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.