Re: PBW server is back up.
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Obviously you weren't running eight separate games like I was. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif </font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">well, speaking from a player's perspective, anyways. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/tongue.gif

Re: PBW server is back up.
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Obviously you weren't running eight separate games like I was. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif </font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">well, speaking from a player's perspective, anyways. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/tongue.gif </font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">And that's the truth. PBW has always been more of a service to the game owner then the players. When it's working correctly it makes running games a breeze. This means a game owner can run games he's not even in as a player. You can do that PBEM too, but it's not a lot of fun. And it means owners can run many games simultaneously, which means more opportunity for players to get into a game.

Re: PBW server is back up.
 

I agree that making a mandatory fee for PBW is not the best solution. However, I also think that the current "advertising" for donations is not too strong. Why not just a nicely worded request at the front end that says, simply, "we'd really like it if you donated $1 each month to pay for this site. If you don't want to, ok, no problem."

It would sort of act like the donations box in the lobby of museums - you can get in free, but many people do donate becuase it's easy to do so and it's right there...you could even put a PayPal button right there, give it a little "donation box" with animation, yadda yadda yadda...Maybe even a graphic showing running donations, and deficits for the costs involved, so that when you got low on funds people would see that and get more excited about donating...I'm sure there are plenty of javaistas out there who could whip that code up in their sleep...

In any case, PBW is a wonderful service, and I will go right now and donate even more money to it. (But I'm buying a new house in the next week, so not much this time around...)

Thanks,

Alarik

Re: PBW server is back up.
 

check out Simtropolis for an excellent example of asking Users for donations. what i really like is how easy it is to donate, and the fact that they list out the costs and what they need. of course, they have about 18,000 registered Users, which is around half again as many people as have bought SEIV...

Re: PBW server is back up.
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">The big companies let you play MP for free, unless it is a MMORPG... Blizzard lets you play for free, using the MSN Gaming Zone thingie is free, using Gamespy is free, etc.

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">SE4 Gold was said to have passed the $500,000 mark Last year some time. Not SE4, just Gold. 500,000 / 40 = 12500 Users that had purchased SE4 Gold about a year ago or whenever that statement was made. Now add more people that have bought it since then, and then all the people that bought SE4 original but never bought Gold (of which there are a relevent number of). http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

[ December 03, 2003, 23:37: Message edited by: Imperator Fyron ]

Re: PBW server is back up.
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Fire it up. No ETA yet, looks like poor Geo will be out of DSL for another month. In the unlikely event that it will be back up before the weekend, we can revert to PBW without trouble. Otherwise, it looks like developing your autorun programm shortly before PBW had its brief revival has not been a waste of time http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif .

Re: PBW server is back up.
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">I was referring to MMORPGs.

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">But the point still stands that, when compared to Sim City 4, SEIV is a very small game; and when compared to Simtropolis, PBW is a very small community.

Re: PBW server is back up.
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Fire it up. No ETA yet, looks like poor Geo will be out of DSL for another month. In the unlikely event that it will be back up before the weekend, we can revert to PBW without trouble. Otherwise, it looks like developing your autorun programm shortly before PBW had its brief revival has not been a waste of time http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif . </font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Ok, it's up again.
I'm recoding the entire autoturn app and will rewrite alot of the site later on, it's a fun learning process for me.
If PBW comes on-line again soon we'll switch back immediatly.

Re: PBW server is back up.
 

farstryder:
That just means that you only run one server, not a server farm. It is just a difference of scale.

Comparing any game to a MMORPG is a mistake because they are built around an entirely different marketing base. MMORPG, pay as you play. Other games, buy it once (or thrice in the case of certain disreputable companies *cough* civ3 *cough*). It is better to compare to the large majority of games/companies that provide MP servers without charging for them.

Re: PBW server is back up.
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Except that most of these companies -don't- provide servers, they provide matchmaking services. IIRC even Blizzard's Battle.net is like this except for the Realms games for Diablo 2. This reduces the strain quite a lot..

And the comparison is relevent because someone else was refering to the pay by the month scheme..