Some very good ideas in this thread. A general meta-model (compatible with many of these ideas) that has worked well in other settings is to treat subscription status as a sort of "VIP" deal, where you get fun extras (plus whatever status you want to ascribe to being a subscriber) that are not critical functionality but that provide a reward for being a supporter. More/better cosmetics and integration with whatever social media platforms Ninatic is continuing to develop is a no-brainer. While some folks have objected to the "supporter" medal, I don't see anything wrong with it: Ingress has had medals for people who used specific phones (Eve), who authenticated their accounts when that was a thing, who played during specific years, who went to specific places at specific times, etc., etc. It is physically impossible for new players to get most of the medals that have been offered, so I can't see how a reasonable person who is unwilling or unable to subscribe can be terribly put out about not getting yet another one. Some people will be upset about anything, but I doubt it would be a big deal in practice.
Part of the "VIP" model in some settings is more access, "behind the scenes" info, and so forth. Niantic is getting increasingly good about being open on Ingress (which is a good thing), but there might be some contexts where giving extra info to supporters would make sense. This can be a win-win, because one thing that can be done with those info dumps is to give the supporters more insights into all of the work that goes into making Ingress a reality - and that helps folks understand where their money is going. In my experience, folks tend to underestimate how hard it is to do pretty much anything in the real world...the more they learn about what's involved, the more sympathetic they get (usually) to the idea that it costs something. Supporters are likely to be pretty educable about backstage considerations, and in turn can educate others.
Better analytics is another good suggestion, I think. Even the little post-Anomaly email we now get telling us about portal hacks and AP earned is strangely compelling; access to some summaries giving folks more insight into their own play wouldn't be too hard to implement (in the grand scheme of things) and would be a nice perk.
This is not currently practical, but if sandboxing gets implemented, the ability to set up virtual playing fields for Anomaly training or local competitions would be a huge perk. Being able to take even a 100m x 100m area, set up virtual portal conditions, and have a set of players engage with what's in that box within e.g. 15 minutes would fantastic, and certainly worth paying for. (These could be called "temporary anomalous zones," and it would be easy to retcon them into the Lore - Hank used to interact with places like that, and one could introduce new experimental XM techology that allows the scanner to replicate this effect for short periods. Alas, this requires both a scanner upgrade and chaotic XM to to power it. A small price to pay for the struggle over the fate of humanity.) The out-of-game logic here is that you want your supporters to be able to act like local team captains, who can help organize training sessions, events, and so forth. This might reduce the number of support calls you get from these otherwise complex features, because they are presumably being used by more dedicated folks who know something.
One immediate killer app, IMHO, is the ability to store and display souvenir keys. Many of us have a ton, and they are a drain upon our inventory. Keeping and displaying such keys seems to me very much to be in the spirit of Ingress, but right now we don't have a way to do it (and doing so has been a requested feature forever). If part of your subscription package is a display locker - to which any number of keys may be added, but none can be removed - I can see this being a popular perk. Make it possible to let other agents see it, and so much the better. Make it possible to indicate which keys you want to display, to sort them, etc., and it's even better.
Finally, I support the call for automatic payment options. There are obvious business reasons to like that, but from our end it is simply one less thing to forget to take care of. For those who want it, it's a win-win.
No one likes paying for stuff, but I think that most folks are pretty satisfied with it if they think they're getting good value from the deal. And if one knows that the fee is going to support stuff that one thinks is important, one is less likely to mind. I'm optimistic that there's a bundle and a price point that makes Niantic feel good about running the game, and that makes the players feel good about supporting it.
Thinking of Niantic's other games and what I spend money on there I came up with a few ideas.
1 storage.
Probably one of the biggest issues is more storage (how many of us have 5 to 6 key capsules.?) Many agents would pay for more storage. First problem with it would be that it could become "pay to win" if the 2k item cap isn't kept. Balance is in jepordy.
Solution: Storage Locker
Fee based storage limited access. The day to day inventory could be kept at 2k but have a Storage locker thst either is tied to a physical location (this could only be accessed by and seen by the person who owns it) or it is timer based in its access.
I like the idea of being able to have a place where I could put all my non anomoly items so I could go gear up for a big event.
2 ways to access (either or)
1 The locker could be geo locked to a location easily accessed by the player. Again this is something thst can only be seen and accessed by whomever owns it. So item transfers only occur at this location. This could be done by a monthly charge to access maybe $1 per 200 items, with a limit of 1k in storage ($5 a month). If you stop your subscription you loose access.
If you move you can "dig up" and move your locker for a fee as well (maybe limit that number of times you can do that so people don't just pay to have access all the time)
This would keep the 2k item limit somewhat intact as you would have to return home to get more gear.
2 The locker could just be on a timer (and always in inventory) and only gives you access for an hour every 24 hours. Make your decisions and transfer all you want but after you have accessed it for an hour it will lock you out for 23 hours before it let's you back in. Again this could be a subscription fee. Also could have "Emergency access" if a fee is paid if you need to access again within those 24 hours.
Idea 2 "Eggs" duplication capsules
I spend most of my money buying incubators in PoGo and Silver keys in HPWU. We could do something similar in ingress too. Adventure sync needs to come to Prime for this to work.
Assign a walk distance to items...
Bursters and resonators could be 1k
Common shields, hack mods and ultra strikes 2k
Rare items, shields, hack mods, turrets and force / link amps 5k
Purchace a Duplication capsule and place the item you wish to duplicate in it give it a max capacity of 100km before it breaks and a new one would need to be purchased. This means a 1 capsule could produce 100 bursters, or it could also produce 5 Aegis shields after walking 100kms
I know quantum capsules are essentially the same thing but this would be guaranteed reproduction and bring back Extremely rare duplication. And introduce adventure sync
I would like a subscription to support X feature. A lot of what I see talked about centers around gameplay. Cool. But there are others who want to support OPR/Wayfarer, events, Intel, etc. They could have a different reward bundle. For example, I would love to have more personal attention to OPR edits, photos, and reports I make that are troublesome or I just wasn't them to happen faster. Give me 20 Premium Submissions/Edits/Invalid reports? Heck yeah, I'd pay for that every month.
Walking based duplication has been suggested many times and is a great idea. As with the other games, everyone should get one free duplication device that can be used unlimited times. You can also buy and occasionally hack single use devices.
Locked boxes that needs to be walked open. Like the eggs is another option. Alternative let’s users spend XM to accelerate. XM is rare enough.
Let people buy more unlocked for simultaneously walking multiple boxes.
how to make them worthwhile I am not sure. I keep missing ultrastrikes and more rare items. Low level XMP is the worst. Not too much of that.
2x keys to a same color portal say 25-50-100km away would be great. Some would always be blocked. Some would allow you to make large fields without much travel.
maybe a very rare immunity item in the boxes. Allows you to link/field inside enemy field for 60 minutes. Make blockers before taking down the multi layer field.
i am only L9 - 2 days from L10. I like the eggs and incubator idea. If the eggs are worthwhile. I walked 227 km in my 57 days.
But PoGo with adventure sync I have been just around 50km/week.
With adventure sync 10-25-50km boxes would be fine. One box a week of the highest level is great. I often have one day a week where I have more time to destroy and build. Less time the rest of the week.
10k should be at 100.000XM to unlock. Too expensive. But you can unlock it the remaining part by using XM to get access now. If you have the power cubes. Then be ready for a raid.
If there is a badge then please give us the option to refuse it. I only want badges that take effort to get. I would pay to get the shard one removed as I had no involvement in that event.
Personally the thing I'd pay most for would be removing all flashing/pulsing, flaming pictures etc. from the scanner.
The second option is freaking awesome. Improved Intel, low graphics top down version, spot which portals you have never interacted with, see cooldowns...
So much to unpack there so instead I'll just say "Shut up and take my money!"
Paying to have an incremental medal that shows you have paid and how often. I think it's a terrible idea to publicly share who paid (and how long) and who has not.
I once started on a monitizing idea document. Unfortunately due to a lack of time I never finished it. But let's share it now anyways.
Monetize Ingress:
Subscription Fee
There is no doubt that a subscription fee is a stable and predictable source of income. There also has to be an added value to a subscription fee in order for people to consider paying these. One method is simply paying in order to play the game with all full features available to everyone. However, as a pay to play is undesired we have some options below that we believe don’t break the game mechanics yet one or more could offer sufficient value to pay a regular subscription fee for. This would be part of an optional subscription or can be bought per X time.
Additionally, there could be several offerings. Like would be a subscription to advanced stats tracking and another would be for fast tracking
Stats
People paying a subscription fee could receive regular emails with statistics on all stats and AP. Daily / Weekly / Monthly … This should be amazingly easy to implement and offer you insights that are currently only available via non official methods. These make a legit source of statistics and don’t require you to share you stats.
Fast Track …
People who pay a fee to use additional features for Ingress could also receive an amount Mission / Portal reviews in the fast track per payment period. From a Portal Submission Fast track perspective is should be:
Fast Track Obtained from OPR
Fast Track from Subscription fee
Regular submits
At a similar rate new missions submitted should receive a similar thing like fast tracked portal submissions. Here obviously event missions and FS missions should take priority over subscription priorities. It however does not increase the amount you can submit, only the amount that are auto fast tracked.
Added Value
A subscription fee should bring benefits on its own. But ideally it should also bring side benefits.
Here are some examples:
Discount on Event Tickets
Discount on Swagshop
Exclusive Communication channels
Receive emails about events before unsubscribed members
Separate forum section only visible to subscribed members
Something a subscription should not add is priority in support or ticketing system. Support should always be equal to all players.
Custom Stuff
Splitting Profile
This is part of several other suggestions listed below.
Split the profile into separate sections. When enter the profile menu of someone or your own you first see the agent name / official badges and if the stats are not hidden then also the stats.
You can then switch to a view to see the agent’s missions that he/she completed. And potentially other views as well.
Custom Badges
Give at least certain players access to create badges. These would be people like FS POC’s / Anomaly POC’s / Event organizers. For a fee they can create a custom badge that would be visible in a separate section of an agent’s profile. These could be created for various reasons.
“Participated in a boat tour of our city during an anomaly, we created a special boat tour medal for it. “
“Joined us for First Saturday at <City X> .. we have a special badge for you ..”
Biocards Sales
In the past you offered a biocard sales service. Apparently it was not that successful as this service is no longer offered. We believe this service would be very successful if it offered a passcode to redeem a medal of that biocard that would be displayed in a separate area for custom badges.
Custom Beacons
Event organizers would have access to create and buy custom beacons. Event organizers can use these mark portals with custom logos. These could be things like show the anomaly pre-party on Friday before an anomaly or where a boat tour is leaving from or where the Campgrounds are for an event.
Custom Passcodes
Give Event organizers like FS POC’s the ability to buy passcodes that can be used as part of a prize. This could also be Faction news channels who can use them to give away as prizes for quizzes. It is very important that this is limited. An no one should not be able to buy dozens or hundreds of them at a time. The prize should be based on what is added to a passcode and a passcode should not be allowed to exceed a certain value to make sure not to many items go into a single passcode. A passcode could be as simple as containing an event beacon to containing several beacons and a little bit of gear. (VR items should not be possible to add)
Extended range
Have an item that extends the range to say 150% for a fixed duration of time. It could either also extend the range at Wich resonators are deployed or if this is unwanted automatically deploy at max range without standing at max range. The benefit would then just be for picking up items from the ground / hacking portals from slightly further away.
Custom Profile Logo
Give communities a way to create custom profile logos at a fee.
Voice Packs
Sell various voice packs that can be used instead of only having ADA available. Others could include Misty or Hanke.
Client Skins
Have various client skins that can be bought. This would not be something like “have a redacted look and feel”. More along the line of different colour schemes. Neutral Skins, Faction Skins, Space Skins etc. Really adjusted colours for the elements within the regular app. This could also include a skin focused on people that are colour blind although this should ideally be a free skin.
Live Portal Project
Live Portal Project is to our understanding very small and has not been properly beta tested. However, we believe that there is a type of players out there that love to do live portal projects.
Live Portal Project:
“
Create a live link between say a Raspberry Pi or Arduino and Ingress to make an object reflect the actual status its in-game portal at real time in real life.
“
Should a swagshop become available again (run by NIA) then hardware / software to make this happen could also be sellable items as well as ordering configured hardware at additional costs.
It can be used for things like Shard target portals / event portals .. Give the creativity to the players at a cost. This should also increase the awareness of the project as well hopefully create a fan base of people who use it and show it off.
Official Swag shop outside of the USA
There are various logistical companies throughout the world that offer logistical services that can receive goods, store them and send orders as these are placed. Such companies may be able to help offer a global swagshop or multiple swag shops throughout the world.
Memoirs
For a long time players have asked for a space to keep their beloved keys in a place where it can never be lost. We received the key lockers to store keys at no inventory space. Keys of these beloved portals are still going missing.
Memory Capsules
A memory capsule would be something where you can add such keys but can never take out again. It cannot be used to recharge or anything else, only to be viewed. Additionally, media might also be allowed to be placed in it.
Mind Space
The mind space or chamber that is based on remote participation tech is accessible via a separate menu from the profile. You enter is just like you would enter a remote place via a portkeys in Harry Potter or looks like the arena map in Pogo (depending if AR is turned on or not or whatever is best). In the remote space that you walk in there is limited space to add keys (that are then removed from inventory, can’t be used to recharge and cannot be returned to inventory.) It then displays either the portal or media photo like a sort of painting in a frame. Additional space to “Put up more paintings” can be bought for a fee.
Additional Sales
There could also be additional revenue options for services or other things. And we have collected a few of these here.
Flexible rates
Flexible rates should be offered depending on the country the player lives in. 10$ is a whole different value in the USA then when you exchange it for other currencies. 10$ might be a fair price for someone living in the USA but very expensive in other countries.
Payment Options
As long as we pay for things with exotic matter then we have the payment options from the google or apple store. Any payments like buying anomalies tickets are currently only accepting Credit Cards. We would really like to see this changed. Things like paypal and local payment options like iDeal (For Netherlands) should also be accepted. Here in Europe we have seen that STRIPE is used as a payment platform, they offer easy integration of local online payment methods. Some of these even have cheaper rates than using CreditCard.
Renting Vault
A vault that would serve as a separate inventory. When you are using your normal inventory you can send things to the vault but not use them. Then when you registered for an anomaly and are registered you can switch to your vault inventory. While using your vault inventory you can send send items to your regular inventory but not be able to use that. At the end of the anomaly you can then leave the vault inventory and not be able to use it until the next anomaly where you are registered for. This way you can send items to use for an anomaly over time and be able to use it. It is then reserved for the anomaly and cant be taken back to avoid it being used as extra inventory space. Once it’s time to use it you can use the items in the vault and also decide to empty it before you switch back to your normal inventory.
Missions space
The amount of missions we can create is limited to what was assumed would be a large amount of missions when this was thought up. But then players became creative and created banner missions or mozaiks. These use up a lot more missions and due to this many people hit the limit quite quickly. It therefor makes sense to be able to increase this limit for a fee so players who create a lot of missions can create even more.
Incubator like items
Instead of just having a capsule that duplicates items based on km walked. Have items that require a special items (like incubators for eggs in PoGo) to unlock the content when you walk a certain amount. You have one for free that never breaks and can buy additional items of lower quality that only has one or a few uses. Items unlocked could be VR items but also common, depending on the amount of km you need to walk. This would probably work better than just having a capsule that at X km walked has a chance of duplicating a VR item inside of it.
Name Change
A free name change should always be available for free once via support in case you used your real name or something. Additional name changes could be done for a fee.
Event Promotion / Use of automated Stats Tracking
Events are now part of the prime scanner. Ideally events like FS should be registered and displayed there as well. But also other events hosted for either a faction or cross faction should be possible to be registered from the Prime APP. For a fee there could also be automated stats tracking for the event. If an FS for example doesn't want to have the paid option then they need to do it manually. Non official events could also be added for a fee.
Alternative Anomaly Changes
There should ideally always be a free option to participate in an anomaly, This means to be able to fully participate and not in half of it. Not counting certain stats during the anomaly for registered agents is a major no-go in our honest opinion. Understandable that such tickets will not receive a badge, but we believe that the people with a free ticket and are in the winning faction for that anomaly should also get the badge. This way people either need to fight hard to get the badge, or pay for it. It would be acceptable if people with a free ticket for example really can only register and not participate in official afterparties. Organizing these costs money so joining these could be reserved for paid tickets only.
Beacon Advertisement for events
A host city might want to promote various parts of the city or things like public toilets / other services. Such cities might be willing to pay to have beacons for such places for the duration of the event. This could also include beacons for mission days. If a mission is about an object that is a portal in the game it could have a beacon on it. This puts added focus on the object. Such beacons would last the whole event and disappear afterwards. So this could be seen as temporary in game advertisement.
If there is to be a "supporter" medal associated with a subscription, it should not be tiered, and it should not have a counter. While the cause of "sustainability" might be furthered by gamifying this medal, I can think of no other aspect of Ingress that would be improved. There is no direct connection to "promoting community exploration, incorporating exercise … and encouraging real-world social interaction" [1].
Keep the medal closer in spirit to the "character" medals: a small bit of (digital) swag. The wording on it might be, "Helped fund Niantic's investigations into XM," for example.
A small token of appreciation each month, in the form of an item bundle, seems appropriate. Perhaps keep it along the lines of the First Saturday passcodes. Make all the gear level-appropriate, and restrict the Very Rare items to at most one, maybe two, of any particular item. Avoid any sense of pay-to-play and pay-to-win.
Tiering a subscription medal is fine. At the very least it'd need to track. The only other way for it to be an incentive is to only have it on player's profiles when they are actively subscribed. I guess they could also give a different subscriber medal every month.. no that's an awful idea
Using CMU is odd if it's the only way to pay it. I'd like to be able to do a regular old subscription so I can set it and forget it, rather than buying 7000 CMU every single month. Having both as options would be nice.
These are all excellent suggestions, and just to reiterate, building Play Store and App Store subscriptions will take time and engineering work. My question was specifically about @NinthAnt's suggestion of a $5 per month Supporter Badge Subscription, which sounds more akin to a character medal but one that can be purchased multiple times, once per month, and increments with each purchase.
With something like that supporter "not-really-a-subscription" medal, we could feasibly do that with the infrastructure we have right now. In addition to helping support our team, it would also help us see what kind of interest there is for continuing to develop Play Store and App Store subscriptions that provide additional game functionality that isn't a currently available Store item. To be clear: we're going to continue working to build additional game functionality, and this is an interesting suggestion I've seen from several different agents in the forum and on Reddit threads. I've been thinking about this idea more given the popularity of the Umbra character medals, which, like how I understood the original suggestion, are 1) optional, 2) not an automatically recurring payment, 3) a way for agents to publicly show their support of the game and our team on their agent profiles.
To be fair, I don't think a supporter medal that can be bought once per month is a good idea. Sure it doesn't affect gameplay, but medals that have multiple tiers are, should be and remain for achievements. Buying a tiered medal takes no effort at all.
Another major concern I have with the supporter medal (tiered) is that everyone can then see who paid and who did not. Aside from "bragging" this could potentially violate GDPR laws. Personally I am happy to support buy buying it monthly, but I don't like the whole world to be able to see that I did this.
Character medals are imho the only medals someone should be able buy. Yes they are one off, but perhaps some people like to buy old medals that they did not get the opertunity to buy before. Say the old Susanna Moyer medal for example. This might also help combat the black market medal sales as they be obtained officially (for a short period).
As to the development of a subscription fee. I would be very supportive of this provided I don't have to show the rest of the world that I am paying.
If there were a subscription i think the following would need to be improved by leaps and bounds:
Intel map would essentially need to be re-done to be IITC, or close to it. I'm not saying a clone. But Intel in it's stock form is terrible.
Support needs to improve 1000%. No more robots answering support cases. A ticket number must be generated and followed up on by an actual NiaOps agent. And agents that respond to cases MUST have customer support skills/training. Preferably ITIL or similar. ALL CASES need to be thoroughly investigated. No more of this "needs to come from a TR to be taken seriously." TRs would need to go away again never to be seen again because they're useless in this new support system. Context must be taken into consideration; no more of this "just portal link and time adjusted to UTC" crapola. If i'm paying for a game - I expect support to treat me like a customer. And I expect there to be no more cheating. No more stores. No more buying gear. No more spoofing for gear or spoofing down anchors. No more multi accounts. No more huge cabals of scrapers like the drunken frog or TBG or whatever and Nia vanguards knew about it, and Nia employees knew about it. No more of this ****.
Forget the subscriber badge. It'll turn the game into more of an elitist mockey than it is now. People have such huge chips on their shoulder from ops they did, or they were POCs or trusted reporters or whatever. A subscriber badge is just going to be another one of those things that divide the player base imho.
I'd expect more regular app updates and improvements on an escalated schedule to get the game back to redacted days in terms of stability. Then improve it even more. No more of this anomaly game day server craps the bed: "oh so sad, so bad guys. our bad. it'll be better next time. trust us! Here have a refund - please don't be mad!" No. Improve your servers with all the cash you're now rolling in. No more game day hiccups. No more app crashes. THEN start working on cosmetics and skins and the like.
If there were a subscription i think the following would need to be improved by leaps and bounds:
Intel map would essentially need to be re-done to be IITC, or close to it. I'm not saying a clone. But Intel in it's stock form is terrible.
Support needs to improve 1000%. No more robots answering support cases. A ticket number must be generated and followed up on by an actual NiaOps agent. And agents that respond to cases MUST have customer support skills/training. Preferably ITIL or similar. ALL CASES need to be thoroughly investigated. No more of this "needs to come from a TR to be taken seriously." TRs would need to go away again never to be seen again because they're useless in this new support system. Context must be taken into consideration; no more of this "just portal link and time adjusted to UTC" crapola. If i'm paying for a game - I expect support to treat me like a customer. And I expect there to be no more cheating. No more stores. No more buying gear. No more spoofing for gear or spoofing down anchors. No more multi accounts. No more huge cabals of scrapers like the drunken frog or TBG or whatever and Nia vanguards knew about it, and Nia employees knew about it. No more of this ****.
Forget the subscriber badge. It'll turn the game into more of an elitist mockey than it is now. People have such huge chips on their shoulder from ops they did, or they were POCs or trusted reporters or whatever. A subscriber badge is just going to be another one of those things that divide the player base imho.
I'd expect more regular app updates and improvements on an escalated schedule to get the game back to redacted days in terms of stability. Then improve it even more. No more of this anomaly game day server craps the bed: "oh so sad, so bad guys. our bad. it'll be better next time. trust us! Here have a refund - please don't be mad!" No. Improve your servers with all the cash you're now rolling in. No more game day hiccups. No more app crashes. THEN start working on costmetics and skins and the like.
If there were a subscription i think the following would need to be improved by leaps and bounds:
Intel map would essentially need to be re-done to be IITC, or close to it. I'm not saying a clone. But Intel in it's stock form is terrible.
Support needs to improve 1000%. No more robots answering support cases. A ticket number must be generated and followed up on by an actual NiaOps agent. And agents that respond to cases MUST have customer support skills/training. Preferably ITIL or similar. ALL CASES need to be thoroughly investigated. No more of this "needs to come from a TR to be taken seriously." TRs would need to go away again never to be seen again because they're useless in this new support system. Context must be taken into consideration; no more of this "just portal link and time adjusted to UTC" crapola. If i'm paying for a game - I expect support to treat me like a customer. And I expect there to be no more cheating. No more stores. No more buying gear. No more spoofing for gear or spoofing down anchors. No more multi accounts. No more huge cabals of scrapers like the drunken frog or TBG or whatever and Nia vanguards knew about it, and Nia employees knew about it. No more of this ****.
Forget the subscriber badge. It'll turn the game into more of an elitist mockey than it is now. People have such huge chips on their shoulder from ops they did, or they were POCs or trusted reporters or whatever. A subscriber badge is just going to be another one of those things that divide the player base imho.
I'd expect more regular app updates and improvements on an escalated schedule to get the game back to redacted days in terms of stability. Then improve it even more. No more of this anomaly game day server craps the bed: "oh so sad, so bad guys. our bad. it'll be better next time. trust us! Here have a refund - please don't be mad!" No. Improve your servers with all the cash you're now rolling in. No more game day hiccups. No more app crashes. THEN start working on costmetics and skins and the like.
If there were a subscription i think the following would need to be improved by leaps and bounds:
Intel map would essentially need to be re-done to be IITC, or close to it. I'm not saying a clone. But Intel in it's stock form is terrible.
Support needs to improve 1000%. No more robots answering support cases. A ticket number must be generated and followed up on by an actual NiaOps agent. And agents that respond to cases MUST have customer support skills/training. Preferably ITIL or similar. ALL CASES need to be thoroughly investigated. No more of this "needs to come from a TR to be taken seriously." TRs would need to go away again never to be seen again because they're useless in this new support system. Context must be taken into consideration; no more of this "just portal link and time adjusted to UTC" crapola. If i'm paying for a game - I expect support to treat me like a customer. And I expect there to be no more cheating. No more stores. No more buying gear. No more spoofing for gear or spoofing down anchors. No more multi accounts. No more huge cabals of scrapers like the drunken frog or TBG or whatever and Nia vanguards knew about it, and Nia employees knew about it. No more of this ****.
Forget the subscriber badge. It'll turn the game into more of an elitist mockery than it is now. People have such huge chips on their shoulder from ops they did, or they were POCs or trusted reporters or whatever. A subscriber badge is just going to be another one of those things that divide the player base imho.
I'd expect more regular app updates and improvements on an escalated schedule to get the game back to redacted days in terms of stability. Then improve it even more. No more of this anomaly game day server dies: "oh so sad, so bad guys. our bad. it'll be better next time. trust us! Here have a refund - please don't be mad!" No. Improve your servers with all the cash you're now rolling in. No more game day hiccups. No more app crashes. THEN start working on cosmetics and skins and the like.
There are a lot of cool ideas here, but I'd be more than happy to pay a subscription/buy a pack monthly for:
- A badge which counter increases every purchase
- A small, but convenient item bundle for now. Something like 10 common heat sinks would already be enough for me.
Of course I'd like to see more and better perks, but given that a "real" subscription service needs to be build first, I would take the above in a heartbeat anyway.
Comments
Just increase the already wasted space below the main menu button and place ads there... Ingress Prime Pro without ads 5 bucks/month😜
Is great idea, is hepful the compagny.
No avantage in game , but is better :
A badge and maybe a little gear is what Brian said is being thought of
You don't have to buy if you don't want to, and it isn't sounding pay to win at all so far.
You have already had at least one account banned for spoofing. I don't think you need to worry about "teleporting" anything.
If it was mandatory, absolutely.
Sounding very optional right now though.
I do really want the servers to be more consistently solid nonetheless. Suffers globally around FS time this month and the last one
Common items; 7200 CMU for an FS gets you 130 items (100 X R1 & 10 chs) so maybe 50 CS, 10 CHS, 10 CMH. Just a thought.
For a short-time Implementation, just incremented badge and a handful of beacons with an exclusive logo
I really like this idea
Some very good ideas in this thread. A general meta-model (compatible with many of these ideas) that has worked well in other settings is to treat subscription status as a sort of "VIP" deal, where you get fun extras (plus whatever status you want to ascribe to being a subscriber) that are not critical functionality but that provide a reward for being a supporter. More/better cosmetics and integration with whatever social media platforms Ninatic is continuing to develop is a no-brainer. While some folks have objected to the "supporter" medal, I don't see anything wrong with it: Ingress has had medals for people who used specific phones (Eve), who authenticated their accounts when that was a thing, who played during specific years, who went to specific places at specific times, etc., etc. It is physically impossible for new players to get most of the medals that have been offered, so I can't see how a reasonable person who is unwilling or unable to subscribe can be terribly put out about not getting yet another one. Some people will be upset about anything, but I doubt it would be a big deal in practice.
Part of the "VIP" model in some settings is more access, "behind the scenes" info, and so forth. Niantic is getting increasingly good about being open on Ingress (which is a good thing), but there might be some contexts where giving extra info to supporters would make sense. This can be a win-win, because one thing that can be done with those info dumps is to give the supporters more insights into all of the work that goes into making Ingress a reality - and that helps folks understand where their money is going. In my experience, folks tend to underestimate how hard it is to do pretty much anything in the real world...the more they learn about what's involved, the more sympathetic they get (usually) to the idea that it costs something. Supporters are likely to be pretty educable about backstage considerations, and in turn can educate others.
Better analytics is another good suggestion, I think. Even the little post-Anomaly email we now get telling us about portal hacks and AP earned is strangely compelling; access to some summaries giving folks more insight into their own play wouldn't be too hard to implement (in the grand scheme of things) and would be a nice perk.
This is not currently practical, but if sandboxing gets implemented, the ability to set up virtual playing fields for Anomaly training or local competitions would be a huge perk. Being able to take even a 100m x 100m area, set up virtual portal conditions, and have a set of players engage with what's in that box within e.g. 15 minutes would fantastic, and certainly worth paying for. (These could be called "temporary anomalous zones," and it would be easy to retcon them into the Lore - Hank used to interact with places like that, and one could introduce new experimental XM techology that allows the scanner to replicate this effect for short periods. Alas, this requires both a scanner upgrade and chaotic XM to to power it. A small price to pay for the struggle over the fate of humanity.) The out-of-game logic here is that you want your supporters to be able to act like local team captains, who can help organize training sessions, events, and so forth. This might reduce the number of support calls you get from these otherwise complex features, because they are presumably being used by more dedicated folks who know something.
One immediate killer app, IMHO, is the ability to store and display souvenir keys. Many of us have a ton, and they are a drain upon our inventory. Keeping and displaying such keys seems to me very much to be in the spirit of Ingress, but right now we don't have a way to do it (and doing so has been a requested feature forever). If part of your subscription package is a display locker - to which any number of keys may be added, but none can be removed - I can see this being a popular perk. Make it possible to let other agents see it, and so much the better. Make it possible to indicate which keys you want to display, to sort them, etc., and it's even better.
Finally, I support the call for automatic payment options. There are obvious business reasons to like that, but from our end it is simply one less thing to forget to take care of. For those who want it, it's a win-win.
No one likes paying for stuff, but I think that most folks are pretty satisfied with it if they think they're getting good value from the deal. And if one knows that the fee is going to support stuff that one thinks is important, one is less likely to mind. I'm optimistic that there's a bundle and a price point that makes Niantic feel good about running the game, and that makes the players feel good about supporting it.
Thinking of Niantic's other games and what I spend money on there I came up with a few ideas.
1 storage.
Probably one of the biggest issues is more storage (how many of us have 5 to 6 key capsules.?) Many agents would pay for more storage. First problem with it would be that it could become "pay to win" if the 2k item cap isn't kept. Balance is in jepordy.
Solution: Storage Locker
Fee based storage limited access. The day to day inventory could be kept at 2k but have a Storage locker thst either is tied to a physical location (this could only be accessed by and seen by the person who owns it) or it is timer based in its access.
I like the idea of being able to have a place where I could put all my non anomoly items so I could go gear up for a big event.
2 ways to access (either or)
1 The locker could be geo locked to a location easily accessed by the player. Again this is something thst can only be seen and accessed by whomever owns it. So item transfers only occur at this location. This could be done by a monthly charge to access maybe $1 per 200 items, with a limit of 1k in storage ($5 a month). If you stop your subscription you loose access.
If you move you can "dig up" and move your locker for a fee as well (maybe limit that number of times you can do that so people don't just pay to have access all the time)
This would keep the 2k item limit somewhat intact as you would have to return home to get more gear.
2 The locker could just be on a timer (and always in inventory) and only gives you access for an hour every 24 hours. Make your decisions and transfer all you want but after you have accessed it for an hour it will lock you out for 23 hours before it let's you back in. Again this could be a subscription fee. Also could have "Emergency access" if a fee is paid if you need to access again within those 24 hours.
Idea 2 "Eggs" duplication capsules
I spend most of my money buying incubators in PoGo and Silver keys in HPWU. We could do something similar in ingress too. Adventure sync needs to come to Prime for this to work.
Assign a walk distance to items...
Bursters and resonators could be 1k
Common shields, hack mods and ultra strikes 2k
Rare items, shields, hack mods, turrets and force / link amps 5k
Very Rare shields, hack mods 10k
Extremely Rare items, viruses, aegis shields, softbank ultra links. 20k
Purchace a Duplication capsule and place the item you wish to duplicate in it give it a max capacity of 100km before it breaks and a new one would need to be purchased. This means a 1 capsule could produce 100 bursters, or it could also produce 5 Aegis shields after walking 100kms
I know quantum capsules are essentially the same thing but this would be guaranteed reproduction and bring back Extremely rare duplication. And introduce adventure sync
@NianticBrian
Another idea, if I could just drop it in here...
I would like a subscription to support X feature. A lot of what I see talked about centers around gameplay. Cool. But there are others who want to support OPR/Wayfarer, events, Intel, etc. They could have a different reward bundle. For example, I would love to have more personal attention to OPR edits, photos, and reports I make that are troublesome or I just wasn't them to happen faster. Give me 20 Premium Submissions/Edits/Invalid reports? Heck yeah, I'd pay for that every month.
Walking based duplication has been suggested many times and is a great idea. As with the other games, everyone should get one free duplication device that can be used unlimited times. You can also buy and occasionally hack single use devices.
Medal is ONE thing. But should count.
Locked boxes that needs to be walked open. Like the eggs is another option. Alternative let’s users spend XM to accelerate. XM is rare enough.
Let people buy more unlocked for simultaneously walking multiple boxes.
how to make them worthwhile I am not sure. I keep missing ultrastrikes and more rare items. Low level XMP is the worst. Not too much of that.
2x keys to a same color portal say 25-50-100km away would be great. Some would always be blocked. Some would allow you to make large fields without much travel.
maybe a very rare immunity item in the boxes. Allows you to link/field inside enemy field for 60 minutes. Make blockers before taking down the multi layer field.
i am only L9 - 2 days from L10. I like the eggs and incubator idea. If the eggs are worthwhile. I walked 227 km in my 57 days.
But PoGo with adventure sync I have been just around 50km/week.
With adventure sync 10-25-50km boxes would be fine. One box a week of the highest level is great. I often have one day a week where I have more time to destroy and build. Less time the rest of the week.
10k should be at 100.000XM to unlock. Too expensive. But you can unlock it the remaining part by using XM to get access now. If you have the power cubes. Then be ready for a raid.
If there is a badge then please give us the option to refuse it. I only want badges that take effort to get. I would pay to get the shard one removed as I had no involvement in that event.
Personally the thing I'd pay most for would be removing all flashing/pulsing, flaming pictures etc. from the scanner.
The second option is freaking awesome. Improved Intel, low graphics top down version, spot which portals you have never interacted with, see cooldowns...
So much to unpack there so instead I'll just say "Shut up and take my money!"
Paying to have an incremental medal that shows you have paid and how often. I think it's a terrible idea to publicly share who paid (and how long) and who has not.
I once started on a monitizing idea document. Unfortunately due to a lack of time I never finished it. But let's share it now anyways.
Monetize Ingress:
Subscription Fee
There is no doubt that a subscription fee is a stable and predictable source of income. There also has to be an added value to a subscription fee in order for people to consider paying these. One method is simply paying in order to play the game with all full features available to everyone. However, as a pay to play is undesired we have some options below that we believe don’t break the game mechanics yet one or more could offer sufficient value to pay a regular subscription fee for. This would be part of an optional subscription or can be bought per X time.
Additionally, there could be several offerings. Like would be a subscription to advanced stats tracking and another would be for fast tracking
Stats
People paying a subscription fee could receive regular emails with statistics on all stats and AP. Daily / Weekly / Monthly … This should be amazingly easy to implement and offer you insights that are currently only available via non official methods. These make a legit source of statistics and don’t require you to share you stats.
Fast Track …
People who pay a fee to use additional features for Ingress could also receive an amount Mission / Portal reviews in the fast track per payment period. From a Portal Submission Fast track perspective is should be:
At a similar rate new missions submitted should receive a similar thing like fast tracked portal submissions. Here obviously event missions and FS missions should take priority over subscription priorities. It however does not increase the amount you can submit, only the amount that are auto fast tracked.
Added Value
A subscription fee should bring benefits on its own. But ideally it should also bring side benefits.
Here are some examples:
Something a subscription should not add is priority in support or ticketing system. Support should always be equal to all players.
Custom Stuff
Splitting Profile
This is part of several other suggestions listed below.
Split the profile into separate sections. When enter the profile menu of someone or your own you first see the agent name / official badges and if the stats are not hidden then also the stats.
You can then switch to a view to see the agent’s missions that he/she completed. And potentially other views as well.
Custom Badges
Give at least certain players access to create badges. These would be people like FS POC’s / Anomaly POC’s / Event organizers. For a fee they can create a custom badge that would be visible in a separate section of an agent’s profile. These could be created for various reasons.
“Participated in a boat tour of our city during an anomaly, we created a special boat tour medal for it. “
“Joined us for First Saturday at <City X> .. we have a special badge for you ..”
Biocards Sales
In the past you offered a biocard sales service. Apparently it was not that successful as this service is no longer offered. We believe this service would be very successful if it offered a passcode to redeem a medal of that biocard that would be displayed in a separate area for custom badges.
Custom Beacons
Event organizers would have access to create and buy custom beacons. Event organizers can use these mark portals with custom logos. These could be things like show the anomaly pre-party on Friday before an anomaly or where a boat tour is leaving from or where the Campgrounds are for an event.
Custom Passcodes
Give Event organizers like FS POC’s the ability to buy passcodes that can be used as part of a prize. This could also be Faction news channels who can use them to give away as prizes for quizzes. It is very important that this is limited. An no one should not be able to buy dozens or hundreds of them at a time. The prize should be based on what is added to a passcode and a passcode should not be allowed to exceed a certain value to make sure not to many items go into a single passcode. A passcode could be as simple as containing an event beacon to containing several beacons and a little bit of gear. (VR items should not be possible to add)
Extended range
Have an item that extends the range to say 150% for a fixed duration of time. It could either also extend the range at Wich resonators are deployed or if this is unwanted automatically deploy at max range without standing at max range. The benefit would then just be for picking up items from the ground / hacking portals from slightly further away.
Custom Profile Logo
Give communities a way to create custom profile logos at a fee.
Voice Packs
Sell various voice packs that can be used instead of only having ADA available. Others could include Misty or Hanke.
Client Skins
Have various client skins that can be bought. This would not be something like “have a redacted look and feel”. More along the line of different colour schemes. Neutral Skins, Faction Skins, Space Skins etc. Really adjusted colours for the elements within the regular app. This could also include a skin focused on people that are colour blind although this should ideally be a free skin.
Live Portal Project
Live Portal Project is to our understanding very small and has not been properly beta tested. However, we believe that there is a type of players out there that love to do live portal projects.
Live Portal Project:
“
Create a live link between say a Raspberry Pi or Arduino and Ingress to make an object reflect the actual status its in-game portal at real time in real life.
“
Should a swagshop become available again (run by NIA) then hardware / software to make this happen could also be sellable items as well as ordering configured hardware at additional costs.
It can be used for things like Shard target portals / event portals .. Give the creativity to the players at a cost. This should also increase the awareness of the project as well hopefully create a fan base of people who use it and show it off.
Official Swag shop outside of the USA
There are various logistical companies throughout the world that offer logistical services that can receive goods, store them and send orders as these are placed. Such companies may be able to help offer a global swagshop or multiple swag shops throughout the world.
Memoirs
For a long time players have asked for a space to keep their beloved keys in a place where it can never be lost. We received the key lockers to store keys at no inventory space. Keys of these beloved portals are still going missing.
Memory Capsules
A memory capsule would be something where you can add such keys but can never take out again. It cannot be used to recharge or anything else, only to be viewed. Additionally, media might also be allowed to be placed in it.
Mind Space
The mind space or chamber that is based on remote participation tech is accessible via a separate menu from the profile. You enter is just like you would enter a remote place via a portkeys in Harry Potter or looks like the arena map in Pogo (depending if AR is turned on or not or whatever is best). In the remote space that you walk in there is limited space to add keys (that are then removed from inventory, can’t be used to recharge and cannot be returned to inventory.) It then displays either the portal or media photo like a sort of painting in a frame. Additional space to “Put up more paintings” can be bought for a fee.
Additional Sales
There could also be additional revenue options for services or other things. And we have collected a few of these here.
Flexible rates
Flexible rates should be offered depending on the country the player lives in. 10$ is a whole different value in the USA then when you exchange it for other currencies. 10$ might be a fair price for someone living in the USA but very expensive in other countries.
Payment Options
As long as we pay for things with exotic matter then we have the payment options from the google or apple store. Any payments like buying anomalies tickets are currently only accepting Credit Cards. We would really like to see this changed. Things like paypal and local payment options like iDeal (For Netherlands) should also be accepted. Here in Europe we have seen that STRIPE is used as a payment platform, they offer easy integration of local online payment methods. Some of these even have cheaper rates than using CreditCard.
Renting Vault
A vault that would serve as a separate inventory. When you are using your normal inventory you can send things to the vault but not use them. Then when you registered for an anomaly and are registered you can switch to your vault inventory. While using your vault inventory you can send send items to your regular inventory but not be able to use that. At the end of the anomaly you can then leave the vault inventory and not be able to use it until the next anomaly where you are registered for. This way you can send items to use for an anomaly over time and be able to use it. It is then reserved for the anomaly and cant be taken back to avoid it being used as extra inventory space. Once it’s time to use it you can use the items in the vault and also decide to empty it before you switch back to your normal inventory.
Missions space
The amount of missions we can create is limited to what was assumed would be a large amount of missions when this was thought up. But then players became creative and created banner missions or mozaiks. These use up a lot more missions and due to this many people hit the limit quite quickly. It therefor makes sense to be able to increase this limit for a fee so players who create a lot of missions can create even more.
Incubator like items
Instead of just having a capsule that duplicates items based on km walked. Have items that require a special items (like incubators for eggs in PoGo) to unlock the content when you walk a certain amount. You have one for free that never breaks and can buy additional items of lower quality that only has one or a few uses. Items unlocked could be VR items but also common, depending on the amount of km you need to walk. This would probably work better than just having a capsule that at X km walked has a chance of duplicating a VR item inside of it.
Name Change
A free name change should always be available for free once via support in case you used your real name or something. Additional name changes could be done for a fee.
Event Promotion / Use of automated Stats Tracking
Events are now part of the prime scanner. Ideally events like FS should be registered and displayed there as well. But also other events hosted for either a faction or cross faction should be possible to be registered from the Prime APP. For a fee there could also be automated stats tracking for the event. If an FS for example doesn't want to have the paid option then they need to do it manually. Non official events could also be added for a fee.
Alternative Anomaly Changes
There should ideally always be a free option to participate in an anomaly, This means to be able to fully participate and not in half of it. Not counting certain stats during the anomaly for registered agents is a major no-go in our honest opinion. Understandable that such tickets will not receive a badge, but we believe that the people with a free ticket and are in the winning faction for that anomaly should also get the badge. This way people either need to fight hard to get the badge, or pay for it. It would be acceptable if people with a free ticket for example really can only register and not participate in official afterparties. Organizing these costs money so joining these could be reserved for paid tickets only.
Beacon Advertisement for events
A host city might want to promote various parts of the city or things like public toilets / other services. Such cities might be willing to pay to have beacons for such places for the duration of the event. This could also include beacons for mission days. If a mission is about an object that is a portal in the game it could have a beacon on it. This puts added focus on the object. Such beacons would last the whole event and disappear afterwards. So this could be seen as temporary in game advertisement.
A nice goodie would bei more Mission space for example.
I think that should a permanent paid option. It would be hard if you pay a subscription, get 100 extra, use them all, stop the subscription.
This should rather be a say pay 1000 CM per 10 of something.
If there is to be a "supporter" medal associated with a subscription, it should not be tiered, and it should not have a counter. While the cause of "sustainability" might be furthered by gamifying this medal, I can think of no other aspect of Ingress that would be improved. There is no direct connection to "promoting community exploration, incorporating exercise … and encouraging real-world social interaction" [1].
Keep the medal closer in spirit to the "character" medals: a small bit of (digital) swag. The wording on it might be, "Helped fund Niantic's investigations into XM," for example.
A small token of appreciation each month, in the form of an item bundle, seems appropriate. Perhaps keep it along the lines of the First Saturday passcodes. Make all the gear level-appropriate, and restrict the Very Rare items to at most one, maybe two, of any particular item. Avoid any sense of pay-to-play and pay-to-win.
[1] https://www.newsgroove.co.uk/video-games-need-to-insulate-players-from-addiction-ceo-of-pokemon-go-creator-says-cnbc/
Tiering a subscription medal is fine. At the very least it'd need to track. The only other way for it to be an incentive is to only have it on player's profiles when they are actively subscribed. I guess they could also give a different subscriber medal every month.. no that's an awful idea
Using CMU is odd if it's the only way to pay it. I'd like to be able to do a regular old subscription so I can set it and forget it, rather than buying 7000 CMU every single month. Having both as options would be nice.
These are all excellent suggestions, and just to reiterate, building Play Store and App Store subscriptions will take time and engineering work. My question was specifically about @NinthAnt's suggestion of a $5 per month Supporter Badge Subscription, which sounds more akin to a character medal but one that can be purchased multiple times, once per month, and increments with each purchase.
With something like that supporter "not-really-a-subscription" medal, we could feasibly do that with the infrastructure we have right now. In addition to helping support our team, it would also help us see what kind of interest there is for continuing to develop Play Store and App Store subscriptions that provide additional game functionality that isn't a currently available Store item. To be clear: we're going to continue working to build additional game functionality, and this is an interesting suggestion I've seen from several different agents in the forum and on Reddit threads. I've been thinking about this idea more given the popularity of the Umbra character medals, which, like how I understood the original suggestion, are 1) optional, 2) not an automatically recurring payment, 3) a way for agents to publicly show their support of the game and our team on their agent profiles.
and 4) does not affect gameplay.
To be fair, I don't think a supporter medal that can be bought once per month is a good idea. Sure it doesn't affect gameplay, but medals that have multiple tiers are, should be and remain for achievements. Buying a tiered medal takes no effort at all.
Another major concern I have with the supporter medal (tiered) is that everyone can then see who paid and who did not. Aside from "bragging" this could potentially violate GDPR laws. Personally I am happy to support buy buying it monthly, but I don't like the whole world to be able to see that I did this.
Character medals are imho the only medals someone should be able buy. Yes they are one off, but perhaps some people like to buy old medals that they did not get the opertunity to buy before. Say the old Susanna Moyer medal for example. This might also help combat the black market medal sales as they be obtained officially (for a short period).
As to the development of a subscription fee. I would be very supportive of this provided I don't have to show the rest of the world that I am paying.
If there were a subscription i think the following would need to be improved by leaps and bounds:
Intel map would essentially need to be re-done to be IITC, or close to it. I'm not saying a clone. But Intel in it's stock form is terrible.
Support needs to improve 1000%. No more robots answering support cases. A ticket number must be generated and followed up on by an actual NiaOps agent. And agents that respond to cases MUST have customer support skills/training. Preferably ITIL or similar. ALL CASES need to be thoroughly investigated. No more of this "needs to come from a TR to be taken seriously." TRs would need to go away again never to be seen again because they're useless in this new support system. Context must be taken into consideration; no more of this "just portal link and time adjusted to UTC" crapola. If i'm paying for a game - I expect support to treat me like a customer. And I expect there to be no more cheating. No more stores. No more buying gear. No more spoofing for gear or spoofing down anchors. No more multi accounts. No more huge cabals of scrapers like the drunken frog or TBG or whatever and Nia vanguards knew about it, and Nia employees knew about it. No more of this ****.
Forget the subscriber badge. It'll turn the game into more of an elitist mockey than it is now. People have such huge chips on their shoulder from ops they did, or they were POCs or trusted reporters or whatever. A subscriber badge is just going to be another one of those things that divide the player base imho.
I'd expect more regular app updates and improvements on an escalated schedule to get the game back to redacted days in terms of stability. Then improve it even more. No more of this anomaly game day server craps the bed: "oh so sad, so bad guys. our bad. it'll be better next time. trust us! Here have a refund - please don't be mad!" No. Improve your servers with all the cash you're now rolling in. No more game day hiccups. No more app crashes. THEN start working on cosmetics and skins and the like.
If there were a subscription i think the following would need to be improved by leaps and bounds:
Intel map would essentially need to be re-done to be IITC, or close to it. I'm not saying a clone. But Intel in it's stock form is terrible.
Support needs to improve 1000%. No more robots answering support cases. A ticket number must be generated and followed up on by an actual NiaOps agent. And agents that respond to cases MUST have customer support skills/training. Preferably ITIL or similar. ALL CASES need to be thoroughly investigated. No more of this "needs to come from a TR to be taken seriously." TRs would need to go away again never to be seen again because they're useless in this new support system. Context must be taken into consideration; no more of this "just portal link and time adjusted to UTC" crapola. If i'm paying for a game - I expect support to treat me like a customer. And I expect there to be no more cheating. No more stores. No more buying gear. No more spoofing for gear or spoofing down anchors. No more multi accounts. No more huge cabals of scrapers like the drunken frog or TBG or whatever and Nia vanguards knew about it, and Nia employees knew about it. No more of this ****.
Forget the subscriber badge. It'll turn the game into more of an elitist mockey than it is now. People have such huge chips on their shoulder from ops they did, or they were POCs or trusted reporters or whatever. A subscriber badge is just going to be another one of those things that divide the player base imho.
I'd expect more regular app updates and improvements on an escalated schedule to get the game back to redacted days in terms of stability. Then improve it even more. No more of this anomaly game day server craps the bed: "oh so sad, so bad guys. our bad. it'll be better next time. trust us! Here have a refund - please don't be mad!" No. Improve your servers with all the cash you're now rolling in. No more game day hiccups. No more app crashes. THEN start working on costmetics and skins and the like.
If there were a subscription i think the following would need to be improved by leaps and bounds:
Intel map would essentially need to be re-done to be IITC, or close to it. I'm not saying a clone. But Intel in it's stock form is terrible.
Support needs to improve 1000%. No more robots answering support cases. A ticket number must be generated and followed up on by an actual NiaOps agent. And agents that respond to cases MUST have customer support skills/training. Preferably ITIL or similar. ALL CASES need to be thoroughly investigated. No more of this "needs to come from a TR to be taken seriously." TRs would need to go away again never to be seen again because they're useless in this new support system. Context must be taken into consideration; no more of this "just portal link and time adjusted to UTC" crapola. If i'm paying for a game - I expect support to treat me like a customer. And I expect there to be no more cheating. No more stores. No more buying gear. No more spoofing for gear or spoofing down anchors. No more multi accounts. No more huge cabals of scrapers like the drunken frog or TBG or whatever and Nia vanguards knew about it, and Nia employees knew about it. No more of this ****.
Forget the subscriber badge. It'll turn the game into more of an elitist mockey than it is now. People have such huge chips on their shoulder from ops they did, or they were POCs or trusted reporters or whatever. A subscriber badge is just going to be another one of those things that divide the player base imho.
I'd expect more regular app updates and improvements on an escalated schedule to get the game back to redacted days in terms of stability. Then improve it even more. No more of this anomaly game day server craps the bed: "oh so sad, so bad guys. our bad. it'll be better next time. trust us! Here have a refund - please don't be mad!" No. Improve your servers with all the cash you're now rolling in. No more game day hiccups. No more app crashes. THEN start working on costmetics and skins and the like.
If there were a subscription i think the following would need to be improved by leaps and bounds:
Intel map would essentially need to be re-done to be IITC, or close to it. I'm not saying a clone. But Intel in it's stock form is terrible.
Support needs to improve 1000%. No more robots answering support cases. A ticket number must be generated and followed up on by an actual NiaOps agent. And agents that respond to cases MUST have customer support skills/training. Preferably ITIL or similar. ALL CASES need to be thoroughly investigated. No more of this "needs to come from a TR to be taken seriously." TRs would need to go away again never to be seen again because they're useless in this new support system. Context must be taken into consideration; no more of this "just portal link and time adjusted to UTC" crapola. If i'm paying for a game - I expect support to treat me like a customer. And I expect there to be no more cheating. No more stores. No more buying gear. No more spoofing for gear or spoofing down anchors. No more multi accounts. No more huge cabals of scrapers like the drunken frog or TBG or whatever and Nia vanguards knew about it, and Nia employees knew about it. No more of this ****.
Forget the subscriber badge. It'll turn the game into more of an elitist mockery than it is now. People have such huge chips on their shoulder from ops they did, or they were POCs or trusted reporters or whatever. A subscriber badge is just going to be another one of those things that divide the player base imho.
I'd expect more regular app updates and improvements on an escalated schedule to get the game back to redacted days in terms of stability. Then improve it even more. No more of this anomaly game day server dies: "oh so sad, so bad guys. our bad. it'll be better next time. trust us! Here have a refund - please don't be mad!" No. Improve your servers with all the cash you're now rolling in. No more game day hiccups. No more app crashes. THEN start working on cosmetics and skins and the like.
I would imagine "Patron" would be a good working title for such a badge as it matches the archetype
There are a lot of cool ideas here, but I'd be more than happy to pay a subscription/buy a pack monthly for:
- A badge which counter increases every purchase
- A small, but convenient item bundle for now. Something like 10 common heat sinks would already be enough for me.
Of course I'd like to see more and better perks, but given that a "real" subscription service needs to be build first, I would take the above in a heartbeat anyway.
@MunchWillbeBlue I'm not familiar with this — what are the GDPR laws that a supporter medal violates?