Subscriptions?

[Cula-Ta]

Are seasons just subscriptions but by another name? Just a question, don't bite my head off, this is for dangerous discussions after all.
OK dress it up as you like but 'Seasons' is just another name for a subscription, but with a caveat. That being you still get to play the game, just not all of it. Fair enough. Although we still have peer to peer and not proper servers...
Will seasons mean Pay to Win?
Now if by purchasing the 'Seasons' or 9 month subscriptions you gain a competitive advantage over other players, does the game then become Pay to Win?
Not that there is any winning and loosing in ELITE DANGEROUS, after all Power Play is, oh hold on, it kind of does if you back a power. Which most of us don't, after all Power Play does not suit all game-play choices. You might have heard us EXPLORERS having a bit of a moan about this.
Exploration
But hold on, us explorers are getting some love, we get to land on SOME planets. You know, the really boring airless ones, at least until we pay for the next season, then it really gets interesting. Although we don't really know that for sure. In DB we trust.
Trust
Well that's another thing, there have been many promises, well documented elsewhere, where promises were made and broken. That doesn't support trust, but trust over what's promised and delivered is a different thing here. After all we all love ED, love it enough to rant about it in the hope that we can influence it achieving its massive potential.
Lifetime expansion pass
For a mere £130 (and for a limited period only, yeh right), you can get all the expansions. You mean seasons right? Their not expansions, their half expansions or seasons that last roughly 9 months. It's about 3 seasons worth, so probably great value, unless you live in Euro land (or yoyo land as it is called in Ireland) where the exchange rate is, shall we say, 'not good'.
Long term
So how long can we expect FD to continue developing the game at the rate they are. Note I said developing the game, we all know it was a full release and in no way partially finished. I don't mind that it needed rapid continued development, I still got to play and enjoy it.
But seriously, how long will they continue to develop this wonderful game?
2 x expansions for planetary landing. Does the second one come with avatars that can leave the seat or does that happen in subscription 3?
Apart from the fixes to the background simulator, the economy, adding interesting things to see whilst exploring (hopefully not just for the paid subscriptions). What else will it need? And does the lifetime expansion loose value if there is little else?
Value for money?
Well I paid for the full game, but I can get the expansion with a £10 discount. Although Joe Blogs can come along and buy the lot for only a tenner more than the subscription. That really is value for money. But not a great way to treas existing loyal customers. But then we all know that's standard business practice. I just hoped FD were better than that.
Will I won't I?
Will I buy the subscriptions? I don't know? Probably. But if it becomes pay to win, then I don't hold any truck with that. Even though I can afford to pay for the expansions, there will be plenty who can't. It's why I have no interest in joining that other game that people are pumping ridiculous money into, I guess so they can prove they have a bigger one to wave in the air!?
Anyway that's just my musings. In the survey I voted for being blown away. I should have gone with the majority an ordered Souffle!

 

[Cula-Ta]

By the way I would like to add that I have bought T-shirts, key-rings, badges and paint jobs because I want the game to be the best it can.
Hoping FD do not lose site of the Kick Starter background when charging head long into a business model that does not consider sufficiently it's most loyal customers.

 

[h347h]

Its a dying business model. Good for FD for staying away from it and staying away from pay to win.

 

[Cula-Ta]

I'm questioning if they have stayed clear of Pay to Win. What if the expansion/subscription offers an edge? Better equipment/ships etc.

 

[Redleg]

Its a dying business model. Good for FD for staying away from it and staying away from pay to win.

This! Totally. Repp'ed

 

[Alex Brentnall]

Just picking a few arguments here:
Subscriptions are pay to play, seasons are pay for additional content whilst always having access to what you buy. Big difference

Not really since trading will probably remain the most profitable even after all other content is added (minor sarcasm here but its probably true).

Yeah the whole thing about cost it seems high but if you base it on a £ per hour its pretty darn low for a high usage. I'm only just getting to the point where I feel I've seen everything and done everything and im 780 hours in. If all the seasons together only double that to 1500 I've paid £0.12 per hour (£180 total) which really isn't much considering I've paid £60 for AAA games that I've only played 12 hours or so (£5 per hour).

The loyal customers I agree is a kick in the teeth, thats why I stumped up for the lifetime pass.

Just my counter-arguments. I was also a bit jaded when I read the news but have since come up with the above and validated my purchase.

 

[metatheurgist]

It's not a subscription model. You'll still be able to play the original game for as long as you want without handing over another cent. You may even benefit by getting access to more ships or different missions.

 

[Cula-Ta]

Just picking a few arguments here:
Subscriptions are pay to play, seasons are pay for additional content whilst always having access to what you buy. Big difference

Not really since trading will probably remain the most profitable even after all other content is added (minor sarcasm here but its probably true).

Yeah the whole thing about cost it seems high but if you base it on a £ per hour its pretty darn low for a high usage. I'm only just getting to the point where I feel I've seen everything and done everything and im 780 hours in. If all the seasons together only double that to 1500 I've paid £0.12 per hour (£180 total) which really isn't much considering I've paid £60 for AAA games that I've only played 12 hours or so (£5 per hour).

The loyal customers I agree is a kick in the teeth, thats why I stumped up for the lifetime pass.

Just my counter-arguments. I was also a bit jaded when I read the news but have since come up with the above and validated my purchase.

I hear you and agree with all you say. I'm jaded too, just haven't stumped up the cash (yet). I'm still arguing with myself over it. I guess I just believe in fair play and I feel FD have discounted their most loyal customers. I would have been a kickstarter backer had I known about it, but came late and bought into beta as soon as I realized it was available.

 

[Tacheel]

Is DLC just subscription by another name - Destiny doing quite well from it.

 

[ZeeWolf]

Why do people always say that the examples of "broken promises" are documented elsewhere?

I wanna see this documentation (unless it's just offline mode again, but really if Frontier can do no right since making that decision you should have collected your refund by now)

 

[Brimstone]

Going on what Michael Brookes said of seasons essentially spanning over the time period of a year, here we go.

Horizons= 60$- $15 loyalty discount = 45$

45/12= 3.75

That's a pretty nice subscription. I'd probably play more subscription based games if all they wanted was $3.75 a month.

 

[Windscreen Smudge]

Its a dying business model. Good for FD for staying away from it and staying away from pay to win.

Seasons is a business model. I'd rather they hit subscriptions with the defibrillator a couple times and took it for another spin with a new twist than try to copy something that has never worked well and never will.

 

[Robert Maynard]

Seasons is a business model. I'd rather they hit subscriptions with the defibrillator a couple times and took it for another spin with a new twist than try to copy something that has never worked well and never will.

Personally, I'd rather be able to continue to play the game free-of-mandatory-periodic-charge and choose to buy expansions as and when I wanted to. (academic in this particular instance as my pledge tier includes all major expansions)

 

[M.E.A.T]

It is definitely not a subscription in any shape or form. With subscription model, you will not have access to the game at all if you do not buy-in (renew subscription) to EDH. This is not the case since you will still have access to the base content and all the base content updates that FD will eventually roll out.

 

[Cmdr Eagleboy]

Model is solid. Only issue I can see is people pointing out that newcomers will get Horizons cheaper than already existing players. Well, newcomers will get full game at the end of the game, and it seems FD will view base game costing 15 USD at that point. I don't know...I personally view it as ok, but others will disagree.

 

[Krait_79]

Are seasons just subscriptions but by another name? Just a question, don't bite my head off, this is for dangerous discussions after all.
OK dress it up as you like but 'Seasons' is just another name for a subscription, but with a caveat. That being you still get to play the game, just not all of it. Fair enough. Although we still have peer to peer and not proper servers...
Will seasons mean Pay to Win?
Now if by purchasing the 'Seasons' or 9 month subscriptions you gain a competitive advantage over other players, does the game then become Pay to Win?
Not that there is any winning and loosing in ELITE DANGEROUS, after all Power Play is, oh hold on, it kind of does if you back a power. Which most of us don't, after all Power Play does not suit all game-play choices. You might have heard us EXPLORERS having a bit of a moan about this.
Exploration
But hold on, us explorers are getting some love, we get to land on SOME planets. You know, the really boring airless ones, at least until we pay for the next season, then it really gets interesting. Although we don't really know that for sure. In DB we trust.
Trust
Well that's another thing, there have been many promises, well documented elsewhere, where promises were made and broken. That doesn't support trust, but trust over what's promised and delivered is a different thing here. After all we all love ED, love it enough to rant about it in the hope that we can influence it achieving its massive potential.
Lifetime expansion pass
For a mere £130 (and for a limited period only, yeh right), you can get all the expansions. You mean seasons right? Their not expansions, their half expansions or seasons that last roughly 9 months. It's about 3 seasons worth, so probably great value, unless you live in Euro land (or yoyo land as it is called in Ireland) where the exchange rate is, shall we say, 'not good'.
Long term
So how long can we expect FD to continue developing the game at the rate they are. Note I said developing the game, we all know it was a full release and in no way partially finished. I don't mind that it needed rapid continued development, I still got to play and enjoy it.
But seriously, how long will they continue to develop this wonderful game?
2 x expansions for planetary landing. Does the second one come with avatars that can leave the seat or does that happen in subscription 3?
Apart from the fixes to the background simulator, the economy, adding interesting things to see whilst exploring (hopefully not just for the paid subscriptions). What else will it need? And does the lifetime expansion loose value if there is little else?
Value for money?
Well I paid for the full game, but I can get the expansion with a £10 discount. Although Joe Blogs can come along and buy the lot for only a tenner more than the subscription. That really is value for money. But not a great way to treas existing loyal customers. But then we all know that's standard business practice. I just hoped FD were better than that.
Will I won't I?
Will I buy the subscriptions? I don't know? Probably. But if it becomes pay to win, then I don't hold any truck with that. Even though I can afford to pay for the expansions, there will be plenty who can't. It's why I have no interest in joining that other game that people are pumping ridiculous money into, I guess so they can prove they have a bigger one to wave in the air!?
Anyway that's just my musings. In the survey I voted for being blown away. I should have gone with the majority an ordered Souffle!

Regarding the value for money bit. How would it be fair then if Joe Bloggs comes along and pays full price for a part of the game that's been out a year? You do realise like a lot of commodities that games depreciate in value right? I really don't understand why so many don't see this simple concept!

 

[Evil]

The balance between expansion ownership does raze the question of P2W, if they introduce weapons or modules that can only be accessed through owning the expansions then that will be a bit of a let down, lets hope they don't go down that route.

 

[Cula-Ta]

The balance between expansion ownership does raze the question of P2W, if they introduce weapons or modules that can only be accessed through owning the expansions then that will be a bit of a let down, lets hope they don't go down that route.

That's exactly what I was getting at. have some rep

- - - Updated - - -

I think the price point for existing players is too high.

 

[Commander Silex]

The balance between expansion ownership does raze the question of P2W, if they introduce weapons or modules that can only be accessed through owning the expansions then that will be a bit of a let down, lets hope they don't go down that route.

If past experience of alternate weapons is anything to go by, even if weapons exist that can only be accessed by the expansion they're unlikely to be better than the standards.

 

[Patrick_68000]

The price for the newcomers who buy "Horizons" should be higher, and the update for existing players, lower. As long as, the newcomers come in large numbers ...