The 30th of November was the one of awakening moment for the Granado Espada community. It was roughly 22:00 when an official announcement was been made by the iahgames prior to suspicion that arises from players who top-up their accounts. It appears that when you top-up your account, you don't have any choices if you are choosing pure g-points for game card activation or g-points with game time. The questions had been answered when this notice arrived at the official Granado Espada SEA site and the post goes like this.
Conversion to Free-to-Play Game Service
IAHGames is pleased to announce that Granado Espada would become a "Free-to-play" online game service. This is in line with Granado Espada's global direction.
The actual day of F2P will be announced shortly.
Loyalty Reward Package Giveaway
In a move to reward GE gamers for their support of IAHGames' first online game, a special "Loyalty Reward Package" will be given away for free.
If you have topped-up at least one GVC from 30th August 2007 to F2P Day or have previously been rewarded with the 90 days free game play time, you will be eligible to receive the "Loyalty Reward Package" containing:
• 5 x Enhancement Tranquilizers
• 5 x Enhancement Boosters
• 5 x Soul Crystals
• 5 x Hrin's Potions
• 1 x Combat Manual Expert (30 days)
• 1 x Tactics Manual (15 days)
• 1 x Forgotten Territory Pass
The giveaway will be put in effect on F2P Day during the scheduled maintenance.
Game Time Conversion Program
All gamers who have remaining game time in their account will have the game value converted to G-points.
• IAHGames will convert 1 day of game time to 30 G-points.
• A round-up policy will be applied, i.e. If you have 10.3 days left, we will round it up to 11 days.
• The conversion will be performed on the F2P day during the scheduled maintenance.
New Granado Espada Content and Activities for 2008
We have a lot of stuff prepared for the whole of 2008. Looking at the list, it'll be a fun-filled 2008 for Granado Espada. New Activities
• GE Comic Artist Competition - GE Gamers will try their hands at creating their own comic strips using GE characters.
• Veteran Club - A select club only for the experts of GE. Members will enjoy monthly benefits.
• Valentines' Day Event - Are you in the mood for love?
• The Summer Bikini Babes - Granado Espada's very own Bikini Babe Pageant
New Game Content
Upcoming V2.5 Features
NEW Maps
- New Map: Sedea Cram Fields
- 2 more new dungeons
- Bahia Island Royal Rumble Raid
- Raid for Royalist Party / Republican Party
NEW Characters & Items
- Monsters: 15 Types
- NPC: 2 Types
- Armors: 10 Types
- Weapons: 20 Types
- Recipes for necklaces
- Boss Monsters: 3 types
- ‘Family - MCC' Type Monsters
NEW Quests!
- Sedea Cram Quest
- Gloved Lady Quest
- Ability Improvement Quest for Ramiro, Tiburon
- Ability Improvement of Reboldoeux Soldier
- Vicente Rio Invitation Quest
NEW Premium RNPCs!
- Necromancer Type
- Bard Type
NEW Skills!
- 6 additional Veteran Level Stances
NEW Game System Functions!
- Reputation Ratings
- Transfer of faction leadership
- System display of family who dealt the last damage to the colony
NEW Item Mall Additions!
- Hats/Wigs: 7 types
- Coimbra Trooper Costume
- Diego Costume
After this announcement the official Granado Espada forums was stormed with rants from subscribers who already bought Limited Edition boxes and some of them already loaded almost 500 days on their account.
This moved was justified by the management through this follow-up post at the main Granado Espada site with this.
"This is not the first time we change our commercial model. After launching monthly subscription-based commercial model of Granado Espada in Korea, HanbitSoft decided to go free-to-play after careful observation of feedbacks from our gamers," said Alex Kim, CEO of HanbitSoft, "This decision turned out to be the right one eventually, which allowed as more gamers to explore Granado Espada. We are glad that IAHGames made the same decision and will reach the same success as our other GE game services."
Says Hakkyu Kim, CEO, IMC Games: "In a positive alignment with our global direction for Granado Espada, we have worked with our partner, IAHGames, in making Granado Espada a ‘free-to-play' game service. We believe that with this new model, many new gamers would then be able to share the rich content of the game while adding new colors to the vibrant GE community."
Verdict:
In some reasons I side to those players who thought that the game will proceed to pay-to-play model because even I was settled with this idea. Sadly, I've already bought 600php ($252.00) worth of e-pin from load central thus I have not loaded it yet on my account. But the most unfortunate part about this, the players are not satisfied with somewhat conversion of g-points to their current game time. Imagine, each day in subscription on your total game time in your account only costs 30 g-points? Base on my computation a player who loaded a $126.00 worth of game value card with 5400 g-points, 1 month subscription, has an equivalent of 180 g-points per day. Now I think this conversion is unfair to those players who already top-up their account specially those who top-up more than 30 days.
On the brighter side, iahgames is trying to put up a competition to other MMORPG because the league right now is more on free-to-play business model. With this move by iahgames the community will grow faster with promising game play as elaborated by iahgames. By these, this will make iahgames the advantage to prove that cheaters cannot exist in this game even though Granado Espada is in free-to-play business model.
In my personal opinion, I strongly disagree with this drastic move because somehow iahgames must inform the players before hand that there will be chances that the pay-to-play business model will be changed. Good for those people who was mindful of their actions not paying too much during the 90 days period.
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