These differing Personal Roles can be capitali$ed on via the in-game store: Eventually, after a few months of updates and stuff, you can start offering weapon variants based on the manufacturer incorporating tiny variations in weapon properties. For instance when MWO launches you should include an ER Large Laser as manufactured by Blankenburg Technologies, fabricated right here, on Terra. Then, sometime a few months later when your staff has more time to expand on stuff, you can introduce another ER Large Laser as manufactured by Diverse Optics Inc. on the planet Irian.
Here's where the $$ comes in: you make them slightly different. I mean a 2.5% difference in range, or 1.5% difference in cooldown-time, or tiny stuff like that. EDIT: But keep them zero-balanced in general so there is no single superior variant. If you made a few variants of each weapon available it would encourage more free players to become paying players. A free player will have to fight for a long time before they can afford a new shiny ER Large Laser, for example, but they will have to choose which one they want...
...and what if the other one you passed up is the better one? People who like their ER Large Laser are gonna use their ER Large Laser... but if they had the opportunity to *tweak* it just a tad, I bet they'd take it. You don't want to worry about facing the situation where you decide to change your Battlefield Role slightly from a stand-off Sniper to an assault Marksman and now you want an ER Large Laser that recharges faster instead of the punchier, slower one. It's best to have both, just in case.
This will get more oney out of "Collectors" who like to make sure they have one of everything in their inventory, and Collectors love to play RPGs with massive intentories and item variants...
Edited by Prosperity Park, 08 February 2012 - 06:30 PM.