Update Discussion: August 28, 2017

[kazeandi]

@Citan
Why you read this as "balance this for 100 players" is a mystery to me. I don't say that anywhere. What I'm saying is, player economy forces you to take up crafting. With 1k players online that won't change much. More stuff might be available, but a) prices won't be lower than they are now because you can only supply so much, and b) combat skill prereqs alone force you to take up a craft.

Then I said that p2w, convenience, etc are just semantic.

What we're talking about is the concept of the game as sales platform for digital goods, not "win". How about we cut out all those only loosely defigned terms and talk shop here. By creating artificial shortages and then selling means to overcome that, we indeed have a cash shop with attached demand creator, the game.
IF all these things can be obtained by subscribing monthly, I don't care. I'm used to that and find pay2play fair. Letting freeloaders suffer is irrelevant to me.

You also didn't answer my questions.

[Roekai]

yikes............

[Citan]

By creating artificial shortages and then selling means to overcome that, we indeed have a cash shop with attached demand creator, the game.

What are you overcoming by having, say, 10 extra inventory slots? You don't overcome anything. The inventory is still much smaller than you want it to be.

There is no artificial shortage: I'm giving out as many inventory slots as I think players should have. I didn't make that number artificially small. I assume the average player won't spend a dime beyond their purchase price, and I want the game to be fun for them.

But I expect we'll need continuing money to keep developing the game in the long term, so we'll give players small benefits for paying a monthly subscription. I don't know if those benefits will include inventory slots, but if so, they won't get a lot of slots. It sure won't be enough to make players happy with how the current inventory system works!

So the difference between what you're saying and what I'm saying is not semantics: it's scope. You will never be able to buy your way out of inventory management problems! But those inventory problems are real problems with the game, and I intend to improve them in the future. I definitely don't intend to let you solve the game's inventory hassles by giving me extra money. I'm insulted by the idea that I'm making the game extra crappy in order to get extra money. I'm just not finished yet. There's a lot more work to do.

We can talk about other topics in other threads; this one is already pretty chaotic. The short answer to "why are some skills gated by other skills" is... that's the sort of game I want to play, so it's the game I've made.

[kazeandi]

This is where you're reading me wrong. I'm repeating myself here (again), but nobody says the game IS (insert monetizing model name term here), what I've been talking about is "If you do X, Y, Z, that will have effect A and that sucks, because..."

I get that the thought of your game being viewed as a cash grab kind of thing is insulting to you and provokes an emotional reaction. But that's not what's happening. You read half of what I write, get angry and reply to what you deducted from that part, not to what was actually said.

That's kinda exhausting and leads to endless repetition.

What I do disagree with on a design POV, is the absolute necessity to craft. Crafting and combat are 2 different subsets of activity and not everyone likes both.

I do like combat enough to keep up some degree of crafting, but I don't enjoy it. That you need all the extra items to craft and in turn create inventory problems only adds to my problem, but that's my problem, not everyone's.

Whether you want to be strict or reasonable in this regard is up to you.

But don't mistake me for an enemy of whatever sort. I'm voicing my thoughts because I'm concerned about some aspects and your ideas on them are not clear. "Let's talk elsewhere" doesn't exactly help - guess I'll wait for a blog post.

And now relax already.

[Arundel]

@kazeande - ah, I see what the problem is: you want me to balance the game around the current user population! That's absolutely insane.

First, there's absolutely no reason we can't reach 1000 concurrent users. That's a very modest goal. We had 250+ concurrent users TWO YEARS AGO, the last time we did a small marketing push. Those players ran out of content and wandered away a few months later, and we haven't done much to bring new users in, because the game isn't finished yet. But I am going to finish the game.

And when the game is finished, if we can't get a measly 1000 concurrent users at peak play hour, then the game will have failed, and we will have to shut it all down. We can't even cover costs with the current user base. But I'm not fretting about it right now, because we aren't trying to bring in new players. Because the game is not finished.

So no, I'm not going to spend any time making your life easier right now. I know Alpha is hard because there's no players to buy or sell to. You can either deal with those frustrations, or not, that's up to you.

But seriously. Cut it with the p2w bullshit. Suggesting that a few inventory slots is p2w is VERY insulting. You insinuate you've played p2w games, but a p2w game requires thousands of dollars investment to win. It won't even be possible to spend thousands on this game after launch. So it will obviously not be p2w. And since "this game is going to be p2w" is pretty much the most insulting thing you can say to me, you need to stop, please.

Edit: I reread your post and I think it's best that we admit this is not your game. You actually think I'm making game design decisions in order to bilk money out of people... that shows such a lack of trust that I don't think we need you here any more. Your feedback has helped in the past, but it's time to admit that this is not the game for you. Go play something fun! Something without any crafting!

I appreciate you clarifying your points and what we can expect in your last two posts. If you read mine, I loosely referred to "Pay2win" as starting to sell inventory slots with near unlimited quantity, or something similar.

A little anecdote and an explanation of what I consider "pay2win" and what I don't consider "pay2win" (my opinion). I recently played Black Desert Online and it started off with buying convenience stuff that really affected gameplay and income such as inventory slots, amount of workers allowed, etc. However, it was limited in quantity and probably was somewhere between a small and significant boost in income if you played properly. Then they started releasing items you could buy which directly sped up how fast you could enchant items. The end goal was that while they didn't "sell" the best items, you could buy them easily in game and then with the cash shop spend hundreds or thousands of dollars and be miles ahead of everyone. I was one of the wealthiest players in the game (prior to the true pay 2 win arriving) and admittedly bought a good bit of stuff for crafting (inventory, workers, etc.) but stayed on a tight budget (I think I spent $100-$200 total on the game in 6 months, not bad). When they launched that one item that let you enchant for 1/4th the cost certain players suddenly had extremely rare items cause they were buying thousands of dollars of the true "Pay2win" item and you couldn't compete with these guys in pvp or pve. Also, they could enchant these items with basically their wallet alone and then sell the items so they had better armor, weapons, and more cash (billions more). I could no longer compete and refused to throw my wallet at the game to compete with people who would ALWAYS spend more to win.



"Is it Pay 2 win?" I think the main concepts in determining if a convenience cash shop purchase is convenience or raw power is two things (that I can think of):

A. The quality of the advantage it gives. +1 inventory when you have only 1 inventory slot is far more meaningful than +5 inventory when you already have 100 slots (probably the scenario that will actually occur in our game). This issue can be debated, but in the end it comes down to opinion. I think most people that are reasonable will argue a small increase in convenience (space, time, etc.) is fine.

B. Which takes us to the more important point: quantity, or how many times you can purchase something from the cash shop. If I can buy infinite (or near infinite) inventory or teleports or whatever it gives me a monstrous advantage and if I buy everything and spend thousands of dollars I will be light years ahead of everyone else. Even if the amount isn't infinite but very high (instead of 5 inventory more when I have 100, 500 more when I only had 100 is insane) it is still virtually infinite and in "Pay2win" terms becomes a real case of "buying power". This causes said player to earn maximum money with no extra effort and to have more free cash at all times by not having to spend money on certain things and also by having more space (effective income in a dungeon run, etc.). Its shifts from being a small increase to being a complete game changer.

I think it is clear that you are suggesting A will happen but never B. I am ok with this, but I get nervous when developers start to shift towards B. To be honest if you are insulted: we have literally had developers in both large and small games PROMISE in flat out language "I promise I will never do that" and then turn around and unleash infinite sales or indirectly purchasing power/income after launch. I hope you can understand that you aren't being insulted (though some of the others have used strong language) but that we are asking you to stick to your word as basically every developer these days does lie, and its a sad fact. I have a lot of faith in this team, but I've had faith in other teams which later went full "pay 2 win" and never commented on why or defended it. Most developers cash out when they can, and its frustrating when you love a game and its purity as a game (and not as a tool to measure wallet or manhood size). I hope this all makes sense.

[kazeandi]

A freemium model where you have x% more xp from activities, x more inventory slots, your mount has x% more speed when you subscribe is ok in my book. Selling all these buffs separately is the first step on the path to the dark side. Look at UO, selling soulstones, stable slots, skill boosts etc, all while collecting the sub - devs are very crafty when it comes to ways to milk players. Of course people who witnessed such things are afraid that the game they love (this game here!) might fall prey to these very schemes. The word "cash shop" alone makes me shudder.

While there's 1000 ways to "do it right", experience suggests that most devs get greedy at some point.
Now understand it as what I mean it to mean: I'm worried this might happen, I don't say it will.

It's also not some thing of the past, Albion got released in June.

[Sheawanna]

Citan is not for P2W PERIOD !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
End of statement end of drama and end of this post !!!!!!!!
having a few extra slots to buy does not equal p2w no matter how you justify it !!!!!!!!!!!

[kazeandi]

Citan is not for P2W PERIOD !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
End of statement end of drama and end of this post !!!!!!!!
having a few extra slots to buy does not equal p2w no matter how you justify it !!!!!!!!!!!

Why do you bring up "p2w" again?
You obviously didn't read the whole thread, much less properly.

[Sheawanna]

Why do you bring up "p2w" again?
You obviously didn't read the whole thread, much less properly.

Oh I did but someone always believes/thinks otherwise ....

[kazeandi]

Doesn't make any difference. Right now, there's no cost attached to PG at all.
What happens in the future is nothing more than some vague ideas. That's why we're discussing this now, before time and energy has flown into concepts and backpedaling is painful.

And that's really all there is to it.