NEW GAME FEE's

[Jacoby]

Turbine you have gone over the greed threshold in my opinion. I don't mind paying a fee to buy packs and updates but you've gone too far. I pay way over the monthly subscription price for my premium account because I like certain things but when I saw the price for the new U12 pack my jaw hit the floor. I was also excited that we would be able to share plat accross our characters but then I saw that it was a TIER'd upgrade 50k Plat per tier. That's highway robbery for something that should have been in game since it's inception.

You're geting greedy Turbine...

I will not be buying the new pack.

[Diyon]

Honestly, I'm starting to think the price for the challenge pack isn't that bad for what you get (provided you like the content). I mean, it has bunches of pieces of named loot, and a three tiered version of each from all the way down at lvl 4 up to epic items. You can run these at practically any level, run them group or solo. You get several challenges (more than in a typical quest pack) that you can play at any lvl.

I was having a great time with my group last night figure out how to run Colossal Crystals effectively and pulling it off. Just now I was having fun working at one of the Mansion levels solo.

So you get:

-More loot than potentially any other content pack except maybe sands (and the quality here overall is much better) by a good margin

-More "quests" than most other content packs

-A larger playable lvl range than any other pack

-Epic gear

-Undecaying experience for any lvl

-Something different from your standard quests (and potentially fun, opinion here though)

-Something that gives you a nice easy way to, as they are called, challenge yourself. You managed to pull this off this well last time, now you can try to do better, as well as try to meet some hard to accomplish goals.


I thought it was a bit much too, but I've really changed my mind on that. On an ending note, I do think the shared plat bank prices are a bit much for what you get.

[Darkrok]

Turbine you have gone over the greed threshold in my opinion. I don't mind paying a fee to buy packs and updates but you've gone too far. I pay way over the monthly subscription price for my premium account because I like certain things but when I saw the price for the new U12 pack my jaw hit the floor. I was also excited that we would be able to share plat accross our characters but then I saw that it was a TIER'd upgrade 50k Plat per tier. That's highway robbery for something that should have been in game since it's inception.

You're geting greedy Turbine...

I will not be buying the new pack.

Just want to point out that unlike previous updates this one gives limited access to everyone (tokens when you talk to the free token person each day). If you don't really want to just run it one time you could save up the daily tokens until you've got a lot of them and then go on a challenge spree.

Not arguing your point...just saying that this update is quite a bit different than the ones in the past and that's the stated reason from Turbine for the price discrepancy.

[Zenako]

Plus with this pack you can now earn enough House C favor to unlock the otherwise need to purchase Artificer class.

It is almost in some ways like a permanent CC addition to the game, with MANY more variations and options. There is a large variety of gear available and these quests can be handled by a range of skill sets.

[AZgreentea]

Just want to point out that unlike previous updates this one gives limited access to everyone (tokens when you talk to the free token person each day). If you don't really want to just run it one time you could save up the daily tokens until you've got a lot of them and then go on a challenge spree.

Not arguing your point...just saying that this update is quite a bit different than the ones in the past and that's the stated reason from Turbine for the price discrepancy.
Thats what really changed my mind about the price of the new pack. I will probably buy it eventually so I can have unlimited access and continue my trend of owning all the content. I always buy the packs on sale, but for the new pack I will be waiting for a 30% or higher coupon first. Until then, I get to play it for free with restrictions.

Not that the restrictions really effect me. I normally only play on the weekends, so I can log in for 3 min during the week to grab my tokens and then burn them all up on the weekend.

[Darkrok]

Thats what really changed my mind about the price of the new pack. I will probably buy it eventually so I can have unlimited access and continue my trend of owning all the content. I always buy the packs on sale, but for the new pack I will be waiting for a 30% or higher coupon first. Until then, I get to play it for free with restrictions.

Not that the restrictions really effect me. I normally only play on the weekends, so I can log in for 3 min during the week to grab my tokens and then burn them all up on the weekend.

Right! And honestly, not sure about other people but I was getting 3 tokens. I wouldn't really want to run the same challenge more than 3 times in a row. :)

[MrkGrismer]

A couple comments on your comments ;)


You can run these at practically any level, run them group or solo. You get several challenges (more than in a typical quest pack) that you can play at any lvl.

While true, all the challenges are not playable at every level. Yesterday's 'free daily challenge' was restricted to level 14 or higher, for instance. I threw away the token and went and did desert stuff. I could have switched to a capped character but I don't really see the point of that right now.



-More loot than potentially any other content pack except maybe sands (and the quality here overall is much better) by a good margin

Perhaps you mean, more possible named loot? You certainly don't get more loot. Loot drops in these are poor. For a casual you are probably looking at doing around 17 runs for each item (assuming 400 pieces of three different ingredients and an average drop of 70 or so ingredients each run, hopefully I am lowballing the average ingredient drop and it goes way up once we learn the maps). It was an improvement that they added the (somewhat odd) direct-into-inventory chest drop, but I have yet to see anything in there that isn't just plat in a different form.


-More "quests" than most other content packs

Nope, 4 maps, 3 variations, plus a couple epic versions. Sharn Syndicate has more (if you don't count epics).


-A larger playable lvl range than any other pack

I will give you this one, but is it really worth being the only pack a person gets?


-Epic gear

Meh.


-Undecaying experience for any lvl

Maybe it would be better to say 'pre-decayed'.


-Something different from your standard quests (and potentially fun, opinion here though)

I can agree with this one, but without better rewards the fun might wear off faster, I am reserving my opinion tho until I have more experience with them.


-Something that gives you a nice easy way to, as they are called, challenge yourself. You managed to pull this off this well last time, now you can try to do better, as well as try to meet some hard to accomplish goals.

This might be a possible appeal, but again I am going to reserve my judgement to see if they have the crack-like addictive power of something like Empire Earth (the original).

[Diyon]

A couple comments on your comments ;)



While true, all the challenges are not playable at every level. Yesterday's 'free daily challenge' was restricted to level 14 or higher, for instance. I threw away the token and went and did desert stuff. I could have switched to a capped character but I don't really see the point of that right now.

Okay, true, you can't play all of them at any lvl, I was just pointing out the potential range of lvl use from the pack

Perhaps you mean, more possible named loot? You certainly don't get more loot. Loot drops in these are poor. For a casual you are probably looking at doing around 17 runs for each item (assuming 400 pieces of three different ingredients and an average drop of 70 or so ingredients each run, hopefully I am lowballing the average ingredient drop and it goes way up once we learn the maps). It was an improvement that they added the (somewhat odd) direct-into-inventory chest drop, but I have yet to see anything in there that isn't just plat in a different form.

Meaning there's 13(14) items that come in 3 tiers, some that have different weapon/armor type options, and there is a version of these for several different lvls. 17 runs isn't bad if you have the pack, its not like they have timers on them. Also, for reference my lvl20 group on Colossal Crystals was getting 80-200 items per run after we figured out how to not fail, and we had not remotely optimized our strategy yet, we could have gotten lots more if we kept going. Once again, 17 something runs isn't something bad that run at 10-20 minutes a run, have no timer. Compare to the number of runs sometimes required to get raid loot, epic items, alchem weapons, etc.

Nope, 4 maps, 3 variations, plus a couple epic versions. Sharn Syndicate has more (if you don't count epics).

That's 12 by my count if you count the variations as separate. In any case, maybe not the most, but a good amount.

I will give you this one, but is it really worth being the only pack a person gets?

No, it is not worth it being to only pack someone gets. I'd never recommend it for a first pack. But if someone likes the challenges (which they can test for free or low price), then I'd say its not a bad pick up for maybe a third or fourth pack.

Meh.

Small point, goes back to the previous loot comment. In any case there is a bunch of stuff I want out of here for my characters that's going to displace other gear.

Maybe it would be better to say 'pre-decayed'.

Perhaps.

I can agree with this one, but without better rewards the fun might wear off faster, I am reserving my opinion tho until I have more experience with them.

Fair enough

This might be a possible appeal, but again I am going to reserve my judgement to see if they have the crack-like addictive power of something like Empire Earth (the original).

I'm having a great time so far. I was using a few tokens to start, and decided almost immediately I wanted to run more of these now and didn't want to wait for more free tokens.

Comments in green.

[Jacoby]

Now I haven't run the pack as I was put off by the high prices. Hell I can buy a new game each month for what I'm paying in plat to Turbine each month. But I will say this, if it's like the cove you will get burnt after a while. I think I ran the cove like 3 times this year because I was still burnt out from last year. I'm begining to get the mouse in a wheel effect for a huge price point. Nah, not interested. I want D&D not a grind-a-thon.

[Dhampire2222]

Plus with this pack you can now earn enough House C favor to unlock the otherwise need to purchase Artificer class.

It is almost in some ways like a permanent CC addition to the game, with MANY more variations and options. There is a large variety of gear available and these quests can be handled by a range of skill sets.

Can I get a discount if I've already bought the Artificer class? No? Then I will only value the new pack similar to other high level adventure packs (e.g. Secrets of the Artificers 650TP) or maybe just 10-15% more, not 100% more. I'm not about to pay for a packaged deal (even though DDO doesn't say this out loud) if I've already bought the Artificer class.

[BOgre]

meh. haters gonna hate. people have been asking for more 'challenge/event' type content for sooo long, turbine goes and makes a whole content pack chok full of it, and it's nothing but complaints since it hit.
I've been known to do more than my fair share of complaining, but c'mon folks. hop OFF the bandwagon and enjoy the new content. You know you want to.

EDIT: Neg rep'd for this post, and I guess I deserve it. Why? not because it's inflamatory/derogatory/disruptive/trolling/orViolateToS, but because here I am trying to defend turbine for trying something new, and yet in any number of other posts I jump ON the bandwagon and complain with the rest of 'em... so i won't bother to dispute it...

I WANT to like Turbine, I want to be on-board, I'm trying to stay positive, but darn it's just getting really tough to do... grrr.

[Keylon]

Turbine you have gone over the greed threshold in my opinion. I don't mind paying a fee to buy packs and updates but you've gone too far. I pay way over the monthly subscription price for my premium account because I like certain things but when I saw the price for the new U12 pack my jaw hit the floor. I was also excited that we would be able to share plat accross our characters but then I saw that it was a TIER'd upgrade 50k Plat per tier. That's highway robbery for something that should have been in game since it's inception.

You're geting greedy Turbine...

I will not be buying the new pack.

Seriously, if you don't wanna buy the challenge pack then don't most of the stuff on it can't compare to loot from cheaper packs anyway, hence why I find this pack pretty much a waste

[TEcarson]

Not sure where you are getting 50K plat per tier for the plat transfer.

Being VIP, I started with 50K. Added a tier to got to 100K. Added one more tier to go to 250K.

That is plenty for me, so that is where I am staying.

But... "50K per tier"? Nope.

[Vormaerin]

Turbine is no more greedy than you are. They have content, you have money. Both want more of what the other has for as little as possible. If anything, Turbine is the less greedy one because they give you the opportunity to play the content in limited doses without paying at all. I don't see you giving them money for nothing.

If the pack isn't worth the money, don't buy it. I like having art on my walls. I don't like having art on my walls at the prices paid at Sotheby's art auctions. Other people do, though. So why shouldn't the artist sell the art at those prices?

Turbine isn't going to listen to 5 or 50 people whining on the forums about this. That many people are likely to whine about just about anything. They'll look at their sales figures and decide if they are making the money they expect or not.

While games gain some value for having a raw number of players, if a given pack sells to 15 people for 2X and dropping the price to X means 25 would buy it, they are better off selling it at 2X, as that brings in more money.

[Astraghal]

Turbine isn't going to listen to 5 or 50 people whining on the forums about this. That many people are likely to whine about just about anything. They'll look at their sales figures and decide if they are making the money they expect or not.

There will always be something on the horizon that the fickle masses will flock to. It seems that Turbine are happy for DDO to become just one more installment in the mass market dross currently available. Turbine have decided to cash in on the F2P hordes while they last, at the expense of their loyal customers. It will be interesting to see how this pans out for them a year or two in the future. I wonder how much of their current customer base will still be here then. Because that F2P honeymoon can only last until the next big mass market MMO gets released or goes F2P. I'm sure DDO will be around for a while yet, I just don't think the same type of people will be playing it.

[Ugumagre]

I just see a lot of people that thought:
"Ok, I will go premium, that is better than VIP on the long run".

Well, you miscalculated and of course, you don´t want to blame yourself. So you blame Turbine.
Fine.

[Vormaerin]

There will always be something on the horizon that the fickle masses will flock to. It seems that Turbine are happy for DDO to become just one more installment in the mass market dross currently available. Turbine have decided to cash in on the F2P hordes while they last, at the expense of their loyal customers. It will be interesting to see how this pans out for them a year or two in the future. I wonder how much of their current customer base will still be here then. Because that F2P honeymoon can only last until the next big mass market MMO gets released or goes F2P. I'm sure DDO will be around for a while yet, I just don't think the same type of people will be playing it.

This doom and gloom about the other games destroying DDO is a bit tired. Don't we hear it every 3 months or so? At some point, DDO will go away. Everything does.

But who are these loyal customers you are talking about that are getting shafted? Its certainly not the subscribers. We have this pack for free, we have the first installment of the bank for free, we get 500 points per month for upgrades... I suppose you mean those loyal customers who gave up their subs for what they viewed as the cheaper option? Uh huh, its obviously Turbine that's the greedy rotten one there :P

btw, given how much whining there is about elitism, overly restrictive lfms, my ddo-snobbery, and whatever else, its not even clear to me that its a bad thing that "the same type of people won't be playing it" j/k :D

[donfilibuster]

This doom and gloom about the other games destroying DDO is a bit tired. Don't we hear it every 3 months or so? At some point, DDO will go away. Everything does.

But who are these loyal customers you are talking about that are getting shafted? Its certainly not the subscribers. We have this pack for free, we have the first installment of the bank for free, we get 500 points per month for upgrades... I suppose you mean those loyal customers who gave up their subs for what they viewed as the cheaper option? Uh huh, its obviously Turbine that's the greedy rotten one there :P

btw, given how much whining there is about elitism, overly restrictive lfms, my ddo-snobbery, and whatever else, its not even clear to me that its a bad thing that "the same type of people won't be playing it" j/k :D

Except this update comes in a very busy date. The date of release is carefully studied by market research in companies to avoid lagging behind.
This was the weeks of pre-holiday season where there's lots of new movies, books, etc. not just games.
So you get to choose, compare and complain, which i say are the new three C's of marketing.

Is unfair to call unloyal to the premium players as a whole. Premium players just pay dues bi-monthly instead of monthly like vip do.
Premium was supposed to be an alternative to subscribing, not one tier below. Even let the sales dept. have options to get your money, including finding the flops.
But premium vs. vip is an eternal dilemma, starting with the misleading naming and branding itself.

As for the whining, all the elitism, lfm's, snobs and snoobs are not quite killing ddo.
What goes this time is that some ppl is not getting into the new fun asap, be it from money, soloing, being maze-challenged, etc.
Whatever holds the fun can hold you buying the pack asap, some of us will wait for the patch.
And on the very least whining is technically still a form of feedback, as much as an unwanted telephone survey is.

[Ugumagre]

I just see a lot of people that thought:
"Ok, I will go premium, that is better than VIP on the long run".

Well, you miscalculated and of course, you don´t want to blame yourself. So you blame Turbine.
Fine.

Somebody was not amused with my comment :D above.

Ohhh man..truth hits everybody

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rOHe5nM5psU

[Vormaerin]

Is unfair to call unloyal to the premium players as a whole. Premium players just pay dues bi-monthly instead of monthly like vip do.
Premium was supposed to be an alternative to subscribing, not one tier below. Even let the sales dept. have options to get your money, including finding the flops.
But premium vs. vip is an eternal dilemma, starting with the misleading naming and branding itself.



I don't think premium is a tier below. But I do think you are full of bs if you think any loyal customers are getting shafted. Subscribers get the opportunity to play all the challenges at will (or not) and a few other things (like the bank start). Good for us. Premium players get to play the daily challenges and can opt to buy or not buy the challenges as a whole, depending on whether they like them or not. Good for them. Its not like the challenges are being bundled into a pack with quests and a raid, so you have to overpay for the "real" content.

Seriously... how can free content be a shaft? You can play everything without paying a cent, just not exactly when you want. If you want the on demand feature, then you pay.

[goodspeed]

you know as a premium (basically everyone not a vip unless for some unknown reason you never used even 1 tp you get every 100 favor to buy anything in the store) you get 1 to 3 free tokens a day. That is 1 to 3 chances per character to complete a challenge (if your smart it won't be with a bunch of nubs screaming WHAT DO I DO!! MY MIND CAN'T COMPREHEND TO GUARD A DEVICE!!!!!) with a good group of people and earn at least 3 stars per challenge. This will award you favor for how many stars you get without paying 1.5 thousand tp. Granted you can't grind it again and again if you screwed up, but each day you have a shot.

In fact currently turbine seems to be allowing real money transfers via in game items for card codes, or now universal tokens on the ah for prolly thousands of plat. So farm GS ingredients and trade in commodity. If your ticked about the gear/weapons who cares. The stuffs mostly **** anyway that can be more easily obtained or overcome by epics/GS/alchemical.

[Vormaerin]

I don't think using turbine points makes you a premium account. I think /buying/ turbine points makes your account premium.

[Diyon]

I don't think using turbine points makes you a premium account. I think /buying/ turbine points makes your account premium.

This is true last I checked. You do not become premium from using turbine points earned in game. I do think you become premium with a point code though, whether it was a prize or whether or not you paid for it yourself.

[donfilibuster]

I don't think premium is a tier below. But I do think you are full of bs if you think any loyal customers are getting shafted. Subscribers get the opportunity to play all the challenges at will (or not) and a few other things (like the bank start). Good for us. Premium players get to play the daily challenges and can opt to buy or not buy the challenges as a whole, depending on whether they like them or not. Good for them. Its not like the challenges are being bundled into a pack with quests and a raid, so you have to overpay for the "real" content.


Just meant to make sure that those loyal customers should include both vips and premiums equally, since both pay fees periodically to have new content.
It was Astraghal the one saying that turbine was catering to F2P players, which is indeed an old issue on it's own.
This comes from the first days of F2P when all content was made for the horde of new players and took until u11 to have a pack with actual high level quests.
So it's not just the pricing, it's the whole of the policies involving content, marketing, the store, etc.

And yes, the market dept will see the numbers and may treat the existing customers as safe base, diverting the efforts to the new customers, yet it'd be never good to cut them off the picture entirely.
Ties with the earlier comment of the market dept not listening to the minority, or a handful of whinners, which is to be expected but depends in the complains come form the casual or vet players. The casual players have been quite loud at feedback, people whining on quests have indeed led to easybuttons and nerfs.

[Vormaerin]

There are a lot of subscribers and premium players who have benefited from Phiarlan Carnival, Red Fens, and the other mid and low level quests. Korthos is vastly better than the old harbor too.

[Astraghal]

This doom and gloom about the other games destroying DDO is a bit tired. Don't we hear it every 3 months or so? At some point, DDO will go away. Everything does.

But who are these loyal customers you are talking about that are getting shafted? Its certainly not the subscribers. We have this pack for free, we have the first installment of the bank for free, we get 500 points per month for upgrades... I suppose you mean those loyal customers who gave up their subs for what they viewed as the cheaper option? Uh huh, its obviously Turbine that's the greedy rotten one there :P

If you're talking about cheap options, why would you even BE a subscriber when you can own the game more cheaply?


btw, given how much whining there is about elitism, overly restrictive lfms, my ddo-snobbery, and whatever else, its not even clear to me that its a bad thing that "the same type of people won't be playing it" j/k :D

Subscribers should get all content, including maxiumum inventory tabs, bank tabs, shared bank space, full sized platinum bank etc. as standard. Items you can buy from the DDO store like bags and hearts of wood should be a separate charge.

Doesn't seem to me like VIP's get all that much more than Premium accounts really.


I don't think premium is a tier below. But I do think you are full of bs if you think any loyal customers are getting shafted. Subscribers get the opportunity to play all the challenges at will (or not) and a few other things (like the bank start). Good for us. Premium players get to play the daily challenges and can opt to buy or not buy the challenges as a whole, depending on whether they like them or not. Good for them. Its not like the challenges are being bundled into a pack with quests and a raid, so you have to overpay for the "real" content.

Seriously... how can free content be a shaft? You can play everything without paying a cent, just not exactly when you want. If you want the on demand feature, then you pay.

Yep I think you're getting shafted. You get relatively little for paying the most. The fees you pay are put into releasing free content for other people. Recent changes have catered to the F2P hordes and upset some of longest paying loyal customers. On top of that, you still have to buy everything anyway if you cancel your subscription. I've spent between $150-$200 on this game and own all the packs, huge bags for my toons, full bank space, shared bank, multiple LR's etc. I think that's less than 1 years subscription and I own it all forever.

[Qaliya]

If you're talking about cheap options, why would you even BE a subscriber when you can own the game more cheaply?

Because there's more to life than just trying to get everything as cheaply as possible. I subscribed within a few days of trying out DDO, for several reasons. It gave me access to everything at once, without me having to waste time trying to figure out what I wanted to buy and what I didn't. It also provided me with benefits such as access to races and classes I couldn't get otherwise.

And I also subscribed because I wanted to support the company's efforts.

[Vormaerin]

Why would I care if I own the content when I'm not playing?

And how long is it going to take me at $10 a month to replace all the content I run right now, including the monks, half elves, half orcs, warforged, and extra character slots that I have?

You could argue that the value of 500 points I get every month is 5-6 dollars, so my subscription's "content value" should be based on $5 a month, but we'll ignore that.

A quick look on the DDOwiki indicates that I have ~24500 TP worth of content to purchase if I dump my subscription. That's about $250 at the regular list price for points. Its about $175 if that 6900 for $50 is still around (don't think it is, but not sure).

Let's make this easy and ignore any questions like "does my budget allow dropping $200 at once as easily as $10 for 20 months", though there's a very real value to the opportunity cost of that additional upfront cost (ie $190 of stuff I can't buy this month).

DDO Unlimited has been out for 26 months? Something like that. So I've spent $260 to have $175-$250 worth of content at my disposal. Of course, if I buy the 16000 or so "free" points that have come with my sub over that time, I should add $110 or so to that value? So call it $260 spent for $285 worth of content. At the 6900 for $50 conversion rate. Its a lot better without that price. Gosh, I feel totally shafted....

Yes... I could wait until things are on sale to buy them and save money. But then I have to calculate a price for the times someone says "let's do Harbinger of Madness" and I have to say "ooops, don't have that yet".


Oh... and it also ignores one of the huge benefits of VIP for me: starting on hard or elite. I don't know if I'd still be playing if every new character had to do content on normal or waste time looking for an opener. You can't buy that.

[Ungood]

Turbine you have gone over the greed threshold in my opinion. I don't mind paying a fee to buy packs and updates but you've gone too far. I pay way over the monthly subscription price for my premium account because I like certain things but when I saw the price for the new U12 pack my jaw hit the floor.

To be fair at this point, a monthly sub is 15 dollars, the new pack is a one time cost of 15 dollars. Now, IF you were paying more then the monthly sub, this would be nothing but a 'break even" point, not a jaw dropping issue.


Not sure where you are getting 50K plat per tier for the plat transfer.

Being VIP, I started with 50K. Added a tier to got to 100K. Added one more tier to go to 250K.

This would be, because as a VIP you start at Tier 1, on your first upgrade, you go to Tier 2. So people are balking at the initial limit of 50K and then needing to pay again, to go to 100K. Seems a bit steep to some.

[Astraghal]

Why would I care if I own the content when I'm not playing?

And how long is it going to take me at $10 a month to replace all the content I run right now, including the monks, half elves, half orcs, warforged, and extra character slots that I have?

You could argue that the value of 500 points I get every month is 5-6 dollars, so my subscription's "content value" should be based on $5 a month, but we'll ignore that.

A quick look on the DDOwiki indicates that I have ~24500 TP worth of content to purchase if I dump my subscription. That's about $250 at the regular list price for points. Its about $175 if that 6900 for $50 is still around (don't think it is, but not sure).

Let's make this easy and ignore any questions like "does my budget allow dropping $200 at once as easily as $10 for 20 months", though there's a very real value to the opportunity cost of that additional upfront cost (ie $190 of stuff I can't buy this month).

DDO Unlimited has been out for 26 months? Something like that. So I've spent $260 to have $175-$250 worth of content at my disposal. Of course, if I buy the 16000 or so "free" points that have come with my sub over that time, I should add $110 or so to that value? So call it $260 spent for $285 worth of content. At the 6900 for $50 conversion rate. Its a lot better without that price. Gosh, I feel totally shafted....

Yes... I could wait until things are on sale to buy them and save money. But then I have to calculate a price for the times someone says "let's do Harbinger of Madness" and I have to say "ooops, don't have that yet".


Oh... and it also ignores one of the huge benefits of VIP for me: starting on hard or elite. I don't know if I'd still be playing if every new character had to do content on normal or waste time looking for an opener. You can't buy that.

I bought 3 or 4 of the $50 for 6900 Turbine points specials over a period of about 6 months, when I believe the subscription fee was still $15/month, I also picked up stuff when it was on sale and never wanted for content to play. I played steadily from about April 2010 to June/July 2011, I play less regularly now but still log on about every other day.

It seems to me that the longer you subscribe, the less value you are getting, because you will always have to re-subscribe to access the full game again. Being a smart customer isn't a bad thing, premium users like me still paid for what we got, we just paid less in the long term.

[Qaliya]

I bought 3 or 4 of the $50 for 6900 Turbine points specials over a period of about 6 months, when I believe the subscription fee was still $15/month, I also picked up stuff when it was on sale and never wanted for content to play. I played steadily from about April 2010 to June/July 2011, I play less regularly now but still log on about every other day.

Whereas I've been a VIP for four months and have been able to enjoy pretty much everything in the game for far less money than you've spent.

Maybe over the long term you'll end up ahead, but you are not counting all of the wasted time and missed opportunities along the way. Or the simple possibility that I'll get bored of DDO and quit after trying everything, and end up ahead financially.



It seems to me that the longer you subscribe, the less value you are getting, because you will always have to re-subscribe to access the full game again. Being a smart customer isn't a bad thing, premium users like me still paid for what we got, we just paid less in the long term.

Ironic that you write this only a few days after an update that provided VIPs with, what, 2000 TP worth of content for free. The content may not be the best, but it is included. As long as they keep putting out updates that are included in VIP, it will be worth keeping up.

Plus, again, I'm happy to pay the equivalent of less than a single movie ticket per month to support Turbine.

[Vormaerin]

I bought 3 or 4 of the $50 for 6900 Turbine points specials over a period of about 6 months, when I believe the subscription fee was still $15/month, I also picked up stuff when it was on sale and never wanted for content to play. I played steadily from about April 2010 to June/July 2011, I play less regularly now but still log on about every other day.

It seems to me that the longer you subscribe, the less value you are getting, because you will always have to re-subscribe to access the full game again. Being a smart customer isn't a bad thing, premium users like me still paid for what we got, we just paid less in the long term.

The $10 per month rate has been available for years and years. I got it for some birthday special or new year's thing a long time ago. Now, of course, I could pay less than $10 if I subbed for a year at a time. Not worth it, though.

You didn't start until 2010, if I understand you correctly. I started playing in 2006. For me, jumping from VIP to premium without shelling out a year or two's subscription cost would have meant disabling characters and no longer being able to run content that I was accustomed to running.

One of my buddies is premium and it works fine for him. But I end up buying him passes from my "free" points when I want to run something he hasn't gotten yet (he has most things now, but that wasn't always the case). And I just cringe when he talks about doing stuff on normal/hard/elite still.... normal makes my eyes bleed.

[Crazeee]

Not sure where you are getting 50K plat per tier for the plat transfer.

Being VIP, I started with 50K. Added a tier to got to 100K. Added one more tier to go to 250K.

That is plenty for me, so that is where I am staying.

But... "50K per tier"? Nope.

So you get more than 50k after the 3rd tier? And for that I have to pay how many TP? I can send about 11k per mail. I can send a few mails. Why should I spend my TP for something I will get for a few silver using the mail system? The shared bank should be a free, unlimited part of the shared bank box. I see no reason why anyone would spend TP on this? It's a pure rip-off!

[Astraghal]

Whereas I've been a VIP for four months and have been able to enjoy pretty much everything in the game for far less money than you've spent.
As a Premium player I own what I've paid for so far. You might think it's better value as a VIP player to subscribe for the duration of your time playing DDO. For me though, especially as I increasingly divide my attention between DDO and other games, I wouldn't want to have to initiate a subscription each time for the duration of my interest.



Maybe over the long term you'll end up ahead, but you are not counting all of the wasted time and missed opportunities along the way. Or the simple possibility that I'll get bored of DDO and quit after trying everything, and end up ahead financially.

I had reached the conclusion that I was interested in DDO before deciding to purchase content and by doing so I supported the product I was enjoying. If I get bored with DDO now, I could always come back in the future and pick up where I left off without paying any more money.



Ironic that you write this only a few days after an update that provided VIPs with, what, 2000 TP worth of content for free. The content may not be the best, but it is included. As long as they keep putting out updates that are included in VIP, it will be worth keeping up.

Plus, again, I'm happy to pay the equivalent of less than a single movie ticket per month to support Turbine.

Turbine isn't giving you content for free, you're paying for it with your subscription. Weren't a bunch of people complaining about having to purchase the Artificer class when it was released and more recently about the plat bank having a tiny cap unless you spend money? I would have though THOSE things should have been fully available to VIP's.

[MrkGrismer]

you know as a premium (basically everyone not a vip unless for some unknown reason you never used even 1 tp you get every 100 favor to buy anything in the store) you get 1 to 3 free tokens a day.

1) No, you have to BUY tp to be premium, using the free TP doesn't count.
2) No, premiums are only getting ONE token per day, same as F2P.

[learst]

The thing to bear in mind is - Premium players can be at two extremes. It could be the guy who just dropped $5 for TP bundle or $15 for a month's sub or someone who drops hundreds of dollars a month.

For VIP - it could also be someone who only drops $10 a month or someone who goes beyond and buy tons of additional TP. The difference with premium folks is they can pick and choose - so if they find an item is too expensive (in their perception), that is a choice they have to consider instead of screaming at Turbine for being greedy

The thing is, for VIP there is a guaranteed base payment of ~10 per month. Premium do not - they could drop more, or they might not.
Whenever premium folks comes out and stakes their claim that they spend lots more than VIP players, they must bear in mind that they do NOT represent ALL premium players. There have been countless threads of folks thumping their chest on how much they have saved by going premium (including some posters in this thread).

In this instance of "loyal", again Premiums have to bear in mind that NOT all premiums spend tons of money. This is definitely something that bears into Turbine's decision when pricing.

[Habreno]

1) No, you have to BUY tp to be premium, using the free TP doesn't count.
2) No, premiums are only getting ONE token per day, same as F2P.

1) True.
2) False. Premium myself. 3 tokens/day on first toon. It's probably 1/day on any toons past first.

[Cyr]

Ironic that you write this only a few days after an update that provided VIPs with, what, 2000 TP worth of content for free. The content may not be the best, but it is included.

Pricing something very high does not make it worth that much.

Turbine could put out a new hairstyle option and price it at a million TP and free for VIPs, but that would not make VIP suddenly one million TP more valuable.

[Cyr]

1) True.
2) False. Premium myself. 3 tokens/day on first toon. It's probably 1/day on any toons past first.

I have not gotten more then one token per toon per day on my premium account past the first day.

I assume this is a bug based upon developer responses so far.

[bashemgud]

The new loot is very niche anyways, aimed at very specific builts. Sure some items are nice, but most if not all will be replaced by better epics.

[MrkGrismer]

1) True.
2) False. Premium myself. 3 tokens/day on first toon. It's probably 1/day on any toons past first.

Then you are getting lucky. I have only been playing one character since the update dropped and it has been one token per day. PERIOD (other than on the first day, when I got 3).