Subscription fee is a rip off

[Clue]

If you don't like the cost and terms of the sub, you have the option of F2P. If you don't like the terms of F2P, you don't have to play this game.

It's pretty simple really. They can't and won't do this all for free for you.

[blynd]

Absolutely its still worth it.

Ive been no stranger to criticizing funcom and Craig. If the company hadn't made some significant changes in the last month or two my answer would be different. But as it stands;

Yeah the dev numbers may been down, but we have a new game director which most of us PVEers and PVPers(at least in the US servers) have been wanting for years.

We have new marketing ventures to bring back population and they seem to be working(in spite of some people's hatred of steam, I also found out, last night, that some of the budget seems to have been spent on youtube banner Ads....this alone is a MASSIVE departure from the company's previous stance on promoting it's games).

We have Funcom representatives back on the forums and more importantly people who actually seem to want to hear suggestions.(how/if they implement those is a different matter. this is still a great step in the right direction.)

Finally, there arent any other games on the market that are halfway decent, IMO, if there were I'd be play them instead and I suspect, OP, so would you. So 10 pound or $15 a month for a game I still enjoy...really that's like the amount I pay for beer after work.

And there's not a lot of evidence that FC have put these measure into place simply to sell the game off. Companies dont typically expend marketing money on a project thats already bleeding money if they simply want to sell it, cause there's no guarantee that the money spent with be returned.

Im not suddenly becoming a fanboi, but there's a lot of steps in the right direction happening. If it keeps going and the game improves great I'll stay around and if they screw it up. Im gone, thats it.

You will find any company trying to find a new owner will try to make themselves as atractive as possible. And banner ads on youtube are pay per click and cost pence each time not thousands so its the most economic way to advertise. And the restructuring allows them to spend on advertising so they look a better proposition then the financial reports alone show. Its simple business I've seen it countless times in my line if work.

[Manilavanilla]

negative thread on day 1, well done :-/

I do NOT agree, in fact everything is rather too cheap and the F2P is much too open, look at how EA is monetizing, you better need to charge for everything to make money, ability bars, number of PvP warzones, hide headslot, vanity tab, then the premium really feels premium if you get all this restrictions removed.

for f2p you need to reduce credit gain and XP gain.


then people will love to go premium and have all the restrictions removed, 15 bucks is standard, don't get any lower or it would be ridiculous.
If something costs nothing, it will be worth to the players nothing.

Raise the prices would be my suggestion, or make F2P more restrictive

EA is doing it right imho from a business point of view

[shigazane]

negative thread on day 1, well done :-/

I do NOT agree, in fact everything is rather too cheap and the F2P is much too open, look at how EA is monetizing, you better need to charge for everything to make money, ability bars, number of PvP warzones, hide headslot, vanity tab, then the premium really feels premium if you get all this restrictions removed.

for f2p you need to reduce credit gain and XP gain.


then people will love to go premium and have all the restrictions removed, 15 bucks is standard, don't get any lower or it would be ridiculous.
If something costs nothing, it will be worth to the players nothing.

Raise the prices would be my suggestion, or make F2P more restrictive

EA is doing it right imho from a business point of view

EA is not doing it right, as it is actually LOSING more than it's making. People are not buying passes, people are not buying subs, people are not buying unlocks. They are just playing the storyline. They lost half of their playerbase AGAIN after releasing f2p because of its crappy model. If you dont believe me, you obviously dont play SWTOR at all.

In a free to play model one should be able to completely remove restriction for a fee. If someone were to buy content, they should get content. Something Age of Conan does not currently do, and the reason it's f2p model has flopped, and will eventually flop again after the steam hype.

People have stated time and time again that they would come back AND SPEND MONEY if they simply had the expansion that they previously purchased unlocked for them to play. They have purchased it after all. This game is bleeding money, and bleeding players.

Now on to the actual subject at hand: Yes, it is a ripoff, but not in the way you are stating OP, it is a ripoff because it doesn't have any true incentive. Aside from just having unlocks there is nothing else backing up a sub (stated in a dev post before server change). They also agreed f2p was too restricted to get people to play (which I also agree with). How they handle these two things will decide the fate of not only Funcom, but the games playerbase in general. I dont know about you guys, but I'm not a big fan of empty servers, and would like to see Age of Conan prosper rather than flop horribly.

The subscription needs to offer more. It's price does not need changed. It should be given boosts that f2pers just cant get such as, but not limited to:

1) Currency gain increases
2) Drop chance increases
3) XP increases
4) Speed of AA point acquiring

F2P should also be able to play this game efficiently via the cash shop, which they cant at the moment. Somethings that could be added are:

1) Purchasing Rise of the God Slayer should unlock the expansion and its content regardless of access level (f2p or p2p).

... Actually that pretty much sums up everything f2p really needs.

[LunaticAsylumLA]

The subscription needs to offer more. It's price does not need changed. It should be given boosts that f2pers just cant get such as, but not limited to:

1) Currency gain increases
2) Drop chance increases
3) XP increases
4) Speed of AA point acquiring

No way. The experience and AA gaining speed is insane at the moment, and the only option to follow that rule would be lowering the current speed for F2P players. While I think that it might be a good move, I do not think that others will share that opinion.
Therefore, just leave the AA, currency, XP, and drop chances as they are for all three models (F2P, semi-F2P (unlocked chat), Premium).
Subsciption model is very good at the moment.

[CultofXtc]

Any company that in 18 months dumps 90% of the work force

90% of all statistics are made up. Like your's.

[blynd]

Well when the take over goes through can isay I told you so ???

[Scythie]

Well when the take over goes through can isay I told you so ???

You may.

To OP.
Personally i love the game and i am happy to pay for it. I spend almost every evening with my friends in raids and instances or just hanging out. Have done it for three years now and i don't see any reason to stop until it has stopped being fun.

Do i get value for money? You betcha.

[Balacai]

Right now, it is worth it to sub just for the content you miss out on by being F2P. Joel has commented on this, saying there needs to be more reasons to WANT to sub, and less reasons to NEED to sub. I agree with him here, but as it is now, it is definitely worth it to pay to play. Like someone else mentioned, the price of a month sub is about the cost of going to the movies once. I'll happily pay $15 to have unlimited entertainment for 30 days.

[marlasca]

The trend these days for MMOs is to go B2P, not F2P with lots of restrictions... look at the good it's done GW2, TSW compared to SWTOR and TERA.
Apparently, once committed to the f2p model, it's difficult for AoC to convert to B2P, but I think this game would've had lots more returning if you paid once and got all existing content available, then pay for any new content if you choose to opt in for that.
As a retired "veteran" player now playing GW2/TSW instead, I miss AoC for its style, but Crom be damned if I will ever pay a company a subscription fee again. And I've paid Funcom enough years' worth of subs and got "little" back to get back on that bandwagon.

So, I'm stuck as f2p and ultra casual logger in AoC until such time a b2p-esque model is introduced. I'd happily pay a one time fee of $50 again and have AoC available to me with all its current content until the end of its days.