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Novaquark Monetization  


Captain_Hilts

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1 hour ago, Kirtis said:

 

You don't like analogies with EvE online, but never the less I'll use example from there - you can play that game for ~15 € per month if you buy a subscription (less if you pay for several months in bulk), but it will cost you about 20€ if you use PLEX to pay for it. The trick is that you can sell PLEX in game for the internal currency (or buy it if you wish so) and some people end up paying more, just because it fits their needs more. If there would not be that option, some people, who use in game currency to pay for the subscription would not play that game at all, and those who do pay using cash and sell extra PLEX to fund their ingame activities would loose the option to exchange their RL cash for the ingame currency legally - they would need to spend more time grinding and earning in game currency thus get away from things they like more and probably consider leaving game too. All in all developer would loose potential sales and profit. 

Wow you really misunderstood the whole point of plex lol

 

People who buy plex with rl money don't use them to pay for their sub. That would just be utterly stupid, but maybe s one do it anyway. They use them for selling it ingame so they don't need to grind. That's exactly why nq have dacs. So why the complaints - nq already did exactly what you want

 

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1 hour ago, Kirtis said:

Regarding the EvE online.. even the NQ developers do not hesitate to admit, that they are planing to use a lot of ideas from this game and this is normal as that project proved to be successful. So unless you want to hide behind ignorance wall there's nothing wrong in using examples from that project.

I am ignorant.
What is the hourly rate for playing EvE Online?

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4 hours ago, Kirtis said:

The last time I read introduction of DU it was positioning as "Global", not as "Western".

 

So you want to say, that money from the eastern market are not worth to be earned? :) I would do some research if I would you and would find out how much the "eastern gaming market" is worth before making any statements ;)

It's available globally but it's the western market, big difference.  Game will flop if they implement pay as you go.  I and many others don't want the game to flop, so no... pay as you go isn't happening.

 

There's a reason many AAA Eastern mmos have a separate publisher for the western market.

 

Millions of reasons not to make it an option, as laid out in this and other threads.  Why are you still pushing for it?  Just seems childish to me.  /shrug

 

NQ has chosen their model, and it's proven to work.

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This topic just needs to stop, either pay sub or find a different game. In real life you don't get to choose how much you pay for a service.

 

Examples:

-I insure my truck but don't drive it every day, I still pay full price.

-I pay for data on my phone but don't always use it all, still pay full price.

-I have a gym membership but don't go every day, still pay full price.

-Pay for internet and cable at home but if I'm working lots I don't use it every day, still pay full price.

 

There are so many examples that the argument to pay for what you use is invalid.

 

If you don't like the sub model go find a different game, most of us probably won't want you here anyway.

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1 minute ago, Myriad said:

If you don't like the sub model go find a different game, most of us probably won't want you here anyway.

The harsh reality of it. A game with emergent play is better when the community is dedicated, allowing more people in at a discount won't improve it (aside from the fact that it might also cost more money than it makes).

 

The people in the category that would not play the game with its current sub, but would if it were pay-per-hour are worth losing.

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Keep

It

Simple
Stupid

 

A flat rate of fifteen dollars per month. Either play enough hours and feel satisfied that you got $15 worth of enjoyment out of it, or play fewer hours and feel like it was money wasted. A monthly sub is the price of 4  Caramel Macchiatos or almost a weeks worth of starbucks. Those four drinks can provide you with, oh let's say an hours pleasure if each drink went down in 15 minutes. A sub can give you at most ~720 hours for those of you no-lifers that have no social life, no job, don't sleep, use a bucket for a toilet, and whose diet consists of mt dew and doritos.

 

Let's look at me personally... Being a modestly healthy person, I try to get eight hours of sleep a day. Boom 1/3rd of my day already gone. Time dedicated to studies, in-class time, working on my distance class homework, homework homework, and transport to and from college, ehhh that's 4 hours a day. Now half a day is gone. I'll be going back to work soon now that summer is over and I'm acclimated to my class schedule, that will be another 3 - 6 hours gone.

 

Now I'm left with 6 to 9 hours of free time and let's say I dedicate 4 of those hours to DU to set aside the rest for personal care and social life. Let's multiply those hours out over the course of a month and to keep it nice and even, go with 30 days. That's 120 hours per month, 1440 per year.

 

Is $15 a month,  $180 a year really all that much considering I can get two full months of entertainment over the course of a year?

 

Considering a lot of the other entertainment choices out there, I don't go to bars personally but I have a friend who spent 200 with some friends at a bar one weekend and guess what. It either went down the toilet or ended up in the trash.

 

What is $180 to you, two months of meeting a bunch of online people and hanging with your org and doing fun stuff, or is it a bad hangover and a soiled pair of jeans?

 

Maybe it's a bad comparison, I don't know. If fifteen dollars a month is what you would call a stretch then I, like some have said already, would strongly urge you to reconsider your priorities.

 

Edit: I got into such a rant I forgot about what I said about the pricing scheme at the start of my post.  -_-

 

While what you have seems like an admirable idea, in hindsight it seems like a bad idea for reasons that have been already mentioned before. I cant endorse it. Keep it simple.

Edited by DarkHorizon
KISS
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18 hours ago, Myriad said:

This topic just needs to stop, either pay sub or find a different game. In real life you don't get to choose how much you pay for a service.

 

Examples:

-I insure my truck but don't drive it every day, I still pay full price.

-I pay for data on my phone but don't always use it all, still pay full price.

-I have a gym membership but don't go every day, still pay full price.

-Pay for internet and cable at home but if I'm working lots I don't use it every day, still pay full price.

 

There are so many examples that the argument to pay for what you use is invalid.

 

If you don't like the sub model go find a different game, most of us probably won't want you here anyway.

Just in order to show how situational your arguments are:

 

- Car can be insured for a limited time (at least in my country that is) and if the person does not use car - he has an option not to renew insurance for a certain period - I know elder person who does not insure his car during the winter as he does not drive then. And yes, taking into account all the year it's better price to buy insurance for the whole year, than to renew it monthly. But if you consider keeping it in garage for 3 or even 5 months, other payment models might save some money.

- I have a lot of different payment plans for the phone where I am able to choose from not using data transfers to unlimited data transfer and I choose the one which fits my needs most. I can pay nothing for data if i choose to use that service not.

- where I live most of the gyms offer flexible payment plans - you can pay per visit, you can buy 5, 10 visits, you can buy monthly ticket or even a ticket for the year. The last one will be the most cost effective in long term again, as everywhere, but If I am just a visitor to this city and need just a few sessions in a gym, I have such an option.

- I have a lot of different options from different ISPs varying in data transfer speeds, data amounts and even technology itself, and the ISP i use and am happy about the price and service, is not acceptable for my colleague, who's not a gamer and he almost does not use internet, so he's satisfied with way cheaper plan from another ISP, thus way more limited than mine.

 

Who are those "us", and how many are those "most" who probably won't want someone (question is who are that or those "you" as well) :D Most probably in all fairness it should have been written: "I (not us and not most of us, but plain and simply... I) did not like your (whose?) idea and I think, that I would not enjoy spending time with you in this game." That would sound more honest and fair ;)And I am very glad, that you are not the one who chooses who's welcome and who's not in the game. All those who try to push their gaming habits, attitude toward the play style, schedule of playing and other things on others are wrong from the start. Project, which is multiplayer indeed, benefits from all and everyone. Even the person who logs into the game once a month for one hour can make very meaningful input into community if he spends that time wisely. Not everyone has ambitions to build virtual empires. Some players are satisfied just by relaxing, chatting with friends, making some role play stuff, or just joking out and making fun for themselves and others. And quite often those who don't spend much time in game bring more value to the community than those ho play day and night, get exhausted and end up claiming who's welcome and who's unwelcome in the game ;)

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I don't think anyone's saying you're not welcome, just that if you don't think the game is worth $15 a month, then you don't have to play.  Simple as that.  

 

Or work for the sub in game.  The cool thing about dynamic universes is that you don't need to be playing the game to amass profits.  I know people who log onto a game for 10 minutes a day just to flip their merchandise. 

 

They have chosen this model, and they won't change it due to a very few vocal minority.

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19 hours ago, wizardoftrash said:

The harsh reality of it. A game with emergent play is better when the community is dedicated, allowing more people in at a discount won't improve it (aside from the fact that it might also cost more money than it makes).

 

The people in the category that would not play the game with its current sub, but would if it were pay-per-hour are worth losing.

"Emergent gameplay" generated by AI will never ever get even close to what emerges in contact with a real person. And even if that person has less time to spend in game than me I would never neglect his potential to have an impact on community and me. There are some conversations with people that happened in games years ago... we met once and never spoke again... but either they said something interesting, or we did some extremely fun things... and I still remember it now. Who knows how long did they play... who cares... all that matters is that their presence made an impact on me... and sometimes (I'd even say... often) you don't need much time for that. Even stupid actions of some players might become a legend - mind a "LEEROY JENKINS" from WoW - who knows if that guy ever played anything after his infamous adventure in a virtual dungeon. But these few minutes recorded years ago became "something". Some players don't even know where all this came from, but they'll understand what you mean if you'll say "don't leeroy on that boss", or you'll get all your team in a good mood if you'll shout "LEEROY!!!" before attack :D

 

Yes, I know how fun is to have a dedicated group of friends and play with them. But even the most dedicated and nice team will get dull and you'll get bored if you won't see new faces in a long time.

 

So no, I won't agree with you, wizardoftrash, noone is worth loosing and everyone is valuable - even those whom I don't like... and those who hate me are needed too :D

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Pfew, that was a lot to read. 

 

One thing I haven't seen mentioned is the impact a pay by hour system would have on the play experience. Perhaps concider this is not how NQ looks at the player experience they want to offer. 

 

Pay by the hour would mean a certain segment of the player base would be cut of from many aspects of the game. Imagine trying to build a ship or building while counting your minutes. No time to relax and socialize or explore the universe. You certainly wouldn't be able to build constructs with enough quality to sell. As such your player contribution would be second grade. Ask yourself if this fits with the games philosophy. 

 

Talking about actual experience, how would a pay by the hour player even advance his skills? If you reduce the rate of xp gathering you would have a play experience that is just not viable. You play 5 hours per X, you wouldn't be able to advance or compete with a monthly sub player.

 

In the end even if it was a good idea to pay by the hour, it would create a second class player. That's not smart business. Nor is it the experience I think NQ is trying to create for their game. 

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On 9/24/2017 at 4:38 PM, Falstaf said:

Pfew, that was a lot to read. 

 

One thing I haven't seen mentioned is the impact a pay by hour system would have on the play experience. Perhaps concider this is not how NQ looks at the player experience they want to offer. 

 

Pay by the hour would mean a certain segment of the player base would be cut of from many aspects of the game. Imagine trying to build a ship or building while counting your minutes. No time to relax and socialize or explore the universe. You certainly wouldn't be able to build constructs with enough quality to sell. As such your player contribution would be second grade. Ask yourself if this fits with the games philosophy. 

 

Talking about actual experience, how would a pay by the hour player even advance his skills? If you reduce the rate of xp gathering you would have a play experience that is just not viable. You play 5 hours per X, you wouldn't be able to advance or compete with a monthly sub player.

 

In the end even if it was a good idea to pay by the hour, it would create a second class player. That's not smart business. Nor is it the experience I think NQ is trying to create for their game. 

Even when you are paying not by hour, but just a plain monthly subscription, you still have time limits for the in game time. For example I spend certain amount of time sleeping, then I have certain amount of hours I need to work, some extra time I need to make food, eat, clean home, spend time with family, friends and so on. And all in all I am left with some spare time which I can spend in game. I am limited on that time, though these limitations come not from monetization model, but from my obligations in other areas. Eventually I adjust my ingame ambitions and plans to the time I am able to waste on the game. The amount of time may differ and is different for different people. But we all are limited. The difference is only how active we are outside the game.

 

If you are unemployed, don't have family and spend all day in game except time you need to sleep and eat... does not mean that you can't benefit from cooperation with person, who has work and family and spends only couple hours a day in game or comes online only on weekends. He/she still can gather some raw materials, or come with interesting design solutions and have an important part in creation of big constructs as part of the team and contribute quite a meaningfully. So no, I don't agree with your argument.

 

Other point regarding "experience"... as far as it has been announced and is included into official DU wiki, learning of the skills does not depend on time spent in game it actually takes certain time to train, but you can do any activities meanwhile or even get offline: "learning doesn't stop when a player disconnects from the game." https://dualuniverse.gamepedia.com/Skills#cite_note-2

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18 minutes ago, Kirtis said:

 Eventually I adjust my ingame ambitions and plans to the time I am able to waste on the game.

 

And this right here is why you raise the issue. You do not see playing this game as a valuable purpose for your time, instead you see it as a filler at best.

 

The sub is $15/month which IMO is a perfectly fair and reasonable amount. If you feel that, in your words, you can't waste that amount on a game, you should not play and no amount of excuses or nonsense arguments will change that. If a $15 recurring sub is something you can't afford than you have the option of putting in the effort to make enough in game currency to pay for it that way, there are no freebies here. 

 

Lastly, even if an hourly rate would be available, it would more than likely be so high, because of the risk/cost involved for NQ, that even playing 2-3 hours/week would make a monthly sub less expensive.

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48 minutes ago, Kirtis said:

 "learning doesn't stop when a player disconnects from the game." https://dualuniverse.gamepedia.com/Skills#cite_note-2

You didn't understand, I'll do my best to explain it better. 

 

A sub = 1 month of playtime. 

1 month = X amount of experience gained, offline or online. 

X amount divided by rate per X, this could be 2 points per minute or whatever rate NQ sets. It's most likely a more complicated formula than I'm describing here. 

 

If you only subscribe for 5 hours your rate of xp will obviously be adjusted to reflect your subscription time. 

 

This is not the same as subscribing for a month and only playing for 5 hours. 

I don't think I can explain it better then this. 

 

 

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21 minutes ago, blazemonger said:

 

And this right here is why you raise the issue. You do not see playing this game as a valuable purpose for your time, instead you see it as a filler at best.

 

The sub is $15/month which IMO is a perfectly fair and reasonable amount. If you feel that, in your words, you can't waste that amount on a game, you should not play and no amount of excuses or nonsense arguments will change that. If a $15 recurring sub is something you can't afford than you have the option of putting in the effort to make enough in game currency to pay for it that way, there are no freebies here. 

 

Lastly, even if an hourly rate would be available, it would more than likely be so high, because of the risk/cost involved for NQ, that even playing 2-3 hours/week would make a monthly sub less expensive.

And again you are one of those, who entered discussion without reading it trough :D but can't blame you on that now as the discussion became lengthy and it's not easy to read it through. As I am "wasting time" on discussion about game, which is not even released yet, I can afford some time to remind you that I wrote before: I am intending to pay monthly subscription for the DU game (when it will be released and if developers will actually deliver the game the way they introduced it) , I can afford it and actually I am subscribing other games right now. On other hand I am able to understand that that people are different and I know those who would really appreciate an option to pay per time spend in game. And I want as many players in game as possible.

 

And yes, I don't see any game as a goal of my life. Game is game - a way to spend free time. When I play, I play it seriously, pay attention to details and even waste time on forums reading through lengthy threads of discussions and participating in them ;). But never the less game does not become main purpose of my life and achievements there are  valuable and important to me only as long as they don't interfere with my real life.

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Monthly subscription is perfect for MMO that are continuously updated and gameplay elements added on regular basis. It's up to you how much you play and whether you want to pay. For example in EVE sometimes I pay for few month during which I don't play at all, just to have possibility to access the game at any time if I decide so. The second reason why single approach is good - it's subscription and skills management. 

On the other side it's too early to speak about how beneficial would be to keep the subscription active for all the time, because if there would be some passive income sources in the game - like having some taxed area that is used by other people, or some inventing/research process that continues to work when your character is offline - how do you imagine this with hourly payed plans? Such things won't definitely be allowed for trial or unpaid accounts, but for example if you pay only for amount of hours - that means you will be either able to receive that passive income only when you are online or have no access to such sources at all. 

 

In other words if DU is supposed to have EVE like mechanics with offline gameplay elements - it's nonsense to add hourly subscription. This approach can work only in some Lineage games that totaly rely on how much you grind online. 

 

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27 minutes ago, Kirtis said:

And again you are one of those, who entered discussion without reading it trough

 

Not so much. It is obvious you have a different mindset towards playing games that a lot of us here and that's fine. There is nothing wrong with seeing this as something you do only if you can spare the time.

 

Personally I feel that if you want to succeed in anything in life, be it work or achieving results in a game you play, you have to put in the effort and time required to do so as other wise what you  do _will_ be a waste of time. Following from that I believe that games such as DU or EVE will require you to spend time to progress, there are no shortcuts here. I have a very busy and demanding job in RL and I very much enjoy spending a good bit of my personal time in games like EVE, SE and soon DU.. I apply the same ethic and commitment to both RL and in game as that is how I feel one will achieve what you set out to do. 

 

I kind of get what you are saying/thinking/suggesting. I feel though it's not a feasible way to actually make a game like DU work for you and certainly see how what you suggest is not realistic for NQ to consider.

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I think our hope is that DU becomes akin to a cult...club, in that everyone pays monthly dues so that the club can operate. People that hang out at the club all day and night pay the same dues as the weekenders. The subscription is less about cost per unit of game time, and more about being a member of the club. A $15 club membership fee isn't unheard of. Gym memberships are a good example. Pay the membership fee, get access to the gym. What you actually do with that membership is on the member.

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1 minute ago, Captain Jack said:

I think our hope is that DU becomes akin to a cult...club, in that everyone pays monthly dues so that the club can operate. People that hang out at the club all day and night pay the same dues as the weekenders. The subscription is less about cost per unit of game time, and more about being a member of the club. A $15 club membership fee isn't unheard of. Gym memberships are a good example. Pay the membership fee, get access to the gym. What you actually do with that membership is on the member.

Agree with that. There is one more feature in such community driven games - if you are useful enough and don't have enough real money, someone may pay for your subscription just as reward for your achievements and contribution inside the game. I've seen enough of such examples in EvE. For example in some pvp alliances if pilots are good at fighting other people but have no time for farming - they can receive ships for free as well as subscription, or if someone likes to carry cargo all the time, does not steal and stupidly die - they also will find enough ways not to pay with real money.

When I started playing EvE - real money was not an option at all for me due to real life problems, but I've found people that were interested in moderating their local community website along with translations of devblogs to my native language. They paid me with ingame money equal to 3 subscription fee each month. So I was able to pay for my first 2 accounts and buy some nice ships. So I'm pretty sure that in DU there would be enough people ready to pay for efforts outside the game itself.

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8 minutes ago, Miamato said:

Agree with that. There is one more feature in such community driven games - if you are useful enough and don't have enough real money, someone may pay for your subscription just as reward for your achievements and contribution inside the game. I've seen enough of such examples in EvE. For example in some pvp alliances if pilots are good at fighting other people but have no time for farming - they can receive ships for free as well as subscription, or if someone likes to carry cargo all the time, does not steal and stupidly die - they also will find enough ways not to pay with real money.

When I started playing EvE - real money was not an option at all for me due to real life problems, but I've found people that were interested in moderating their local community website along with translations of devblogs to my native language. They paid me with ingame money equal to 3 subscription fee each month. So I was able to pay for my first 2 accounts and buy some nice ships. So I'm pretty sure that in DU there would be enough people ready to pay for efforts outside the game itself.

Ever take a friend out to dinner and a show, costs quite a bit more than a month's worth of entertainment in DU. I could easily see people buying subs for friends.

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13 hours ago, Captain Jack said:

Ever take a friend out to dinner and a show, costs quite a bit more than a month's worth of entertainment in DU. I could easily see people buying subs for friends.

Will be one of the people buying subs for friends so they can play. It's cheaper than going out drinking with all of them. 

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14 hours ago, Captain Jack said:

Ever take a friend out to dinner and a show, costs quite a bit more than a month's worth of entertainment in DU. I could easily see people buying subs for friends.

100%

1 hour ago, yamamushi said:

Will be one of the people buying subs for friends so they can play. It's cheaper than going out drinking with all of them. 

100%

 

I will not have a lot of game time due to work and family so I don't  plan on or want to spend my little game time  on DU mining for ore  but if I had a friend that could help me out with the resources gathering I would be will to pay there  subscription !    

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