Monthy rate v. 'Freemium' <--------------

[Uctiger62]

I suppose the problem with adding new game content is funding, right? And there have got to be certain times when platinum sales 'plateau' off....that's only natural. Dead times in between content updates.

STS tries to counter these dead spells in the PL economy with things like vanity items and customization. I, for one, have no interest in these...whatever, man. It's a bird...I just wanna play the game.

Here's a thought--I wonder what the reaction would be from the PL community and from the devs at STS about charging a monthly rate for all content? Say...charge 5 bucks a month and get all released maps and maybe some vanity upgrades bundled in that 5/month subscription fee. And since it's probly not feasible to release new maps every month, toss in things like unlimited skill point respecs and maybe something like PVP rankings, etc.

That's not to say STS should FORCE everyone to pay for these subscriptions. For anyone who doesn't want to pay the monthly fee, they could still play the game and access all the content that the monthly's would have access to...but they'd have to use the current system of buying each piece seperately.

So as not to abuse this system, STS would have to come up with a way to stop people from paying five bucks for one month, then cancelling their subscription and still retaining their unlocked content. I've thought of a few ways to handle this...The best idea would be to have everything 'perma-unlocked' after X amount of months subscribed.

For example: You pay 5/month. For arguments sake, let's say that every six months is the 'anniversary' date. During the course of the upcoming 6 months they add XXX amount of in game maps, guild upgrades, pvp upgrades, sex, drugs, rock n roll. Once you reach the pre-determined 'anniversary' date (or whatever it should be called) everything that has been released in the past six months is permanently unlocked forever. Even if you cancel your subscription, it remains unlocked.

If, however, you should cancel your subscription after 3 months, your accessible content rolls back to whatever you had purchased prior to the start of your subscription. (maybe there could be a buy-out option for the remainder of the six months...that wouldn't be a bad idea?) This would mean that if you wanted to access a certain map that you had previous unlocked, you would to pay the X amount of plat to unlock it separately.


Does this make sense? I hope I've explained it clearly. I feel like this would be mutually satisfying to both developers and players. The devs get what they need (i.e.--income) and us players get a hassle free way of knowing that our game will not die for lack of plat sales, etc. And if some of the younger/not as interested players or players lacking disposable income don't like the idea of a monthly fee...then they can stick to the current system of unlocking content individually.


Feedback? Yay, nay, stfu's?





*edit* since the main point needs to be bolded out...YOU PAY FIVE DOLLARS A MONTH AND GET ALL CONTENT UNLOCKED.
IF YOU CANCEL YOUR SUBSCRIPTION BEFORE SIX MONTHS, CONTENT IS LOCKED AGAIN.
Sustainable income for the devs = more **** for us.