Alpha 2 Keys
Friss
Member, Alpha One, Alpha Two, Early Alpha Two
I heard a lot of talk about a2 keys being cheaper than normal.
i personally believe this is a horrible idea. 1 you mess up with people who purchased it before.
just release the a2 packs for sale again, for the people who missed them.
no need to punish the people who bough them early. and no need to cater to people who bought them late.
release them full price. and it's the only way to go.
or you could make them cheaper and make a bunch of A2 buyers very upset. Or you could make them same price but without skins and make new players upset.
but if you release them same price as before same pack....no issues.
thoughts?
personally. if we cater to people that are late now.... we'll expect this in the future as well and maybe even hope to take advantage of it.
what do you guys think?
i personally believe this is a horrible idea. 1 you mess up with people who purchased it before.
just release the a2 packs for sale again, for the people who missed them.
no need to punish the people who bough them early. and no need to cater to people who bought them late.
release them full price. and it's the only way to go.
or you could make them cheaper and make a bunch of A2 buyers very upset. Or you could make them same price but without skins and make new players upset.
but if you release them same price as before same pack....no issues.
thoughts?
personally. if we cater to people that are late now.... we'll expect this in the future as well and maybe even hope to take advantage of it.
what do you guys think?
2
Comments
Where did you hear this?
From the recent Twitch stream, it was confirmed that there will be new Alpha 2 keys available for purchase before the launch of Alpha 2. The developers discussed the timeline and mentioned that these keys would be sold in limited quantities leading up to the testing phase. Keep an eye on official announcements and the Ashes of Creation website for more details on the sale dates and availability.
Jeah dear Intrepid wants to have MANY Testers of Course : but despite the amazing Number they already reached, they need more for some Reason.
Plus the Existence of People who (lololol?) ask since/AFTER January 17th for an Alpha Two Key, is not going away anytime soon, right ?
So how to get more People Alpha Two Keys who might not have so much Money like the former Buyers or do not "want" to pay as much Money as the People before them ?
Easpeasy. Just make them cheaper. x'D
But the true "Win" for these People - if we want to call it that - is that they get to buy Alpha Two Keys later on in the waiting Time - and did not have to wait for as long as the People who partially already bought them Years before. (^3^)
✓ Occasional Roleplayer
✓ Kinda starting to look for a Guild right now. (German)
The people buying access now are in reality the losers. (Financially)
As there's likely not going to be cosmetics attached to these bundles it'll be an inflated amount for key access only without the game time, cosmetics or embers that came in the past.
And if intrepid are going to be selling beta keys at a later stage separately as well then I can see them having something like a $200 all access bundle alongside stand alone Keys roughly half the cost of the previous packages that gave you much more.
$125 stand alone alpha 2 key
$75 stand alone beta 1 key
$35 stand alone beta 2 key
The whole thing put them in an awkward spot now tbh.
1 - Sell them for 250 just for the key to honor there previous backers and there be back lash for $250 alpha keys
2 - Sell the key for cheaper but then u screw the people who backed under the assumption it was last chance to buy in, break down the pack via cost the alpha 2 key comes to $20 is what devs value it at which will tick alot of people off if it went for that low after they droped 250-375 :P
I dont think they can sell it for the 250 but they also cant sell it for $20.
Feel they might have to do something like sell it for 75-100 but then also give the people who already back something extra like some extra embers (cash shop currency) or couple extra months of subsciption or somthing.
But yeah will see what they do it definelty gonna cause drama in some way or form i feel
What comes in the Voyager Pre-Order Pack?
Regardless of the arbitrary value of the cosmetics that come in the Voyager pack, you inarguably paid $100 for cosmetic shop currency and $90 for in-game play time. You can't argue that. Those are things you knowingly spent your money on that had real, tangible price tags listed right next to them.
So, even if you considered the cosmetics to be of no real value, you really only paid $60 for A2+ access.
Now, you could make the argument that in Intrepid's mind, they were selling you the game time and the cash shop currency at a discount as a favor for pre-ordering, and that their intended value of A2+ access was much higher, but they never stated that - you just assumed it on your own. So no, they aren't bound to negotiate prices on all future pre-release purchases based on your assumptions about their monetization strategy.
If you didn't want to pre-order game time or cosmetic shop currency, then you shouldn't have bought it. Steven literally told people nearly every month not to buy the pre-order packs unless they had money to burn and wanted to support development. There's no debate whatsoever that if every Voyager Pack purchaser who didn't want to pay for all that extra stuff just decided not to buy the packs, then Intrepid would've eventually released A2 access solo-packs for like $75 or something, because they need testers. The free market could've brought down the price for access a lot sooner if it really wanted to. But y'all bought it anyway.
In all honesty, it doesn't matter how expensive anyone wants it to be - this needs to be a market-based decision for Intrepid, taking into consideration how many more testers they want in the game, and how much lower than the Voyager Pre-Order pack price they need to go until they get about that many people to buy it and simultaneously not despise them for giving people who bought the Voyager Pack less than a year ago over $190 in free additional value.
As someone who wanted to get into A2 to help test and give feedback, but despises the cosmetic-shop monetization strategy and would never support it by giving Intrepid $100 in exchange for cash shop tokens, I decided to wait, knowing that eventually, there would be some altered A2+ access pack released that would cost much less and come without all the extra frills. Don't punish other people who know how to spend and withhold their money wisely for your regrettable purchasing decisions.
The only availability of A2 was in the 250$ pack. being locked behind a package deal created the feeling of exclusivity derived from the expense, it was a lot cheaper if all you wanted was beta 1 or 2 access.
If A2 access is cheaper than 250$, then everyone who already purchased a key should have the opportunity to refund the difference if they're only interested in the A2 access.
I personally am happy with my purchase, but a couple of the guys in my group don't give a shit about cosmetics and wouldn't ever have bought them given the choice.
If A2 access is still 250$...It wont be as exclusive no, but I won't feel like I paid 250 for something now available for just 60(or whatever price).
Since Intrepid now has removed the supporter packs, and are going to sell pure keys to the testing stage, I think the price should reflect that change aswell. Remember, Steven has said that Ashes of Creation is funded all the way to release and beyond.
If anyone is going to turn around and feel let down by alpha 2 keys being sold cheaper, I question their reason to buy the supporter packs to begin with tbh.
I haven't thought about the Possibility of the Price getting higher than before. Maybe i am just naive once again. But to be sure i would recommend making the Alpha Two Keys in the Future same the Price as the Ones from before January 17th.
✓ Occasional Roleplayer
✓ Kinda starting to look for a Guild right now. (German)
They said on stream that it will only be the key, hence why people are talking about the price reflecting the lack of $100 in cosmetic shop currency and $90 of game time compared to the Voyager Pack.
There’s absolutely no way charging more actually makes sense. People who already bought the Voyager Pack got plenty more than just A2 access for their money. Charging people MORE than they paid for something over $200 less in value is absolutely ridiculous. No one in their right mind would buy that, and the reason Intrepid are opening it up again is because they need people to buy it, because they need more testers. The price needs to make buying the keys attractive enough to net them the increase in testers they’re after, and I’ll bet you they want a lot, what with the tech they were overviewing this week.
Just A2, and probably subsequent beta access.
This would honor their previous backers and still give the opportunity for people to access it - if they care enough to pay that value. People paid 500$ to access A1 anyways so it shouldnt be an issue.
Couldn't disagree more, but maybe this was a low quality bait and I fell for it?
whats low-quality bait is thinking the large audience is going to think its ok for a developer to sell alpha access for 250$, announce for over 4 months the sales are closing while having a 90 day refund policy, and reopen alpha sales for cheaper just a few months later.
If you think its all good, you likely couldn't care less about Ashes and Intrepid, because if that were to happen, the moment it gets picked by the media and big streamers we will have a shitstorm hitting the game in one of its most important development phases which is A2, hurting its reputation A LOT.
I couldn't care less about the price or if they sell it or not, I have spent thousands to support this game and will continue to do so, I only care about this project's health and image, as a creator myself, I'm voicing my concerns before its too late.
The argument that I paid $250 to gain access and now someone gets to pay less is dumb. If you didn't want to spend the $250+ to gain access you should have gambled like many others did for A2 keys.
Also, it is just access, and i know people are saying they dont care about the cosmetics, but you are still gaining real money currency AND paid game time.
Selling alpha access for 250$ was never cool, but that was the price that was set in the kickstarter thinking the development would not take this long. Intrepid has honored the kickstarter supporter package prices by selling new supporter packs with prices that reflect the kickstarter pack. These supporter packs did not only grant access to alpha 2, but game time, ember and cosmetics as well as supporting a project we all wanted to see come to fruition.
AoC and Intrepid has already been facing public backlash from their prices that are honoring the original kickstarter backers, so them moving away from the supporter pack model towards selling one perk from said supporter packs at a lower price that is more achievable by most is in my opinion a good thing.
Now, I am sure some people did get tricked by FOMO with the alpha 2 access and them closing the sale of the supporter packs, but I don't think that's a great reason to hike the price of alpha 2 access to try to save face to what streamers might think. Especially if Intrepid needs more testers then they currently have.
If this is a massive issue, I think a far better way to deal with said situation would be to offer refunds to anyone who bought supporter packs from the date they announced that they were going to remove them.
This way the one's who got caught up in FOMO would have the possibility to undo their supporter pack purchase, and instead buy an alpha 2 access key.
And you saying that if anyone disagreeing with you means that they simply don't care about AoC or Intrepid seems quite narrow minded.
It's the "cheaper" part I was questioning.
When you remove the price of cosmetics and such in the various packs sold, the keys themselves weren't that expensive at all.
They could have sold keys individually from the cosmetics and other benefits. Difference between then and now is you got the package deal for that month. That’s just marketing. The Alpha 2 keys are the same now as they were then. If they sold them as “exclusive”, then there would be something to settle.
And guess what, the early investors/consumers of a product tend to pay more for the benefit of the later customer. It’s just how the market works. Unless the price increases, but I don’t see that happening.
Did you buy into the game to succeed or fail? Or what was your motivation?
If they want to sell Alpha 2 keys for $5 and we end up with a better game, then whatever I paid earlier would be worth more, not less. $50-$75 would sound about right for a persistent Alpha 2, in my opinion, and a lot of people would claim that’s too much for a game that’s not even released. People are going to complain whatever they do, so stay focused on making the best game. The price needs to be enough to get more serious game testers than some casual player who’ll provide no real benefit to development. Perhaps they offer a few free weekend keys to test peak server conditions.
The end of alpha 2 sale was advertised for a long time as if it was the last chance.
They created a FOMO feeling and took advantage of it.
We don't know how long Alpha 2 will last. It can last even 10 years if it self sustain itself and as features are added, it can feel better than other games 1 year after it becomes accessible. So if you would not buy the access, you would be forced to see other players playing it.
Now they plan to open the access again and they said they discuss how to make it so that does not feel unfair to those who already got access with the higher price.
It was mentioned the reason why they are reinstating the alpha 2 keys is because they have improved technology. Whereas before they could only put a limited amount of people in a testing area, they can put more in now. They shut the alpha 2 access off because they could not hold more people online at the same time. The team overcame this hurdle and now need more testers, hence opening up the alpha 2 keys. It is a needed decision that they could not have accounted for in the past.