Who feels like a valued subscriber?

[Ten_Ton_Hammer]

Because Star Wars is probably one of the most iconic franchises on this planet.

 

 

And that means what? Star wars fans need to get some special treatment? George Lucas made changes to the original trilogy, made creative decisions, and released terrible prequels that infuriated the fanbase many times over.

Edited May 16, 2013 by Ten_Ton_Hammer

[Philastra]

The problem is that the customer has been conditioned to accept this. When I was playing MMO's 10 years ago they valued their subs, gave monthly cosmetic rewards, events w/e. Now ppl think your sub should pay for just basic game functions, nothing more. Which I really don't get why MMO's have went this direction (well I do they want more money). The player base just accepts it keeps paying them for things that a sub should get.

 

The MMO community certainly has changed, Remember in SWG when the Devs would hang out and spawn AT-AT's or what ever in Theed on the weekends for fun, or if you had a suit Mando before the armor color kits you could write a ticket and a DEV would come and color it for you while you talked to them? Or the fact that almost everything in that game was player made. This is just one example but ppl felt connected to that community. For myself I miss games like that but like I said ppl just accept less for more $.

 

They could have made the game more community based, they didn't and put a lot things that players could craft,fight bosses for the new items and actually play the game and give players reasons to leave the fleet instead of just pressing the market button and entering a credit card number.

 

They keep saying "LOOK OVER THERE" we have an update around the corner, they have said this time and time again to help quell the backlash and it seems to work for em. There is no way that the money they are making even remotely reflects the quality of updates we get.

[TUXs]

Im shuddering what they are going to charge in cc for the sssp, thats if they charge cc at all for it.

 

Probably only $10 for the SSSP...but it will be more commercially appealing than Ewoks! They'll sell ships, ship paints, ship patterns, ship 'looks', ship skins. The post SSSP CM is going to be the focus.

Edited May 16, 2013 by TUXs

[Vassise]

I only pay 15 dollars a month. A movie and Dinner costs me more than that.

 

So for 15 dollars, the number of hours entertainment I get from SWTOR is great value.

 

If you dont think its good value, unsub and play for free. No ones forcing you to sub.

 

You need food to live, out of the question.

 

A movie, you watch once, but you cant ask the makers to change the movie if you like it or not.

 

A subscription is a service, just like cable or something. I can get hours of entertainment from watching TV. Eventually, it starts to get boring because they havent added any new documentaries or shows in a while. Then they say "pay extra for these new shows". And then I cancel my tv subscription.

[Vassise]

And that means what? Star wars fans need to get some special treatment? George Lucas made changes to the original trilogy, made creative decisions, and released terrible prequels that infuriated the fanbase many times over.

 

Its called high expectations. For a star wars mmo, they fail to achieve even the most basic of expectations.

[Omisri]

If I was a game developer/community manager/EA/Bioware....

 

I would value subscribers above free players and make content for them so they can ENJOY the game and I'd want to ENJOY making FUN content for those dedicated players.

 

 

Then you would make a terrible game developer.

 

As a game developer, all areas should be valued. Free to play players shouldn't be treated like lower class citizens. Most would be 14 - 18 year olds that don't have the funds for a sub... but make up the majority of gamers around the globe. Whether you like it or not, its these that have can influence a games success rating by interacting more with social sites such as YouTube, Facebook, twitter etc.

 

As a sub I believe content outside of expansion packs should be accessible to everyone to make the game more enjoyable for everyone. Fluff and convenience abilities / items should be given as extras to subs (as with discounted expansion prices) where free to play would have to purchase.

Edited May 16, 2013 by Omisri

[Vassise]

Then you would make a terrible game developer.

 

As a game developer, all areas should be valued. Free to play players shouldn't be treated like lower class citizens. Most would be 14 - 18 year olds that don't have the funds for a sub... but make up the majority of gamers around the globe. Whether you like it or not, its these that have can influence a games success rating by interacting more with social sites such as YouTube, Facebook, twitter etc.

 

As a sub I believe content outside of expansion packs should be accessible to everyone to make the game more enjoyable for everyone. Fluff and convenience abilities / items should be given as extras to subs (as with discounted expansion prices) where free to play would have to purchase.

 

A terrible game developer like Bioware/EA?

 

Right now the subbers are feeling like lower class citizens, despite giving the game a constant amount of money. (im ready for someone to quote me on that and go " YOU DONT SPEAK FOR THE COMMUNITY" )

 

If I was a game developer i would make the dedicated subscribers more important than the free players who are playing the game for nothing.

Edited May 16, 2013 by Vassise

[Ten_Ton_Hammer]

Its called high expectations. For a star wars mmo, they fail to achieve even the most basic of expectations.

 

 

Lofty expectations are fine, but I think you have a minority opinion there. The guy who made star wars has given the middle finger to fans a bunch of times. If you have high expectations at this point, that's on you.

[Omisri]

A terrible game developer like Bioware/EA?

 

Right now the subbers are feeling like lower class citizens, despite giving the game a constant amount of money. (im ready for someone to quote me on that and go " YOU DONT SPEAK FOR THE COMMUNITY" )

 

If I was a game developer i would make the dedicated subscribers more important than the free players who are playing the game for nothing.

 

I can't deny that bioware have done a terrible job themselves. F2P models should be built into the game during initial development and not added on top of.

 

Subs may feel like lower class citizens, but the answer isn't to turn on f2p'ers for a games success. Plus they are not "playing the game for nothing", they had to buy the initial game... As with any other game

[Cleet_Xia]

*SNIP*

 

They keep saying "LOOK OVER THERE" we have an update around the corner, they have said this time and time again to help quell the backlash and it seems to work for em. There is no way that the money they are making even remotely reflects the quality of updates we get.

 

I expect them to make money.

 

Heck, I even expect the CM to be updated more frequently than additional content as part of my sub.

 

What I don't expect is for them to keep putting a majority chunk of everything new behind a CC paywall, and then telling me that, "It's Okay, that's why we give you a stipend."

 

The value of the stipend is shrinking with every update, and all I'm hearing is ,"Wait for the next update."

 

Well, who wants to bet that next update adds more content with a majority of it's best looking or most important parts gated behind yet another CC paywall?

 

How long is going to be before the number of paywalls is great enough that you give in and start buying CC on top of paying your sub? ~ because this is the situation that they are already setting up.

Edited May 16, 2013 by Cleet_Xia

[Ten_Ton_Hammer]

What paywall?

 

The only thing behind a cartel market paywall is completely optional dress up gear

[DarthTHC]

Sounds like you'd run the game straight into the pavement. Also sounds like you're not thinking quite clearly about what the cartel market is, and that is.... content for subscribers. For indeed, your subscription grants you access to the breadth and depth of the cartel market. Of course, not all of it at once, but you can pick and choose the items that are interesting to you and get them with your subscription.

 

ahmigerd, you have a CHOICE on how to play the game and expend the resources (time, credits, gear, coins) the game gives you.

 

Far better than the opposite situation, in which you'd have thousands of coins and nothing worthwhile to spend them on, right?

[Philastra]

Sums up my sub http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2UsUNDhQhnQ

[CosmicKat]

Then you would make a terrible game developer.

 

As a game developer, all areas should be valued. Free to play players shouldn't be treated like lower class citizens. Most would be 14 - 18 year olds that don't have the funds for a sub... but make up the majority of gamers around the globe. Whether you like it or not, its these that have can influence a games success rating by interacting more with social sites such as YouTube, Facebook, twitter etc.

 

As a sub I believe content outside of expansion packs should be accessible to everyone to make the game more enjoyable for everyone. Fluff and convenience abilities / items should be given as extras to subs (as with discounted expansion prices) where free to play would have to purchase.

 

Teens haven't been the "average gamer" since the 80's-90's. It's an adult hobby now and has been for a long time. The last stats I remember put the average age of gamers around 30.

 

The only reason any business should give away their product for free is to entice people to spend money on it later. In this regard, the F2P scheme gives away too much. TOR's only unique feature is its storyline and that is completely free for anyone. They give away the most popular feature of the game for nothing, and then they charge exorbitant prices for value added services (known as "fluff" in Newspeak).

 

The situation you have in TOR now is that the F2P option exists to pad the player numbers. This is done for a few reasons, the legitimate one being that an MMO that does not have enough players is doomed, no matter how good the game is. The 'shady' reason you do this is for the pure optics of marketing, more people must mean it's better!

 

The CM, and specifically its focus on gambling, is targeted to take advantage of the small core of uber fans who are willing to pay any amount to support a bazillion dollar corporation... I mean game. The only reason this works is because of the IP. Geeks wouldn't spend the hundreds and thousands they are spending without the tie to Star Wars.

Edited May 16, 2013 by CosmicKat

[Arkerus]

I personally feel very valued. I have very few issues in regards to what I get to access as a subscriber.

 

If I ever don't feel that way I will stop my sub and walk away.

[Arkerus]

The problem is that the customer has been conditioned to accept this. When I was playing MMO's 10 years ago they valued their subs, gave monthly cosmetic rewards, events w/e. Now ppl think your sub should pay for just basic game functions, nothing more. Which I really don't get why MMO's have went this direction (well I do they want more money). The player base just accepts it keeps paying them for things that a sub should get.

 

The MMO community certainly has changed, Remember in SWG when the Devs would hang out and spawn AT-AT's or what ever in Theed on the weekends for fun, or if you had a suit Mando before the armor color kits you could write a ticket and a DEV would come and color it for you while you talked to them? Or the fact that almost everything in that game was player made. This is just one example but ppl felt connected to that community. For myself I miss games like that but like I said ppl just accept less for more $.

 

They could have made the game more community based, they didn't and put a lot things that players could craft,fight bosses for the new items and actually play the game and give players reasons to leave the fleet instead of just pressing the market button and entering a credit card number.

 

They keep saying "LOOK OVER THERE" we have an update around the corner, they have said this time and time again to help quell the backlash and it seems to work for em. There is no way that the money they are making even remotely reflects the quality of updates we get.

 

Games are also now much more expensive to create. That's the driving factor in the new business model.

 

Welcome to real life.

[PunisherAS]

I loled at the title.

[WarbNull]

Short answer to the OP.

 

No, I do not feel like a valued customer anymore. Not after the direction they have taken this game.

[dipstik]

obviously i want more for my money. i doubt there is anything bioware can do to satiate my greed.

[djslakgi]

That's exactly it. I play the actual game whenever I want with no restrictions or issues. That's what I give my $15 per month for. I give them additional money as well for cartel items because they are appealing to me.

 

If you feel you aren't valued and get by as a preferred account then by all means do so. They owe us nothing beyond what we already get. I expect nothing more because I get everything they promised already.

 

Think about where this road can lead. Lowering expectations. Pretty soon the 15$ will only be to cover their electric bill and we will have to pay extra for everything else.

[DarthTHC]

Think about where this road can lead. Lowering expectations. Pretty soon the 15$ will only be to cover their electric bill and we will have to pay extra for everything else.

 

I guess I'll start worrying about that the first time it looks like I'll actually have to pay extra for anything in the game.

 

For the moment, I'm getting fair value for my subscription, as evidenced by my continued ability to post to this forum.

[Ten_Ton_Hammer]

I hate the slippery slope argument. It's stupid. Just because some dress up gear was featured in an update (A feature the community was ASKING FOR and waiting for since launch) does not mean everything about the game is going cartel only.

[Englefield]

It's not so much that I don't feel valued as a player, so much is I don't feel like they value the subscription fee. I actually had a really nice response to an issue in game that made me feel really happy, though, in which in multiple, similar situations in other games we were mostly ignored. That makes me feel valued. But clearly, the subscription alone is no longer enough.

 

For me this is absolutely spot on.

 

I made a point on a similar thread about where EAs focus lies. When f2p launched I thought the tough restrictions that were imposed were there to try and get more people to subscribe, which I thought was a good idea for a struggling game. I'm pretty sure now that's not the case, probably after looking at the money that the CM has landed it now appears that the CM is where the future focus of this game will be.

 

So no, for this reason as the poster I quoted above said, I don't feel valued as a subscriber. It doesn't matter how many complaints there are in this forum though. The only thing that will matters is how much money they'll make/lose and I'm pretty certain that if they were to lose tens of thousands of subs by this shift of focus but make up for that in CC sales they will consider this patch (and subsequent CM patches) a great success.

[branmakmuffin]

I hate the slippery slope argument. It's stupid. Just because some dress up gear was featured in an update (A feature the community was ASKING FOR and waiting for since launch) does not mean everything about the game is going cartel only.

Yes, that is one of the stupidest complaints ever. BWEA will never gate basic adventuring content behind the CM. They obviously will charge $ for what they consider to be major expansions like RotHC (whether or not RoTHC is a "major expansion" is obviously a matter of opinion, but only one entity's opinion counts).

 

I also gotta laugh at the irony of all the people who post, in multiple threads, about how horrible the game is, yet they can only post if they are subscribers. So I guess that game isn't all that horrible for them.

[Philastra]

The reason some subs feel the way they do imo is like this...

 

You goto a movie and pay the ticket price.

 

Get into the theater and realize all the seats have locks on em, ushers tell you just paid to see the movie if you wanna sit its extra.

 

You pay to sit and the movie starts and all you get is the picture, the ushers tell you paid to see the movie not hear it, sound is extra.

Edited May 16, 2013 by Philastra