Season pass idea: Refundable crowns.

ImmortalCX · March 18

Another game I play has a monthly battle pass. You have to pay to start it each month with in-game currency (something like crowns). But if you play enough, you reach the highest tier and you get all your crowns back, enough to purchase the battle pass for the next month.

So you only need to buy it once and invest some time. You can play indefinitely as long as you do enough in-game activities and don't get tempted to spend the currency on something else.

I think its a smart idea because it incentivizes people to play. And engagement is what an MMO needs the most.

I hope they do something like this with the upcoming season pass. They could make the theme of the pass be a certain set of dungeons, with special event drops added. Along with other things. This would serve to give players goals, and it would group them together in certain kinds of content.

For instance, the Harrowstorms in Skyrim were pretty great when there were enough people to do them. What if there is a season pass with a requirement to run Harrowstorms? That would ensure there are people there playing them. And if it was tied to a season pass that refunds crowns for reaching the highest tier, that would ensure people are doing them.

ESO has alot of great content locked behind lack of participation.

tomofhyrule · March 18

We don't have any information about the new monetization scheme yet, but "earn subscription time in game" is always a common suggestion. Sure, it does sound great because that means I wouldn't have to pay with my own money (this economy, amirite?), but all of these "alternative" monetization schemes always conveniently ignore the elephant in the room.

So... who's paying to keep the servers active? Who's paying the developers' salaries? Who's paying to make it clear to the stockholders that this game is worth investing in and not something that the suits should just close down as a waste of resources?

Unfortunately for us, I don't think that the corner office executives are going to care how many people are playing if the profits are going in the opposite direction. Studios have closed games down for less.

As to the "we need to entice people to do Harrowstorms," ESO already does that with Endeavors and Golden Pursuits. We definitely see that certain days where Endeavors ask people to do something out-of-the-way that it will be super popular on those days - see how many people are running around in Arkthzand whenever there's a "kill 5 void creatures" Endeavor.

ImmortalCX · March 19

tomofhyrule wrote: »

So... who's paying to keep the servers active? Who's paying the developers' salaries? Who's paying to make it clear to the stockholders that this game is worth investing in and not something that the suits should just close down as a waste of resources?

The other game does it successfully, the purpose is to increase engagement. More players, means a happier player base, means people more likely to buy other items in the shop.

I was suggesting a parallel system to ESO+. You pay once and if you continue participating, you get enough currency back to buy it again the next month.

This would keep player numbers up, and people would have more incentive to buy things in an active and thriving game. Also, players would sometimes lapse and not meet their targets, so they have to buy in again.

ZOS_GregoryV · March 19

Greetings,

Upon review, we have decided to close this thread as it seems to be related to another thread found here.

Regards,
-Greg-