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Old 05-29-2005, 06:48 PM   #41
Traithe
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Well, remember; the thing that distinguishes my conceptual model from most PFP applications is its binary nature.

Either you pay monthly and have access to all of the extended content, or you don't. It isn't a matter of paying and receiving an X increase in power, where each player can pay and receive these increases as many times as desired.

So, in a sense, it lowers the monetary barrier to effective competition, since in this model you only need to pay the monthly fee, whereas in the more liberalized PFP model you need to pay as much as other players (some with a great deal more disposable income than others, I imagine) are paying in order to effectively compete with them.

It's a given that paying members will in some ways have advantages that non-paying members don't; the moment you allow non-paying members to play in however limited a scope, this will happen, unless, as you said, you make your fee-required content not worth paying for.

The primary difference between the two models to my mind lies in the difficulty of surmounting the barrier of effective competition between paying customers noted above.
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Old 05-29-2005, 07:00 PM   #42
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There were two major factors in the system I suggested on Traithe's forums which would result in a more balanced playing field than the typical play-for-perks model:

1) Payment is boolean - either you're paying, or you're not - thus getting away from the arms-race mentality of "the more you pay, the better you become".

2) Pay-to-play options would expand your options outwards rather than upwards (i.e., you'd gain more options rather than more power).

To compare it to the weapon purchasing example you gave, it would be like saying that anyone can use swords, shields and crossbows, but only paying customers can use the other weapons - while at the same time stressing that all weapons are designed to be equally balanced against each other. The paying player would have the advantage of variety and flexibility, but would be no more powerful than the non-paying player.
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Old 05-30-2005, 02:13 AM   #43
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Well, in actuallity, all the teams spend money regardless. so thats essentially pay to play, not pay for perks... and also, what does rl friendships have to do with the difference between pay to play and pay for perks? im also adding more to this than originally planned... I am an avid player of most IRE games, and i dont approve of the pay for perks route. While i would not pay to play those games, the way they use their credit system is outrageous! while they limit the amount of credits convertible per day, it is completely unbalanced vs paying your time. on lusternia right now, i believe it costs 4k ic gold to buy ONE credit, which doesnt help much, while 4k takes a little bit to acquire. meanwhile, you may pay around 70$ US to net you a good 200 credits. that would make you have more might than an average player. making a complete newbie, AKA a grandma in a nascar able to easily beat a marathon runner. i rest my case...
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Old 05-30-2005, 03:50 AM   #44
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Old 05-30-2005, 04:51 AM   #45
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It's a factor, yes, but one which can be replaced by money to a greater or lesser extent.  Each advantage a player buys is something they didn't need skill to earn, and each advantage that can't also be earned through playing is something that gives them yet another edge over those relying on skill.

My mud places an extremely high emphasis on player skill, yet most players would get torn apart by an iron golem - despite the fact that its 'tactics' consist of nothing more than throwing one clumsy punch after another.  Why would they lose?  Because it's so strong and tough that it can win through brute force.

Taken to the extreme, a pay-for-perks model could end up like that - a player with practically no skill who can mow their way through most other players using brute force to overcome their skill.

Some pay-for-perks muds use automated combat systems (which primarily uses character skill) combined with powerful equipment that can only be purchased with money.  At this point, money becomes more important than skill, and players who don't pay simply cannot compete with those who do.

But if they have mana which is boosted through purchased items which a non-paying player cannot have, then they don't need to be as skilled at making use of their spells - and will also be better than someone of the same skill level who doesn't have perks.

You seem to be pretty keen on the pay-for-perks method, but you still need to decide how much value you want skill to have in relation to money.  If players can buy advantages outright then they're also going to bypass some of the need for skill - and if those advantages are things which can only be purchased, then they're going to be buying themselves an edge over those who rely on skill.

As you can see from this thread, there are some people who like to be able to compensate for their lack of skill, and others who prefer a level playing field.  You can't please both though.
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Old 05-30-2005, 12:14 PM   #46
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Old 05-30-2005, 12:39 PM   #47
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That is an excellent point.

Then that gives you two viable options. Have you considered that these options are not mutually exclusive?

On top of allowing limited-content access anytime to anyone, you could also allow free, limited-time access to all content. This offer could be taken advantage of as many times as a player wishes, but with an upfront warning that each character created via this offer will eventually be deactivated unless the player subscribes to your service.

This could also be part of a rewards program; extensions could be earned for non-subscription characters. Thus, a player who contributes enough to your mud in defined ways could have access to all content without ever getting a subscription.
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Old 05-30-2005, 04:24 PM   #48
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Except that everyone who pays would have access to exactly the same weapons, so they'd all be on equal footing.

If it's possible to buy things which cannot be earned for free, then obviously such things would detract from the skill element (the exact amount varying from implementation to implementation). If such advantages were negligible then players would be unlikely to buy them, rendering such a payment system ineffective.
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Old 05-30-2005, 06:05 PM   #49
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Alright, i know alot of people who use the very same package that i mentioned before, 70$ US for 200 creds... Now, lets say my character is in a decent standing at level 50, i have seen level 25 characters, with more might and higher than me. i have interacted with these characters, and they all usually reply that they have bought credits... and im talking they have double my might percentage, if you know what i mean.
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Old 05-30-2005, 09:41 PM   #50
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Daedroth, eh? You must play The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind if I'm not mistaken.
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Old 05-30-2005, 09:49 PM   #51
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I would equate the Credits of the IRE games to steroids.  Essentially, one could spend a large amount of time practicing and warming up and training in the gym, but then someone just uses their steroids and goes far beyond what you could attain in any amount of free time.  The point is, you can't attain the level of credit owning players with any amount of free time.  It would take you about three months of constant, nonstop play to reach someone who had, maybe, ten credits.  Money is much easier to attain than free time, and you can't go out and work for free time.  And to put out a different idea than most others in this thread, people with lots of free time will amost always be the people with tons of money.  Rarely is there a person with free time but no money, unless they are a teacher or a bum.
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Old 05-31-2005, 09:55 AM   #52
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Bull****.

Have you even ever played any IRE games? I can point out several examples of people I know that are top 10 ranked in every ranking category, transed out and own multiple artifacts that have not made credit purchases, or have made a single small credit purchase.

-H
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Old 05-31-2005, 11:22 AM   #53
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Ultimately, the people running a pay-for-perks system have every incentive to make it:

1) Appear to newbies to be irrelevant fluff.
2) Appear to experienced, invested players to be essential.

To draw people in, you want them to believe that they can play forever, never pay, and not be a second-class citizen. However, once players have put in hours, built up characters, and begun to calibrate themselves to what is challenging inside a game, you want them to realize that their credit card can make any of those challenges irrelevant.

If it was so simple to avoid payment and compete on a level playing field, why would anyone buy any of their products? The answer is obvious: RL money buys you advantages you wouldn't otherwise have, and that means that any competitive/merit achievements on the MUD (be it the best equipment, most powerful RP positions, or adventures through the coolest sections) will be slanted towards the players with the biggest pocketbooks.

Now, players can feel free to choose that environment, and administrators can offer anything they want, but:

1) Please stop pretending the spent money is irrelevant. If it was, you couldn't pay salaries.
2) Please stop advertising the game as "free". It's like a "free" chess tournament where the bishops cost you $20 each.

("But I can name a guy who won a game without any bishops! And you can choose to play with no bishops for free! You just need to manage your pawn resources a little more wisely!")

I do like the idea of subscription systems of the kind Traithe proposed, however. You beta the product, and it's clear up front that if you don't pay, your experience is going to be limited in a known fashion. If you do pay, you're on a level playing field.
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Old 05-31-2005, 01:19 PM   #54
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Sorry I haven't been keeping up on this thread. Been busy. I wanted to comment on something here though:

That's how you view them, at least. I don't view WoW as competitive -at all- for instance. As a player, I absolutely could not have cared less how someone else got to level 60. It's irrelevant to my experience.

Yes, some players will view them as competitive activities. But even there, what's the big deal? There is no difference to you whether someone is PKing you with equipment purchased with time, equipment gotten from their friends, or equipment purchased with money. They have the equipment. How they got it doesn't really matter in terms of their capabilities.

The overwhelming majority of people playing MUDs. They do have budgets. It's just the size of the budget that's the issue. I guarantee you that Rossi's budget for motorcycles is multiple times what some of his competitors can afford to pay.

Is there any difference between an item that lets you fly and a skill that lets you fly? I'd say not. They're both capabilities. Neither are actually items. Both are just database entries giving you the ability to manipulate other data structures in a particular way (in this case, manipulate it such that an avatar is 'flying'.)


Sure, that's cool, but then you're still buying your success with an out-of-game resource: Your personal skill. Don't get me wrong. I, personally, prefer that. Player skill is huge in all of our games, but then, most people aren't that interested in player skill being the dominating factor. That's why they're playing leveling games like WoW where it's mainly just about the time you sink in, the higher level friends you have, and your ability to hit the 'kill monster' buttons efficiently.

--matt
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Old 05-31-2005, 01:25 PM   #55
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That assumes that the only way to compete is to buy things yourself with real money, which isn't actually the case in any game I'm aware of. Our top players are rarely the ones that have spent the most money, for instance.


That's also not true. It's a simple matter to allow non-paying members to trade the products of their time investment for the products of the money investment of paying players.

For instance, you buy credits in our games, and can put them up for sale on the credit/gold market, where non-buyers can purchase those credits with gold that they got by investing time.

--matt
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Old 05-31-2005, 01:27 PM   #56
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Typically, that is not true in subscription games. Generally most things are only available to those willing to spend inordinate amounts of time.

--matt
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Old 05-31-2005, 01:34 PM   #57
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And indeed, they can. They just have to spend time to do it. What's the problem? On most games, that's the -only- way to advance. This model gives a player more options.


Wow, no offence, but you have no idea what you're talking about. Are you even aware of what challenges are available in pay for perks games? Have you played any of them for any length of time? In other words, do you have experiences in a wide variety of pay for perks systems that have given you hard data about them? Or are you just theorizing?


Who has said that? Of course spent money isn't irrelevant in pay for perks any more than it's irrelevant in subscription games (where they just ban you from the game if you don't pay up).

Or better yet, it's like a free MUD that you can play forever and obtain everything in the game without paying a single penny. =)

--matt
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Old 05-31-2005, 02:21 PM   #58
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Just as the person playing the "free" chess tournament where bishops cost $20 can play forever for free, and can potentially beat everyone else who plays. And you can point to a person who played for free with no bishops and won a game against a weaker player. Or claim that with sufficient skill, one can advance a pawn all the way to the other side of the board and choose to transform it into a bishop if one wanted, thus getting a $20 bishop for free. Or claim that with sufficient time invested, they'll be so skilled that they will be on par with bishop-owning newbies.

In reality, however, eventually the guy with no bishops is going to run into an equally skilled player with two bishops and get pasted in ten moves. (Or four bishops, analogous to the magnitude of advantage possible in many pay-for-perks schemes.) If they want to stay and compete, they're going to need to push that $40 across the giant "Free to play!" banner.
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Old 05-31-2005, 03:05 PM   #59
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Ahh, I think you're misunderstanding our system then. There are MUDs, I believe, that use pay for perks and don't allow people to attain <whatever> without paying, but in our games, everything is attainable without paying. It just requires spending time or using skill. Every single skill, every single service, every single item, every single quest, every single area, etc etc.

Besides, calling this model free is the industry standard. See Habbo Hotel, Puzzle Pirates, Quiz Quiz, Runescape, etc. All of them advertise themselves as free. You may not like it, but there it is.

--matt
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Old 05-31-2005, 05:18 PM   #60
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Ilkidarios is pretty much right on this one. Those characters who choose to buy credits, almost always are the more strong people. and just because they didnt buy the most, doesnt mean that they still didnt buy alot!

like i said, ive played for a long time, ive seen novices who i used to teach, skyrocket above me to Dukes of cities just by buying credits. the "limit" on credits convertible, that almost makes me laugh! its soooo hard to get on once every day and type CONVERT 30 CREDITS.... and then go and learn from some mob for a few more minutes... and hey! your skills are now more powerful than a level 50.
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