Its a convoluted system and they are continually tweaking it.
I found this write up from April of this year, if I understand correctly if you buy two separate accounts you can train each in 3 skills at 100%
VIP accounts will get to train a primary skill at 100%, plus chose 3 more skills (not two in the same tree) at likely a reduced training rate.
The advantage is VIP players have all their skills available to their one character.
Even better, skill training is account specific. (Not just for VIP) Any skills trained apply to any character on the account, guess if you wish to roll spy alts or something.
So VIP makes more skills available on a single character, but perhaps less total skill than 2 separate accounts would provide.
Read through yourself, its not easy to decipher and subject to change I'm sure.
Well yes, the alternate skill trees would be on the same account with VIP. But if you can't actually use them at the same time, why does it matter that they're on the same account? So that it takes less time to switch back and forth? Asking people to pay extra money for VIP that makes you weaker as compared to the multi-account approach with only the convenience of not having to switch back and forth would be a really dumb game design decision.
VIP members get priority when logging in, that is worth the money alone for serious players, the rest is just a nice bonus.
Pay $50 for a chance to play the game... or subscribe as well so you can always play the game. Nice! Really respect them....
FTP rules in a BTP game.
You completely missed the point. You can always log in, the one a bit faster then the other, not being able to play is nonsense. Faster logging in might be crucial for competitive guilds though.
Since when do we whine about subs and box prices around here? You had no choice back in "the golden days," it was pay your sub or don't play at all....
/Cheers, Lahnmir
You really don't see that they've done this to stop people wanting multiple non-VIP accounts instead of VIP ones? Swapping accounts to play your other character(s), craft something, gather something, etc. will put you in a queue. That is not being able to log in.
And if you think paying your VIP fee makes you more competitive, well.. that's just pay to win really isn't it... which is something I hadn't even thought of until you said it.
There might well be some login queues briefly when the game launches. But if they have long queues for an extended period of time, they'll figure out that they need to add more servers and do so, and then the queues will go away.
I don't care what happens on launch day. Launch day is irrelevant to long term progression. I care what happens several months after launch, and by then the queues should all be long gone.
VIP members get priority when logging in, that is worth the money alone for serious players, the rest is just a nice bonus.
Pay $50 for a chance to play the game... or subscribe as well so you can always play the game. Nice! Really respect them....
FTP rules in a BTP game.
You completely missed the point. You can always log in, the one a bit faster then the other, not being able to play is nonsense. Faster logging in might be crucial for competitive guilds though.
Since when do we whine about subs and box prices around here? You had no choice back in "the golden days," it was pay your sub or don't play at all....
/Cheers, Lahnmir
You really don't see that they've done this to stop people wanting multiple non-VIP accounts instead of VIP ones? Swapping accounts to play your other character(s), craft something, gather something, etc. will put you in a queue. That is not being able to log in.
And if you think paying your VIP fee makes you more competitive, well.. that's just pay to win really isn't it... which is something I hadn't even thought of until you said it.
Just how many days do you think there will be log in queues?
I don't know but you gotta admit that it's possible many people will decide to sub if their multiple account plan causes them to land in a queue on a regular bases during the first month.
Fine, then. Go VIP for the first month, then cancel it at the end of a month once the queues are gone. Then revert to the multi-account approach after that and apply the same analysis as before. What then? Does VIP lose its point after a month?
I think calling a sub P2W is really stretching it, thats just being negative for the sake of it.
The idea that queue priority is a measure taken to discourage multiple accounts is absurd, switching characters takes time with or without a queue, or do you think the game will be such a massive success that the queues will be terribly long? I think people that pay a sub should have an advantage, why else would they sub at all? Faster logging in (20 secs instead of 2 minutes, not 10 secs instead of an hour) is completely harmless except for the absolute top guilds that want to be everywhere asap on their world. The advantage of VIP is that you can have it all on one account, it saves hassle yes, it should.
I think you are overtly negative tbh and I really can't think of an MMO that does it more fair.
/Cheers, Lahnmir
I just don't like that a standard service, such as being able to log in properly, is being put behind a second paywall so that people can pay more to be ahead of the people who have already paid. Just seems morally wrong to me, in general. That's all.
In the first week to possibly the first month it very well could be a difference of a few seconds vs and hour when logging in. That would be an extreme situation, I'm aware. It happens, though. When Neverwinter launched the queues to log in were about 1.5 hours for the first 2 weeks.
I've no idea how logging in faster could help guilds be competitive. You mentioned that, not me. You certainly think it's going to matter. 1 minute 40 seconds is probably enough time to kill someone, I think someone joining the fight that much earlier could have quite an impact, but it's just speculation. A whole guild doing it.. could be a game changer. It's possible is all I'm saying.
Fair enough. Being able to log in faster gets interesting with larger numbers within a guild. Imagine tour keep being under attack by another guild and both guilds try to mobilise their members through, say, Discord. The guild which gets most members logged in fast enough has a better chance of winning. Its an extreme situation but it might happen. I think it will matter to no one except the absolute top guilds, it would matter to me.
/Cheers, Lahnmir
There are people who will give their other guild members a way to contact them outside of the game, and then when asked, drop what they were doing to log on and play, even though the reason they were doing something else is that they didn't want to play the game or were too busy? And there are enough people who do that to fill entire guilds? If that's the case, it's so foreign to me that I doubt that I'd have understood it any less had your explanation been in Arabic, Hindi, or some other language that I don't know.
If something as niche as Crowfall ends up having long log-in queues (or queues at all), they'll be successful beyond their wildest dreams; Their problem will likely be the opposite - and typical for PvP titles.
Another thing is their engine performance, it seems that they'll soft launch with only 500-1000 concurrent players cap per server, while having the server further broken down into areas (sub-servers!?) connected with runegates, one of ways they are trying to solve lag/FPS issue.
Speaking of VIP, as others noted nothing is set in stone. The studio already did a couple of major changes based on our fedback (and people on Crowfall forums can be VERY loud when it comes to such a hot and controversial topic!).
We already had dozens of debates about buying multiple accounts being more valuable than VIP, and devs would - of course! - prefer VIP to be the way. Anyway, what would you want to be their moneymaker, since box sales can't do it in the long run, cash shop maybe? You know how that ends.
I certainly agree that they should make VIP into a more attractive option than multiple accounts. The problem is that, as described, they haven't done that. If players can get what they want by playing multiple accounts, but not by buying VIP, then whatever their rhetoric, they'll be implicitly telling people that they should ignore VIP and buy multiple accounts.
In my initial example, I took a very mild case: what if I want to play two classes? Well, what if I want to play three classes? Now, with VIP, I can train one of them quickly, one of them slowly, and one not at all. I could juggle stuff to effectively train all three slowly and be gimped no matter what I do. With three accounts, I could train all three quickly.
But let's stop beating around the bush and get to the point: if there are 11 classes, I think that I should be able to play all eleven. In most other games, I can. VIP doesn't really help much there.
I think calling a sub P2W is really stretching it, thats just being negative for the sake of it.
The idea that queue priority is a measure taken to discourage multiple accounts is absurd, switching characters takes time with or without a queue, or do you think the game will be such a massive success that the queues will be terribly long? I think people that pay a sub should have an advantage, why else would they sub at all? Faster logging in (20 secs instead of 2 minutes, not 10 secs instead of an hour) is completely harmless except for the absolute top guilds that want to be everywhere asap on their world. The advantage of VIP is that you can have it all on one account, it saves hassle yes, it should.
I think you are overtly negative tbh and I really can't think of an MMO that does it more fair.
/Cheers, Lahnmir
I just don't like that a standard service, such as being able to log in properly, is being put behind a second paywall so that people can pay more to be ahead of the people who have already paid. Just seems morally wrong to me, in general. That's all.
In the first week to possibly the first month it very well could be a difference of a few seconds vs and hour when logging in. That would be an extreme situation, I'm aware. It happens, though. When Neverwinter launched the queues to log in were about 1.5 hours for the first 2 weeks.
I've no idea how logging in faster could help guilds be competitive. You mentioned that, not me. You certainly think it's going to matter. 1 minute 40 seconds is probably enough time to kill someone, I think someone joining the fight that much earlier could have quite an impact, but it's just speculation. A whole guild doing it.. could be a game changer. It's possible is all I'm saying.
Fair enough. Being able to log in faster gets interesting with larger numbers within a guild. Imagine tour keep being under attack by another guild and both guilds try to mobilise their members through, say, Discord. The guild which gets most members logged in fast enough has a better chance of winning. Its an extreme situation but it might happen. I think it will matter to no one except the absolute top guilds, it would matter to me.
/Cheers, Lahnmir
There are people who will give their other guild members a way to contact them outside of the game, and then when asked, drop what they were doing to log on and play, even though the reason they were doing something else is that they didn't want to play the game or were too busy? And there are enough people who do that to fill entire guilds? If that's the case, it's so foreign to me that I doubt that I'd have understood it any less had your explanation been in Arabic, Hindi, or some other language that I don't know.
Like I said, its an extreme situation but I know several guilds that hang out in Discord while doing other things with members that will log in when asked for raids etc. Not because they have to but because fun stuff is about to happen. I could tell you again in Dutch if you want it to sound a bit more foreign to you
/Cheers, Lahnmir
'the only way he could nail it any better is if he used a cross.'
Kyleran on yours sincerely
'But there are many. You can play them entirely solo, and even offline. Also, you are wrong by default.'
Ikcin in response to yours sincerely debating whether or not single-player offline MMOs exist...
'This does not apply just to ED but SC or any other game. What they will get is Rebirth/X4, likely prettier but equally underwhelming and pointless.
It is incredibly difficult to design some meaningfull leg content that would fit a space ship game - simply because it is not a leg game.
It is just huge resource waste....'
Gdemami absolutely not being an armchair developer
The reality is, we don't know exactly how the priority for VIP will work. When a new campaign is created, will there be a "sign up" period before the campaign actually begins? If the max number for the campaign is filled by VIP players, does that mean that non-VIP will need to pick a different campaign? Probably.
Keep in mind though, that if there are that many people, there will be enough campaigns to accommodate them. No one is going to be left without a campaign. Also keep in mind that if certain campaign rulesets are unpopular, they will be retired and replaced with ones that are more popular. So it may be that 3 new campaigns with the same popular ruleset are starting all at the same time, or slightly staggered, and non-VIP have to wait because the VIP people filled the 1st one.
Players will likely belong to more than one campaign at a time and they aren't likely to all end/begin at the same time, so having to wait a day or two for the start of a campaign shouldn't be a big deal. It's not game breaking. It doesn't give VIP players a competitive advantage. But it is something that might influence someone to pay for VIP, assuming that it how it will work.
If something as niche as Crowfall ends up having long log-in queues (or queues at all), they'll be successful beyond their wildest dreams; Their problem will likely be the opposite - and typical for PvP titles.
Another thing is their engine performance, it seems that they'll soft launch with only 500-1000 concurrent players cap per server, while having the server further broken down into areas (sub-servers!?) connected with runegates, one of ways they are trying to solve lag/FPS issue.
Speaking of VIP, as others noted nothing is set in stone. The studio already did a couple of major changes based on our fedback (and people on Crowfall forums can be VERY loud when it comes to such a hot and controversial topic!).
We already had dozens of debates about buying multiple accounts being more valuable than VIP, and devs would - of course! - prefer VIP to be the way. Anyway, what would you want to be their moneymaker, since box sales can't do it in the long run, cash shop maybe? You know how that ends.
I certainly agree that they should make VIP into a more attractive option than multiple accounts. The problem is that, as described, they haven't done that. If players can get what they want by playing multiple accounts, but not by buying VIP, then whatever their rhetoric, they'll be implicitly telling people that they should ignore VIP and buy multiple accounts.
In my initial example, I took a very mild case: what if I want to play two classes? Well, what if I want to play three classes? Now, with VIP, I can train one of them quickly, one of them slowly, and one not at all. I could juggle stuff to effectively train all three slowly and be gimped no matter what I do. With three accounts, I could train all three quickly.
But let's stop beating around the bush and get to the point: if there are 11 classes, I think that I should be able to play all eleven. In most other games, I can. VIP doesn't really help much there.
How do you make VIP more attractive without making it P2W? That's the tricky part. They are trying to give players stuff that makes VIP worthwhile, but without affecting competitive balance.
Regarding your last paragraph, there is nothing stopping you from playing any of the 11 classes. You don't need to train the skills to play the class. Skill training isn't the end-all/be-all of character power.
If something as niche as Crowfall ends up having long log-in queues (or queues at all), they'll be successful beyond their wildest dreams; Their problem will likely be the opposite - and typical for PvP titles.
Another thing is their engine performance, it seems that they'll soft launch with only 500-1000 concurrent players cap per server, while having the server further broken down into areas (sub-servers!?) connected with runegates, one of ways they are trying to solve lag/FPS issue.
Speaking of VIP, as others noted nothing is set in stone. The studio already did a couple of major changes based on our fedback (and people on Crowfall forums can be VERY loud when it comes to such a hot and controversial topic!).
We already had dozens of debates about buying multiple accounts being more valuable than VIP, and devs would - of course! - prefer VIP to be the way. Anyway, what would you want to be their moneymaker, since box sales can't do it in the long run, cash shop maybe? You know how that ends.
I certainly agree that they should make VIP into a more attractive option than multiple accounts. The problem is that, as described, they haven't done that. If players can get what they want by playing multiple accounts, but not by buying VIP, then whatever their rhetoric, they'll be implicitly telling people that they should ignore VIP and buy multiple accounts.
In my initial example, I took a very mild case: what if I want to play two classes? Well, what if I want to play three classes? Now, with VIP, I can train one of them quickly, one of them slowly, and one not at all. I could juggle stuff to effectively train all three slowly and be gimped no matter what I do. With three accounts, I could train all three quickly.
But let's stop beating around the bush and get to the point: if there are 11 classes, I think that I should be able to play all eleven. In most other games, I can. VIP doesn't really help much there.
How do you make VIP more attractive without making it P2W? That's the tricky part. They are trying to give players stuff that makes VIP worthwhile, but without affecting competitive balance.
Regarding your last paragraph, there is nothing stopping you from playing any of the 11 classes. You don't need to train the skills to play the class. Skill training isn't the end-all/be-all of character power.
Yeah there's gear which is dependent on a number of factors including how your guild is organized, and then of course player skill as well. I think that's kind of implied though; we're talking about min/maxing here I think.
If you can't be bothered to play a class because it's not your most powerful well then you would have that problem in any game, as you would have to put in the effort to gear up an alt in other games or earn the horizontal progression points that you did with your main.
Right now you have the right of it. It's more of a convenience thing to not need two separate accounts to train the same amount of skills at the same time.
That said, I don't think that's all set in stone yet either. As someone who has watched all the livestreams in the background while doing other things I don't recall them mentioning VIP at all in any of them.
My gut would say that it will get another pass/iteration before the game launches. I wouldn't try to plan anything based on the current plan for implementation.
Shhhhhh, we're supposed to keep things on the down low....
Right now you have the right of it. It's more of a convenience thing to not need two separate accounts to train the same amount of skills at the same time.
That said, I don't think that's all set in stone yet either. As someone who has watched all the livestreams in the background while doing other things I don't recall them mentioning VIP at all in any of them.
My gut would say that it will get another pass/iteration before the game launches. I wouldn't try to plan anything based on the current plan for implementation.
Shhhhhh, we're supposed to keep things on the down low....
Gut Out!
Its a gut reaction I guess.
/Cheers, Lahnmir
'the only way he could nail it any better is if he used a cross.'
Kyleran on yours sincerely
'But there are many. You can play them entirely solo, and even offline. Also, you are wrong by default.'
Ikcin in response to yours sincerely debating whether or not single-player offline MMOs exist...
'This does not apply just to ED but SC or any other game. What they will get is Rebirth/X4, likely prettier but equally underwhelming and pointless.
It is incredibly difficult to design some meaningfull leg content that would fit a space ship game - simply because it is not a leg game.
It is just huge resource waste....'
Gdemami absolutely not being an armchair developer
If something as niche as Crowfall ends up having long log-in queues (or queues at all), they'll be successful beyond their wildest dreams; Their problem will likely be the opposite - and typical for PvP titles.
Another thing is their engine performance, it seems that they'll soft launch with only 500-1000 concurrent players cap per server, while having the server further broken down into areas (sub-servers!?) connected with runegates, one of ways they are trying to solve lag/FPS issue.
Speaking of VIP, as others noted nothing is set in stone. The studio already did a couple of major changes based on our fedback (and people on Crowfall forums can be VERY loud when it comes to such a hot and controversial topic!).
We already had dozens of debates about buying multiple accounts being more valuable than VIP, and devs would - of course! - prefer VIP to be the way. Anyway, what would you want to be their moneymaker, since box sales can't do it in the long run, cash shop maybe? You know how that ends.
I certainly agree that they should make VIP into a more attractive option than multiple accounts. The problem is that, as described, they haven't done that. If players can get what they want by playing multiple accounts, but not by buying VIP, then whatever their rhetoric, they'll be implicitly telling people that they should ignore VIP and buy multiple accounts.
In my initial example, I took a very mild case: what if I want to play two classes? Well, what if I want to play three classes? Now, with VIP, I can train one of them quickly, one of them slowly, and one not at all. I could juggle stuff to effectively train all three slowly and be gimped no matter what I do. With three accounts, I could train all three quickly.
But let's stop beating around the bush and get to the point: if there are 11 classes, I think that I should be able to play all eleven. In most other games, I can. VIP doesn't really help much there.
How do you make VIP more attractive without making it P2W? That's the tricky part. They are trying to give players stuff that makes VIP worthwhile, but without affecting competitive balance.
Regarding your last paragraph, there is nothing stopping you from playing any of the 11 classes. You don't need to train the skills to play the class. Skill training isn't the end-all/be-all of character power.
If skill trees don't matter, then VIP still doesn't have much of a point.
Anything that VIP offers that you could have gotten by playing multiple accounts shouldn't be regarded as pay to win in a bad sense, as it could just as well have been obtained even if VIP didn't exist.
I think the solution is that, if game mechanics make it impossible to use two different skill trees at the same time, then VIP should make it so that you can train both skill trees simultaneously. A given character is only one race, so you can only use one race skill tree at a time. So let a VIP train all the race skill trees simultaneously. Similarly with classes. And don't make a VIP choose between combat, crafting, or exploration; allow training one skill from each of those trees at the same time rather than just some two out of three.
That doesn't allow anything that you couldn't do by multiple accounts even if the VIP system didn't exist. It just allows VIP to offer most of the benefits of multiple accounts in a cheaper, cleaner way. Which is to say, it would encourage people who were looking into running multiple accounts to go with the VIP system instead.
Unless, of course, they're relying on people buying multiple accounts to be a major source of revenue for the game. That is, of course, what they seem to be doing. Either that, or they haven't really thought through VIP.
Some game developers don't seem to realize that there are people who like to play alts, at least beyond than something to do after your main has maxed out everything, and that might be what's driving their mess of a proposed VIP system. Some certainly do understand it and make it easy to play alts, or at worst, make you buy character slots and then make it easy to switch between them. At the other extreme are the clueless developers who think their game is alt-friendly because your alts get bonuses after a main hits the level cap, so that you can't get the bonuses until they're nearly irrelevant.
The FAQ and guides are incredibly out of date as they're tweaking and altering things on a weekly basis.
I'm not sure if this is even current information, but all accounts will have access to six different character slots by default. It was changed from one character per account to address the issues of people enjoying alts, among other things (I'd say including those who had planned on multiple accounts). From that information, it is also possible to increase the character slots up to nine without a subscription. You will still be limited by earning / making them equipment, vessels, etc. as a whole unless you want to use the basic stuff. As well as campaign limitations.
The concept of races being classes has also been abandoned, and now classes are able to pick from multiple classes that suit them via lore, with such increasing as time permits. At present, non-vip is able to train 1 class, 1 profession, 1 gatherer per character slot (that I'm aware of) and VIP is able to train 2/2/2 -- though with the natural limitation that you're only able to play one class at a time, so that class won't be stronger than another class. It just adds an additional class that you can play for that character. It's mainly for people who only like playing one character in that regard, as you have six slots that are able to train 1/1/1 and potentially get what they want in terms of crafting and gathering and experiment with classes. Though I suppose VIP will be able to train all 11-12 classes with their 2x6 if they put to use the character slots.
Then convenience kicks in whereby you are able to set queues to train for when the training stops and you're offline, whereas you have to be online to set up the next skill if you don't have VIP. Which is easy enough to do without VIP if you just set a timer and log on. Though from that one can see that it's mainly a time saver for those that intend to use all 6-9 character slots. As opposed to logging into each of them individually to make sure they're training, VIP is able to set the queue and potentially save 30 minutes or so of logging into each of them once a new skill is learned for said crow. Just less of a hassle, but still possible to maintain the alternate characters since it's a time predictable based system.
Due to frequent travel in my youth, English isn't something I consider my primary language (and thus I obtained quirky ways of writing). German and French were always easier for me despite my family being U.S. citizens for over a century. Spanish I learned as a requirement in school, Japanese and Korean I acquired for my youthful desire of anime and gaming (and also work now). I only debate in English to help me work with it (and limit things). In addition, I'm not smart enough to remain fluent in everything and typically need exposure to get in the groove of things again if I haven't heard it in a while. If you understand Mandarin, I know a little, but it has actually been a challenge and could use some help.
Also, I thoroughly enjoy debates and have accounts on over a dozen sites for this. If you wish to engage in such, please put effort in a post and provide sources -- I will then do the same with what I already wrote (if I didn't) as well as with my responses to your own. Expanding my information on a subject makes my stance either change or strengthen the next time I speak of it or write a thesis. Allow me to thank you sincerely for your time.
The FAQ and guides are incredibly out of date as they're tweaking and altering things on a weekly basis.
I'm not sure if this is even current information, but all accounts will have access to six different character slots by default. It was changed from one character per account to address the issues of people enjoying alts, among other things (I'd say including those who had planned on multiple accounts). From that information, it is also possible to increase the character slots up to nine without a subscription. You will still be limited by earning / making them equipment, vessels, etc. as a whole unless you want to use the basic stuff. As well as campaign limitations.
The concept of races being classes has also been abandoned, and now classes are able to pick from multiple classes that suit them via lore, with such increasing as time permits. At present, non-vip is able to train 1 class, 1 profession, 1 gatherer per character slot (that I'm aware of) and VIP is able to train 2/2/2 -- though with the natural limitation that you're only able to play one class at a time, so that class won't be stronger than another class. It just adds an additional class that you can play for that character. It's mainly for people who only like playing one character in that regard, as you have six slots that are able to train 1/1/1 and potentially get what they want in terms of crafting and gathering and experiment with classes. Though I suppose VIP will be able to train all 11-12 classes with their 2x6 if they put to use the character slots.
Then convenience kicks in whereby you are able to set queues to train for when the training stops and you're offline, whereas you have to be online to set up the next skill if you don't have VIP. Which is easy enough to do without VIP if you just set a timer and log on.
So you're saying that one account could have six different characters that each train completely independent skills without having to compete with each other for training time? And if that one account gets VIP, it would apply to all of the characters on that account? That would change the situation dramatically.
As far as I know, that's similar to how it is currently planned.
Though they change things so often due to feedback and the new systems
they come up with that it's all up in the air.
This
is part of the original concept as well, until they went to a one-crow
account and came up with the necromancy system. But they have since
again introduced six characters per account (Nine max) and kept the
necromancy system, but made some changes to suit it so that bodies you
make or find for your crow to inhabit may / might be used for any crow
that meets the requirements.
VIP is mostly
convenience, time saving and in some cases, money saving due to the
discount. With the queue system for skills, you need to manage your
alts much less and probably won't need a timer to set up new skills to
be learned. Though it's all predictable and tells you when they will be
finished (it tells all players and not just VIP). So it's a matter of
just doing a little math if you don't have VIP for when time is up and when to set your alarm. I'm sure there will be
player made calculators before long.
Due to frequent travel in my youth, English isn't something I consider my primary language (and thus I obtained quirky ways of writing). German and French were always easier for me despite my family being U.S. citizens for over a century. Spanish I learned as a requirement in school, Japanese and Korean I acquired for my youthful desire of anime and gaming (and also work now). I only debate in English to help me work with it (and limit things). In addition, I'm not smart enough to remain fluent in everything and typically need exposure to get in the groove of things again if I haven't heard it in a while. If you understand Mandarin, I know a little, but it has actually been a challenge and could use some help.
Also, I thoroughly enjoy debates and have accounts on over a dozen sites for this. If you wish to engage in such, please put effort in a post and provide sources -- I will then do the same with what I already wrote (if I didn't) as well as with my responses to your own. Expanding my information on a subject makes my stance either change or strengthen the next time I speak of it or write a thesis. Allow me to thank you sincerely for your time.
If skill trees don't matter, then VIP still doesn't have much of a point.
Anything that VIP offers that you could have gotten by playing multiple accounts shouldn't be regarded as pay to win in a bad sense, as it could just as well have been obtained even if VIP didn't exist.
I think the solution is that, if game mechanics make it impossible to use two different skill trees at the same time, then VIP should make it so that you can train both skill trees simultaneously. A given character is only one race, so you can only use one race skill tree at a time. So let a VIP train all the race skill trees simultaneously. Similarly with classes. And don't make a VIP choose between combat, crafting, or exploration; allow training one skill from each of those trees at the same time rather than just some two out of three.
That doesn't allow anything that you couldn't do by multiple accounts even if the VIP system didn't exist. It just allows VIP to offer most of the benefits of multiple accounts in a cheaper, cleaner way. Which is to say, it would encourage people who were looking into running multiple accounts to go with the VIP system instead.
Unless, of course, they're relying on people buying multiple accounts to be a major source of revenue for the game. That is, of course, what they seem to be doing. Either that, or they haven't really thought through VIP.
Some game developers don't seem to realize that there are people who like to play alts, at least beyond than something to do after your main has maxed out everything, and that might be what's driving their mess of a proposed VIP system. Some certainly do understand it and make it easy to play alts, or at worst, make you buy character slots and then make it easy to switch between them. At the other extreme are the clueless developers who think their game is alt-friendly because your alts get bonuses after a main hits the level cap, so that you can't get the bonuses until they're nearly irrelevant.
I didn't say that skill trees don't matter. I said that they aren't the only thing that matters.
So, your solution to fix VIP is basically to make it so that VIP players can train as much as a non-VIP player could train on 12 accounts. I think that's a bit extreme and runs counter to the design goals for the game.
They want players to have to depend on other players, not to be able to do everything themselves. They want players to have to fill different roles in combat, crafting and harvesting. Yes, players can do more stuff by buying more accounts, but there's no way ACE can stop that. VIP players should still have to choose what they want to be good at.
Maybe there is a sweet spot somewhere between 2 and 12, but I would lean more toward 2.
Due to frequent travel in my youth, English isn't something I consider my primary language (and thus I obtained quirky ways of writing). German and French were always easier for me despite my family being U.S. citizens for over a century. Spanish I learned as a requirement in school, Japanese and Korean I acquired for my youthful desire of anime and gaming (and also work now). I only debate in English to help me work with it (and limit things). In addition, I'm not smart enough to remain fluent in everything and typically need exposure to get in the groove of things again if I haven't heard it in a while. If you understand Mandarin, I know a little, but it has actually been a challenge and could use some help.
Also, I thoroughly enjoy debates and have accounts on over a dozen sites for this. If you wish to engage in such, please put effort in a post and provide sources -- I will then do the same with what I already wrote (if I didn't) as well as with my responses to your own. Expanding my information on a subject makes my stance either change or strengthen the next time I speak of it or write a thesis. Allow me to thank you sincerely for your time.
If skill trees don't matter, then VIP still doesn't have much of a point.
Anything that VIP offers that you could have gotten by playing multiple accounts shouldn't be regarded as pay to win in a bad sense, as it could just as well have been obtained even if VIP didn't exist.
I think the solution is that, if game mechanics make it impossible to use two different skill trees at the same time, then VIP should make it so that you can train both skill trees simultaneously. A given character is only one race, so you can only use one race skill tree at a time. So let a VIP train all the race skill trees simultaneously. Similarly with classes. And don't make a VIP choose between combat, crafting, or exploration; allow training one skill from each of those trees at the same time rather than just some two out of three.
That doesn't allow anything that you couldn't do by multiple accounts even if the VIP system didn't exist. It just allows VIP to offer most of the benefits of multiple accounts in a cheaper, cleaner way. Which is to say, it would encourage people who were looking into running multiple accounts to go with the VIP system instead.
Unless, of course, they're relying on people buying multiple accounts to be a major source of revenue for the game. That is, of course, what they seem to be doing. Either that, or they haven't really thought through VIP.
Some game developers don't seem to realize that there are people who like to play alts, at least beyond than something to do after your main has maxed out everything, and that might be what's driving their mess of a proposed VIP system. Some certainly do understand it and make it easy to play alts, or at worst, make you buy character slots and then make it easy to switch between them. At the other extreme are the clueless developers who think their game is alt-friendly because your alts get bonuses after a main hits the level cap, so that you can't get the bonuses until they're nearly irrelevant.
I didn't say that skill trees don't matter. I said that they aren't the only thing that matters.
So, your solution to fix VIP is basically to make it so that VIP players can train as much as a non-VIP player could train on 12 accounts. I think that's a bit extreme and runs counter to the design goals for the game.
They want players to have to depend on other players, not to be able to do everything themselves. They want players to have to fill different roles in combat, crafting and harvesting. Yes, players can do more stuff by buying more accounts, but there's no way ACE can stop that. VIP players should still have to choose what they want to be good at.
Maybe there is a sweet spot somewhere between 2 and 12, but I would lean more toward 2.
I'm saying that VIP should not be obviously inferior to buying multiple accounts.
If skill trees don't matter, then VIP still doesn't have much of a point.
Anything that VIP offers that you could have gotten by playing multiple accounts shouldn't be regarded as pay to win in a bad sense, as it could just as well have been obtained even if VIP didn't exist.
I think the solution is that, if game mechanics make it impossible to use two different skill trees at the same time, then VIP should make it so that you can train both skill trees simultaneously. A given character is only one race, so you can only use one race skill tree at a time. So let a VIP train all the race skill trees simultaneously. Similarly with classes. And don't make a VIP choose between combat, crafting, or exploration; allow training one skill from each of those trees at the same time rather than just some two out of three.
That doesn't allow anything that you couldn't do by multiple accounts even if the VIP system didn't exist. It just allows VIP to offer most of the benefits of multiple accounts in a cheaper, cleaner way. Which is to say, it would encourage people who were looking into running multiple accounts to go with the VIP system instead.
Unless, of course, they're relying on people buying multiple accounts to be a major source of revenue for the game. That is, of course, what they seem to be doing. Either that, or they haven't really thought through VIP.
Some game developers don't seem to realize that there are people who like to play alts, at least beyond than something to do after your main has maxed out everything, and that might be what's driving their mess of a proposed VIP system. Some certainly do understand it and make it easy to play alts, or at worst, make you buy character slots and then make it easy to switch between them. At the other extreme are the clueless developers who think their game is alt-friendly because your alts get bonuses after a main hits the level cap, so that you can't get the bonuses until they're nearly irrelevant.
I didn't say that skill trees don't matter. I said that they aren't the only thing that matters.
So, your solution to fix VIP is basically to make it so that VIP players can train as much as a non-VIP player could train on 12 accounts. I think that's a bit extreme and runs counter to the design goals for the game.
They want players to have to depend on other players, not to be able to do everything themselves. They want players to have to fill different roles in combat, crafting and harvesting. Yes, players can do more stuff by buying more accounts, but there's no way ACE can stop that. VIP players should still have to choose what they want to be good at.
Maybe there is a sweet spot somewhere between 2 and 12, but I would lean more toward 2.
I'm saying that VIP should not be obviously inferior to buying multiple accounts.
Don't forget that besides the skill training VIP also gets queue priority, discount in the shop, greater saving of skill points and not needing to spend them every 3 days but 30 instead.
/Cheers, Lahnmir
'the only way he could nail it any better is if he used a cross.'
Kyleran on yours sincerely
'But there are many. You can play them entirely solo, and even offline. Also, you are wrong by default.'
Ikcin in response to yours sincerely debating whether or not single-player offline MMOs exist...
'This does not apply just to ED but SC or any other game. What they will get is Rebirth/X4, likely prettier but equally underwhelming and pointless.
It is incredibly difficult to design some meaningfull leg content that would fit a space ship game - simply because it is not a leg game.
It is just huge resource waste....'
Gdemami absolutely not being an armchair developer
I'm interested in the game but I hadn't really looked into it that much. Now that I have, I'm totally convinced this game is very likely to bomb. They keep changing the plan. The information that is out there is all over the place. I don't think they themselves even know what's really happening or why it is the way it is. It's like they just listened to some popular forums posts, panicked at every sign of criticism and automatically did what they thought everyone wanted without really understanding what it was they were doing or why they were doing it. They've over complicated everything about progression and how that ties into the payment model.
If they behave like this with the payment model and VIP benefits after launch, keep changing it every couple of months, people are going to leave the game in droves. It's a red flag that they don't really know what they are doing. If this kind of behaviour happens with other parts of the game on a regular basis after launch it's going to be horrible for gameplay as well.
I hope they get it together.
I don't suffer from insanity, I enjoy every minute of it.
VIP members get priority when logging in, that is worth the money alone for serious players, the rest is just a nice bonus.
Pay $50 for a chance to play the game... or subscribe as well so you can always play the game. Nice! Really respect them....
FTP rules in a BTP game.
You completely missed the point. You can always log in, the one a bit faster then the other, not being able to play is nonsense. Faster logging in might be crucial for competitive guilds though.
Since when do we whine about subs and box prices around here? You had no choice back in "the golden days," it was pay your sub or don't play at all....
/Cheers, Lahnmir
You really don't see that they've done this to stop people wanting multiple non-VIP accounts instead of VIP ones? Swapping accounts to play your other character(s), craft something, gather something, etc. will put you in a queue. That is not being able to log in.
And if you think paying your VIP fee makes you more competitive, well.. that's just pay to win really isn't it... which is something I hadn't even thought of until you said it.
There might well be some login queues briefly when the game launches. But if they have long queues for an extended period of time, they'll figure out that they need to add more servers and do so, and then the queues will go away.
I don't care what happens on launch day. Launch day is irrelevant to long term progression. I care what happens several months after launch, and by then the queues should all be long gone.
Login queues per campaign may well continue forever, just as they do on favored servers in other games.
Players flock to where they perceive their playstyle will be met.
Say a particular campaign is faction vs faction and its got some unique setting especially appealing to role players, like say never ending winter.
There might be no other campaign like it, your guild has decided to play there along with 2000 other players in your time zone.
Whoops, campaign has 500 player limit, so you log in after work at 7:00 PM and find your froob self number 1477 in the queue, eventually getting in at 11:00 PM
Your VIP guildmates login at at 7:15PM, and immediately move ahead of 1200 froobs, and get in the server at 8:00PM.
Sure, go play on another server, even if identical you won't want to, because all of your progression is in the current Winter campaign server.
In this scenario, having 1 VIP accounts with all skills trained on it might be far more preferable to logging out and back in on another character.
Of course assuming this game never reaches any sort of significant popularity all of the above probably is moot.
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
I'm interested in the game but I hadn't really looked into it that much. Now that I have, I'm totally convinced this game is very likely to bomb. They keep changing the plan. The information that is out there is all over the place. I don't think they themselves even know what's really happening or why it is the way it is. It's like they just listened to some popular forums posts, panicked at every sign of criticism and automatically did what they thought everyone wanted without really understanding what it was they were doing or why they were doing it. They've over complicated everything about progression and how that ties into the payment model.
If they behave like this with the payment model and VIP benefits after launch, keep changing it every couple of months, people are going to leave the game in droves. It's a red flag that they don't really know what they are doing. If this kind of behaviour happens with other parts of the game on a regular basis after launch it's going to be horrible for gameplay as well.
I hope they get it together.
It's actually just game design, honestly. You're constantly seeing what works, what doesn't, what people like, what they don't and finding ways to put your constantly growing ideas together if you have the time and the money. At present, they're actually doing a good job in keeping things in check when it comes to game design and what to implement and what not to.
Their team has maybe a little over four dozen employees, all of which have had multiple MMOs under their belts. They made sure to hire almost all veterans and people they've worked with in the past. So dozens of MMOs under their belts including but not limited to Ultima Online, Star Wars Galaxies, Wizard 101, Shadowbane and so on. They even talk about what you said in their videos and forum posts quite often when they speak of future plans and what they want to add to the base, full featured game once its released.
They do have the time and the money right now to do what they want due to them getting a lot of investment opportunities and selling some technology they made along the way. Their investors all agreed to "release the game when its done" when asked, thus the 2018 launch was pushed back.
The VIP definitely seems up in the air most of the time because that's something that has the luxury to change while they focus on the core systems. Though they do have to have it set before releasing the game as they'd only have maybe one or two chances to update it after launch with incoming feedback. But the fact they aren't advertising the game until some months after they launch it might help with that. It's a tactic that apparently worked with them with other games such as Wizard 101 and the like.
The main problem as I see it is that it is a PvP focused game. Those tend alienate the vast majority of the MMO playerbase and have their own challenges to overcome. In fact, I absolutely hate those types of games personally. But the Kingdom Building aspect and other features regarding that is what I'm interested in, and may draw me into PvP since there's little reason to fear or dislike such when that's the only thing to do. Plus there will be a need for resource and food gatherers and builders for said resources to make castles and forts when on the map.
You may hear people say the word "soft launch" like it's a dirty word. Though they view it as a complete game that is released without advertising it. It's not early access to them, and the difference between soft launch and full launch is the keyword of launch and not to be confused with the state of the game. Full launch is when they go all out and fully advertise it after they make sure servers are stable and unexpected bugs that are only caught under live pressure are squashed -- as well as the initial feedback of such is addressed. Then a full on marketing campaign will begin.
Due to frequent travel in my youth, English isn't something I consider my primary language (and thus I obtained quirky ways of writing). German and French were always easier for me despite my family being U.S. citizens for over a century. Spanish I learned as a requirement in school, Japanese and Korean I acquired for my youthful desire of anime and gaming (and also work now). I only debate in English to help me work with it (and limit things). In addition, I'm not smart enough to remain fluent in everything and typically need exposure to get in the groove of things again if I haven't heard it in a while. If you understand Mandarin, I know a little, but it has actually been a challenge and could use some help.
Also, I thoroughly enjoy debates and have accounts on over a dozen sites for this. If you wish to engage in such, please put effort in a post and provide sources -- I will then do the same with what I already wrote (if I didn't) as well as with my responses to your own. Expanding my information on a subject makes my stance either change or strengthen the next time I speak of it or write a thesis. Allow me to thank you sincerely for your time.
The reality is, we don't know exactly how the priority for VIP will work. When a new campaign is created, will there be a "sign up" period before the campaign actually begins? If the max number for the campaign is filled by VIP players, does that mean that non-VIP will need to pick a different campaign? Probably.
Keep in mind though, that if there are that many people, there will be enough campaigns to accommodate them. No one is going to be left without a campaign. Also keep in mind that if certain campaign rulesets are unpopular, they will be retired and replaced with ones that are more popular. So it may be that 3 new campaigns with the same popular ruleset are starting all at the same time, or slightly staggered, and non-VIP have to wait because the VIP people filled the 1st one.
Players will likely belong to more than one campaign at a time and they aren't likely to all end/begin at the same time, so having to wait a day or two for the start of a campaign shouldn't be a big deal. It's not game breaking. It doesn't give VIP players a competitive advantage. But it is something that might influence someone to pay for VIP, assuming that it how it will work.
From my understanding Campaigns will simply act as servers do now to a degree when it comes to how many can join and what not. So technically lets say a campaign can take 2000 players at a time you can have 4000 people try and get into the campaign half of those players will be on a queue just like it be trying to enter a full server in any other game. This will probaly only be an issue for the popular campaigns on day 1 or 2 then people wont be spending 24 hours in a world and actually log off eventually. People go hard day 1/2 on new games but after that server queues drop off to being non exsistant. I feel campaign will be the same assuming crowfall has a super popular dispite bieng a pvp orinated which usualy doesnt have server pop problems anyway
If something as niche as Crowfall ends up having long log-in queues (or queues at all), they'll be successful beyond their wildest dreams; Their problem will likely be the opposite - and typical for PvP titles.
Another thing is their engine performance, it seems that they'll soft launch with only 500-1000 concurrent players cap per server, while having the server further broken down into areas (sub-servers!?) connected with runegates, one of ways they are trying to solve lag/FPS issue.
Speaking of VIP, as others noted nothing is set in stone. The studio already did a couple of major changes based on our fedback (and people on Crowfall forums can be VERY loud when it comes to such a hot and controversial topic!).
We already had dozens of debates about buying multiple accounts being more valuable than VIP, and devs would - of course! - prefer VIP to be the way. Anyway, what would you want to be their moneymaker, since box sales can't do it in the long run, cash shop maybe? You know how that ends.
I certainly agree that they should make VIP into a more attractive option than multiple accounts. The problem is that, as described, they haven't done that. If players can get what they want by playing multiple accounts, but not by buying VIP, then whatever their rhetoric, they'll be implicitly telling people that they should ignore VIP and buy multiple accounts.
In my initial example, I took a very mild case: what if I want to play two classes? Well, what if I want to play three classes? Now, with VIP, I can train one of them quickly, one of them slowly, and one not at all. I could juggle stuff to effectively train all three slowly and be gimped no matter what I do. With three accounts, I could train all three quickly.
But let's stop beating around the bush and get to the point: if there are 11 classes, I think that I should be able to play all eleven. In most other games, I can. VIP doesn't really help much there.
How do you make VIP more attractive without making it P2W? That's the tricky part. They are trying to give players stuff that makes VIP worthwhile, but without affecting competitive balance.
Regarding your last paragraph, there is nothing stopping you from playing any of the 11 classes. You don't need to train the skills to play the class. Skill training isn't the end-all/be-all of character power.
Throw 10 bucks of cash shop currency in your account each month so you can buy doodads for your eternal kingdoms and cosmetic things? Would be a decent way to reward people who are consistantly paying you, since it allows you to predict your income aswell as being stable income from a business perspective.
The FAQ and guides are incredibly out of date as they're tweaking and altering things on a weekly basis.
I'm not sure if this is even current information, but all accounts will have access to six different character slots by default. It was changed from one character per account to address the issues of people enjoying alts, among other things (I'd say including those who had planned on multiple accounts). From that information, it is also possible to increase the character slots up to nine without a subscription. You will still be limited by earning / making them equipment, vessels, etc. as a whole unless you want to use the basic stuff. As well as campaign limitations.
The concept of races being classes has also been abandoned, and now classes are able to pick from multiple classes that suit them via lore, with such increasing as time permits. At present, non-vip is able to train 1 class, 1 profession, 1 gatherer per character slot (that I'm aware of) and VIP is able to train 2/2/2 -- though with the natural limitation that you're only able to play one class at a time, so that class won't be stronger than another class. It just adds an additional class that you can play for that character. It's mainly for people who only like playing one character in that regard, as you have six slots that are able to train 1/1/1 and potentially get what they want in terms of crafting and gathering and experiment with classes. Though I suppose VIP will be able to train all 11-12 classes with their 2x6 if they put to use the character slots.
Then convenience kicks in whereby you are able to set queues to train for when the training stops and you're offline, whereas you have to be online to set up the next skill if you don't have VIP. Which is easy enough to do without VIP if you just set a timer and log on.
So you're saying that one account could have six different characters that each train completely independent skills without having to compete with each other for training time? And if that one account gets VIP, it would apply to all of the characters on that account? That would change the situation dramatically.
There is one bonus to VIP in how passive training works currently you can train 2 things in each catagory the following category are
Catagory 1 Professions - Combat (bonuses to combat or armor so +dmg with x weapon or + hp when wearing plate armor and so on) - Crafting (All the crafting professions are in here) - Exploration (Mostly harvesting professions here)
Catagory 2 Race - Mankind (Humanoid race bonuses) - Sylvan (Elven/nature type races) - Monster (The wakky races centaur, mino, stoneborn and guineceans)
Catagory 3 Classes - Fighter (Straight up fighters like champions, knights templars and so on) - Mages (Your spell casters confessor frost weavers cleric and so on) - Rogues (Your ranged and sneaky classes assasins rangers and so on)
As VIP you can train 2 of each subcategory but not 2 things in the same subcategory. This means you will be the same power lvl in the tree a non vip focuses down so Exploration (Harvesting tree) you will be able to do the same thing as a VIP member on that account however the difference is that VIP char may also be invested in combat aswell so if he gets jumped while harvesting he can fight back just aswell as a non VIP combar character where the non VIP character on his harvesting account wont be able too. Its not a big thing tbh but VIP members will be able to protected themselfs slightly better when harvesting or crafting than a non vip that switches characters.
Also for those who didnt know each sub gatagory brances off several times just foir a quick example Sylvan (First branch is a broad tree that covers all Sylvan class vessels) this splits off to Elf (Only affects Woodelf/Highelf vessels) and Faerie (affects Fae/Elken) these tree then split off again affecting only the one vessel/race, it takes longer to skill up skill in the laster trees however they do generaly give a slightly larger boost but its not a broad boost across all races in that class like Sylvan was.
Comments
I don't care what happens on launch day. Launch day is irrelevant to long term progression. I care what happens several months after launch, and by then the queues should all be long gone.
In my initial example, I took a very mild case: what if I want to play two classes? Well, what if I want to play three classes? Now, with VIP, I can train one of them quickly, one of them slowly, and one not at all. I could juggle stuff to effectively train all three slowly and be gimped no matter what I do. With three accounts, I could train all three quickly.
But let's stop beating around the bush and get to the point: if there are 11 classes, I think that I should be able to play all eleven. In most other games, I can. VIP doesn't really help much there.
/Cheers,
Lahnmir
Kyleran on yours sincerely
'But there are many. You can play them entirely solo, and even offline. Also, you are wrong by default.'
Ikcin in response to yours sincerely debating whether or not single-player offline MMOs exist...
'This does not apply just to ED but SC or any other game. What they will get is Rebirth/X4, likely prettier but equally underwhelming and pointless.
It is incredibly difficult to design some meaningfull leg content that would fit a space ship game - simply because it is not a leg game.
It is just huge resource waste....'
Gdemami absolutely not being an armchair developer
Keep in mind though, that if there are that many people, there will be enough campaigns to accommodate them. No one is going to be left without a campaign. Also keep in mind that if certain campaign rulesets are unpopular, they will be retired and replaced with ones that are more popular. So it may be that 3 new campaigns with the same popular ruleset are starting all at the same time, or slightly staggered, and non-VIP have to wait because the VIP people filled the 1st one.
Players will likely belong to more than one campaign at a time and they aren't likely to all end/begin at the same time, so having to wait a day or two for the start of a campaign shouldn't be a big deal. It's not game breaking. It doesn't give VIP players a competitive advantage. But it is something that might influence someone to pay for VIP, assuming that it how it will work.
Regarding your last paragraph, there is nothing stopping you from playing any of the 11 classes. You don't need to train the skills to play the class. Skill training isn't the end-all/be-all of character power.
Yeah there's gear which is dependent on a number of factors including how your guild is organized, and then of course player skill as well. I think that's kind of implied though; we're talking about min/maxing here I think.
If you can't be bothered to play a class because it's not your most powerful well then you would have that problem in any game, as you would have to put in the effort to gear up an alt in other games or earn the horizontal progression points that you did with your main.
Gut Out!
What, me worry?
/Cheers,
Lahnmir
Kyleran on yours sincerely
'But there are many. You can play them entirely solo, and even offline. Also, you are wrong by default.'
Ikcin in response to yours sincerely debating whether or not single-player offline MMOs exist...
'This does not apply just to ED but SC or any other game. What they will get is Rebirth/X4, likely prettier but equally underwhelming and pointless.
It is incredibly difficult to design some meaningfull leg content that would fit a space ship game - simply because it is not a leg game.
It is just huge resource waste....'
Gdemami absolutely not being an armchair developer
Anything that VIP offers that you could have gotten by playing multiple accounts shouldn't be regarded as pay to win in a bad sense, as it could just as well have been obtained even if VIP didn't exist.
I think the solution is that, if game mechanics make it impossible to use two different skill trees at the same time, then VIP should make it so that you can train both skill trees simultaneously. A given character is only one race, so you can only use one race skill tree at a time. So let a VIP train all the race skill trees simultaneously. Similarly with classes. And don't make a VIP choose between combat, crafting, or exploration; allow training one skill from each of those trees at the same time rather than just some two out of three.
That doesn't allow anything that you couldn't do by multiple accounts even if the VIP system didn't exist. It just allows VIP to offer most of the benefits of multiple accounts in a cheaper, cleaner way. Which is to say, it would encourage people who were looking into running multiple accounts to go with the VIP system instead.
Unless, of course, they're relying on people buying multiple accounts to be a major source of revenue for the game. That is, of course, what they seem to be doing. Either that, or they haven't really thought through VIP.
Some game developers don't seem to realize that there are people who like to play alts, at least beyond than something to do after your main has maxed out everything, and that might be what's driving their mess of a proposed VIP system. Some certainly do understand it and make it easy to play alts, or at worst, make you buy character slots and then make it easy to switch between them. At the other extreme are the clueless developers who think their game is alt-friendly because your alts get bonuses after a main hits the level cap, so that you can't get the bonuses until they're nearly irrelevant.
So, your solution to fix VIP is basically to make it so that VIP players can train as much as a non-VIP player could train on 12 accounts. I think that's a bit extreme and runs counter to the design goals for the game.
They want players to have to depend on other players, not to be able to do everything themselves. They want players to have to fill different roles in combat, crafting and harvesting. Yes, players can do more stuff by buying more accounts, but there's no way ACE can stop that. VIP players should still have to choose what they want to be good at.
Maybe there is a sweet spot somewhere between 2 and 12, but I would lean more toward 2.
/Cheers,
Lahnmir
Kyleran on yours sincerely
'But there are many. You can play them entirely solo, and even offline. Also, you are wrong by default.'
Ikcin in response to yours sincerely debating whether or not single-player offline MMOs exist...
'This does not apply just to ED but SC or any other game. What they will get is Rebirth/X4, likely prettier but equally underwhelming and pointless.
It is incredibly difficult to design some meaningfull leg content that would fit a space ship game - simply because it is not a leg game.
It is just huge resource waste....'
Gdemami absolutely not being an armchair developer
If they behave like this with the payment model and VIP benefits after launch, keep changing it every couple of months, people are going to leave the game in droves. It's a red flag that they don't really know what they are doing. If this kind of behaviour happens with other parts of the game on a regular basis after launch it's going to be horrible for gameplay as well.
I hope they get it together.
Players flock to where they perceive their playstyle will be met.
Say a particular campaign is faction vs faction and its got some unique setting especially appealing to role players, like say never ending winter.
There might be no other campaign like it, your guild has decided to play there along with 2000 other players in your time zone.
Whoops, campaign has 500 player limit, so you log in after work at 7:00 PM and find your froob self number 1477 in the queue, eventually getting in at 11:00 PM
Your VIP guildmates login at at 7:15PM, and immediately move ahead of 1200 froobs, and get in the server at 8:00PM.
Sure, go play on another server, even if identical you won't want to, because all of your progression is in the current Winter campaign server.
In this scenario, having 1 VIP accounts with all skills trained on it might be far more preferable to logging out and back in on another character.
Of course assuming this game never reaches any sort of significant popularity all of the above probably is moot.
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
"I need to finish" - Christian Wolff: The Accountant
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
Would be a decent way to reward people who are consistantly paying you, since it allows you to predict your income aswell as being stable income from a business perspective.
Catagory 1 Professions
- Combat (bonuses to combat or armor so +dmg with x weapon or + hp when wearing plate armor and so on)
- Crafting (All the crafting professions are in here)
- Exploration (Mostly harvesting professions here)
Catagory 2 Race
- Mankind (Humanoid race bonuses)
- Sylvan (Elven/nature type races)
- Monster (The wakky races centaur, mino, stoneborn and guineceans)
Catagory 3 Classes
- Fighter (Straight up fighters like champions, knights templars and so on)
- Mages (Your spell casters confessor frost weavers cleric and so on)
- Rogues (Your ranged and sneaky classes assasins rangers and so on)
As VIP you can train 2 of each subcategory but not 2 things in the same subcategory. This means you will be the same power lvl in the tree a non vip focuses down so Exploration (Harvesting tree) you will be able to do the same thing as a VIP member on that account however the difference is that VIP char may also be invested in combat aswell so if he gets jumped while harvesting he can fight back just aswell as a non VIP combar character where the non VIP character on his harvesting account wont be able too. Its not a big thing tbh but VIP members will be able to protected themselfs slightly better when harvesting or crafting than a non vip that switches characters.
Also for those who didnt know each sub gatagory brances off several times just foir a quick example Sylvan (First branch is a broad tree that covers all Sylvan class vessels) this splits off to Elf (Only affects Woodelf/Highelf vessels) and Faerie (affects Fae/Elken) these tree then split off again affecting only the one vessel/race, it takes longer to skill up skill in the laster trees however they do generaly give a slightly larger boost but its not a broad boost across all races in that class like Sylvan was.