Thursday, February 26, 2015

What If: Blizzard Had Subscription Packs?

I was reading through some posts on the forums and got to the no flying post in which I love reading the debates.  It really is a circular argument that has been going on for a while, not much new has been added to it in ages, you either want flying back or you don't, simple as that.  So no one really said anything specific that made me think of this idea but none the less something popped into my mind that I think would be interesting to see what people would think about.

Lets say, for example, if blizzard offered different levels of their monthly subscription service and one of them included flying as a perk.  Would you be willing to pay for flying?

What we pay now would be called the silver package.  For our $15 a month we would get access to everything we currently have.

Now lets makes one package higher for $20 a month and one lower for $10 a month.  Not going to add a lot or remove a lot, just going to keep it super simple.

Gold: $20 a month

All current access we have in game.
Flying.

Silver: $15 a month

Game as it currently is.

Bronze: $10 a month

No access to "top" end game experiences. (mythic and arena)
Full access to all else.

Now I am sure there could be more differences between the different levels of subscription and I can see a hell of a lot of the player base, most likely well over 80%, that would be happy with the lower $10 per month package as most players never step into mythic or arena.  But how many of us would be baited by the flying in draenor to pay $20 a month.

I know I would be willing to pay an extra $5 a month for the ability to fly.  Maybe not just that but with some other small bonuses too, like being able to get the "first dungeon" bonus twice per day or other little things like that.

So I have three questions for you, the reader.

1) As listed, would you upgrade, downgrade, or stay the same?

2) What would you need as a perk to get you to pay $5 a month more?

3) How much would you sacrifice to save $5 a month?

27 comments:

  1. I would probably just unsubbed if such a thing happen.

    I fine with cosmetic stuff in the shop (extra mounts or pets does not really add anything). But actual gameplay impact should never been on a multi-tiered SUBSCRIPTION.

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    1. Very good point, it could be looked at as "selling" flying instead of a gold pack. Did not think of that myself personally.

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  2. If Blizzard did this, I'd go $20 for one month to get all of the treasures that are otherwise annoying to get without flying. Or at least they are too annoying to me right now to be bothered! Then, I'd spend $10 a month thereafter.

    I agree with Anonymous that Blizzard should never sell anything for actual dollars that affords one player greater relative mob-killing power. Flying is convenience. I'd probably not actually like this system, but you flying over my head doesn't change my game play. You having the chance at more loot every day on the other hand via double daily rewards could change my game play, with you being the more desirable, better-geared player. Sure, you could be all that and a bag of chips anyway now, but at least currently you are because of time/skill/luck on an equal playing field. I can live with that.

    Oddly, it perhaps is about fairness to me. I actually have the real-world resources to pay for just about anything Blizzard wants to sell. $1000 for an "I win" trinket wouldn't really be a problem and yet -- all other considerations aside -- I wouldn't buy it because it just doesn't seem sporting to run around Azeroth with something that I didn't earn in-game but rather earned in the real world. Does that make any sense?

    I'm happy to buy "I win" items for use in the real world with actual dollars. I'm happy to run around on a fancy mount for which I killed a mob or spent gold in-game. However, never the two shall meet.

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    1. That might be the way I go after it. When I am pressing content and doing things I would pay the 20 bucks. But once I am done, until my guild gets to mythic, I would pay the 10. I think a lot of people might consider bouncing around like that.

      The reason I might end up leaning toward the 20 myself would be the "fairness" you mentioned. If I am playing every day anyway I would not want someone else to have an advantage I don't, so I would feel like I had to pay the higher pack.

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  3. While a completely legitimate and by itself working system (in fact, quite a few Freemium games have systems similar to this, and I personally like it if they have more 'layers' than 'free' - 'sub with a lot of untoggable bonusses that include ones that actually diminish my gameplay'), I don't see it ever happening to WoW.

    Why?

    Because then the Devs couldn't just focus on current Raid content anymore, as the pseudo-justification to crank it out ('all content is available to all, really!') would be met by the cold-hard facts (the amount of premiums is far too small to justify only really trying to satisfy that player base).

    If they'd include PvP into Premium it would be even worse for them, as then naturally people would expect a better job at it.

    1) As for the listed options, I'd theoretically go for Bronze as long as they'd provide an actual service for that money (ie whenever they make changes to accomodate the 'higher levels', they'd do so in a manner that doesn't affect lower levels - which was perfectly feasable before Cata (e.g. Spell Ranks) so can be done again.

    2) The Perk I'd pay extra for would be them using the Versioning software they obviously have, in other words:

    a Legacy Server

    An Heirloomless, Tier-Reset-less last-Patch Wrath Server would probably be the most feasible, as that way most of the older content would be still there, the XP_Off/On system would allow people to make it all 'relevant', and the 'skipping' mechanics wouldn't be there to shorten the content's lifespan.

    I would miss Transmog, though - that would be another 5$ Perk :P

    All together 25$ per month. Per account. Compared to zilch currently.

    3) Depends on how you define 'sacrifice'.

    Many devs seem to think that if you don't Raid, you 'miss out' on their games, despite MMORPG's not having started out so much as 'leet games' but as virtual worlds you run virtual characters in ('D&D without most of the logistical hurdles') so with most Freemium games I actually get to play for free, even if I'd actually want to spend money on e.g Races or more Zones.

    If however you mean 'sacrifice' as in 'you wouldn't have Looms in a Heirloomised world' or 'no flying, period', I'd rather not subscribe at all than pay a small amount less.

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    1. Good point. If only 5% of the population is willing to pay for access to mythic raiding, for example, they might decide it is not even worth the effort to make it any more. Or if people were paying for flying in a fair amount, say 25%, they might start designing that you "need" flying for more things to bait people into buying it. It could really change how their development time and money is spent.

      Access to alternate servers for a free might be something that could work. Like you have to pay extra to have access to the tournament server, you would have to pay extra to have access to the classic, bc, or wrath servers. I could maybe see that happening.

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  4. flying and dungeon bonus isn't persuasive to me.

    i'd pay $10 more to be rid of the toxic jerks. let them play with each other.
    --
    regards,

    regardsanon

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    1. On launch day I said to my guild mates I would be willing to pay double to have the ability to quest on a solo server.

      I know it is an MMO but when I am questing, gathering, what have you. I would much rather be alone doing it. And imagine farming rares, that would be MUCH better with the solo experience. I would be willing to pay to have the ability to turn open world and solo world on and off at a whim.

      That would get rid of "some" people. But hell yes. I wish there were an option to get rid of the "toxic" players. That would be worth its weight in gold.

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  5. Upgrade. My aviana feather is always on CD. I spent well over half an hour in one archeology site I didn't even finish. After that I decided I'm not doing it again. They added fragments to garrisons too so not much point going and frustrating myself out.

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    1. Arch is one of those reasons everyone states as NEEDING flying. I must say I agree.

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    2. i'd probably be done with the game immediately if they would want money for flying (or that's what i'd like to think) but i agree with flying being badly needed for late endgame. the current levelling zones are late endgame now. new zones can be no-fly for all i care. if they worry about all the treasure riddles and such, they should simply put flying behind an achievement tied to said treasures.

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    3. I always said they should have put flying behind the loremaster achievement for draenor. That way they get what they want, people seeing everything. After that all people want to do is get where they are going so they can spend more time playing and less time flying.

      Been doing the relic hunter missions the last two days and I can say, while easy enough, they are just general annoyances where I have to run around and click on something. I would so love flying for that. I will not do it on alts, never, but if I had flying I would. See, flying would make me want to play more. Not sure why they think people would play less with it.

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    4. Yep I wonder. I'd drag my worgen's lazy ass out of her garrison more often too. I'd be catching pets, doing more apexis quests, archeology, camping rares and the likes much more with flying. All with Leorajh on my side of course. Gotta start those missions :D

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    5. I would love flying so much for the apexis daily. Getting to and from is so much more fun when actually at the controls than on a flight path.

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  6. I would get really, really angry at a "feature" like that. The game costs enough as it is, for 13 eur a month I expect the full package. One of the reasons I stuck around for so long is the fact that there are no stupid tricks like pay2win or content behind a paywall (although the shop is a gray area). We pay once (monthly) and get access to the whole game. What we do within it is fully our choice that can be made spontaneousely.

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    1. +1 here. I never know when I might get back into arenas, or have the odd opportunity at running mythic content. So while I would love to save a few bucks each month on the sub costs, I'd probably pay the higher rate to get access to everything.

      What I would like to see come back is the offer pre-cata. Sign-up for a year, we'll offer you free diablo dlc and guaranteed beta access to the next expac. I just need to guarantee a year subscription, but if I am going for a year long promise, I'd like my monthly to go down a few bucks. Instead of $12/m it would be something like $10/m.

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    2. imagine how much it'd suck to plan ahead your sub month. are you going to do arenas? raiding? lots of archeology? or imagine finding a spontaneous group for something but having to log in on bnet and pay for it first. that'd irk me out. i too willingly pay my monthly sub because imho the game is still very much worth it (despite the frequent whining) but anything like a paywall would irk my out even moreso. i'd probably immeditely re-sub 1 year as well if i could.

      imho the success of wow is proof enough that the way it is done today is a good solution.

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    3. @Ril

      I agree. I think one of the best reasons to stay around is you know what you are getting and you get all of it.

      @Elkagorasa

      I could be wooed into buying a year in advance if they offered something like that again. I figure I will probably play the year anyway and if they offer enough even if I don't I would have got my money worth. I wonder if they will ever do anything like that again.

      @Ril

      That would suck. Paying the 10 dollar one and then a buddy offers to carry you through mythic and you can't go. That would really suck.

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    4. @Ril

      I think they want to make it as easy as possible for you to buy stuff from within the game, so I wouldn't worry too much about having to go out to battle.net.

      See the mount store for example, (disclaimer: i have bought nothing from it) which allows you to buy stuff in game seamlessly.
      --
      regards,

      regardsanon

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    5. I stopped buying mounts a while ago, but still buy the pets. I am a sucker for them, and yes, you can buy it directly from in game.

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    6. @anon: yeah you're right, that silly shop is up in our faces enough. yet, simply having to make a decision about spending extra money for game content is still extremely sucky. if i have to ask myself "are these 2 hours of arena worth 5 eur?" i'll always respond no.

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    7. Let me spin that around a little bit to make a question out of it.

      If wow was just a PvP game and arena and RBGs where all it had. Would a game like that be worth $5 a month to you?

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    8. never, but not a single isolated feature, not even mythic raiding, is worth much. it's the whole package that does it for me, the ability to do lots of different things, both solo and group content, from extremely hard to laughably easy, in the same game.

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    9. I believe that is a huge key for me as well. It is the whole package that makes it worth it. The fact I can do anything I want whenever I want. I know I would never pay for a PvP only game being I am not that type of player but I do love that I have that option to do so if I want to.

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  7. Lot of good points above that I agree with. To directly answer your questions, I'd downgrade to save money. Then toward the end of the expansion when mythic will be accessible to raiders like me I would probably upgrade for a month or two and bang out the mythic kills.
    Even though it would save me money I would hate the system. I'm pretty neutral about the no flying thing right now, but if Blizz came and said that for more money a month I could get back an ability I already had and paid THOUSANDS of gold to get, there's a very good chance I'd just say goodbye and buy an Xbox. Talk about a huge "F You."

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    1. That would be the real kicker. Telling people they now need to pay real cash for something they already paid for in game. I can see a lot of people quitting over that.

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  8. fukin' no.

    $10 would be nice. $20 if it was solo server with just my friends.

    and if not - Flying? Only if my lvl 1 toons can have their own mount and ride/fly without it costing me more gold to learn al the different flying crap. And no that wee moto-bike don't count in what I am saying, though it is nice. And my heirlooms go up to 100 without having to pay extra. Then and only then, fukin' aye.

    -roo the wee bloody bastard

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