DarkHorizon

More than likely, yes. The map would be absolutely cratered with one man orgs otherwise.

Join the club.

It keeps things cleaner. You could probably manually do it, but there might be a limit set to how many quotes can be nested.

That would be a good idea, in fact, they are usually are replies or rebuttals to the previous post! I'm the last post. No I am. Hah, totally the last post. Nope.

Let this be a warning to all, tempt a dragon, and you'll lose three minutes later.

:thonk:

Version two? Life must have been simpler back then...

That's hard to answer since I'm not aware of anything more being known than the blurb that was provided about the content creators pack. For all we know it could be released once the NDA drops since people will start making videos and streaming the game, or it could come out after release.

Might I ask, how would you consider an appeal to the community possibly changing anything? We can prod as much as we want, but when all is said and done, we can't control the unbanning process. Maybe Slaxx didn't entirely know what he was getting into when he joined orgs with MM, that was a risk he was willing to take that, however unfortunate, resulted in a losing hand. If Slaxx really had MMs ear then he should have used their bond to level MM into not pulling the strings that he did, he didn't so one thing led to another and action was taken appropriately. Illness or not is unacceptable behavior considering the incident that happened on the forums, indecent public exposure is frowned upon in civil areas such as this board, pretty much everyone should realize this regardless of their life situation. I don't feel as if his own personal problems should excuse him from what happened as a result of his actions. As others above me have said, this wasn't the first time we've had an incident with Slaxx, the exposure was just the final straw and I feel like it would be better for him personally to avoid this community since he would more than likely find himself sidelined and abandoned, especially when the game releases since this topic is now, once more, fresh in peoples minds. If he does go the route of ban evasion (which I would condemn) with a second account under a new name, he would have to keep himself very tight-lipped about what happened. If any connection was made between his new account and past account, considering what happened with the original, I suspect justice would be quick and brutal. Considering this second loss and understanding his condition (as I have read here), I feel like that would do only more harm to him than any good he might obtain by playing.

I've updated my post to reflect this. Turns out if you jinx the coffee cravings from your life, you can pay for a year's worth of game time for you and some friends! An interesting thing to point out... Although that was already included in the in-game segment, I've reworded it and I also added onto my OP to include some ways you can earn through your phone, crypto mining, and a last-ditch position where none of the aforementioned options are available. Post updated. What are subscriptions and DAC's, and what are the differences between the two will now kick things off right after the intro section.

In the time I've spent reading these forums, I see this topic come more than a handful of times on DAC's and DU's subscription system. It's something to be expected, a merchant goes "hey I got a nice product, pay me xyz dollars", then the consumer goes "how can I get this for the best value for my money?". This is a quite normal thought process. I think of it every time when looking at goods and their prices and especially before I check out my products. We value our money because we put time and effort into earning it, and want to maximize our potential with it. Our time on Earth is fairly limited. We'd much rather spend it doing the things we enjoy. Being among family and friends, playing a favorite game or watching a pleasurable TV show, producing something we know others will find value in, enjoying a good drink, or relaxing someplace nice. Our money is also fairly limited. Bills and utilities need to be paid, food stocked in the fridge, insurance for the car, books for the college student, the oldest child needs to borrow $20, again... the list goes on. The means with which we acquire said money is also relatively limited. Businesses are open certain hours, shifts are only so long, and our work is only so interesting before we must devote that remaining days time to the above mentioned. Insert Dual Universe. For those of you that are currently not in the Pre-Alpha tests, you've seen the videos (some more than once) and read the news, you're excited. Pre-Alpha testers are not only excited but are also able to experience this new game and bring some of their dreams to virtual life for others to enjoy. Mind, blown... Everything seems awesome until you meet "subscription" and "Dual Access Coupons". Upon closer inspection, this is, indeed, a subscription-based game... oh no... For those of us that have followed along for a while, we know that a subscription will fall somewhere around $10 to $13 a month, while DAC's will be a bit more expensive at $15 to $20 a month. Not a big deal right? For some, it isn't, but for others, it's a major hurdle. Maybe you've been a free2play player all your life and can't imagine the thought of paying, or perhaps you simply can't afford it. Well friends, hurdles are made for jumping over, sometimes three at a time. and jump we will... If you can't afford a months subscription time, let's dig into this thing called 'our life' and examine what we can do to afford a months worth of game time. If you don't have time to read, I'll cut this all down to a paragraph for you at the very bottom of this post! ------------------------------------------------------- First off, what is the difference between a subscription and a Dual Access Coupon? What even are they, to begin with? Have you ever been to a fair? For those who haven't, the rides are fun, and the food is more than questionable. From sugar overload to dipped in oil to stuff you've never seen before and never will again... How do you get access to that fair though? You can do two things: Buy an all-day wristband at the gate. Unlimited rides from now until closing time. One person only, or... Buy tickets. The ferris wheel is one ticket, bumper cars are two, etc. You can split it among friends. You go for the wristband and wander in. At the fair, there are those booths filled with games that are statistically near improbable to win but among the prizes, you notice that there are tickets, with a grand prize being a roll of 1000 tickets. With some time, you luck out and score that 1000 ticket roll but you have an all-day pass, what do you do with it? You sell it to the kids that need more tickets and make back what you paid for on your all-day pass. Short analogy, lets work with it... All new accounts will start with a free trial. Think of this as being outside the fair, yet still able to see all the rides that are inside. You can enter the game environment and get an idea of what you can do inside of it, but there are limits like skill restrictions, construct sizes and the number of elements that can be placed for example. You can see the rides, you just can't ride them. In Dual Universe, let's say that this all day wristband is the subscription that you buy from the gatekeeper, NovaQuark. It's yours and can not be taken from you in-game. You get thirty days to play, after which your subscription will end and you can either pay for another month or end up unable to play. Dual Access Coupons are like the tickets. You can also get them from NovaQuark and spend them in the game environment however you like. Be it hiring out another players services, using it to fund your own time, or you could give it to a friend. If you put in your own services into the in-game environment, you can get paid in DAC's as well. Since DAC's are not as secure as a subscription and present as an item in the game, you also run the risk of having them taken from you with force by another player. You can buy a subscription, pay for the game, and be perfectly fine. You can also buy Dual Access Coupons or earn them inside the game to also pay for your game. Both achieve the same goal, but what's the difference? A subscription is purchased from NovaQuark and tied to you, it can't be taken in-game, and it can't be sold in-game. A Dual Access Coupon can also be purchased from NovaQuark, unlike with a subscription, however, it is only associated with you. What this means is that the DAC can be stolen from you in the game since it is an in-game item. It can be purchased in-game from another player, and likewise sold as well. Now that we've defined what a subscription and DAC is, as well as the differences between them, let's go about discussing how we can pay for our game time. Since DAC's are more versatile, in-game items, I will be referencing them in the place of subscriptions. Be sure to also keep in mind that DAC's are a few dollars more expensive than a subscription. ------------------------------------------------------- Let's assume for simplicity sake that a single DAC is $15 and expand it over a years time. $15 x 12 = $180 Starbucks --- Caffe Latte - Tall (Small) - $2.95 $3 x 5 days = $15 15 x 4 weeks = $60/month --- Not including saved gas money or 1/3rd of a year's DACs Now that you lasted a month, maybe you want to cut Starbucks out of your life entirely? $60/month x 12 months = $720 720/180 = ... 4 years of DAC's Dropping your coffee habit alone could pay for a year of time playing Dual Universe, AND that of three friends! Xbox Live --- 12mo = $60 or 1mo x 12 = $120 or 1/3rd to 2/3rds of a years DACs No job --- If you don't want to give up your console gaming and aren't old enough to hold a job, go shovel snow, rake yards, mow lawns, wash cars, trim bushes etc. $60 is a good weekends worth of work, it's also good exercise too! Additionally, if you're still a kid and you get an allowance from your parents, you are now on my hit-list because I never got one and I'm super duper jealous of those that do. You can put that towards your subscription. If you get paid for doing chores around the house, you are also on my hit-list because I never got paid for doing chores, insanity I say! A roof over my head, food in my stomach, and clothes on my back were payment enough. Now, if you can hold a job... Yes job --- How long would you have to work to fund a year's worth of gameplay? Not as much as you might think... Not including tips or lunch breaks --- 180 / 7.25 (US federal minimum wage) = ~25 working hours or just over three days at eight hours/day 180 / 10 = 18 working hours or a little over two days 180 / 15 (some state-mandated minimum wages) = 12 working hours, a day and a half's work, or for some, an all-day shift Phone plan --- If you have a phone payment plan through a major wireless carrier, you are messing up, hardcore! Consider looking at a non-major wireless carrier and you could save big. Verizon: 4 lines - Unlimited talk, text, data, high quality streaming for $160/mo = $1920/yr *MintSim: 1 line - Unlimited talk, text 10G high-speed data (per mo) then unlimited throttled - $25/mo (if purchasing 1yr bulk package = $300/yr) x 4 lines = $100/mo = $1200/yr 4 lines on MintSim over 4 lines on Verizion makes for a savings of $720/year 4 years of DACs *This is strictly for comparative purposes, I do advocate nor am I paid to on behalf of MintSim, this is strictly for comparison reasons, please don't hurt me. **MintSim runs on the T-Mobile network so you may or may not have coverage in your area. Cable TV --- I can only compare this to myself so bear with me. Basic Cable = 20 channels = $20/mo 12mo = $300/yr TV antenna + coax cable = 9 channels + 6 sub-channels $40 - one time cost until something breaks Money saved on TV each month could easily pay for your DACs if you're on a limited TV plan or live in a metro area with lots of TV antennas. If you're interested in this, the US FCC has a barebones guide on antennas in your area with only a zip code needed. Of course, this all depends on your immediate controllable environment like the antenna location+height vs trees, other buildings, and things more or less out of your control like a mountain between you and the antennas or living down in a valley, even the weather can be against you. Renters might want to check their building codes when mounting an antenna on the roof or on a mast. College Books --- If you're buying them outright (from your college bookstore) and not renting them (also bookstore) that's also another issue... Get them, and rent them online, the savings can be massive! Abnormal Psychology 8thEd - Oltmanns and Emery College bookstore: $278 Amazon: $247 (purchased, new) Amazon: $35 (rented) Amazon: $10 (purchased, new, international edition) Savings of $268 off one book for one semester 17.5 months of DAC Bigwords is personally recommended for their comparison services. Transportation to and from college --- Let say you live in a modest town of and college is all the way across town so you drive five miles like I would have to do every weekday, then five miles back home. Your car gets 30mi/gal on an 8gal tank. 240 miles per tank. Gas = $2.55 for the state of North Dakota One tank = $20.40 Your car can make 22 round-trips + 1 for stop/go + 1 for gas if it's strictly for this use. Most colleges will offer students a free or discounted pass on public transportation. Let's say that isn't offered and you're stuck paying regular fares. My local bus service charges $1.50/ride for an adult without a student ID, and rides are free with their ID. In this case: $1.50 x 2 rides/day x 22 round-trips = $66 One tank = $22.40 In this case, driving yourself is more economical than riding the bus. A trip to campus from home for me is 30 minutes so I spend an hour on transportation each day. So considering my student pass makes transportation free, it becomes a value question? What do you value more, your time, or your money? Don't forget that a vehicle needs to be insured so that costs additional money and there are so many variables I won't even bother spelling it out but it is worth remembering. Savings of $43.60 if you drive as opposed to riding the bus 2.75 months of DACs $66 not spent if you can ride for free 4 months of DACs Mobile Options --- Yes, you can use your phone to make money. Some will pay you for installing and trying out various apps. Maybe you have to install it and have a look around, or perhaps you have to achieve a particular objective or rise up to a specific level? Others will pay you to view ads. I'm only familiar with ones that show lock screen ads which only take a fraction of a second to slide away, but there might be other options available too. If you have an Android (not sure about iPhones) and haven't heard, Google Opinion Rewards is a great place to start. The only catch is that you can only spend your credit in the Google Play store. Digital Currency Mining --- I have absolutely no experience in this so forgive me if this is short. By now I'm pretty sure that everyone and their mum have heard of the Bitcoin. If you haven't, what kind of rock have you been living under and can I get one too? Aside from the Bitcoin, there are various other coins out there that hold "value" and are obtained through a process of "mining". Mining involves crunching numbers and verifying the results. This can be a slow process although it can be sped up with more powerful hardware that if bought for the sole purpose of mining, brings the process of Return on Investment (RoI) into play. For individuals, this could be a zero-sum game. While Bitcoin has increased in value over the years, so has the difficulty in mining. Basically, where you could score say once every hour a couple years ago, you'd be lucky today to do so every week, month, quarter, I really don't know. Additionally, more people are mining the currency so that ups the factor now that the Bitcoin pie is being split among more people. Aside from paying off your RoI which could take months, there is also the cost of electricity you need to consider. Sure you could be mining coins, but that money might just be going to your electric company in exchange for the additional power you are consuming from running your equipment 24/7. Not to mention any applicable wear and tear associated with the constant use or pushing your components beyond safe limits. Lets also not forget to talk about the climate that's around you. Since your components need to be kept cool in order for them to work, if you can pull in cool air and exhaust out hot air, you'll be peachy. If you're pulling in already warm air, however, your cooling setup will need to work a lot harder to keep your components from overheating which again you'll also need to consider your electric prices. Did I also mention that you are competing against warehouses of GPU's and CPUs (that sometimes catch fire)? It should also not need mentioning that digital currency is extremely volatile. Indeed, something that might be worth $20,000 one day, might easily be half that the next. Above all, digital currency is a gamble, not an investment. That said, there are various digital currencies that can be mined through CPU's and GPU's, although I recently (3/27) just heard about a new currency, Burstcoin, that can be mined using your digital storage devices. If you're so inclined, it might be something worth looking into. Work in-game --- If none of the above is an option and you have a good deal of spare time on your hands, do some work in the in-game economy. Let me explain how this works: There are often two types of people: Those who have a lot of money but not much time, and those who have a lot of time but not much money. Someone will buy a handful of DAC's and exchange them for Quanta, you put in some work and after being paid for your work, you can then use that Quanta to turn around purchase your DAC's in the game environment and be set for another 30 days. Mine, refine, haul, build, design. The only limit to the possibilities is you. Not enough in-game time, no outside money --- What kind of pickle are we in here? A big, juicy, fat one. Let it be known on the record, I hate pickles... You have plenty of online and mobile options to choose from but be wary, these can be fairly hit-and-miss. From having a minimum required balance to withdraw to not being able to withdraw in your desired method, these are only the start of your issues. "Get Paid To..." websites are exactly what they sound like. You'll be paid for various things like giving your opinion on surveys, watching videos, and completing tasks. The greatest source of income can be had through purchasing sample packs or getting an item for a discount on the basis that you get a few extra dollars in return (spend 5, get 7). Depending on the website and activity you choose, however, you could be fraught with risks. Are you comfortable with giving your demographics to surveys so they can confirm or deny your participation based on their desire to hear from a subset of people (male, 30s, part-time job, birthday, college educated, married, etc), do you trust your credit card details online in exchange for sample products? A couple of other risks entail spam. Although I had received very little spam in my email inbox prior, that certainly ticked up after I started earning through this method. I haven't received any physical spam in the mailbox, but it's been years since I used this service so things may have changed. Additionally, if you truly value your time, this might not be the best option. While doing surveys, I can not tell you how many times I was booted at the very end because the survey reached their participation goal, my demographics were undesirable, or a question I answered had screened me out. Having spent, in some cases 30 minutes, it is very rage inducing. The fact that you may not even get a few cents in compensation for your time that is now wasted is one major reason why I would not endorse this, although being a teenager with no income, I muscled through. I could go at this activity all day and sometimes not even break a dollar, although, on a good day when I was blessed by the gods, $10 was mine for the taking. Of course, if you have a job then you'll be guaranteed payment for your time, whereas here, you obviously have no such thing which is one of the reasons why you won't find me doing this. All that said, I consider myself a personal success story, having earned almost $600 in the time I spent doing this which I think is no small feat, although there are some who have gone on to earn thousands (yes, plural) over an extended period of time. https://snag.gy/tbLmMC.jpg If you recognize this website, please do not speak of it by name. I broke away after they implemented their 3-month timeout mechanism that locks your earnings which I wholly protest, so I can not, and will not endorse them. Yes, this is one such feature you might have to put up with... I won't promote any single site by name but if you google around, finding one should not be an issue. With all this in mind, this really is a last-ditch effort which is why I have moved this to the bottom of the stack. ------------------------------------------------------- Now, this is all strictly an example, it obviously won't fit everyone. There are so many things you can either do without or adjust your spending on when it comes to saving money that it really is a no-brainer when it comes to paying for your game time. Sure when you look at $120 to $180, it can be a big number all by itself, but when you do a bunch of small things over the course of time, it really starts to add up. Hey, isn't that a saying somewhere? Why do I bring this up when $10 isn't a big deal like I said in the intro? Because it is a big deal. Again, little savings do add up over time when compared to societies current habit of spend spend spend, swipe swipe swipe. Do you really need to go out for dinner every other night at the corner restaurant when a homemade meal can cost a fraction of that and still take just as much time to prepare as it would driving to the restaurant and waiting? Do you really need that thousand dollar iPhone when your current model is just fine? Need more storage, buy an SD card or use the cloud. Need more battery life, buy a power pack. Need a faster phone, drop Apple and take a bite out of a $480 OnePlus5, it's got six gigs of ram and SD 435 for its CPU. Yeah, that's right, it's an android. Bite me you expensive fruit, cheap candy is the way to go! Yeah, it's nice to splurge those savings on something once in a while when you feel like you deserve it, case-in-point, I'm a ruby founder. Also, pay with cash over using a credit card, it's an easy way to visualize how much you're actually spending in between paychecks. ------------------------------------------------------- In closing, yes, you can afford a DAC, you can afford tons of them, you just don't know how to do so. Luckily now you do. These few examples are just ones I pulled off the top of my head that I have either seen or experience in my personal life, I'm sure folks can come up with so much more to add here so I'll just leave it at that to get you started! Please suggest something and I'll add it to this post! Hope this helped! ------------------------------------------------------- If you skipped all the way to the bottom and didn't bother to read everything I laboriously took the time to write, here's what you can do to afford your Dual Universe subscription. Cut out Starbucks, stop playing on Xbox Live, mow lawns, wash cars, shovel driveways, re-evaluate your phone and cable TV plans, rent your college books online, consider using public transportation to and from college if your pass makes it free to do so, do some in-game work, or consider looking for ways to make money doing things online.

My thoughts... I also believe that gates should be dynamic. It makes the gates more...... dynamic.

All of you have good points, but I think we're looking at this through the wrong lens. Keep reading... I'm not trying to sound like I'm against the OP or their idea, but no, it doesn't. If anyone has heard of the conspiracy theory of having a social rating and how a low rating would restrict you from services, get you imprisoned, or be your end-all, that's almost where I imagine this going to a small degree. People with the big green will be heaped praise upon while those with the big red will be smitten. Now that I think about my idea in contrast to the one originally presented, I'm not actually in favor of having a reputation system period but would refer the whole word-of-mouth/networking thing that I ended my previous post on. Furthermore, we all know how Google Glass rolled over. Sure, having green or red numbers at a glance is handy and all, but for some, this might be damaging either rightly or wrongly so. Being allowed to toggle it is no better since if it's not visible, then people will think you have something to hide. In my opinion, even the forum reputation system is controversial, but that's something else entirely... Screw my previous ideas, I'm against any reputation that isn't word of mouth.

That just makes things worse in my point. You can't see peoples reputation unless you assign reputation yourself? I feel like the only real reputation system we could have is something that is automatic based on players actions. If you've played WatchDogs, it's something like this, but that was a single player setting whereas this is live, but for the sake of examples lets just go with it for now. You, as person-A, shoot and kill a person who is either unarmed and non-combative or does not have their weapon drawn, -5 rep for person-A You, as person-B, shoot and kill a person who has their weapon drawn or has physically attacked you, -3 for person-B. You, as person-C, shoot and kill a person who has fired at you, -1 for person-C -after the above fact- You shoot and kill person-A, +5 rep. You shoot and kill person-B, +3 rep. You shoot and kill person-C, +1 rep. From a human perspective, this would still be highly subjective. Were they defending themselves, who provoked who, was it an out of game event that triggered this, etc. I'm trying to look at this from a computer's perspective, but there is only so much that can be done before we get to something a computer can't do, since again, we are talking about a live, person to person-environment here. Things like assigning a person reputation because they provided good service not only requires a human input but is way more subjective. In events like this, people will build up a social reputation in a natural way. If someone is known for selling good products at a reasonable price, people with past experiences with that merchant will direct their friends there so they can get in on it. Is a pirate killing everyone they meet in an unprovoked manner? People will talk about it, word will spread, they will be avoided, and bounties will be set to have them taken out. While I'd love to look at someone and just get an overview of their past history so I can determine how positive or negative their interaction would be, it just won't be easy to implement, if even at all. It's hard to do it automatically because you don't have enough context, and doing it manually leaves it entirely open to human manipulation.

And that's wherein the problem lays, especially among organizations, they can just be one + rep circlejerk fest, just like it would be on the forums with negatives (in my experience). How do you ignore the fake reps from the real ones? The only thing you could really do to curb this is to prevent people from the same organization from giving each other a rating, but this can become problematic with people that have a part in many orgs. Even then it doesn't seem quite as fool proof as you say.

If explosives weren't planned for this game then I don't think I would have fronted 500 for it. Very interested in how anti-air weapons develop.

I would support this idea. It's great to have the intros all in one place, but after a while, an org specific intro topic is where you go to for questions and answers about that org while player intros die out after a few days.

I can't exactly answer your question, but it's quite inevitable that non-English speakers will show up at some point. How this will work out when it comes to in-game chat, I have no idea since I've never played on a multi-lingual server (as a guy in the states, I feel bad for all you across the pond). I just can't wait for these folks to carve out their own space. Some pirates will pick you up and threaten you, you don't oblige and they'll drop you off in the middle of Russian owned space and leave you floating. No one can help you because, well no one can understand you. You know it will happen.

Watercooler news: Not sure if it's worth considering or not, but I've been hearing a lot of news lately that bitcoin is on the way down. Also something about Nivida selling a mining specific card that's better than the 1080s but will be outclassed by 2080s when those come out later this year.

Greetings Primate and welcome to the forums! As far as the content and mechanics go, I can't speak of anything explicitly due to the NDA on pre-alpha testers (it should be coming to an end soon, my golly-god) but if you check out their youtube channel, you can be the judge of things from there. Without going too deep, you can probably tell from that we have a solid foundation to work from. More exciting things will come out later in the future stages past pre-alpha up to release, and that's where the fun truly begins. Heck, if you're looking for fun, check out the organizations that are active and mix it up with them! Development progress, if you look at the kickstarter and expectations there, you can see that we're behind. Is it really any surprise? Can't say much more, but you know the saying, slow and steady wins the race. NovaQuark is an awesome team that I believe is very committed and quite forthright in their communication with the community when the community needs to know. It's something which is tons more than I can say in one sentence compared to some other development teams I've seen. That's quite a shame really, when I love a game I tend to stick with it for a long time, seeing my passion and enthusiasm not reflected by the people at the helm is disheartening and has pushed me away from at least one game thus far. The community itself is six different flavors of awesome. Sure, we have our share of more... eccentric individuals, but those are far and few in-between. If you'd like to get to know the game and community better, I'd suggest joining that discord mentioned above!

Potential for an awesome fuel source.

Might not be much help, but to add a smidgen bit of a difference, you could try changing "Defense" to "Defenders". If that isn't enough to sate some nerves and you want to change the I to something else, "Enterprise" is always an idea.

Point one here. What you're going off of is a very logical conclusion, but I have two words for you, pre, alpha. We're still in the beginning stages as you well know. Some things work while others, not so much, but it's not like we need that right now. Walk before running, but before you do anything, learn how to walk first. The second point follows below... Point two, where exactly in the description did it say that you can play God? Going back up to the first quote about tweaking the planets to your preference with their biomes and such, that's pretty god-like if you ask me. Like someone else already mentioned earlier, the environments are procedurally generated. Basically, the universe is already there, we just need to explore it, sort of like the mere mortals that we already are. If you want to play god, talk with NQ about being a developer. If you get hired, they might let make you a star with its own system and customize everything you want about it. You can play god that way, but I prefer the old school route... If anyone is screwing around in the game and making mischief for everyone else that actually deviates from the game, you'll see a bright flash, and they'll be gone. That's right, that avatar just got destroyed by a righteous lightning bolt from the NQ gods. I'm going to stifle this baby in the crib before it becomes a problem here. Let's not add forty more letters so it's correct and everyone is catered to. Just make up a short acronym and run with it. Tual Universe, the best F.A.S.T. game of 2018!!!1 Freaking Awesome Super Time

Please do, I'm sure you'd get plenty of readers and more point of discussion on the topic for future reference is always a good thing! People were paid, but that's not the point, you don't just drop 10k on someone's head and expect them to work with you for a few months. Sure they have investors, but they're building a game with, as my mom likes to put it, "newfangled technology I can't understand". Game development is one thing, but actually maintaining the game and plucking the bugs as the popup is completely different. As far as the server costs, please cite your source on that. Keep in mind that those servers must be able to accept a lot of bandwidth, crunch numbers really really good, be able to store a lot of data, be supplied with power, have proper heating, cooling, and airflow, insurance in case everything goes kaputz, physical storage for those very servers because we all know that isn't free... Workspace for the employees, their equipment, heating, cooling and airflow for a productive work environment, sprinkler systems and water in case their building catches on fire, building rent (again because it's so egregious...), decent parking space for employees to park their personal transportation, sewage, and garbage disposal costs, amenities so the employees are actually happy and a bunch bunch of other stuff... Oh, on top of all this, everything has to be kept secure. The building they work in to keep the bad guys out in addition to DDoS and other internet related protection. My point is, there's a lot more to the expenses than just renting out a server for, by your estimate, 14.95. That's just the start too, someone else could easily cover the expenditures I forgot. As much as I would love for this game to be a free-to-play game, the cost of a weekend Starbucks keeps a lot of... bad stuff out of the community. This particularly has been hashed and rehashed so I won't go over it. No.

I don't mind the name changes and I'm all for being able to upgrade say an bronze founder to a bronze patron. I'm not for the half off, however, especially because as founders you would already be getting stuff ontop of stuff.