[Terran Union [TU] (PvPvE, recruiting)]

I have applied to join Hopefully I will be accepted.

[DevBlog: Monetization, player happiness and economic viability]

I just read the first post and just wanted to express my opinion. After having played subscription games like World of Warcraft and then turning to buy to play games like Guild Wars 2 - I just cannot support subscription games any longer. I understand the difficulties in keeping a game running but there's good ways and bad ways to go about it. I urge you to look at Guild Wars 2's payment model.

They started out as buy to play and they have excellent aesthetic/convenience only store. They even have a currency exchange system where you can use real money to buy gems in exchange for in-game currency and vice versa but you don't need to do so if you don't want to. It doesn't affect the game experience at all. It's the most player friendly payment model I've ever encountered and it really helps keep players happy and more likely to invest in buying the store items because they aren't required to do so to play.

Since the expansion came out they made the base game free to play and the expansion buy to play allowing access to a lot of new players that were on the fence or wouldn't have even looked at it before who might then buy the game eventually. They put in a lot of good systems to keep the paying player base protected. I wish all games used their system, it works so well and the game is both high quality and active without burdening the player which feels punishing.

I'd rather pay a one time high fee and then have optional store items than subscribe to gain access which just feels bad to me. It feels like you then HAVE to play or its a waste of money and then when you stop playing for a while but then want to play again for a weekend you then have to pay for a whole month, that's more like a job contract.

It's not just me. More and more, people are turned off by subscription models. New games that come out with it nowadays don't last on this model for long. To me, when a company still tries to use subscriptions required to play system they just appear to put themselves unto a pedestal like they believe they're so much better than all those other pretty decent games that tried but crashed and burned.

The higher the pedestal the higher the expectations and I just don't believe that's a realistic standard to set for yourself unless you have the kind of money Blizzard does. Especially with how ambitious this game in particular already is, it's already less likely to fully deliver or be perfectly polished and if you're going to use subscriptions you're going to be under a microscope even more so.

It's better to have your player base on your team to start with and then maybe adding a VIP/optional type subscription system at a later date or at least not make it a requirement to play, the buy to play option is better, you could just do a combination of all payment models. One that players would feel good about supporting. The investment shouldn't end at launch but maybe a few months/year after the game launched so you can establish a foundation that people would be willing to invest in. People have lost faith in promises and are tired of feeling like they're being sucked out of every last penny before even seeing the product fully materialize and settle down into a more bug free experience.

I know that you need to make money to keep developing but I just wanted to say to be careful about how you implement things. I would be sad to see that happen to this game. There has to be a better way. Just whatever you do, don't copy Archeage, it's the most abysmal model I've ever had the misfortune dealing with and please don't make subscriptions required to play.