For those of you more familiar with Battlepasses, let me toss out this question:
So after the Dev stream, the write up, and the engagement of the community on this topic, I have noticed that most discussions (if not, all discussions) seem to focus on the assumption of purchasing the Battle pass on day one.
But what happens if, two months in or later, someone decides to buy the Battle pass? I mean, Dennis said there would be new chapters released every 90 days or so… so what happens if someone wants to buy a Battle pass, but there’s not enough time to do the challenges to complete the Battle pass? I mean, if I understood Dennis correctly, he said once the Battle pass time has passed, it won’t be offered again. Do we lose our investment of “challenges” not yet completed?
Can we have multiple Battlepasses running concurrently? (finish them at your own pace?) Or if there’s a shortage of time at the end, will Funcom post a warning (this Battlepass is about to expire; purchase at your own risk)? Will Funcom refund unfinished Battlepasses if they are ‘turning them off’ after 90 days?
Clearly, I’m new to the whole Battlepass “genre” business model. I could use some help in understanding what’s coming.
I’m not super familiar with battle-passes either but from the ones I do know, I think you’ll still get to keep whatever levels or unlocks you’ve achieved but if you haven’t completed the whole battle-pass then yeah you’ll miss out on what you didn’t complete, though in saying that, Dennis did mention that the battle-pass wouldn’t require a hefty amount of time to complete, if it’s anything like Sea of Thieves’ battle-pass you should be able to knock it out in a few weekends (if you’re late to the party I mean).
It’s likely they will only ever have the one battle-pass running at any one time and everybody will be on the same timer, I also imagine they will have a timer hovering somewhere over the battle-pass so you can easily see how much time you’ll have to complete it and make the choice if you want to risk it or not.
If you pay for the battle-pass but haven’t finished it before the 90 days is up you wont get refunded.
I think @Mr_Triggers covered it up but just wanted to add that you can complete the battle pass upfront and buy it to claim the rewards before the next chapter starts. Meaning, do the challenges, if you complete the pass before the end of the “season” buy it and claim the rewards. If you see you can’t make it, either don’t buy and lose the progress or buy the pass and then buy the levels you are missing. These are pretty much your options if you want to make sure you buy the pass and you claim all.
One of the functions of a Battle Pass system is to… encourage… participation on a consistent basis. From the season/age structure mentioned, it is vanishingly unlikely that there will be multiple passes running concurrently.
The only lower likelihood is of getting a refund.
Think of the Battle Pass like an unpaid internship. If you work hard and achieve goals, you don’t get paid, but you can get company merch throughout the quarter for hitting those quarterly goals. If you paid to participate in the internship, you are put into a more favoured category of toadie, not only can you earn all the swag the pleb labour can, but you can get even better company merch, to include credit you can spend at the company store.
Once Q3 is over, you can never again acquire the coveted exceptional gopher award for Q3. It won’t even be available in the company store. For those who paid to participate in the internship they are more significantly… incentivized… to work hard to get the rewards they paid to have the opportunity, during that Q only, to be eligible for.
Now, as with most business ventures, money talks, so, while one can only earn Q3 outstanding intern awards during Q3, at any point during Q3, one can invest even more money to up their most valued intern rating , thus trading the work they do to make money outside of the company for more kudos from the company they intern for.
TLDR; unless you absolutely positively must have those rewards immediately, don’t invest money into the Pass until you know you have completed it. If you are worried about not finishing, then, as with any other problem in life, throw money at it until you get what you want.
Buying the pass is paying for the Opportunity to work for the items.
The greater the urgency the more money it will cost.
Tick tock.
Having lived in Deutschland during the previous century, this one has seen that picture with far greater frequency than is likely to be imagined.
Also, it left this one with an exaggerated appraisal of the standing in popular thought of the Hoff.
So that is probably received as higher praise than it was intended.
