Is It Time to Rethink the EJ Banking System?

Oreogl

keven2002 said:

EJs don't even need to pay their subs to access their banks - it's a one time fee of like 300 (maybe 500?) sovereigns from the UO store (anyone can do this - EJ or Paid) to get 30 days of bank access. So basically for the cost of a large soda from the convenience store ($3) you get access to your entire bank box for 30 days (the soda might last an hour if you drink slow). 

I think the notion of giving EJ accounts more (for free) while the paying customer base doesn't really get anything additional (ie new content for paid subs only) is ironic.. it doesn't really seem like a successful business model lol. 

If you aren't willing to pay $3 to access your bank account then I doubt you are willing to spend $10-13 on a monthly subscription and isn't that kind of what the argument is here (well if I can't access my bank as a vet I don't know if I want to subscribe)?

The EJ in the scenario mentioned before isn’t gaining anything they didn’t already have.  There’s no irony there. The new accounts don’t gain anything more.

It seems to make sense to want to attract returning players through the EJ trial version.  Making them immediately pay cash for something they’re not sure about isn’t going to help.  But that’s just my opinion.

Riner

Oreogl said:

keven2002 said:

EJs don't even need to pay their subs to access their banks - it's a one time fee of like 300 (maybe 500?) sovereigns from the UO store (anyone can do this - EJ or Paid) to get 30 days of bank access. So basically for the cost of a large soda from the convenience store ($3) you get access to your entire bank box for 30 days (the soda might last an hour if you drink slow). 

I think the notion of giving EJ accounts more (for free) while the paying customer base doesn't really get anything additional (ie new content for paid subs only) is ironic.. it doesn't really seem like a successful business model lol. 

If you aren't willing to pay $3 to access your bank account then I doubt you are willing to spend $10-13 on a monthly subscription and isn't that kind of what the argument is here (well if I can't access my bank as a vet I don't know if I want to subscribe)?

The EJ in the scenario mentioned before isn’t gaining anything they didn’t already have.  There’s no irony there. The new accounts don’t gain anything more.

It seems to make sense to want to attract returning players through the EJ trial version.  Making them immediately pay cash for something they’re not sure about isn’t going to help.  But that’s just my opinion.

I can understand the thought that allowing people to sample something might persuade them into taking the next step to become a subscriber, but the sampling does not have to include all aspects of game play.Many games have been very successful with limited or even no free trail. For years the only option to finding out if you enjoyed a game was to either try it on a friends account or buy the game and pay a subscription fee. People still flocked to many games.

The downside of allowing so much freedom and benefits to EJ accounts is that it discourages people from subscribing. Most of us have heard the term why buy the cow if the milk is free,and an EJ account is another example of this. .

As for the determent to EJ accounts having the ability to script and take part in game world events. First, each free account uses just as much bandwidth in the game as a paid account. So if I put 10 free accounts in the area I am using as many real resources as 10 paid accounts would. This also applies to npcs. If things are being killed by EJ accounts they are not available for paying subscribers. Both of these things cause frustration in people paying for access to the game without providing any resources to support them. The bank lock is another way of attempting to encourage people not to stay on the sidelines but to contribute to the welfare of the game. If the banking lock frustrates people so much then spending a small amount to access it seems reasonable.Besides the most likely reason a returning player would need the ability to remove items from their bank is to liquidate them without paying for additional time.It's considerably more important to work to support paying customers and one function of this is curtailing free access.

Lord_Nythrax

I got my brother and my best friend to both log back in for the first time in years since it was free to at least look around. Both were annoyed that they couldn't take stuff out of their overloaded bank. Both ended up subscribing, lol

Oreogl

Riner said:

Oreogl said:

keven2002 said:

EJs don't even need to pay their subs to access their banks - it's a one time fee of like 300 (maybe 500?) sovereigns from the UO store (anyone can do this - EJ or Paid) to get 30 days of bank access. So basically for the cost of a large soda from the convenience store ($3) you get access to your entire bank box for 30 days (the soda might last an hour if you drink slow). 

I think the notion of giving EJ accounts more (for free) while the paying customer base doesn't really get anything additional (ie new content for paid subs only) is ironic.. it doesn't really seem like a successful business model lol. 

If you aren't willing to pay $3 to access your bank account then I doubt you are willing to spend $10-13 on a monthly subscription and isn't that kind of what the argument is here (well if I can't access my bank as a vet I don't know if I want to subscribe)?

The EJ in the scenario mentioned before isn’t gaining anything they didn’t already have.  There’s no irony there. The new accounts don’t gain anything more.

It seems to make sense to want to attract returning players through the EJ trial version.  Making them immediately pay cash for something they’re not sure about isn’t going to help.  But that’s just my opinion.

I can understand the thought that allowing people to sample something might persuade them into taking the next step to become a subscriber, but the sampling does not have to include all aspects of game play.Many games have been very successful with limited or even no free trail. For years the only option to finding out if you enjoyed a game was to either try it on a friends account or buy the game and pay a subscription fee. People still flocked to many games.

The downside of allowing so much freedom and benefits to EJ accounts is that it discourages people from subscribing. Most of us have heard the term why buy the cow if the milk is free,and an EJ account is another example of this. .

As for the determent to EJ accounts having the ability to script and take part in game world events. First, each free account uses just as much bandwidth in the game as a paid account. So if I put 10 free accounts in the area I am using as many real resources as 10 paid accounts would. This also applies to npcs. If things are being killed by EJ accounts they are not available for paying subscribers. Both of these things cause frustration in people paying for access to the game without providing any resources to support them. The bank lock is another way of attempting to encourage people not to stay on the sidelines but to contribute to the welfare of the game. If the banking lock frustrates people so much then spending a small amount to access it seems reasonable.Besides the most likely reason a returning player would need the ability to remove items from their bank is to liquidate them without paying for additional time.It's considerably more important to work to support paying customers and one function of this is curtailing free access.

The prior proposal doesn’t do either of these.
It simply allows returning vets access to their items.