I know Pantheon is currently looking over Subscription ideas.
Brad had possed the question " would you pay more than the $14.99 if it was this way or that way "
I just want to suggest, pick your minimum price, but give us the ability to keep donating either mothly added to our sub, or independently -- maybe I just have an extra $20 I want to give the pantheon team.
Please make this a sub game. keeps trolls out.
I'd like to see Medjai's idea somehow. People might shy from this game and never try it out because of an unusual high subscription fee. People on this forum are all super dedicated, but we need some fresh blood also (because I can't imagine that Brad's team only aims for people on this forum here). And even if we say we'd totally pay 50 Dollars monthly, that wouldn't make up for all the people lost.
There are so many games out there that too high a price could be an instant shoot down - there are some in development which aim also for group centered gameplay. Let's keep basic subsription fee reasonable, lets say under 20 Dollars, and give us the option of doing discretely more if we can and wish.
I'm fairly use to paying £10 a month, but I'd be ok with paying £15 ($21-22) a month once it goes beyond that range I have to start thinking about the cost more.
While I agree subscription fees are fantastic and allows you to get the entire game and not worry about silly microtransactions and/or pay 2 win "features". You need to keep in mind that a lot of people that play mmorpgs, suffer from mental illness or are on general low income. You do not want to price the market to far out of range for players that want to support the game and generally are not toxic or ill mannered.
You don't want a situation where people have to start thinking about the price they are paying and weighting it against the value (we all know mmorpgs are in general great value when in subscription form). But once you start thinking can I afford this or should I be spending this on X, you start to see a large drop off in players, even ones that can quite happly afford it. Yes the dev team have a target audience, but we want there to be a healthy amount of said audiance, they've stated before they want to target the past audiance, that has grown up and left without a classic mmorpg style of game to play, with growing up comes financial responsability as well as more financial power.
Edit: Spelling
To be Honest I just want a subscription model , which covers all costs monthly so I get everything. Pretty simple circa £15 or the dollar equivalent.
I also think they shoudl offer other options : The Mythical F2P , B2P , Episodic and content management releases as well , Plus A Cosmetic Element to generate Revenue.
But Primarily they must have the subscription as option number one , after that it's upto player choice which is what it is all about.
Duffy said:
People might shy from this game and never try it out because of an unusual high subscription fee.
There's an easy answer to this problem though. Free trials. A good game will speak for itself and if they were really interested in the game they'd subscribe. £10 a month is fine to me.
F2P has it's draw backs and one of them is "allowed RMT" like Krono. If you've played on the recent progression servers in EQ you'd see there's a problem with it. People refusing in game money for items and forcing people to buy items with essentially RMT. Like what the hell is this? when we already pay a subscription to be on the server? Why do we need to buy and sell "game time"? It's exploitative and inflates the econmony instantly and I am 100% against it in any shape or form. I get trolled all the time over it, the standards have dropped.. Hell; I'd even be willing to voluntary pay extra on top of the normal sub not to see it in.
- Dear Visionary please please don't allow RMT, atleast try to block/ban it.. F2P is also bad..
I always say honesty is the best way. Show the server costs... show the active numbers.. show the minimum avg sub amount needed.. show a timescale.. That's what I'd do. Let people decide what they need to sub. Community powered. The more the big subbers put in voluntarily the lower it will be across the board (evaluated monthly). Scaleable subscription model... with maybe some small rewards the higher you sub. +With a month in hand forecast if the subs going fail to meet the target that month. Publish/forecast it.. I'm sure people like myself will chip in extra.
100% agree with Nimryl here. Please do not include anything like Krono. I went back to TLP servers and since I can buy the best gear and never leave the tunnel in CL, it makes the game boring.
Krono or anything like krono will ruin a good game no matter how good you make it.
it also promotes Mage bot armies, which also ruined the game.
And FTP should not even be a consideration. Ftp means cash shops and pay to win. Not interested in that kind of game.
Tuhart said:I'd like to see something like .
Free, very minimal price to say lvl10. (So whole world gets to try the game.)
Lvl 11 onwards Say $25 per month to give the devs enough money to make the game awesome.
I would be willing to pay even more if the game is good enough.
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Sadly i'm starting to agree with something like this. I'm old school and would prefer to pay $50+ up front and $15+ a month just to keep the servers legit and the game supported. Most people who aren't already following the game wouldn't take that leap though. Those people suck... but thats not the point :p
It's necessary to have a way for people to take a limited peek inside, for cheap, and get addicted/excited for cheap.
That being said I think if there is any easy entry pre-lvl 10 type of deal they shouldn't be allowed chat or trade. Maybe have a permanent dunce cap on the character model, etc.
And I won't touch on the merits of F2P in an MMO because their aren't any. Worst supported, least valuable feeling user experience, botting, gold farming nightmare model to ever be thought of. It makes me literally want to spend my time building robots to farm gold and ruin those games. *exhales*
It was confirmed quite a while ago that the game will be at a $15 sub price for the record, with a trial to level 10 or so. As far as I am aware that has not changed.
Just to add to my previous post (I'd like the sub fee to be about £10-15, 15 is fine. thats about $15-$22) I would also be totaly fine with the inital game cost being about £40 ($57).
I'd also expect expansions to be prices similar to the £40 range be it every 6 or 12 months. Games need funding, but I'm not sure front loading it all into the subscription is a good idea.
If the subscription was £20 a month people will start to think "I can afford 2 mmorpg subscriptions at that price." and once people start having to think about the price its a slippy slope.
A subscription model serves so many purposes it by far the best approach VR should take. First off, it normalizes the income stream for the company, allowing for some degree of income predictability and financial stability for the company.
When it comes to expansions, you can either take the EVE Online approach where expansions are free or (and I think this is the better approach) have some cost associated with them.
The key for VR is to incentivize choosing longer term committments and there are ways to encourage such a choice all based on the length of your subscription: Increasing discounts off the monthly rate for extended subscriptions (3-months, 4-month, 6-month, Annual); Increasing discounts off cost of expansions; Access to developer discussion sections of forums; Offering of various in-game swag (bigger bags, etc, nothing combat related); Special titles (in-game, forums, etc), etc.
As a player, my expectations for how I am treated increases when I committ to longer subscription models. Casinos treat high-rollers far better than some Average Joe who just walks in off the street from time to time. I know wait staff at restaurants who treat high tipping regular customers just that much better. The same should be for extended subscribers.
Mephiles said: It was confirmed quite a while ago that the game will be at a $15 sub price for the record, with a trial to level 10 or so. As far as I am aware that has not changed.
kinidin said: Thanks Mephiles. I thought I had read something like that before... but wasn't sure after reading the posts above mine. Glad to hear it! We need you guys to keep us rookies in line.
That's great. I dislike F2P when it comes to mmos.
Glad they are going with $15.
As long as there is no cash shop for any functional item in the game... I'd go $15-20 USD, but that is it. The thing is you have to realize what a legit price is for those of us that are excited about this game, may be a deciding factor for a lot of people away. I know ... I know... good riddance... but push the elitism aside and realize that subs are what pays the bills... and if your game costs more than EVERYONE elses... you are gonna lose a player for every one that get.
I could care less about cosmetic items, and the like... but as soon as people start buying mounts, potions, bags and gear along with a subscription on top of that... now you are being greedy... and that's when I start looking at other games...
I don't have a problem with a subscription as long as there are no micro transactions. I'm not going to be paying $15 a month and also have item stores. I don't care even if it's cosmetic items because just having an item store gives temptation to start adding non-cosmetic items. $$$
If Pantheon wants item stores/micro transactiosn then it needs to be F2P.
Regarding paying more than $15/month, the game would have to be really good for that.
Everybody can do $20 a month. Even if you had to beg on the street for a few hours. Seriously though, when I was like 14 I conned my dad into paying for my subscription until I could afford it myself, quite the feat for such a shrewd gentleman.
Price often dictates perceived value and is one reason the subscription model should be around $20. Players will assume its a high value game. The only thing free I would include would be a brief tutorial that teaches basic commands, much like the original EQ one. Perhaps even allow the player to create and customize the character, just enough for them to wet their beak build interest.
At the end of the day you have to pay to play.
I think the Try before you buy is ok, IF you have restrictions. Let them See trade, general, world, etc, but only let them use /say or something. or put them in a "Trial Channel" that paying players can join if they want to, but by default, it would be off.
I also think the Game itself should Cost Money. $49.99 for basic, $69.99 for Deluxe version. Something along those lines.
Don't give away all that work for free. The game is worth paying for. Sub should be $15.99
World of Warcraft players pay for every single game and expansion and there are millions of them paying it.
Brad and the team should make a video ad and post it on the FB page so we (everyone following the game here, in forums, and Facebook/Twitter followers) can "share" the ad with everyone, public shares, not just friends. Help promote the game to get Lots of players.
Surely the X number of people on these boards and FB aren't the only ones interested in a challenging MMO.
And, this game will be cross platform, and can bring in all the mac users. Trust me, there are a LOT of mac users out there. The sold 5.3 million macs last quarter and they do that every quarter.
Oh my, its this thread again.
Last time this conversation ended up causing panick and trolling across other forums on the internet. Lets not do that again. They intend for it to be $15 sub like every other game. Yes, we know everyone here is willing to pay more for our dream game, but lets not be irrational. It would be a big risk to raise the price, especially for an indie game. It won't even matter how good the game is, the higher price tag alone could have serious negative ramifications.
bigdogchris said:I don't have a problem with a subscription as long as there are no micro transactions. I'm not going to be paying $15 a month and also have item stores. I don't care even if it's cosmetic items because just having an item store gives temptation to start adding non-cosmetic items. $$$
If Pantheon wants item stores/micro transactiosn then it needs to be F2P.
Regarding paying more than $15/month, the game would have to be really good for that.
I don't want micro transactions either. Not for the same reason though...... I don't want to see all kinds of stupid mounts, stupid costumes, and everyone running around with stupid non-combat pets.
Dullahan said:Oh my, its this thread again.
Last time this conversation ended up causing panick and trolling across other forums on the internet. Lets not do that again. They intend for it to be $15 sub like every other game. Yes, we know everyone here is willing to pay more for our dream game, but lets not be irrational. It would be a big risk to raise the price, especially for an indie game. It won't even matter how good the game is, the higher price tag alone could have serious negative ramifications.
Don't think this thread is going to a bad place. My OP was asking the devs to pick a monthly cost but allow us to keep donating as well. IF we want to do so.
Nothing wrong with that request imo. If the game is half as good as I think it will be, I will donate to keep the game alive.
Medjai said:Don't think this thread is going to a bad place. My OP was asking the devs to pick a monthly cost but allow us to keep donating as well. IF we want to do so.
Nothing wrong with that request imo. If the game is half as good as I think it will be, I will donate to keep the game alive.
What Dullahan is referring to is the previous same topic on the forums, before a great deal of posts where removed. The topic ended up spreading false hoods that the dev team intended to charge $30-60 a month for a subscription and people where using it as ammunition against Brad and company to "poo poo" the game on external sites. It then became confusing for new people looking into the project as they were seeing posts about extremely high subscription costs compared to other rival companies.
As long as people understand this is just a discussion and is in no way related to the devs idea for subscription cost its usually fine, but people are constantly looking to say bad stuff about Brad and in general Pantheon. I can't wait till the game is out of NDA and has much to show, it will silent the "poo poos" and give us all something exciting to talk about. The idea of adding a donation or addition to the base subscription is a good idea, but at the same time I wouldn't want it to give any kind of advantages as again that will lead to more of a mess than a help.
Another nice thing with aditional subscription, would be once the company is stable and on their feet and able to, they could do charity runs where for Month or two all additional subscription costs would go to a charity of the pantheon teams choice.