Friday with Means - November 12th, 2010 - Changes large and small

[erozc]

Oh yeah, forgot: Ultimately, what will determine a lot is how much these items will cost. I hope they will be expensive enough that it's not an automatic opt-in for everyone. Let's see... 10$ for enough VP for a QL300 ring?

Edit: Make that euros. And ~14$ as equivalent.

[Mastablasta]

You know you'll be paying the same numeric amount regardless of region.

[Akchosen]

You know you'll be paying the same numeric amount regardless of region.

which s u c k s!

[Keldros]

You know you'll be paying the same numeric amount regardless of region.

I need to find a nice, out of the way place where I can pay in oxen.

edit: or better, goats.

[Insane666]

abstracting from the nano documents wich i didnt read yet,,,,


im really mad at myself for paying up both my accounts few days ago

[Aeliniyah]

im really mad at myself for paying up both my accounts few days ago

Me too. (Though i paid my accounts a couple months ago, but for six months which i now regret... a lot!)

When i saw this on friday, the first thing i did was to remove payment details from my accounts. Didn't cancel yet, since i want to give them some time to rethink this... but i don't want to accidentally pay a cent more in case this crap goes live like this.

What really makes me mad is the addition of buyable VP's in the shop. There's been a lot of discussion and suggestions from us non-pvp people in the forums before, about ways to gain VP in-game by some other means than PVP. We've NEVER ever asked for a way to get them with rl cash. I personally want to work for my gear AND have fun while doing that. Since i don't have fun while PVP'ing I'd like to have another way to earn it. But i don't want to PAY rl money for it, since I'm already paying for the subscriptions of my accounts and have done so for many years without much breaks.

Yesdrop ofab is OK though since atleast now i can use the toons that may offer a small amount of fun in the BS to grind the ofab parts for my alts.

The replica armor sets are another turn-off for me! Especially the AI and beast armor replicas.

Replicas of the past halloween and other special items are ok though, but a big NO NO for AI and beast armor replicas.

Most parts of the Engi nano doc looks nice though i don't like the nerfing of the blind. Basically the change from nanoskills to tradeskills in nanos is great - however since Engis are now forced to do FIPR it would be great to have some item/npc which would enable to do that once without removing symbs. Actually it would suffice if there was a way to just reset the nanoskills without removing symbs and leave the rest of the IP where they are.

[Kotts]

I have issues with buyable VPs, and yesdrop ofab.
It would be like buying credits. If ya'll do one, then please reconsider the other.

[Dochollie]

if im supporting the game i enjoy the most with this game shop i dont mind.
As long as it helps them push out more content and that engine lol. ^_^

[Graydoc]

my opinion on this is it seems ok what your wanting to do but one thing bothers me, and that is the xp boosts. i lvled all my toons i got therefor i know how to "play" them. we all have had to deal with all the peeps out there referred to as "heck noobs" and now with the xp boost it will only get worse.

the only other thing is the yes drop ofab. in thought it seems great, but just a little too much.

[Herkulease]

XP stims area great idea.

Arguments that it will make more heck noobs are invalid.

It will make just as many OLD players, lvl to their desired title level, and actually play.

I for example, have always wanted to make an engineer (Among other things) But these days, I just can't be asked to spend that much time making one (for fun, and for org). Some of these options would make that a real option for me (and many others) It would add a decent, experienced played to the end game level. Might bring back some inactives. And noobs, don't stay noobs forever.

XP stim's won't make heck noobs. Chances are, if someone is USING them, they already know what they are doing anyway.

[Sromp]

It may be that ebaying is horrible, it may be that buying a character is awful, but really how is it any worse than powerlvling through the lowbie content and then sitting at kite hill or something till you're the level you want to be? Maybe this will even be an improvement as all the people who do all the anti-social powerlvling, OST'ing and whatever else buy their characters, leaving the content open for the people who actually want to do it, instead of the ones who don't.

Some players worry the content may be too open. It might help once (if) the newbie learning/leveling curve has some of the potholes removed.

[Graydoc]

xp stims would be a great idea what i was referring to is the

Level packs (Boost to 50, Boost to 100, Boost to 150, Boost to 199)

[Ichu]

So, AO will now offer the ability to buy not only gear, but also levels for your characters. Isn't this kinda like selling characters? Failtastic changes Means. Congratulations on ruining AO even more.

[Warhead]

Yeah to lock NONPVPERS out of an expansion that they paid for... Do you realize that NONPVPERS pay for this game as well? Do you realize NONPVPERS were stuck with aliumz weapons because the expansion they BOUGHT did not give a viable way for NONPVPERS to gain enough VP to ever purchase an OFAB weap? Did you ever think it might have been a tad unfair to make me wait for THE NEXT EXPANSION to get an upgraded weapon? Cmon...

Your problem is, that you didnt pay attention when they clearly stated that LE was a PVP expansion. You should not have bought it then. You have no room to complain.

You can only be grateful that they're easing up on this concept. In other words, hush up and enjoy two more ways to get the gear from this PVP expansion without actually having to participate.

[Warhead]

So, AO will now offer the ability to buy not only gear, but also levels for your characters. Isn't this kinda like selling characters? Failtastic changes Means. Congratulations on ruining AO even more.

They should definitely sell you a "Reading Comprehension" DVD.

[LyrLazarus]

They should definitely sell you a "Reading Comprehension" DVD.

Wat

You WILL be able to buy gear (OFAB) because you will be able to buy vps. They also plan on letting you buy already leveled toons. His post is accurate. I'm not sure what problem you think you're seeing.

[PhoenixOfAges]

Your problem is, that you didnt pay attention when they clearly stated that LE was a PVP expansion. You should not have bought it then. You have no room to complain.

Except they didn't sell it as a PvP expansion and it's not. LE was just the first time they added actual PvP content since NW, and just look how well the primary PvP addition in it (BSs) worked out on a whole. FC billed LE as much as or more of a PvM product as a PvP product and if you look at all the general use or PvM content with LE tags there's more you could call PvM than PvP.

LE missions, Dread camps, research and the much greater part of what you can buy with VP are PvM related, general use or only gained through PvM which accounts for the much greater part of the new content in LE. All PvP got was some mostly empty identical BSs, orbital strikes and air strikes, two turrets, a new tower and to some extent the mechs. Although mechs are used for social, travel and in at least some PvM as well.

So no, LE is not a PvP expansion. It's just an expansion that had some new PvP content, that's it.

[LyrLazarus]

Posting this again, since we basically have 2 threads dedicated to the shop changes. Please read about my ideas for the proposed shop.

I'm all for increasing AO's profits. However, I don't believe the proposed store would be maximizing profit. I want AO to be around for a long time and to do that it needs to be profitable.

So, here are my suggestions for what to do with the store that would be much better for the profitability of AO.

Don't sell things that sacrifice long-run profitability for short-run profits. Long-run profitability is much more important than short-run profits, as I'm sure everyone is aware. This doesn't rule out selling everything. Here's what you could sell that I don't believe would hurt long-run profits.


1) Tokens:
You can still sell tokens. I don't believe this will affect the game in the long-run negatively. I don't believe anyone is so proud of how many tokens they've farmed that they will quit and you will lose their subscription revenue if you offer these. Also, as population decreases, this in itself causes more players to quit because the game isn't as fun with less people and it lowers the new player retention rate as these new players don't want to play in an unpopulated world. This is an MMO after all. So, every small decrease in population causes even more future reduction in population, decreasing the possible subscription revenue, in-game advertising revenue, and revenue from the in-game item shop! So, avoid losing population as much as possible to maximize profit.

2) Experience Constructs:
Fine, no problem. Again, letting people level a bit faster is unlikely to cause a lot of people to quit.

3) Reset Points:
Selling reset points is fine. Again, this doesn't seem to negatively affect any aspects of the game.

4) Past Social and Veteran Items:
Sell the ones that people don't really have a problem with, don't sell the ones that cause a lot of uproar and may make people quit. I don't know a lot about social items but you can read through the many posts about the in-game store and figure out which social items people really don't want you to sell.

Another option might be that when you are wearing any piece of "replica" equipment at all, a small glowing green ball appears above your shoulder, or something like that. Just some effect that is unobtrusive but visible to other players. The effect might even look kind of cool in its own right, and it would make it very obvious that they hadn't "earned" at least one of the pieces of social they are wearing. Nevertheless, they still get to look cool and some people like social armor because it looks cool, rather than as a status symbol. With this, people would still want to buy social armor because it looks cool, and those that like social armor because of its "status" are appeased.

5) Time Limited Access Passes:
Sounds good; great way to bring some froobs into the fold.

6) Pre-Packaged Buff Items:
These "Nano Canister" things would probably be fine. Again, just don't sell the unique interesting things that people are really against, i.e. the Trader GMS tool etc.

7) DO NOT Sell Levels (At least, in its current proposed form... Read on for my proposal):
Selling levels will at least somewhat decrease how many people there are playing at the lower levels. This will decrease the retention rate of new players if they can't find teams or experienced people to help them and will anger some people and cause them to quit, again losing out on more revenue.

HOWEVER, what you could do instead is let the Experience Constructs scale up a LOT more in how much extra experience they provide. These would of course scale up in price too. This would still allow people to level amazingly quickly. However, don't let these higher level experience constructs be usable until some level, say, level 45. This way, the players that want to use these still have to go through the lower levels and new people will be able to team with them and learn from them, etc. This would allow for a greater retention rate of new players. The fact that the players that buy these high XP constructs still have to go through the lower levels at normal speed and still have to go through the higher levels (albeit at a blindingly fast speed) will also anger other players less, causing less people to quit. Also you might want to make it so these aren't usable past level 200.

8) DO NOT Sell Victory Points (At least, in its current proposed form... Read on for my proposal):
A lot of people value PvP in this game, and a lot of people don't. Selling victory points will definitely cause some people to buy them and then not PvP in BS anymore. BS is already in a fragile state, and this will increase the time that BS is dead which will discourage some PvPers and cause them to quit.

HOWEVER, what you could do instead is sell something similar to Experience Constructs but instead it greatly increases how many victory points you win in BS, either as a percentage of the amount won or a static + to all BS matches. This would ensure that no one will completely stop doing BS and would therefore not decrease BS's downtime as much. This is also more palatable to many players as people would still have to work for their VP so less people will quit.

Definitely do not allow people to buy victory points and make Ofab Yes-Drop as this means people can turn money into credits. This will cause some people to quit. It might be okay to make Ofab Yes-Drop if you use my "VP Construct" instead of buying VP. People would still have to work to get the VP to sell the Ofab and this is again more palatable to many players. This would also probably greatly increase how much BS runs as farming BS to sell Ofab would be more worthwhile with a greater rate of VP gain. It would also improve the PvP in BS as, with Ofab Yes-Drop, people would bring out their best toons to PvP with. Better competition is more fun for PvPers.


So that sums it all up. I hope people read this, I know it's a lot.

Edit: Added an idea for social armor.

[Alternity]

Wanted to add a comment on the social armor... don't!


What the hell are you thinking FunCom, you are removing all status symbols in this game!

[Chrys]

yabut $$$$