Forums Home Forum Rules Achaea.com Lore Wiki Vote for Achaea! IronRealms.com
Home› Everything Achaea› North of Thera

Iron Elite Membership Updates!

123578

Comments

  • ExelethrilExelethril
    Morsul said:

    That you have spent thousands on IRE is, in fact, what has given them the power to steer their company in any direction they choose. This is the power they are exercising now, and is well within their right to do so. We are customers, not shareholders. We can make complaints if there have been illegalities in transactions (such as bait-and-switches), but that's it.

    If these changes were under the assumption that the players would continue to spend thousands, it might be a mistake on the devs end to assume that past performance, based on healthy game development, would translate into future performance based on the current trajectory of monetary focus/power creep.

    I quit to play ESO 2 years ago when non-runewarden classes were using some form of Raido talisman to escape my mind scythe finishers. No regrets, there's something really fun about playing as a < 5 foot tall wood elf girl and killing twitch streamers/big hulking nord/orc players in heavy armor (graphics op).

    [ SnB PvP Guide | Link ]

    [ Runewarden Sparring Videos | Link ]
  • CooperCooper
    It is fine for IRE to do whatever they want; no one is arguing otherwise. 

    It is also fine for us to not spend more money on any IRE game.


  • LennLenn
    Morsul said:
    No one's being forced to buy or subscribe. If you don't like it, don't get it.
    No one's being prevented from buying or subscribing. If you like it, get it.
  • CooperCooper
    Thank you Makarios and Nicola, this is a step in the right direction!

  • DragonknightDragonknight Mhaldor
    @Minifie, I'll cut you.
  • TahquilTahquil
    edited February 2020
    Mak for IRE PR manager.

    I had decided yesterday that I was going to cut my elite membership off.
    I was honestly happy with blindly spending $25 a month but Achaea just had to go and do the math for me. I could have been eternally blissfully ignorant but then I saw how much I was actually spending per year and I said out loud "Fuck. Really?" then did the maths myself to double check. I sat back in my chair started to embark on a self-reflective journey that lasted 2 days. 

    What was I actually paying for? I don't mean the xp, credit bonus, lessons etc. But what was I actually using? 
    XP Bonus? I had already hit my goal in the XP Rankings for a brief moment and no longer needed it for my now more relaxed playstyle.
    150 membership credits per month? Just sitting there accumulating since I already had all the artefacts I wanted.  Even if something new and exciting was released is going to be a talisman or card or whatever new category of promo item. Things the member credits were restricted in buying since they are bound.
    10% bonus to purchased credits? Could be useful, but I couldn't even remember the last time there was a straight credit sale.
    Lesson bonuses? I have already learned all I want and with what lessons I have just sitting there in my characters if I wanted to pick up a class on a whim I had enough.

    There really wasn't anything of use to me as a late-game/mature character. I was paying out of loyalty to the game but you guys just had to go ahead and do the maths and once the maths is out there it's really hard to ignore. I guess the elite is suppose to inspire people to make alts and try out different things?

    That said, it's super hypocritical for me to ask for something to be implemented and then bail the moment the idea is starting to be seriously considered. I'll keep it active for another month and see what comes of all these high end discourse but it's probably not going to be amazing enough to beat down the fact I realised I was paying $300 a year. I mean, the head honcho has already squeezed the max bangs per buck out!
  • TahquilTahquil
    I forgot to add the end of my realization.

    I can just keep the money I'd spend to the side. Buy into any promo that tickles me. If not, it's a nice chunk of cash to buy pet food for the local shelter every quarter. 
  • MaajidaMaajida
    These changes still gloss over the fact that every other game has a special currency item thrown into the membership except Achaea (And Starmourn). If these changes will be exclusive to Achaea then I suppose that's our 'Bonus'.

    I don't think they're going to be exclusive though and that will still make this membership less valuable than the other games, minus Starmourn (but I know nothing about Starmourn's currency). 


  • MilabarMilabar
    Hell I'm down depending on how they value room credits alone. 
  • VhaithVhaith
    edited February 2020
    Maajida said:
    These changes still gloss over the fact that every other game has a special currency item thrown into the membership except Achaea (And Starmourn). If these changes will be exclusive to Achaea then I suppose that's our 'Bonus'.

    I don't think they're going to be exclusive though and that will still make this membership less valuable than the other games, minus Starmourn (but I know nothing about Starmourn's currency). 

    I think the 'bonus' comes in the form of 'buy 10 globes, and with Elite, you get 11!'.. so really, they'll make more money from you, without actually changing much at all.
    When 10 arrows costs $118.66, plus $37.07 for Elite, giving an extra 1 arrow.. it still feels like it's not worth.

    I agree with @Cooper that it's a step in the right direction, but it still just feels like an attempt to placate folk.

    Edit: Why not just add one of whatever the current promotion is, to Elite? It would amount to the exact same thing, without them having to spend any extra money.

    We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be.


  • GilliamGilliam
    Namino said:
    Again, I feel for the Achaea admin who keep having to come up with these really complicated things like elite store and 10% promotion bonuses and so forth when the actual, simple and complete solution is outside of their control: the reduction of digital goods pricing on Achaea by somewhere between 50% to 80% across the board.

    Again, this deal is really insular. It's comparing IRE games to IRE games rather than considering the true scope of the problem, which is not that IRE membership in Achaea is too expensive compared to other IRE products, but that IRE products in general are too expensive compared to the value of a dollar spent literally anywhere else.

    Again, this isn't a shot at @Makarios or @Nicola who are trying their best. This is for @Sarapis, who needs to show up and defend why he thinks 15% extra health and mana is worth 522 USD, which is more than my rent (rural town). 
    Before my brain got to the parentheses this briefly topped 'Heh' for most outrageous thing I've seen in this thread.
  • AntoniusAntonius
    Vhaith said:
    Maajida said:
    These changes still gloss over the fact that every other game has a special currency item thrown into the membership except Achaea (And Starmourn). If these changes will be exclusive to Achaea then I suppose that's our 'Bonus'.

    I don't think they're going to be exclusive though and that will still make this membership less valuable than the other games, minus Starmourn (but I know nothing about Starmourn's currency). 

    I think the 'bonus' comes in the form of 'buy 10 globes, and with Elite, you get 11!'.. so really, they'll make more money from you, without actually changing much at all.
    When 10 arrows costs $118.66, plus $37.07 for Elite, giving an extra 1 arrow.. it still feels like it's not worth.

    I agree with @Cooper that it's a step in the right direction, but it still just feels like an attempt to placate folk.

    Edit: Why not just add one of whatever the current promotion is, to Elite? It would amount to the exact same thing, without them having to spend any extra money.
    It's not a bonus or an addition (to answer your "Why not just...?"). One of the benefits of the Iron Elite membership was a 10% increase on credit purchases. That benefit was "lost" when certain types of promotions were run, and that was one of the issues raised (I believe in this thread, but certainly in the past) with the membership. Perhaps that's not a main benefit - or a benefit at all - for most people, but for people who both regularly buy credits (and now invest in other types of promotions) and have an active Iron Elite membership that benefit is actually extremely important.

    That particular aspect may be why Iron Elite is considered such a good deal (by IRE). Perhaps a reduced price option, that doesn't have the 10% increased purchases benefit, would be something to consider for those whose only spending on the game is Iron Elite (and who therefore don't actually gain any benefit from a 10% increase on nothing). Personally, I've saved a lot of money because of it, but I'm well aware I'm an outlier in terms of spending on Achaea.

    Results of disembowel testing | Knight limb counter | GMCP AB files

  • AntoniusAntonius
    Some more random thoughts:

    When it comes to reducing credit prices, that reduction in cost obviously needs to be offset by a corresponding increase in sales (e.g. if you halve credit prices, you need to double sales) if you want to maintain the current level of income. Some of that increase will come from existing players, but part of it - depending on the size of the reduction - will have to come from an increase in players. You also have to consider that it becomes much cheaper to purchase everything, and as a result more people will reach that stage; that means that you either need to create a lot more content, or you need to constantly replace/supplement old players (former paying customers) with new players (who don't have everything, and are therefore new paying customers).

    Due to the way Achaea works (technical and otherwise), it is not particularly scalable. You can't just keep adding players without problems. There are features that aren't feasible right now due to the size of our playerbase, that other IRE games have because their playerbases are smaller. Serverside curing works right now with ~150 people (or whatever it is), but may no longer be an option that can be offered if the logged in playerbase is regularly ~1000 people. There are occasional issues with lag when you have a lot of people online, grouped up and doing things simultaneously (think team fights); that will also become more frequent, and more severe, if the playerbase grows significantly.

    Unlike an MMO (e.g. World of Warcraft), you can't just add a new server to handle that larger playerbase. Because all of the (meaningful) content in WoW is created by the developers, and the developers don't interact with the players as part of playing the game, everybody playing on every server experiences pretty much the same thing. They have the same quests, the same items, the same dungeons and raids, etc. With Achaea, a new server essentially means a different game, as all of the player driven content and admin interaction - which is the main selling point of the game - branches off. An alternative to additional servers is implementing a login queue to maintain a reasonable number of logged in users on the single server (which puts players off and makes them less likely to spend money).

    An upper limit on the feasible playerbase means an upper limit on the feasible reduction in cost to maintain income. As players, we don't know what those numbers really are. We also don't know how profitable Achaea/IRE is, and therefore how much they can actually afford to take a gamble that reducing costs won't also reduce income. The most generous explanation is that IRE management just don't have the data to support the idea that a massive reduction in costs would be better than the current situation, as much as we - as players, with no access to all of the data they have - are convinced that would be the case.

    Results of disembowel testing | Knight limb counter | GMCP AB files

  • VeldrinVeldrin Denmark
    Namino said:
    Again, I feel for the Achaea admin who keep having to come up with these really complicated things like elite store and 10% promotion bonuses and so forth when the actual, simple and complete solution is outside of their control: the reduction of digital goods pricing on Achaea by somewhere between 50% to 80% across the board.

    Again, this deal is really insular. It's comparing IRE games to IRE games rather than considering the true scope of the problem, which is not that IRE membership in Achaea is too expensive compared to other IRE products, but that IRE products in general are too expensive compared to the value of a dollar spent literally anywhere else.

    Again, this isn't a shot at @Makarios or @Nicola who are trying their best. This is for @Sarapis, who needs to show up and defend why he thinks 15% extra health and mana is worth 522 USD, which is more than my rent (rural town). 
    Hell my rent is like 291.55 USD and that's including heat, electricity and water, it's why I've largely only been using the iron elite for years now, tad harder to justify these days when I can look at what else I can get for that money

  • LennLenn
    If I'm being blunt, the 6 lessons a day is actually a login incentive. Login incentives are a common strategy to reward people for, well, logging in. For making a game into a daily habit.

    That IRE charges people money for this is crazy.

    Give people 1 lesson a day, +1 if they're building a streak (logged in yesterday too), +1 more if the streak is 7+ days, and 1 bound credit every 7 consecutive days or something equally interesting but inexpensive. Maybe it alternates between bound and unbound.

    They gain their payout of lessons after 1 hour of play, doubled if they stick around for 3 hours (this second number mostly depends how much you want to reward single character players vs alts).

    You still want monthly promos to benefit non-paying customers so they have some more interesting, high level reason to stick around longterm, but this handles the day-to-day reason to log in.

    The thing is, yes people can bash up credits, however solo bashing up an artefact means a player might be helping the credit market, but they're not doing the most important job of all: providing content and community for paying customers.

    Everyone who writes an emote for Achaea, nevermind all the designers, ritualists, and writers, are volunteers giving endless content for actual paying customers.

    It's also way easier to justify dropping $100 on a game if you look back and realize you spent a thousand hours on it. Most people who justify their purchases seem to bring this up from what I've seen, not that I have any hard data.
  • MaajidaMaajida
    I really appreciate the post. I have a lot of questions but the first one is:
    Does this mean that one would no longer be able to RETIRE from Achaea when the new system comes out?

  • SarapisSarapis
    Maajida said:
    I really appreciate the post. I have a lot of questions but the first one is:
    Does this mean that one would no longer be able to RETIRE from Achaea when the new system comes out?
    Nah, you'll be able to. Originally you couldn't retire out of the other games that got it because we were kind of creating a separate type of credit economy there with the daily credits, but if Achaea, which has the most players of our games, as it then it's just less of a concern.
  • AnielAniel
    Going off of the numbers @Sothantos posted, assuming that was straight up credits, Achaea made, off of one single city in one game, between 116,613 and 215,590 USD in revenue in 2019. 
  • UrnhlugUrnhlug
    edited February 2020
    Again, I consider myself a bit of an outsider as I'm NOT a big spender or a mover and shaker in the world, although I have been around in some way or another for 10+ years.

    The proposed changes are, of course, welcome, but they still don't do anything in regards to "baby steps", which I think would help drive new player retention and a cleaner newcomer experience in general.

    I think the membership should include WAY more lessons somehow. I totally agree with what @Lenn is proposing, and ideas like that are being totally skipped over it feels.

    I think T1 artis (or arti vials/pipes/tattoos/etc) should be more accessible somehow, and membership is a good baby step into that, and I think that lessons shouldn't feel like such an absolute slog for newcomers. I'm a level 99 Serpent spending $0 on the game for the forseeable future, but if membership was a more affordable step towards things like a sip ring/T1 dirk/etc, I would do it. But there's no point because I can just wait for a good promo if I wanted those things and get them that way. I'm also no where near having all the lessons I want, but $25/mo for the few lessons you get is a joke.

    Maybe there should be types of memberships for different values. Like a newcomer $10/month membership that included more lessons, some bound credits (say 50), and rewarded helpful artifacts, like a vial for month 1 and 2, a pipe for month 3, ink for month 4, a T0 sip ring for month 5 (new arte that increases sips by 5%, and decreases cost of upgrading to T1 ring),  and a T0 weapon for month 6 (new arte weapon with slightly less stats than T1 weapon, but lets you upgrade to T1 for cheaper). Then the membership would give a slightly increased amount of bound credits and lessons indefinitely.

    Then have $20 and $30/month memberships that do similar things.

    That's just me rambling, but my point is - the "curve" in Achaea is ridiculous. As a class that's borderline dead in one on one combat without their T2 arte weapon, browsing to the website and seeing that it's going to run me $250ish is.. well, a complete joke.

    Edit : I should also add, that at $25/mo I'm uninterested. If it was $15/mo I would happily sub and totally forget about it, and probably go dormant for 6 months at some point and come back totally happy to have spent the money and have a bunch of credits to spend.


  • NaminoNamino
    edited February 2020
    How many daily credits?

    The metric I'm going for is how long it will take a new player to gather the credits required to tri-trans + one (avoidance, weaponry, or riding) while bashing to 80. I know the no-brainer package exists but I want to be able to tell my friends they can play without paying anything if they don't want, and I think a lot of people would agree tri-trans + one at 80 is a good benchmark.
  • AdrikAdrik
    I would personally enjoy the free 1st class slot I suggested in the other thread.

    That plus the grind to 80 would see me suggesting the game to folks.
Sign In or Register to comment.