212 replies to this topic

[Draco Llasa]

i would love to see it how its sold, or how others freemium games do it, allowing chucks of much more controllable periods.
wargaming, where i actually spend the most 'real' money on gold to get premium time because it allows me to get the amount that i want.. 1, 3, 7, 30 days and so on. more i get the more i save, but it means if i want to spend just a weekend, or even just a day grinding away, i can activate that much, and as noted the results have been me spending more real money because i like the model more.

Anyways, while this is an old thread, still was a good step in the right direction... i was like many others, i had just activated about 6 months or so if premium time right before this was announced and ended up barely using a few weeks of it when all was said cause i cant always predict and commit time as others noted.

anyways, PGI, keep listening to us, and keep improving :-) things are getting better

[TTDeadsayer]

Apologies for dragging up an old thread, but I have an idea. As much as I would like to see the ability to activate premium time in weekly (or smaller) chunks or even tick down only when playing or logged in, it's not really in PGI's best interest to do this. As a kind of compromise, I suggest an expiry date on premium time. Premium time purchased will only tick down while you're logged in (or even playing a match, doesn't matter, really) but based on the amount of active premium time there will be an expiry date. If premium time only ticked down when you were playing without the expiry date, people would buy a year of premium time and basically never pay for premium time again. This way people can't just "stock up" on active premium time and PGI still gets their sales. For example, if you purchase a month of premium time, that premium time will come with an expiry date of 2 weeks past the one month period after the date of purchase. You have 1 month premium time to play but if you still have any unused premium time once the month and 2 weeks has passed, it expires. This will still encourage people to play and use their premium time while ensuring that people still buy premium time and still allow people who are unable to play continuously for that month to get a little more out of their month of premium time.

Does this make sense or have I completely lost everyone?

[AlmightyAeng]

It makes sense, but it makes PGI less money.

[VoodooLou Kerensky]

Ghost Badger, on 21 December 2015 - 12:54 PM, said:

It makes sense, but it makes PGI less money.

Exactly! And then how will they pay for the E-Sports Tourneys? Wish I knew how to become a Professional Gamer, cause I cant see someone who makes enough money at a job buying a uber gaming rig and having enough time to play either. Oh wait never mind I forgot GamersGate exists. Belay my last.

[SourKraut]

I don't think premium time will ever count down only when logged in (unless the blocks of time are severely reduced) but giving premium time an expiry date is a bad idea (and may also create complications with some country's laws). Being able to activate premium time a week at a time rather than in 30 day blocks would be a far more reasonable compromise for everyone.

[Karl Marlow]

I just wish they had a button in game to activate it.

[AnimeFreak40K]

While I do like the idea that folks being able to buy and bank Premium Time, I understand why PGI doesn't do this and why they make it difficult for folks to bank Premium Time in general.

Regarding the idea of activating Premium Time in incriments of less than 30 days at a time, I will say that I like that idea and I also kinda wish that my time only ticked down while I was logged in...however, I also know that doing this would make it all but impossible for me (and folks like me) to use the banked Premium Time that they have accrued.

[Almond Brown]

TTDeadsayer, on 21 December 2015 - 12:15 PM, said:

Apologies for dragging up an old thread, but I have an idea. As much as I would like to see the ability to activate premium time in weekly (or smaller) chunks or even tick down only when playing or logged in, it's not really in PGI's best interest to do this. As a kind of compromise, I suggest an expiry date on premium time. Premium time purchased will only tick down while you're logged in (or even playing a match, doesn't matter, really) but based on the amount of active premium time there will be an expiry date. If premium time only ticked down when you were playing without the expiry date, people would buy a year of premium time and basically never pay for premium time again. This way people can't just "stock up" on active premium time and PGI still gets their sales. For example, if you purchase a month of premium time, that premium time will come with an expiry date of 2 weeks past the one month period after the date of purchase. You have 1 month premium time to play but if you still have any unused premium time once the month and 2 weeks has passed, it expires. This will still encourage people to play and use their premium time while ensuring that people still buy premium time and still allow people who are unable to play continuously for that month to get a little more out of their month of premium time.

Does this make sense or have I completely lost everyone?

Did you invent the expiring Gift Card per chance? They sound quite similar and both are the stupidest idea ever conceived by mankind. That would be like having a Bank issue you cash money, then, if after 2 weeks some of it is still in your pocket it is no good anymore and you have to go back to the Bank to get more...

So yes, someone is lost...

[TTDeadsayer]

I fully acknowledge that this isn't the greatest solution and being able to activate premium time in weekly increments would be ideal.

Or what if premium time counted down at half speed when you're not logged in? There's an idea.

Edited by TTDeadsayer, 23 December 2015 - 12:28 PM.

[C E Dwyer]

No other game has stop start Premium, so why do people somehow expect P.G.I to be different ?

The fact you can chop banked time up, is a pretty Major concession, as no other game company I know of does it.

P.G.I do a lot of things which I think is wrong or poorly implemented, but when they do something right, pat them on the back and say well done.

I swear if they put a blue sky on a water world people would still complain about it being the wrong shade of blue..

[Mechaholics Anonymous]

Purchased premium time, and awarded premium time, should be treated differently. Controlling the purchased time, with an on and off button, would be great. Awarded time would tick away, once activated.

[Havyek]

I'd prefer that PGI have premium time count down only during play time, but to do that there's no way they would/could award premium times in daily increments.

30 days would be like 10 hours game time or something to that effect in order for that to make sense to PGI on a business scale.

As has been said, it's a nice feature to be able to activate 30 day blocks of it now instead of simply turning it all on.

[Conn Man]

Whenever I activate a block of thirty days I end up only playing two or three days because of real life stuff. It's a total waste and makes me feel ripped off. I don't purchase premium time anymore. If I pretend it doesn't even exist then the free days PGI hands out are like nice surprises.

[DukeMurphy]

Great news game just gets better and better

[Cow And Chicken]

Well.

For me as a casual player, I hate activating 30 days only to use around 5 at most for couple of hours at each time
usually.

I have a baby girl with genetic condition which is serious. So it seems to me like Premium time are only for the
selected few. Even tho I have spent alot on this game and I do think most players here are casual.

I think I am entitled to be able to activate one day at a time.
Even that would make me consider buying premium time.

For us the supporteds of the game whom have spent many games worth of $ on it I should Premium time
should give us 50% more not 30%.

End of rant.

[BLOOD WOLF]

Cow And Chicken, on 18 March 2016 - 07:09 PM, said:

Well.

For me as a casual player, I hate activating 30 days only to use around 5 at most for couple of hours at each time
usually.

I have a baby girl with genetic condition which is serious. So it seems to me like Premium time are only for the
selected few. Even tho I have spent alot on this game and I do think most players here are casual.

I think I am entitled to be able to activate one day at a time.
Even that would make me consider buying premium time.

For us the supporteds of the game whom have spent many games worth of $ on it I should Premium time
should give us 50% more not 30%.

End of rant.

the only argument against this is that the players will not activate premium often and therefore have no need to spend money. This is faulty as people will always be in need of premium and will spend as necessary,

[Cow And Chicken]

BLOOD WOLF, on 18 March 2016 - 08:21 PM, said:

the only argument against this is that the players will not activate premium often and therefore have no need to spend money. This is faulty as people will always be in need of premium and will spend as necessary,

Well í see no arguement in allowing us to spend our premium time on daily, weekly, or monthly basis. Any of these
options would work for me.

They could even make my daily premium selection cost couple of days form my collected time.
But the biggest part of the picture is that the premium option is almost worthless as it is.

Premium should give us something of worth. Here are some fast ideas. More damage, x2 cbill/exp gained, even
something like 10-20% boost on speed. 20% probably to much tho.

At least for me. Premium is the worst product PGI is selling for the game. It's almost WORTHLESS IMO.


Regards,
Chicken Soup.

[PeeWrinkle]

Cow And Chicken, on 24 March 2016 - 08:19 AM, said:

At least for me. Premium is the worst product PGI is selling for the game. It's almost WORTHLESS IMO.

As an average skilled player I have to disagree. Leveling chassis without premium time takes almost twice as long. I can usually level 3 variants of a single chassis to basic level in about 6 hours of total game time. So it takes me roughly 2 Hrs to accumulate about 12000XP (and that is with 2x 1st victory bonus - EG. 15 mins per match = 8 matches. Usually get between 3k-4k in 1st victory and 1k+ in the other 7. And that's without any duds!). Without premium time that would add about 3 hours onto that. To me that 3 hour reduction is totally worth it. I will say I only activate my premium time when I am leveling a new chassis. The only other time I think about it is when I am low on CBills as it does make a significant difference there too.

So I don't see how something that save a lot of time and gets you going faster is worthless. Then again if I were lighting the world on fire with my mech piloting skills I could think otherwise, but then the bonus in XP and CBills would be even that much greater. So ya, I think it is almost a must have when grinding.

Just my opinion.

Edited by PeeWrinkle, 05 April 2016 - 09:59 AM.

[Draco Argentus]

Let me know when someone gets some sense, and premium time can be activated in 1 day, 3 day, 1 week at a time.

Until then, all of my banked time stays put.

[Asmosis]

For games that do provide "only when logged in" premium time, the cost is substantially higher.

If you were to take a current premium 30 day block and convert that into something you could use when only logged in, you'd end up with about 10-20 hours total, or 5-6 individually activated premium days if you went for 24 hour blocks.

Its weighted on generating a certain amount of revenue per Premium player per month, you aren't going to cheat the system by proposing something that ends up being drastically cheaper than the standard monthly fee.