Catnip Games Discussion Thread

Given that so many systems in the game are only 80% finished, shouldn't we get a 20% discount on all crown store items?

 

Please consider hiring a community manager who can takes this off your plate. Heck, have them take on jotting down highlights form your stream in a reliable manner - that's probably better than a daily standup to me.

A good CM also get's you a voice of the people for your team, and a voice of the team to us. Their role should be to keep an eye on the forums and be in game with us, at events, checking out POTs, player made quests, etc.

 

Most of this is far too complicated at this point
Let’s make this easy:

Take RMT off the forums.
Announce there will be zero support for RMT.
Stop the no trade nonsense.
Lower prices on the Crown Store.
Don’t expire anything from the crown store.
Worrying about RMT, because of a handful of people who need help in every aspect of their life does not progress our game.
Allow people to sell what they pay for if they want to. They are PAYING for it.
No one has to buy anything RMT if they don’t want.
Stop trying to parent us.
No one is getting hurt by RMT.
RMT is NOT the problem here.
Please focus on BALANCE, BUGS, STORY, CONTENT.
I am HONESTLY telling you that RMT is not our problem at ALL. IT’S the GAME!
I love this game. Work ONLY on the game, and this will be magical.

If people are worried about RMT direct them to me. I will be a resource to help people trade. Trusted Trader or whatever. I will do this free of charge like Andernut use to. Let us deal with ourselves. No service tickets. No dev problems. We can handle this.

Keep Free Trade free from complications. Let us look after our economy. Pretty dang sure we can handle it.

Thanks!
~Cristiano

 

Imo this all can be solved with a good trusted trader program. So I am looking forward to what @Chris is going to improve about it. He specifically said he is going to work on the program.

 

Too much talk about an Anti-RMT crusade vs End-Game content is counter productive and sends the wrong message.

We want to attract and keep new players not chase away a portion of our player base. The Community Manager is a good idea. Give us town invasions and something for The PvP players, they are also a dwindling part of the player base. I would rather see a follow up to the Battle of Aerie in October 2018 than a fishing contest unless you include tame-able mermaids “Grins”.

R/Boris/El Pirata/Black Sails Forever

 

I know I'm very much part of a minority in this game, but my biggest problem with this game has been that no matter what I do, I'm always going to be a peasant in a game with so many nobles who became nobles because they were fortunate enough to back the game before I knew about it. For quite some time, I've been doing nothing but playing catch up while never even coming an ounce of close to being caught up with anyone. Sure, I can play the game as a personal attempt to be all I can be, but when you're standing next to people who have entire player towns to themselves and richest beyond imagination, it makes it really difficult to want to keep signing into the game. Slowly, I'm peeling further and further away from the game, almost to the point where it's not worth playing any more. I can't even get a decent plot of land without paying taxes, or buying the land from someone else for real money (and an absurd amount as well). Right now, I own a small plot of land in a nowhere town that no one will ever visit because that's all I can afford to have, and it's the only place I can even find that's viable without becoming rich first so that I can then partake in the humbleness of just that.

 

Plenty of highly trafficked player towns will warmly accept you, and that is where most players go.
You can easily grind up PVE levels and people will help you.
You can mine and sell the minerals.
Most of us have been in the game for years.
We have a head start. You are going to have to put in time to get to where someone else , who has logged in every day for years, is currently at.
We didn’t get here quickly. You may actually get there faster than us.
It’s like jumping into WoW three years in and complaining you don’t have end game gear, or r the fancy raid toys.
You have to work at it, but luckily we are willing to help you.
TY

 

You have your own plot of land? I know a guy so poor he doesn't even have a bank and another guy so poor he doesn't even have starting gear!

 

Brother @sarbonn ; Don’t worry about all the fancy titles and towns. Work hard selling things crafters need, buy a town or city water lot and be a pirate. I am positive there is a list of towns glad to have a pirate ship on their docks.

One day a large fleet will assemble and set some of those towns on fire at least for a bit. R/Boris/El Pirata/Black Sails Forever

 

As a free player, I'm perfectly capable of using my own brain -- and if I fail to do so and get scammed, that's on me. I understand that a lot of people are idiots and are going to blame you guys because of their own failings, and if you need to cut RMT out of the forums for that reason, I'll support you. I'd rather see it in the forums myself because it makes it easier for me to windowshop, but since I'm unlikely to ever do more than windowshop, your need to reduce CS overhead is more important.

But that's a completely different issue from making items non-tradable and killing the in-game gold market for crown shop or reward items. As a free player, I paid for two months of subscription this summer, and have received several reward items since spring. Almost none of them have been of any use to me. And since I have little time for or interest in mindlessly killing things -- yes, I like being able to adventure but I won't be doing it more than a few hours a month -- and since it's impossible for new crafters to make a living as crafters, I'm not going to have enough in-game gold to homestead or decorate the way I want. It would take months of dedicated killing things to get enough gold for that, and I just don't find that fun.

Selling those unwanted reward items for in-game gold paid my property taxes. And it was TRADABLE items won from Twitch contests that paid for the lots I own now, lots that I upgraded with crowns. Yes, some of those crowns were contest winnings -- but you also got almost $100 from me to buy more crowns and episode 2, money I would never have spent if I'd hadn't seen an incremental path to achieving my goals by mixing occasional purchases from Port with in-game gold purchases from other players.

Think about it -- which free player is more likely to spend extra money at the crown shop? One who sees a huge hurdle to getting what they want that they'll never be able to surmount without spending a lot of real cash? Or the one who can start achieving their dreams, step by step, via trading items in game, then sees that they only need a little bit of real cash to quickly reach the next step, then the next month a little bit more to reach the step after that, and then the next month after, a little bit more...

You said recently that player customization would be a big part of episode 2, and the type of new content available in the store recently bears that out. And that's great. But you've got to realize that if you're marketing to people who want to create -- most of them are going to want to spend their time CREATING, not killing, not grinding. And if they don't have any access to those tools without buying crowns from Port -- cool, just stop claiming it's free to play. Because if creative players can't envision their dreams as feasible for free, they're not going to stick around long enough to be willing to spend real money.

Remember that line, some people have money, some have time? Switch most crown shop and reward items to non-tradable, and you cut the people with time out of the equation -- unless they're the minority who actually enjoy mindlessly grinding for hours a day. It doesn't matter if you CALL a game free to play, if "winning" (which for many of us means homesteading or decorating) is only possible via the crown shop. That's not gonna fool anyone.

If you don't want multiple threads, then you've GOT to open the announcements threads so that everyone can reply to it. As long as you have sections of the forum that aren't open to all players -- even those who can post in other parts of the forums -- then you're GOING to get multiple threads on important topics.

 

So now we just embrace your Socialism, and change things to fit people who never put up in the beginning? People who don’t want to work hard and save for something? People who feel entitled to everything?
Sorry, I put in the time and effort. Mine, mostly through trade. This game had a huge merchant player base.
Don’t cry about something you are not willing to work for. This RMT witch-hunt needs to end.

Build the game and they will come! Content and fun!
RMT is not the problem!

 

You mean that same glowing town devoid of people and anything interesting, empty buildings and rows of nothing?
.......You’re welcome.

 

According to the owner of the game, issues with RMT (obviously not you) has been a problem for them. Your beef is with Chris not forum posters. LOL

Edit: Specifically people who have gotten scammed by RMT submitting tons of support tickets.

 

Hard to get scam if you only deal with players you know in game tbh =)

 

How about a vendor search feature so that I can completely ignore the RMT saturated Player Marketplace forum?

 

omg what happened to this dude, I’ve almost forgot about him..

but yea I agree with everything you posted well except story content eww who needs it give me **** to kill ..

 

So we can either keep the RMT ping pong ball going back and forth or leave alone and:

End this on a positive note with congrats for @Chris and support him with positive ideas on how to increase player population and maybe entice the ones that departed the game to return with new leadership in place. I think the latter is more productive. It’s a wiser choice to come together for those looking to join this game.

R/Boris/El Pirata/Black Sails Forever

 

That's Chris' call, he's the developer.

Again, I'm only repeating what Chris said. You have to ask him the specifics.

 

I can agree with most of what you said minus this. Many many games sell furniture and clothing items that are durable, maybe not tradeable and still do well financially and they don't charge $100 for them. I think players buy furniture packs to save time with crafting them; so making this a "go farm the mats' on top of the unlock; isn't going to appeal to a lot of people.

I agree with unlocks for builds and that like. I am okay with making a cool raid or even solo dungeon that has a slight increase to artifact drop that requires a key to access, but gives subs or certain level of backers/bundles a key each day. I am okay with paying for expansions; like episode 2 (although that should be in my pledge), but maybe a telethon to unlock a special area that only those supporters get access to or there is paid single access to special crafting areas (GW2 does some 2 week passes to crafting, banking zones although that might not work real well for us, but something of that nature). You could create fairly cheap but time limited effects to combat, weapons, and armor, more emotes that are not tradeable. Maybe you could put in a not tax free option to deeds/vendors, but a 1 week of no taxes option. Fancy fishing rods, cool gathering tools that have effects when used for a limited time or benefits to gathering (GW2 does that as well with some being durable). You have seasonal monsters, make some events with them and sell additional tickets for the seasonal vendor. You can also just create a subscription game with different levels of support and a time commitment (say buy 3 months, etc at a discount to get guaranteed x months of income). There are a great deal of Nickle and dime options you can do, but better than getting hit with a $ hammer and more in line with what a "micro transaction" really is.

I am okay with paying to make things tradeable, but please give me a free option to place things in my chests for sorting purposes - a no trade chest. I don't want to have to sift through my bank for something I need that I don't know the exact name for.

 

So I guess you will pay to get all the RMT people out and then say its Chris? If you say something incendiary like that at least own up to it, don't throw the stone then hide your hand and point to someone else. R/Boris