Now, this really is an awesome game, but the fact is that I can't play it a lot. I can snatch a round from time to time. Therefore, I do play just a few hours a month. Given the rate, monthly subscription is just too expensive. What I would like to see is some sort of pre-paid subscription, like I could buy, say, 24 hours of gameplay, and play it when I get time for fun.

I think monthly subscription is Ok for passionate gamers, and I would love to be one of them, but I just don't have the time. Being able to buy hours of play instead of monthly subscription would be great. I understand that this makes more trouble for receiving side of my money flow, but look at me - barely played more than two hours in a month! I'm an old fan of Elite (ZX Spectrum, anyone?) and I do really like this game. It's just too expensive for a gamer of my profile. :-((

I agree, I would love to have a pre-paid subscription also.

At this point I can only fit in about 8-9 hours a month, and being that i will be getting married this april, the wife will probably want "some kind of actual comittment" to her. sheesh!

This should drop my actual play time down to 7.75-8.75 hours a month,

So I guess I am in the midst of continplating canceling my membership.

"yes dear, I'll be right there"

My goodness, mine is still just a girlfriend, but when she's at my premises I can barely touch the computer...

Now, women do not understand the space exploration drive some of us have. :)

How hard should we press these fine guys that made this nice game, to make them change their mind? Should we all switch to Vega Strike? ;))

YOU can switch to Vega Strike if you like, but I'm staying right here. While I understand where you are coming from, you should probably understand that the only reason that Guild charges at all is so that they can continue developing the game. It's as cheap as it is because the game isn't finished. We're paying for the basic expense of keeping the server on line, but also for their time to be able to work on Vendetta instead of pursuing a more lucrative job elsewhere. I see the small monthly fee as an investment in my future entertainment.

Vega Strike isn't an MMO. ;-)

Also, is 10 bucks a month (or less) really all that much? I'm a student, and I can afford it!

Hmmm.. I know this girl who asked me to play so she could watch me blow stuff up... She was giggling quite happily during a CtC raid where a -lot- of stuff got blown up. (and enough hot words and insults flew in chan 100 )

I have fun spending time like that, even though my battle performance is.. low.

Hmmm. I think my husband spends 60-70hrs a week on VO.

geez. sarahanne, you should seriously tell your husband to get a life.

:P

Yeah, really. He's acting like it's his *job* or something. :P

really sarahanne, that cant be good for him. :)

(tho we appreciate it a lot)

Oh, it is understandable that the monthly fee goes for keeping developers develop the game. There's nothing wrong with that.

But, developers might try to do some maths on how much more they would get if they offer time-based subsription. Today it is just me, but tomorrow it might be hunderds of other people, and while the income per capita might be low, lots of subscribers might do a miracle for the cash flow.

I'd pay 10$ for,say, 50 hours of gaming, it's no problem, but if I pay 10$ to play 2 hours, then yes, the game IS expensive. I might stretch that fifty hours to half a year of gaming, but this would still be almost 2$ per month from my account or even more if I'm on vacation. Take just four more people like me, and we count as one regular subscriber. We will still play for .2$ per hour, that's cheap enough. Sarahanne's husbandt will continue to play for .16$ per hour or less. (Sarahanne, seriously, you should talk to him)

Some people might even play for less price/hour rate, and then it comes down to calculating costs of running server - since there's a hardware that can be broken, electricity and ISP bill, etc, there'a a share of that cost per each player. At some point it might become bigger than the subscription is worth.

Theoretically speaking, some insane teenager might spend up to 18 hours per day playing the game, while keeping his body fed and rest barely enough not to faint in front of the monitor - that's up to 540 hours of play in single month(but I doubt anyone could play at such intensivity for more than, say, ten days, before falling into coma :) - your 10$ per month is then worth 0.018$ per hour.

Tha's strong consideration point for pre-paid service, where you can calculate costs per player and incorporate it in a hourly fee, so you know exactly how much you earn per player per hour.

My question to you then is how much do you want you pay an hour for entertainment. And how much do you pay for a video rental? movie? a book? magazine? cell phone? cable tv?

Using your arguement I should demand a lower price for books becuase I read at a faster pace than others and I devour books in 1/2 the time of most people. Since I don't use the book as long as other people I shouldn't have to pay as much as them.

Hmmm maybe I should go to Barnes and Noble and try it out.

Well, I would be happy to have something like your book example. When I buy book, I can read it at my pace. It would be great if I could do that with this game. ;)

Pitty you cannot, I do feel for you, but, hell, this game isnt your usual *Doom clone* / *Insert your fav old RPG game here with 3d graphics, online, but still the if you aint rolling the right dice game, no matter the scenario*

As for the dev team, well, they are human (I did get to realise this after my initial outburst way back when, sorry =p) prone to make mistakes ect, ect..... the billing scheme isnt one of them, wanna discount? buy a big chunk, its even cheaper that way..

Enough said i hope...

its funny cause rado.hr has no idea who sarahanne's husband is

Hm? George W. Bush? :)
Or some of the developers (as hinted in her post earlier on)? :)

Money really is not a problem. This pre-paid is just my suggestion, aren't we supposed to make suggestions in this forum? :) I still think that would be great for lot of people like me, but it doesn't mean they must accept that suggestion.
It would be good if they at least consider that possibility.

We're in Wisconsin not Utah.

The devs have indeed considered the possibility and have discussed it among themselves back when the game went pay-to-play. They will likely revisit the idea at a later date, but probably not real soon.

Oh, ok. I'll just go and sit over there on that chair in the corner and wait... =)

P.S. I hope you won't mind if I stare at you with big, wet eyes... :)

To put my money where my mouth is, I've just subscribed for one year of playing. Having done that, I still belive you guys could profit from charging for time. See you in Space (from time to time)... maybe now I have a reason to try find some more time to play the game, say five to six hours a month! :))
But first I have to see this annoying SuSE/AMD64 cripple fixed... :)