Pay to Play?
 

I think I have reached a conclusion to the below idea. The conclusion is that I implement this system, and let it sit and chill in the background while we focus on the truly important things. Then at some point in time when we've grown a decent bit, I can enable this. What then will happen, is that any account created after that point in time, will have 24 hours to try the server and then need to pay to continue.

There are still technicalities and details that needs to be figured out. I was thinking $10 as a deposit for the account. Rest of the technicalities will be figured out as I implement and test it.

The whole idea with this is to raise the quality of the community. People are hopefully more willing to follow rules if their money is at stake if they don't.

A few key thoughts I have:
- Don't scare off players before they've even given the server a try.
- Explain in very short words what this system is, so that people won't just see "Pay to play" and leave.
- Make it clear that it is a deposit and not a payment.

Would this change you no-voters into yes-voters?
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I'm curious what people would think about a pay to play server. I know it sounds bad, but before you make up your mind, please read my proposal and reasons.

First of all; most (or hopefully all) of us hate cheaters. We also hate ban evading, for obvious reasons.

We could also use money to continue the development of the server. If we want to grow, we will absolutely need to throw some money at it.

So my proposal is that everyone gets say a 24 hour period (of actual in game time) that they may use whenever they please. During this trial period, they will have premium privileges, but won't be able to trade. Neither will they be showed on the highscores. They may pay before the period ends, if they decide they like the server.

We could treat this payment as a deposit that will be paid back if you chose to quit playing the server, unless you were banned. Which would also lock your account. To reactivate, you'd have to pay the deposit again.

Multiple website accounts will be against our rules. However, one account can have multiple characters in game. In the future, we'll also be restricting it to two clients per player.

A system like this, in my opinion, would be beneficial for everyone. The server would likely be cleaner, people would be more careful with the rules. In general I believe that such a thing might just improve on just about everything.

Let me know what you think! If you're voting no; please let me know why! If you have thoughts about this system, and how it could be better, please also let me know! :)

No. While I understand that money for growth is necessary, this is not a good way to go about it.

The growth you want to put the money towards is simply not going to happen if there's a payment required to play a day after signup. Either you scare new people off right off the bat, or they don't notice the deal at first and are disappointed the day after. People don't want to commit to something the very day they discover it, especially if money is involved.

Also, for people like me it's just too much of a hassle. I personally haven't played in a few weeks now. If this system was put into place, the next time I want to check out what's changed I wouldn't want to have to pay for it. Sure, I could ask it back a day later if I'm bored or stopped seeing the point of playing in the first place, but a few weeks later I'd have to go over the same thing again. Or I don't ask it back at all, and I'd feel compelled to hop on even if I don't want to. I don't quit, even if I have no intention of playing. I just take breaks, albeit long ones.

I think the only people that would have little or nothing against this are the ones that intend to play a lot anyway, which are generally neither people like me, nor, more importantly, new players.

TL;DR: Scares off new players, people like me would just fuck off, and overall it's too much of a hassle.

I understand your opinion(s). However, this is mainly to help us enforce the rules, not to make money. Which is why it's a deposit.

A lot of the people who play wouldn't even care to apply for a refund. I know I wouldn't, if I found something I enjoyed for a while.

However, for this to work, we will need a solid website that shows off our server's potential, and content. So we'll be having a wiki that goes into detail about all our content.

We'll have media on our website showcasing cool content, and we'll have ads that are designed to hook players.

I truly believe that this would be beneficial for all of us. As long as we do it right.

Before we can even think to implement this system, we need to revise the content and introduce our new server. Otherwise no one will bother paying for it. We'll for sure need a new website as well.

I voted no. Simply because having a pay to play server will always have a financial barrier. Gaining people's trust to come and play a server with this 'deposit system would be difficult. People will always have a weird feeling about this, especially since it's not like we have a steady playerbase.

Besides that, even if it did happen, people wouldn't want to read what this system is all about, having all these rules or details just about playing a server, would rather keep people away. Atleast that's what it would do to me. I really wouldn't like to see this happen... Enforcing rules shouldn't really be an issue if you have active staff, let's be honest here. I don't think this would be the right step if after the long wait and hard work for the new server, as I feel like it might die or will hardly be played on with this system. How I see it is if the new server comes around, the server has a little bit more active staff, on both timezones. But maybe I'm too simple minded to like this idea.

I see where you're coming from. There are lots of thoughts to this that I couldn't get down to words in one post.

To make this work, it needs to be "hidden" until you make an account, and a few simple bullet points that explains very quickly what the system is. Something like this:

Deposit System
- 24 hour actual hours play time (with premium)
- Pay $x to keep the account after trial time
- If you at a later point choose to quit playing, you could apply for a refund. Which you'll get as long as you haven't broken any rules.

Something along those lines should explain quickly what it is. But this system would realistically come in place some time after we've started advertising etc, which means we'll by then know whether or not people want to play the server.

If people want to play it, and we have an active community, we can implement the system. Accounts created prior to that point in time where we introduce it could be free, but I don't know about such details yet.

I know that to get a system like this to actually work and be nice, is very delicate, and needs to be thought very thoroughly before implemented. Otherwise it'll probably just bite us in the ass.

I'm starting to understand the idea a bit better, and maybe am looking a bit more positive towards it. But how is the server going to raise funds for advertisement and stuff alike? Just simple donating for cosmetics or ...? Whats the idea on that? Or have we raised some decent amount at this point in time?

I like the idea of 'trying' premium with a a trial period. Other than that, there should be a free to play aspect at all time. If funds are a problem, there are ads among other things that you could do. Demanding money from a new person playing would put me off entirely even if given a trial period.

It's mostly about control over the server and accounts rather than funds. The best way to be able to prevent ban evading (by creating multiple accounts) is a system that forces you to pay to play the server.

There will probably never be a premium trial period, unless it's with this system.

I understand the concept overall and why you would look into the "Pay to play" concept but my vote is no for the simple reason that I don't have the spare money to pay simply to play. I currently play because I have been around since the original shut down however many years ago and the nostalgia of the good times back in the day. If the concept of having to pay in order to play the server was implemented I would go back to just checking up on the server every couple months.

I know this isn't exactly the ideal response but realistically to me I just don't think paying for a little nostalgia is worth it when my money could go towards something such as groceries or gas that really effect my lifestyle.

There will still be premium membership, could consider selling untradeable cosmetical items, and a pure donation system.

I've played with the thought of implementing a donation system, where we put up lists of features, and what we estimate the costs of implementing it to be. Then the community donate for the feature they desire the most, or all of them. So once features receive enough donations towards the milestone, it'll be implemented. Doesn't necessarily mean that the milestone needs to be met before it can be implemented.

With this kind of involvement with real money, I will try to make a system that is as open as possible with how much money we pull, and what we spend it on. However who pays what will never be revealed, but amounts paid per transaction; maybe.

Either way; I will probably try to make a system that shows all our expenses, so anyone can see what we spend money on, and at least the number that shows how much money we received by each category; premium, pure donations and potentially this system.

I get where you're coming from, but the pure nostalgia thinking is going to hold the entire project back from it's true potential. If the original Ub3r 3.0 was still online, it would probably have had major changes by now. I know that they were good developers considering the time it was made.

So a lot of things will probably change so much that you can still recognize the Dodian in it's core, but just about everything is changing in one way or another. But we will for sure keep Yanille as home, and the red key dungeon. We will probably also keep Skeletal and Whip best in slot, but maybe introduce alternatives that are equally good, but I'm thinking that we won't introduce anything superior.

That's a no from me. In fact, I think we should be moving further from a p2p model than we already are, as long as it can be proven sustainable.

I think yell should be locked by total level or the paywall, and other premium features are just fine and dandy to put behind the paywall, but if a player can only get to level 80 combat before having to throw a 'deposit' into a server with 20 active members, we will never grow. Noone will ever pay that.

The only people paying for premium are returning members, and very few new players (please correct me if I'm wrong, I'm assuming here.)

You're not looking at this right. If you read through the replies I've made throughout the thread, you'll see why.

TL;DR: We're not meaning to implementing it right off the bat, but rather wait until we've launched the new server, and started advertising etc.

That doesn't change the fact that the vast majority of potential new players won't want to have to make a deposit to keep playing a Runescape ripoff after only 24 hours of playtime.

24 hours of actual playing is quite a bit. Could get quite a bit done in that amount of time, so if someone chose not to pay to continue, it just ain't fun enough for them.

Who cares if it's a RuneScape ripoff. We could make something that is better than RuneScape. I think that you're maybe missing the bigger picture here.

To have something like this work; it entirely depends on everything, not just the server it self, but website, staff, future plans so on.

I agree that, with the small player base that we currently have, it's not even worth a thought. However, if after doing ads and voting, we catch interest and the playerbase grows. I think that this could be a very good addition to ease up the workload for staff members.

______

People might think that having enough staff that is online at all times, to maintain the server is a solution. Well, yes, it is. However, I believe in fair decision making, and that's only possible with viable proof, which we often don't have. Very often, we only have our word against the player's word, and if someone wanted to dispute their punishment, it would be the same.

With things being more automated, harder to cheat and in general just more sophisticated systems to help the staff members do their jobs properly, I believe it could be a very beneficial thing.

The whole idea that you deposit money to play, and can get the refund only if you haven't broken any rules is enough for me to vote no. I get that as the owner of a MMO you have all the rights to call every shot, but this system seems to be very abuseable. You say that in a ban, it's often a staff members word against a players word, which is very unreliable. What then makes it reliable enough to withhold someones money?

Punishment for "ban evading" is a pretty shitty rule anyways. If you cheat on one account, should all your accounts be banned? Debatable. Even if that's the case, should all your future accounts be banned as well? Having just the one account - with two characters connected to it - seems pretty shit as well.

With this, you'd be restricted to two characters, which seems very.. Well, restricting. Restrictions isn't exactly what draws people to private servers, probably rather the lack thereof.

And yes, 24 hours is a respectable total playtime, but I don't agree with the sentient that everyone would gladly pay for something they've enjoyed for over 24 hours. I'd not.

I can probably see this system somewhat working on the surface, but the whole idea seems like a way to halter the players (which you, by the way, have all the rights to do). So in short, it's a big "no" from me on this one as there's other ways to "collect" money which are way healthier for the players freedom to play how they want.

Holding money would be in cases of someone clearly breaking the rules. With this system in place, we will be able to be very sure about who's who, because very few people will be making multiple accounts to hide their identity (which is the whole point of a system such as this).

To supplement the decision making when it comes to rules, we'll be implementing logs to monitor as much as we can through them.

Let's say someone were caught auto clicking (which is very common), I wouldn't give them a refund if they chose to quit after receiving the punishment. However, at a later point in time, after serving their punishment without making a problem about it, I might consider it.

However, it will mainly be; if you're breaking rules to such an extent that you're permanently banned for being a malicious player; you may not apply to get a refund. What this could be; continuously breaking rules, even after multiple soft to medium punishments.

As I mentioned earlier; this system is quite delicate, so if it's not done right and well thought through; I agree, it's a very big no. But if it's done right, I believe it could benefit both staff and players.

Whether all accounts should be banned or not, depends on the rule being broken. Ban evading is against the rules in any game or community, for obvious reasons. What's the point in banning someone if they can just come back? Yes, you'd have to do progress again. Anyway, the account is just serving as a host for your characters.


No, restricting to two characters online at the time. You may create more characters that you can switch between; but you may only be active on two of them at the same time.

What limit we'll put on amount of characters per account, I'm not sure of yet. If we'll even put a limit to it.

It's just meant to show you what you'll be paying for. If you're not hooked enough by 24 hours of playing to pay the few dollars required to continue playing, I guess we're doing something wrong, or the server just simply isn't for you.

I'd gladly pay for something I enjoyed, and if I could even apply to get my money back once I felt I was done with it, I'd probably not hesitate.

This is not to collect money, but rather incentive to follow the rules while playing. Who cares to lose a few dollars just to break some rules? Which again is the purpose of deposits. If you already paid, know you won't get the money back, and you're tired of playing. Rather than breaking rules, you apply for your money instead. Problem solved! (in theory that is)

This all hinges on just how much money the deposit ends up being. It's just like the deposit you give your landlord when you rent a home, to remind you there's something at stake in it if you mess the place up when you move out, they'll withhold the deposit and put it towards fixing up the mess you made. It's implimented in the real world, so I can understand why it seems to be a logical way to give players an incentive to behave.
The way I look at this is that if the deposit is small, more people can easily pay it and enjoy the server, but the stake will be small enough that a rulebreaker won't care if they lose it. On the flip-side, if it's too big, exponentially fewer people will be willing to pay it and the community suffers as a result. With premium being a monthly cost, it will serve much better as a deterrent to breaking rules because the money was effectively invested into those characters and would be lost if they got themselves banned.
I don't see deposits working on products that are not a necessity in people's lives as housing is, but I'm also by no means an expert in the financial field. I'd personally pay it as long as it's around the $5 area, but any more than that and I'd be thinking twice about whether it'd be worth the hassle. I have no desire to break any rules and gladly pay for premium in order to get the most out of my gameplay for the time that I can enjoy it.

While brainstorming the idea, I was thinking $10 to continue playing after those 24 hours. Which isn't a lot, but then again, more than you'd care to lose simply to break some rules. At least you won't be making countless of new accounts to continue pouring money into the server.

Right now I feel like people don't care. As long as their progress isn't valuable, they can just create new accounts and continue fucking the rules. It's not too big of an issue right now, as most of the people are returning Dodian players that have been around for a long time. However, when we start taking in fresh players and playerbase actually grows, it would be a bigger issue.

My response to this is mainly, what rules are you worried about being broken that this system would rectify?

It's meant to make sure that people don't make multiple accounts. I'm worried about scripts(/botting) mostly. But also being able to permanently ban someone without a way for them to come back, is convenient. Obviously they could pay to come back, but who's to say they won't be catched?

MY vote is no. Simply for the fact of building a player base beyond what is already here.

This is an idea, the purpose of the vote is to see what people think about potentially having it.

Basically what you're saying is that you're fine with it, when we've started to build the playerbase. Which is my intention anyway. This idea won't be implemented before a later time.

No, to big a barrier of entry for a private server. Just make premium p2p like it always has been, maybe include a trial period for that. We want people, yeah sure people may cheat/break the rules. That happens in every game though, p2p or not.

That I know, but it's less of a reason to do it in a game if you put a deposit into it.

Honestly, it's like shopping at a membership-only big box store, like Costco. I like the idea of it, but I've also brought you my concerns. I voted yes, tentatively. Best of luck.

I will for sure be very careful with this kind of setup - if implemented.

P2P Issues
 

If you want to make more money keep this true dodian server with cooler rewards for premium/ players /areas. This alone will entice new players.

How on earth do you reach this conclusion for a 7-17 vote and mostly negative feedback in the comments?

Because I just wanted to see what people would think. I just wanted a rough idea on how much resistance I'd meed with such an idea.

Not all decisions can be solely based on majority's thoughts. Administration will also need to decide what they believe is right for the future of this project.

That being said; the only thing I concluded was how I wanted to implement it. I never decided when or even if I ever get around to activate this system. We'll have to wait and see what comes of this project without first.

This is not to make money. Read the thread and replies, and you'll understand what this is about.

I completely agree and see your perspective with the administrative decision even though the majority lost. Just have a few questions in regards to how this would work once implemented.

Once implemented although accounts already created wouldn't have the 24 hour period, would they still have to pay the $10 deposit to continue playing?

Would this mean that all players have premium access once implemented?

And last, how would this system allow you to put money toward advertisements and other needs if it is looked at as a deposit that can be collected whenever someone quits? Is it banking on long term players that you wouldn't have to deal with those quitting or strictly banking on people breaking the rules and keeping their deposit?

I'm extremely late on this, and I don't know what the verdict ended up being. But Dodian is a server based off of very limited longevity due to the way that the current economy is set up and stuff. Paying for an account would be ridiculous, especially due to the state of the game currently.

The verdict is that we may implement the system, but we won't activate it until we feel it would be ready. Which we have no idea when is.

Either way! Dodian will have to undergo quite a few changes. Not only for this, but in general, for it to be a server that actually lasts.

I must have missed your reply. However, this is just a deposit. Existing players will not be affected by it in any way at all.

This does not at all help with money for advertisement etc. The only benefit gained from this is more control over things in general.

So the only profit we'd get from this, is people who don't care to collect their deposit, and people breaking rules to such an extent that they get banned.

why don't you just make a basic world (f2p) and expand it enormously for p2p. Such as the missing skills for p2p, unique items and npcs.

I want to think along for new areas for p2p. And I think the regular classical players are also open to this and then go p2p.

You keep the non-committal to grow the server and the regular players or those who want to continue to become p2p themselves.

This is super late but here's my 2 cents. A 24 hour period to try is nowhere near enough if they want to experience as much as possible of the game before deciding to purchase premium, some may simply want to play it indefinitely. The thing with money is that unfortunately no one knows if they'll ever get it back unless if it was an automated system which would guarantee it. Furthermore, the price you are asking for is more than others would be willing to pay. Next thing you have to consider is the transfer fee, who is going to eat up that cost? I think your best bet for spam is to implement better spam prevention that to ask free to play members to deposit money. Wonderful ways of spam prevention could restrict message posting to once every 2-3 seconds. You could use the equivalent of regex to hide certain words types in certain ways. Just my thoughts on this.

You misunderstood the whole thing. I'm considering this a closed chapter anyway.

However, this is not at all to prevent spam. I would need to be a damn big idiot to not be able to prevent spam. Spam prevention is easy, and I already have sufficient solutions to that problem.