I've thought about this some, and as to the sort of amount you should charge, it seems to me a basic rule of thumb should be to charge more based on how obscure and unnecessary a pay-for feature is, and conversely to charge less for wide-spread, highly necessary features. If non-paying players can only access an area that amounts to 0.00007% of the game, then players will probably be very skeptical of investing much money, if any at all, into a game that they have no prior experience in. On the other hand, totally unnecessary but nice extras--status symbols, attribute boosters, or nifty side features--could probably be set a bit higher, because players can log in, play the full game, get hooked, and then decide that they can spare some change getting some extra stuff. After all, if you've already invested huge wads of time into building a character up, you might as well spend the cash to complete that build.
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Lexy said what I was going to... that to get more people using BYONDimes, more games requiring them have to be made. I wouldn't be too worried about dimes; it's not as if you can't later alter or adjust any decision you make!
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Well thank you all for debating about this, for it has totally change my thoughts on the subject. I have decided to make the entire game ~free~, but have certain BD (BYONDime) stores that will sell equipment, and other things that give players advantages over players that don't have it (Like, for example, something like 'Flight Armor' that has a modifier of AGI 5, which makes the player run at the fastest rate... That way people can play as long as they want, and if they decide they wanna be a PK god, or just wanna have a huge advantage, they can spend dimes for it...
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After reading this whole conversation i feel that if you let players buy in game objs that would offset the game, but if you were to charge for special things like Guild owner ship it would be ok.
I really think letting players pay dimes for in game items is idiotic. | |
Tapion1 wrote:
After reading this whole conversation i feel that if you let players buy in game objs that would offset the game, but if you were to charge for special things like Guild owner ship it would be ok. So if paying $2.00 to get a guild set up would be OK, but if you had it represented in-game as buying a "Guild Charter" object it would suddenly become idiotic? I agree that pay-for items which are simply more powerful versions of the equipment available to everyone could easily be massively unbalancing, but I don't believe I've read many posts here advocating doing anything of the sort--there have been a few descriptions of games where items can be purchased via dimes, items that represent only special abilities or privelages and not just maxed out stats. | |
his game is pretty crappy right now so no one would pay 2$ a month to play.
If you were to own a guild and it was a "special" thing, that is something you would pay for but if its a run of the mill thing in the game you shouldnt have to BECAUSE if its something that is majourly a part of the game to have to pay for it would take away from the game. And remember, Guilds was just an example AND DONT PLAY DUMB! | |
Why use the word "Crappy"?
Let me explain something: At the time you played it, it was most likely 4 DAYS OLD :p Raise your hand if you've played a completly finished game that was done in 4 days (art and all)! When NONE of the races are programmed in, and in the version you played, Equipment wasn't programmed in! Since then I have added Equipment, and am at this moment programming in skills, and soon spells while my artist draws out the required graphics. And I'm not going to charge per-play as it is, and even if I were, it would be AFTER it's done. So PLEASE don't deem my game as crapy, call it "unfinished" or whatever... Sheesh | |
Ah thanks... I just really get irritated when I spend day after day, every waking second working on a game someone calls 'Crappy' simply because I'm only human (and a BYOND newbie at that!). I mean at least I'm trying! DWO is cool, but the graphics and music were coppied, so wait until we are done. And if then, you still say it's crappy, then please feel free, but say ~why~ it is :)
FYI: The first hour after people beta tested it, I fixed the follow bugs: 1) Negative depost at the bank 2) Negative withdrawal at the bank 3) Faulty warp bug at the slime quest. 4) Fixed the animation on the skeleton (though I told my artist to add a black outline around it also) 5) Made Chat a visible verb since most people don't read the docs. 6) Slowed down the AI loop 7) Totally re-did the attacking proc And then I took a day off to sleep (I literally slept most the day). Then I did this: 1) Added MP,MMP 2) Added equipment 3) Added status modifiers 4) Added Skill and Spells list 5) Added verbs Lore(), Equip(), and Unequip(). 6) Fixed the save/load code 7) Started sketching (on paper) ideas for some real quests 8) Drew 3 swords, 2 shields, and a necklace for testing equipment. And tonight I plan on adding grass-edge tiles so water isn't just square tiles, and adding the template code for the races and classes. My artist will also be working all night on a bunch of what I call "ThemeSet" which is basically a floor, wall, and roof of a certain theme (like the "Rock" theme set for all the quests you saw... Plus he's drawing a crap load of NPCs, on top of the player chars (He's drawing a character icon for each combination of Race/Class/Gender... So I'm not exactly sitting around on my butt here :D | |
So I'm not exactly sitting around on my butt here :D I disagree! I sit on my butt all the time! That is practically the primary definition of "sit"! But what this really boils down to is... what on Earth do you sit on when you program?! | |
I sit on my chair, unless it's not there,
Then I set on my cat, because he's really fat, And if I don't do that, I sit on the floor mat. | |
*snicker*
sorry for the OT but I cant wait till my next lab exam for programming ^_~ Im gonna do ALL my documentation in Haiku XD And now back to you're regularly schedualed flame war ^_~ Elorien | |
1) The law of conservation- a game like this doesn't "make" money for anyone, it just moves it around. Money going in, money going out... that's a lot of paperwork (if electronic paperwork) somewhere, with nothing to show for it.
2) If you can put money into a game, that's spending money, which is fine. Once the transaction is finished, the spenders have neither right nor reason to expect to see their money again. If they somehow lose their Gem of Heavenly Power, that's on them. If they know, though, that they could've traded the Gem of Heavenly Power and get their $0.80 back, you can bet you're going to hear about it when they lose it... possibly from their parents. Or their parents' lawyers. It's a psychological distinction, but it makes all the difference between "a place where kids can spend their own money" and "a place that rips kids off."
3) Finally, as Deadron pointed out, any game where you put money in with the possibility of getting money out is a form of gambling. The car example you gave (which you, admittedly, admitted was bad) is a pretty out-and-out example... but even a commerce game, where you can spend a few dimes to get a stake (homestead, basic farming equipment, seed) and sell your crops at the end of the season to get money back is also gambling... you're gambling on how good of a farmer you are. Refer back to point number 1: unless the designer of the game is interested in losing vast amounts of money, for one farmer to make any money at all, another (or all the other) farmers have to lose it.