Meh, if its a cash-shop game, I don't care if the totally bad-ass looking weapons and armor are in the shop. Have the dropped gear have the highest stats, and the cosmetically awesome gear in the shop with a transmog option and they're bound to make money hand over fist.
EQ Never
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Guest, did you like the last podcast notification?? Well here's the second one, and for the third podcast! Yep. This Thursday 8-8-24 at 7pm Central
Go here to check out his podcast thread for info on topics and links!Go into the FoH discord and find the Happy Time Fun Hour channel and give it a listen!
i can't really fathom why having a monthly sub is such a big deal. if $15 a month to pay for your entertainment is too steep, then you shouldn't be playing video games in the first place. for me personally, i'd much rather pay the monthly sub and have access to everything in the game (and on equal footing with everyone else) than to have to be forced into using a cash shop to play the game. i look at it like going to an amusement park: just let me pay the full price at the gate and have unlimited access to everything in the park rather than not paying anything up front, but charging me for every ride i want to go on separately, and allowing people willing to spend twice as much money, to go to the front of the line ahead of me.
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Flipmode
EQOA Refugee
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We all know that dev resources are limited. So if devs start selling the cool looking gear in the cash shop, that means that there is little chance of those cool looking items to ever drop in the game themselves. Look at SOE's track record. All the cool mounts and unique graphics are for sale. On top of needing a sub to get full access to the game. All that shit used to be in the game already. These cash shop are money grabs. Plain and simple. I agree with other posters, if $15 is too much, you need a new hobby.
Ukerric
Bearded Ape
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You know this existed since before the "F2P" wave, right? It's called "free trial". The only difference being that most free trials did put a limit on time rather than level. Or sometimes both.
(and free trial is essentially what the "F2P EQ" model is)
LachiusTZ
Rogue Deathwalker Box
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The only reason i'd be mad I missed the unveiling is if they pulled a war hammer and gave out beta access there. I'm sure there will be plenty of people there covering the event so we should be able to see the videos fairly fast I hope. I'm going to vegas late june too just missed it!
I'm sure the people attending will receive beta access, who knows when they'll be able to access the beta though.
Also, Domino is back at SoE and on EQ next.
The difference with a more traditional trial is not only losing access to the account, but when the trial is over they are faced with a box price + a sub price to continue; that's a pretty steep pay wall. Trials are also rather limited. My model would essentially be an unlimited trial giving people on the fence more time to become invested. At no time would a user feel 'threatened' to be cut off. Not to mention MMOG client downloads tend to be huge and going through that trouble for a brief 2 week trial might turn some people away. What designers should really strive for is encouraging users to make friends in the game so that leaving the game means leaving your friends. A time limit on trials is counterproductive to this goal. It might be a bit sleazy but you could probably advertise the game as being outright free rather than merely having a trial as well using my model.
I would argue that it is psychologically significant to know that you will never lose access to the game. These f2p models are largely just head games making users feel like the game is free or cheaper when they are in fact not. Even if you farmed tedious crap to earn what you could otherwise buy in a cash shop, you lose out overall since you spend WAY more time farming than just working an extra hour in RL to pay a subscription. My model gives a strong impression of freeness by allowing for unrestricted play of alts to mid level, and even raiding with your high end guild after an expired sub-- you just couldn't loot anything.
Actually EVE does something similar to my suggestion. They have a time limited trial, but the client is essentially free with the 'box price' being a mere $5 (first month sub costs $5 more) and they lower the pay wall further by offering the first 3 months subscription at a discount. Expansions are free. Everything is paid for by subscriptions. EVE is 10 years old and has more subs now than it ever has.
Dr Neir
Trakanon Raider
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Could be worse, they don't offer any subscription model and only have a cash shop with .99cent to save your toon as a permanent save/start after a short tutorial of the game. You can create as many toons you want but will cost you .99cent per toon. Worse still, .99 cent to unlock lvl 10-20, .99cent again lvl 20-30, etc. Guild creation... .99cent, unlock guild member limit from 25-50.... .99cent.
Think you get the point.
Think you get the point.
Huh, she didn't last long at Trion. She was well-loved while she was at SOE so it's good to hear she's back all the same.
What exactly does her producer role entail and what happened to the guy she replaced? Seems pretty late in the game to be changing that kind of stuff up?
Not sure, I do know she worked a lot on tradeskill quests/quests in eq2 and eventually became an associate producer on the game. People change positions a lot at SoE, so hard to tell what this really means.
Randin
Trakanon Raider
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Oh yeah, that's right; she did tradeskill stuff for a while. I never really cared about that stuff, but I recall that people who did do crafting really liked her. Certainly can't hurt to have her on EQN.
Yeah, everyone liked her, she was also very much involved with the community.
