Gage

You don't make money by only appealing to the subscribers who generate the most profit.

You make money by appealing to everyone.

That way you're generating profit from all avenues.

Totally disregarding one offset of the playerbase of MMOs is silly, and we've seen games fail because of it.

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Cleansing the internet of e-whores since 2003! Just saying!

Uyaem

Then be consequent. I don't wanna pay for that Tradeskill bullshit instead. Call it even?
The point is, the game comes as a package. Don't like the package? Don't buy the game.
I can live with tradeskillers discovering items, getting "in-game rich" off what they enjoy about the game. Heck, it's a game inside the game, and even if I don't like it I can see that there's people who love that. LET THEM. I'm happy they enjoy their favourite part.
You won't see me demanding a refund or something ridiculous just because there's an aspect of the game which, for whatever reason, I won't touch (at least not willingly).

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pagansaint

It is not a more efficient model to charge extra for the very limited number of contested mobs available at each tier.

It is more efficient and economically sound to charge more for the fluff items, housing and tradeskill system which requires more man hours to develop and maintain.

Contesteds use the same mechanics as shared dungeon or overland nameds. They just have their abilities and scripts tuned up for more powerful effects and more difficulty.

So in short, you're line of reasoning is baseless, the content is available to anyone who wants a crack at it, the content follows the same theme type as the entire premise of the game, and the content is sharing the same mechanics and inner workings as the rest of the game's base content.

Phrozen

Shit, took the words outta my mouth! Also, the Solo content, which I like almost never use.

Obsidian

how the fuck is it contested if only the people who paid for it can kill it ?

pld dont come up with anymore ideas like that and you still havent answered my question why didnt you try avatar of mischief which was up on all servers for a considerable amount of time

at a guess i would say fear of failure or a defeatist attitude and that is why you dont get contested not any time constraint bull shit :D

and as uyaem said our server was once on lock down by our rival guild and by the end of the expansion we were the only guild on RE to clear EoF

desire to win > defeatist attitude

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Caswydian

Absolutely. I see this sort of modular design and microtransaction-financed model as the future of MMOs. Give consumers the choice of what content they want to pay for, and make it quick and easy to buy new content and you'll have a successful game on your hands. SOE realizes this, and I suspect you'll see them moving away from the subscription model in some future releases.

methulah

I was also about to post this. I don't use Freeport. I don't wanna have to pay for that shit.

Caswydian

So if a contested mob is released as part of the expansion, it's not really contested because you have to pay for it? Really, the system I am proposing is already in effect, I am just arguing for more granularity than currently provided for.

pagansaint

Why?

Why are you arguing for that?

Because some no talents, cry babies and want-it -all-for-nothings are mad about contested content not being given to them and them alone because they too have EQ2 characters?

Caswydian

This goes well beyond contested mobs, and is now a more general argument about MMO design philosophy and payment models. I see a modular design, where players are able to buy different parts of the game as they desire, along with a microtransaction system to allow one-off purchases of fluff items as being much more fair to consumers, while potentially offering MMO publishers access to a far larger customer base.