VIP, servers transfers and fiscal irresponsability

[Malveaux]

some people get stingy.
Let's compromise and go for 15% xp bonus for VIPs
and allow each character with more than 10 PLs to start at lvl 4.

There's always room to compromise. But SSG has to give a counter offer. Which I haven't seen one. So. No on your deal. A large amount of people have said they want more value for VIP. Most have said they don't care about the daily gold rolls. SSG says they are listening and have seen these posts. So far there is nothing.


I hear the talk on Ghallanda is lets move to Sarlona. I am still wonder how Sarlo feels about getting a bunch of people from G. lol Some are calling it the Great Migration of Richards. Consider the people talking about it. It's mostly spot on.

[SavageDoom]

How about if instead of starting at lvl 4 you get a btc XP stone worth 100,000 XP every month, free on 1 character? Then those that want to skip to lvl 4 can, those that want to clear the 18-20 hump can get it done faster, really there's nowhere 100,000 XP isn't appreciated.

I like that idea

[Eantarus]

There's always room to compromise. But SSG has to give a counter offer. Which I haven't seen one. So. No on your deal. A large amount of people have said they want more value for VIP. Most have said they don't care about the daily gold rolls. SSG says they are listening and have seen these posts. So far there is nothing.

What communication we've gotten from SSG is that they're sort of thinking about maybe doing something that no one asked for.

So if they are truly "seeing" all these posts, then I don't know what forum they are looking at.

I hear the talk on Ghallanda is lets move to Sarlona. I am still wonder how Sarlo feels about getting a bunch of people from G. lol Some are calling it the Great Migration of Richards. Consider the people talking about it. It's mostly spot on.

Spot on.

[Maldorin]

How about if instead of starting at lvl 4 you get a btc XP stone worth 100,000 XP every month, free on 1 character? Then those that want to skip to lvl 4 can, those that want to clear the 18-20 hump can get it done faster, really there's nowhere 100,000 XP isn't appreciated.

I've often wished they'd add an item, maybe sell it in a super improved Otto's box where the stone is "rechargable". So at cap you could refill it. But it would cut into box sales so.... It'll never happen.

[kpak01]

...will loose a Kraken, and all the renown/amenities on our ship. I see this as a pretty bald-faced cash grab by SSG. By their generous offer of 'free' transfers, they gloss over the cost of replacing what the guilds on other servers will be loosing. They apparently lack the desire to merge servers, so this is the easiest and least costly way for them to deal with the problem. I guess without a token to replace the cost of the airship and replenish all the renown, I can at least do a charge back on my credit card for the value of the Kraken, but I run the risk of having an account stolen by SSG.

3. From what I am hearing, more will be lost than airships, personal accounts will loose astral shards, mounts, and other bought/earned items. Without making people financially whole, they will simply decimate further their player base.

Though consolidating the reduced player base would be awesome, for the reasons you mention and more, simple "server transfer" is nowhere close to being an adequate solution.

- Guild ships, as mentioned, represent a huge real-world dollar cost
- Cosmetic pets & tricks and mounts, bought with real-world dollars
- Simple storage space. I can't possible get thousands of items out of my Shared Crafting Storage over to a new server; there isn't enough inventory slots to move it into temporarily for the transfer
- Character slots! I can't consolidate all my characters from every other server onto a single server

SSG needs to figure out and implement actual technical solutions to these very real problems before they turn on character transfers.

In the meantime, I will not leave the server I started out on, and if lots of other people do so it's a ghost town, then I doubt I'd play much. Are they trying to drive people away from the game?

[kpak01]

This game still makes them a ton of money, logical people would conclude that they would want to take care of the customers they have left.

You'd think so! It doesn't seem to work that way.

[Eantarus]

You'd think so! It doesn't seem to work that way.

It sincerely would not take much, but they seem unwilling to do, well, anything.

[Loromir]

Fiscally irrespnsible might be correct when it comes to giving free gold rolls to VIP. SSG is more likely to have the numbers on sales to back that up than we are to be able to judge by guessing. So, I am not going to judge that particular decision.

However, a couple more things are fiscally irresponsible and more so in my book.

a) Annoying VIPs so much that they stop using money on the game for one and post negatively in spades on the forum which impacts potential new players that read it. Just give VIP +25% xp and give VIP the option to start at level 4 after a TR already and move on. Thats hardly fiscally an issue - those that purchase pots, and I do from time to time, certainly still will do so. Infact, it means VIP earn less free DDO points per life as they run fewer quests.

b) Grossly disfavoring the other servers by given free transfer to two servers. I understand the issue at hand with HC characters but the implications are really bad. Already I am hearing of quite a few high end gamers that will be leaving my server of choice because of the free move. You are gutting the other servers and those of us that do not want to move are more likely to simply stop playing (and paying) due to this horrible choice. If some leave and some stop due to that - you have a ghosttown and even more will stop from that. At the very least restrict the free move to those characters that orginated from HC (or make it free to move to any server to even the field)

c) It gets worse though, fiscally. Anyone on one of the two favored servers will be able to move up to 11 free xp pots from each of the other servers depending on the expansions they have bought. Thats 77 free xp pots. Not to mention any other items they may have rolled on those servers. To prevent that SSGs needs not only to restrict the free move to characters that came from HC but also restrict them to being able to carry items that orginated from HC. Oh, and if you have characters on Wayfinder from 2020 they may have both a heroic and an epic xp stone (btc atleast) so if you care to you can have another mid epic level character in a few mins if that strikes your fancy. Try to tell me that wont entice a significant amount of people to move servers even if it means losing the shards and airship they might have / be part of? Use the shards before you xfer and there are plenty of guilds to join with maxed out ships making the loss rather small and the gain rather large if you are not currently closely attached to a particular guild.

Solutions:
VIP is not hard to fix in a financially responsible way.
- up the xp bonus to +25%
- allow VIP to start at level 4 after a TR
Cost: none (or as close to it as possible). No lost revenue and near no dev time to make it happen. Just do it!

Server transfer:
Thats the really hard one. It almost makes understanding the wife easy SSGs either needs to
- Not give any free xfers (which would rightfully **** those with stranded HC characters off) OR
- Make a technical solution so ONLY characters and ONLY gear from HC can transfer freely OR
- Give free transfers to all servers to even the playing field.
The middle one is the correct solution but sadly also the most difficult one, if at all possible. The first one is the easiest one and infers no fiscal loss - but also means going back on a promise after the problems with xfers from HC making it a bad choice. The third will even the playing field and certainly not annoy any players - but comes as a loss in terms of xp pots and misc other stuff. But given free transfers only to two servers is emphatically not the correct solution!

My guess is they are using this as an opportunity to possibly purge some low population servers. Depending on how this all works out...we could see the sunsetting of a few of the servers (Wayfinder in particular).

[Eantarus]

My guess is they are using this as an opportunity to possibly purge some low population servers. Depending on how this all works out...we could see the sunsetting of a few of the servers (Wayfinder in particular).

That's not how you sunset servers.

If they wanted to do that, first they would make sure you could move your server-specific stuff, and then they would choose the specific server to sunset and make transfers from it free for a long while(on the order of months).

This upcoming transfer window is nothing more than exactly what they say it is: a chance for everyone who plays on Sarlona or Orien to move their HCL characters over. If players want to do more with it, that's their mistake to make.

[Jaxtan]

Solutions:
VIP is not hard to fix in a financially responsible way.
- up the xp bonus to +25%
- allow VIP to start at level 4 after a TR
Cost: none (or as close to it as possible). No lost revenue and near no dev time to make it happen. Just do it!


The OP is 100% right with this one. Starting at level 4 would be a REAL perk and be virtually no cost to their revenue. I would think it actually would increase revenue as it would be much more attractive to become VIP for the many people on the tr train here.

This would also solve the problem of VIPS saving their XP stones from roles to quick level to 4 after every TR. If you can already start at 4, those stone aren't going to get you to 5 so you don't need to save them. Big inventory reduction and a real QOL improvement, well worth VIP.

[Eantarus]

This would also solve the problem of VIPS saving their XP stones from roles to quick level to 4 after every TR. If you can already start at 4, those stone aren't going to get you to 5 so you don't need to save them. Big inventory reduction and a real QOL improvement, well worth VIP.

No I'd still save the stones. Instead of starting at 4 every TR I'd start at 5 every 3rd TR.

Doing away with daily roles was a fine decision, where SSG dropped the ball was not replacing it with anything.