how to get funcom to read something

[Kurt2013]

Well if your f2p don't expect all that much. You can't enjoy the best aspects of the game, nor are you contributing much because you can't access the forum conversations that matter and provide forward movement to game development.

Sadly this is a popular misconception. Actually to keep the game alive, it is engame, midgame and early game that counts. So f2p is involved in at least in half of "what counts". What funcom (or many remaining players) consider the best in game, might not be objectively be so and other aspects now neglected might have been things adressing a far wider player crowd than what is left of subscribers. For example, there are many reasons people are attracted to an mmo or play it. If you look at aocs reviews and why players say the play it, it comes commonly to atmosphere, combat and player customization. This not necessarily means the classic "get powerful, dominate or progress along set tiers" approach. A lot of players are content with doing a lot less in a game (and might even be willing to pay for it, if the experience and price fits).

If i look at TL forum conversations, they differ not much from what you see on the official forum, they are just very specialized (with pros and cons) and more moderated.
To be successfull, dev(s) should just not listen to a small circle of people, but have to see the opinions and suggestions from people they somehow managed to interest in the game, but on the other hand have not convinced enough to pay (yet). This is a major problem of marketing: if you only focus on your specific target group, you miss out the big picture and money you could get. And if you keep asking only the remaining people in your target group, it is bound to shrink and shrink. When it comes to player made suggestions, these can even be very easy changes or implementations with a huge yield.

Also of lot of f2p players are veterans, with a good knowledge of the game and real life skills they could add to the community.
I have seen more or at least the same amount of trolls, goldsellers, hackers and abusive people among the premium crowd as in the f2p crowd, so i rule out the "official" argument of such f2p limitations.
It depends on how you see people. It should matter more, if the suggestion is good or not and brought up civilized, than if it comes from someone paying or playing a lot. Even a new players opinion on gameplay changes from f2p to premium (or the content that matters) should be very valid to hear.

Move these free contributions to a seperate ghetto forum (you do not even see unless logged in) and mute them on TL and ingame, and you are leaving out a large part of your player base at your own risk. You also leave out a large part of the bad parts (as mentioned above), but this is similar in percentage to the bad part in premium users.
If a f2p player has suggestions or critics from where you can deduce what stopped him or her from subbing (or getting to the "best" parts of the game), why not use that info??? It is really hard to understand why companies pay a lot of money for marketing studies and use almost criminal means to get player data and profiles, when they could get it for free with a fraction of work and money invested (someone has to filter and look at the suggestions in any case).

It is like a player tells the company "i will buy your product, if you do this or that" and the company says "no, you won't, because our paid for study says otherwise". Sounds weird to me...unless i think all my playerbase is a lying and cheating miserable and easy manipulated bunch. Which would be disrespectful in the least. Or i would want my playerbase to consist only of a special type of player, which would be again, voluntarily loosing (actually not earning) money. Makes sense for certain products, but imo not really for an mmo.

[Spreadicus]

Sadly this is a popular misconception. Actually to keep the game alive, it is engame, midgame and early game that counts. So f2p is involved in at least in half of "what counts". What funcom (or many remaining players) consider the best in game, might not be objectively be so and other aspects now neglected might have been things adressing a far wider player crowd than what is left of subscribers. For example, there are many reasons people are attracted to an mmo or play it. If you look at aocs reviews and why players say the play it, it comes commonly to atmosphere, combat and player customization. This not necessarily means the classic "get powerful, dominate or progress along set tiers" approach. A lot of players are content with doing a lot less in a game (and might even be willing to pay for it, if the experience and price fits).

If i look at TL forum conversations, they differ not much from what you see on the official forum, they are just very specialized (with pros and cons) and more moderated.
To be successfull, dev(s) should just not listen to a small circle of people, but have to see the opinions and suggestions from people they somehow managed to interest in the game, but on the other hand have not convinced enough to pay (yet). This is a major problem of marketing: if you only focus on your specific target group, you miss out the big picture and money you could get. And if you keep asking only the remaining people in your target group, it is bound to shrink and shrink. When it comes to player made suggestions, these can even be very easy changes or implementations with a huge yield.

Also of lot of f2p players are veterans, with a good knowledge of the game and real life skills they could add to the community.
I have seen more or at least the same amount of trolls, goldsellers, hackers and abusive people among the premium crowd as in the f2p crowd, so i rule out the "official" argument of such f2p limitations.
It depends on how you see people. It should matter more, if the suggestion is good or not and brought up civilized, than if it comes from someone paying or playing a lot. Even a new players opinion on gameplay changes from f2p to premium (or the content that matters) should be very valid to hear.

Move these free contributions to a seperate ghetto forum (you do not even see unless logged in) and mute them on TL and ingame, and you are leaving out a large part of your player base at your own risk. You also leave out a large part of the bad parts (as mentioned above), but this is similar in percentage to the bad part in premium users.
If a f2p player has suggestions or critics from where you can deduce what stopped him or her from subbing (or getting to the "best" parts of the game), why not use that info??? It is really hard to understand why companies pay a lot of money for marketing studies and use almost criminal means to get player data and profiles, when they could get it for free with a fraction of work and money invested (someone has to filter and look at the suggestions in any case).

It is like a player tells the company "i will buy your product, if you do this or that" and the company says "no, you won't, because our paid for study says otherwise". Sounds weird to me...unless i think all my playerbase is a lying and cheating miserable and easy manipulated bunch. Which would be disrespectful in the least. Or i would want my playerbase to consist only of a special type of player, which would be again, voluntarily loosing (actually not earning) money. Makes sense for certain products, but imo not really for an mmo.

I just want to point out the age old argument from players who view pve as the overall better aspect of age of conan. With all the attention given to pve and lack of attention given to pvp. Why is the game dying? If pve was truly the greatest aspect it should be thriving, no?

[slackjoint]

Kurt , meaning no offense but you simply write too much. Every post of you is a wall of text and I assume I am not the only who doesn't want to read through all that ^^

[Kurt2013]

Kurt , meaning no offense but you simply write too much. Every post of you is a wall of text and I assume I am not the only who doesn't want to read through all that ^^

Too much, depends on how used you are to reading.

Also it is not true for all posts, but you are right, when it is necessary to make a point in a discussion, i tend to write too much (also a few repetitions). If you have a better way to try to convince people, counter polemics or back up theories and arguments on a written message board, please tell me.

[Suctum]

Fact: one cannot post on test live or access it without a sub.

So bottom line: if you want things changed in aoc test live is the best medium. Your opinions of small groups, what's being said, whatever doesn't matter. It's a fact developers read the posts there and respond to ideas there, even if it's only once a year, if that. It still happens.

As of now you need a sub to access that vehicle, so writing essays on why you think the opposite doesn't change what the facts are at all.

Don't believe test live forums work? Look at the soldier changes in past years. Look at the pvp armor changes. It works when players actually participate instead of trolling like the fellow in this thread.

[slackjoint]

Too much, depends on how used you are to reading.

Also it is not true for all posts, but you are right, when it is necessary to make a point in a discussion, i tend to write too much (also a few repetitions). If you have a better way to try to convince people, counter polemics or back up theories and arguments on a written message board, please tell me.

Go on as you like , was just saying , but I wont read such walls of text anyway , nothing said on forums would either change something nor is it really important for me ^^

[Mustaine]

Too much, depends on how used you are to reading.

Also it is not true for all posts, but you are right, when it is necessary to make a point in a discussion, i tend to write too much (also a few repetitions). If you have a better way to try to convince people, counter polemics or back up theories and arguments on a written message board, please tell me.

You're making an assumption of the community here; and if you've been here a while ~ you know this ISNT the place to make those sorts of posts. If you want to make arguments, back up theories, etc ... then its best done in the Test Live forums.

I can count on one-hand how many folks are on these forums who post in the manner that you did. And even less that would read it. Please take that as constructive criticism and not offensive. And to ask folks to tell you how to post is a mistake. Post how you like; just be aware that your long winded walls of text will go unread. You're obviously a smart person. Have someone proof read your post before sending and edit. I'm quite certain it could be revised.

[Kurt2013]

Fact: one cannot post on test live or access it without a sub.

So bottom line: if you want things changed in aoc test live is the best medium. Your opinions of small groups, what's being said, whatever doesn't matter. It's a fact developers read the posts there and respond to ideas there, even if it's only once a year, if that. It still happens.

As of now you need a sub to access that vehicle, so writing essays on why you think the opposite doesn't change what the facts are at all.

Don't believe test live forums work? Look at the soldier changes in past years. Look at the pvp armor changes. It works when players actually participate instead of trolling like the fellow in this thread.

You are right <bout the state NOW, but it was not always so and it might have been even not so before the soldier changes (the TL f2p nerf came in mid 2014 i think). It was definitely not so before other good and welcome changes. It is also a fact, that they can change it and be more open for input in a sec, if they wanted...so an essay about this "fact" not being set in stone is important, imo.
Also i mentioned that you can still post in private suggestions, which actually are read. I posted suggestions as f2p there that got responded and implemented while there was still a hige discussion ongoing. So another fact is, that you do NOT know, what devs do not read unless you are one. You also do not know the real reasons why they do changes, unless you are one.

@OP: What you can be sure for a fact is, that it is most likely to get read (wherever you post), if you write in a respectful and constructive matter. Again, i believe it hard to be "constructive" with a few sentences only, but the more you write, the higher the risk to get read completely obviously.
Subjectively i found the most interesting posts when it comes to suggestions always the longer ones, here and on TL. The short versions of the suggestion thread here is good only for getting ideas and hints, but not really for actual thought through suggestions.

@Mustaine: i can not post on TL forums, no matter how much i pay or have paid, unless i sub. The feedback there in private suggestions for walls of text was positive though. Personally i have no aversion against text or reading, so i might have a hard time to understand this argument. If i open a text forum, i expect to read stuff. I am not convinced this is not the place. TL was always a private place and imo it should not be that way.

@Slackjoint: Sure, that is your right If you are a player or just a forum reader, of course you can filter or read only the parts that you like or ignore a wall of text first and read it later at your own leisure (or never). This is the nice thing about text, it is an offer, no one is forcing you to read. But imo for devs or people who actually do this as a job, it is a lot different. They are not making their job easier, if they do not inform themselves via as many channels as possible.



Botton lines (if you do not want to read the whole text):
- f2p can not post on TL except in private suggestions. This means no discussion for them and very filtered input for the devs -> bad. This could and should be changed.
- personally, i will try to write less long, but can not promise that it will work

[Bukkithedd]

wtb [Sense of Humor]

That item is an ultra-rare BOP. No can do, boss.

[Suctum]

When a developer posts on a thread I started and a month later I see 75% of the proposed changes being sent out on test live I know exactly if a developer read the thread or not. That's why it's so important to lobby on test live with other strong members of the community because most if us want positive changes that benefit the community. It was only through hundreds of civil, informed posts that enough stir was created for soldier balancing, the system works if you work with it and it's a topic that concerns the entire community.

Your opinion of what privileges a f2p player has doesn't change that you can't access test live in its fullest. The suggestion thrread doe not benefit from the community supporting it openly, and is a very poor way to get people excited because only funccom will ever see it.