Crown store and new players leaving

Discussion in 'Crown Store' started by Rygen, Oct 27, 2020.

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  1. necronut

    necronut Avatar

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    I vote MORE lights! Make it look like Dante's Inferno Room from Beetlejuice!
     
  2. Cora Cuz'avich

    Cora Cuz'avich Avatar

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    Ha! That's always exactly what I thinkmof when I see lots like that.
     
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  3. Gridseed

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    Shall i have the new Entertainers in the coto store to? but i need glow in the dark red colour so people can see them to speak to them about this lovely game :) we do a vote on Male or Females or both?
     
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  4. Rygen

    Rygen Guest

    I have no problem with tons of lights or whatever else you want to do in POTs. NPC quest towns is a different story. it breaks immersion with disco balls in a medieval backdrop, especially those that were looking for a game with a nice role playing environment. But if you want to pay for the privileged to paint your house pink and put a disco ball out front, go for it, so long as it's in a POT.

    Anyone who is arguing about POTs being great choice is totally missing the point of my argument. I don't have a problem with the idea of POTs or people paying money for them. There simply needs to be housing of some sort inf the game that isn't tied at all to any player opening up their wallet to shell out cash, or using premium/paid currencies like COTS, even if they are rare mob drops. If such housing isn't available as part of the game without money being involved by anyone, then it is bit of a turn off. I'd also like to see prepaying taxes or rents beyond 30 days could only be done with COTs.

    I've only stuck around because the game because I am a fan of the Ulitma series. There aren't many new players that are, in fact, some people have referred to the chat system being like morrowind, totally forgetting that morrowind borrowed the npc dialogue system from Ultima 4 (Ultima 1-3 were very simple video games fit for running on 16k-32k machines). there are lots of problems in this game, but too many issues, and a system that is appears to be trying to squeeze money out of new players, is enough to make players leave, which the statistics clearly show is happening. This game is eventually going to fizzle out, it already feels like a graveyard even without undead wandering around. Right now it is heading towards being a single server running in somebody's closet, just to cater to the remaining 30-50 active users three to four years from now. Okay okay, that's a little harsh... math suggests a little over 100 active users per day four years from now, but that's assuming a linear decline, and not a sudden drop off as there aren't enough players left to maintain any kind of community.

    So whatever you paid to have whatever you have now, doesn't really matter, and won't matter at all in a few years anyway. All that really matters is making the game attractive to new players, and not make new players feel like money (either theirs, or some other player's) is required. The real difference between a POT and an NPC town? A bad POT governor could kick you out to give your lot to a friend, or decide it's going to be a guild only POT, and anyone not wanting to be part of their guild or pay in COTS would have to leave. That would never happen in an NPC town, or an NPC instanced inn room.


    As for huge light signs... If there was a bulletin board or signs that can, I don't know, have player written text on them like the very successful sandbox game, minecraft, just use an appropriate brush-like font, it would fit perfectly in with the environment, without the need to write crap in glowing puff balls.
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Oct 29, 2020
  5. Cora Cuz'avich

    Cora Cuz'avich Avatar

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    What color is the sky your world?
     
  6. Gridseed

    Gridseed Avatar

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    Omg Disco Ball YES YES YES good idea :) please vote on this to. And you do know there are grow in the dark Dragons that could also break your immersion and the airships in a medieval place with shogun ships in Ardoris and steampunk stuff to :(
     
    Last edited: Oct 29, 2020
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  7. Nick

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    Unfortunately, I think Rygen's point is new players don't stay long enough to find all the facts. :(

    Poor first impressions.
     
  8. oplek

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    I bought the game for $45. They had kickstarter money. That was their funding to produce and distribute a game. They should have adhered to their original scope, and sold a game, instead of turning it into a money-mill live service.

    I think he/she and I come from the same old-school line of thought. You buy the game, and you get the game. And everything in it. If there's a persistent online server, you pay a fee to access that server.
     
  9. oplek

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    Does anyone remember when the SeedInvest money wasn't supposed to be for developing SOTA, but self publishing, hypothetically being able to support publishing additional games?
     
  10. Mugly Wumple

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    Garish signs and fantastic claims have been part of marketing for millennia.
     
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  11. Rygen

    Rygen Guest

    Yes.. but more explicitly, I'm thinking of these:

    Freemium Explained... by south park.
    Freemium Really Explained
    Addiction explained... by south park (this actually has real science in it)
    Skinner Box Manipulation


    SotA isn't nearly as bad as the extreme example given int the two videos above (granted it is a crude comedy series), but players are very mindful now of anything that may be seen as manipulative in free to play games.

    Southpark did an amazing job of explaining an overview of concepts of how free games can manipulate players, and how addictions work, and they did it in a very short span of time, with humor and crude language... oh and drugs.
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Oct 30, 2020
  12. majoria70

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    Why do you think pot lots cost the players? The taxes for your lot are game given. The pot owners don't do that. Lots are free in any pot I know. Wizards Rest is a pot owned by an old ice mage named Baldrith. It is a beautiful snowy town. Anyway not trying to be defensive. I hope you have some very good times here. Imo this game is unlike any other and as best as can be accomplished more is still coming.
     
  13. Cora Cuz'avich

    Cora Cuz'avich Avatar

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    His issue appears to be that to get a lot, you either need to buy a PA deed to be in an NPC town, or you can use a free deed in a PoT that the governor had to purchase once upon a time, therefore it projects the appearance of needing to spend cash to have housing.
     
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  14. Rat2

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    It doesn't matter. Portalarium is gone, out of business. Any money that we invested is gone with it. I don't even have a scrap of paper to use for a tax loss.
     
  15. Alleine Dragonfyre

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    I've always thought that tying deeds to RL money was the number one fundamental mistake made when this game was being funded. Deeds should be played for, not paid for. The money could have been raised with fancy houses to use on the deeds and a huge list of other things that would have been just as ego-stroking. The culture of this game was born out of players wanting to sell game deeds and everything else for real-life money, and apparently, their influence was strong...for a time. Luckily that mentality and those players are fading here and the practice has been banished from the official game channels.

    Selling deeds and $10,000 price tag bundles is extremely alienating to the majority of MMO players and it scared me away at first. It was only a few years later did we decide to give the game a chance. I was outspoken from the beginning about it as I just couldn't get past charging the most premium prices in the history of video games for a fundamentally flawed game with not a single finished system except housing.

    It used to be that there were NO free deeds at all. So, changes have been made in the right direction since then. I actually quit for a while over things, this being flagship reason. However, it was the same week Chris took over the game. As he is my friend and he had plans to fix the problems that have plagued the game, I took down my Steam review and came back. (He should have told me sooner!)

    I am a Governor now but the mistakes of the past still torment the game to this day. I am confident that Chris will continue to listen to his community to make incremental changes for the better over time.

    Edit to add: The Crown Shop is how this game is currently funded. It is a necessary and welcome place that I can spend as much or as little as I wish. I could, also, choose to make in-game gold for ALL the items available in the shop and purchase them from other players. Really, at the end of the day, all is yours for the taking.
     
    Last edited: Nov 21, 2020
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  16. Barugon

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    I agree. They at least corrected it some amount by giving players a row and village deed.
     
    Last edited: Nov 21, 2020
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  17. Bridge Troll

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    I wonder if it would be an acceptable solution to allow POT deeds to also be used in whatever town type "Littlecreek" is. That place and most places of the same type are empty and have been forever. I am not a fan of complexity, and doing this likely adds more complication, but it would help populate lands without new players having to find a governor to plop a home down. I really think figuring out where a deed is valid is the hard part. Mayber we could color code the Town names based upon POT, NPC, and this elusive third, and then show the corresponding valid colors on the deed?

    Also - this isn't a knock against POTs... I understand that there is space in POTs and there are some POTs that you can plop a home down without asking, but a new player will have questions and worries around this - I never wanted to put a home down in a POT because I know that I can be removed on a whim...
     
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  18. Net

    Net Avatar

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    Honestly, while I think that land in (major) NPC towns is quite valuable, I think that "player run towns" are worse than POTs, they do not have the flexibility of POTs to place shrines and merchants, and they get no traffic from players either. I think it would be nice if POT deeds worked there (and perhaps if inhabitants could vote for a governor one day, to be able to place useful POT deco).
     
  19. Duke Gréagóir

    Duke Gréagóir Legend of the Hearth

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    I agree with using POT deeds in the Player Run Towns.

    I disagree with having the Player Run Towns by vote a governor and place POT deco objects. This competes with the POTs, which is the only thing that is keeping some of them alive vs the NPC and PRT towns.
     
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  20. CrandalltheFoole

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    Nope not right. I am a "retired" fixed income on Social Security. That means I live on less than the proposed $15/hr would pay.
    Struggle? Of course, as this is not a game that will hold your hand. This takes skill and long term planning. My avatar is pre-persistence. We were wiped every month.
    Start from scratch, learn by doing and asking questions, reading the changes and the forums, report bugs. We worked hard to make this game work.
    Things have changed since then: Training instances, more variety of leveled instances, and devs that actually listen and provide feedback in game.
    Am I a Super Level Avatar? Nope. I struggle in most 5 skull areas, and have to be very careful in 4 skull.
     
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