Suggestion, Patron Membership
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Is this a joke? GW2 has literally gone in the opposite direction of this, so I don’t know why they would make it sub suddenly; even if just for extra “perks”.
If you “just want a consistent way you can show support except through sporadic purchases” couldn’t you just buy most of that stuff you listed once a month, just like you’re paying a monthly sub you’re asking for.
hmmm interesting idea. something like “premium membership” or something.
wherein you get some perks, but not to the fact that people that dont subscribe are at a disadvantage.
Ummm.
Or you could just use that 10 to 15 bucks and say…
Buy gold for waypoints.
Buy some remote bankers.
Buy some MF buffs.
etc, etc, etc.
No need to have a “membership” for something you can buy with cash every month anyway.
GW2 can offer no monthly membership perks beyond what you can buy anyway, without going against what they designed this game to be:
Free to play after purchase, with no monthly fees. For anyone.
Willing or not.
hmmm interesting idea. something like “premium membership” or something.
wherein you get some perks, but not to the fact that people that dont subscribe are at a disadvantage.
Exactly, I don’t know why the first responder got so defensive.
hmmm interesting idea. something like “premium membership” or something.
wherein you get some perks, but not to the fact that people that dont subscribe are at a disadvantage.Exactly, I don’t know why the first responder got so defensive.
How was I being defensive? I asked a simple question, now its your turn to defend your idea. This is how proposals work.
This sounds very much like the V.I.P. system from China, which we were promised would not come here.
A new post on this already? Give them money, give them lots of money. Do not fill up these forums with “I am a special VIP and demand pink flamingos to ride just because I am a special VIP.” which is the only reason to have what you want.
Yet another vip membership thread, we have similar topic about this 2 weeks ago, many are disagree
Just buy gems every month. Anet does not need to put a system in place.
When something you want shows up, you will have the gems ready AND you know you are constantly supporting anet with your money.
Win-win
What about, simply, a “membership” that on the first of each month, you get some gems delivered to you at a rate better than the current $ to Gem rate. You can buy these memberships for periods of 3, 6, or 12 months.
It’s essentially ensuring that Anet gets money, and people who buy gems can take advantage of a slightly better exchange rate.
If this gets flamed so be it, but for any one familiar and appreciative of the monthly perks you would get from games such as Rift or ESO we see the obvious value, nobodies saying that every one else would lose what ever situation they’re comfortable with what I’m suggesting is that while being a Patron you get certain things on loan or a short cool down that people buy piece meal with short term remote access items; I fail to see how this would hurt any nay sayers.
If you have anything negative to say direct it at the concept, my target audience haw a red icon above their names.
I have a suggestion, I was thinking that you guys could probably get some more revenue if you offered a Patron Membership.
Patron $10 to $15 per month.
Offer perks such as
Remote Bank, BLTP access.
Free Waypoints
Increased gathering rate.
Magic Find Bonus
Some sort of generic not fancy Infinite Gathering tool.
Maybe either a discount or Gem voucher.I suggest this because you guys don’t always put things in the store I’m interested in buying, I realize that content isn’t free people have to get paid, the more revenue you have the faster we get content updates and the bigger they are.
Just some food for thought, you can still keep offering the daily log in rewards and keep things the same for non Patrons, I just want a consistent way I can show support except through sporadic purchases.
This seems like it would generate a substantial benefit for the “patrons”; all of the suggested perks safe you a lot of time and/or money that the rest of us would have to spend, or would give you income that others don’t have – in the end generating an imbalance.
I’ll say no to all such ideas. If it were about getting a special mini or a rainbow-coloured balloon, or anything else that does not give you an advantage I think that might possibly be ok.
Gunnar’s Hold
Guild Leader for Tyria Liberation Council [TLC]
Guild Leader for Tyria Liberation Council [TLC]
It is not about flaming. But we are saying that if your target audience does what you want, a lot of us will lose all faith and leave.
ANet has already said (multiple times) for the last 10 years that there will be NO sub/membership fees EVER.
I have been playing online games since the BBS days and still do not understand why someone would pay $50 to $100 (or more) for a game and then pay $5 to $20 a month just to be able to access what was already bought and paid for.
Are these the new “Mount-Thread”s?
Everything has been said multiple times now.
If you want what you mentioned, buy it with gems.
If you want to support ANet on a monthly basis, buy gems on a monthly basis.
If you can’t play a game that not let’s you be super special snowflake VIP, leave the game.
(In which case, can I have your stuff?)
Attachments:
+ : Keyrings, Underwater-Combat, Build Templates
- : Mounts, ViP-Player systems, HoT-like Xpacs
Have a nice day.
- : Mounts, ViP-Player systems, HoT-like Xpacs
Have a nice day.
ANet has already said (multiple times) for the last 10 years that there will be NO sub/membership fees EVER.
I have been playing online games since the BBS days and still do not understand why someone would pay $50 to $100 (or more) for a game and then pay $5 to $20 a month just to be able to access what was already bought and paid for.
- Well, I remember paying for a Xpac that they still haven’t released everything for.
- I remember a manifesto that they was going to try and follow but are no where near and have brought up so they don’t have to release all of the xpac.
- They also said WvW abilities was NEVER going to be account bound and about 2 months later they made them account bound.
- I remember something about fractal leaderboards and something about them not doing it.
Since they said nothing is off the table, don’t be surprised if they do offer some type of OPTIONAL sub thing for like boosters or discounted waypoints
Lyscir – Main Engi
[????] – HoD
[????] – HoD
We had this as a topic with a “VIP” membership debate. Needless to say it didn’t end well. Haha.
The conclusion was to just buy gems monthly. Granted I’d be okay if there was kitten option!
Guild Leader of Lunar Tree[LT].
Officer of Power Overwhelming[ZERK].
First term Forum PvE Specialist.
Officer of Power Overwhelming[ZERK].
First term Forum PvE Specialist.
There is actually no reason against something like this as long as it’s stuff thats already in the gem store.
See it like a cheaper but time limited alternative to just simply buying that stuff from the gem store.
If you want to help them, buy gems. They had questions about merchandise some time ago so I assume they want to get something onto the market. But why should they use an external website for this when people can already pay to them directly? Some of the things listed aren’t even what they stand for when it comes to gemstore convenience (faster gathering rate for example). With the gemstore you can even decide how much you want to pay them and when you want to do it.
If you want to have a subscription, set a reminder on your phone for the first of each month to buy the number of gems you want. If nothing in the store is something you want that month, convert to gold. You then get fee waypoints plus other possible free items.
ANet has already said (multiple times) for the last 10 years that there will be NO sub/membership fees EVER.
I have been playing online games since the BBS days and still do not understand why someone would pay $50 to $100 (or more) for a game and then pay $5 to $20 a month just to be able to access what was already bought and paid for.
- Well, I remember paying for a Xpac that they still haven’t released everything for.
- I remember a manifesto that they was going to try and follow but are no where near and have brought up so they don’t have to release all of the xpac.
- They also said WvW abilities was NEVER going to be account bound and about 2 months later they made them account bound.
- I remember something about fractal leaderboards and something about them not doing it.
Since they said nothing is off the table, don’t be surprised if they do offer some type of OPTIONAL sub thing for like boosters or discounted waypoints
its tru, sometimes i start to think dat, maybe anet looks back at things they said they would not do, and decide to do exactly that to see if a terrible idea really is terrible when they implement it
so far, terrible ideas are terrible, but anet likes to try terrible things, and act like they were successes
Quoth the forum:
“Just buy gems every month.”
Many alts; handle it!
“I’m finding companies should sell access to forums,
it seems many like them better than the games they comment on.” -Horrorscope.7632
“I’m finding companies should sell access to forums,
it seems many like them better than the games they comment on.” -Horrorscope.7632
Yet another vip membership thread, we have similar topic about this 2 weeks ago, many are disagree
That was me, and it was suggested for anet to make money, people need to stop being so defensive, the secret world has one and I’m fairly sure eso does and both are buy to play mmorpgs.
Are these the new “Mount-Thread”s?
Everything has been said multiple times now.
If you want what you mentioned, buy it with gems.
If you want to support ANet on a monthly basis, buy gems on a monthly basis.
If you can’t play a game that not let’s you be super special snowflake VIP, leave the game.
(In which case, can I have your stuff?)
It has nothing to do with feeling special, stop getting so insecure over a video game its about the best deal.
To me, the biggest argument against this idea is that it would take personnel resources – from management, quality control and grievance remediation perspectives. And, I’m not convinced it would bring in enough revenue to offset even those costs.
Like a few others have said, if you really want to support the game and don’t see anything you really want on the store, just buy a small number of gems each week/month and exchange them directly for gold. Its a less resource intensive solution that doesn’t bring the potential pitfalls of a sustained program.
Offer perks such as
Remote Bank, BLTP access.
You can buy these already for gems, or hell buy gems —> gold and get the perma one.
Free Waypoints
I guess? I don’t seem to mind the WP costs, and I’m not even in a guild who has reduced costs from guild halls.
Increased gathering rate.
Magic Find Bonus
Already available from banners and food. These are available almost 24/7
Also if you are at max cap, then what? You get no benefit.
Some sort of generic not fancy Infinite Gathering tool.
I could use this for my alt account, but will just eventually buy them over time. I presently spend either 10-20 per month, but it’s for stuff that actually matters to me. Nothing outside of this item on your list appeals to me. But that’s just personal preference, so I get the idea you are going after. Basically a money dump for very limited non game changing sign up subscription.
I’ve seen this posted before, and it would do well for those who want to… the adverse affect though, would be the thought of it alone would likely drive away more players than the amount that would sign up. But, those that sign up are likely spending 10-20 a month already on items they want. And those that would leave might make the odd purchase but nothing consistent.
No no, patron system will not work, if you want to support anet buy gems, why would a company that’s been active for 10 years suddenly get a patreon/Kickstarter/whatever other money donation account?, and finally you as the 10th guy to suggest this and the answers will always be “no no no no no!”
I’d be afraid the shiny VIP on your character’s name plate would become the next mandatory accessory to get into an elite group.
And if it didn’t give you anything special, then – as suggested – just buy gems each month. I’ve bought a couple gem cards in recent months with nothing to spend them on, hoping character slots would go on sale. It has been 6 months. So I’ve sent the money to Anet (however much they get less the retailer’s cut) without actually buying anything from the store, confident there will be plenty of shinies in the future. Besides, if my gems build up, I’m more likely to impulse buy.
So I vote no to VIP (or any kind of monthly subscription), and yes to Just Buy Gems.
Personally i will either pay monthly for a VIP account that have acces to DLCs/new expansions.
Or buy the DLCs/ new expansions when the come.
But theres not DLCs/new expansions! -.- (in fact they toke ages for the first expansion and my wallet was waiting and waiting lol).
Also i could actually pay the value of an expansion for having all the Gem Shop items inserted in the game via rewards for different activities.
Pd: I want content, fix and improvements and im willing to pay for it, take my money! xd
Nope.
No worries then, I’ll just pop into the gem store once every couple of months when they offer something cosmetic I’m actually interested in. Frankly I don’t want to sit down with an spreadsheet and figure out how many boosters I should buy per month so I just won’t bother spending anything since I can afford to convert gold into Gems.
However it’s appealing to me personally to see a list of benefits that are constantly on to justify the expenditure that requires no thought like a Rift or ESO membership.
Is what it is, sporadic financial output while relying on whales, or having some financial stability by offering a VIP subscription for those people willing to spend money on perks.
If it leads to more revenue then it leads to more resources which leads to faster PVE content.
<mike dropped, stage exited>
If they did this it would be the final nail in their coffin, the game is in a bad state right now but they can still come back from it, going for a patron membership would kill it. Many play because it is does not cater to a certain group of people because they pay monthly.
And those kinds of people are very toxic and push people away from playing a game.
Anet needs to knuckle down and work on their game to bring it back to the standards they used to produce, not find a way to squeeze more money out of us.
I don’t think any of you even understand what VIP in an mmorpg even means, you don’t get a tag in your name people wont know unless you tell them and no if won’t divide the community because people do that anyways if they have legendaries, so it won’t nake a bit of difference if they get perks for being VIP, stop jumping to assumptions, sometines I think this is one if the nost emotionally unstable communities I’ve seen atleast lately.
Personally I don’t care if they do VIP or not but don’t spread mis information of things you don’t understand.
I don’t think any of you even understand what VIP in an mmorpg even means, you don’t get a tag in your name people wont know unless you tell them and no if won’t divide the community because people do that anyways if they have legendaries, so it won’t nake a bit of difference if they get perks for being VIP, stop jumping to assumptions, sometines I think this is one if the nost emotionally unstable communities I’ve seen atleast lately.
Personally I don’t care if they do VIP or not but don’t spread mis information of things you don’t understand.
The thing is, we were advertised that this game would have no subscription.
Between the benefits listed in the first thread and the fact that those players would likely include several who play for hours on end it will quickly become financially different between the VIP players and the non-VIP players. The magic find boost would have to be on top of the max MF boost as a LOT of players have maxed that out. That means higher chances at great drops including precursors.
Waypoint fees are a gold sink, which means that if enough players become subscribers, ANet has to put more gold sinks into the game that all players would get hit by in order to keep inflation from happening too quickly. This means that VIP players remain at current gold sink levels while players who do not become VIP get hurt because they experience more gold sinks.
Increased gathering rate means they make more per hour and the ones who gather a lot will then sell their mats and potentially tank the markets and then cause ANet to put in place corrective actions that penalize the non-VIP players because ANet has to balance on the VIP players being able to gather mats quicker.
THAT’s one of the major problems players have with a VIP system. In order to make them worth it for players to get, you have to give them an advantage and the ones posted have a great potential of actually hurting the players who do not become a VIP in the long run.
I don’t think any of you even understand what VIP in an mmorpg even means, you don’t get a tag in your name people wont know unless you tell them and no if won’t divide the community because people do that anyways if they have legendaries, so it won’t nake a bit of difference if they get perks for being VIP, stop jumping to assumptions, sometines I think this is one if the nost emotionally unstable communities I’ve seen atleast lately.
Personally I don’t care if they do VIP or not but don’t spread mis information of things you don’t understand.
The thing is, we were advertised that this game would have no subscription.
Between the benefits listed in the first thread and the fact that those players would likely include several who play for hours on end it will quickly become financially different between the VIP players and the non-VIP players. The magic find boost would have to be on top of the max MF boost as a LOT of players have maxed that out. That means higher chances at great drops including precursors.
Waypoint fees are a gold sink, which means that if enough players become subscribers, ANet has to put more gold sinks into the game that all players would get hit by in order to keep inflation from happening too quickly. This means that VIP players remain at current gold sink levels while players who do not become VIP get hurt because they experience more gold sinks.
Increased gathering rate means they make more per hour and the ones who gather a lot will then sell their mats and potentially tank the markets and then cause ANet to put in place corrective actions that penalize the non-VIP players because ANet has to balance on the VIP players being able to gather mats quicker.
THAT’s one of the major problems players have with a VIP system. In order to make them worth it for players to get, you have to give them an advantage and the ones posted have a great potential of actually hurting the players who do not become a VIP in the long run.
The scecret worlds vip isnt that much better then the base, it doesnt mean they have to do it here, and they still get plenty of vips, my point is people still wouldnt know unless you play them allot and notice how they are getting drops better then you. And it wasnt my idea to increase mf anyways.
I don’t think any of you even understand what VIP in an mmorpg even means, you don’t get a tag in your name people wont know unless you tell them and no if won’t divide the community because people do that anyways if they have legendaries, so it won’t nake a bit of difference if they get perks for being VIP, stop jumping to assumptions, sometines I think this is one if the nost emotionally unstable communities I’ve seen atleast lately.
Personally I don’t care if they do VIP or not but don’t spread mis information of things you don’t understand.
The thing is, we were advertised that this game would have no subscription.
Between the benefits listed in the first thread and the fact that those players would likely include several who play for hours on end it will quickly become financially different between the VIP players and the non-VIP players. The magic find boost would have to be on top of the max MF boost as a LOT of players have maxed that out. That means higher chances at great drops including precursors.
Waypoint fees are a gold sink, which means that if enough players become subscribers, ANet has to put more gold sinks into the game that all players would get hit by in order to keep inflation from happening too quickly. This means that VIP players remain at current gold sink levels while players who do not become VIP get hurt because they experience more gold sinks.
Increased gathering rate means they make more per hour and the ones who gather a lot will then sell their mats and potentially tank the markets and then cause ANet to put in place corrective actions that penalize the non-VIP players because ANet has to balance on the VIP players being able to gather mats quicker.
THAT’s one of the major problems players have with a VIP system. In order to make them worth it for players to get, you have to give them an advantage and the ones posted have a great potential of actually hurting the players who do not become a VIP in the long run.
The scecret worlds vip isnt that much better then the base, it doesnt mean they have to do it here, and they still get plenty of vips, my point is people still wouldnt know unless you play them allot and notice how they are getting drops better then you. And it wasnt my idea to increase mf anyways.
The difference becomes when they sell those drops or salvage them as better drops means less junk. And more rares and more exotics which puts more ectos on the market.
The long term effects of the advantages posted by the OP and for any VIP program that would actually be worth it for an MMORPG are negative for the players who do not become a VIP member.
The Secret World is not an MMORPG, the effects of a VIP program are different in other genres.
I have a suggestion, I was thinking that you guys could probably get some more revenue if you offered a Patron Membership.
Patron $10 to $15 per month.
Offer perks such as
Remote Bank, BLTP access.
Free Waypoints
Increased gathering rate.
Magic Find Bonus
Some sort of generic not fancy Infinite Gathering tool.
Maybe either a discount or Gem voucher.I suggest this because you guys don’t always put things in the store I’m interested in buying, I realize that content isn’t free people have to get paid, the more revenue you have the faster we get content updates and the bigger they are.
Just some food for thought, you can still keep offering the daily log in rewards and keep things the same for non Patrons, I just want a consistent way I can show support except through sporadic purchases.
How about a compromise to this idea? How about for every player that purchases at least $15 in Gems per month, they would get access to Mounts? That way, this system wouldn’t be considered a “VIP Membership”, but players willing to provide income to Anet would benefit with extra perks?
In GW2, Trading Post plays you!
I don’t think any of you even understand what VIP in an mmorpg even means, you don’t get a tag in your name people wont know unless you tell them and no if won’t divide the community because people do that anyways if they have legendaries, so it won’t nake a bit of difference if they get perks for being VIP, stop jumping to assumptions, sometines I think this is one if the nost emotionally unstable communities I’ve seen atleast lately.
Personally I don’t care if they do VIP or not but don’t spread mis information of things you don’t understand.
The thing is, we were advertised that this game would have no subscription.
Between the benefits listed in the first thread and the fact that those players would likely include several who play for hours on end it will quickly become financially different between the VIP players and the non-VIP players. The magic find boost would have to be on top of the max MF boost as a LOT of players have maxed that out. That means higher chances at great drops including precursors.
Waypoint fees are a gold sink, which means that if enough players become subscribers, ANet has to put more gold sinks into the game that all players would get hit by in order to keep inflation from happening too quickly. This means that VIP players remain at current gold sink levels while players who do not become VIP get hurt because they experience more gold sinks.
Increased gathering rate means they make more per hour and the ones who gather a lot will then sell their mats and potentially tank the markets and then cause ANet to put in place corrective actions that penalize the non-VIP players because ANet has to balance on the VIP players being able to gather mats quicker.
THAT’s one of the major problems players have with a VIP system. In order to make them worth it for players to get, you have to give them an advantage and the ones posted have a great potential of actually hurting the players who do not become a VIP in the long run.
The scecret worlds vip isnt that much better then the base, it doesnt mean they have to do it here, and they still get plenty of vips, my point is people still wouldnt know unless you play them allot and notice how they are getting drops better then you. And it wasnt my idea to increase mf anyways.
The difference becomes when they sell those drops or salvage them as better drops means less junk. And more rares and more exotics which puts more ectos on the market.
The long term effects of the advantages posted by the OP and for any VIP program that would actually be worth it for an MMORPG are negative for the players who do not become a VIP member.
The Secret World is not an MMORPG, the effects of a VIP program are different in other genres.
Again your not making sense considering you can already pay to do most of this anyways, its only negative If you look at it that way and the secret world is an mmorpg, I doubt you have played much of it.
I have a suggestion, I was thinking that you guys could probably get some more revenue if you offered a Patron Membership.
Patron $10 to $15 per month.
Offer perks such as
Remote Bank, BLTP access.
Free Waypoints
Increased gathering rate.
Magic Find Bonus
Some sort of generic not fancy Infinite Gathering tool.
Maybe either a discount or Gem voucher.I suggest this because you guys don’t always put things in the store I’m interested in buying, I realize that content isn’t free people have to get paid, the more revenue you have the faster we get content updates and the bigger they are.
Just some food for thought, you can still keep offering the daily log in rewards and keep things the same for non Patrons, I just want a consistent way I can show support except through sporadic purchases.
How about a compromise to this idea? How about for every player that purchases at least $15 in Gems per month, they would get access to Mounts? That way, this system wouldn’t be considered a “VIP Membership”, but players willing to provide income to Anet would benefit with extra perks?
Neat idea but probably wouldn’t be mounts.
Neat idea but probably wouldn’t be mounts.
I would pay extra for Mounts. Or Cantha.
In GW2, Trading Post plays you!
I don’t think any of you even understand what VIP in an mmorpg even means, you don’t get a tag in your name people wont know unless you tell them and no if won’t divide the community because people do that anyways if they have legendaries, so it won’t nake a bit of difference if they get perks for being VIP, stop jumping to assumptions, sometines I think this is one if the nost emotionally unstable communities I’ve seen atleast lately.
Personally I don’t care if they do VIP or not but don’t spread mis information of things you don’t understand.
The thing is, we were advertised that this game would have no subscription.
Between the benefits listed in the first thread and the fact that those players would likely include several who play for hours on end it will quickly become financially different between the VIP players and the non-VIP players. The magic find boost would have to be on top of the max MF boost as a LOT of players have maxed that out. That means higher chances at great drops including precursors.
Waypoint fees are a gold sink, which means that if enough players become subscribers, ANet has to put more gold sinks into the game that all players would get hit by in order to keep inflation from happening too quickly. This means that VIP players remain at current gold sink levels while players who do not become VIP get hurt because they experience more gold sinks.
Increased gathering rate means they make more per hour and the ones who gather a lot will then sell their mats and potentially tank the markets and then cause ANet to put in place corrective actions that penalize the non-VIP players because ANet has to balance on the VIP players being able to gather mats quicker.
THAT’s one of the major problems players have with a VIP system. In order to make them worth it for players to get, you have to give them an advantage and the ones posted have a great potential of actually hurting the players who do not become a VIP in the long run.
The scecret worlds vip isnt that much better then the base, it doesnt mean they have to do it here, and they still get plenty of vips, my point is people still wouldnt know unless you play them allot and notice how they are getting drops better then you. And it wasnt my idea to increase mf anyways.
The difference becomes when they sell those drops or salvage them as better drops means less junk. And more rares and more exotics which puts more ectos on the market.
The long term effects of the advantages posted by the OP and for any VIP program that would actually be worth it for an MMORPG are negative for the players who do not become a VIP member.
The Secret World is not an MMORPG, the effects of a VIP program are different in other genres.
Again your not making sense considering you can already pay to do most of this anyways, its only negative If you look at it that way and the secret world is an mmorpg, I doubt you have played much of it.
That’s because you’re continuing to ignore the long term consequences of players constantly getting better drops, not participating in a major gold sink for the game, among other things.
There’s already an optional subscription available. It’s called make a reminder on your phone for the first of the month to pay ANet $10 or $15 for gems. Then hold onto them or convert them to gold. To buy whatever you want. Not get a list of things that ANet chooses for you.
Absolutely not. Patron memberships are a plague that needs to die in video games. Every single game I’ve ever played that had this type of membership ended up with a P2p and F2p gap that couldn’t be repaired. Anet has crafted a Gem store that is wonderfully balanced. I don’t mean to come off as rude, but this is something I simply cannot agree with. I’ve taken no issue with sporadic purchases – if there’s nothing to buy in the store that I like, I’ll just convert some to gold when I’m running low to help support.
We’ve already got a small number of players who have paid for the game see themselves above Free to Play players, which is wrong.
We don’t need a third tier of ‘Holier than Thou’ players.
Blood & Merlot [Wine]
Yet another vip membership thread, we have similar topic about this 2 weeks ago, many are disagree
That was me, and it was suggested for anet to make money, people need to stop being so defensive, the secret world has one and I’m fairly sure eso does and both are buy to play mmorpgs.
The secret world is an irrelevant failure littering the MMO market. ESO was originally a subscription-based game.
This has already been thoroughly discussed.
https://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/1utx8p/data_mining_vip_membership/
(2 years old)
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/VIP-Membership/first
(Also ancient)
TL;DR (It’s a thing in Asia, but a resounding “Never going to happen anywhere else.”)
Add “United Chi” to your friends list or guild!
This is -never- going to happen.
Arenanet has always prided and advertised Guild Wars as -not- having monthly fees.
Luciana Aventius – Ranger – Gandara
I just want a consistent way I can show support except through sporadic purchases.
Buy $10-15 of gems each month whether or not you use them right away. Problem solved. That kittening simple. Now stop trying to make GW2 what it isnt.
I’m not in favor of the idea.
VIP benefits could theoretically be things that can be totally done without. However, that isn’t how marketing people think. The thought process is more likely to be along the lines of, “What benefits can we offer on a monthly rental basis that people will think they can’t do without.”
I might purchase such benefits. I absolutely would not rent them. When I quit WoW I said I would never again rent any aspect of a game. I’d likely leave the game if the rental benefits were actually good enough to warrant the rental fee and were not available for purchase. I think this is what would happen. Thus, my opposition.
If the intent is to give Anet more money for development, there is already a solution. Buy gems and buy the permanent items that give the benefits the OP suggests as rental benefits. This way, there’s no controversy over “optional” subs and no dev time taken away from content development to make the systems overhaul needed to make this happen.
It’s been proven time and again that the biggest sources of revenue for an MMO are the retail purchases of the base game, it’s expansions, and the whales who spend generously in the games’ various cash shops.
Only a very small percentage of an MMO’s population maintain a subscription over the long term, and the whales are typically part of that percentage. In other words, these folks will spend regardless of whether a subscription is a part of the game’s financial model. The rest of the game’s population either won’t pay at all, or will pay only until they’ve exhausted the current content.
If you want to support the game the best way to do it is to spread word of mouth. Get friends and family interested and encourage them to check out the cash shop to see if there is anything they like.
If you want a subscription service to provide perks and benefits above and beyond what is available to regular players, it’s best to be upfront about that. Some folks don’t have the time for all that grind and would pay the price for convenience. Others want to pay for exclusivity and the sense of being a prominent supporter of something they already enjoy. Some folks just want any possible advantage they can get over other players and will pay so long as it’s worthwhile.
Personally I’m happy with the way things are. There are plenty of convenience items in the cash shop and buying gems with real dollars to snap them up is already an efficient subscription service. When you’re already at max characters/max level/max rep/max etc all the bonuses from a traditional subscription service are completely wasted. At least this way you’re free to buy only those perks which are useful for you.
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