Feeling a little cheated

[Etrigan]

As I understand it, when one buys the booster pack, they will receive a game cd as well (with product key).

*this may have been brought up before but it needs to be again*

This cheats those of us that already have accounts.
I bought my game at launch and have been running multiple accounts since then. Now when I buy the booster for each of these, I will have two more accounts (but no booster to go with them) that I may choose to activate.

However these are useless for all practicle purposes, yet someone that does not have the game at all yet, can go purchase the booster for $20, and get everything I have now plus the booster. Now again I bought mine at launch, thus paying $50 for each account, even if someone had bought the client after the price drop and picked it up at $20, they still need to buy the booster.

So I will have paid $70 ($50 initial + $20 booster) for each of my accounts.
others will have paid $40 ($20 initial + $20 booster)
while those getting the game now
ONLY PAY $20 (booster) and get everthing.

Now this is a great deal for new players, yet those of us that have stuck with and been loyal to FC through everything that has gone with the game are getting burned. We did get a backpack in the game for our troubles (if you had played through the first few months).

Ok what I want to know is can I trade my pioneer backpack for the booster? I understand that you (FC) need to make money, however you are, is it needed that you skew over those that have been loyal too you?

Either you believe that the response to the booster will be so poor that you dont believe it would sell on its own or you just dont care about how you treat those that have been loyal customers. Come on and give those of us that have been here for the duration a break, or do NOT include the base client with the booster, or at least not with a product key). At least that way those that buy the booster will still have to have an account or purchase one like the rest of us did.

I would even accept a free month or two of game play for those of us that already have the client and get the booster as well. At least this way we will get something for having shelled out the cash in the early days and sticking with it.

At an avg of $12 an account for the past year, FC has made enough, it should be able to afford something along these lines. (if it hasn't, seriously rethink keeping it running at all).

OK well those were my two cents, so to speak, sorry if it has all been said before, this is in no way intended to be a flame, just a statement of feeling.

[skybert]

Actually, agreed.
Someone buying the game now, may feel abit cheated when they learn they could have gottent he game AND the booster for the same price as the booster soon.

In fact, I gto a RL friend that's coming over to AO these days. Well, I had an extra CD-key lying around (from after buying the special edition), and he got that one. But if he had to buy that one when he could've gotten it for 'free' when purchasing the booster, I KNOIW he would have felt cheated. No doubt in my mind.

Myself, I've been here over a year (about since release), and I don't feel cheated. Maybe it's just me, or maybe it's tha fact that I''ve enjoyed the game for more than a year.

Sure, call me a fanboy if you like. It's not far away from the truth (I even admit it). What can I say? AO has cought my deep interrest. Sure, it has it's faults, it's bugs, it's design-flaws.... But I'm still addicted to this game. I'm still playing, aren't I?

-edit-
Fixed some typo's, but I bet there's more of them, as I'm under the influence of (lots of) alcohol.

[Aerinyi]

If I were to buy a loaf of bread for a dollar, then the following week bread went on sale and someone else bought a loaf for fifty cents, would that mean that I had been cheated?

[gwend]

yes and you should go ***** till you get your money back

[MartekO]

Don't you ever see that line at the supermarket "courtesy" counter? Think they're lined up to withdraw cash or send Western Union? No!

They're all in line complaining about how the refried beans they bought for 60 cents a can is now only 55 cents. They'll complain till they get that nickel back. Even if they bought them 6 months ago and ate them already. Afterwards they go home to play AO, filled with gas.

Cheers,
Martek

[Bonegnasher]

Imagine if you saw a cool new game out and wanted it, so you go pick it up off the shelf and think "Hmm, $20, not bad." Then you see that you have to buy that plus the booster. Would you go to the trouble of taking two boxes to the counter? Or would you put them back thinking that the company was trying to rip you off by making you buy two parts to the same product?

Some people suggest that FC ship two boosters, one including the original game, and one that is cheape and is just the booster. That would cost FC a whole wad of extra cash and they'd have to jack the prices up so it would be worth it to them.

I've heard it many places said many times, and I think it is at least worth saying one more time. The most reasonable solution is to offer this as a downloadable program for a discounted price to current users. FC says it is too big for download? I have purchased and downloaded products that require more than one CD. I know many people have high speed internet. And what about those that don't? I completely understand, however this is not the type of patch that HAS to be downloaded and installed before you can get back in game.

So if the program is so big, why not break it up into 4 or more parts, and set your FTP servers up with session memory so that disconnected downloads resume where they left off. Then people can start downloading when the box hits the shelves, and even if they only can download one part a day, within a week they are fully operating in the booster universe. This couldn't possibly be hard for FC to engineer, it would be a reasonable solution for everyone regardless of connection speed (you can't tell me breaking it up into 4 pieces would still be bigger than some of the past patch sizes), it would be courteous to current users saving them money, it would save FC money in printing CD's, it would still allow FC to have something shiney and pretty sitting on shelves this holiday season (or whenever it ships), and as far as I can see, everyone walks away happy.

I am sure there are holes in my idea, so please let me know. I honestly can't think of why this is not an option, and would like to.

-Ox

[skybert]

Ox, it's not too big for downloads. It's too big for mandatory downloads.

o_O

[spookiepants]

I think you all are making a big deal out of nothing.
It's 20 bucks for god's sake. Plus nobody is forcing you to buy it.

-blix

[Darkbane]

And as this happens with, well, just about anything...

Buy that game for £35, a week later, the budget release occurs...

Buy that PS2 or XBox, next wek they cut the price...

Buy 20 litres of petrol, next week its 1p a litre cheaper...

It sucks, but that's life...

[______________Hoffen]

Remember your not _really_ paying for the game, your paying for the free month (after all you can download the client for free - but you only get 7 days free then)

Unfortunately you get the free month with the game AND the booster, but since you cant add a free month to an existing account (as people who purchased the special edition found out)

Its actually a deliberate tactic, you end up either creating a second account and wasting the month, keep it on and end up paying for 2 accounts (one plain and one boosted) or give the free month away to a friend and give Funcom another customer.

[Aerinyi]

You probably aren't even paying for the free month. As has been observed in other threads, the main financial reason to offer a booster or expansion at all is to get a product on the shelf and bring new players into the game. The real money to be made from these games is not from selling expansions and game clients, it's from the monthly fee. It doesn't cost FC anything really to burn the client files to the disk and add a CD key, and anyone who uses the free month is most likely going to continue playing for a couple months at the very least. The client is probably being tossed in at little or no extra cost just to make it easier for new players to get into the game and make the booster a more viable impulse buy. In any event, I personally think that twenty bucks is really cheap considering the price of other MMORPGs' expansions (Everquest and AC come to mind), but that's just my opinion. Your mileage may vary.

[Blackwing]

since the booster is not really containing much.

also it is not simply 20 bucks because it wont be available here except for shipping and i will need 2 keys to make use of it for 2 accounts.

but like stated in the rooted thread buying or not buying aint the issue.

i will wait til next year when you can either download it, it is included into shadowlands or i no longer play ao

[Cenelia]

Age of Empires gold edition annyone? Age of Empires and the expansionpack for a price lower then age of empires when it was just released. Annyone whining about that?

How about that new BMW you bought 4 years ago, and it is cheaper now because there's a new new BMW available. Think you can get your money back on that?

EVERYTHING costs more when it is new. When it gets old the price is lowered. It is common practice

edit: small typo, "comma practice" would have gotten me flamed for sure

[__________Souldoctah]

Man, if you guys were true gamers...not just peeps who played AO, but played a variety of games in general, you'd realize that Anarchy Online (as well as most other MMORPGs) have the best Price/Play ratio of any other game out there.

Let's take a regular RPG game...standard price for a new game is $45 (average between 40 and 50). You get roughly 80 hours of gameplay from a decent RPG TODAY, this is playing the game through and through until you get absolutely every single ounce of enjoyment out of it. That'll come out to about $0.56 per hour of gameplay.

Let's look at your average FPS game...standard action, shouldn't take more than about 12 hours to beat (if you're a half-decent player), add in an extra 20 hours worth of Multiplay (until you realize that you're the only one in a world full of newbs that can play this game decently), that's roughly 32 hours of playtime, for $45. That comes out to $1.46 per hour of gameply.

Alright...now you've got Anarchy Online. You pay $20 up front, then $12 a month, each month after the first. Let's say you play an average of 1 hour per day each month (that's very very very casual) Now, let's say you play for 3 months. After 3 months, you've played for 90 hours (30 days to a month), and have payed 20+12+12 = $44. You're paying $0.48 per hour of gameplay. Now, let's look at a more realistic AO player...let's say an average of 3 hours per day...after 3 months, you've played 270 hours, and still paid only $44. You're only paying $0.16 per hour of gameplay!!! Heck, throw in another 20 bucks for the booster, and you're still in the nickels and dimes range.

Why complain about pricing? The only way I can see someone complain about pricing on any of these games is if the price suddenly shot up to about $20 or $30 a month, and the game cost regular price to buy. But considering you're basically playing this game for peanuts, why be so whiney about it? Geez, seriously, you're the type of people who just ruin moral for companies like FunCom and Verant who try to make these games. Don't let the AO community turn into a rehash of the EQ-Whiners.

This also extends to people who constantly complain about bugs, bug fixes, "Love for XXX class", "If I don't get this I'm gone", blah blah blah, whine whine whine, boo hoo hoo. It's perfectly OK to point out a bug, a need or a want, but to make these sad posts about how badly you're getting nerfed and need love and all that BS, when you don't even realize that A) you're playing this game for peanuts, and B) this is an incredibly massive piece of software engineering with all of its complexities, ideosyncracies, nuances and hidden problems. Yes, in most software, most bugs are so deeply hidden that they are excruciatingly painful to go in and debug...hence, what to you may seem like "only 1 or 2 lines of code", because you obviously know nothing about software engineering, is actually much much more complex than that.

Now, considering the low price for the high enjoyment we get out of this game, and the fact that maybe 5% of the people who post on these boards actually have a clue about any sort of programming, can we please stop with all the whining? It's just sickening and disheartening...you think the FC developers actually WANT to improve anything when all you got are a bunch of whiney little punks asking for hand-outs?

Just play the game...

Souldoctah

[Aerinyi]

Considering an expansion for Everquest costs roughly 40-50 dollars, generally includes some new zones and items and comparatively little in the way of new game mechanics (Kunark being a notable exception), I'd still call 20 bucks cheap. But like I said, that is pretty much a matter of opinion. I'm not even going to touch on the issue of availability, since I have no idea where this is going and not going to be available or whose responsibility that is.

[Internalfireh]

i dont think you guys understand whati sbeing said here, we arnt complaining about the inevitable fact of Depreciation, yeah everything degrades in value over time.

FC have stated this is no an EXPANSION pack, its to big for a pathc but too small for an expansion its a 'booster'.

If you bought a BMw but wanted to buy a new model with better features etc, you could sell the old one AND get the new one. YOur not forced to keep the old one. In the case of his expansion your are, you cannot transfer characters over accounts (<< AN IDEA FOR A SOLUTION!!), in thecase of the BMW you are technically EXCHANGING 2 goods and paying a bit mroe for the additional features.

The boosters offers "Buy the new BMw with addtional features and you have to you keep both cars" or "Buy the new BMW with all new features and the old one as well (not sold sperately)"

This aint right....

If I'm gonna buy this booster pack i want to:

a- Transfer 1 free month to my exsisting account
b- Have a one time only (time limited or not) to transfer my characters across accounts
c- Buy the exansion on its own
d- download the expansion on its own for a reduced cost.

This booster is a patch in essence, the only real addition/change is new yalmahas and land control. Funcom has fabricated this as a booster (expansion), I agree i wouldnt mind paying if this was an expansion, but frankly there is no expansion taking place.

You ay "you don have to buy the 'booster', if you want to play without it you can" - Come on people, what is this? This is juts a way of getting around us, those who want the 'booster' on offer on itself. They want balance, is it fair i can get pwned form a tower but not actually pwn anyone else from one ?

"keep away from the towers"
/me goes to arena
*Arena is empty*
/me Humm, so much for pvping

Every other game out the whihc has got an expansion (to my knowledge) lets you buy things seperatly AND allwos u to buy them together as part of a package with a cumalative price equling lower than if you bought them seperatly. Now because Notum Wars doesnt qualify as an expansion why shudnt we be given the 'Buy individualy' option?

/me Bumps for the option to get the expansion pack individually no matter what method.

[Kuro]

I've seen people mention EQ around this subject a number of times. Am I the only person that remembers when EQ released their 1st expansion (I think it was that one but I tend to mix them up nowadays), it required you to already have Everquest in order to play? And was full expansion price as I prolly misremember

[Tinaki]

So if i have understood this correctly when you buy the booster pack for 20$ u get the game with the booster stuff and a new cd-key. Now if u install this new game and want to log in with one of your older accounts on a booster client, u will not get the benefit cause the the account isn't booster verified?

Well if this is so why not just make it like Ultima Online did with their Lord Blackthorns Revenge. When you buy it u still get the key so u can make a new account but u can also upgrade your old account with the new cd-key.

Then there will be no need to ship 2 different types of the booster pack and everyone will be able to keep their old characters without getting involved in any messy confusing try of transfering characters from one account to another, which i personaly believe FC wont do.

Now for those who have more than 1 account and don't want more than 1 cd with the booster pack on it, why not make it possible to purchase a Notum Wars cd-key from ao website like u can with the old original key.

(sry for the bad spelling hope u get my point)

[Warlock]

The booster _can_ be added to your existing account.

But you also get a CD key (and hence a free month
) for a new account as well. The free month _cannot_ be added to your existing account.

So players who dont have AO at all can just buy the booster pack and they have everything they need already. The rest of us get the booster and either give the free account away (which is what I think FC hope we will do). Use it ourselves (dont really see the point in that), waste it or ignore it.

[Tinaki]

WEll my subject says it all!

Then why all the trouble? Angry about getting another key ? I don't get it