Monthly Development Update - Oct 1st 2012

[Lazy]

Now, lets take that argument serious for a second and elaborate.

If no one, such as my self would have been insane enough to pay for it the monthly subscription as it came out, we would not be sitting here today arguing about it.

clearly you weren't in your right mind back then :P

[Vurtuoso]

Now, lets take that argument serious for a second and elaborate.

If no one, such as my self would have been insane enough to pay for it the monthly subscription as it came out, we would not be sitting here today arguing about it.

I think the Irony here is this game takes place in the future and some still have an antiquated idea of how money should be spent. This game is not getting any younger folks, Goldeneye 007 was awesome own sauce but I wouldn't pay full price for it. Yes I agree with you as well gates the game is worth you are willing to pay for it. I think the server merge speaks for itself.

[Esssch]

I appreciate the sentiment, but you are forgetting, the world has changed, that content you paid for, no one would ever pay for again. Even starwars is moving toward a f2p model. This game is not WOW so to even think that the subscription model should be kept the same is ludicrous.

AO already has a f2p model. It had one before most of these MMOs were even on the market. That AO should go more f2p? How would they make their money if they did that? With their cash shop? They wouldn't sell enough to stay afloat unless they got a lot more people and sold power. Why would they take a gamble on losing all of their current subscribers to maybe stay in the exact financial situation they're currently in?

[Vurtuoso]

AO already has a f2p model. It had one before most of these MMOs were even on the market. That AO should go more f2p? How would they make their money if they did that? With their cash shop? They wouldn't sell enough to stay afloat unless they got a lot more people and sold power. Why would they take a gamble on losing all of their current subscribers to maybe stay in the exact financial situation they're currently in?

Startrek Online does it Champions Online does it City of heros / villains does it. Max level Max power all possible. Guildwars 1 and 2 doesn't even have a cash shop as primary. The cash shop can work for the reasons I gave in the previous post. In this game you have tons of although space if you sell stuff in specific packages that allows for faster leveling you get more end game players.The faster they get end game the faster they want to build an alt, ask yourself how long it would take to build an account of complete alts including ones twinked for specific tower sites? I will give you a hint more then one year more then two years. This game should be bustling with alts but its not.I have seen players who have played for years barely finishing their 4 or 5th alt. More IS better if you can encourage more all the better. This game has tons of content for new users to get to but they will never find out if they need an Anarchy Online pro to help them.

Also on that comment you gave me earlier about seniority. I may have no joined or played the game as early as you have, but I know the froob situation better then most here. There are plenty of froobs that would vouch for me. Only people who really know about froobs here are Ahn, and I believe Gates. Unless I haven't been able to play as much as I like this year and half of last. But I can tell you if you are a froob and are on rk 2 with an end game froob you know me. I have plenty of friends that can vouch my experience from Ocene to Illork I have been there and done that.I have lead every raid in this game minus sector42. I am happy to say I lead a raid while in the process of twinking my soldier preinstance panda with only omnimed gear and a master g staff with a raid party of over 100 people and yes I lmaoed.

[Gimpeline]

If AO ever goes full free to play, I hope they stay far away from the Star Trek online model.
I used to play it, but stopped a month or so after they started their pay to win program.
Imagine how fun it would be to do pande if all the beast dropped was a box that you had to pay a few dollars to open and some upgraded newcommers armor.
The box would have a 97% chance of containing a ql 100 pearl, mabye 0.1% for one of the armor parts and a 0.002% chance of containing BoC

[Vurtuoso]

If AO ever goes full free to play, I hope they stay far away from the Star Trek online model.
I used to play it, but stopped a month or so after they started their pay to win program.
Imagine how fun it would be to do pande if all the beast dropped was a box that you had to pay a few dollars to open and some upgraded newcommers armor.
The box would have a 97% chance of containing a ql 100 pearl, mabye 0.1% for one of the armor parts and a 0.002% chance of containing BoC

How is Statrek online pay to win when the strongest gear in the game can be easily farmed.? Also that gear is all alien species, you don't need any of that stuff to own elite stfs. Also using in game farmed currency you can get keys to those boxes on a regular Basis, not to mention the dilithium exchange stock market. You play that long enough you can buy whatever you want. I got 2 of 3 pieces of omega in under a week.

[wytsfs]

Startrek Online does it Champions Online does it City of heros / villains does it.

Haven't you heard? CoH/V is getting shut down.

[Vurtuoso]

Haven't you heard? CoH/V is getting shut down.

That's sad but not entirely unexpected since DC universe also is free to play. The super hero market is saturated big time.

[Peku]

People with subs already are playing the game, so their bonus is "normal".
New people get an "extra" bonus to encourage them to go for a year sub instead of staying as a free player.

It's in FC's best interest to entice people to upgrade from froob to paid, they need the income to continue to cover the costs of running the game.

I understand the point of the offer from a marketing point of view.

But in this reality the chance to get new players to sign off on that offer is quite unrealistic. When this offer ends there wont be any of the promised stuff (Engine, Rebalancing or even the awesome New Player XP) ingame. The chance to get new players atm is low and the chance that one of them pays for a whole year is marginal.
On the other side you have, in AO number, a lot of people willing to pay for one year.

Why annoy the existing paying playerbase?


The simple answer would be that they dont give a crap and believe that the idiots who are believing lies and accepting broken promises for years wont mind.
But that would be too cynical, even for FC, or?

[Ophiuchus]

How is Statrek online pay to win when the strongest gear in the game can be easily farmed.? Also that gear is all alien species, you don't need any of that stuff to own elite stfs. Also using in game farmed currency you can get keys to those boxes on a regular Basis, not to mention the dilithium exchange stock market. You play that long enough you can buy whatever you want. I got 2 of 3 pieces of omega in under a week.

STO's cash shop is obnoxious in the extreme and its lockbox policy is gambling with odds stacked ludicrously high in Cryptic's favour. It's constantly in your face, the players who drop £££ month after month on the shop act completely elitist to those that don't and let's not even go into the PvP. Pay to have your win buttons handed to you on a silver platter instead of spending months earning it.

Whatever FC does with AO's cash shop, for the love of Rubi Ka DO NOT look to Cryptic games as some sort of inspiration or model to emulate.

[Vurtuoso]

STO's cash shop is obnoxious in the extreme and its lockbox policy is gambling with odds stacked ludicrously high in Cryptic's favour. It's constantly in your face, the players who drop £££ month after month on the shop act completely elitist to those that don't and let's not even go into the PvP. Pay to have your win buttons handed to you on a silver platter instead of spending months earning it.

Whatever FC does with AO's cash shop, for the love of Rubi Ka DO NOT look to Cryptic games as some sort of inspiration or model to emulate.

Wow. What kind of logic that? All you have to do is leave the lockboxes on the ground.you make it sound like you have to buy them or need them to advance. Also you are completely wrong if youthink the boxes unbalance the game, the latest episodes of stoked "mathed " segments list how balanced the game dps and defense is while keeping in variables of the fight style. YOU DO NOT HAVE TO BUY ANYTHING.

People want to buy them because they have cool abilities that other stock ships do not have. Dilithium equipment is dirt cheap. Besides a handful of big ships I could get any of the paid perks in a month.

Also what about the Lowbi crystal store or the exchange or local trade? I bought something awith ec a few months back off the exchange that gave me a extra ability to teleport behind targets.

[Iancu]

Why annoy the existing paying playerbase?

The simple answer would be that they dont give a crap and believe that the idiots who are believing lies and accepting broken promises for years wont mind.
But that would be too cynical, even for FC, or?

^^ this

I feel it's a simple cash grab aimed at those people desperately wanting to believe that all of the things they have been promised really are coming soon. I honestly do want to believe, but I feel that I've waited long enough for them to deliver something other than empty promises. They'll get no more money from me until they do just that (or until they lower the monthly sub cost).

[Gimpeline]

Wow. What kind of logic that? All you have to do is leave the lockboxes on the ground.you make it sound like you have to buy them or need them to advance. Also you are completely wrong if youthink the boxes unbalance the game, the latest episodes of stoked "mathed " segments list how balanced the game dps and defense is while keeping in variables of the fight style. YOU DO NOT HAVE TO BUY ANYTHING.

People want to buy them because they have cool abilities that other stock ships do not have. Dilithium equipment is dirt cheap. Besides a handful of big ships I could get any of the paid perks in a month.

Since without the sale on keys it costs 2500 zen for 20 keys - same cost as a c-store account wide unlock

giving it a bbit of a premium to keep it rare - even though it is character only should not cost more that 5000 zen or $50 - which is stupid amount for a ship - 1/40 boxes - perhaps 1/50 boxes at the absolute most considering the other stuff you get

Current cost of $200 dollars a ship or 1/200 boxes is rediculous

http://sto-forum.perfectworld.com/sh...&postcount=493

If one part of a cc armor costed $200. What do you think it would do to AO?
It also has some cool abilities, but are not really needed.
As for Stoked. They left STO after they slaughtered the fp2 model in a broadcast and the devs started to ignore them.
http://www.jupiterbroadcasting.com/1...ts-stoked-124/

(I haven't played the last 6-7 months so they might have come back in the meantime)
PVP is also fun when your screen is cluttered with money grab boxes so you can't see what you are shooting at.
I have a lifetime account there so I could probably buy anything I wanted, but with the current system, it's not even tempting to log in.

I take Funcoms system over Cryptic any day

[Vurtuoso]

I think part of the problem is the delusions of grandeur. The puritanical idea that nothing can change even with the obvious hemorrhage of players is the very definition of insanity. Doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.

[Vurtuoso]

http://sto-forum.perfectworld.com/sh...&postcount=493

If one part of a cc armor costed $200. What do you think it would do to AO?
It also has some cool abilities, but are not really needed.
As for Stoked. They left STO after they slaughtered the fp2 model in a broadcast and the devs started to ignore them.
http://www.jupiterbroadcasting.com/1...ts-stoked-124/

(I haven't played the last 6-7 months so they might have come back in the meantime)
PVP is also fun when your screen is cluttered with money grab boxes so you can't see what you are shooting at.
I have a lifetime account there so I could probably buy anything I wanted, but with the current system, it's not even tempting to log in.

I take Funcoms system over Cryptic any day

First of all its ludicrous to price a single piece of armor at 200$, you're exaggerating. The value amount is place on how many types of extra pieces of gear on the same level. Heck you could sell them for a dollar a piece and recoup the amount that a sub would cost in no time. Have you seen Diablo 3's real money auction house? Even with less gear worn then ao its relatively cheap.
Second its naive to assume without thelock boxes the game would be better off.You ignored my point completely about Stoked mathed. Yes I am aware Chris quit. Jeremy also used to Co host too which as you know now works for Cryptic. Doing a one man show is a hard thing to do. Also how long have they been doing that show every Saturday? For years.

[Vurtuoso]

Also regarding the chances for each box. RNG IS RNG.Its no less ignorant to spend 100,0000 on lotto tickets and wonder why you didn't win.

[mishikato]

Well anyways, now that that's over. Thanks again for the updates and pictures. I get excited anytime I SEE progress.

[schloops]

You should have merged the servers years ago when I said so .
You are doing that for those same reasons now: AO does not work with a low population.

Ideally, separate AO from FC, financially and decisionally.
It should not pay for problems on other projects... that is how you end up with nothing working and a couple smiling and overpaid fat cats. And, in the words of Tatcher: we want our money back... reinvested in ao.

Now, for the few remaining bucks the ao team is allotted by those people:
- focus on getting the engine out. I see you are playing with new rig points. I love them, I really do, but we now got a new deadline of 6 months or more... that is the same deadline we received about 10 times now. Get it out. What is important is for the game to use the gpu. You can paint it pretty after. But people will believe in the game again. And it will be less laggy and some stuff you already have will make it prettier already. If it's going to steam soonish, it needs gpu.
- 2 clients? Really? Scrap that. 2-4 developers shouldn't be maintaining 2 clients. Eniac belongs in a museum.
- lower the mensualities or reinvest highly in ao. Could be as simple as no money for fc for a year.
There is no reason to pay such mensualities for such a small team, however dedicated and competent they are.

NB: I know, I write like I believe to be an expert in finances, management and so on... which ofc I'm not .

[Darksick0]

AO on steam. I love that idea. It could be something big.
This producer is a badass, i love his updates
Make it WORK.

[aramsunat]

Hopefully Funcom will release another failure game, then I will be able to buy 50% the company's shares from my monthly salary. I'll kick out everyone except the AO team if they try to cover the losses of those games from AO!