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Old 02-24-2010, 07:22 PM   #13
silvarilon
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Join Date: Dec 2009
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Re: How do you pay for your mud?

Sure. But of course, that's a sliding scale.

A game where you can donate money with no recognition or thanks is, obviously, entirely free.
A game where you can donate money, and you get an email from the lead staffer thanking you, and maybe your PCs name mentioned on a "wall of honor" to show who donated? There's a strong argument that that's also entirely free.
A game where you get a small statue of your own character? As long as that statue isn't needed in the game for anything specific... is that still entirely free? Probably.

A game where you can't buy any weapons without spending real money, and you can't survive without a weapon? That's obviously not free.

But there's a very broad spectrum between.

I'd make the argument that, if I can log in without paying something, I can interact with the game and other players, I can get some "gameplay" and I can leave, all without paying something - then the game is free.

It might be an *unpleasant* free game, where the others who pay have better skills and items, especially in PvP, but it's still a free game.

This is something I've thought about a fair bit. My game is not free, every player pays a subscription fee - however, players with premium accounts, and players that volunteer their time helping to run the game, get "storypoints" - those storypoints can be cashed in for in-game perks. For example, if you have enough storypoints you can start a new character as a noble, instead of spending the time working your way up to that rank. Or you can get detail modifications (want "piercing black eyes" instead of just "black eyes"? That costs storypoints.)

However, I very VERY strongly want to make sure that if someone pays for a basic subscription they get access to "the whole game" - I don't want anyone feeling like they are at some disadvantage because they don't have a premium account. I want the storypoints to feel like a fun reward in thanks for the extra money, but ENTIRELY an optional extra for those players who want it.

To that extent, storypoints can NOT increase your characters rank once in the game (so no getting in an in-game argument, then paying to become higher ranking than your rival), they can't affect your skills, so you can't pay to be a better fighter or merchant. That includes not buying "custom weapons" that have better statistics in combat. However, they can be used to get custom items. So you could buy a serrated sword, rather than a normal sword. But the serrated sword would be just for roleplay, it wouldn't be any better or worse in combat.

Hopefully (for us) that hits the right balance between allowing perks and rewards, without disadvantaging the players who choose not to donate.

We've actually considered the idea of making the game free, with pay-for-perks - and we've had a lot of players strongly dislike that idea. Right now, even though they're paying, they are all on an even footing. If we made that change, they wouldn't be all competing from the same starting point - even if it would be cheaper for most of the players to play...
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