All About the VIP Membership Program - Questions & Discussion

[Mikhaila]

duplicate post

[Mikhaila]

I've seen comments like this going around, but I haven't seen anything to suggest the sale of VIP tokens, but rather that they'll only be available from things like Match-3 (good luck) and mega raffles in twice a year. I agree this would be problematic, but it isn't the direction the game seems to be going. I don't mind them being trade-able if they're super rare finds that can't be bought w/ $

I was replying to the post above saying they wished that we could buy them. I'm against that.

I wasnt formulating my question very well. Instead of buying VIP, cant you make it so that you buy VIP tokens. The buyer can then decide to either use said token himself or to trade it on the player market.
Either way you as a company will get the $$$, and the playerbase has an incentive to use excessive counsils for something useful if they so choose.

Also, i am hugely in favor of making everything you sell in your shop also available to non-paying players. So if you decide to put character slots behing a paywall, please consider also making them available for counsils, or by rewards based on time played or w/e else. You can make it as hard as you wish to obtain if you do not pay, but please make it so that it is obtainable nevertheless.

[Dumdidum]

There's a problem with making VIP tokens both able to be bought and then traded. As noted, some people will buy them to sell to other players.

Being able to pay real money for councils has now been enabled.

With going VIP you already enabled dollar to counsils...just make 8 alts (which VIP allows) and do every industry work order 8 times instead of 4 times (with little extra effort i might add after you levelled industry, cause you can simply buy most resources needed for wo's from player stalls and still make loads of profit).
Granted, it is not as direct, but if you allow VIP members to make more counsils from having VIP, you might as well share the love.

This is also why VIP is pay to play. I know this is not a popular opinion, but as soon as i can carry more items in dungeons, do work orders multiple times more, milk more, do 4x more event runs, i will make way more counsils than the next guy. Does that matter? In a way yes,. because while i do not care that you are wealthier than me, we share a common market, and more counsils will always lead to inflated prices, hence i wont be getting the resources i need unless i put way more effort into it. Hence a different playing field.

I have no doubt this post will not change the opinion of the devs tho - I have seen and played around 40 MMO's in my life and VIP, or cash shops, or w/e idea that gets implemented to generate income to game developpers, eventually hurts the game. There are very few examples of cash shops or VIP schemes done well. Path of Exile to name one (not really a MMO but ok).

[Silvonis]

There are very few examples of cash shops or VIP schemes done well. Path of Exile to name one (not really a MMO but ok).

You mention that you believe that Path of Exile has done well with their cash shop implementation, yet a simple Google search shows pages upon pages of people complaining about PoE being p2w.

It's just like any decision, there's always going to be people who like it and those who don't.

We believe we are doing our best to make the benefits worthwhile while not significantly effecting gameplay.

[Mikhaila]

With going VIP you already enabled dollar to counsils...just make 8 alts (which VIP allows) and do every industry work order 8 times instead of 4 times (with little extra effort i might add after you levelled industry, cause you can simply buy most resources needed for wo's from player stalls and still make loads of profit).
Granted, it is not as direct, but if you allow VIP members to make more counsils from having VIP, you might as well share the love.

This is also why VIP is pay to play. I know this is not a popular opinion, but as soon as i can carry more items in dungeons, do work orders multiple times more, milk more, do 4x more event runs, i will make way more counsils than the next guy. Does that matter? In a way yes,. because while i do not care that you are wealthier than me, we share a common market, and more counsils will always lead to inflated prices, hence i wont be getting the resources i need unless i put way more effort into it. Hence a different playing field.

I have no doubt this post will not change the opinion of the devs tho - I have seen and played around 40 MMO's in my life and VIP, or cash shops, or w/e idea that gets implemented to generate income to game developpers, eventually hurts the game. There are very few examples of cash shops or VIP schemes done well. Path of Exile to name one (not really a MMO but ok).

The argument about 4 more character slots being a worth a lot ignores so many things. Firstly that you could just buy a second account to do the same thing and for far less money than VIP.

Next is the idea that time has no value. The time it takes to level up 4 characters to do work orders is significant. As is the time to log each one in to do the work orders. About the only thing i can see being easy to do is milking cows. Even then, during in the time it takes to log in those alts and milk the cows you could have just killed a few wolves or sheep and made as much off skinning them.

You talk about 'a different playing field'. The real difference is someone who has the time to level 8 characters up and do work orders. If you have that much time to play, you already have all the resources you need.

[Mbaums]

..

Full reply disclaimer: I feel like I'm replying to say it's all non-issues to possibly give some context incase you convince some lesser informed gaming journalist or someone new to PG.

I think you are acting like doing 4 extra sets of work orders is nothing and milk is pure gold (as in not filled 8 for 1350 lol) and dungeon quests runs take no time at all. Yeah, potentially the councils are on the table but the frenzy isnt there. As is, the amount of players churning out the ~40million councils across 4 characters a month is so small it's a non issue. There are not more because it's just such a massive upfront time investment and the organization demand is significant.

The game is actually small enough where, come to think of it, I don't believe there are ANY players that truly maximize every resource specific to each character slot. If this did become an issue where PG turns into Work Order Simulator, the monthly work order cool down could just be locked to once per account or each additional turn in could increase the monthly cool down.

In the end, I think you (or someone) should absolutely try and turn in every single work order, collect milk, and glowy yellow crystal across 4 characters and use that council to buy a VIP token and then do it across 8 characters. I'd love to see a post of someone doing that and tracking their progress /methods and just taking it to the extreme. Even if you did get everything setup, I expect by month 3 you would go absolutely insane.

[Dumdidum]

I already do industry on 4 chars - it takes me about 30 mins of work each month to earn an estimated 1 mil extra profit from quickly buying stuff on player stalls to fill those specific wo's and then turn them in.
So that would be what, 45 mins on 8 chars? for 2 mil each month. And thats when i put zero effort into it.
So the whole "allowing players to sell VIP tokeens to other players enables dollar-to-cousil abuse" is moot cause we have it with this VIP system.

My initial request was to let non-VIP players have a way, how painful as it may be (tons and tons of counsils or longwinded quests or time played), to aquire what VIP players get with dollars. I do not see that being answered by anyone.
Why so eager to split your player base into two tiers?

[Ransel]

I already do industry on 4 chars - it takes me about 30 mins of work each month to earn an estimated 1 mil extra profit from quickly buying stuff on player stalls to fill those specific wo's and then turn them in.
So that would be what, 45 mins on 8 chars? for 2 mil each month. And thats when i put zero effort into it.
So the whole "allowing players to sell VIP tokeens to other players enables dollar-to-cousil abuse" is moot cause we have it with this VIP system.

My initial request was to let non-VIP players have a way, how painful as it may be (tons and tons of counsils or longwinded quests or time played), to aquire what VIP players get with dollars. I do not see that being answered by anyone.
Why so eager to split your player base into two tiers?

It sort of works both ways though. On the one hand, you are worried about players with VIP going nuts and farming a ton of councils with their VIP status, but I think another poster here brought up a good point. It's cheaper to just buy another account and skip VIP altogether if you are a "power gamer" who wants to be rich.

On the other hand, making it possible to buy VIP status with in-game currency incentivizes the "farming" of councils by "power gamers" and has a large impact on the availability/rarity/price of player sold goods and the sources of these raw materials. Incentivizing this type of "farming" behavior makes it more difficult for players of all types to acquire common goods and it affects the entire gaming community.

Both choices have an impact on the gaming community, but the limited benefit VIP status doesn't have as much affect as people are making it out to have. I guess the real question is what Project Gorgon's stance is on multi-boxing. If you can make a second or third account for less than the VIP membership cost, then why wouldn't you go that path if your main concern is maximizing your personal benefit.

The only reason I can think that this is such a big deal to people is they want to have a way to use these alternate accounts to unlock free VIP time on their mains, which has essentially already been suggested by a few people here. Although, the VIP time isn't even that good to begin with. Personally, the only reason I subscribe to VIP is to support the game, I don't see it as giving me an edge in any way. I'm open to hearing other reasons why people are so upset about this, but all I can think is that the "uproar" is caused by the heavy gamers who view VIP membership as a status symbol they aren't even willing to pay for. These gamers feel that they deserve it for free because they are so good at collecting vidya game money.