Friday with Means - November 18th, 2011 - Agent Document vs 1.2

[Tilli]

at a cost adjustment to euro exchange rate against the U.S. would certainly come as more new players when they see what it currently costs.

For I tell you quite honestly that year subscription is for me no more Altantieve. after 3 months of playing AO covered my loss for the next 2 months so it makes no sense for me.
It certainly would be ingame and more European players when it's not is overly expensive.
Ever since FC is indeed cut off even from eurpa. they know why.
So uniform price + vat of the country

we pay in the crown or Pesus would then also means the cost to adapt very quickly ^^

[Vaurt]

I find it hard to believe that the game director of an mmo has not even the slightest say in being priced out of the market in an economy of 740million people. You might be right, if so, something is utterly wrong with Funcom.

You are probably right that those who were going to leave because of any price difference already have.

Maybe lets take this from another perspective. Forget the American price for the moment and consider soley that (if wikipedia is to be believed http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compari...-playing_games) Anarchy online is the MMO that charges the highest price to europeans of any game on a month to month basis. With this pricing i'm surprised we still have any europeans left in game.

It might be a fact that we get the best deals on the longer subscriptions, but that doesn't help those people who have to pay monthly for whatever reason. And believe me, whatever those reasons are no-one has the right to judge people for them. It also doesn't help bringing people into the game as there are very few people that i know that would try the game, do the trial 2 weeks and the skip straight to a 12 month subscription.

So if anyone is wondering why we have the second lowest number of players on that list, i can give you a few reasons, this is one of them.

[Joralf]

Lol, should have seen this coming and not said anything. Talk about taking things literally. It was a response to Masta's 35% comment, and saying that that is a possible way of keeping the profit at today's levels. I don't believe that is the way to go about it.

Now Gaveup's response was a lot more mature than Hunni's. And i agree with Gaveup, I don't think a lot of people would renew their accounts if there was an increase in price.

Hunni: I know life isn't fair, but I think it is a reasonable thing to ask for equality don't you think? Now I'm not gonna bring politics inn to this so ill stop here. [God i hate double Q's - PLEASE use better arguments]. I'm only speaking for myself, but having read other peoples opinions, I feel that I can make that claim. Now you say that all the people that where going to leave over this price difference has left. Why are we having this discussion? Why have there been made several posts about this in this forum about this in just the last few weeks? I think this is proof enough that there is still people around that disagree with the current pricing, and who is to say that some of them wont leave? Hell, some of the current subscribers might not even know about the price difference or have just found out.

After all its been 10 years? Try again. 10 years ago we all payed in USD, at some point in time the pricing changed to Euros. I assume that at that point the inequality of the costumers where introduced, and the EU people stated to pay more than the US people. And its not about the exchange rates. It is quiet clear that its more than that, you have to take that argument else where. Means might not be in control over this, nor have I said so. I know this issue might not be solved here but by voicing our concerns and opinions we might get heard by the right people.

(Maaaan, I wasn't even discussing this, i was just telling Masta to use proper arguments!)

[Gaveup]

I too believe that company's should be accountable to their customers, in this case it has been raised there is an inequality between those of us playing North America and the EU players, it can be demonstrated at the most basic levels via payments - are you saying it's unreasonable to ask why? There have always been groups of people who never asked why either, I think history can explain how those cases ended up. Don't speak up and nothing will even have a chance to change. We should ALL fully support UNDERSTANDING the reasons behind the inequality if it indeed has to exist, otherwise who will support you if the roles were reversed and it is you who feel taken advantage of.

A bigger point may be that us Canadian's are now paying LESS than $15 CAD a month.

[agentwolve]

Life isn't fair. Stop the QQ. Don't point at other people saying they should be forced to pay more because you do.

So are you QQing because you do not want to pay equal amount to other equal customers ? What makes you so special that you should pay less then other people just because they're a different race ?

[Crowena]

So are you QQing because you do not want to pay equal amount to other equal customers ? What makes you so special that you should pay less then other people just because they're a different race ?

Different race? Where did that come from?

[Dragocze]

After so many years it is still here. FC is evading this topic.

I've talked about this with support team after my account get frozen. First they've replayed with "There is no such thing. We don't know, what are you talking about". Next response was "It's been always this way".

I'm sure they didn't do it because they don't like some people. There is economic reason. But being charged with different price displease me. I can tell, it almost insult me. So I'm not going to pay company that doesn't appreciate his customers. It's maybe time for someone to stand up and face this issue. Or may be not.

[Hunni]

So are you QQing because you do not want to pay equal amount to other equal customers ? What makes you so special that you should pay less then other people just because they're a different race ?

Ummm, what's race got to do with anything?

And, since I have access to the forums, I have the opportunity to express my opinion. Which I have.

[Armus]

Ummm, what's race got to do with anything?

And, since I have access to the forums, I have the opportunity to express my opinion. Which I have.

Is your opinion that I should pay more for the same product?

[Hunni]

Is your opinion that I should pay more for the same product?

My opinion is that this FwM got hijacked and that price concerns aren't going to get solved on this board. Oh, and that race doesn't play a part in it.

[Tilli]

I have switched off my fc fc dnw what is perhaps the reason for Germany to have been the more we pay. But now we all sit on a server.
So too should be the same prices or the opportunity to give fc pay in usd as it was previously possible using PayByCash. $ to consider also the exchange rate of €.

should not deliberate because the k is ran all be clear why they make money like all horny and customized it yet it seems there are no matter. We need to be milked until there is no more

[Obtena]

Is your opinion that I should pay more for the same product?

I don't think it's just opinion. Unfortunately, I don't think there is any product that has global pricing equality, nor is there a rule there should be. I'm not going to pretend to think it's right or wrong .. the idea of correctness doesn't even apply here at all. It's just a fact that some (actually, ALL) products/services cost different amounts to deliver to different customers, for whatever reasons. if a company decides to average out those costs and offer a flat rate, that's THEIR business, not the customer. Customer can take their interests elsewhere. It's their choice.

While the Euro/US dollar prices in AO aren't really sensical to me, I don't think we should pretend they should be equal either.

[Thorneee]

I have something to pop up, and it makes me concerned a bit. Its nothing new, but I just realized another nail to the coffin. With all dailies missions we are happy to have something intereseting to do: they dont require lots of time, they have nice plot, some different action then anything else and are like mini quests with very good reward. But lately I had many (and I mean like 20 or 30 conversations in org and with friends+random on OOC) discussions about people not willing to do LE missions or RK missions or even hecks at low/mid level, because its time sinking compareing to normal leveling. Players refused to join/sometimes only loged just for sdaily/ because this simple reason: daily is like 10-15 minutes of work and gives whole level/AI level, while you need at least play 1hr (at mid lvl) to gain next level.

I am not after nerfing dailies, nor making RK/LE missions on par with dailies, but adjusting XP for RK mishes/LE mishes (AXP in this case) should be considered, because, what I have learned after 3 weeks of playing and leveling another bunch of toons, everyone happili do those dialies, without giving time for teaming.

This is actually one of my biggest concerns. While I do appreciate dailies, it does not make people team up. And to me, this is the worst thing that can happen to any mmo : people soloing all the time.
What I like the most about MMOs is player interaction, and I know that, at least on RK, there are many less team missions going on than pre-dailies (and this is not only because of population declining, froob population has been low for a while).

As you said, I think dailies are so geater in terms of xp/min (not to mention the tokens) than any other (RK and most of SL) content that people feel any other way of getting xp is not worth it.
From there, several solutions :
- Decrease XP on dailies
- Increase XP on other content
- Release a new kind of dailies : team dailies
- Any combination of the above

What I would like is a nerf on dailies XP (like halving the xp reward), as well as a general buffing of the xp on both RK and SL mid-level mobs (so that xp on SL is still better than on RK).
Also, I would love to see the introduction of some new team-leveling content such as team dailies that would need some time (~60-75min) and organisation from the players, but this would require some development.

[DigitalBath]

I don't think it's just opinion. Unfortunately, I don't think there is any product that has global pricing equality, nor is there a rule there should be. I'm not going to pretend to think it's right or wrong .. the idea of correctness doesn't even apply here at all. It's just a fact that some (actually, ALL) products/services cost different amounts to deliver to different customers, for whatever reasons.

While the Euro/US dollar prices in AO aren't really sensical to me, I don't think we should pretend they should be equal either.

Actually you're mostly wrong on almost all of those statements.

First and foremost, there is an idea of correctness to be applied since apart from VAT, any price difference is Funcom/AO's decision.

The costs of offering different products/services may indeed change in some ways, but maintaining and paying for the servers than run AO and it's related services aren't "different" for EU and US and Asian costumers. The team is paid in a way that's irrelevant to the costumer base.

I also hope you're not going to try and argue that the massive price difference comes from shipping AO physical copies to stores, given the game was based on EU offices at the time.

You're partly correct on price equity not being enforced, but that's actually being worked on as we write, and even if Funcom wants EU players to unfairly pay more, it's probably not going to happen in the near future.
Check out the European Comission's effort on stopping web traders (including MMO's) from charging people different values according to location (and other things as well, but that's off the point).

In any way you want to see it, it's Funcom's will, at this moment, that EU players pay more for no mathematically-valid reason.

[zeiss]

So if anyone is wondering why we have the second lowest number of players on that list (...).

Not to forget that the 12k players, mentioned in that list are refering to statistics of the year 2007

I am also not very pleased with paying 18 EUR every month at all (dunno what FC does with all the money; maybe invest into AoC or more likely the other upcoming mmo project) ... but remember.. this is the agents rebalance FwM thread...wasnt it?

[Mastablasta]

Not to forget that the 12k players, mentioned in that list are refering to statistics of the year 2007

I am also not very pleased with paying 18 EUR every month at all (dunno what FC does with all the money; maybe invest into AoC or more likely the other upcoming mmo project) ... but remember.. this is the agents rebalance FwM thread...wasnt it?

Would be really weird if they did that, since that's usualy where you put investment money. The trickle of AO revenue doesn't come close to funding a project with 100 developers on it

[Vaurt]

So i had a little thought after someone mentioned AoC,

Turns out they had exactly the same discussion in a whopping 10 page thread 3 years ago.
http://forums-eu.ageofconan.com/show...t=48994&page=1

Asked a friend to go look how much the subscription is for AoC for EU currently and it is EUR 12.99. Now assuming the US price is still the same as it used to, thus the same as AO i think we have about 8 pages to go. However if we can manage to keep it to the topic and not go into a *war of words* between the two continents we might manage it in a few less pages.

[Joralf]

I don't think it's just opinion. Unfortunately, I don't think there is any product that has global pricing equality, nor is there a rule there should be. I'm not going to pretend to think it's right or wrong .. the idea of correctness doesn't even apply here at all. It's just a fact that some (actually, ALL) products/services cost different amounts to deliver to different customers, for whatever reasons. if a company decides to average out those costs and offer a flat rate, that's THEIR business, not the customer. Customer can take their interests elsewhere. It's their choice.

While the Euro/US dollar prices in AO aren't really sensical to me, I don't think we should pretend they should be equal either.

This product used to have equal pricing, so at some point in time there where at least one product that had it. Now you can argue that the pricing wasn't equal before, because of VAT and exchange rates, but that is details that FC cannot control. The base cost was still the same, and that is what we are asking for now.

I doubt that this major difference in price comes from difference in distribution cost. I think it’s more likely that FC is using price discrimination to increase their profits by charging the EU market more than the US market. I think that it's more likely that they have done research on this, and found that the European costumers are willing to pay more than the US costumers. Then they adjusted the prices accordingly. Anyways, I don’t think there is much reason to speculate anymore on FC’s reasoning of the price difference. Like you said it’s totally up to them what they want to do.

You are right that we as costumers can move on and take our interests elsewhere. But we can also try to voice our opinions and concerns, and hope that FC listens. There is always different ways to go about a problem. I believe that asking for change is better than going straight to strike/boycott. I don't believe that problems/disagreements get solved by shutting my mouth and not telling anyone how I feel, and I don't think you do either. By voicing our concerns FC knows what we want changed. If we keep our mouths shut, FC will never know how we feel, and if they don't, the likelihood of change is close to 0.

[Mastablasta]

Actually there was no VAT before they started using Euro to charge in. And there was a period without VAT after euro was picked up by FC.

[Joralf]

Yeah i wasn't sure if there was VAT included, or if there where no VAT at that time. But I didn't bother commenting on it, as it is not important to the argument.