With seven new character slot scheduled to be available to current members who are rolled over into the new membership deals..the OFFLINE levels we've accumulated are very valuable to us long-term veterans.
The Offlines would ENCOURAGE us to start new toons ...it would allow us to PLAY and then SKIP what we don't like ..all of us would be in tortage to ATLEAST level 16 ..and many still playing a bit through their favourite low level areas until level 30 ...
as for the USE THEM OR LOSE THEM from Funcom ...with two to three weeks notice of this....NOT ENOUGH TIME for most people to level up multiple characters from tortage beach to level 30 to use their offlines
... but I've done this on one account in the past..rushed to get characters up in level to use offlines before the sub ran out...and really NOT enjoyed the experience ...not playing because I wanted to play that character doing those quests, learning the strengths and weakness of the class as I go ..but just to get to x level to use something I was going to lose ... it soured my gaming experience....
and of course most of your current subscribers will NOT HAVE any slots available upon which they CAN expend their offline levels...so we can't "use them" before they disappear....but not all of us had reached our max character number so could still buy another character slot at some time to play ...and hence the offlines are still valuable if not currently useable.
..... but without offlines I really don't think I can be bothered to do anything other make 7 more level 5 bank toons ..well actually 14 more bank toons..as I have two paid accounts at the moment.
I would also like to point out: when membership changes get rolled out...you WILL have a lot of your current members who are pretty oblivious to the proposed changes ...they won't have come to these forums and read the multi-page posts. They will NOT have read the notes on the game screen as it loads... this I KNOW will occur because every time there is a down time or change there are a flood of questions in global about them. SO REMOVING benefits from your current vets WILL have a lot of people very very angry ....they will NOT have been informed before you implement it ..and with removal of things like offlines..they will be angry because they will not have had time to "use them" before they lost them ...cause they weren't aware offlines NOW have an expiry date..and this goes to ANYTHING else you are removing, changing or relocating (eg free feat spec trees when subscribed).