Some New Ideas on Premium Membership

[OctavianAXFive]

Premium Membership: Rent-a-Swag?

I'm experimenting with a new style of tl;dr. Color code the essentials!

So this patch got me thinking.

Premium Members now get access to additional loadouts that disappear if they drop their membership. I wasn’t quite sure what to think of it, I was rather hoping we would all see a few additional slots without having to pay for them.

I decided that yes, I do want some additional free slots. But I think it is okay for SoE to charge for a quality of life upgrade like extra loadouts as it has little bearing on the gameplay itself.

What really caught my attention though is that the extra loadouts go away if you drop your premium membership. Of course, this is simply an incentive for players to get Premium Membership in a way that isn’t P2W.

Though the resource boost is causing a stir right now, I think with a new resource system it might go away again. The current incentives for Premium Membership are sparse at best and I really don’t see, once the resource bonus goes away (assuming it won’t be a problem in the future), how it will retain players without them withholding more quality of life features.

Then it struck me.

Give them the following and only the following:

Give Premium Members all of the cosmetics. Give them extra loadout slots, extra character slots, XP boost, queue priority, extra passive certs, and lastly customer service priority.

Here’s the catch.

It’s all rental. As soon as you stop being a premium member, you lose access to all cosmetics and all of the other perks (except character slots).
However, if you buy a cosmetic directly, it’s yours. Keep going with the Premium exclusive deals so Premium Members can purchase things if at some point they think they will stop paying for Premium Membership.

Alternatively: Premium Early Access store items may not be available for all premium members at first but for a small fee can be bought early (thus unlocking them permanently) so you can be the first one to wear the new badass Higby Hair Helmet.

Eventually the item would be unlocked and all Premium Members can wear it and all F2P players are free to buy it.

You could also install an “officer’s club” in the warpgate that is accessible to Premium Members. It just looks snazzy and has its own warp and loadout terminals. If you’re feeling crazy I don’t think it would be too much to link those terminals to their own vehicle queue and launch pads within the warpgate.

Lastly, you could make “Premium” cosmetic versions of certain weapons. For example: Only Premium Members may purchase the gold version of the NS commissioner.

The Free To Player Bill of Rights

Premium Members should NEVER:

Have early access to new weapons

Receive extra resources or have their resource pool expanded

Restrict access to cosmetics based on membership level.

Have access to cosmetics the normal player does not (the only exception being the special cosmetic weapons). I put this in because I hope to avoid jealousy that Premium Players get all the good stuff. Just saves a headache and why not let people buy almost everything? Only Premium Members might be willing to dish out for the super cosmetic guns anyway so I think that’s safe.

Be given access to a quality of life upgrade that cannot be purchased directly via SC by F2Players. As a matter of fact, it’s best to avoid these situations for the most part. Someone wants 20 loadouts? Charge ‘em. But give the rest of us plenty.

Hell if someone wants to buy access to the aforementioned officer’s club but doesn’t want the full premium, sell it to them.

Any other thoughts or suggestions? Like/dislike what I've said?

I think SoE marketing might have a heart attack at first but isn't the holy grail of MMO making an army of people pay $15 a month? This is the best way I can think of to tempt people into doing it.