sokhota said:

"You have to pay $50 plus to move characters already. This is "free" with the new service."

Yeah, but it costs you 29 bucks more than your normal subscription the next month. If you don't like it, it cost you 29 bucks more just to get moved from your server and back again (I don't think either way its going to be instant either..)


"How much would you pay to have all your hard work in game recognized by the whole EQ community on your server...and make your character a virtual celebrity?"

.00000001 cents. No one really cares what another player is doing. I don't even know who won the various test of tactics on my server. I was aware of it briefly when they announced it but I don't care. It make no difference in my play experience.


"How much would you pay for someone to run your character's and your guilds website?"

0. People run it for free now. My character doesn't need a website nor do I have a desire to show off what it has. No one cares about what you have either and they are not going to go look at a site of some 8,000 characters.


"VI is now doing what many successful buisness models have already done...create a preimium service. You could fly coach or first class; you can buy Old Navy or GAP; you can purchase your Ford f-150 or you can buy the f-150 Harley Davidson. The list goes on and on."

Yeah, but the difference is that first class on a plane is NOT coach but with Bilbo the happy airline flunky representive of American Airlines taking the time to talk with you and recognize your existance and put you on a web site (if it was very few people would pay the extra money for it.) First class is a nicer seat, which is the majority of what your time is spent doing on the plane (sitting)

I'd see your point if the server was REALLY different in a way, but its not. Its like every other server but gms schedule little events, which is something players have been able to do themselves for 2 years (and some do, on sites with calendars)

The only valid comparison I see between this and "first class" on a plane would be that the people paying $29.95 more for this server will know that part of that cost is to keep out the rabble who can only afford coach.


"This is just VI diversifying their services. No one is forcing you to buy it. Yet, I will admit it would be nice if these services would be the stanard on all servers, and I am pretty sure VI thought about that."

They did, but its too expensive. A verant rep once said "have you ever had an hour of CS in one month? One hour total even if its not all at the same time? Well, there went your $9.89 charge right there. After that we are losing money on you."


"But there are people who get paid alot of money to figure out those cost structures and scenarios...I am not even going to try and break it down."

Yep.


"Many EQers are professionals like myself and have the discrectionairy income to spend on this, and 40 is not alot of money to some people"

Yeah, but a professional has even less time. What happens when as a professional you work until say 7 pm eastern most of the time and of course everyone being paid to do the GM events is on pacific time and has already gone home for the day? Then you are paying $39.95 to see your character on a web page and being able to go and look at the zones he went through that day and where he is bound, if you are lucky I guess you can do that from work!

Its not affording the amount of money itself but rather what you get for paying more. Its like I said above, if you are still in an area JUST LIKE COACH on the plane but now you have more customer service and they play charades or other games with you is it worth paying the price of first class? No, its not. I'd just not see the value unless I was actually getting more on the server like some new zones which were only there, lower xp loss on death, faster medding or hp regen or heck even all your 8 characters getting the 2nd horse or something. For a premium cost I need more premium, not more babysitting or notoriety. Those have no value to me.