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RP for free
annys
Member Posts: 66 ✭✭
PvP is easily monetized, and that's where the money IRE gets comes from.
Personally, the reason I got into these games was the RP environment. There will be many of you in the beginning that share that passion with me, and I look forward to it.
But how does IRE benefit? How can we have our RP, and flavor fluff and all the (admittedly good) breadcrumbs we get, and still fund the company?
Long-term benefits is my answer. We keep people around, before they are ready to "participate" in the more intense (depending on who you ask) aspects of the game.
The social interaction is a huge part of these games, but one IRE can't force. So how do we help them help us?
Thoughts?
Personally, the reason I got into these games was the RP environment. There will be many of you in the beginning that share that passion with me, and I look forward to it.
But how does IRE benefit? How can we have our RP, and flavor fluff and all the (admittedly good) breadcrumbs we get, and still fund the company?
Long-term benefits is my answer. We keep people around, before they are ready to "participate" in the more intense (depending on who you ask) aspects of the game.
The social interaction is a huge part of these games, but one IRE can't force. So how do we help them help us?
Thoughts?
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The whales get to be more powerful or get some shiny items to show off to other players. If there aren't players around to show off to, the whales leave, the game dies. Same goes with your other paying customers. No one wants to play a MUD by themselves.
Just being part of the community is helping fund IRE by giving the whales an incentive to stick around and buy stuff.
Regardless, I don't really see the need to worry about this. It's a business and if they've got something you feel is worth paying them for then it's a fair exchange. If not, it isn't a charity, so who cares?
The roleplay, the friends, and the like. That keeps players coming back for more.
The whole whale thing is really IREs issue, it's not the responsibility of any player to stroke the ego of another.
Especially when whale retention is often done by balancing the game in favour of the whales and making the game potentially prohibitively expensive to get involved in (Archeage is an example here afaik).
I agree with your analysis, but does it have to be that way?
This is just brainstorming but microtransaction stuff might work? If we are given the incentive to actually buy anything. I wonder how much dropping huge amounts of cash for those benefits (well thought out and balanced, to be fair) is more habit than anything, and if there's actually some way I'd contribute if it wasn't $300 to do so each time.
And I love the games this company makes as much as the next person. Some people clearly do so even more than me. Why not concern ourselves with the actual longevity of a game we invest so much into (whether it's emotional or financial). Right now there's not really a whole lot of middle ground between the two, but is that the way it has to be?
IRE has a tried and true way of funding their games. If the game is good, enough people are going to want to win that the PvP scene itself is going to sell a ton of credits/artefacts/whatever. Only Midkemia ever got closed down, and that was largely a licensing issue that we don't have to worry about here.
Are you asking what kind of RP tools we could pay for with real money, or how to make a community that encourages people to stick around?
Fluff items from crafting will probably be a credit investment, so there's that. If much RP related stuff outside of fluff items comes with a real world cost, I for one would walk away from the game. Paying for events and things like that is a deal-breaker for me. Thankfully, IRE has never done this, to my knowledge.
The community aspect is hard to brainstorm right now because we just aren't working with enough information and obviously no one has played the game. The new player experience is always important but there isn't much we can do about that right from the jump.
Sorry if this is coming across as incredibly negative. I honestly am happy to see people are willing to invest in a game that sounds as interesting as this. Being concerned with the longevity of an unreleased game or the funding of it just seems silly to me right now.
* item customisation - redescribing stuff, even adding stuff like a line that displays to the room when you wear it or something
* dwellers - npc companions that have some useful features you can buy for them
* beasts - like dwellers but some combat functionality
* homesteads - on the map housing
On top of a selection of artifacts that have no pvp functionality as well as the credit market where people can sell credits to other players for gold. (Which can be incentivized with large gold value purchases and provide an avenue for non-monetizers to get access to credits)
It's actually pretty easy to spend large amounts of rl money on stuff without being a PVPer, as long as there is stuff there to buy of course.
I have noticed two disparate groups in every IRE game, and every forum has had the issue raised! Some imaginary divide exists between "RP" and "PvP" group, as it were. The implication (even in this very thread, already) is that the RP folks keep people around, but it's the PvP folks that fund the game. The RP crowd is strong in every game at launch and also fades (I've been around to notice). They go PvP, because IRE follows where the money is.
So if RP people keep people around, how does IRE keep us around? And can I even be as valuable to them as the cash cows, outside this existential "potentially (maybe) keeping my PvP proteges around"?
That is literally the opposite of Achaea, which is by far our most successful game, I should note. I myself used to regularly shout out (as Sarapis - the head god) the lyrics to whatever song I happened to be listening to. Roleplay had very little to do with Achaea at launch. It organically has developed to be far stronger now than it was in the early years, mainly through just players wanting more of it.
It just depends on which options are made available and what catches the interest of each person.
For example, the only thing that really tempts me into wanting to spend money in IRE is the opportunity to acquire more classes and skills.
Another person might only find anything related to crafting to be worth spending money on.
etc. etc.
That alone was enough for Achaea, but not enough for Imperian and Lusternia to follow, which were strong for the "RP" point being countered. Aetolia's community in this regard seems well, for all the love the producers give it. Midkemia (which focused on it) was decidedly not, no?
All this aside, it's still PvP that funds the game, and there's still an RP crowd these games draw (whether they're the focus or not). An entire side to the game not being "milked", if you'll allow the continued metaphor.
That's like 17k spent before you consider the stuff that can drop the value.
i don't really pvp.
and the catering thing is accurate, and really driven home when pvpers loudly shout about how such things are useless
As for keeping people engaged, what is better to keep RP people engaged than a good story? Achaea has a lot of those; there's an Event going on right now, as a matter of fact. Everyone is really excited about it.
And as for RP people contributing money, there are whole sections of the artefact shop devoted to crafting and defensive (for people who like bashing) artefacts. There are tons of stuff for slice-of-life characters to buy, so much that it is hard to choose. Iron Elite also gives lessons and credits, which is nice for anybody, not just PvP-ers.
If all this "isn't enough" and you want something new, something "out of the box", then what IS it you're thinking of? Give us a specific idea, instead of this vague stuff that is confusing everybody.