12 replies to this topic

[scgt1]

From the end of Jan patch my game and many others became unstable with crashes during game out to the game client or straight to desktop.
The first of Feb patch fixed this problem for me but it has since started again after the excessive down time this past Tuesday to just remove the paint and pattern sale..
Again I'm not the only one with this problem take a at the crash and stability section.
I for one activated my premium time for the double xp weekend and because my game was stable. Now the game has gone back to being unplayable again.
I think we should have the ability to pause our premium time for problems like this. We don't ask for the game to be unstable and un playable and support doesn't help in the least. Deleting the cache file does nothing for this problem and many users have stability issues with this game falling at many various times.
I didn't invest in this game as the highest level founder to have my money wasted away to an unstable game.

[Alois Hammer]

scgt1, on 13 February 2013 - 04:29 PM, said:

I didn't invest in this game as the highest level founder to have my money wasted away to an unstable game.

That's why they gave us the one-time-only "Start Premium Time" button.

If your impatience caused you to press it already, whose fault is that?

[scgt1]

Alois Hammer, on 14 February 2013 - 06:52 AM, said:

That's why they gave us the one-time-only "Start Premium Time" button.

If your impatience caused you to press it already, whose fault is that?

It was hardly a matter of impatience. The game was finally stable after the early Feb patch so I activated my time. Now they went and ****** up the game again. That isn't cool! Along with not being right.

[Mawai]

I think you should be able to turn it on and off ... but not whenever you want to.

Premium time is one of the ways the game makes money needed to survive. Allowing people to turn it on and off at will ... kills this revenue stream. If I only turned premium on when I actually played ... one month of premium would last a year or more.

On the other hand, people take vacations, take breaks from the game, and have other commitments ... so it would be convenient to suspend your premium time usage when you know you will be unavailable.

My suggestion. You can stop premium time whenever you like. When you re-start premium time, it runs for a minimum of one week before you can stop it again. (The minimum run period can be fine tuned). Essentially after playing for at least a week of premium time, you earn the ability to suspend premium time usage.

This would be particularly useful for people who have purchased large blocks of premium time ... and might be an incentive to encourage people to buy large blocks since they know it won't be wasted if they will not have access to the game for an extended period of time due to unforeseen reasons.

[Omar Ravenhurst]

While I'm pretty sure the "it's broke so I don't want to pay" argument might not make it very far, I fully agree with the concept of pausing even if it incurs a penalty. As the poster above says, people may need to take a forced hiatus for whatever reason. If I've purchased a month of premium or more but run into an unexpected situation, it would be nice to pause my premium time. This is especially true when larger amounts of premium time have been purchased. I also completely understand the argument against a pause: PGI needs to make money, and being able to pause premium time would decrease revenue.

Perhaps a 10% penalty per pause would balance out that concern.

[Mechteric]

I don't think any F2P game that uses boosts let you pause them. That said Planetside 2 does let you choose when you apply individual boosts (1-day, 1-week, 1-month, etc), so for example you could stock up a bunch of 1-day boosts up front and use 2 each weekend if thats when you play the most. To get this same effect in MWO currently you'd have to just buy the 1 day boost at the start of that day's playtime on that weekend day. Then the following day do it again.

Its still doable only to buy for days you play more, so at least the capability is sorta there its just a different way to go about it.

[Roland]

I voted yes, because hey, I won't mind having my premium time extended to rediculous lengths.

But at the same time, I do not expect this to ever be the case, or think that it's even remotely a reasonable request.

I still have to pay my cable bill, even if I don't watch cable for a week.

[Elder Thorn]

i voted no.
Why? Because it's to much amount of time to just start and pause it IMO.
Sure, it might be better for my walltet, but it would not be fair IMO (again).

Maybe they could offer boosters, that provide the same bonuses as premium time, but cannot be combined with it. That will only count down while you play. So you could buy a 4 hour booster and play 4 days for 1 hour each and have all the bonuses.
If you buy premium time while you got a booster active, the booster will be paused.

Just an idea

[rytymu]

I agree with this concept, but how about instead of just starting/stopping, you go by actual game-play time. Instead of buying massive 30 day packs, where 50%+ goes to waste, why wouldn't they implement premium time by the hour? If you buy a 24 hour pack, you get 24 hours of in game time. I work 5+ days a week, and I have no idea when I can/can't play all the time. Honestly that is what holds me back from buying more any time.


That setup in itself would fix the problem, but additionally adding a start/stop option would be golden. I could see this being overkill, however, and just making it hourly would suit my needs.

[Hugh Fairgrove]

I think the timer should only run when were in actual match time. There are times when I don't play for weeks. If I buy a month and something happens in my personal life where I am unable to play, buying myself premium time is just a waste. An yeah ok ok, I get if it it happens tough luck, I know, but offereing things in ways like this would please the fan base. I'm sure the model for the ammount of time and prices would end up being completely different though.

[superbob]

I think it would be fair to have an option to only activate 2 days/a week/two weeks/month instead of everything at once.

I know I have about a month free now so I'd enjoy premium, but since I have 61days banked, I'm not sure if I want to risk wasting a month of my paid time once I get back to work 9-to-5.

This is even worse if you consider getting the overlord package - I'd get another 30days + 90 days on phoenix launch. If I don't start premium this vacation, this would mean half year worth of premium in one go. That's just crazy.

The current model is just unfair, it relies on players wasting the premium time they bought, especially people who buy founders'/phenix packages.

Had i had the chance to use premium in smaller quantities, I would have probably used it up by now. This way I just sit on it waiting for an opportunity to use it, likely never starting it and never getting more.

[Gdad77]

pretty much any ftp mmo i have played allows a vacation mode.
i'm in the military and can be deployed for months, currently i have 212days of premium unactivated.

a vacation mode can minimise exploitation by requiring a booking time, say 1 weeks notice, and having a minimum 'off' time say 2 weeks.

off and on vacation mode doesnt work imo. but a system that allows breaks but avoids exploitation is essential for me

[ICUBurn]

I vote yes. I bought 30 days of time back in march. Two days later my internet craped out and I literly could not playfor over a month because my net was so unstable and had over 50% packet loss and over 700 ping for over a month strait. My isp kept saying it was on my end untill the tech came out and confirmed it was NOT on my end but on theirs. Here I am in end of july and im lucky if im having less than 10% packet loss and an under 200 ping. And even tho its on their end they still refuse to fix my net. I cant get any other net were I live.

Next example. My grandpa died bqck just after christmas. Both me and my cousin had to fly back for his funeral and to see him just before he died. We both were out over a week of time. My cousin was out over 2 because he went back for christmas with him.

Its these unplaned things that make me a bit anoyed about not being able to repause it. I like a erlier post about only being able to pause after a week.