Pay to Play?

Originally Posted by Jabast

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.

[Jabast]

Originally Posted by Nozemi

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?

[Hunter]

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.

Originally Posted by Hunter

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.

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.

Originally Posted by Jabast

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?

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.

[a retard]

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.)

Originally Posted by a retard

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.

[Sirvu]

Originally Posted by Nozemi

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.

Originally Posted by Sirvu

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.

[zerutule]

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.