Subscription fee is a rip off

[MentalMiK]

As per title £10.34 GBP a month for next to nothing in terms of content and game fixes, not only that 90% of the AOC dev team have lost their jobs, so what is it exactly we are paying for. Do you seriously expect people to pay the same when the game has had that much staff removed, I mean Moderated by SciIti : I think you were unable to bring content out on time before the massive cuts god knows how bad it will be now, if there will be any at all.

We want to play the game, make it reasonable for us to do so and set a realistic price for what we are getting, which imo right now should be £15 per quarter and even that is to me still generous on the subscribers/players part.

Moderated by SciIti : I think Joel is trying to reassure us without the means to do so. We won't be seeing any miracles with a skeleton crew of devs, so it's time for funcom to stop Moderated by SciIti : charging us so much and get real with their prices.

So a question to other players, do you think it is fair you're still paying the same sub price, considering the reduction in staff and service?

[Anubium]

If you buy an annual pass (or look for gamecards) you can pay $9/month for this game. It costs more than that in my area to go to a first run movie and get snacks. Why is it so horrible to pay to play a game?

EQOA ran for another five years with little to no dev support (no new areas, no new bosses, each boss only popped about once a week so the entire server had to wait for one kill)...and it was 15/month til the close with a lot of people doing multiaccounts at once (i.e. quad playing) which cost about 60/month.

Sorry, but if you are paying for a high end computer, high speed internet, whatever item stuff you need...the small fee a month for 24/7 game entertainment plus the forums does not seem like a high price to pay to me.

I'd like to see a ton of new content myself...but Funcom just brought in a new game director, they have to reshuffle their staff and it will take a bit of time to get back into gear.

At least we have someone who will talk to us and looks interested in player input. Give him a couple of months then we can complain about no new content.

I'm playing til the game ends though. Nothing else out there gives me any interest and this game is videoyoga for me.

[blynd]

While ill agree Joel is interested in the game he is here to hold it together while the board find a buyer for funcom. Its common sence to put the most senior Dev in charge as it saves getting someone from outside in when any new buyer will look at the redundwncy package of the game director. So while I like Joel and what he stands for he is just as screwed as the players cause he has to keep 3 games going while all the time knowing his job will be gone in a few months. No matter how good a job he does any new owner will want to appoint thee own man.

So anything joel is sable to do is a plus in my book cause hea damned if he does and damned if he doesn't


B

[TeamVernia]

While ill agree Joel is interested in the game he is here to hold it together while the board find a buyer for funcom. Its common sence to put the most senior Dev in charge as it saves getting someone from outside in when any new buyer will look at the redundwncy package of the game director. So while I like Joel and what he stands for he is just as screwed as the players cause he has to keep 3 games going while all the time knowing his job will be gone in a few months. No matter how good a job he does any new owner will want to appoint thee own man.

So anything joel is sable to do is a plus in my book cause hea damned if he does and damned if he doesn't


B

Source for all this insider info?

[blynd]

Source for all this insider info?

There own Q3 finacial reprt and common sence.

Any company that in 18 months dumps 90% of the work force dumps the new game they ar working on and then appoints a guy with 4years experiance as nothing more then lead designer for rotgs as the GD for 3 games. He is handcuffed by the ability to put GD on his next CV and get a good job off the back of it. Nothing against joel but no company would do what funcom have done if they weren't already backed inroa corner and trying to find a new owner for the company.

[MentalMiK]

Appreciate the comments but no one really answered the question I asked. Are you happy to still be paying the same amount for your sub given the fact funcom fired 90% of the people who are working on aoc.

[Anubium]

Appreciate the comments but no one really answered the question I asked. Are you happy to still be paying the same amount for your sub given the fact funcom fired 90% of the people who are working on aoc.

Yes. I still think the amount of game and interactions you receive is worth the money per month.

[SciIti]

Hello, as the "op" can see, I edited some parts of his post.

Why I did that : because some expressions were rudes and I cannot allow that, either it's against funcom staff or other player.
But I kept the sense.

What it mean is you are allowed to say it, but be carefull about "how you tell it".
Express yourself in a respectful way, even (and especially) if you dislike somone, and you will be able to talk about almost anything.


Thank you in advance for following to this rule.

[Blindman-au]

Appreciate the comments but no one really answered the question I asked. Are you happy to still be paying the same amount for your sub given the fact funcom fired 90% of the people who are working on aoc.

Technically speaking the cost of our sub has gone down not up in the time we have been playing it. The cost of living and inflation has meant that the price of things go up yet the cost of playing this game has not increased and if you pay to play for 12 months in advance you actually get a discount which wasn't available when the game first game out.

Paying to play this game is good value for money, it's one of the cheapest forms of entertainment available but it's up to you to make the most of it unlike a movie which entertains you and costs the same as it does to sub for a month you have to be actively involved in the game to get the most out of it.

I think it sucks that developments are behind and that a lot of the staff have been laid off but you're paying to get access to areas and time training for AAs not just game development.

I don't think the subscription fee is a rip off I feel that I am getting value for money with the game as it is now and I hope with the game going to steam we get an increase in players which will increase the cash flow of the company and in turn begin to speed up development of the game again... having spoken to people who played free games that you had to buy items from the store to remain in or near the top of the game player base on a reoccurring basis playing Conan and paying a monthly subscription is cheap.

[torinach]

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.