Heard an ugly rumor that there will be no more bonus week ends. Did see in the news previously that the month of May would not have the bonus week end but nothing beyond. Are we keeping them, hopefully she asked?

My understanding is they're not completely gone for good, but won't be around on any kind of regular basis like they were

In one sense, I think they are gone for good. However the plan is to change the subscription packages to add bonuses there. They want more consistent commitments.

However, since they've already removed the bonus weekends, they really should get moving on the subscription stuff they've already been planning for over a year. Users need to be able plan just like staff does so we can budget our entertainment and support the site.

They are losing revenue like this!

Changes to the subscription packages to add bonuses would be great. That they need more consistent commitments is perfectly understandable and I hope that is achieved. Yes we do all need to plan but we also like being told when something so great is discontinued. Once again I thank you.

On that same news post in the comments, Keith made some comments about how they are moving toward a subscription model. I quoted it in another post, but for some reason right now I can't see my posts. If you ctrl+f Keith on that news post, you'll be able to see it from the horse's mouth.

AFAIK they haven't made any definite announcement about the shift or even really discussed it on the forums when it's been brought up. I'm kind of holding out hope that we'll have at least one last bonus weekend, but it's a faint hope.

yeah imo it's kind of ridiculous to say "may won't have a bonus weekend" while secretly meaning "there will be no more regular monthly bonus weekends." were we expected to make that interpretation ourselves, or was it meant to be something that would be explained later? if they were going to explain that, then they should have done it upfront instead of leaving everyone hanging.

i remember discussion about more incentives for subscribing in a feedback thread a while ago because as it was, the most efficient way to get a GA was "wait for bonus weekend -> buy $50 worth of CSC -> spend 5,400 CSC on 12 month GA medal -> congrats, you now have a year GA + some extra CSC + a bonus item for $50 instead of the $51.50 you would have spent on JUST a year GA subscription"

so it makes sense that they'd prefer the greater reliability of subscriptions over sporadic CSC purchases, but if you're gonna replace one with the other, you should do it simultaneously instead of phasing one out and leaving users no incentive to make any further purchases until your new system is in place.

Absolutely agree.

In my opinion, I think they should have sorted out the changes to subscriptions (making them give out out the Bonus items and also being able to give Loyalty Points the way buying CSC manually does) before or at the same time as getting rid of Bonus Weekend. Also, Amber recently said in a news comment that they're no longer doing Bonus Weekend "monthly" which just makes it even more confusing, because that implies that they will still have them occasionally.

But anyway, if the Bonus items were to be moved to monthly subscriptions instead, but they still had Bonus Weekend occasionally, what items would be given out there?

It also seems like suddenly stopping Bonus Weekend was a last-minute decision, since the first 4 months this year also included past battle challenger items being brought back, it sounded as if Amber had planned to do that all year but now can't.

Staff won't come out and say, "No, we're never doing bonus weekends again," because that's too final. I think the reason for keeping things more vague is to allow for the potential to bring the bonus weekend back as an occasional treat rather than a guaranteed thing that will happen on a regular basis.

But I do 100% agree that the other things should have been worked out before scrapping bonus weekends and that staff should've been more clear upfront instead of saying that there wouldn't be a bonus weekend in May and then leaving the actually useful information in the news comments

I too was under the impression that Bonus Weekends would only stop being a monthly occurrence, which I support fully - as I feel the userbase was way too dependent on these bonus weekends and basically ONLY bought CSC during them, which isn't good for the site itself or the site economy.

However, it's unfortunate to have only one sale (albeit an absolutely massive one) per year, the Black Friday sale. Of course bonus weekend =/= Black Friday since CSC isn't discounted during BF, but subeta staff should utilize occasional random sales for VARIOUS items/sections of the Cash Shop throughout the year. People love getting a bargain, and will splurge on top of their regular spending now and then! But this only works if sales are unpredictable and rare.

That said, I also agree that if bonus weekends are nixed for good, the replacement (ie. subscription rewards) should have been in place before the cut. Too many decisions on this site feel extremely impulsive and/or not communicated well among all the staff before implementation. That said, I truly do believe that staff are trying to improve the site as they go, even if the changes don't always turn out for the better, so I'll wait and see what happens.

So my question is, along with everyone else's, is why do away with Bonus Weekends when you don't have a solid plan on making buying csc more worth it for everyone?

I honestly don't feel like spending money on this site anymore considering how the site have been running since November of last year. Time and time again there are new changes being proposed and it turns out to be a major flop due to lack of communication and transparency between staff and users. As of now, cws and other items in the cash shop are lacking their values to me as a customer compared to their price tags.

If you want your subscription model to work, then make it worth it for those who choose to pay for it. As of now, I am not one of those people.

I totally understand why getting rid of the monthly bonus weekend was a good move for the site, the explanation back then was clear and honestly, I support it! From the perspective of someone heavily involved with CWs, the market was dry as a desert throughout most of the month until the rains of Bonus Weekend came, ahahaha.

I'm glad there is discussion and testing for the new subscription model ongoing, I hope it will be successful when it launches. From reading the CW Pawn announcement news post, I feel that there are a lot of users who would appreciate an open announcement about the work being made to incentivize CSC purchases, because from my perspective it sounds like a lot of people are feeling disenchanted right now.

As for future sales - I specifically meant a occasional sale on CSC itself, as well as other sections of the cash shop. I think if there was a random sale for CSC say, once a year, it would encourage a big splurge on top of regular/subscription purchases. Make it a different month every year, keep 'em guessing. Having just a few items on sale every now and then on top of the HUGE BF extravaganza just once per year would be nice.

I completely understand and agree with the reasoning behind getting rid of the monthly sales. However, all news about it has been "there will be no Bonus Weekend in May". Even if you really did intend to continue with them after May there should have been some clarification (note: not in a news comment that doesn't get much visibility).

Communication is consistently a problem and this is just another example of that.

Again, totally agree with getting rid of the monthly sales and am looking forward to subscribing, I'm just frustrated about the miscommunication (or lack of clarification). All news about this really did just say there wasn't going to be a Bonus Weekend in May specifically.

OH, doing away with bonus weekends. Sad but informed now. I'll just have to be more selective on what I spend my real money on, on this site.

I get it too, and it doesn't affect me much since I tend to buy CSC outside of bonus weekends too.

But surely, we could have one more month if the new subscription model wasn't going to roll out when planned? Especially since it wasn't made clear that April was going to be the last one ever.

Seconded.

Depending on how soon we get the new system and how the userbase reacts to it, staff might have to consider changing prices for certain items during the BF sale as accommodation for losing bonus weekend. I noticed several users that weren't interested in the upcoming CW pawn sale, partly because of how bonus weekend was ended. In other words, not being clear on bonus weekend's future was yet another example of staff not communicating. If the new subscription system isn't popular with users, staff will once again have to scramble to placate the userbase.

They've already had a major strike against them with the new wardrobe.....