End of the World....or is it?

[Lia]

Just want to point out that it is NOT FREE TO PLAY, it is BUY TO PLAY, a rather different model. Yes, you have to pay for the DLCs, but with the membership granting 1200 bonus points a month, it virtually changes nothing.

[Cherri]

On the plus side, if you're currently subscription and don't care for fluff items (like that would describe anyone here ), it might be cheaper to go the non-sub model and just pay for the content when it's available. I'm personally hoping the game goes on a good sale again soon so I can gift it to some friends and point out that they can now play the game with me without needing to ever spend any money on it if they don't want to. (I have no doubt that they would eventually break down and get some FC points.)

[Doc Thunder]

Just want to point out that it is NOT FREE TO PLAY, it is BUY TO PLAY, a rather different model. Yes, you have to pay for the DLCs, but with the membership granting 1200 bonus points a month, it virtually changes nothing.

Okay I have been thinking on this all day and have finally formed an opinion.

First, I will continue to subscribe ... I dislike the way this has been done but I can at least see the arguments for it. I am also disheartened by the response by Joel towards some of the Lifetimers, yes some of the comments and threads have been full of rage but a little humility goes along way.

On the sub side ... $15 a month to net $10 in virtual cash back. Well yes I can see that as being attractive to some but honestly does that make the XP buff worth $5? The maths put it at a maximum usage of 42 hours per sub period so it beats out the 24 hour double AP potion, for ease I will say it is worth 2 of those which marks it worth around $7.50. The paper mathematics says that the subs are worthwhile although it does leave a slightly bitter aftertaste.

What concerns me the most is that developer time will now be forced into DLC production and away from QA and bug fixing. There are enough issues within the game to fill an entire patch on its own .... many such as auto-sorting and auto-stacking inventories are standard practice ffs.

Next step wise I hope they finally accept the need for a client aimed at the mid to low range end of the GFX market. That would have more of an impact than anything they have done to date.

[Lia]

I am also disheartened by the response by Joel towards some of the Lifetimers, yes some of the comments and threads have been full of rage but a little humility goes along way.

I've been watching the official posts all day. They have been very reasonable and very patient with them and quite frankly, most of the negative reactions were way out of line today. As far as humility, well, this is a post by Joel as to why "the business guy always wins"...

Let me tell you why.

200,000 sales was not enough to support a team the size we had at launch, and cuts were made. Good people had to go.

And so we held on, hoping that people would notice that we were delivering monthly updates. Hoping that Guild Wars 2 was mostly hype. We believed in The Secret World as a subscription and we hoped that players would keep coming.
Still, any fool can draw a line on a graph and see where things were going. And so the business guys made a call. They gave us a timeframe.

There were meetings about this decision. Discussions. A lot of opinions.
Don't blame the business guys, they allowed us a lot of freedom. Different arguments were made, models suggested and scenarios projected.

We tried to build a new model that will work for everyone. It has to be attractive to new players, to bring them in. It has to reward old players, to keep them happy. I believe that growth = sales, not squeezing our current customers for everything that they are worth.

I am not a money maker. I'm not doing this job because of my detailed knowledge of economics or my savvy investment skills. My job is communicating outwards and inwards - I set the direction for the game based on the conversations that I have with the community and the developers.

Perceived value for GM players has gone down, I am not blind to it.

But there is this: I don't want to say goodbye to any more of the good developers that I work with. I'm tired of it. I have been through it four times now.

The business guys win because I couldn't make it work as a subscription game. That's why. That's about as brutally honest as it gets at 1am.

On the sub side ... $15 a month to net $10 in virtual cash back. Well yes I can see that as being attractive to some but honestly does that make the XP buff worth $5? The maths put it at a maximum usage of 42 hours per sub period so it beats out the 24 hour double AP potion, for ease I will say it is worth 2 of those which marks it worth around $7.50. The paper mathematics says that the subs are worthwhile although it does leave a slightly bitter aftertaste.

The bonus of being a member:

-1200 points per month which can be used to either buy the DLC for that month or skip it and get a cosmetic piece. The DLC prices have not been decided but they will be proportional to the amount of content per DLC. I do think the decay should be extended to a full year for bonus points.
-The XP Boost.. well you did the math there.
-The 10% discount (which does not apply to the DLC... would it be so bad if it did?)
-The monthly gift which is going to be a cosmetic item of some sort

Does this constitute a sweet pot for the person holding a member? I think, like iced tea, it will be a matter of personal taste. I think there are some opportunities to make some compromises that I dearly hope they take advantage of.

What concerns me the most is that developer time will now be forced into DLC production and away from QA and bug fixing. There are enough issues within the game to fill an entire patch on its own .... many such as auto-sorting and auto-stacking inventories are standard practice ffs.

The DLCs are essentially going to be the core missions of the Issues. There will be core improvements and free content added as well. Nothing is changing from that, it is just monetizing the content patch for those who don't have a membership.

Next step wise I hope they finally accept the need for a client aimed at the mid to low range end of the GFX market. That would have more of an impact than anything they have done to date.

Maybe. There is a lot of optimization that is required still, but I run it on a 9800 gt and the game is rather stunning even then and it is not even proper dx11. With the economy as it is right now, a lot of people don't have a ton of money to blow on upgrading key components of their systems to enjoy games, but... there are upgrades that are pretty reasonable. Outside of that, I do agree they need to work on optimization efforts for the lower spectrum that they advertise it to be able to handle.

...

Now, I know my quote and response method may seem a bit aggressive on first take, but understand that it isn't. Just sharing my opinion too. We're allowed to disagree

For official responses regarding all these changes, check out a really nice moderator's compilation thread... http://forums.thesecretworld.com/showthread.php?t=62967

[Doc Thunder]

For fear of breaking the forums and earning the wrath of Ash I wont start a pyramid Io

I agree, to disagree My reading on the comments by Joel and others might be a little bit tainted by my experience of happenings such as these in other games and the fact that the same lines are trotted out time and again.

I also cannot muster sympathy for Funcom on the sales issue ... they knew they were backing themselves into a corner, and I give them kudos for pushing the subs model as far as they did. What remains to be seen is if they can take the next logical steps needed to open the game to the mass market.

i love the game, I love what they have tried to do with it ... my fear is that without them taking those step this will be no more than a few extra months before the next money crisis hits.

Anyway I am off to spend this months vanity points ... might just get me a leet ................

[Lia]

I also cannot muster sympathy for Funcom on the sales issue ... they knew they were backing themselves into a corner, and I give them kudos for pushing the subs model as far as they did. What remains to be seen is if they can take the next logical steps needed to open the game to the mass market.

Well, you've said you would like the game to be better optimized for mid to low end gfx cards, but what else would you suggest? I am genuinely interested (though this may be a bit OT at this point) in your thoughts.

I won't disagree about the backing themselves into a corner bit, though.

[Doc Thunder]

I also cannot muster sympathy for Funcom on the sales issue ... they knew they were backing themselves into a corner, and I give them kudos for pushing the subs model as far as they did. What remains to be seen is if they can take the next logical steps needed to open the game to the mass market.

Well, you've said you would like the game to be better optimized for mid to low end gfx cards, but what else would you suggest? I am genuinely interested (though this may be a bit OT at this point) in your thoughts.

I won't disagree about the backing themselves into a corner bit, though.

Okay for fear of taking this thread over I will keep it short .. which is difficult

First and foremost I want to make sure it is clear I feel for those who lost their jobs. There is no doubt in my mind that the staff that have worked on this game have given their all, it was commercial and creative decisions at the higher levels that are the core of the financial issues.

As for future development, I am a great fan of a hiatus in new content production and a serious iteration of the core game. Changes to simple things to make the game a better and more sell-able product. The current trial would be scrapped and replaced with an AP/SP limited freeplay option aimed at ending at the Savage Coast/Blue Mountain level (approx 300 AP). Funcom have bought themselves a few months of breathing space financially, hopefully they will not fall into the trap of trying to throw new content into a package that has some fundamental flaws.

I would also half the price of shop vanity items, while maintaining the price of game changing items such as the potions. If this was marketed as a permanent reduction rather than a sale it should generate more sales. Matched to that would be a populating of the item store with lower priced vanity items, a simple solution being breaking up the 1200 point sets into individual parts. I see a true micro transaction system as being more profitable in the medium term (6-12 months) and will generate more interest in the playerbase in the current financial climate than the macro transaction system we have at the moment. It would also allow FC more freedom to add items that might be classed as pay to win, but lets be honest most games eventually go.

I do know this, there will be a new focus on TSW in the next month as new players enter the game. The key to me will be not the initial rush of sales but the future sales and subscription rates. The core numbers are for every two subscribers they lose per month they need an additional new box sale every month. I am still on the fence as to the long term viability of that model.

[Shigy]

http://www.incgamers.com/2012/12/funcom ... ion-model/

I personally found this fairly informative.

[Thiefofsouls]

I have been avoiding commenting on this for a bit now.

I got the GM subscription with the hope that in the long run it would pay for itself compared to the monthly subscription. Honestly at first I felt ripped off when they introduced the f2p model a lot sooner than I hoped.

Then after a while I had to laugh. I really like playing this game. I like seeing more players in game and hopefully they will go with a subscription. The community as far as I have seen is every bit as good as another Funcom game I still play…Anarchy Online… and they did the f2p in that and it was fantastic.

So despite the doom sayers on the “official forums”, I think it still was a worthwhile investment for the simple reason I mentioned above …. I really like the game, and despite everything, that’s what it comes down to.

[Mariposita]

I agree, Thief... I was the first to get pissed off and start spouting off about my "return on investment"...

But I have a lot of friends who couldn't afford another subscription game... and now they are able to play TSW with me. So it is awesome! I love seeing how revitalized the game population seems to be (and the Google+ community for the game has since gotten a lot more active, too!)

[Kriegshammer]

But I have a lot of friends who couldn't afford another subscription game... and now they are able to play TSW with me. So it is awesome!

This. It's so great to play with friends again who used to play AO but quit and refused to play TSW because of the subscription fee. And now here they are! And in the long run with the bonus points and the discount at the shop I think it'll pay off for the GM's too. I guess most of us are "social"