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Official Forum Discussion = Monthly Fee Talk
SlyLoK
Member RarePosts: 2,698
It seems most over there want a fee that is more than $15 a month and at least $20 and some want even higher or much higher. .. SMH. I guess those players just want those on the forums to play the game? Some serious elitism / entitlement going on over there.. Or just plain ignorance. It is hard to distinguish the two. Probably the same people who thought the $50 a month EQ Premium Server was a good idea.. It wasnt.
Who wants to play a game where there are only 6,000 accounts because the fee is $25? With 6,000 accounts there MIGHT be 1,000 people on at a time IF that many. How is anyone supposed to get anything done with so few players?
IMO the fee should be LOWER than $15 a month and not higher to start. Just because that is the standard doesnt mean every Tom , Dick and Harry MMO needs to start there. Start at $9.99 a month to bring in a good amount of players and to polish content over the first year and then raise the fee to $12.99 or $14.99 if the quality of the game has improved. Those that started from the beginning are grandfathered in at $9.99 while new accounts would be whatever it was raised too.
Comments
Lots of paying customers. For some time now, there has been a growing resentment for P4F gamers or even “Budget Gamers.” The whales want the games they paid for to themselves. If they never see a BG again, then that's fine with them. A typical MMO server population is 2,000. So a game with a total population of ~6,000 will support 3 servers. Again, that's fine with the paying customers. They are telling the developers, they are willing and able to pay a premium ($25-$50 a month) to exclude Free and Budget gamers from the servers.
A Premium server and whale player base means the developer doesn’t have to spend the time and money developing and implementing a cash shop. They don’t have to put up with chargebacks. All money and effort can be dedicated to useful, wanted, revenue generating content. Such as story, quests, maps, dungeons, and other mechanics. Both Developers and whales have been testing the waters for years to judge the player bases’ willingness to pay the premium. Now may be the time.Boy: Why can't I talk to Him?
Mom: We don't talk to Priests.
As if it could exist, without being payed for.
F2P means you get what you paid for. Pay nothing, get nothing.
Even telemarketers wouldn't think that.
It costs money to play. Therefore P2W.
I realize you said most over there, but I can guarantee you that I am one that is not in support of a higher than $15 a month unless it was a base of 19.99 with package options to bring it down to 15.
I also proposed your idea of raising the subscription rates after obtaining buy-in; however, I don't think the sky is falling yet - the developers have commented they are fully aware of the need to get the subscription rate right and have stated that they will do market analysis before changing the standard going rate, if it were in fact changed.
Here's a quote from Kilsin the community manager back in early March,
Kilsin stated,
"Please keep in mind we are just wanting to promote discussion on this topic, we have no intention of raising the subscription level to something ridiculous that will drive potential customers away.
"
If we raise the monthly fee from the average $15 to something slightly higher, it will only be after very thorough research and business advice, it won't be on a whim or a move that would upset our core target audience, I just want to clear that up right now.
We will be subscription based with no cash shop, we may have a merch store for Pantheon/VRI merchandise and cosmetic fluff items for extra revenue but that will most likely be all and nothing we sell will give you an advantage in game, so our subscription fee must be sustainable so we can continue to produce quality and on going content and support to the game and the community.
So please don't get upset and think they we are money grabbing or thinking of going ahead with an increase, we just want to hear what our core target audience and main supporter/community members have to say first while we look at all the possibilities going forward.
Nothing is promised or set in stone yet, we just want your input.
_________________________________________________________________________________________
As it stands now, the rate stated by the team is 15, so until I hear otherwise from them - that is what I'm accepting
What's a good MMO though or what would be the expectations for the premium sub? Player A is going to have different expectations than Player B. I don't disagree that many people could afford $15, $25, $35, $45+/month, but the expectations would be extremely high.
I believe i just used the phrase within the last two days >>>If you allow them to take an inch,they will take a mile.
I look at several criteria,one we already pay a LOT for internet services,my bill at home is around 180 a month and can be much higher close to 300.
Then we have to figure value/worth,at 15 bucks that is only 50 cents a day,sounds like a deal to me.Then we have to factor in how much is that costing the developer and how much is pockets or put back into the game.I guess basically comes down to ,how much you trust your developer and how lenient of a spender you are.I see gamer's totally happy spending 30 bucks plus on a game they play no more than one month or less.
if a game can give you a solid game right out of the box and charged you to buy it and a sub fee but also delivers a solid ongoing product,then it is obviously worth a bit more to a serious gamer than say a fly by night free to play game with disposable content.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
Me.
Call me a bigot, call me an elitest, I don't care. I don't want to play games with the entitlement generation that thinks years worth of developer time should be free and that everyone should bend over backward to cater to their whim.
1000 community driven, group oriented players are going to accomplish far more than a 1000000 me-me-me players.
You sir, just became my new best friend!
This is the main reason I prefer P2P games over F2P games. I realize every mmo has their trolls and kids. But, F2P mmos are swarming with these types. Please don't bring WoW into this as a counter-argument. With how large the WoW population is, you are bound to have asshats in that mmo(this wasn't aimed at SlyLok or tracho12).
I think they should charge $60/month starting from the pre-beta. Heck that is only about $2/day, a third of the price of a coffee were I live. It would filter out all the riff-raff that don't want to really contribute to building the community. In fact it should actually be a lot more than this because a higher financial commitment would incentivise players to take a more active approach to the game.
I think it is especially important in the pre-beta, just building the game stage, with a tentative release date two years out to charge a particularly high subscription because this is the crucial stage where the game is being built. If you open the gates to freeloaders and even cheapskates that will only fork out $15/month it could severely damage the potential of the game by polluting development with their unwanted ideas.
It is also vital to offer expensive pledge options of $1,000 or more so that the opinions of people that really count can take priority over those only willing to pay for the subscription.
This is undoubtedly the best way forward for the genre and game development in general. For too long we have been at the whim of uncaring major studios, who are just interested in ripping off gamers, as shown by their willingness to spend years developing a game, pay for proper alpha/beta testing, and then have the gall to charge a one off fee of around $60.
I am going to go ahead and agree with you 100% if for no other reason that the fact I know you are trying to be sarcastic and play the martyr and It'll piss you off more.
Personally I think down the road they should estimate the size of their community and potential playerbase and then do the math themselves and make the subscription exactly what they need to 1) pay the salaries of the people involved, 2) pay off investors in the allotted time frame (when they get some), 3) pay for hardware/bandwidth, 4) pay or hire new people to continue making the game.
If that number is $25/mo, so be it. If they can get by on $15 a month, thats the number they should go with. Setting the price higher solely for the sake of exclusivity is not a good business decision. A game like this could explode in popularity if its quality, but pricing it higher will undoubtedly deter many potential players from giving it a fair try.
I would gladly pay $25/month sub for EQ with updated graphics, no cash shop, and EQII style tradeskills and housing.
That $25 would be the baseline for a month-to-month sub. Long subscription periods would, of course, follow the same discount rates as other MMO's, ~$17 per month for a 1 year sub.
Any fool can criticize, condemn and complain and most fools do.
Benjamin Franklin
I do not advocate setting the price higher simply for exclusivity. I advocate setting the subscription price higher to do away with the need for a supplemental cash shop on top of the subscription. Prices for MMO subscriptions have been static for a long time, costs have not.
Any fool can criticize, condemn and complain and most fools do.
Benjamin Franklin
I totally agree.
I'm just saying, I think they stand to gain more money by keeping the game accessible to potential players who may balk at paying more for an indie game than any MMORPG in history. The P2P model is no longer popular, and I feel they stand to lose more by increasing the subscription too much than they stand to gain by keeping the game accessible. Once the game is developed, the server/bandwidth costs are pretty small per additional player, even if they are only paying $15 a month.
I guess my fear is that I know, contrary to popular propaganda, with 0 competition for this type of game, it will become wildly popular. If they plan for only 50k and adjust the subscription to compensate, it may never break that popularity threshold where it goes from quiet little niche game to the amazing oldschool phenomenon that I believe it could become, all on account of a steeper price in the age of F2P games.
Either way, we agree that they should charge whatever they need to keep the game not only alive, but thriving and expanding. For the record, I'd be willing to pay as much as $25 a month. I don't feel like more than that should be necessary.
Any fool can criticize, condemn and complain and most fools do.
Benjamin Franklin
You do realize that the game would be empty with just 6,000 accounts right? Not all 6,000 people will be playing at once. There was a study a while back that said it was around 10% of total accounts are logged in at a time. So you think a game with ~600 people on a time would be fine?.. 90% of the game would be DEAD and UNUSED after 2 months.
The game wouldnt survive. Period. Just like FFA PvPers you will kill your own game. You can try to call others selfish or me , me , me , me players but you are doing the EXACT same thing.
This thread displays the ignorance that is wrong with gaming and why companies can get away with anything now.
They have a good thing going finally with Pantheon. The last thing they should do is take advice from the ignorant. They already made a mistake keeping the forums as sub only ( elitism and entitlement on that one too ) which is why they are getting a new site and forums to have free boards because they realized their mistake.
My wife and I are of the opinion that if a game like EQ comes out we would pay a much higher than $15 a month subscription fee as we know most people wouldn't want to play a game like EQ due to the nature of the game. People these days just don't want to be challenged they are looking for the easy mode or what can take them to the end faster, mostly due to the fact that those games support that mindset.
Now there's a catch to why we would pay more money... and it wouldn't be to line the pockets of greedy CEOs/shareholders etc. If we thought that they were charging more money for those sole reasons, then we would stop paying. We want to fund the game with more money so that they have the ability to hire and retain experienced and quality devs, lore writers, artists, etc. If they start laying off developers and outsourcing their work... then again we would stop paying. We are of the opinion that the people pushing out this quality hand crafted art are worth more money.
We would pay a higher price just to be able to talk to an in game guide if needed. If we could talk to someone on the phone when we needed help with our accounts. To have someone on staff to monitor chat and ban gold spammers and raciest as soon as they are seen. To see in game events hosted by GMs again, not just some respawn of monsters taking over in games like RIFT. There are a ton of services they could offer us and they don't involve giving us any more of a game than EQ was. We understand that this crowd is small and we also understand that it takes money to run a business like this and to retain talented people around to keep it going.
There hasn't been another game for us that has had the harshness and sense of accomplishment like EQ since the beginning of EQ. We also know that it can't be 100% what we want because everyone has different ideas in their head about what the project is going to be, however if it's even a step in the direction of EQ or even close to what was stated on paper; We feel it will be a game we will play for a long time to come or until someone takes it a step further towards the idea that a challenge can be rewarding and fun. That being pushed to group and actually having to communicate with others in a multiplayer game without belittling them has a positive affect on community.
We understand some people are on limited budgets, though if 20-25 bucks a month is going to break the bank. Then maybe those people should be looking at ways to work for the things they want. If they aren't willing to work and pay for what they want, then they don't want it bad enough. So you can call us elitiest or whatever you want, though we would still pay what we would be willing to pay to get what we want.
In the end every individual has their limits and it's true some might not even be able to afford 9.99 a month. Does that mean we should lower the price to 5.99? Maybe we can go to an hourly model?
I know its a wacky idea and it will never happen, but if the game launches with such a small playerbase that a higher sub is absolutely necessary, I think they should simply scale the sub back as the game grows in popularity. Again, its highly unlikely and hard to imagine someone saying no thanks to more money, but it would also encourage players to promote the game. Maybe the hardcore fans that were willing to pay $25 or $30 a month early on could get some neat little rewards (that don't give them an advantage). In the end, I think accessibility will be worth more to the games success than a higher subscription.
If only companies weren't hell bent on greed. Maybe if they made a non-for-profit company to where that would be possible. Though I think in the end being well off is part of the goal lol...
$15/month is my max and has been since the release of EQ1. If it will cost more, then it's most unfortunate for me since I will not be able to play.
Waiting to find out just like everybody else does.