03 Apr, 2013, Dean wrote in the 21st comment:
Votes: 0
Whilst not an MMO, I have grown to like (for the most part) how League of Legends handles this sort of stuff in the year or so that I've been playing.

You earn the in-game currency, IP (influence points) by playing games. Said currency is the only method that you can use to buy runes, which while not the be all to end all, do provide a number of boosts/buffs depending on your rune choice. You can also use said currency to buy champions, meaning that to mechanically get the most out of the game, you don't ever need to spend a single dollar.

Now, you can use real money to purchase champions, but that's more along the lines of getting to the destination earlier as, under normal circumstances, do you have to play a lot (And I mean a lot) of games to reach the IP amount for Champions (newly released ones are more expensive than year old champions, for example). Runes do improve your chance of winning, (assuming two equally skilled players, playing the same Champion, the one who is using runes will beat out the one who isn't if only just) but as I've mentioned you can't buy them with real money. You can also buy things like IP boosts (that increase the amount of IP currency you earn per game) as well as experience boosts (if you're not max level).

Where the real money comes from though is 'skins', alternate textures (some are much more than that, but I digress) for champions at are purchasable only via real money. They offer no mechanical advantages other than providing a different look visible to both yourself, teammates and enemies. It is my opinion that this system not only works, but works well. Hell, if you told me a year ago how much I would have spent on the game by now? I'd probably call you delusional.

Whether or not any of that is useful, I'll leave for others to decide.
04 Jul, 2013, LeMonseural wrote in the 22nd comment:
Votes: 0
I know this is a late post but I use to play a game called Godswar Online they had an ingame Mall that you could use to purchase things in gold once you paid real money, but they also had it to where you may run races everyday to earn BGOLD to buy the same things that were in the mall. With that being said not every item in the mall was in the bgold shop, but alot of paying players bought items out of the mall to sell for silver or to trade for other items. Now days just about everyone that still plays that game has a "Smart Pet" which is a mall only item.

Although there are some players have spent thousands of dollars to build the ultimate character in this game, non paying players can achieve the type of character through instances and events, just at a slower rate.

So I think it is just the way you implement your pfp system.
07 Jul, 2013, plamzi wrote in the 23rd comment:
Votes: 0
LeMonseural said:
Now days just about everyone that still plays that game has a "Smart Pet" which is a mall only item.


I'm not 100% sure from your description if the Smart Pet was only available via real money, but I think there's an advantage to offering something that is real-money only. That way, people who have spent money will always have that to point to as opposed to feeling cheated because people who paid nothing are out-playing them.

But, like everything, this also has a downside. Having a money-only perk clearly marks you as a real-money spender, which depending on what players know about other players in the game, can be undesirable to some folks. If I decide to add a money-only perk, I would probably design it in such a way that it can't be used by other players to identify an individual as a spender. Perception is very important in a long-term online game.

LeMonseural said:
Although there are some players have spent thousands of dollars to build the ultimate character in this game, non paying players can achieve the type of character through instances and events, just at a slower rate.


It's part of the definition of PfP systems that non-spenders can also progress, at a slower pace, or without certain perks that make them generally weaker than folks who invested the same amount of time + real money. The devil is in the details, in striking the right balance so that neither spenders nor non-spenders would have clear reasons to feel cheated.

Players are quick to feel cheated, and many of them will, even if you design a very well-balanced PfP system. The key is for the system to be good enough so as not to drive either category to actually quit. Good metrics for measuring a PfP system's success would be revenue sustained over time, and abandonment rates for spenders vs. non-spenders.

The more I think about the PfP system in my forthcoming game, the more I realize it is incredibly hard to pull off. One of the things that make it hard is that you almost have to nail it from the very start. You can't start with a money-only perk that you later decide to also offer to non-spenders, for example. Making changes like that is bound to anger spenders who bought the perk at a time when they thought money was the only way to get it. You can't make drastic changes in the time-vs-money ratio, either, not without dire consequences.

Pretty much, as soon as you introduce real money into the system, you leave yourself almost no margin for error. The graveyards are full of games that didn't get it right, and most of those games were designed by brilliant folks. It's easy for players to knock games that didn't get it right, but I think game developers (especially people like us who are sometimes making games from A to Z) should not be so quick to judge.
07 Jul, 2013, quixadhal wrote in the 24th comment:
Votes: 0
plamzi said:
That way, people who have spent money will always have that to point to as opposed to feeling cheated because people who paid nothing are out-playing them.


If people feel "cheated", because they suck compared to other people… I see nothing wrong with that. Sorry buddy, you aren't a very good player… try HARDER and maybe you'll get one too.

The whole concept of a MUD, no…. of any game really, is the idea of risk vs. reward. You do difficult things, you get great rewards. You play casually, you get mediocre rewards. That's the incentive to do better.

If all you need to do is WHINE, and the admins cave and just give you things because they're too terrified of losing players, is there even a point to playing?

My understanding of "pay for perks" is that some people have more money than time. If those people want to shell out cash to make up for not being able to run dungeons for 30 hours a week… great. If they want to do it because they KNOW they aren't good enough to get them the hard way, that's fine too… but feeling "cheated" because somebody else *IS* good enough to get it the hard way???

I think I'd probably kick/ban anyone who whined like that on my game. IMO, that goes beyond entitlement… that's just disrespectful.
07 Jul, 2013, plamzi wrote in the 25th comment:
Votes: 0
quixadhal said:
plamzi said:
That way, people who have spent money will always have that to point to as opposed to feeling cheated because people who paid nothing are out-playing them.


If people feel "cheated", because they suck compared to other people… I see nothing wrong with that. Sorry buddy, you aren't a very good player… try HARDER and maybe you'll get one too.



If they want to do it because they KNOW they aren't good enough to get them the hard way, that's fine too… but feeling "cheated" because somebody else *IS* good enough to get it the hard way???

I think I'd probably kick/ban anyone who whined like that on my game. IMO, that goes beyond entitlement… that's just disrespectful.


Things are very simple when no money is involved. Based on little more than your quick judgment, you can decide if someone is whining or if they have a legitimate gripe, and if you decide they're whining, you can unleash whatever punishment suits you. Technically, you can have a policy of 0 tolerance for all complainers, even those who have reasonable complaints, and implement it accordingly. You can even run a game that doesn't allow people to play unless they email you 5 pages of flattery. It's all good.

Things are not at all as simple when money is involved, which is I think what this topic is about. If you're running a game as a business, you'd better pay a lot more attention to your customers. That doesn't mean necessarily that you need to respond to every complaint, but you definitely need to have something in place whereby people can "feel" that they have a forum, even for outlandish and disrespectful bitching.

When money is involved, it is by no means clear whether someone has a legitimate gripe or not. It's not easy to decide how much in $$ an hour of gaming is worth, and how to even make sure that your PfP system is close to that ratio. Non-spenders may complain that no matter how skilled or engaged they are, they can't match a spender with mediocre skills. Spenders may complain that what they thought was a good deal to buy last week, is suddenly too easy to obtain, even without spending.

There are hundreds of pitfalls you can fall into and cause all your players to feel legitimately dissatisfied. The bottom line is, in a commercial context, you have to worry about whether your customers feel like they're getting their money's worth. And since in a PfP game your non-spenders are your prospective spenders, you'd better not give people good reasons to quit (that's assuming that you actually want to maximize your revenue).
08 Jul, 2013, KaVir wrote in the 26th comment:
Votes: 0
quixadhal said:
My understanding of "pay for perks" is that some people have more money than time. If those people want to shell out cash to make up for not being able to run dungeons for 30 hours a week… great.

That's certainly the standard line from pay-for-perks mud owners, but in practice it usually ends up more like this. There are some exceptions among other games (such as Path of Exile's "ethical microtransactions"), but if you look at pay-for-perks muds (particularly the early ones) they typically have a strong pay-to-win vibe.
08 Jul, 2013, Runter wrote in the 27th comment:
Votes: 0
In general, I only agree with perks that don't influence the core game. Things that are cosmetic in nature are A-Ok by me though.
08 Jul, 2013, LeMonseural wrote in the 28th comment:
Votes: 0
Quote
I'm not 100% sure from your description if the Smart Pet was only available via real money, but I think there's an advantage to offering something that is real-money only. That way, people who have spent money will always have that to point to as opposed to feeling cheated because people who paid nothing are out-playing them.


Yes a Smart Pet is only available via real money, but all mall items may be traded. There are some "Mallers" who purchase items from the mall to trade for items that are only gained during events. Alot of the players that don't spend money participate in all events and do the instances daily, which allow for them to obtain rare items. Also alot of people that do purchase items/currency via real money trade it for silver which is normally plentiful among those that grind/play alot.

This is one game I know of that seems to have gotten it right with the pfp system since both sides benefit from it.
08 Jul, 2013, plamzi wrote in the 29th comment:
Votes: 0
Runter said:
In general, I only agree with perks that don't influence the core game. Things that are cosmetic in nature are A-Ok by me though.


As a player, I'm totally with you. As a dev, I think it's a total waste of time to design such a system. Might as well make it free and save yourself a ton of work.
08 Jul, 2013, Runter wrote in the 30th comment:
Votes: 0
plamzi said:
Runter said:
In general, I only agree with perks that don't influence the core game. Things that are cosmetic in nature are A-Ok by me though.


As a player, I'm totally with you. As a dev, I think it's a total waste of time to design such a system. Might as well make it free and save yourself a ton of work.


Not a waste if it makes money for your team. League of legends makes a fortune from selling skins to characters which do nothing but change the way they look, and it's otherwise a free to play game.

Anecdotally, I share an office with a game development studio that only produces free to play mobile social games with cosmetic purchases only. They're doing alright by it.
08 Jul, 2013, plamzi wrote in the 31st comment:
Votes: 0
Runter said:
Anecdotally, I share an office with a game development studio that only produces free to play mobile social games with cosmetic purchases only. They're doing alright by it.


I'd love to know how they do it. My sense so far has been that the more optional your purchases are, the less they'll be purchased. Are they going after sheer player volume, or targeting female audiences, or somehow making cosmetic stuff seem important (e. g. by allowing people to show off in many ways)?
08 Jul, 2013, Runter wrote in the 32nd comment:
Votes: 0
I think the key is that people have to be able to show off, as you put it. Most people only will pay for cosmetics if other people can see it.

The other thing I believe is that the game also has to hook people. I played league of legends for 6 months before I ever purchased a skin. I've spent about 10 dollars total on it, but that's 10 dollars more than I ever thought I would spend. And if the game was a "pay to win" title I never would have played for 6 months. So I think there's just different audiences that these policies attract.

Don't get me wrong, I think loads of people will never pay no matter what, and if your carrot to make them pay is giving them more in game power they're more likely to pay than with cosmetics. It's just a moral line I'm not willing to cross, and by not crossing it developers instantly may tap into players who won't play with a different model. Like myself.
08 Jul, 2013, Dean wrote in the 33rd comment:
Votes: 0
Runter said:
I think the key is that people have to be able to show off, as you put it. Most people only will pay for cosmetics if other people can see it.

The other thing I believe is that the game also has to hook people. I played league of legends for 6 months before I ever purchased a skin. I've spent about 10 dollars total on it, but that's 10 dollars more than I ever thought I would spend. And if the game was a "pay to win" title I never would have played for 6 months. So I think there's just different audiences that these policies attract.

Don't get me wrong, I think loads of people will never pay no matter what, and if your carrot to make them pay is giving them more in game power they're more likely to pay than with cosmetics. It's just a moral line I'm not willing to cross, and by not crossing it developers instantly may tap into players who won't play with a different model. Like myself.


I second the cosmetic stuff. I've ended up spending far more on League of Legends than I ever anticipated on doing so, certainly more than the cost of a triple AAA game up front. Overall I quite like their system and *if* I were to go for a pay-for-perks MUD, that's how I would do it (loosely).
08 Jul, 2013, plamzi wrote in the 34th comment:
Votes: 0
Runter said:
It's just a moral line I'm not willing to cross, and by not crossing it developers instantly may tap into players who won't play with a different model. Like myself.


To me, it's not about morality so much as it is about an equal playing field. Setting aside how much people are willing to spend, we know that some people have more means than others. A commercialized game that allows people to pay for perks or, even worse, pay to win is basically carrying over real-world inequalities, which can turn some people, like you and me, off.

I suspect that people like us are somewhat of a silent minority (most people are not going to research the pricing model prior to trying out a game, and may become 'hooked' regardless of how they actually feel about it). Still, I would like to come up with a game that I myself would want to play.

The approach that I'm going to take is to try to please both camps (there's no harm in trying!). I'll offer consumables to help people progress faster/save time if they're willing to pay. But more importantly, I'd like to offer two ways for people to compete in the in-game rankings, one of which is going to take into account how much real money + time they've spent to get to a certain level. This will be done anonymously, with all players being divided into groups/buckets based on their total "investment" in the game, then ranked vs. their peers in the bucket.

This is what I could think of to show people like me how well they are "actually" performing. It will also please those who spend, and would still like to know how they actually rate in terms of skill (the "Does the game love me for my money, or for myself?" question). If someone has a high overall rank, as well as a high peer rank, they will know they are skilled, their purchases notwithstanding.
08 Jul, 2013, quixadhal wrote in the 35th comment:
Votes: 0
Don't just look at smaller games. Guild Wars 2 is a pretty successful MMO with no subscription fee. You buy the box, and then play the game. If you want extras, you can buy them, however the choice is yours to use real-world money or in-game money.

Here's how that works. Stuff you can buy from the cash shop is purchased with "gems". These gems can be directly purchased with cash. They can ALSO be auctioned to other players for in-game gold. As such, there's an exchange rate which is determined by the player economy. People want more gold than they can get via in-game mechanics, they can buy gems and sell them to players who want stuff from the cash shop, but who don't have real-world money.

The things they have for sale are vanity items, temporary buffs, and convenience items like extra bank tabs or inventory bag slots. Nothing that actually makes your character any stronger or more competitive.

As is usual for modern MMO's, all the top equipment is bind-on-pickup, so even if somebody spends tons of cash on gems to get in-game gold, they can't buy their way into the best gear.

Many people, myself included, think this kind of system is more than fair. It allows you to still obtain everything you might want via selling your in-game gold for gems, while still allowing people with less time or patience to buy things. The game cost $60, and I probably spent another $60 on extra character slots and bank tabs, and even though I seldom play anymore, I don't feel like I wasted it or got cheated.
08 Jul, 2013, Runter wrote in the 36th comment:
Votes: 0
Also guild wars 2 has a no questions asked 1 year refund policy from purchase date. Which is rare to say the least these days.
08 Jul, 2013, Ssolvarain wrote in the 37th comment:
Votes: 0
I find it kind of irritating when games and companies use in-game cash-purchased currency. It's even worse when there's a conversion from cash to in-game currency. Spending $10 to get 800 gems is silly, when they know damn well that you're most likely going to end up with unused in-game currency because you didn't directly purchase the item. You purchased currency to purchase the item.

That's why I'll never spend a dime on Guildwars 2 past purchasing the box.
09 Jul, 2013, Runter wrote in the 38th comment:
Votes: 0
That does annoy me a bit. I don't like having "gems" or whatever they call it left over afterwards that I can't transfer back to cash. It's like a hidden fee that's arbitrary and random unless you buy more gems since they usually come in a granularity unlike the purchase amounts. Like it costs 10 dollar for 800 gems, but most things only cost 650 gems. But nothing costs the 150 remaining gems.
09 Jul, 2013, quixadhal wrote in the 39th comment:
Votes: 0
While you can't turn them back into cash, you can sell them for in-game gold. So they aren't totally wasted, like SOE's currency is.
09 Jul, 2013, Davion wrote in the 40th comment:
Votes: 0
quixadhal said:
While you can't turn them back into cash, you can sell them for in-game gold. So they aren't totally wasted, like SOE's currency is.


Having wasted a buncha time on DCUO (an SOE game) I found their currency to not have this problem. Items that can be bought range from 100sc-1500sc. So no matter how much you have, you can spend it down to nothing. But yes, there is no way to exchange cash for in-game cash.
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