Comments on: Perks for the Old Timers

By: Bronte

Bronte — Sat, 20 Mar 2010 23:37:51 +0000

Also, aside from the queue prioritization, most of the announced changes are cosmetic, and I for one would not be particularly thrilled had I paid for life-time membership.

I do wonder how much longer CO will last though…

By: Bronte

Bronte — Sat, 20 Mar 2010 23:35:05 +0000

I am with theerivs on this one.

By: Game by Night » Will Cataclysm Last Long Enough?

Game by Night » Will Cataclysm Last Long Enough? — Fri, 19 Mar 2010 19:24:43 +0000

[...] out a couple of bloggers directly, though, since they have more insight than my own. So, Spinks (latest post) and Tobold (latest post), what do you think about this – will Cataclysm be enough to last [...]

By: Longasc

Longasc — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 22:33:32 +0000

You can still get a lifetime membership, just no longer at the reduced cost of the promo and without the “Liberated Borg” race option.

Still, as lifetimer I would rather ask for special tribble breeding area than a VIP chat channel, but this is just me. I am sure Tribble fan lifetimers would rather have your special bonus/preorder Tribble than a VIP chat.

By: spinks

spinks — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 18:04:25 +0000

I’m not really fond of schemes where they encourage you to pay when you aren’t playing. I’d rather that what I pay relates to what I play, whether it means paying for content or for time.

But one thing is for sure, veteran players are more engaged with the game than newer ones, so they probably are more likely to spend more money on it if they have the choice (ie. more likely to pick stuff out of the cash shop etc, or even to have things from the cash shop bought for them as presents if you can do that). So I see things like the VIP lounge, as well as fostering community, as being perks like the sort of stuff casinos put on for big spenders.

The one thing I’m not sure of is whether it might be better to let people pay a premium to join the VIP club rather than restricting it to lifetime members who joined in beta.

By: Jomu

Jomu — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 16:25:29 +0000

those sound like good rewards; i would pay it if they had one for warhammer

By: Longasc

Longasc — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 16:12:37 +0000

Ultima Online already had the “veteran reward system” of CoH. After a while it changed that it only counted months of active subscription. Hehe.

Guild Wars offers random minipets on every birthday of your character, I recently got the rare Black Beast of Aaargh! GW also basically has a lifetime sub for everyone. The “Collector’s Edition” advantage is different for each chapter: Prophecies had the ever-popular “divine aura” aka glowing hands on emotes, Factions had two special dances with background ghost dancers for the ritualist class, Nightfall the same, with the disco ball for dancing dervishes being the highlight of the special emote. This was Guild Wars promo. I just love this game.

EVE’s skill system makes sense, as it allows people to play as they want instead of murdering mobs for XP and all that. It perfectly fits the universe.
But it is also cheap. You gain skills while you are not logged in, GREAT. But you also get an incentive to keep your subscription running even if you are not playing, and that’s really cheap.

I like most of the ideas Cryptic had, except the lifetimer chat channel. The exclusive lounge, ingame area would be enough reward. There you could also have said exclusive chat.

I know many forums where people can become supporters and premium users get access to their very own subforum. In many cases it did not help foster a better, friendler community with the premium users as the core. Rather the opposite.

So I wonder if STO’s lifers will rather become the heart and soul of the community or a liberated Borg collective of annoying fanboys.

By: theerivs

theerivs — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 14:17:40 +0000

It’s all very cryptastic

By: Scopique

Scopique — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 13:12:58 +0000

I think Cryptic’s slant sounds best to me. Giving lifers something above and beyond what anyone else can get makes sense: lifers ponied up, above and beyond, so they should get the VIP treatment.

The longevity rewards are nice, but the fact is that everyone WILL get them…it’s only a matter of time. Same with EVE. In EVE, though, no two paths are the same, unlike level based systems, so a 10m SP character can be as effective as a 100m SP player…just in different ships.

And I don’t know for certain, but I THINK that one only has to have an account “in good standing” (not banned) in CoH to pick up those rewards. I’ve lapsed several times over the years, and have found new things waiting for me whenever I re-sub…