Subscription expired notification

[TehLemur]

I originally came here today to post a query over why, since a couple of months back, my automatch has been taking forever to match me up with a game. After a quick search of the forum to see if anyone else is having the same problem, I quickly realised I was being a dumbass, and my subscription has expired! However, I don't recall ever having this confusion on the many previous occasions when my subscription has run out. Has something changed about subscriptions, did there used to be a more obvious sign that it was time to renew?

Regardless, surely some kind of "subscription expired" notification should be pretty near the top of the development queue right now? I've been a gold subscriber to the game since the start, and I would have resubscribed immediately if I'd realised what had happened. Instead, you've missed out on a couple of months worth of my money.

What's more, from the other posts here, I'm clearly not the only person who's suffered from this confusion, even if idiots like me are in the minority - so this must be losing you a fair bit of cash!

[Ingix]

Since Menagerie, it's actually easier to see when your expansion is about to expire

If you have a subscription, it will show how long it is still active:



If you have no subscription at the moment, the expansion line like looks like this



but can be changed to wait or prefer expansions.

[TehLemur]

Thanks Ingix, much appreciated. That's great now I know it, but there's no real indication that this is what it means. Mine is currently set to "Expansions: Wait for Expansions" (hence the delay I've had starting games, obviously!) When you know what that means, it's clear that it implies I don't own any. But it wasn't at all obvious until you explained. I think I must have fiddled with the setting when I started getting all base games, thinking it was just some new setting that was wrong. I've been a permanent subscriber for so long, I'd forgotten I even could play anything other than base set if I wasn't subscribed.

I'd suggest "Expansions: None Owned" or similar would be much clearer, with the option for what to do about that ("Wait for Expansions / Prefer Expansions / Base Game Only") appearing to the right of that text. Maybe a link to the store there too? Even better (or in addition), as another poster here who had the same confusion already suggested: just pop an automatic message into a user's inbox telling them that their subscription has expired.

It's not a feature I'm personally bothered about, as I won't be making the same mistake again now I know how it works. I just think you might be missing out on some resubscriptions by not making it clearer.

[SkyHard]

I agree with you, TehLemur. I had the same experience a few months ago. And I still don't understand why this hasn't been done. A simple window when logging in that the subscription has expired (or will expire soon) would be much better than a cryptic number somewhere that cannot be understood without explaining.

However, that is only one of the many many things I do not understand. There probably are reasons why Stef is doing it that way... anyway, I don't trust his word since so many broken promises (e.g. offline client)...