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Check out Alpha Two Announcements here to see the latest news on Alpha Two.
Check out general Announcements here to see the latest news on Ashes of Creation & Intrepid Studios.
To get the quickest updates regarding Alpha Two, connect your Discord and Intrepid accounts here.
Comments
Alright, I need to rephrase all of this and I have to mention that segregation isn't going to affect on my region by anyway so it doesn't really matter that much to me.
There are no servers for my region, all the companies of popular online games used to invest more in EU/NA servers to be able to handle both players from EU/NA and MENA regions instead of having a MENA server, personally I like the idea and I'm not against it as it is cheaper for companies to do so.
Need a solution for players who have nothing else to do rather than playing on EU/NA servers without having to pay the original price(to have a reduced fees).
I think I will have to edit the post to be more precise to lead people to concentrate on one spot which is the main problem.
So, to be clear, in all other games you have played, you just paid the EU/NA price and all was fine.
Yet in this game, one that is offering a solution to regions large enough to warrant it, that status quo is no longer good enough?
Is that an accurate summary?
In all other online games I have played, I either played it for free or had to pay for it one shot(which I've mentioned thousands time that to do so players from my region would be able to afford it but they have to start saving up to pay one shot).
But again, repeating endlessly that I'm not against the monthly subscription.
You're just proving that either you haven't read the main post or you love living in an infinite loop.
Ok, so, games with monthly subscriptions just aren't for you then.
At the end of the day, what you are doing is asking Intrepid to basically pay to allow you to play their game. $3 a month will not cover the cost of the server that an EU/NA player uses - even *if* Intrepid were able to make a good deal with Amazon (however, Amazon dont do deals).
That is the heart of the issue. You are asking to pay less than you are going to cost.
That is why Intrepid have the plan of setting up regional server - as regional servers run on hardware in the region *should* have costs appropriate to that region and thus Intrepid can charge an amount appropriate to that region.
Just a thought.
https://ashesofcreation.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/360036147094-What-is-the-referral-program-
Thank you for highlighting this and being constructive, for the current time it is a good idea. How do you think it would work? Will the referral rate decrease after any purchase? If so, that wouldn't help at all.. I can barely convince few people from my region to pay the original subscription fees.
However, I doubt that it will remain the same as anyone can trick the system by inviting 7 people which would make the referral rate pass 100% that's mean you're not going to pay any fees.. considered as lifetime subscription tho.
A very good idea actually @akabear
@Hirschegar Perhaps you could look into doing a streaming channel with some friends, and that´s based on the issues you guys are having in streaming from your regions, what it is about, the problem of costs etc, and you do this as a sort of stream group to raise awareness?
Who knows...perhaps you and your friends can be the turning point towards a new option to make it possible to play MMO´s for more in Egypt and around?
But this most probably won't happen due to the current subscription fees. And If the referral program will function the way I think then it will not be useful for us
While it may not be your first choice of solutions, it is the solution to your specific situation that Intrepid have already decided works for them.
It would be nice if a certain amount of referrals meant that we can get a month free without having to already spend a lot on the game. However, this could be abused. People might make new emails and accounts and refer themselves for those free months. As the referral system works now, there's little incentive to cheat the system like that.
I thought that the referral rate depends on the payment of subscription of the new player who was referred by another player not just after registration. I read it in their referral program but I believe they didn't mean after registration only, or what do you think?
Wish I could see life from your perspective for saying such assumptions in which improving our "situation" would sounds that easy and could be an option. And literally no one said it's someone else's obligation.
Some more quick math.
Imagine I am standing on the side of the road, and I am selling apples for 15 cents each. Rather than having the apples on hand, I have someone go and pick them when a customer asks for apples.
That person gets paid 5 cents per apple.
Now, you come along and say you can't afford 15 cents per apple, and ask that I sell you apples at 3 cents each.
Obviously, since that would see me lose 2 cents per apple, the answer I would give to that is no. I am better off leaving the apples on the tree to maybe sell to someone else, or maybe not. Either way, if I sold them to you, I would lose 2 cents for every apple you bought.
On the other hand, if instead of paying that person 5 cents per apple, I offered you or one of your friends a job paying 2 cents per picked apple, I could then conceivably afford to sell you apples at 3 cents each - even though I would then not be making any return on the 'development' of my apple trees from you.
I didn't realize it, but as a math lesson, that is surprisingly applicable to this thread!
From the beginning of this thread, you kept showing how aggresive you're and defending a studio that isn't even being accused of anything by anyone, the author himself/herself stated that he/she is ignoring one of your replies for how rude and inappropiate it is.
However it seems like he/she is bothered and even started to ignore your comments and replying to other people who aren't rude. But you're trying so hard to provoke/trigger him/her so he/she would keep replying to your comments.
The way you think how Intrepid studios because it is offering reduced prices for certain regions is going to lose or not going to have profit from these specific regions is so funny tbh.
Then all the other online games that is free or you have to pay specific amount of money to own it is losing huge amount of money due to their servers are online for all this time. Stop using the excuse of using Amazon servers.
You need to behave firstly, before hopping on any discussion and after that you will have to start using your mind.
The amount of money they will need to pay for their servers would be a fraction of the monthly subscription fees, the rest which is almost the whole fees will be as Steven declared for funding and revenue for the developers to continue a significant content creation and expansion rollout for the game.
A few points.
First, this isnt aggressive.
Second, I dont care if the OP doesn't reply to me. I am putting my blatantly obvious point across to anyone else that happens to read this thread.
Third, you are trying to compare Ashes payment model to other games with different payment models.
Silkroad is a good example here, since it is one that is seemingly popular in your region.
Silkroad has a pay to win cash shop. That is where that game gets its income. Ashes has a cosmetic only cash shop, and that is significantly less lucrative. Steven has sold the game to most of us here on the notion that it will not have a ay to win cash shop - with him stating in the past that he would rather shut the game down of it came to that.
So automatically, any comparison to payment models with Silkroad are out of place here.
Or we could compare it to GW1. That game also had no subscription, but it effectively had a US$180 box cost. As a game, the design of GW1 allowed it to be run on fairly simple server hardware - even for it's time. It also used little in the way of bandwidth. Since server running costs and bandwidth are the greatest recurring costs for an MMO post launch, this is noteworthy.
Ashes is a more complex game - as such it will require more complex servers and more bandwidth. More complex servers and more bandwidth both cost more money. That is a fixed cost per player, and that cost absolutely is likely to be more than 20% of our subscription fee (an honest assumption would be 45 - 60%).
When Steven said that the subscription fee would allow for development of the game post launch, he wasn't saying that all proceeds from subscriptions would go to thos, he meant that subscriptions give him a fairly guaranteed income, meaning Inyrepid dont need to sit on the same cash reserves as non-sunscriotion games as Intrepid can be ore sure of the income they will make the following month than a cash shop only store can be.
At the end of the day, Intrepid have already addressed the issue of regions with less economic power yet still having people wanting to pay this game. The solution they came up with was to host servers in those regions - thus making use of lower power and bandwidth costs.
The fact that you all seem to have rejected this open hand gesture from Intrepid and pointed to a game with a pay to win cash shop as a reason why Intrepid should do more for you is actually, honestly beyond words.
And I've just said that if we want to put the Amazon servers cost in consideration then it would be fraction of the monthly subscription fees and this fraction will even decrease by increasing player base.
There are millions of other free online games and paid online games(not monthly subscription) that aren't P2W and have no box cost so what you're saying isn't valid. Your only 2 comparisons are even funny, this is hilarious lmao
It is so hard to deal with people have few brain cells. I'm not going to waste my precious time anymore.
I mean, an online version of Tetris is perfectly viable and cheap to maintain, but that isn't much of a comparison now, is it.
I am fairly sure this will solve everyones issues!
At the other end of the scale, I would have been quite prepared to pay 2-3x the current proposed subscription amount if that meant the subscription entitled 100% access to everything and there was no cash shop for anything as everything was always in game.
I wouldn't mind and can prepare if it is 2-3x its price but without considering the difference in currencies.
In addition, you can only use your Intrepid Bucks after the official game launch, so referring people is useless right now except to prepare to rack up those Intrepid Bucks for the future. I am unsure if what you spend before launch will be added to the 15% back.
My conclusion, which is purely speculative and based purely on theory, is that these Intrepid Bucks and the referral program are completely useless to me. They will only benefit people who already like to constantly spend $100's on cash store items, and it serves to fuel their cash store addiction. For people like me who want the game for free and never buy cash store items, they are completely useless.
I'm assuming you are referring to me.
However, that is not what I am saying.
What I am saying is that like all businesses, Intrepid have fixed costs. Some of these are outright fixed, some of these are volume dependent.
If you wish to purchase Intrepids products, you must be expected to pay for your fair share of these fixed costs.
On top of their fixed costs, Intrepid have the ongoing cost of continued development that all players must pay their fair share of. And then there is also the need for profit.
Now, if Intrepid are able to lower some of their fixed costs in some regions by using local infrastructure that is priced according to the local market, then they can obviously lower the price of their product in that market while still covering their costs, having money for continued development and maybe still making a profit.
This is the plan Intrepid have to offer this game to regions with a less fortunate economy - and people in such economies should be happy that Intrepid are making this offer as literally no other subscription MMO has ever even thought of doing something like this.
Rather than being grateful, it seems a few people here are trying to throw that in Intrepids face.
I am simply throwing it back.
Thing is, most of us are aware of the realities of life.
That doesn't negate what I said, though. The referral system is still useless to me.
This is the problem. No one is trying to throw anything in Intrepid's face. And you're throwing what you've assumed back. You just need to stop your imaginary mind and assuming and everything would be fine.
As I mentioned this numerous amount of times and even edited the main post to avoid this repetition(but here we are), there will be no servers for MENA region so we aren't included in the harmonized subscription plan. And again, popular online games after calculating and doing some analysis they figured out having a whole new server is so expensive comparing to increasing the bandwidth of an existing server. While this technique have been used, the other online games that have MENA servers like PUBG as an example, they declared that it isn't the smartest idea at all.
Now you will start saying that this means there are no profits from MENA players and they're barely covering the server resources. That's totally wrong, it is just not smart to have many servers while you can use an existing server for the same purpose and it isn't far at all and as in example Egypt is a transcontinental country spanning the northeast corner of Africa and southwest corner of Asia which makes it the nearest to Europe and players from Egypt would be able to play on Europe servers (ping varies 15~45).
It would be so easy for me to ask Intrepid studio to have a server for MENA region from the beginning effortlessly but I just putted in consideration that it would make them pay much more instead of saving, that's why I'm against this idea. Also that's why I'm trying to find the best solution for our problem that have not been listed from the beginning.
This is a misunderstanding of how the referral system works. You do not get credit based off of how much YOU spend, but how much THEY spend. If you make a bunch of dummy referrals with random emails, you get nothing. If you refer someone, and they spend money, either now, or in the future, you get 15% of that back as Intrepid Bucks, which can be then spent on whatever you like, in their online store, sub or cosmetics. Some locations will not allow cashout by law, check your jurisdiction, in any case, those that do request it as a cashout from Intrepid will need to provide relevant documentation and pay the tax on it just like any other income. The amounts are all being totaled and will be available roughly 30-60 days after live launch for the initial set.