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this was posted last night on the forums
Greetings! This post answers many of the questions we have received from players about what happens if they downgrade from a VIP (subscriber) account to a Free account.
Q. What happens if I've already unlocked Drow?
A. If you've unlocked Drow as a VIP, you'll still have access to your Drow character and can continue to create new Drow, as long as you have a free slot.
Q. What happens to my Warforged characters?
A. If you downgrade to a Free account, you must purchase the Warforged race in the DDO store to play any existing Warforged characters.
Q. What if I have a Monk character?
A. If you downgrade to a Free account, you must purchase the Monk class in the DDO store to play any existing Monk characters.
Q. What about the limits on chat, mail, auctions, and gold storage?
A. As a former VIP, you won't be subject to the same limitations that a new, Free player has.
Q. What happens to my characters?
A. Your characters are never deleted by Turbine! As a VIP who downgraded to a Free player, you'll have four character slots. When you enter the game as a Free player you'll be asked which characters you wish to unlock for these slots. If you'd like to unlock an additional character, you must purchase a slot for it. However, when you purchase this slot you'll also be given the option to exchange the characters in any previously unlocked slots with any of your locked characters.
Q. What about the Turbine Points I have banked? I got them every month and have some left over.
A. Keep them. They're yours!
Q. What happens to the things I've unlocked through the Favor system?
A. Nothing happens; you'll still have them!
Q. What about items in my shared bank slot?
A. If you downgrade to a Free account, the items will go to a "withdraw only" status. You can remove them, but you cannot place any items back in unless you purchase the shared bank slot from the DDO Store.
Q. What if I decide to go back to VIP status? Do I get a credit for the things I've purchased?
A. We're sorry, but there are no refunds or credits for Free players who decide to become VIPS, so choose your path carefully before downgrading! If you’ve purchased any additional character slots above the 10 you get as a VIP, you will still have access to those slots.
Q. What happens to items I purchase if I go back and forth between Free and VIP?
A. Anything you've purchased as a Free player will still be yours if you upgrade to VIP and then back to Free.
Q. If I downgrade, what content will I still have access to?
A. You'll be able to access any content a Free player can access. Additional content will need to be purchased in the DDO Store before you can access it, even if you could access it when you were a VIP.
Comments
from same link
Originally Posted by dread333 View Post
Just a little confused, everyone is saying that if you down grade from VIP to free you get to choose 2 of your toons, but this post says 4...is this right? Thanks Patience.
Yes, if you were a VIP and downgrade, you'll have 4 slots.
EQ2 fan sites
So basically players that have been supporting and paying the game for months patiently waiting during 8 months for mod 9 will have to pay once again to have access to their drow, warforged and monk.
Pretty sure DDO vets do appreciate Turbine ways to show how they "thanks" them.
Yea, it'll be good practice if I ever go to prison; "keep the lube handy."
Seems to me Turbine would prefer the vets leave on the day this new plan goes live. Then they could start all over without all the people who know how full of Sh*t they tend to be. Yesterday it was VIPs will get everything, today in an interview they slipped in blurb about some content even VIPs needing to pay for. What would be nice is one time Turbine actually have their ideas fully fleshed out before going ahead in a halfassed manner that makes them look silly when they have to make changes.
To answer your post, Rokurgepta, one thing I really don't understand is how could they possibly make such a change to the game without publishing day 1 a complete FAQ answering most, if not all, the questions the players will have?
...unless they do know they are screwing big time and try to do some damage control tweaking their answers and future system accordingly to the players reactions.
Once again Turbine really lacks Blizzard marketing skills.
I understand it myself. After years of dealing with this company this is par for the course. Their PR are one of the worst I have seen. They communicate poorly, they lead on their players with either lies or omissions they can later try to spin and make sound good. This announcement should have had a much more solid Q&A session to go with it. Today they are basicly telling people if you have maxed out favor you are screwed when this releases because Turbine points will be gained through favor. Well if you are a long time player you likely have limited favor on some chars. This means you need to delete and reroll or BUY more points. So on top of $14.99 a month you get the honor of paying more since your capped chars will not be gaining much favor even with new content.
Yesterday they were all over the boards with answers and links and today petty much back to typical Turbine. How many time do you do the same things and fail each time before you realize you need to change how you do things? I know someone in the beta and will keep tabs on what goes on and how it looks and decide if I come back or not when this releases. I will not come back as a F2P so they have to do enough to get me back paying for a sub or I simply will not return again.
I understand it myself. After years of dealing with this company this is par for the course. Their PR are one of the worst I have seen. They communicate poorly, they lead on their players with either lies or omissions they can later try to spin and make sound good. This announcement should have had a much more solid Q&A session to go with it. Today they are basicly telling people if you have maxed out favor you are screwed when this releases because Turbine points will be gained through favor. Well if you are a long time player you likely have limited favor on some chars. This means you need to delete and reroll or BUY more points. So on top of $14.99 a month you get the honor of paying more since your capped chars will not be gaining much favor even with new content.
Yesterday they were all over the boards with answers and links and today petty much back to typical Turbine. How many time do you do the same things and fail each time before you realize you need to change how you do things? I know someone in the beta and will keep tabs on what goes on and how it looks and decide if I come back or not when this releases. I will not come back as a F2P so they have to do enough to get me back paying for a sub or I simply will not return again.
QFT
Although, to give the devil his due, they really marketed their official forums so well that no other forum has become even modestly popular; this one is about the best, and there aren't many people here. Instead, if you want a discussion, you have to go to their forums, where they have editing and censorship authority, and boy do they use it.
But the lies, poor communication, and apparently random decision-making process is classic Turbine.
I understand it myself. After years of dealing with this company this is par for the course. Their PR are one of the worst I have seen. They communicate poorly, they lead on their players with either lies or omissions they can later try to spin and make sound good. This announcement should have had a much more solid Q&A session to go with it. Today they are basicly telling people if you have maxed out favor you are screwed when this releases because Turbine points will be gained through favor. Well if you are a long time player you likely have limited favor on some chars. This means you need to delete and reroll or BUY more points. So on top of $14.99 a month you get the honor of paying more since your capped chars will not be gaining much favor even with new content.
Yesterday they were all over the boards with answers and links and today petty much back to typical Turbine. How many time do you do the same things and fail each time before you realize you need to change how you do things? I know someone in the beta and will keep tabs on what goes on and how it looks and decide if I come back or not when this releases. I will not come back as a F2P so they have to do enough to get me back paying for a sub or I simply will not return again.
QFT
Although, to give the devil his due, they really marketed their official forums so well that no other forum has become even modestly popular; this one is about the best, and there aren't many people here. Instead, if you want a discussion, you have to go to their forums, where they have editing and censorship authority, and boy do they use it.
But the lies, poor communication, and apparently random decision-making process is classic Turbine.
I thought the reason their official forums were the only popular ones is because who makes a fansite for a game with so few people playing? It is not like they need an overflow area right now. I reach more people yelling out a window in this area.
I understand it myself. After years of dealing with this company this is par for the course. Their PR are one of the worst I have seen. They communicate poorly, they lead on their players with either lies or omissions they can later try to spin and make sound good. This announcement should have had a much more solid Q&A session to go with it. Today they are basicly telling people if you have maxed out favor you are screwed when this releases because Turbine points will be gained through favor. Well if you are a long time player you likely have limited favor on some chars. This means you need to delete and reroll or BUY more points. So on top of $14.99 a month you get the honor of paying more since your capped chars will not be gaining much favor even with new content.
Yesterday they were all over the boards with answers and links and today petty much back to typical Turbine. How many time do you do the same things and fail each time before you realize you need to change how you do things? I know someone in the beta and will keep tabs on what goes on and how it looks and decide if I come back or not when this releases. I will not come back as a F2P so they have to do enough to get me back paying for a sub or I simply will not return again.
Rokurgepta and Deew, as I have said elsewhere I think the lack of preparedness or professionalism on this is another indicator that this is as much about developing a working technical and structural RMT model for other projects as anything. They are not trying to trun DDO around, they are using its corpse to build a working RMT model for their other game(s). DDO as an item shop doesn't even make much sense for lots of reasons, for one it is a Monty Haul game so as soon as you can just buy all you want the game loses its biggest motivating reason to do anything. Game mechanic breaking things like allowing you to buy in dungeon supplies and such (so much for strength matering as to how much you can carry or Monks needing light load to remain centered). Also I read you can buy a rez in a quest - so out the window goes the need to compelte a quest without dying (if solo) or without a wipe (if in group) to avoid big penalty or even complete failure on many quests (think of TOR with the ability to rez from a menu - it becomes even more laughably easy. Turbine has cross developed before, they have often talked of DDO work being used directly in LotRO and I believe vice versa, heck you cannot play both games without seeing common systems and even the same assets. This is all about developing (technically and in a consumer palatable way) a working RMT system they can use on other stuff, nothing more and nothing less.
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@Nadia
Cheers for sharing this information it is much appreciated.
That's a shame, took a break from the game for a few months and was interested on going back when the level cap was raised but seeing as my main is a monk.. I foresee more space on my HD very soon!
All they did was punt the ball to buy another couple of months. It's very sad.
Also, I get the impression that they did not always plan on doing Mod9 with the F2P overhaul. It seemed for a while there they were ready to release it (looking at all the correspondence from the CS reps, it was clear they were somewhat in the dark), but then someone decided that this would be the best time to go F2P.
Turbine did document it last year that they were examining microtransaction models, however, the timing of this seems haphazard at best. At worst, a downright stall tactic. I can't see Turbine making any more progress with their poor decision making that led me to leave the game over a year ago.
Turbine stated in January that the new RMT manager position was not for any current games
www.massively.com/2009/01/05/turbines-rmt-manager-position-not-for-any-current-games/
www.massively.com/2009/01/01/turbine-hiring-for-microtransaction-manager/
Turbine knew RMT was controversial
I have no idea if this is for the betterment of DDO but time will tell
EQ2 fan sites
I honestly believe this move to add RMT to DDO was last-minute and rushed. There's no other explanation for all the CS reps telling everyone to hang in there with mod9 and then suddenly find out the whole game is changing.
I share your skepticism on whether or not this move is going to be good for the game. However, I think DDO is willing to sacrifice the game in order to find out if it's worth it or not. All signs point to them shutting the game down if this does not kickstart it.
Something else to note - DDO must have suffered a huge loss in subscriptions in order for Turbine to justify this new direction.
Case in point:
In today's economy if you have 25,000 subscriptions @ 14.95 per month we are talking about $4.5 million dollars per annual. This is a large amount of money for a company of Turbine's size. If you could bring in close to $5m per year just keeping the game at its present course, that would be GOOD. Altering it or messing with it (especially changing the revenue model drastically) would be an extremely risky thing for Turbine to do. Businesses simply don't take risks like this on their second-string race horses. This is clearly an experiment.
Therefore I have to advance the idea that the subscription numbers are FAR less than 25k. I would estimate closer to 10k subscriptions. This is barely $1m in gross revenue before expenses, taxes, etc. -- this is a much lower risk. Changing the business model at this level makes heaps more sense, given that the revenue stream is low enough that it can't get much worse--but certainly can get better.
$5 million is a fairly solid stream of revenue for a niche game. This move could put all of it at risk, therefore the risk must be lower than that. Impossible to imagine otherwise. Why would a business throw away or be willing to put at risk millions of dollars from a game that has been little more than a thorn in their side?
Can you clarify why you would not be able to play your Monk if you returned?
Talking of controversy, this F2P move must have fundamentally broken/changed the relationship with Atari, has this come up on the US forums?
I feel bad for the Vets..Once this game goes live they will be drown out by the new players..
Some people rob you at gun point..Others will rob you at "Ball Point Pen"
As a beta Vet (unfortunately on EU so not affected in this phase) I would say having more players would seem a bonus to me, rather than a problem?
As a beta Vet (unfortunately on EU so not affected in this phase) I would say having more players would seem a bonus to me, rather than a problem?
It all depends on the quality of those players. Have you played may F2P games before?
Talking of controversy, this F2P move must have fundamentally broken/changed the relationship with Atari, has this come up on the US forums?
Why would this change that? Turbine is still going to have to pay Atari as far as I can tell. Atari owns the rights to any DDO licensed game, DDO is just a small part of that for them.
Turbine stated in January that the new RMT manager position was not for any current games
www.massively.com/2009/01/05/turbines-rmt-manager-position-not-for-any-current-games/
www.massively.com/2009/01/01/turbine-hiring-for-microtransaction-manager/
Turbine knew RMT was controversial
I have no idea if this is for the betterment of DDO but time will tell
So much for the fanboys flaming me for saying Turbine has been lying all along, as if that wasn't obvious. As for those comments, hrm, future project - did I not say this whole thing (half assed and rushed as it seems) is about a future project and using DDO as a testbed for an RMT system.
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I just came back to DDO last month and just cancelled my sub again. The game hasn't really grown IMHO and going to a F2P model just doesn't appeal to me in any sense.
Granted that the game is going to (maybe) bring in new players, but the over all experence will be diminished. The game is still good , but with everything that I have seen in game and in the forums (here and at DDO.com) has made the game just that more unappealing.
I wish Turbine and DDO the best of luck in the new business model.
-Slider7
-Slider7
Looking for that next MMO