What does it take to get veterans to return to the game?

[weretiger302]

Kurt, I know what you're saying, and yes I wish more CEOs would think a little more long term about some of their decisions. But they don't, it's just a sad fact. B/c if they sacrifice the short-term profit for long term profits, someone will come in, take the quick bump, increasing shareholder value along the way, and the "good" CEO will no longer be there.

But enough of this- since I'm getting moderated for trying to defend funcom's business practice, I'll just stop. Thanks Anzu!!! See you in legoland

[Anzu]

the moderators [...] dancing

Easy. You can see the French Mods dancing here, and the epic skills of Melcolm here.

[Tomium]

You should see it when they don't get along...

[Drest]

I can't dance https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xgUkEPV_674

[Boomthunder]

Mods please stop derailing the topic... (oh snap! *ducks and runs* )

I think there's a few subjects at play here:

1) What would it take to get me to return at all (f2p)
2) What would it take to get me to subscribe
3) What would I be willing to spend money (fc points) on as F2P or subbed

I'll attack these in two ways: As a returning player and as if I were a brand new player.

1) As a returning player: Again, access to all that I've bought (Up to T1 old world, keep higher things off limits) and my characters. The why: Cutting off access to something someone has paid for and asking them to pay again to access it creates ill-will. They are trying to entice me to play, and by playing spend money in some fashion. Saying thanks for buying this stuff in the past but you can't play with it doesn't work for me. I would even be willing to accept not being able to use certain gear - perhaps can't buy gear but can get drops or the reverse. As a new player: Opening up T1 raids would give a real sense of the game. Leave the other restrictions in place unless they buy them - they never owned Khitai and never had many characters. I wouldn't expect that as a new player since I would have no history of buying things from FC. Net effect for both would be easier to fill raids, a by product of that is f2p players wanting more, buying or subscribing, joining guilds, stronger community and better word of mouth.

2) For me to subscribe as a returning player: All in one access. Could be as simple as subscribe to TSW and AOC, get AO free. Maybe a small price break or a higher % off purchases. I'd like to see more worth while perks to long term subscriptions - it was basically the same for years. Give me less experience potions, more things of interest. I would like to see more variety of content - pets, vanity, character titles, so on, for purchase. Personally I think housing would be a HUGE money maker for AOC and would draw a certain amount of people back - it could potentially revitalize crafting. As a new player to subscribe it would go back somewhat to question 1. Knowing if I went F2P what I bought would be accessable with restrictions on gold carried, higher tier raids, etc. It's harder for me to put myself in the position of a brand new player and how to jump right into subscription when I feel F2P doesn't give me enough taste of the game to warrant paying for a subscription. Opening up T1 and Vissy would help a LOT in getting new players deeper in to the game, feel value to the community and tempting them to subscribe.

3) What would I be willing to pay money for. As a paid subscriber: Basically vanity items/toys/etc at a more reasonable price point. Some things aren't too bad, others feel to high to tempt me in to buying them. For example a 122 slots is not worth 25$ to me, more so when it's 70ish slots over the bag of abundance I have. Mounts are not worth $10+ to me when I have 3 or 4 already. Armour packs at 5$ I think is a decent price. Just examples. If housing were available all bets would be off. My concern would be FC being able to crank out enough content to keep decorators happy. As a F2P player I would look at some of the same in terms of vanity items. As a brand new player I'd probably look at T2 access (assuming they opened up T1 to F2P) and maybe some early Khitai dungeons. Would probably also consider some vanity items.

Funcom is in this to make money, no doubt, and the money is there to be made. Not knocking that, just giving my opinion on what it'd take to get me to play again at all. When I stopped playing I was doing some T3 and some Khitai hard modes. I see little point in taking any of my available 80's (obviously the ones I'd unlock) and doing... what? Turan? Villas? I guess. There's simply not enough there for me to want to do with current restrictions and I'm not interested in paying for access to content I already bought. I can't play any of my low characters because they're locked away (as well as the 80's I couldn't unlock). Preventing access to them makes me think why bother, not I should buy them their freedom. As a new player I could see buying a character slot to try a new class, just not buying back access to a character/class I know.

The onus is on FC to entice me back - it's not there.

End of wall of text.... for now..

[iudexinferi]

Boomthunder;

You make a good point with your first for sure.

I started playing again a bit today, and instantly got messaged on steam by a old AOC buddy;

---
bele: wut
bele: Why do you do this?!
Iudex: Why I play the best MMO in the world!?
bele: ive ranted before cba making myself disappointed in the game again by ranting :P
Iudex: the sense of letdown is cause you havent played it in a long time!
Da8 / Ndbele: the sense of letdown is because if i go and try to replay it now i dont have access to any of the content i paid for
Iudex: doing every single quest, and its actually somewhat fun :P
---

So your comment about being cut off from paid content seems to resonate.

[Kesha]

The AoC F2P model suck... subscribers have access to some raids and unchained dungeons but the lack of new content don't deserve the price of a subscribtion each month. Perhaps funcom should change this economic model and ask for a big expansion on crowdfounding to get money to develop it and they'll see how many people want to pay. And after they could sell it as dlc (on steam too for advertising) with that they coulf give access to ALL Aoc content in F2P except extensions like khitai or Ardashir and new zones which could be sold as dlc, not as a subscription...
A large amount of money could come from the ingame shop by selling missing stuff like :
- potion of attributes only obtainable by shity lottery box
- untag scroll for dungeon or raids
- special visual effects on weapons/armors
- all social pets and costumes obtainable ingame for people who don't want to farm.
The only free dev on this game could be bug fixes, craft rewamp, network amelioration and class balancing and fixing

[legionarium]

all work for update news in aoc atm are stop???
funcom the realy problem is much slow work for put out new update this is first problem , later we need all news up new sistem crafting with maybe include news set pvp T4???
more important we need incentive very hight for mini mode tournament + pvp event ever on in fury!
i again hope in funcom why this is realy again the best game in this clas!
but plz give us some info up your work!

[ssnowsurfer]

Make Guardians competitive tanks.

Last night tanking the World Boss.

My highly geared long played Guardian = Could only steal aggro off of DTs/Conqs for a few seconds, was virtually worthless.

My DT with average gear = Easily held aggro, got aggro even when I wasn't even trying or using any taunts.

My Conq with average gear = Easily held aggro/swapped aggro.

FIX GUARDIANS! WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR???

[Numpty]

PICTS!

We wanna fight PICTS!!