Should have given 30 days to everyone subbed since release

[teambff]

 

its not a personal insult. its a promotional thing to keep people playing, if you're taking offense to it then you obviously don't understand business or what they're trying to do.

.

 

if alot of people have a problem with it then it's obviously not a good business move.

 

why do you feel the need to tell us what to feel and think?

 

i find it a bit insulting for my own reasons.

Edited April 13, 2012 by teambff

[coldmiser]

As the thread title states. I have been subbed to SWTOR since pre-release and rarely complained about any of the decisions the devs had made but the free 30 days has been done wrong if you ask me.

 

Just because my playstyle (I have a lvl 48 and a bunch of alts) I don't get the 30 free days?

 

Bioware is offering 30 free days to anyone that has a lvl 50 no matter how long they've supported the game and they are also offering 6 days to the people that stopped subbing to the game, but nothing for those of us that either don't play as much or make a bunch of alts or both.

 

I realize that very few of you forum goers fall into this category but I think most of you will agree that in addition to those with level 50 characters, all accounts that have been subbed since release deserve the free 30 days as well.

 

It's ironic that this is the first thing Bioware has done that makes me want to cancel my sub and show my appreciation right back to Bioware.

 

/agreed

 

I have been a huge supporter of this game and have been playing since before launch. My highest level character is 45. Is it because I don't log into the game? No, quite the opposite. I go back and forth between alts.

 

Just because someone has a character at level 50 doesn't mean they've been any more loyal than me.

 

Very disappointing.

[Dayln]

Now go to Your childs and tell them that YOu only like 2 oldest ones because thay are 10 years and older.

You dont like 2 younger kids, because they are younger.

And please provide us with your wifes feedback. Thanks.

 

I will do that the moment you show me where Bioware told you that they did not value you as well. Not that they did value someone else, but specifically how they did not value you personally

 

Make sure the comment is from a Bioware employee and aimed specifically at you

[Gigabolt]

its really sad that people are taking the fact that they didnt get a promotional free 30 days as a personal insult.

 

its depressing and pathetic.

 

if you're making tons and tons of alts, you're playing the game heavily. they dont need to worry about you unsubbing.

 

if someone has one character, a 50. and they're growing tired of the endgame, then a free month will keep them playing so after the free month they're more likely to resub.

 

THATS IT.

 

its not a personal insult. its a promotional thing to keep people playing, if you're taking offense to it then you obviously don't understand business or what they're trying to do.

 

its like getting mad at a restaurant and seeing someone get free cake cus it was their birthday and taking GREAT PERSONAL OFFENSE to the fact that you're not getting free cake simply because its not your birthday? HOW DARE THEY!

 

grow up kids. grow up.

 

lolol ''understanding' modern business and 'accepting' it are two different things

[Grimjax]

That's not how it is at all, what you are doing is taking your time to chew the meal (like I did with my main) and then spitting it out before you swallow it. I took my time with my Gunslinger, got him to 50 and spend my time running FPs with my guild to help them level or running OPs with the other 50s to have fun, you can't enjoy something and then quit doing it before you have had time to properly enjoy it. I get that people like making alt character, I really do as a lot of my friends are like that but the game is so easy to level, requires minimum effort but you have to go all the way to the end otherwise it's pointless. I've been here since the start, bought the DD version (I don't care much for crappy statues) and have loyally subbed since but you can't use wanting to enjoy the full story of the game as an exscuse and claim anyone at level 50 doesn't when you haven't even finished a single class story, can you even remember what the story was on your first character?

 

Actually, I still play all my characters and know what part of the story I'm on with each. My Merc just reached 47 wed. night. You say I can't enjoy the story because I have not finished it. That's like saying I can't enjoy life because I have not died yet!

 

See you act like I quit playing something that I was having fun doing. I just played other alts while still playing my main. I never stopped playing anything. I'm enjoying the game, just differently than you.

 

Bioware just said that you are more valuable than me, because your character is level 50 not because of any other reason.

 

Bioware's PR department needs to be fired!

[Saurakk]

its really sad that people are taking the fact that they didnt get a promotional free 30 days as a personal insult.

 

its depressing and pathetic.

 

if you're making tons and tons of alts, you're playing the game heavily. they dont need to worry about you unsubbing.

 

if someone has one character, a 50. and they're growing tired of the endgame, then a free month will keep them playing so after the free month they're more likely to resub.

 

THATS IT.

 

its not a personal insult. its a promotional thing to keep people playing, if you're taking offense to it then you obviously don't understand business or what they're trying to do.

 

its like getting mad at a restaurant and seeing someone get free cake cus it was their birthday and taking GREAT PERSONAL OFFENSE to the fact that you're not getting free cake simply because its not your birthday? HOW DARE THEY!

 

grow up kids. grow up.

 

Wrong there skippy. No personal insult here but bad business on their part.

 

If people keep quitting everytime they exhaust end game content BW will never keep up and you will take your ADD self to play another game.

 

They lost you either way.

 

The people enjoying the game, and enjoying the alts, and the storyline WILL be the cash cow for them and it would do BW some good to realize this and not alienate people by giving arbitrary awards to people who simply want to PvP.

 

No personal offense, just seriously bad business sense on their part.

[SamuraBob_Fl]

Personally I think they should have given the free 30 days only to people who've killed Karagga.

 

Or maybe only people who had Dark V.

 

That would have been funnier.

[CaeridLock]

What I see is that a lot of Players and former Players getting free stuff; some cute little thing that looks like it may make me sneeze, free 7 days for some past Players, free 3 days for a bad patch, free 30 days for a 50th, free day for todays delays, ,etc.

 

And I also see a lot of people whining, complaining, and QQ because Mom did not like them best. Sorry, but my sympathies lie elsewhere.

 

And I don't think anyone complaining is looking for your sympathy. And since you're not really impacted either way none of it really matters to you. However if you were in charge of a business relying on the paying customer your opinion may change.

[JoannaNH]

And I can completely agree with that. Believe me, I'm not saying that they did this decision on a "politically correct" format. But as it is, I understand what they did and yes, it does make sense to me. Could they have advertised it better so that it doesn't show off to be as abrasive? Absolutely. But that's one of the wonderful things about being human. We suck at being non-abrasive.

 

Touche. I am just hoping for the wording to be changed and/or an apology for the bad wording. I am not upset with the lack of something free... if the $15 was a make or break deal for me, I should probably consider unsubscribing anyway as it would be indicative of my finances being in a place that superfluous expenses were a bad thing.

[remuze]

The above pretty much describes my story, levelled to 40 and then server became a ghost town. Logged on a few days ago at 7pm and I was the only person in fleet. Rerolled on a different server and just reached 48 but my friend was a bit slower at 40 so we decided we would reroll and play 2 guys on Hutta instead. Had I known I would be out of pocket 1 month's sub for choosing that instead of pushing to 50, I would have chosen to level the 48.

 

Just one more move by EA/BioWare causing me to pull this face

[arbehrends]

Well that's debatable. I would say one person with 1 level 50 doesn't offer nearly as much feedback as someone with let's say 6 level 45s.

 

And in such a situation which would you say is more active? The one with 1 level 50 no alts or the one with 6 levels 45s?

 

Don't get me wrong I'm not mad/upset/bothered about Bioware's decision here, but i do understand why some would be. It's the principle and perception of what they said and how they said it. Come on people it should be human nature to be a little bit apathetic to our fellow man/woman no?

 

How dare you bring up such a valid point, Sir!

 

That said...

Ever wonder why Blizzard tailored their game to casual players? Because there are more casuals than hardcore nerds with no lives on welfare or kickin it at McDonalds part time. People with real lives actually play MMO's now. Wow, Imagine that.

[TavaraCap]

and i don't think anyone complaining is looking for your sympathy. And since you're not really impacted either way none of it really matters to you. However if you were in charge of a business relying on the paying customer your opinion may change.

 

agreed!

[TaramCaldar]

thats the problem dude

we still havent had the "we are sorry" post, its been like 10 hours and still nothing. Mr Rockjaw has said there talking about it.

 

whats to talk about?

 

you screwed up, either give all players who have an active sub on the 12th april a free month or just bin the whole 30day thing and still to the little pet.

 

I don't care about the 30 days honestly... I could give a crap about it. $15 is nothing to me, I have a 6 figure income.... What I care about is basically being told that despite pre-ordering the game, despite never unsubbing, despite playing 20+ hours a week every week since pre-release... despite playing and giving feedback since Beta.... I am not a valued customer. That, in fact, some kid who can spacebar to 50 in 2-3 weeks is somehow more valued than I am.

 

I would be far happier if BioWare simply posted a statement that they were sorry for the wording used in their level 50 reward and did not mean that level 50's were somehow more valued customers than the rest of the player base. I'd be perfectly happy if they did that and re-worded it to something like 'and to thank our level 50's for sticking with us while we get more end-game content for them' instead.

 

 

 

Just a clue... from someone who has worked around customer service his entire 40+ year life:

 

Never insult customers... you will regret it. Always correct missunderstandings as quickly and completely as you can.

 

Note: Nowhere did I say that I should get a free 30 days... I fully get what the REAL reason for the 30 days is... I've been around MMO's since before they were called MMO's... the 30 days is a bribe to hopefully give themselves time to get content in for those level 50 players. Nothing more.

[System_TOR]

As the thread title states. I have been subbed to SWTOR since pre-release and rarely complained about any of the decisions the devs had made but the free 30 days has been done wrong if you ask me.

 

Just because my playstyle (I have a lvl 48 and a bunch of alts) I don't get the 30 free days?

 

Bioware is offering 30 free days to anyone that has a lvl 50 no matter how long they've supported the game and they are also offering 6 days to the people that stopped subbing to the game, but nothing for those of us that either don't play as much or make a bunch of alts or both.

 

I realize that very few of you forum goers fall into this category but I think most of you will agree that in addition to those with level 50 characters, all accounts that have been subbed since release deserve the free 30 days as well.

 

It's ironic that this is the first thing Bioware has done that makes me want to cancel my sub and show my appreciation right back to Bioware.

 

Firstly having alts is no excuse for not being 50.

 

Bioware probably feel that players who have not yet reached level 50 are less likely to leave the game right now as they have not experienced any end game. You happen to be one of those people.

 

They gave the 30 days free to level 50's because a lot of them are on the verge of quitting for one reason or another.

Edited April 13, 2012 by System_TOR

[Meldwyn]

Can you say.... D-E-B-A-C-L-E!

[arbehrends]

Sorry the game has been out for 4 months and I don't have a level 50. I have a life, my bad.

[DexenOnone]

The above pretty much describes my story, levelled to 40 and then server became a ghost town. Logged on a few days ago at 7pm and I was the only person in fleet. Rerolled on a different server and just reached 48 but my friend was a bit slower at 40 so we decided we would reroll and play 2 guys on Hutta instead. Had I known I would be out of pocket 1 month's sub for choosing that instead of pushing to 50, I would have chosen to level the 48.

 

Just one more move by EA/BioWare causing me to pull this face

 

Sounds like you should be asking your slow friend for $15

[Onyx]

I completely agree with you on that. Now let's look at BioWare decision. you can't provide this reward without getting one of those two groups upset. So, what would be more fair in a general sense? People who have detailed information about a smaller section of the game? Or people who have full experience with all elements of the game? Let's look at the question in more detail and maybe it will shed some light on it for other people. We have how many people actively playing this game? Over 1 million. Now, how many of those 1 million+ players have level 50's? I don't know but for the sake of the argument let's say it's easily over 50%. Now out of those 50%+ how many of them CAN provide valuable feedback about all elements of the game? All of them. That said, how many of those people are going to have the exact same feedback about each and every single element they have been exposed to? Not very many. Now for the sake of this argument, more than 50% of 1 million is 500,000 people. If only 1% of those people have the exact same feedback. That is still 450,000 people who have different points of feedback concerning ALL elements of the game.

 

Now take into consideration all the other people who have more detailed experience with only certain sections of the game. All of them will have differing opinions to improve that section of the game. However how many of those can be touched on already by some of the people who are level 50? Chances are you will see a good percentage of similar feedback from those level 50's as well. So, to be fair do you want to reward people who have experience with only a smaller section of the game instead of the people who have taken time to play up to 50 and can provide feedback that others can as well on top of what others have not experienced? this is the argument I have posed. The decision when I have described this in more detail is clear as day to me having been in management.

 

However the net that was cast caught a whole lot more people who didn't contribute. Heck, who haven't even been subscribed lol.

 

There were other ways to determine criteria. This was not a well-thought out and well-implemented plan.

 

Many of us have zero issue with those who took the time to play and provide feedback at level 50.

 

Our issue lies with those who didn't and are being rewarded--who have played far less time, subscribed for far less time, etc. There are indeed other ways they could have defined the criteria. It's not an "either/or" situation.

 

Since it's been mentioned several times, I'm going to make an observation. I am a bit shocked that having "been in management", you haven't bothered to look at the big picture and spend a little time evaluating the possibilities. Because from where I sit, there's some pretty obvious revelations.

[malchior]

Oh okay, so BW doesn't need any new subscribers and can get all their profits from just level 50s whom will rage quit when they have nothing to do. Of course BW can't churn out enough updates since the bored 50s quit and not much new income is coming in....

 

If the life of the game is so extremely important in basing on end game content, why not just make everyone a 50.

 

 

No because this is an mmo and content continues on for the life of the game so no your singleplayer pre 50 experience is not as important to the life of the game. Endgame is where its at and future expansions begin at max level....first mmo?

[Rebornlos]

They aren’t compensating people for being "worthy"

 

They are compensating people for updates that didn’t happen as planned for level 50 folks, while the updates for our ( your and my ) lower level characters content were successful.

 

Let them have their 30 days, the updates for their characters content had some problems and didn’t happen. We arent in the same boat.

 

This guy has the logic of a Jedi. +1000 interwebs to you sir.

[cipher_nemo]

Some perspective: I do have a level 50 that's been level 50 for a long, long time. So I might be a bit biased.

 

With that said, 1 month free isn't really that big of a deal to me. I look at it like a bonus from a company who said "yes, we goofed a little here and there, so here's some compensation". And that's awesome. But they also said, it's just for level 50s. But that's still cool. Why?

 

Doing this made every TOR player know that Bioware will reward gameplay.

 

And that's pretty Epic. It's like saying "hey, we want to thank you for spending time here". It's like the frequent buyer cards at sandwich shops. Buy 10, get the 11th free. Or at local coffee shops. Buy 10 drinks, get the 11th free. It's a both a compensation and a reward for being here so much and enduring the hardships of a rough 1.2 launch.

 

So... I'm happy.

 

Now if I didn't have a level 50, would I be here complaining? No. I'm still enjoying TOR and I think it's great that Bioware took the time to reward their more dedicated players/customers.

 

After all, would you really complain about a business that rewards customer loyalty and dedication?

Edited April 13, 2012 by cipher_nemo

[Clonedzero]

Wrong there skippy. No personal insult here but bad business on their part.

 

If people keep quitting everytime they exhaust end game content BW will never keep up and you will take your ADD self to play another game.

 

They lost you either way.

 

The people enjoying the game, and enjoying the alts, and the storyline WILL be the cash cow for them and it would do BW some good to realize this and not alienate people by giving arbitrary awards to people who simply want to PvP.

 

No personal offense, just seriously bad business sense on their part.

 

no its not bad business. its good business actually.

you might be the type that enjoys the class stories and leveling alts (i'm the same way actually hence why i didnt get the free 30 days either). but you are not the target of this promotion. you need to get over that fact.

 

they aren't worried about the customers who enjoy the stories and leveling alts.

they ARE worried about the raiders and end game pvp'ers leaving. thus they give the 30 days to them to keep them around for longer.

 

its not a hard concept. you just weren't part of the promotion. hell you said it yourself, the people enjoying the stories are the cash cow. yup. they still want the endgame guys to stick around hence the promotion.

 

whats so hard to understand?

[Faeldawn]

I don't care about the 30 days honestly... I could give a crap about it. $15 is nothing to me, I have a 6 figure income.... What I care about is basically being told that despite pre-ordering the game, despite never unsubbing, despite playing 20+ hours a week every week since pre-release... despite playing and giving feedback since Beta.... I am not a valued customer. That, in fact, some kid who can spacebar to 50 in 2-3 weeks is somehow more valued than I am.

 

I would be far happier if BioWare simply posted a statement that they were sorry for the wording used in their level 50 reward and did not mean that level 50's were somehow more valued customers than the rest of the player base. I'd be perfectly happy if they did that and re-worded it to something like 'and to thank our level 50's for sticking with us while we get more end-game content for them' instead.

 

 

 

Just a clue... from someone who has worked around customer service his entire 40+ year life:

 

Never insult customers... you will regret it. Always correct missunderstandings as quickly and completely as you can.

 

Note: Nowhere did I say that I should get a free 30 days... I fully get what the REAL reason for the 30 days is... I've been around MMO's since before they were called MMO's... the 30 days is a bribe to hopefully give themselves time to get content in for those level 50 players. Nothing more.

 

Now im curious, what on earth do you do in customer service to net a 6 figure income?

[heaveymellow]

Had they said that, people wouldn't be upset.

They are upset because the level 50s were described as "most valued customers"

Sorry but that's wrong.

I have a friend I play with, I pre-ordered, he did not.

With early access, I probably have 2 weeks on him max. He has a level 50 and my max is at almost 48. Other than that we both have a lot of alts we play too.

So tell me how exactly is he a more valued customer than I am???

 

Thats where I don't disagree, as a communications and marketing professional I would have worded the email very differently. I don't think they intended to slight anyone in their intention, but I know they did.

 

I have a 50, and an alt though I don't really play my alt much, will probably play it more now that the legacy system is out, my focus is on pvp, but for the last month, there hasn't really been that much to do, server pops are down with the anticipation of 1.2, so it's the log on, play a wz, log off.

[Atharyia]

It has nothing to do with who can provide feedback better than someone else.

 

They took Ranked WZ's out of 1.2. This only impacts people with level 50 toons. If you don't have a lvl 50 yet, then Ranked WZ's means nothing to you. But for those that it does, this could have been a bait and switch... so, they threw out a free month to those impacted the most by this last minute decision on 1.2.

 

End of story!

 

This is pretty much it. A bunch of people resubbed for rated warzones and they pulled it on the day the patch released. This is basically giving them time to fix it and put it in the game.