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Originally Posted by 13lackGu4rd
Quote:
Originally Posted by Ink
50 cents a game a 5 cents a turn? that works out to like 2 or 3 dollars a month. You'd have to play a minimum of two games at a time for 2 or 3 years before you'd end up shelling out the current cost of the game. They could offer a "you pay 60 bucks now and never pay again" option, but I guarantee you that you and Ballbarian would never had agreed to that if you'd been given a pay to play option like this.
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the people who are for P2P systems don't understand the very simple psychology that works against it. when you pay once you can use something indefinitely because its yours, when it's P2P you are constantly thinking(at least subconsciously) on how to get the most bang out of your buck(since you control the buck you spent) so in this case more SP than MP(because its free) and perhaps smaller games with fewer turns than larger games with more turns.
another problem that will occur is that people will abandon their games a lot more often, losing interest+saving your bucks>just losing interest, so all the discussion around the "good player pledge" and all those issues will be severely hampered by a P2P system. |
Make games cost a dollar to enter instead. The amount above 50 cents goes towards your first 25 turns. If you get knocked out before that, it gets refunded. Handle payments through a credits set-up (credits are bought from a Shrapnel store-front).
People won't play SP because aside from a few unusual individuals (the kind of people that want to play on
unpopulated Ultima servers so that they can
be alone) no one actually thinks SP is any fun. Also the psychology bit you mentioned works for this too: MP costs a trivial amount to play, but it biases players to the notion that it is because that's the way the game is supposed to be played, and is were all the fun is. I think a lot of people buy the game thinking SP is the
normal and don't try MP for a long time (if they ever try it at all).
Quote:
Originally Posted by 13lackGu4rd
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The idea is that players who would not drop 60 bucks now would be enticed to try the game out. Further, they would be funneled directly into the MP experience, and be exposed to the awesome player base and see how much fun the game really is. A big part of the problem is that Shrapnel does little to nothing to do that now (despite that the game is clearly designed primarily as an MP game).
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actually if SP will be free than how will it entice people to enter MP(not free)? not to mention that they already have a free Demo to give players a basic(and pretty good I must add) idea on how the game works while still reserving enough to make buying the game an actual necessity. |
If I had played the demo, I would have never bought the game. I bought the game on impulse because I thought it was going to be like Master of Magic. I played SP for about a month and then didn't play again for several months after (because it was so boring). During those several months I got into games sold as online games, and got the online experience. I installed Dom3 again on a whim and, having been broken into online gaming and realizing it was the norm (not the exception) was willing to jump right into Dom's MP play. It wasn't until after that experience that I become a Dom addict. I can guarantee you that the demo, combined with the absurd cost and lack of digital distribution, dissuades potential players. Currently, you
cannot experience MP play on the demo. For dominions to find its full potential, it needs a distribution and payment scheme that pushes players immediately into MP, and allows them to try it at some trivial cost, and then only charges them that trivial cost to continue playing.