Dear BioWare,
I’m offended.
You have defined your ‘most valued players’ as those who have a Level 50 character. I puzzled over this, as I am one of the many who do not have a level 50 character, but would have defined myself as a loyal player (read: customer).
Perhaps I don’t understand ‘valuable’? I pondered over that definition awhile, and came up with several possibilities of what a valuable customer – all without a level 50 character –would be, in my opinion:
• The player who is going to school full time, working full time and still makes time to play a couple times a week.
• The player who could play more, but wants to level their character with a friend who is living in another time zone, in another country, so throttles their time until their schedules coincide.
• The player who juggles a full-time job, a spouse, and active teenager and still makes time to play several times a week.
• The player who plays primarily for social reasons, and isn’t interested in leveling as much as hanging out with friends.
Each of these is a real situation of which I’m personally aware, all are “Founders” and yes, one of them is me. Objectively, there are more reasonable ways to define a ‘most valued player’. Your definition doesn’t make sense, so why alienate so many people with difference playing styles and life situations who are valuable customers?
All I could come up with is that someone in the customer statistics department was concerned that there was a risk of losing a class of player that was characterized by having a level 50 character this early in the life of the game. Something had to be done to incentivize them to stick with the game another month so other incentives could be put into place.
True? Dunno.
It appears to me the problem being fixed was not one of rewarding ‘valuable players’, but of solving a marketing issue. Did no one think about how this would come across to the player base at large? Those people who have put thousands of hours into the game, urged new players to the game, have a playing style or have a real life situations that precludes reaching level 50 by a time/date seemingly pulled from thin air?
So now I’m offended AND distrustful.
I’m assuming you have fan representative on your Board of Decision-makers, if nothing else, in the form of this forum. As a Board member, I’m pushing back my naugahyde chair, shaking my head sadly and voting that you readdress your definition of ‘valuable player’. Because, in the end, it isn’t the ‘one free month’ that will offend us, but being told that because our life situation or playing style doesn’t suit the bean counters, we aren’t as valuable.
For the record, this will not keep me from playing. Far from it: I’ve found TOR to be a high quality product, with nuances in design that still amaze me. I’ve been in the gaming world for decades, from table top gaming, to live action to video games, to designing games professionally. And there is little about TOR about which I would complain.
This is why I’ve encouraged friends to join up to Save the Galaxy with me. And will continue to do so without reservation, because You Done Well.
Please know that I consider my time extremely valuable. Instead of playing your (really great) game, I wanted to take the time to provide this feedback because you’ve shown that you are interested in your customer's opinion. And thank you for that.
