Kovabon
As someone else said, it is damn cheap, even with the bugs in the game. Like someone said, it costs less that three "fancy coffee drinks" a month.
So, damn, if you cannot afford that, how did you afford your computer itself?
Yeah... I am being somewhat mean. I would like it if F2P were more restricted, honestly.
Ok, just a couple things. There IS an entire world outside of the USA and western europe, alright? =P
In some countries, 1 dollar is the equivalent of 5, 20, 50 or however many of their money. In those countries, the minimal wage is usually something very atrocious. In my own case, minimal wage is approx. 350 dollars per month. Unless you're an enginneer (lucky bastards ^^), you're pretty much guaranteed to be paid minimal wage at any entry level position.
Now don't get me wrong. I understand this is an european company and they probably pay their bills in euros, etc. I'm not saying the game's financial plan needs to cater to third world countries =P
All I'm saying is that it's a bit of an entitled opinion to come and say you don't know how someone can't afford that. And a bit offensive as well, tbh. If you really want to know how people in some places buy computers, it's usually by paying through multiple monthly installments, sometimes for as long as one, two years or more =P
Now back to the topic. These are all very valid ideas I think:
Yubina
It's very bad for Ryzoms population that players with an expired sub can't log in any more, a possible alternative I see is to allow them login, but disable any skill progress (including skills below 125) if the sub is expired.
And I like the idea of additional payed game services done by the support, like for example:
- character recreation, change your look and/or race and keep your levels and everything else
- change your characters name (and keep everything else as it is)
- transfer a character from one account to an other, from p2p to p2p or f2p to p2p (maybe better not from p2p to f2p and not from f2p to f2p, because there is a high risk of misuse)
I would pay at least 10 Euro for each of this (did so in the past in other games)
Restoring pre merge accounts should always be a free customer service, to prevent obstacles for returning players as far as possible.
Additionally, they could sell all those different apartment decorations as well. Or other cosmetic items like the special tattoos, etc.
I think we just need to be realistic here. If what we want is a healthy player base and population, the truth is that unless you're WoW or EVE online, over the past several years there's been a mass exodus away from games heavily based on subscription models.
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"We are Kami. We are here to be you. We are many as you are of many minds. We are one as you are one in Ma-Duk."