I'd like to have a safe and secure way of gifting subscription time to other players.

 

Currently the only way of doing that would be to either buy a subscription card (only 60 days available) and sending it over via an unsecure channel (where the recipient could then sell it to someone else) or send them some money so they can buy the subscription time (but then, they could also not do anything and simply keep the money)

 

So my requirements would be:

1. I need to be sure that the recipient is the actual player I want to gift it to: this is in order to avoid cases where the player might tell me an account name which is not his (for example trying to trick me into gifting game time to someone else, and that someone else is giving him the money back). In-game would be best but if you have a way of doing this from the website, I'm all for it too.
   
2. 30 days subscription time
   
3. cost would ideally remain the same at 15 dollars but I understand that the business model might not be the best for you so you could make it slightly more expensive (but definitely not more than 20)
   
4. As an example: it could be an item that I can buy from the website and redeem in game (on one of my characters) and that could then only be traded ONCE: I can send it to the recipient via in-game email (which would then become bind on pickup) or trade it personally. The recipient will then have to use it to grant an additional 30 days time to his account. However if the recipient refuses the item, it would revert back to the initial buyer (me in this case) and the trade count would not be decreased (so I can gift it to someone else).
   

 

If you have any questions about corner cases I haven't mentioned, feel free to ask/discuss.

Edited July 9, 2018 by Gauvi

Question here is why do you wanna gift sub time so much?

Is that a weird thing to want to do ?

There are several examples.

 

Let's say I have a dedicated guildie who plays quite a lot but he cannot afford a subscription. I want to buy him a subscription so he can keep playing and be active in the guild. I don't know him well enough (never met in real life, he lives in another part of the world) to trust him with some money. Gifting a subscription would be really appropriate here.

 

Another quick example: I want to motivate some of my guildies to take an active part in the life of the guild. I want them to help new players, run ops/wz, do conquest objectives etc. Every month I take note of the most dedicated players and gift them stuff. It could be some CC, items or a month of subscription.

That is very nice of you, but I still don't see a way he could miss use the 60 day card. I mean, when I did this I always asked them to check the code if it works, they use it right away so that way I know they used it. It's just like 19 euro anyway, that wouldn't save anyone from poorness...

 

I have gifted mostly 2400 cc codes and those are even cheaper, so there really is no reason to thing that some on the recipients actually sold then further on!

That's just me being paranoid

The recipient could always simply forward any directions to someone else in real time. In some parts of the world, 20 euros is quite a lot of money.

 

Also, I feel like gifting 60 days worth of sub is too much.

I want this kind of reward to be partly seen as an incentive (but shouldn't be the end goal in itself). Gifting too much at one time, the recipient might feel less motivated afterwards because they would have 60 days to slack off.

It could be that game cards aren't readily available in your area as well. I can't remember the last time I saw one in a shop near me.

 

I can't imagine it would hard to do. Steam does gifts why can't SWTOR?

It's something I've also wanted to do, but the people I've wanted to give subscription gifts to don't live in the same country as me. Cards tend to be country (or at least region)-specific. Being able to buy game time for someone through Bioware would be so much easier.

And you can do it in Everquest II with Chrono tokens.