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Real Money and Perma-Death

PostPosted: Thu Jul 11, 2013 8:11 pm
by Kdense
So, (and sorry if similar topic has been done I didn't find it if so)
I logged back onto this game after being gone 6 some months and having lost everything I had started was tempted to just shell out some money and get things rolling again but then I stopped myself for a few reasons.

1) What if I buy my money/items/whatever and log in and get killed 2 seconds later? That's real life cash I'm losing.

2) Even if I bought tons and tons of silver, that's not going to help me get back into the game any faster. With the amount of time it takes to do everything I can easily wander around and pick up junk to sell in the amount of time it takes to re-establish myself in the game.

3) What if I have to take time away from the game again and lose my stuff to decay, raiders, etc?

So... here was my thinking. A lot of games that have the money 'store' sell not items but 'buffs'. Like if I could go to the real money store and buy an item say that I can use on my coal pile to change its time from 3 days to like 10 min I'd be all over that. Times in this game boarder on browser based game speed, and a lot of those games sell speed boosts. So that was one thing I thought, "Hey even with perma death I'd pay to speed up stuff." The other thing was the idea of some kind of legacy items. A "mysterious package awaits you at the post office"... so when you buy a box of stuff at the money store and then your toon gets killed your next generation toon gets some heirloom from your main. Perhaps like simple tools or backpack or whatever. Something a) to encourage me to continue playing the game since I have just lost everything and b) if I bought stuff with irl money I don't want to lose it that easily. Especially with the current prices in the store.

So I guess in short my little list of things I'd love to hand over my real life money for is this:

1) Some kind of item speed boosts, turn 3 days of waiting into 10 minutes or something.
2) Some sort of legacy items so that if they were bought with real money they get passed on to my second generation toon if I get killed.
3) Inspirationals for the harder to level like perennial philosophy. Would seriously pay loads of money for that.


The problem with the current system is that while perma death makes a 'hard core' game, it is a bad business model for choose to pay.

Re: Real Money and Perma-Death

PostPosted: Thu Jul 11, 2013 8:58 pm
by alloin
+1

i'll buy em all x 500

Re: Real Money and Perma-Death

PostPosted: Thu Jul 11, 2013 10:24 pm
by Binks
+2

i'll buy em all x 1000

Re: Real Money and Perma-Death

PostPosted: Thu Jul 11, 2013 11:26 pm
by Dallane
Terrible ideas. Speed boost is a meh idea due to i hate the grind of the game but it turns this into a pay to win model. The legacy items is just a trash idea. Perennial is very easy to level like all other skills.

Re: Real Money and Perma-Death

PostPosted: Thu Jul 11, 2013 11:38 pm
by Kdense
Dallane wrote:Terrible ideas. Speed boost is a meh idea due to i hate the grind of the game but it turns this into a pay to win model. The legacy items is just a trash idea. Perennial is very easy to level like all other skills.



Perhaps trash ideas however you can't in all good faith agree than paying for items in a perma death game is a good model? I guess my thought is I've always been more of a sub pay fan because that way everyone gets all the same crap and it's not pay to win however, right now I just don't see how paying for items/money in a game that has perma death will ever make any money at all.

Re: Real Money and Perma-Death

PostPosted: Thu Jul 11, 2013 11:54 pm
by Dallane
Kdense wrote:
Dallane wrote:Terrible ideas. Speed boost is a meh idea due to i hate the grind of the game but it turns this into a pay to win model. The legacy items is just a trash idea. Perennial is very easy to level like all other skills.



Perhaps trash ideas however you can't in all good faith agree than paying for items in a perma death game is a good model? I guess my thought is I've always been more of a sub pay fan because that way everyone gets all the same crap and it's not pay to win however, right now I just don't see how paying for items/money in a game that has perma death will ever make any money at all.


Why wouldn't it be a good model? The items have worth otherwise its just stupid

Re: Real Money and Perma-Death

PostPosted: Fri Jul 12, 2013 3:14 am
by DarkNacht
If you buy crap and get killed before you pick it up at the bank it stays at the bank for your new character, never take more silver out of the bank than you need.
A lot of the early game involves grinding to get silver so buying silver does help you get back in the game faster, also you can buy most things(even some legacy purity items) from players with silver.
If you are careful and build good defenses its unlikely that you will be raided, unless you draw a lot of attention to yourself or piss off powerful people.

Re: Real Money and Perma-Death

PostPosted: Fri Jul 12, 2013 1:11 pm
by cairde
Generally, you lose your cash when you pay, not when you die. Alive or not, you cant take it back out. Also, you get refunded everytime the server resets.

Game should not be pay to win but perhaps pay to catch up? Maybe leaving the current setup with tradeable items and instead build the pay button into the interface, disabling the feature if you are in the top half of players by humors and proficiencis or scaling it to match a percentage of the difference between yourself and the top player in that stat.

I for one hate having pay buttons everywhere but maybe it is good for revenues?

Re: Real Money and Perma-Death

PostPosted: Fri Jul 12, 2013 3:22 pm
by TeckXKnight
cairde wrote:Generally, you lose your cash when you pay, not when you die. Alive or not, you cant take it back out. Also, you get refunded everytime the server resets.

Game should not be pay to win but perhaps pay to catch up? Maybe leaving the current setup with tradeable items and instead build the pay button into the interface, disabling the feature if you are in the top half of players by humors and proficiencis or scaling it to match a percentage of the difference between yourself and the top player in that stat.

I for one hate having pay buttons everywhere but maybe it is good for revenues?

Paying to skip content is likely a bad idea. Even the idea of being able to buy profs and humors was an idea reviled by all that I can remember for the fact that it let you skip content and avoid developing infrastructure while still allowing you to be a menace.

I wouldn't personally be opposed to being able to buy things like deeds to houses and braziers to help you jump start a town, though I'm still not entirely sure how that would play it.

Re: Real Money and Perma-Death

PostPosted: Fri Jul 12, 2013 3:49 pm
by Dallane
cairde wrote:I for one hate having pay buttons everywhere but maybe it is good for revenues?


Not really. It would turn more people off to the game.