VIP program is going to literally cost SSG money - not a whiny quit post

[PersonMan]

While I agree that those bonuses should be automatically available for VIPs to claim any time they want, I wonder: Who or what are you catching up to with those rewards ?

(Assuming new VIPs next year start at month 1 and not month 13) Lets say the Lightning Storm Trail and Storm Cloud do not interest the player so they are not convinced to get VIP at this time, but next year they advertise an Effect or Mount that the player absolutely loves; now they will be waiting 24 months for that mount rather than just 12. Then lets imagine some years down the line a new player sees the desirable thing in that years reward and tell them how many years they will have to play to get it.

Delivery should probably work similarly to the Year of the Dragon (VIP on this month, get this reward); then they might get some accurate data on what rewards people actually care about.

Is that really that big of a problem ? How many people actually pay a monthly fee without logging in ? That seems like a weird thing to do.

I don't understand it either, but 100% of the people I play with would encounter this issue to varying degrees.

 

[erethizon1]

That's why this system is wrong by design. SSG doesn't gain anything from people that already pay VIP anyway. They need to improve and make VIP more attractive so they gain more people who don't pay 12 months a year already or to bring back the VIP members who left when VIP value crashed after the free code . In the end SSG needs more paying VIP members to sustain the game.

That is exactly what they are doing. They are making it so that people that currently drop VIP when they play other games will want to keep their subscription full time and log in occasionally.

They already got me with Daily Dice. I went from not logging in at all when I am not playing to logging in every single day for a dice roll. It doesn't take long and keeps me logging in. This is a more extreme version of that for people that are not enticed simply by dice rolls. You just happen to have an extreme version of FOMO anxiety where your compensation method is to ignore all the bonuses of the system entirely. As I post earlier in this thread, the question is, are there more people like you than there are people that will keep their VIP running non-stop so they don't miss anything. Only time will tell I suppose.

All that said, I would definitely remove the need to log in and collect the reward. Standing Stone should be strongly encouraging people to pay for VIP forever just because they "might" log in again someday. By making them come in once a month for the rewards it makes it easier for people that know they will definitely not be able to log in (because they are in a war zone, for example) to just drop their VIP while they are gone. That is not something the developers should be encouraging. They want VIP to be like a Netflix subscription that people sign up for and leave running for the rest of their lives even when not using it.

 

[erethizon1]

(Assuming new VIPs next year start at month 1 and not month 13) Lets say the Lightning Storm Trail and Storm Cloud do not interest the player so they are not convinced to get VIP at this time, but next year they advertise an Effect or Mount that the player absolutely loves; now they will be waiting 24 months for that mount rather than just 12. Then lets imagine some years down the line a new player sees the desirable thing in that years reward and tell them how many years they will have to play to get it.

The system is primarily designed to get people to sign up for VIP to start collecting accumulating rewards because they know other, possibly better, stuff will be added later. We are all making the individual decision of whether we are comfortable being a year or more behind some great reward or will just pony up $99 a year to be VIP. Only time will tell whether this entices more people than it turns off. The kind of people I know that play MMO's and don't post on forums will likely be more enticed by this then forum frequenters.

 

[Owlbear]

The system is primarily designed to get people to sign up for VIP to start collecting accumulating rewards because they know other, possibly better, stuff will be added later. We are all making the individual decision of whether we are comfortable being a year or more behind some great reward or will just pony up $99 a year to be VIP. Only time will tell whether this entices more people than it turns off. The kind of people I know that play MMO's and don't post on forums will likely be more enticed by this then forum frequenters.

We all know why they do this and what they want to achive with the loyalty program. That doesn't make this implementation any better though. It's one of the worst loyalty/login systems I have seen out of all MMO's! The whole "We are all making the individual decision of whether we are comfortable being a year or more behind" isn't needed at all for a good loyalty program where everyone wants to sign in every month. The daily/weekly gold rolls were a perfect example of that. There are much better solutions to put in the loyalty program if they want players not to drop their VIP and login every month.

 

[cdbd3rd]

While I agree that those bonuses should be automatically available for VIPs to claim any time they want, I wonder: Who or what are you catching up to with those rewards ?
Is that really that big of a problem ? How many people actually pay a monthly fee without logging in ? That seems like a weird thing to do.

Actually... For years (as in a decade+), I stayed subbed to both DDO and LOTRO regardless of which game was holding my interest at the time. One or the other could sit for months untouched as I played the other. It was about supporting the company and helping keep the lights on.

But, that was then. :(

 

[mbartol]

I don’t understand why there’s so much resistance to the idea that every VIP subscriber should receive all the rewards that they paid for without having to jump through artificially created hoops.

It doesn’t matter if it’s relatively simple (just talk to an NPC once a month). It’s still an unnecessary barrier that can potentially make someone lose out on the rewards they paid for.

 

[GrizzlyOso]

I don’t understand why there’s so much resistance to the idea that every VIP subscriber should receive all the rewards that they paid for without having to jump through artificially created hoops.

It doesn’t matter if it’s relatively simple (just talk to an NPC once a month). It’s still an unnecessary barrier that can potentially make someone lose out on the rewards they paid for.

Yup, on top of the fact it’s a hoop the free program right next to it doesn’t have.

Sure “free” stuff is “free”, but it seems clear how hellbent they are on making sure vip feels insulted with this “loyalty” program.

That being said , it would be so petty and so them to make months 13-24 just awesome without telling anyone beforehand . Hmmm

 

[Smelt]

this system at best puts military personnel and people with serious health problems at a disadvantage and at worst openly discriminates against them. If you are in the military and get deployed for several months you fall behind and if you have a serious health issue and get hospitalised for a month you fall behind.

When I was in the British Army there were several occasions when I was deployed for 6 months, came home for 3 months and then redeployed for another 6 months. So with this system I would be on the month 4 reward after 16 months of subscription and have no guarantee that the same thing would happen again after 3 months. This scenario is not unusual in the British armed forces, especially for those of us with specialist trades and training.

 

[Mordenkainen]

Don't you guys want your little cloud ride?

This thing better be like the soarwood boards from sharn and have Z-axis compatibility. I want to fly around Marketplace. Also, it needs to have a "rain feature" so I can hover over people and rain on them.

 

[Mordenkainen]

this system at best puts military personnel and people with serious health problems at a disadvantage and at worst openly discriminates against them. If you are in the military and get deployed for several months you fall behind and if you have a serious health issue and get hospitalised for a month you fall behind.

When I was in the British Army there were several occasions when I was deployed for 6 months, came home for 3 months and then redeployed for another 6 months. So with this system I would be on the month 4 reward after 16 months of subscription and have no guarantee that the same thing would happen again after 3 months. This scenario is not unusual in the British armed forces, especially for those of us with specialist trades and training.

Would a good compromise be if you could "check-in" through the website instead of logging directly into the game and speaking with the VIP guy.

 

[Sylvado]

It only takes a couple of minutes to login and claim. Even when I am playing other games I login once a week just for the gold roll.

 

[Genkiba]

this system at best puts military personnel and people with serious health problems at a disadvantage and at worst openly discriminates against them. If you are in the military and get deployed for several months you fall behind and if you have a serious health issue and get hospitalised for a month you fall behind.

When I was in the British Army there were several occasions when I was deployed for 6 months, came home for 3 months and then redeployed for another 6 months. So with this system I would be on the month 4 reward after 16 months of subscription and have no guarantee that the same thing would happen again after 3 months. This scenario is not unusual in the British armed forces, especially for those of us with specialist trades and training.

Is it a race though?

 

[GrizzlyOso]

Is it a race though?

I mean, if you care about the cosmetic, and want to sub for 12 months to get it, yes?

 

[DDO Gaming]

the fact nobody from SSG has responded to any of these doom/gloom posts kindof suggests they've already made enough revenue to cover the initial outlay and are just waiting out the financial year to determine how much profit chained VIP generates.

Hence...if you don;t value chained VIP then...DON'T ALLOW YOUR PURCHASING DECISIONS TO BE INFLUENCED BY ITS EXISTENCE

 

[Silvorn]

Retried submariner. There were many times deployed that there was no ability to in any way get in the internet for 60-90 days. Spent 54 days under the Artic Ice for example. If I pay for the month then I should get the reward whenever I log in. Easy fix , flag the account as having earned it and I can go to an NPC and pick the rewards I want if getting to many at once is a storage issue.

 

[mbartol]

Is it a race though?

Should a player that pays for 12 months be guaranteed to get the 12 items they paid for?

 

[erethizon1]

Actually... For years (as in a decade+), I stayed subbed to both DDO and LOTRO regardless of which game was holding my interest at the time. One or the other could sit for months untouched as I played the other. It was about supporting the company and helping keep the lights on.

But, that was then. :(

This is exactly the kind of behavior they should focus on encouraging. You want people to want to stay subbed even if they never log in.

 

[erethizon1]

this system at best puts military personnel and people with serious health problems at a disadvantage and at worst openly discriminates against them. If you are in the military and get deployed for several months you fall behind and if you have a serious health issue and get hospitalised for a month you fall behind.

When I was in the British Army there were several occasions when I was deployed for 6 months, came home for 3 months and then redeployed for another 6 months. So with this system I would be on the month 4 reward after 16 months of subscription and have no guarantee that the same thing would happen again after 3 months. This scenario is not unusual in the British armed forces, especially for those of us with specialist trades and training.

This is exactly the kind of person I want to see catered to. Someone that keeps their subscription active for 2 years without logging in at all should be rewarded for doing so. Don't encourage people to drop their subscription every time they can't play for a month.

 

[DDO Gaming]

This is exactly the kind of person I want to see catered to. Someone that keeps their subscription active for 2 years without logging in at all should be rewarded for doing so. Don't encourage people to drop their subscription every time they can't play for a month.

why would you VIP for 2 years without logging in once? VIP is supposed to cater for regular gamers

 

[Dvinesword]

This is a misunderstanding of the system. You don't lose the reward in that sense. You will just get the reward a month later. Unsubscribing does nothing to help that.

Actually it does. If you are subscribed for 4 months and you miss picking up month 3 when month 4 rolls around then you would get month 3 reward. If you unsubscribed after month 2 and then resubscribe for month 4 you would still get the month 3 reward but you would not have paid for a month that you received no reward.