Idea on other payment scheme for casual gamers

[BahamutKaiser]

Wow, how dense can you be? First of all, additional means don't have any relavence to whether it is better or not, because it is better period, there is no lose to having more options, nothing about removing the typical subscription has any relavence.

Second of all, there is alot to offer besides time sinks and character development, it's called gameplay and challenge, and if you don't understand that, you need an education, I'm not going to give it to you here, you can take it to one of the topics about grind and gameplay.

And why is everyone pointing out that some games already start with free months?, nobody said it was an original feature. Introduce relative conjecture, not mindless information.

I own a business of my own, I wholesale phone service for home phones, cell phones, digital and video phones, internet, and satelite TV. Now compare cell phone plans, there are unlimited plans, pay as you go plans, and scaling monthly plans, if there were one completely better than the others, the others would be abolished, but there is money in the variety of options allowing more people to get involved... whether you understand that or not, it isn't a discussion, it is an education.

Saying it doesn't apply to the player base is mindless, of course it doesn't apply to the existing player base, the player base are those already involved in the system, the whole point here is to access those not in the existing player base, and those who may not stay. It's no secret that there are alot of F2P games coming out, yet you mindlessly imagine that subscription simply works and alternatives arn't neccessary, well maybe you should learn something about money before discussing it, if all you understand is your own spending, than your not even qualified to have this conversation, you may as well sit back and learn.

Now to respond to the only relavent conjecture, there is alot of money in socializing and recovery, if players have a social connection to a game, than they are more likely to spend money on it. If you lose the social connection with the loss of subscription, some may be compelled to pay again just to get back in it, but some will not, yet will be more likely to return if they can keep in contact with the social aspect even wile they can't pay Where this nonsense about losing stuff comes from I don't recognize, if your temporarily leveled back, it doesn't mean you lose any equipment or items. And the nonsense about botters coming in with nothing but an Email has nothing to do with this, only your failure to read, or you would notice that the description involves buying the retail package in order to start the game, so people arn't getting into the game for free or making multiple accounts without paying for them.

The idea of having a theme park where you can get in for free but only ride if your paying is close, rather it is more like a fair. The point is that people can hang around without paying for the rides unless they want to ride them, by having more people, you have more chances to sale, and by having more people, other people will gravitate toward your location, which will increase spending.

Now does anyone have anything intelligent to say?, I'm done fielding idiotic responses.

[berserker]

and what about they let us buy hours to play? give a value to each hour bought or pack or hours...

but they surrely dont do that cause they would lose alot of money.... i

its just marketing impact that's why they all sell 720 hours for 15$

[Anuxinamoon]

Originally Posted by BahamutKaiser

Saying it doesn't apply to the player base is mindless, of course it doesn't apply to the existing player base, the player base are those already involved in the system, the whole point here is to access those not in the existing player base, and those who may not stay. It's no secret that there are alot of F2P games coming out, yet you mindlessly imagine that subscription simply works and alternatives arn't neccessary, well maybe you should learn something about money before discussing it, if all you understand is your own spending, than your not even qualified to have this conversation, you may as well sit back and learn.

This is what I have been trying to get across. I'm glad someone can see it from another perspective.

I think it is hard to accept by some because pay per month is what they are used to and additions/changes are always hard to comprehend.

Try to understand of it from a different perspective and understand that we do not think this to be something that may hinder the game but open up new avenues to more consumers or existing ones.

Its just another way to scale the price with time. like buying 1 month, 6 months or 12 month subscriptions. Its all about adding different options to cater to different customer needs.

[Garvan]

Originally Posted by BahamutKaiser

Wow, how dense can you be?

Who, me? Oh, I have my moments.

Originally Posted by BahamutKaiser

I own a business of my own, I wholesale phone service for home phones, cell phones, digital and video phones, internet, and satelite TV. Now compare cell phone plans, there are unlimited plans, pay as you go plans, and scaling monthly plans, if there were one completely better than the others, the others would be abolished, but there is money in the variety of options allowing more people to get involved... whether you understand that or not, it isn't a discussion, it is an education.

Drawing parallells between phone and video game subscritions.... one is a very useful, if not flat out vital tool that has been around for much longer than the other. The second one is primarily used for entertainment. The two don't have much in common.

Originally Posted by BahamutKaiser

Saying it doesn't apply to the player base is mindless, of course it doesn't apply to the existing player base, the player base are those already involved in the system, the whole point here is to access those not in the existing player base, and those who may not stay. It's no secret that there are alot of F2P games coming out, yet you mindlessly imagine that subscription simply works and alternatives arn't neccessary, well maybe you should learn something about money before discussing it, if all you understand is your own spending, than your not even qualified to have this conversation, you may as well sit back and learn.

Question:
If having 16 different ways to pay for your game subscrition is so many times better than having 2 (monthly fee, game play card ALA WoW), why in the world won't the firms pump us with alternatives? They're loosing money the way things are now are they not?

Originally Posted by BahamutKaiser

Where this nonsense about losing stuff comes from I don't recognize, if your temporarily leveled back, it doesn't mean you lose any equipment or items. And the nonsense about botters coming in with nothing but an Email has nothing to do with this, only your failure to read, or you would notice that the description involves buying the retail package in order to start the game, so people arn't getting into the game for free or making multiple accounts without paying for them.

Well correct me if I'm wrong, but Aion is based on levels, so I would assume that various gear will have level requirements. That is, you must be lvl 27 or higher to use this shield. You don't loose it, as in it is gone from my inventory forever and ever, you loose it in the sense that it is there, but you can't use it due to your level is being too low. Same thing I would assume would apply to your basic stats. You don't have 7000HP, you're busted down to 450HP.

Originally Posted by BahamutKaiser

The idea of having a theme park where you can get in for free but only ride if your paying is close, rather it is more like a fair. The point is that people can hang around without paying for the rides unless they want to ride them, by having more people, you have more chances to sale, and by having more people, other people will gravitate toward your location, which will increase spending.

Personally I prefer the "pay-the-entrance-fee-and-ride-what-you-want-how-much-you-want" themepark solution. Translating that into game payment, I suppose that would be what they did with GW.

[danstaff]

Originally Posted by BahamutKaiser

Now to respond to the only relavent conjecture, there is alot of money in socializing and recovery, if players have a social connection to a game, than they are more likely to spend money on it. If you lose the social connection with the loss of subscription, some may be compelled to pay again just to get back in it, but some will not, yet will be more likely to return if they can keep in contact with the social aspect even wile they can't pay

wow .... so your saying that if people can access the server but cant play with the content they should be allowed to do so in an attempt to draw them back into the game??

Thats sort of the way i took the above statement so ill reply to it accordingly...

WHY!? I've waited in so many queues just for people to log off so i could log onto a server and play myself. That also sounds like horrible lag in major cities for us paying customers. All because people aren't quite sure on whether or not they like or dislike Aion after what seems like 15 gd years waiting for it to come out? They'd have a FULL FREE MONTH if they are brand new to it to figure it out as well.

If they wanna be social then they can head over to eHarmony.com and PAY to lag up their servers not the one ill be paying for. I've heard great things about em on tv, i think theyll be fine.


Ok now onto one other thing...

I agree with you on one point. An additional option for payment wouldn't be a big deal and only has a positive effect because its extra option that will appeal to more people. Even if it only effected 10 people it would be positive IF it didn't set back, require remaking, or heavy editing of the current system.

Thats what i have a problem with. Your idea includes them adding this "semi-freeplay mode", a lvl reduction, itll include problems with lvl requirements for gear if people are lvl dropped, an entirely different interaction between the billing side and the game, and finally!! the whole system will have to be tested and re-tested before release. Those are just a few big problems that jump out at me atm.

I also think the lvl drop is a horrible idea that will ultimately leave us waiting longer for release and for a system thats just way too complex for such a small crowd when im willing to bet that these same customers will do one of two things, 1. just fork over the 15$ and play or... 2. They'll decide the go back over to "hello kitty online".

Originally Posted by BahamutKaiser

And the nonsense about botters coming in with nothing but an Email has nothing to do with this, only your failure to read, or you would notice that the description involves buying the retail package in order to start the game, so people arn't getting into the game for free or making multiple accounts without paying for them.

hm for being such a top notch business man you sure dont step back and take a look at the big picture. How is paying for a retail copy going to set back the botting community? People are going to do w/e they have to do to make money. Botters and gold sales in mmo's are insanely profitable. NCsoft is going to have to step back and take a big look at how people can take advantage of the system before it happens.

Like i mentioned before with the low level mats. If 1-10 mat harvesting becomes big, sort of like it was on lower lvls in L2. Then don't you think botters would benefit in several ways from grinding low lvls on a free(subscription) 1-10 lvl account? Stocking currency? using them freely for buying and selling w/e the product is? Hiding the "paper trail"?

If your thinking "hm.. well then we could make it so they couldnt interact, fight, loot, w/e", then i say... why even bother. refer to the eharmony statement above and they can stop lagging down the server until they "collect their thoughts" about their future with Aion.

Of coarse we don't even know that botting will be an issue. Currency sales will be, without a doubt.

Originally Posted by BahamutKaiser

It's no secret that there are alot of F2P games coming out, yet you mindlessly imagine that subscription simply works and alternatives arn't neccessary, well maybe you should learn something about money before discussing it, if all you understand is your own spending, than your not even qualified to have this conversation, you may as well sit back and learn.

I never really had a problem with different billing options. Thats different than what you are proposing. You want to re-invent the wheel.

F2P games? Gamers know that they get what they pay for. We aren't just paying for server maintenance and future content. We are almost making an investment in the company in a way that will offer us more games in the future.

Think of blizzard... they have skyrocketed. Now they will soon be done riding the "wow money train" and will be free to continue with their next successful mmo. Not to mention they have starcraft 2 coming out.

If they were F2P... who knows what theyd be doing or if they would have even survived all the employees that ducked out of em.... a year or so back?

[Kaldur]

Guys really...control yourselves on the "post dissecting" Essays...geez
Bahamut already shared his point, why don't you guys share yours? No need to make a rebuttal at each of Ba's points, come on, nobody is gonna read all that stuff.

[Kathia]

I think messing around with different subscribtion methods would be abit much hassle its easier and quite cost effective to be left as they currently are.

[cmykspliff]

make it 20 bucks a month that way there'd be less kids on
but 15 not bad

[shadowrun]

I think a scheme where you pay for hours played is technically hardly feasable. They'd need to monitor each player's activity - when they login and for how long and keep tabs on that - to implement that and it would impact server-performance to have too much monitoring going on .

The prepaid is actually implemented in Asia and in many MMOs. In fact Lineage 2 in Southeast Asia has this option, you can subscribe or buy a card (they count buy days not buy hours though). IIRC there was a trial card for GW timed for 3 hours. The partners of NCSoft already implemented this a long time ago.

[LethalGT]

No, horrible idea.
Sorry, but they're giving you the game, and you can be cheap enough to say.. I'll pay for the time I play.

No you pay the monthly fee they charge or they don't let you play.

[Garvan]

Originally Posted by LethalGT

No you pay the monthly fee they charge or they don't let you play.

Considering that most MMORPG's have this payment method, I somehow doubt it's going to change. When you think of it, nearly all online stuff you pay this way, be it game or web site content.

Sure they might have variations, like if they charge you ever 3 months, it is a little cheaper than if they have to charge you every month and some games offer game cards where you pay for 30 days (or whatever) which you can cash in when you feel like it.

An nice alternative would be a game card that gives you 30 days, but the clock is only ticking when you play. That is, if you activate the card in May, play for 5 days then take a pause only to resume again in November same year, you'll still have 25 days to play. That way you don't "loose" anything should something keep you from playing for a period of time (school, work etc).

As already pointed out, subscription keeps some of the kids out. While there are full grown adults that can be incredible immature when it comes to gaming, a steady payment is keeping at least some kids out. Private servers and F2P games are easily swarmed by kids who lack social intelligence and have a brilliant way of ruining other peoples fun.

[shadowrun]

-_-
The point here is really giving players another payment option.
We are not removing the standard monthly fee. If you don't like the other payment option then no one's stopping you to avail of the standard monthly payment.

The question is this, will the other payment option cater to a larger crowd? Definitely it's a YES, specially to students and working people. And also other players who want to get more value from their money.

A larger crowd means more profit for NCSoft.
Don't be concerned about kiddies, there are a lot of them even with a $15 monthly fee -- WoW for example.

And also this is something different, what other subscription-based MMORPGs have this? I guess this will make NCSoft stand from the rest -- it's something new.

[Fleiva]

MMORPGs are already a quite cheap enterainment, you don't go to the cinema and pay less cause the movie doesn't last as much as LOTR one, you don't go to a shop asking the vendor to give you a cheaper xbox cause you play less than the one who bought it before. You must consider if playing MMOs is worthy for you, if it's not, then just don't, everything has a price, and if devs think their MMORPGs cost 15$ monthly, that's the price.

[Ipmia]

how cheap can one be, wanting to pay only for the very minute they spend in game....

[Zyuu]

I hope they raise it to $25 per month or so. It's still cheap.