13 replies to this topic

[Karrig Fetladral]

I would really appreciate a change to the way premium time is "activated," having almost a years worth of if saved, I don't want my premium time to go to waist and in the same way I wont use it....yet.

Sense we are able to buy premium time in increments of 1, 3, 7, 30, 180 and 360 days, but for choosing to activate our premium time there is nothing to reciprocate. It end up using all of it in one long run, so could we have an option similar to how we bought it...for activating it, going to as small as 7 days at a time, or a month at a time, with some scaling?

I know that means more work in the UI and adding a counting mechanic to the premium timer. If able to implement, it means that I would start using my Premium time now to help me with some mechs.



Regards,
Karrig

Edited by Karrig, 20 December 2013 - 08:28 AM.

[Veranova]

This would make so much more sense!

[Sandpit]

Karrig, on 20 December 2013 - 08:28 AM, said:

I would really appreciate a change to the way premium time is "activated," having almost a years worth of if saved, I don't want my premium time to go to waist and in the same way I wont use it....yet.

Sense we are able to buy premium time in increments of 1, 3, 7, 30, 180 and 360 days, but for choosing to activate our premium time there is nothing to reciprocate. It end up using all of it in one long run, so could we have an option similar to how we bought it...for activating it, going to as small as 7 days at a time, or a month at a time, with some scaling?

I know that means more work in the UI and adding a counting mechanic to the premium timer. If able to implement, it means that I would start using my Premium time now to help me with some mechs.



Regards,
Karrig

If you bur premium time it won't activate your banked time. So you can buy 2 days and use that over a weekend while maintaining your banked balance. Although if you've got a year built up already I can't see "losing" it during down times being a problem.

[Karrig Fetladral]

....really no one would add to my thoughts on how to use your "purchased" premium time, you all like it how it is...

Sandpit, (over a week past, sorry, was hoping around) having no time, buying and using not a problem, that's a get it as you want it....

I already have it, and a lot of it....and once I press "activate" there is stopping that until three hundred and three days of premium time have been used....I really would only like to use some of it some times....not not all of it all the time...

if other people are talking about it, point me too them, if PGI did make a post on changes to using our premium time show me...Other then that, i'm going to continue to save my premium time cause we have no idea if its going to be needed for CW and what not...

[CosmicSpeed]

I didnt research premium time enough as a new player and broke the seal. Now I purchase time when feel like I will have time to play.

For me, now that the seal is broken, having purchasable "holds" doesn't really make sense as I just have to think ahead and determine if I will be playing. It also doesn't make sense for me to start a new account just to implement a non broke seal.

If I had not broken the seal I would agree, however in my current situation I will have to disagree.

[LauLiao]

Karrig, on 20 December 2013 - 08:28 AM, said:

I would really appreciate a change to the way premium time is "activated," having almost a years worth of if saved, I don't want my premium time to go to waist and in the same way I wont use it....yet.

Sense we are able to buy premium time in increments of 1, 3, 7, 30, 180 and 360 days, but for choosing to activate our premium time there is nothing to reciprocate. It end up using all of it in one long run, so could we have an option similar to how we bought it...for activating it, going to as small as 7 days at a time, or a month at a time, with some scaling?

I know that means more work in the UI and adding a counting mechanic to the premium timer. If able to implement, it means that I would start using my Premium time now to help me with some mechs.



Regards,
Karrig

Agree with this. Not crazy about being able to turn it on and off at will as some people have suggested, so that you're literally only using a few hours at a time.

THIS however, is how I've thought it should be. I would even forgo one day activations if we could do maybe 3 days at a time. As it is now I've got a bunch of banked premium time (Never purchased any, just from various promos, etc.) and the more I accumulate (up to over 3 months now) the less willing I am to activate it until something REALLY special *cough*CW*cough* comes along. If I could use a few days at a time, I would be MUCH more likely to use up what I had and then purchase more when CW did come out.

Just sayin...

[Sandpit]

I feel a stop button that could only be used once or twice a month wouldn't be excessive. If you let a player start and stop any time they wanted then buying premium time becomes less valuable. If I purchase a week of premium time but I only play 2 days a week or even only play 5 hours a week well then I can use 5 hours, stop it for 3 days, use 5 hours, stop it for a day, use 5 hours, so on and so forth until before you know it, a week of premium time stretches out for a month.

From a business sense it makes no sense for PGI to want that situation and I can understand that. However, I do know that we all have real lives (well most of us anyhow ) and it would be nice to have an option if I just bought a chunk of premium time to use because I'm on vacation and plan on some marathon sessions, then something comes up and I have to go out of town for that week instead. I just lost all that premium time. If I could stop it once, it would be much more valuable to me to buy larger chunks.

As of right now, if you have banked time, you can purchase premium time as normal and that will tick off without affecting your banked premium time.

[Reggimus]

No stop button.

Yes for choosing how many days you wish to activate of premium time.

I'd also think you would want a minimum activation time of around 7 days

Edited by Reggimus, 07 January 2014 - 08:27 PM.

[MadcatX]

I understand why they offer it in days/weeks/months without being able to turn it off, it makes them money.

Although, at least from a value perspective, perhaps test out offering premium time not in the spans of real time, but game play time. Such as buying 10 gameplay hours worth of premium time. However, PGI could price those accordingly so that the amount of money they made from the current impementation would be the basis of how much to charge for gameplay hours. I'm not saying crunching the numbers would be easy however.

As someone who doesn't know how much time I'll have to play MW:o on a given week/month, I avoid it because life happens and I hate feeling that I wasted money on something that never used. But if it were gameplay hours, I would not have that concern and probably would buy premium time.

Probably won't happen since charging for weekly/monthly is the current industry status quo, it still would be interesting to see.

[Karrig Fetladral]

Well MadcatX I do agree with you for the premium by game play hours, but that is not was this is about...

Sandpit its not a "stop" button....

its I only want ____ (week/month) activated. I'm ok with not stopping it at that point, what I don't want to start the premium time and then while I'm at work/school/vacation/holiday...etc, its still going, burning through every other day of premium time that you have.

I agree seven day minimum, also two weeks, one month and if you really feel the need to add more options then that ...cause like PGI knows, you can always add more...

CosmicSpeed - can you give more insight as to why you disagree? Sense I have a "not broken the seal" account with a large amount of premium time on it, I would be losing more value by using it in its current form versus getting the most out of it by activating smaller chunks of it at a desired time.

If I had already used my premium time and broke the seal then I can see your point of view, and buying time as needed makes sense. Cause I don't see why you would buy or have large amounts of premium time in this case. This also means that you choice not to value my point of view and understand it. Just because it doesn't apply to you doesn't mean you cant benefit from it, say PGI has a premium time sell, you want to take advantage of that and "bulk up" and would start ticking right then, when in say a week or some time down the road you would have openings to play for long hours over a few days or more...so if you buy and then choose to activated what you need as you need makes more sense then buying as you need. because it gives you better value for what your buying as well as increases the incentive to buy and use.

food for thought...

[Sandpit]

Karrig, on 23 January 2014 - 08:21 AM, said:

This also means that you choice not to value my point of view and understand it. Just because it doesn't apply to you doesn't mean you cant benefit from it, ..

? uhm ok..... lol

I'm saying a start/stop function that can be used indefinitely is not going to happen. PGI is selling this to make money. If you play 6-8 hours/week and you had a start/stop function that can be used any and all times you completely devalue the premium time.
It becomes devalued because a player like the aforementioned one could buy a week of premium time and at that point if they could stop it any time they wanted that one week of premium time is 168 hours. If that player only plays 6-8 hours per week that one week of time stretches out to 21 days or 3 weeks. So instead of having to buy 3 weeks worth of time (or paying a slightly higher price for smaller increments) they now get to pay less than the time is really worth. They also don't have to buy any more.

On a larger scale if a player had this option and bought a year of time you can see how that could stretch out indefinitely.

[FactorlanP]

If I could activate it in small bits, I would actually activate some of it.

But since I cannot, I continue to sit on banked time, waiting for the day CW exists.
From a sales standpoint. it would be in PGI's best interest to make using Premium Time more user friendly and less punishing for someone who may not play for a couple weeks here and there.

[Sandpit]

FactorlanP, on 23 January 2014 - 10:31 AM, said:

If I could activate it in small bits, I would actually activate some of it.

But since I cannot, I continue to sit on banked time, waiting for the day CW exists.
From a sales standpoint. it would be in PGI's best interest to make using Premium Time more user friendly and less punishing for someone who may not play for a couple weeks here and there.

Why? You've already stated you're not activating it. You're able to purchase a day now without hitting the activate button as it is. The fact that you can't stop it has no bearing on its worth. Like I said previously, with your idea it would be possible for a player to buy a much smaller block and stretch it out 3, 4, 5, or more times it's length completely devaluing the time

[Karrig Fetladral]

Sandpit, your still arguing a "stop," it's not about that... I know, its kinda old now, but we all take breaks...

What I've been talking about is activating a set amount and that time continuously counts down until its all used (like how it is), if we where to activate 7 days, we use 7 days, no stopping, but it doesn't continue to use any other banked time. Now, this is not having banked time and buying the 7 days, this is activating 7 days from 30 days banked, using those 7 days (with no kind of stop what so ever) and leaving you with 23 days not activated and still usable.

and it can't depreciate the value of premium time for the simple reason, players will still buy premium time on a need as you go basis and a larger amount of players will now buy time when its on sale knowing that they could use it when they wanted to with out having to activate all of it at once.

I hope that clears it up for you and anyone else.