PrE should cost TP for non VIP

[CaptGrim]

OK people read just a few lines before going ballistic.

There have been 2 races and 3 classes released since the inception of the PrE system that started back with rangers YEARS ago.

Why?

Races and classes haul big profits with I'm guessing a rather high time to profit ratio. PrEs do little to raise the bottom line beside selling an odd char slot, a few tomes, or a few hearts of wood.

Now I say this as a long time VIP that within the last year has spent hundreds of dollars to swap over to premium.

Make class PrEs cost 100 TP to unlock account wide for non VIPs. All current accounts would be grandfathered in with all current PrEs. All new PrEs would need to be purchased.

This would do a few things:

1) Reward VIPs for paying a sub, making a larger difference between VIP, premium, F2P. After the artifister and elite unlock losses this would be a large tangible savings over non VIPs.

2) Generate revenue for releasing PrEs so that turbine has an incentive to get them finished sometime before 2016. Seriously Eladrin, 1-3 TIERS of a PrE getting released every 2-4 updates is beyond silly. I would think a reasonable goal would be FINISH a PrE (you know T1, T2, and T3)every even numbered update. I believe that first level of the bard PrEs were released right after rangers got theirs and they are STILL at T2...really??

3) just thought of this one while typing it up.... It would give turbine marketing a *edit*....smile to increase the cost of the downgrade from VIP to F2P, thus increasing the carrot factor to continue paying a sub.

[bnastyy]

lolwhut?

[Habreno]

While I understand your thinking, it won't work. 100 TP is too low, and pricing it higher would make it not worth the benefit.

In all seriousness, a new starting character for a new player will get over 100 TP by level 6 through favor rewards alone. It's merely too small an amount to matter, and making it more would simply alienate the player base.

However great an idea, I sadly have to say /not signed, simply because, although I like the idea, there's no feasable way to make it work.

[kmau]

I agree with the fact that new PrEs are coming out too slow. I however think that making people pay for something that has been f2p for ages is wrong. I could write a whole paragraph about it but it would be the very definition of "going ballistic", which would probably be the general reception.

[smeggy1384]

Throw in some favor unlocks with various houses (maybe they can stiff us like they did with artis, Prestige unlockable next update!) and it could work. Loved by house J already? Makes sense for cleric, FVS, and paladin prestiges to be open to you. Or some short pay to play quest chain, do it once per character and it can now unlock the prestige(if the class/race is available for it, like elven AA). Need to just be something other than pay for it, would screw those who already have and rely on their prestiges.

[sebastianosmith]

An apple, no mater how sweet, will eventually fall from the tree. Waiting brings rewards.

[Gorbadoc]

However great an idea, I sadly have to say /not signed, simply because, although I like the idea, there's no feasable way to make it work.

That's what they said about Federal Express!


Yeah, I don't know what my point is, either. If the administrative people at Turbine figure out how to convince the money people to finance the implementation of the PrEs we've been promised, great. I don't know whether the OP's idea would convince them or not.

[fyrst.grok]

/Not signed

I understand your point, and more work done on pre's would be nice, but in all honesty I think it's no good.
Taking things from non-vip's to add incentive to stay vip is just plain wrong and if you think the braverybonus created a huge debate imagine what this will do..

[CaptGrim]

a new starting character for a new player will get over 100 TP by level 6 through favor rewards alone.

Exactly why it should be 100 tp. I have no idea how many players game wide have a FvS, and how many of those are premium. I wont even hazard to guess. But the number has got to be very high and nearly all of those players I would assume would be happy to pony up 100tp(a buck) to experience a some new class features of the melee PrE. Would Turbine make a killing? No. Would they have more incentive to finish the PrEs? Yes.

They could even grandfather in existing accounts with all current PrEs. new accounts would have to pay 100 tp access to the old PrE and existing account would have to pay 100 tp to access newly released PrEs.

[Vellrad]

This is what should be called pay 2 win.
/no way plz

[Jendrak]

While I understand your reasoning I would have to say this is a horrible idea. Not only because of the pricing issue stated. But also because this could cause alot of long time premium/f2p players to "go ballistic" and quit playing all together the same way the whole arti issue affected the VIP population.

[Havok.cry]

If they made existing PREs suddenly unavailable till I paid I would just quit.

If they made new PREs and made us pay to use em I would be cool with it.

[Musouka]

OK people read just a few lines before going ballistic.

There have been 2 races and 3 classes released since the inception of the PrE system that started back with rangers YEARS ago.

Why?

Races and classes haul big profits with I'm guessing a rather high time to profit ratio. PrEs do little to raise the bottom line beside selling an odd char slot, a few tomes, or a few hearts of wood.

Now I say this as a long time VIP that within the last year has spent hundreds of dollars to swap over to premium.

Make class PrEs cost 100 TP to unlock account wide for non VIPs.

This would do a few things:

1) Reward VIPs for paying a sub, making a larger difference between VIP, premium, F2P. After the artifister and elite unlock losses this would be a large tangible savings over non VIPs.

2) Generate revenue for releasing PrEs so that turbine has an incentive to get them finished sometime before 2016. Seriously Eladrin, 1-3 TIERS of a PrE getting released every 2-4 updates is beyond silly. I would think a reasonable goal would be FINISH a PrE (you know T1, T2, and T3)every even numbered update. I believe that first level of the bard PrEs were released right after rangers got theirs and they are STILL at T2...really??

3) just thought of this one while typing it up.... It would give turbine marketing a *edit*....smile to increase the cost of the downgrade from VIP to F2P, thus increasing the carrot factor to continue paying a sub.

1) It's not a reward for paying for a sub. A reward would be getting something unlisted in the VIP plan, or getting something in return for remaining VIP for a period of time. You're suggesting that this should be added to the VIP plan. Quit looking at Artificer as a loss... it is just merely a delay. You also didn't lose hard/elite unlock, because a non VIP must TR twice to get Elite, and it is only for that character.

2) They could also generate revenue by selling +3 Stat tomes (BIG SHOCKER THERE). There are numerous ways to generate revenue, limiting gameplay like this should not be one of them.

3) I doubt marketing cares how a player pays for the game, whether it is with sub, or with TP bundles. They just care about a good PLUS on the income. Also, I believe more money is generated from TP bundles than VIP, but that's my opinion.

/not signed

We do not need any limiting factors to character creation. Monk already costs TP, would you allow those who purchase monk a free pass at their prestige, or would you force the players to pay twice to make a monk how they want to?

I've been patiently waiting for certain Prestige enhancements to come out, and if I had to pay for them, I would stop playing DDO.

[Xenostrata]

Wow, gratz on finding what I think might be the single WORST possible idea. This would make people (myself included) leave in droves.

[cdemeritt]

/no

[Alex301]

This would effectively kill most classes. A fighter or barbarian without kensei or frenzied berserker would perform appallingly not only making all F2P inferior but also make playing those toons much more difficult. It would certainly make me leave and i'd think it would turn off any new players.

They might as well go back to the P2P model, and we know how well that turned out

[Jiipster]

**** no.

[Stormanne]

Sorry, no. I'm all for there being additional perks for VIP, but taking existing mechanics in game and stripping them from non-VIPs is bad business. Actually, using any in game mechanic as a perk is bad business.

[oradafu]

Bad, Horrible idea. Stop feeding Turbine bad ideas...They can make them on their own, because they've proven it in the past.

BTW, there are Prestige Classes that fall into the category that the OP mentions: Angel of Vengeance, Ninja Spy, Shintao Monk and Battle Engineer.

[R0cksteady]

Nope.

But new prestiges I'd say it would be fine. Anything that comes out after now.