limited-time recruitment event, 2) a shopping list for completing old content, and 3) actually the Delta Recruit event, according to many sources in the game (I bet there were some heated words in the office over that).
Rift's expansion, while not F2P, is absolutely vast by comparison.
Cryptic, do you think that AoY compares favorably to other expansion packs in the MMORPG industry? Would you feel justified in charging $40 - the industry standard price for paid expansions - for AoY?
This got me thinking about what that expansion will offer vs what AoY offers. AoY provides a new faction and a few new queues, and the faction is basically an extended tutorial (which you can only replay by starting a new character) for an existing faction. I don't count the new ground animations because they are broken (along with many other ground animations since AoY hit, actually). I don't include the "temporal agent" stuff, either, because it is 1) only available as a limited-time recruitment event, 2) a shopping list for completing old content, and 3) actually the Delta Recruit event, according to many sources in the game (I bet there were some heated words in the office over that).
Rift's expansion, while not F2P, is absolutely vast by comparison.
Cryptic, do you think that AoY compares favorably to other expansion packs in the MMORPG industry? Would you feel justified in charging $40 - the industry standard price for paid expansions - for AoY?
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AoY does also include the temporal spec, new endgame story episodes, a new queue.
And it's all free, so it doesn't matter whether or not you think it's worth $40.
One of the things that drove me away from LOTRO was how they did their F2P conversion. You had to repurchase content you had ALREADY purchased, if you did not get it in a box. For me, I had already shifted to only digital purchases for games and expansions. So to have to buy the base game and three expansions of content again, was too much.
While I may not like the gimmicky consoles, and being forced to buy higher tier ships based on lower tier ships, for real money, this system has so far worked best for me.
Now if I only had the money to build my own MMO... Well suffice it to say, you would only be buying fluff and cosmetics in the online market. And a crafting system to rival SWG. Man I loved that system, and I have hated every other system before and since that I have encountered.
They make a wondrous mess of things. Brave amateurs, they do their part.
http://www.arcgames.com/en/games/star-trek-online/game-pack/detail/1315-temporal-special-agent-pack
20 dollars for the first pack, 130 for the second pack. But i get the impression that you are talking about neither of those to which i would ask why are you even doing that? you want what Cryptic thinks is 20 dollars worth of "content" then there is the first pack. If you want what Cryptic thinks is 130 dollars worth of "content" you have the second pack. If you want an intermediate between those 2 prices then Cryptic will probably just do their own thing and release ships and costumes that they think justifies a 40 dollar price tag. But if you want more quests, dungeons or adventure zones equivalent to the industry standard of 40 dollars and not ships, consoles or costumes then ask for those instead....because i sure as hell want to see those too.
However, between the temporal pack and all the keys I purchased before getting my JJ-prise, I easily spent $350+ on this expansion that only contains $5 worth of content, so the joke's on me
I'm not talking about what they do choose to charge for - I'm asking whether, if AoY was B2P, it would be considered a $40 expansion. I look at expansions in other games and they are vast. Meanwhile, AoY is like "I guess I have something new to do... for today, at least."
Again, I'm not talking about what exactly is paid content in STO's current model. I'm asking Cryptic whether they believe that AoY offers as much as other games' expansions do, and whether - if they used the B2P model - they would feel justified in charging $40 for it.
I didn't ignore the starting episodes. That is the extended tutorial I mentioned. It makes perfect sense to ignore the extra animations because they (along with other animations after AoY hit) are broken. Or do you think it's cool that my AoY toon sometimes beams out by tapping at his wrist, followed by 25th-century blue sparkles?
I concede the new spec and handful of endgame episodes (two? three?). Add those to AoY.
And, for the third time, I realize it's free. And I'm not asking Cryptic what I think it's worth. I'm asking if, given a B2P model, they would feel justified in charging the usual $40 price tag.
For the fourth time, I realize that STO is not B2P. That is why the title of this thread specifies "If AoY were B2P...".
I am asking Cryptic whether they think that the AoY expansion measures up to expansions for other games, which, when B2P, generally cost $40.
"Helpful and stylish items," as per those pages, are not gameplay content. You can wear a costume, but you can't really play it. To use the costume, you have to have content to play. If STO were actually a "dress up your character" game, then sure, costumes would be content. However, STO is ostensibly an MMORPG based on leveling, combat, missions, and so on, so I can't personally make the stretch to seeing costumes as an expansion.
So, you're saying that you don't think that AoY, as an expansion, compares to expansions from other games? Even STO's previous expansions, which were also free, seem much larger than AoY.
And if you don't think "what is wrong with you" and "take your idiotic ideas and walk away" is unkind, your standards for kindness are much different from mine.
How about STO's previous expansions? They seemed a lot more... expansive than AoY.
Well, there are various styles of financial model, even within the major categories. STO has had free expansions before, which I think were larger than AoY, while offering paid microtransactions (classic F2P). Rift, which I mentioned in the OP, has had a free expansion with lots of new content while offering paid microtransactions, and now will have a paid expansion while still offering a million recolored mounts and other trinkets (people complained about Rift's F2P model and insisted that expansions should be B2P to avoid being nickel-and-dimed to death, but of course the nickel-and-diming will still be there on top of the $40 expansion).
I'm mostly using the $40 price tag as a way of gauging whether the AoY expansion compares favorably to other expansions, in this game and others.
I can say for sure that I wouldn't pay $40 for it, and seeing how many people would pay $40 for it might very well be unknowable.
I doubt you'll find any way to make AoY compare favorably to expansions in any other game, and even compared to LoR and DR I'd rank it at the bottom of STOs expansions, even though I enjoyed it a lot more, because IMHO there just wasn't enough content to justify the 'Expansion' label, just like there's not enough to justify giving 23c Feds the 'New Faction' label.
The really strange thing is that as disappointed as I am with AoY, I don't regret any of the money I spent, or the 50 bucks I spent buying enough dil for the MACO uniform ... even though I likely won't be logging in again until a new FE is released ...
AoY is free.
Expansions from other games are not.
Why even start a debate about what if AoY wasn't free when it is?
Yes, AoY doesn't offer as much as expansions of other games or even previous expansions from STO. So what?
That's like saying "Little restaurant chef from this little village, do you think that your $2 burger compares favorably to a $100 meal made of caviar, French wine and rare spices from this worldwide-known Master Chef?". Different things priced differently for different people.
Being critical doesn't take skill. Being constructively critical- which is providing alternative solutions or suggestions to a demonstrated problem, however, does.
It's only useless to people who refuse to understand the meaning of the word "if."
See, I also thought it wasn't intended to be viewed as that sort of expansion. I honestly thought it was some kind of season update, or just a recruitment event like Delta recruitment (which is what the temporal agent system is copy-pasted from), but everywhere I looked it was labeled an ordinary expansion. That's why I started comparing it to other expansions. Do you have a link where I can read more about AoY's intended qualifiers?
I never said otherwise. I'm just wondering whether, if STO were B2P, Cryptic would feel justified in charging the standard expansion price for AoY.
Why think about "what if" situations? Really? You don't see any point about discussing anything other than what's happening in front of your face, in the present? You can't even stretch your imagination to thinking about, say, "what if Cryptic goes the same way as Rift and starts charging for expansions? Would they charge $40 for it?"? If you don't see a point to this thread, no one is forcing you to participate.
It's more like saying "large corporation, do you think that a feature in your product compares favorably to similarly-labeled features from similar products by other corporations... or even to similarly-labeled features in your own product line?". The fact that you equate AoY to a cheap burger while expansions in other games (and in STO, remember) are fancy meals speaks volumes in and of itself.
If you can't be remotely civil, please leave.
That's what I think will happen to Rift. Locking the new level cap, rotation, etc. behind a paywall for a supposedly F2P game seems like a terrible idea to me.
But, content-wise, it seems like a full expansion. I'm wondering whether Cryptic's current notion of an "expansion" is on par with what other game companies think - or even with what Cryptic used to do for expansions. I'm making the question more concrete by considering the standard price tag. If they could no longer claim that "it's free, therefore it has infinite value," I'm curious to know how they would think AoY stacks up to other expansions.
Yah thats why i called it "content" and not content because there are people out there who do classify it as costumes and ships as content. The point of me mentioning those prices was to show what kind of stuff Cryptic DOES think is worth charging us for. And as other people have mentioned quests and stuff is not the kind of stuff that cryptic charges for.
As far as the previous expansions being more expansive? yes it was more expansive. But it was also still free...so whether i get 8 quests or 30 doesnt matter to me. Whether they call it an expansion, a DLC or a mini-expan-dlcsuperdeluxecombo doesnt matter either because its still free. If they decide to charge me 10 dollars for 50 quests, 3 dungeons, and 2 adventure zones and then 40 dollars for 10 quests, 1 dungeon and no adventure zones and start to mixmatch the description for that content (dlc vs expac) then yes i may start threads like this.
Best Freemium model in the industry. I have always said that the only reason why STO is Freemium instead of F2P is due to the LTS. No LTS and STO will be completely F2P with no Subscriptions. As it is other Freemium MMOs try to force you to subscribe like SWTOR while STO tries to force you to go F2P due to there being little benefit for subscribing for more than a month.
What if I never had to see a strawman argument again? WHAT IF?
Ironically, missions in lockboxes actually sound like a reasonable idea, if properly implemented as a supplement to free missions. Single-use missions could be a common drop, with a permanent unlock at the "T6 ship" rarity tier. Add a decent mission reward at the end (unbound, perhaps?), and it would basically be like the current system but with the addition of gameplay.
So, as long as it's free, you don't care what they call it or what they include in it? I can't say that's unreasonable. Personally, my focus is on the use of the term "expansion" and whether - if, again, it was B2P - Cryptic would feel comfortable calling it an ordinary expansion and charge $40, or if they would give it a different name, like a booster or mini-expansion or something, and charge a reduced price.
Basically, they currently seem to think AoY is worthy of being called an expansion. I'm wondering whether they would charge a corresponding full price if it were B2P, or if they would change their tune.
This is probably a more reasonable question.
yeah its pretty good almost as good as legacy of romulus