A number of developers, admirably eager to help out BYOND by using the IsByondMember() function, have considered giving BYOND members special powers or some such. Perhaps surprisingly, I'm not sure this is a good idea.
Remember good old Tanks? As I understand it, when Shadowdarke added special abilities making subscribers more powerful than other players, the result was exactly the opposite of what the game creator would want: Players, resentful of subscribers, would ban subscribers from the server or otherwise harrass them, discouraging people from getting subscriptions.
If giving BYOND Members a leg up may be a bad idea, what's a loyal developer who wants to help BYOND succeed to do?
I propose that you set it up so having a BYOND Member around is a benefit to all in the game. For example, in DragonSnot, if any BYONDscape subscriber is logged in, then the second half of the game is unlocked for all players, and a big announcement is made to everyone thanking the Member.
If Last Robot Standing turns out to be popular enough to warrant a 2.0 release with a bunch of new modules/cards, I suspect we will do something similar: The new cards are only unlocked if a BYOND Member is around.
Hopefully this will encourage the desired behavior: People will be asking Members to join the game, and Membership will be a cool thing, bestowing glowing feelings to all.
Something to think about.
I don't really like that any more than I like making members more powerful than non-members. Your suggestion would make non-members feel like second-class citizens.
Hiawathaland: either members-only, or imposes severe restrictions on non-members (can't leave "newbie town", very low cap on skill advancement, etc.). While the former idea feels like giving the members a feature, similar to BYONDscape-only demos and libraries, the latter feels too much like taking from non-members, which I don't think is a good idea. Personally, I would prefer to have IsByondMember() used to give members more variety, but not in an unbalanced way. An extra members-only class in an RPG, for example, would be good as long as that class was balanced with non-member classes. | |
I'd only use IsByondMember() for displaying the fact they are a member in the Who's Online verb. I see no reason for a Member to gain better access to anything a normal player doesn't get.
The way I see it, paying for a BYOND membership doesn't effect the outcome of a game I create. They were able to play it before being a member. | |
Wizkidd0123:
I don't really like that any more than I like making members more powerful than non-members. Your suggestion would make non-members feel like second-class citizens. And? They pretty much already are second-class citizens, to be honest. | |
Monstoro: can only be hosted by members. That fits to me. It is an important perk, but, again, makes Membership valuable to all, since everyone benefits from the game being hosted. Your suggestion would make non-members feel like second-class citizens. Membership is critical to BYOND's continued success, and therefore those who use the system and don't contribute to it are not at the same level as those who do. Unavoidable. There may be perfectly good reasons that people can't contribute, and fortunately they get an amazing amount of value out of BYOND for free. But if someone is willing to help BYOND out financially, then of course they are going to get benefits that separate them from others. A person could say "Not having a BYOND blog makes me a second class citizen in this community, therefore, I should be provided one for free." Nope. | |
I don't see why that means it's OK to flaunt that second-class feeling, or else Deadron's example about Tanks pops up again.
Honestly, I expected something like that to happen with Proelium, but the way subscriber perks were handled doesn't seem to throw the game off. The number of free classes to subscribed ones are roughly 2 to 1, and the 4 subscriber classes that are in can easily be kicked around by any non-sub class. What the subscription offers is not so much power, but a bit more in the way of variety. You get 4 different classes to toy around with, but you're not guaranteed to have an advantage over a non-paying player. So...maybe the key to help keepign a happy medium between Byond members and "second-class citizens" is not by offering benefits, but rather variety? | |
I certainly don't mean that every developer should follow the "BYOND hard-liner" pattern, or even that all my future work will. But I think one of the key requirements for the BYOND Membership scheme to work (i.e., to provide incentive for Tom et al. to continue working on BYOND) is going to be a selection of "killer apps" whose creators voluntarily tie the games into BYOND membership.
I guess Hiawathaland will depend on whether I charge for subscriptions. If I charge, BYOND members will get some perks but nothing too fancy or enviable; if I don't charge, then people will have to be BYOND members to get anything but a tiny taste of it. | |
Amazing. Non-members could add comments! :O
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"They pretty much already are second-class citizens, to be honest."
It's sad... I'm like a third-class citizen. :( | |
i was thinking that little "funny" things might be the answer. for example, in an RPG, maybe a subscriber has a 1/100 chance for an enemy they encounter to do something like "notices that (name) is wearing a byond subscriber medal, eagerly surrenders his gold, and runs away!" so that way, although they are benefitting in a way that a non-subscriber would never recieve, it may put a "lighter air" around the benefit. also, because this happens like, 1 out of 100 times, its not that great of a benefit really, but the subscriber still feels like they've been recognized for paying...
i doubt this would fly in dwsoe or ffthg or anything, but i personally think its a nifty idea. as far as funny stuff, maybe NPCs simply say different things that may be comical to subscribers only... maybe a subscriber gets *more* enjoyment out of the game because of this, but a non-subscriber wouldnt necessarily even notice a difference at all. if you were in a party led by the subscriber, all the members of the party, subscribers or non, would see these humorous changes, and that could potentially make people encourage more members to play, and more non-members to sign up. </$0.02> | |
I like Tactics idea.
Things that make the game a bit more humurous and enjoyable to subscribers/members-but isn't really noticed by non-subscribers/members- does seem to be a good way to go about it. I also agree with Deadron about unlocking special features for everyone if there is a Member/subscriber in the game. Overall, i think it should be something the regular players won't miss, but it is something the paying players will enjoy. | |
I agree with Tiberath. Some people cant afford membership or just dont want it. Why should members get more things? It would just anger the non-members.
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Why should members get more things? Because they are helping BYOND survive and prosper, so they deserve something in return. Non-members should be very thankful to members, cause without their contribution, no more BYOND. | |
Adding member checks to completely free games might make someone feel uneasy, but adding member checks to games which already offer subscription features shouldn't confuse anyone. You're already a second class citizen to be used as an advertisement and prop for subscribers. The features are just a matter of not throwing the game balance off too much, which should always be a concern whether there are subscribers or not.
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I like the idea of using the presence of members as a catalyst for producing rare random items within a scarcity-based economy (even if it's an economy of "30 second power ups" that everybody chases around).
I've been toying with various ways of giving members more direct perks (though more in my centrally-hosted projects than in something like Red Cap), but always with the idea that the stuff they get are things that persist in the game environment and can bring benefit to their allies, or is something that can be taken away. :P Basically, using Members as an entry point to get the rarer items into the game... but only for things that are volatile enough that they'll change hands. Members get first dibs, but not an overwhelming advantage. Obviously, that would be difficult to balance. For my to-be-centrally-hosted-games, I'm having a hard time seeing the downside of using Membership where I would have used subscriptions in the past. I'm not interested in running my own subscription stuff... certainly not looking to make money off these games (at least not directly). I just like using price of subscription as a way to set a limit on something the game requires to be scarce. | |
Nice idea, Tactics!
And to the subject of justifying members getting more- hey, why shouldn't they? They paid, and when you pay money you get stuff in return. | |
I like this idea. Make sure that everyone would want these new options or allow someone to turn them off (the host or the member), though, or you may end up with the same banning of subscribers. =)
Using LRS as an example, maybe the host might not want the Firey Death card in play. In fact, I'd probably let the host decide on a card by card basis which ones could be played (saved of course, to save him/her the trouble of going through the list again). Of course, I haven't played it yet, so for all I know you've already got something setup. =P | |
Hah, that usual grumpy A.I. that makes snide remarks about players is going to continue halfway but praise members, things like that would be nice. :)
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I haven't read most of the previously suggested ideas so sorry if someone has said the following already.
I suggest that BYOND members should get extras. But those extras shouldn't be something that could make the member superior to non-members in a practical sense. I'm sure most of you have heard the expression "Beauty is only skin deep", well let the extras be the beauty and let the gameplay be deep. Examples of achieving beaty include: RPG: Add some form of clothing or a new weapon. But that weapon shouldn't be able to hit twice as better as normal weapons but instead the same as normal. General: More music? I'd think of some more but I'm a bit busy. | |
Monstoro: can only be hosted by members.
Hiawathaland: either members-only, or imposes severe restrictions on non-members (can't leave "newbie town", very low cap on skill advancement, etc.).