15 replies to this topic

[MrPils]

This post is here because Im annoyed at my loss of paid premium time last night. Lets just say straight away I'm not QQing that something went wrong, stuff happens. What actually put me on to this was the +4hours premium anyone with ticking time is getting credited back. Well unless there's an activate button for it the 4 hours I get back will tick away while im asleep and is therefore worthless. +4 hours onto when my premium runs out means itll run out at around 5am instead of 1am. Essentially its cost me 24 hours premium time as the downtime meant there was a 24 hour period I was unable to play. I would imagine this is basically the same for most people who arent in the US.

It brings up an interesting debate as to whether scheduled and unscheduled downtime should stop your premium time ticking. If they know in advance the servers are going to be off surely you cant keep a bonus to in game performance running down its purchased time? Its impossible to use it so why is it still running down our premium time? Its like buying a week's pass to the gym and finding out its closed for refurbishment during the time your pass is valid. Likewise you cant sell someone a fixed amount of time of premium bonus if you know beforehand they are unable to play for that fixed amount of time. I havent received my x days of premium time if I am unable to play at any point during those x days because the servers are off. It needs to be realised that the impact of patching for 2 or 3 hours (or more) can mean costing someone in another time zone their entire day's gaming time.

I suppose you could even open this up further and ask what if a patch broke the game so someone who has bought premium time can no longer play? Even if this only affected a few users it is not their fault they can no longer play. This is happening to a mate of mine right now who has been unable to even accept a group invite without the game crashing since the last patch. nothing will fix it and he now just has to wait until a future patch resolves it. Meanwhile he has his last 9 days of premium ticking away.

Probably something in the ToS about it but it still sucks. Now ive realised how many days of premium ive lost since OB started it's really annoying me. Must be at least 14 days worth lost so far and that's enough to have noticeable monetary value. In other words their patches and maintenance cost me (and everyone else who has premium time) actual real world money and they damn well shouldnt.

Edited by MrPils, 13 February 2013 - 05:06 AM.

[Karl Streiger]

Some may say... you now that when you have activated your premium time.
But you made your point and I second that.

[OpCentar]

Server downtime should be compensated towards the premium account players in some way.

At least by stopping the premium timer during the downtime.

That other F2P game has a really good system which credits all of the premium accounts with additional 24h after a patch is deployed. That's really nice and doesn't really cost the devs much if anything. Would like to see that in MWO.


On the other hand, client side game crashes are just that - client side. Unless it's a major malfunction where a significant portion of the player base has the identical issue, I expect no compensation to be given.

However, in this case an account freeze option would work wonders. The details of which are up for debate but basically it would allow stopping (or slowing down) of the premium timer and blocking any game logins for an extended period, activation would have to be limited to a few times per year.

[BritishJesus]

They compensated us with 4 extra hours of prem time.

[Flashback37]

Premium time from yesterdays down time should have been credited to your account. I have active premium time AND 4 hours credit. (credit is not active, so I can use it later )

[jay35]

BritishJesus, on 13 February 2013 - 05:27 AM, said:

They compensated us with 4 extra hours of prem time.

Yeah, it seemed like there was a compensation because the number i saw was higher than i remembered pre-downtime. Very cool of them.

Edited by jay35, 13 February 2013 - 05:30 AM.

[UPnADAM]

I don't think its an issue, to me that wOuld be like them having to pause our premium counter while were asleep or working because we can't play.

[MrPils]

As I said in my OP (which a few seem to have missed) I'm fine with it if it can be activated separately - a time for time gaming session. I don't know if this is the case though as I already have time running and time behind my activate button. I also dont know if when I press activate it activates everything or I can choose which particular "piece" of premium time I want to activate.

Im not after free stuffs, its just that with the regular patching (this is good) and random thursday maintenance etc it seems my gaming time always gets stiffed and I just have to log on again next time and take however much premium has counted down on the chin.

As per the comment posted above a free 24hours for every patch seems very generous to me as many people who werent impacted by the downtime would gain. However as it is now everyone who is affected gets pretty much stiffed. I only get on average 3 sessions of an hour or two a week, usually Tuesday night, Thursday night and Saturday morning so it hits me hard some weeks.

I would love to see a total overhaul and have us buying online gaming hours instead of this ridiculous calendar period "subscription" style payment (that benefits most those who can spend a lot of time gaming rather than benefitting all equally). Thats unlikely to happen though, too much work given people have onging investment in the existing system.

Truthfully 90% of my premium time is wasted days due to work and family commitments anyway. Perhaps there is more value in the micro purchases of premium than meets the eye.

Edited by MrPils, 13 February 2013 - 05:59 AM.

[SI The Joker]

Garth Erlam, on 12 February 2013 - 09:29 AM, said:

AND WE'RE BACK! To soothe your burns over the downtime, players who had banked premium time will get four hours of premium time credited to them! Join me now on twitch.tv/igp with NGNG and I'll die to your weapons in recompense.

I guess you didn't really lose premium time after all, considering you had 4 hours credited to your account.

Wait, you want a free 24 hours of premium time because they have enhanced the game? C'mon now.

Edited by SI The Joker, 13 February 2013 - 06:12 AM.

[MrPils]

No.

I love this forum. No need to read what someone posts, just take a vague guess and then flame them for what you think they said.

I did not say at any point I want a free 24 hours. Go troll elsewhere.

[Taizan]

You get Premium time credited for downtime afaik and it looks like there will be other opportunities to garner extra premium time for free (see Penny Arcade special)

For players who are having technical issues and thus will miss out on their premium time - this is unfortunate and CS should be able to pause premium time when it is found that a player cannot play the game at all because of technical difficulties.

What I would like to see is having premium time be active for maximum one month - like a subscription. When it runs out and you have more unactivated premium left over, you have to reactivate premium time.

Edited by Taizan, 13 February 2013 - 06:23 AM.

[SI The Joker]

MrPils, on 13 February 2013 - 05:57 AM, said:

As per the comment posted above a free 24hours for every patch seems very generous to me as many people who werent impacted by the downtime would gain. However as it is now everyone who is affected gets pretty much stiffed. I only get on average 3 sessions of an hour or two a week, usually Tuesday night, Thursday night and Saturday morning so it hits me hard some weeks.

No one is trolling here - I am fully disagreeing with you. Why would you expect gain from something which did not affect you, then? If you recognize that (as do most of us) that most "premium time" we buy goes "un-used" due to real life... why then ask for extra premium time?

In the case of your mate - hey I feel his pain, that sucks. But that's also not PGI's fault. But let's play advocate here... ok... so a user can't play the game because it crashes his PC. He'd like to have his premium time disabled until he can play again. How can PGI police/verify the "fact" that the game won't run on his PC? How do they police the system so that people don't game the system? Realistically you'd have quite a few people working every angle to juice every bit of time they can by any means necessary. This is the Internet, after all.

Let's do math. Assume the 3,000 MC package.

3,000 MC = $14.95
Month of Premium = 2500 MC
That's 83% of the 3,000 that you purchase, or $12.41 (rounded).
$12,41 / 30 days (avg month) = $.41 (41 cents)
$.41 * 14 days = $5.74

If this is of concern to you, I'd suggest purchasing premium time in smaller chunks on days you know you can play.

[Mal]

Premium time, is basically the equivalent of a subscription to a MMO (WoW, Eve, SWTOR, etc.etc..).

That subscription runs regardless of whether or not you're able to play, with the occasional compensation for extended downtime.

PGI treated this just like most of the other big game companies do, extended downtime was credited, normal downtime isn't.

[MrPils]

I'll try breaking this down into small separate sentences for the hard of thinking, let's see if that helps:


1) The credit is worthless for the vast majority of the playerbase who were directly affected by it unless its added to the activate button. Some have said its activated and some have said its added to their timer, which is it?

2) If its added to the activate button can it be activated separately to any other premium time that hasnt yet been activated?

3) If its just added to the premium timer then its utterly worthless as it extends my premium time during hours when im asleep.



For anyone who can string a thought and sentence together here's the non-abridged version.

I suppose its just made me realise that Premium time is only worth buying for those able to spend many hours gaming a week. For others who actually work and have other commitments its a complete and total waste of money. When you have precious little time to play, lose that time due to <insert reason> and get charged for it too it doesn't sit well.

My issue is that 4 hours downtime is an entire lost 24 hour period of my premium time. Having the 4 hours refund activatable only solves this if it doesn't activate all my other premium time as well. Nobody is agreeing whether the refunded time is activated or timer based, people in this thread have stated both. Neither has anyone said whether Activate is a one shot deal and uses up all your banked premium time.

Why doesnt scheduled maintenance give anything back? Hell patch it every day, loads of free money then.

When the servers are off (no matter the reason) you are unable to use premium time that you have paid money for. This is a problem.

[Redshift2k5]

You were never given a guarantee that the servers would be available for play 24/7(since that would be impossible) so they have not broken any commitment to the customer.

They did not have to give you back any premium time and they were generous enough to pay back the time lost when they were not required to do so. Show some appreciation.

[Rizzelbizzeg]

They gave you your 4 hours, you decided to waste it by sleeping or working, that's a conscious decision on your part. You decided that a full night's sleep is worth more than fake, in-game currency.

If they had a system to halt premium time for accounts that weren't able to play for whatever reason it would be abused like crazy and support tickets would take forever to get resolved due to increased use (abuse). It may not seem like PGI is losing much by being able to pause premium time, but the increase in support cost is a lot more than you think.