has there been any talk of wether there will be expansion packs or zones here and there as freebies/paid zones or wow style expanions where a expansion is half done then 6 months ish later you get the other half ?or perhaps most new content will be changes to existing zones?
It would be nice to provide a new spin on expansions, not just a new chunk of land that mysteriously appeared. War raveging an area and changing the landscape. Dwaves digging into a mountain uncover a new area. I'm not that creative, I'm sure the team at VR would know better. Just something a bit new and interesting than a huge continent :)
Part of the subscription model is the understanding that a portion of the fee is going towards continual development of new content and bug fixes of old content as well as the server/cs upkeep costs. Conversely though the subscription model only supports a relatively low number of new content development man hours. Large expansions will often over run the man hour budget and will need to have those costs recouped. Those costs are usually absorbed in the expansion sale price. Once the additional development costs have been covered then the expansion is usually added to the initial purchase of the game with no additional cost.
VR being a lean team will either put out new content very slowly through the subscription model or will need to outsource then charge for large content additions. Depending on the quality and intensity of launch VR may be able to change their target size and the more total number of subscriptions the more money that same % of a subscription generates which can be used to purchase content man hours.
Short answer is that its too early to talk about the monetization and development cycle of expansions as we are so far from launch.
Trasak said:Part of the subscription model is the understanding that a portion of the fee is going towards continual development of new content and bug fixes of old content as well as the server/cs upkeep costs. ....
Agreed.
Looking back and assuming the original EQ was successful, just for conversation let's use:
Subscription prices were $15/mo or $180/yr
New expansions averaged $45 and came out every six months or $90/yr
So expansions were roughly one-third of revenues and subscription fees two-thirds.
Subscription fees, adjusted for inflation should start at $18, minimum and the escalate from there. I know this is not a popular sentiment but (sorry not sorry) I think we should pay $40-50/mo for a subscription because we know we aren't going to get two expansions a year.
Ask yourself this question: in hindsight, how much would you have paid to keep the magic going from 1999-2003? To have that magic forever, I would easily have paid $1000/yr
Point is: VR needs to be brave and bold and not undercharge while trying to make customers happy. Running out of money and shuttering Terminus in 2-3 years is not keeping customers happy.
There needs to be a cultural effort to promote the value and why it's worth a lot more than games charge currently.
fazool said:Subscription fees, adjusted for inflation should start at $18, minimum and the escalate from there. I know this is not a popular sentiment but (sorry not sorry) I think we should pay $40-50/mo for a subscription because we know we aren't going to get two expansions a year.
I get the sentiment of quality over quantity and tailoring a game to a clearly defined sub group will make design decisions easier, at least until that subgroup begins to disagree. I am not sure how to make the “Country Club” model work for an MMO though. The high fees there are to passively create a socio-economic boundary so that social elites have somewhere to go to network and feel elite. If you do not value the “elitism” then a Country Club has very little appeal, especially if you only think golf clubs are good for chasing the neighbor kids of your lawn.
$50 a month is going to be a real boundary for many and almost impossible for a multi account households. Before I finally got my current job $100 a month was about our entire family entertainment budget and that was higher then most of our friends.
Pantheon is going to have a set fixed cost to stay open, an adjustable cost for growth rate and a scaled cost based on the number of users. An ultra high subscription cost will have the set and adjustable costs on fewer shoulders and possibly would drop the scale able costs bellow the highest efficiency rate. As much as I may wish it otherwise I do not think Pantheon will actually offer game play good enough to justify $50 a month for more than a few thousand users. Maybe if it was the first a hardcore, massive sandbox world, skill based, virtually reality real action MMORPG the exclusivity would be enough to justify an ultra high subscription price but what is essentially a return to EQ style gameplay is going to be a tough sale.
A combination that I think might work for VR is a 3xscale-able cost subscription price with the target that there are enough accounts for 1/3rd of the subscription cost cover the fixed costs. Then run a Kickstarter to prefund each expansion developments with contracted resources. Basically once enough money is pledged then the expansion gets contracted. When the expansion launches all pledges will gain access to it and the non-pledgers will pay a fee to access it which immediately dumps into the next cash pool for an expansion. Somewhere in there the investors need a source of profit as well which makes things more complicated.
I think 2 expansions a year is a bit hard to keep up with, especially with a slow leveling horizontal approach. I think, once a year gives enough time to allow the hard core to blast through and show off and the filthy casuals to take that year to make it or get close. New expansions however also need to be somewhat tailored to attract new players but not so much that new players forgoe the older zones or areas.
Manouk said:I think 2 expansions a year is a bit hard to keep up with, especially with a slow leveling horizontal approach. I think, once a year gives enough time to allow the hard core to blast through and show off and the filthy casuals to take that year to make it or get close. New expansions however also need to be somewhat tailored to attract new players but not so much that new players forgoe the older zones or areas.
I really liked the approach that CCP Games settled on for EVE. Two expansions a year but one of them was of a smaller scale, almost a mini-expansion really. Yet having content introduced at that pace was quite nice. Their big expansions though were really big.
Quseio2017 said:has there been any talk of wether there will be expansion packs or zones here and there as freebies/paid zones or wow style expanions where a expansion is half done then 6 months ish later you get the other half ?or perhaps most new content will be changes to existing zones?
Nothing has been stated regarding the implementation plans of future expansions. It is safe to assume that expansions will be released on a scheduled time frame and will cost just as much as the base game. It is also safe to assume that new content/ free content could be made available through scheduled patching.
It has been stated by the developers that the current map of Terminus that we have is not a complete map. Joppa said something about Thronefast sending out expeditions to the northern tundras and somewhere else. It is possible that these two areas may appear in future patches, or perhaps a future expansion. It a bit too early to tell because that comes down to the developers deciding if this content is worthy of its own dedicated expansion.
I would assume that we will hear more about expansion/patching plans somewhere between the end of alpha testing and the end of beta testing. While it is never too early to make plans for the future, in some sense it can be too early to discuss those plans. Right now Pantheon is still in late Pre-alpha and there are still core systems under development. It's a bit too early to discuss detailed plans for the future when the base game is still under development.
Also gotta consider basic supply and demand. If you charge $50 a month it doesn't mean you're going to have a higher revenue than if you charge $10 a month, or even $5. They have to find out how much people are willing to pay, how many people are willing to pay those prices, what their upkeep costs are, etc.
It's not just a matter of "charge more and we'll more money
Side note, when EQ first came out it wasn't $15 a month :) WoW was the first game I played that charged that much.
You all might find this thread interesting:
https://www.pantheonmmo.com/content/forums/topic/8782/pantheon-expansion-timeline
As in all things, the place to start is to read the FAQ. http://pantheonmmo.com/game/faqs/
Check out the section titled "Payment Model".
That's as much as we know.