What are reasonable fees?

Xeneros · **Joined:** Sat Apr 18, 2009 7:03 pm **Posts:** 5

silmefea wrote:

Ok, World of Warcrack costs $15.00 per month and there is ALWAYS something to do whenever you log on, it has nice graphics, engaging content and storylines. I would pay this for something comparable.

RunEscape is free up to a certain point and if you wish to progress further you pay $5.00 per month. There is always something to do, just not necessarily fun stuff, graphics are lame, content and story are mediocre.

Kingdom of Loathing is free/donation and is worth every penny. The graphics are a joke, the storyline... IS there one? There is stuff to do for a little while every day. But hey, it's free.

So, i would be willing to pay what the game is worth to me. If it is like it was before with pretty graphics and nothing to do most of the time it should be free. No offense, but there was a lot of downtime. If it is amazingly engaging with stuff to do all the time, engaging content, and storyline as well as killer graphics, I'd pay $15.00 per month.

You also have to realize that there are other things out there that draw far more people with little content just because they are free. Take Second(to no)Life for example. A free online environment that offers a community like environment much like what uru offers. The key selling point to uru is the in depth storyline and the challenging puzzles. If you expect someone to pay any money at all just to play uru online when they can buy the complete collection for just 10 dollars now you have to find something that will lure people in other than just the fact that it is a community environment.

So here's a solution: make it more like Guildwarz, a one time fee that is not huge(like 20$ or around there) and have extra add-on's such as journey packs(multiple worlds connected through a journey) or avatar packs(a pack full of extra outfits) or relto packs(a pack full of extra customizations to relto's) on sale for 5-15 dollars each (depending on the bulk of the content).

M Kaze · **Joined:** Fri Apr 10, 2009 5:19 am **Posts:** 6

The thing is, sir, that if it is open source noone can stop anybody from starting a free, maintained server. Donation based, for example. And you can't change for the client if it's opensourced, that would be illegal. Also, I have been in MMOs where you pay for content or clothes... it is not a nice thing, trust me. Frankly, I expect if you try to do something like that, it will splinter the group apart just like UU was, running small servers for free.

Frankly, if you absolutely must charge, make it a small monthly fee rather than a constant urge to buy buy buy buy buy buy buy. I'd rather just play single player, which I have no doubt will be possible rather quickly.

Xeneros · **Joined:** Sat Apr 18, 2009 7:03 pm **Posts:** 5

Quote:

The thing is, sir, that if it is open source no one can stop anybody from starting a free, maintained server. Donation based, for example. And you can't change for the client if it's opensourced, that would be illegal. Also, I have been in MMOs where you pay for content or clothes... it is not a nice thing, trust me. Frankly, I expect if you try to do something like that, it will splinter the group apart just like UU was, running small servers for free.

I understand that, however monthly fees turn many people away because they do not want to get locked into something. Especially when the game is almost completely available for single player for a minimal one time fee. Unless you are going to bring something mind blowing into the game that will make it a huge upgrade from the single player version a lot of people who may wish to play would turn away because of a monthly fee.

Also it would not be "a constant urge to buy buy buy" as you put it because there would be other free content also being released. It is just that if there were certain ages which were put on sale then people would have the choice if they wished to pay more money instead of being locked into something. Even if some people miss out on some content the people who would buy it would be helping fund the shard. In this way you can pull new people in with the promise of not having to be bound by a monthly fee and still have enough cashflow to keep the servers running.

M Kaze · **Joined:** Fri Apr 10, 2009 5:19 am **Posts:** 6

Actually, I was wondering. I know that the MOUL we know is different in architecture from the old URU (for proof, I could actually run MOUL on this computer, whereas the only one capable of URU ABM died a year ago

) but would it be possible to create a single player version? I assume so, and there are certainly reasons to do so: testing, for example, or just playing on one's own.

silmefea · **Posted:** Mon May 18, 2009 12:05 pm

I believe that millions of Warcrack players would beg to differ about monthly fees putting them off. We have 2 accounts in my house and we have been playing for three years. That's $30.00 per month and even in this economy we would rather cut corners elsewhere than have to do with out Warcrack. Even when there is no new content there is always something to do.

Yeah, I know I'm flogging a dead horse with what I'm about to say since it is the same thing I've been saying since the beta testing began for Uru, BUT we need repeatable content. Quests that can be done over and over and change each time. Expeditions that net us ultra cool items for our reltos or to wear. Fishing or hunting trips where we can catalog new species to add to our books. Photographing flora, landscape, geological, archaological anomolies to catalog in special books that we keep in our Relto libraries. Quests to learn new codes for Writing so we can add them to our libraries as well.

It would be cool to have a working economy of some sort, one that doesn't depend on killing stuff. I would love to see people be allowed to create items to barter in game. Like pottery, textiles, furniture, etc... People could uplink images to a site where they could be approved for content. Once they gain approval, the creators of said images could use them to create IG items such as shirts, posters and various art. Likewise music could be added.

It would be really cool to do quests that required us to get materials to rebuild parts of the city or the boats. Teams could be created to solve epic puzzles and retreive things that would fix stuff. I would love to see new sections of the caverns opened by the players and not just suddenly available one day when the previous day it was blocked with tons of rubble. Maybe we would have to build machines to move the stones, then reinforce the existing structure. In order to remain true to D'ni architecture we would need to research how the D'ni did such things and do everything the D'ni way.

I still want to take a boat tour of the cavern. Maybe rent a slip and keep my own little fishing boat there where I can catch fish to either catalog or add to my Relto pond.

There should be an amphitheatre server designed to handle huge amounts of people that would only be used when DRC or other important people would address us. This would be in an effort to avoid the huge lag that always occured when such things happened before. Maybe this could be several dedicated servers so that people who don't want to be involved can do other stuff.

This would, naturally, be in addition to the scheduled content that we used to get as opposed to a replacement. I like that we were told when interesting stuff would happen as it gave us something to look forward to, but it should never have been the entirety of the game.

Please note that nothing I have mentioned here is at odds with the Myst universe, nor would it ruin the feel of the game. Pick-ups, rewards, titles, transportation, whatever, we need something to work for. What's my motivation for bothering to even log on? I know that towards the end of Uru, I asked myself this question a whole lot and my only answer was that I had to support the game because it had so much potential. I hoped that some of these things I mentioned would come to pass. It was like a bad relationship.

So, if the game has the above elements I would GLADLY pay $15.00 per month. If the game is as it was I would not be willing to even donate a few bucks once in a while. Anything in between I would pay accordingly. I hate the idea of following the Guild Wars model as I like to budget and I hate the thought that I may miss something new because it simply is not in the budget. If there is something new, I want to be able to attain it without RL concerns.

SCGreyWolf · **Posted:** Mon May 18, 2009 1:50 pm

I pay $15 a month for WoW and I paid $10 a month to GameTap and only played MOUL, so I don't have a problem with monthly fees. The problem I had with MOUL was the content output was inconsistent in quality and frequency, both of which I believe were a product of GameTap's management, not Cyan Worlds being lazy.

silmefea · **Posted:** Mon May 18, 2009 3:47 pm

One way people could help fund this is to create stuff to sell on sites ike Ebay and Etsy or Cafe Press. You could set up an account, then people could send you the stuff and you could sell it and use the proceeds to fund the project. After that, you could sell t shirts and the like to match the clothing worn by our avatars and also charge a monthly fee.

What are reasonable fees?

Who is online