Full Premium W11 and W12

[DeletedUser21320]

the sentence "give the customer what he wants" ie " the customer is king" is a saying.

"Give the customer what he wants" does not mean you give everything away. Where did you dream that up? It means for instance, that if the customer wants a compact car to drive short distances to work, you don't try to sell him or her a huge SUV. You take your profit on the compact he wants, gain a happy customer, who will probably come back to buy the next car from you, and will tell his family and friends to visit you also. That's part of a successful business plan.

OTOH if you know the dealership is closing soon, and you have no moral compass, you might sell the SUV, get your larger commission, and let someone else deal with the fallout. That is called "take the money and run".

And although my company ran for 27 years, I might have some of that wrong. Hope your business plan is better.

 

[DeletedUser]

"Give the customer what he wants" does not mean you give everything away. Where did you dream that up? It means for instance, that if the customer wants a compact car to drive short distances to work, you don't try to sell him or her a huge SUV. You take your profit on the compact he wants, gain a happy customer, who will probably come back to buy the next car from you, and will tell his family and friends to visit you also. That's part of a successful business plan.

OTOH if you know the dealership is closing soon, and you have no moral compass, you might sell the SUV, get your larger commission, and let someone else deal with the fallout. That is called "take the money and run".

And although my company ran for 27 years, I might have some of that wrong. Hope your business plan is better.

What's your point exactly? Could you summarize that without the metaphores?

 

[DeletedUser]

there's a reason a lot of people didnt join arizona & briscoe..didnt want to bother with the new setup..i think if you join a game..put time into it,,support the game ,then the whole nature of the game is changed ,then it shows a total lack of respect & contempt to the players..the "popular demand" is a complete lie..worlds 1-12 are a haven from a bad game set up..im lvl 70 in world 11 & im seriously thinking of leaving it,

Here, here

Don't quit 11, it's the best World IMO. I have to believe the players of W11 will ignore the stupid credit card whoring and play on. At level 80, 10 skill points in anything is an advantage, but it won't change the world. That said it is still wrong. Only freaks will purchase premium skill points, they should however hand out a medal listing the app/skill points these game "preservers of the game" have purchased. The fact that the energy refresh is cheaper than the extra energy bonus means they are working against themselves at this point to a certain extent.

The fact is if you are happy to pay for automation & extra energy you can only compete with players that are likewise minded, which makes it a fair playing field. I don't think I have dueled a player that didn't have a nugget medal on W11, because quite simply my duel level is high.. Though thankfully, it is not so massive that I can't duel more than 10 players on a world as it was on W10 when I deleted.

 

[DeletedUser]

Really Hells? Man, I do respect you all, but you obviously don't read the whole forum.
For example, let's see what does this Arizona soldier say:
http://forum.the-west.net/showpost.php?p=492117&postcount=6
Combine this with energy refill, then with solving quests for more AP/SP and shaman to respec... How come? Easy! You have more SP and AP than others so you can solve those quests weeks before others do!
And now that Arizona soldier has billions of HP in fort fights. Months before players could even dream about a HP build.
Don't get me wrong here, I don't blame the player - he has the money, he has options, why wouldn't he use them?

But it feels like I'm saying this: Who cares if slavery is unethical if you have the money to buy slaves, right?
Of course it's not right!

And you say the game is balanced with skillbuying. Yea, right. I'll spit on the skillbuying crap till the rest of my life. Ok, till I quit the game. As it looks now, it will be pretty soon.

Trully I have nothing against other new premiums. I can live with all of them. But this one is ruining the game.

That soldier is getting +150 hp from skill buying, +1675 hp from the soldier bonus (5*330) and another +1675 hp from the double class bonus premium.

If you want to make the argument that high hp soldiers are unbalancing the game it isn't skillbuying that's the cause of it.

 

[DeletedUser]

This is the worst statement I've ever seen. I dare to say it's blasphemic.

I bet you've never played with skills/jobs and reskill. It only takes a few bought skill points combined with the rediculously cheap shaman feature to give you an enormous advantage. Not only that, even when other players finally get on your level and solve everything they wanted to solve, you will still have the skill advantage they can never get. Did you read this last part? Let me repeat it:
when other players finally get on your level and solve everything they wanted to solve, you will still have the skill advantage they can never get

You don't believe me? I can make you a walkhrough on this for god sake. You don't even have to be rich to do it, just get yourself a few packets of 1000 nuggets and in less than 2 months you'll have all AP/SP available from quests + in the end you'll have a build you wanted, it's only your choice if that would be alljobs, dueling or fort fighter build, and as I've said above, when all other players after a few months finally reach their goal whatever that might be, your build will still be untouchable by those who haven't bought skills. Why? Because for some crap reason I will never understand - nuggetskills are PERMANENT.

Sorry but we're not talking about beta testing and beta character builds.

Joxer, you're right. But I was trying to look through the eyes of players who would find it desirable to do so. You're also assuming that everyone has a deep innate knowledge of the game. I can imagine that there are many who don't really visit the forums or never even heard of The west stats. Let's say they built up their characters poorly and are finding it untenable. Not having enough points to do certain jobs they want even with whatever items they could equip themselves. Remember, they know little or some might just wish to experiment with their own builds. Buying a few needed skill points here and there might just look more attractive than shifting around all the time, if there weren't any cost penalties.

As for "the professional level thing" I was talking about players who wish to achieve super-power builds speedily. Say we have a scenario of a level 30 player who after learning of this new function, thought with sparkles in his/her eyes on how he/she could now get a massive load of skill points to match up with ultra-veteran players for fort battles. The emphasis on now. If you are at a 30th level, won't you need about 80+ skill points to catch up with someone who is currently at 70? Doesn't sound so blasphemous doesn't it?

Of course that idea is eradicated quickly as the cost is unworkable. Which maintains the balance of the game.

in response to CHERIO it is not the full premium thing most of us are against i think you have missed the real issue here and that is they are suddenly bringing it in to 2 (W11 & W12 ) existing OLD worlds even HELLSTOMMM admitted they were old worlds by stating and i quote "NEWER OLD WORLDS"

i have no objection to full premium worlds i do however object to the huge unbalancing of exisiting worlds i have played on the new worlds (non premium player)

You have a good point there, Mawihtec. But we have here in this thread lots of players who are familiar with these worlds claiming that most people (and them) playing hate this particular trait and if a poll were enacted the vote of the players shall win, hands down. Drawing from this conclusion, we can safely say that no one will be buying premium for SP/AP points? Thus there is no need to worry so much about it, is there?

Aside, there is little talk about the other features of the new enhanced premium. Everything seems to revolve around the central issue of skill points. I thus wanted to point out the other bright spots around.

 

[DeletedUser21320]

What's your point exactly? Could you summarize that without the metaphores?

I was trying to answer Neo's rant. And trying to point out by example that if Innogames made it a game that the players *want* to play, perhaps by taking some of the players' suggestions, that the company might make more money than trying to force everyone to make non-requested changes in the middle of a game.

The changes being made now are aimed at exactly the people who have supported Innogames the longest. The changes don't seem to be really aimed at making money. Why would pissed-off players pay more money than before? Not logical.

As I said in a prior post, happy players recruit new customers. And angry players negate tons of advertising cash. Driving the established players out doesn't seem sensible. So what is the purpose?

 

[DeletedUser]

Ive no doubt they will, especially if 11/12 prove to be a money spinner h34r:

And yes Neo I probably will do exactly that.

I'll be right there with you. I have no obligation to play the-west, but it is a decent stress reliever (most of the time). Starcraft anyone? xD Or maybe some Battlefield Bad Company 2 or Red Dead Redemption? Or maybe I'll go back to an online browser game where they don't constantly make game-breaking changes.. TribalWars. Funny it's even run by the same company, yet, it is NOT a complete failure.

 

[DeletedUser]

Ummm. Joined this month. One total post that completely toes the company line. And we're supposed to believe anything in the post. FAKE

I would quite like it if you were to stop assuming things about me. Though I'm in no way a top ranking player or anything of that sort, I'm not brand new either. I used to play in world 10 before I deleted off my character there. Not everyone comes to these forums or partake in regular discussions. Personally, I don't feel a need to. My town mates then provide enough communication for that.

The way I see it is the people who are protesting against this feature are doing so to preserve their own self-gratification. Those who are for the premium buying are also supporting it for their own self-gratification and Innogames belted out this feature to make more money.

None of them are a more noble cause than the other. Thus they all mean the same to me.

I was just trying to offer alternate points of view. No hard feelings on anything really.

 

[Diggo11]

When they allow my W11 soldier to move to one of the other 10 worlds I will be more than happy to stop whining.

Erm yeah, another one to send to Ideas & Brainfarts rather that to sit around and whine about.

If you take away the energy refresh and the buying skill points, I'd really have no problem with the new premium features.

You can't take out profitable premiums without replacing them.

well that one is easy:
most of INNO employees want to be paid more...
so on a popular demand basis there were more people in favour than there were against!

More like Inno wants to make a profit and keep the game operating. If Inno REALLY didn't care they'd close the game down due to lack of revenue.

Hmmm, now I understand it Hellstromm. Well, I think if you could only choose between OR opening two new worlds, OR adding premium bonusses to 11 and 12, you made the right decision.

I just don't get why it's explained as "popular demand", when nobody (or at least only a very small minority) wants it to happen, if it's just Inno that's forcing you to choose between two game ruining / $ oriented decisions...

That's basically why. A bit of sarcasm, yet actually the best of the immediate options.

And you still havent addressed the issue that the community you manage doesn't want the world they play to change, but "heh, they all hate me anyway, why should I care?"

As if it is Hellstromm's fault the game is generating enough revenue

Right on Miss.
Bullcrap, Hellstromm. Use your brain, ask them about in-game advertisements. If you really cared about the community you wouldn't have done either one of them, you would've tried to come up with something else.

We did, I suggested an advertising banner on the daily login bonus screen. They said no. Go request a poll from Sauceysauce if you like, give me something to help me in my case.

 

[DeletedUser]

You can't take out profitable premiums without replacing them.

As if it is Hellstromm's fault the game is generating enough revenue

I have told you before how you can get 700(ish) players that have no reason to use premium to start using it again... How about a free use of the Shamen for 100 nuggets (limited to 2 uses per player, per world), so people can use it, do all the high level quests and then revert back to their original build! That would be useful and fair!

 

[DeletedUser]

Well first off I don't think its fair to blame Hellstromm as neither choice was desirable. At the same time I don't buy the line that Inno is doing this because they don't make enough revenue. They more than likely make enough they just want more, can't say I blame them. If revenue really was the issue we would see these premiums on all old worlds not just these two.

 

[DeletedUser]

I'm speaking as a member of this community, not merely as a representative of Innogames:

I did not promote the idea to add advertising to ingame as it's unpalatable to me, and likely to most of you, but also because it wouldn't change anything, only provide more revenue for Innogames. They would still have wanted more worlds to be opened up and implemented more premium features. When it comes down to it, if you pose additional means for revenue, they will be just that, additional means for revenue. It won't change the existing events, as they'll still add more worlds, still attempt to increase player/premium revenue ratio.

This is a game, it's a free game for most of the players here, but ultimately it's a business. I respect that aspect of this game, because I respect the notion that these sorts of games are geared to bring in lots of people to play for free and to provide features that allow paying customers the opportunity to benefit from their financial contribution to the development of this game. All the non-paying players are very important to Innogames, of course, but you're also an expense because your actions and activities cost them money. To offset those costs, they need players who pay for features. To make a profit, they needs lots of paying players. But they also need lots of non-paying players in order to make this a large community, and that's what paying players like... lots of other players to play alongside.

It is the paying players, not the non-paying players, that provide the financial support for the development of this game. When I hear some non-paying players threatening to leave, it saddens me, because I like to play alongside some of you. But, I also know that you're not a paying player, and thus you're not going to lose them revenue. That's one of the facets here often forgotten.

Another facet often forgotten is that this forum community is only a small fraction of the player base. Granted, a vocal fraction, but not a fair representation of the overall playerbase. The new premium features are popular, they demonstrate a strong attraction, and they help to retain participation through a sense of financial investment in addition to the time investment most of you feel. Obviously, if you're not purchasing these features, you're not going to be sharing those same feelings. But a survey made on all the German worlds resulted in a very high percentage (majority) being "in favor" of the new premium features, which contrasted sharply with their far smaller forum survey.

As a player first, a community manager second, I look at the game and want to have fun just like everyone else. If I didn't like this game, I wouldn't have played it for so long. Am I keen with these new premium features? To be honest, I'm conflicted, but I know they're popular with paying customers, and I know they provide a lot of revenue for The West. And you know what? That additional revenue means we get more developers putting time into this game, to add new features, to repair existing problems, and to satisfy some of the "community" requests that we recently presented to them.

So look, you can't have your cake and eat it to. In order to get the things you want, the extra features you're craving, Innogames needs to make a substantial profit. As I indicated earlier, I made the call, but I didn't make it without input, and it is likely I will make more calls in the future that will rile up the haters, but I'm going to keep the eye on the ball. I'll listen, I'll consider, I'll pose your reasoned arguments in contrast to the reasoned arguments of Innogames upper management, and I'll try to impose a compromise, as I'm doing here with worlds 11 & 12.

And I'll tell ya, I have no doubts that the decisions I make, the actions I take, will be a mixed bag. But, as another community member, Buffalofred, indicated, it's not about me; it's about Innogames, the paying players, and the non-paying players. My impossible chore is to appease everyone.

If you wish to pose questions in private, I am open to discussion. I am not, however, open to insults, bashing, derogatory remarks, or anything else along those lines.