Peasant level accounts.

I am given the understanding the current plan is to have only pay players. I have always despised this as a policy even while I understand the reasons. I would like to put forward an alternate solution for a few years down the track when the games actual release is occuring.

I would like to see a free account level for non adventurers. They would not be termed outlanders, because they would represent natives to this world. They would not get quests or equip weapons, orhave any form of combat. Monsters would simply ignore them most of the time.

They would have get-to-know-the-game type quests involving gathering and hunting. If they ever chose there would be an option for them to buy up to adventurer level and bring their old character forward with all its farming skills intact.

There would be a special farming community for them and all their content would be there, so they shouldnt bother players, but players with cooking shops etc might travel to the farming centre to buy goods directly from them. If the farmers wanted to buy a pet or a farm land plot or a sales stall, you would let them give you their money for that without requiring them to buy the full game. If they farmed enough goods and sold to adventurers they might even buy things from other adventurers for gold.

If we wanted there could be planned interaction events where adventurers have to protect them and they have to try their best not to die. Both sides would be rewarded for mutual victories only.
They could put up their own quests for adventurers to get them things or clear a farm area of monsters for a period of time for their use. They will have no blacksmith etc skills so high level tool makers could sell them tools with a buff.

As an economy tool they could be really good, and it would serve to bring payed players into the game later once they got a chance to be sure they liked it. Plus, I would feel better if people could enjoy the game on some level without having to pay a fee for their enjoyment. I practically never give money to pay games, I simply dont play them and dont miss them. (Consider any money I give you as a gift, I do.)

Anyway, hopefully the idea will make its way into the game sometime. And, thank you if you read all the way to the bottom of the post.

 

My only question is this: Who would pay for the development resources necessary to add these "free accounts" into the game ?
Us ?
Certainly not you.... right ?

$45 bucks gets you in.........

 

@FrostII Of course he wants us to pay for it. Did you not notice that he doesn't pay to play games?

 

Ok, then should you @Onyx tell him, or should I ?
Nm, I'm sure he'll figure it out eventually......

 

On a similar note, I really despise restaurants that are pay to eat.

<<<<<-------See avatar*

 

@georgegad

I think when you say things like you despise games that cost money or that you almost never pay for games - it's going to get tough responses - given that just posting in the forum costs 5$ (presumably you already paid for this game - so thanks for the contribution to development!) .

I think a way of attracting people to the game could be free access week-ends or something - in the future when there's a more polished experience - but I don't know where these people would go to farm etc. as you are suggesting. It's an interesting thought, but it sounds like a lot of mechanics and development to put in these quests/interactions surrounding free players.

It's a small team on a tight budget, and I think people would rather have that dev focus on deeper quests, world events, more polished environments, (mounts?), etc.

Perhaps some of your ideas surrounding unique quest ideas could be explored, but the rest of what you're suggesting sounds like precious developer time that could be utilized in another way to bring more paying players to the game - like just working on the game and making it better

Cheers, and I hope you've enjoyed things in your year here thus far.

 

This free to play, pay to unlock the full game is
what Richard pitched during the Kickstarter.

 

Really not concerned, those folk can man up and deal with the realities of life.They simply have a poor concept of game economy, the small budget team is exactly why you need a larger customer base having access to the cash shop, to increase the budget.
To answer their concerns anyway, noone is going to pay for it. Encouraging new players is how an online game survives more than a few years. It is common MMO economics that the more people you have making accounts and having access to your cash shop the more chances you have at enticcing them into making an impulse purchase. Free players are not a burden on a game, they are a resourse you farm for pay players. The overall input needed to manifacture a farming zone from the already available resourses is negligable and not a lot more work than making any given POT. Given that there will only ever be one needed, the cost to effort ratio is likeley better than any other content put into the game so far. It can essentually be done with the resourses already in game, it is simply the creation of a fairly simple farming zone.

 

There is a loveley restaurant I sometimes go to when I am in Perth, it is free food and donation on the way out. I pay the same as I do at mcdonalds but eat three times as much and the food is better, plus it is cheaper for them to make than mcdonalds so they make a higher profit margin.
I expect from what I see they make as much as any restaurant and the customers seat and serve themselves so there are only two staff. Forcing a price is actually not the best way to profit, sensible and friendly business decisions are.

 

.....If free players are doing all the farming, what on earth am I suppose to be doing?

 

How about an iOS companion app -- Shroud of the Avatar: Prison Farmville?

In all seriousness, sorry, but I just don't think that raising cotton for players who bought the game is going to "bring payed players into the game later once they got a chance to be sure they liked it." It sounds pretty miserable, to be honest.

Thinking about ways to get more people involved is great though!

 

All I see is someone who wants a way to farm resources without having to pay for the access.

This is something that a "Bot" farmer would just love to see happen to this game - the ability to open 100s of accounts that could just farm cotton, wood, ore.

Sorry but the pay to play keeps at least some of the vulture at bay.

You paid $ to just post, so you obviously pay to play, or at least the ability to debate it . . . .

 

~The Dark World~
I see this as a good idea, but very differently, Very feudal, very player based, very incentive motivating, very good for paying player recruitment... and "very, very dark indeed" !'

In a Time Lord's Nightmare... ...

Game Play...

I was unhappy with my life, board with all I once found interesting. I went to work every day and returned to the same old dreary home, empty of new PC gaming entertainment. I sat down and tuned on my computer as I always had before, yet a blank dark screen appeared with the words "come with me" in small print with an answer box with only one option, "download". Board curious and desperate, I took my mouse and clicked the button. Then suddenly a dark rift appeared with a voice coming from it that only said "enter" and with a touch of the rift, my world went dark into a place where I could choose my character's look, yet was scantly dressed in ragged cloths of foreign design. There was a creature there that then lead me down a pathway into another dark rift to begin my new journey.

~The Dark World's Specifics~
You work in the fields of these creature's farms, farming what is considered to be contraband everywhere but there. You can work the farm there and get fed for what you gather. You can't gather anything outside the farm because you can't have any tools that are not provided for you and taken from you when you enter or exit the fields. By working the fields you can get faster, healthier, stronger and gain farming skills, if you work enough to be well fed. If you do not work, you starve to death. By quest you can escape, yet once escaped, you must still search for work. There are small fields where you can gather from within some cities, that are owned by the NPC at those field's gates. But just as before, your tools will be provided for and taken back from you whenever you exit the NPC farming fields. The paid players can see you, yet you cannot speak with them, because farming of the contraband has caused your vocal cords to become inoperable. You can only mumble. Only a Lord's Scepter can grant you the power to speak, but only until you log off. You can get killed by a player flagged for PvP, or a monster. Players can only give you food and that is your only source of food. You can gather from a player's lot/farm, but only by permission, meaning that some player has befriended you to their home, or homes. Players can provide you with a weapon and armor, and you can then gain skill. Yet every time you log off, your weapons and everything are gone. They are not gone back to the player unless they have been handed back before logging off. "You cannot store anything, anywhere", only the player can.

We may not have "companions" within our MMO side of the game, yet these players could be those very friendly companions and life long friends ...
You want to free a slave? Then buy them out of slavery or they can buy themselves out of slavery, with buying a paid account

Our New Player Companions would be cool !'

They are gaining skills with you the paid player by their side or by your granting them the tools they need to fight and craft with every day. We have had such NPC's as this, that wondered around until we hired them and this is no different. but they do need to eat, and that is provided for them by them working those NPC farms, or by a player giving them food. But at the end of each day, "they have nothing.

As they can be "friended" without storage access to the paid player's home, thus they do have a place to call home or a place to live. The paid player can friend as many as they like and they can be friended to as many as they can gain such access to. But each day, they are begging us to allow them to play with us, harvest for us, craft for us, yet at the end of the day, they have nothing but the skills they have gained through the friendships they have made.

That's the Time Lord's "Dark World"...
Great Idea @georgegad !!!
@dallas ~Time Lord~

 

Interesting ideas.

But how would your approach increase SOTA revenues?

At the end of the day the game is a business that needs revenue to pay for operating costs and generate a profit. How would your ideas help the game grow revenue so that it could be sustained for all players? The proof is in these numbers. Cool ideas are not always good ideas if they do not grow revenue while keeping cost down.

If you are saying you will pay using the cash shop, that's another matter, but I didn't get that.

 

Seems like the OP is a gold farmer :

• free to play
• no fight
• ressource gathering

Obviously, SOTA need to be as attractive as possible to keep up with the fundraising and development. But SOTA already have a community and a nice one. And if there is one thing that can rot a game, it is the gold farmers. Dirty people who play for money without consideration for others, spamming automated messages offering gold in exchange for dollars, euros, pounds, etc...

 

I doubt that very much. Back in the mid 90's a friend owned a Burger King franchise and told me the cost involved at a later date. This is from memory but the most expensive thing in a burger at the time was the mushrooms at about 8p, everything else was basically pennies. I think a burger in bun and chips cost him something like 20p to make and was sold at about £2-£3 or so back then. That's why they can afford to make stuff and hope it sells within a time or gets thrown away.

 

I thought those of us without house-owning accounts were already considered peasants. =P

 

I love the Indian "free" restaurant on the Swan (Annalakshmi)! Unfortunately in online gaming you don't show your face and eat good food so lots of griefers and harassment will take advantage of the gift.

For the amount of content and life expectancy of this game $45 is a very small price to pay and then you can pay nothing more. If you wait around and check Steam the game goes on sale occasionally for around $25. If someone can't afford at least $25 for all of the entertainment Shroud of the Avatar will provide, they shouldn't be wasting time gaming.

You are very fortunate to live in Perth.

 

~Market Breaking Slavery, While Deterring Actual Slavery~
Taking this from the perspective of breaking open markets, "which is the good intent within this", we must first see that our game's market majority isn't in the west, but in the east. Just like World of Warcraft's Movie going broke busted not making any money when it opened in the west... while becoming a "block buster overnight success in the east", we can think we are the main player base, yet be totally wrong about that.

So if the above is true then how best will SOTA enter the Asian market?
EA is everywhere here in Asia, along with all the rest of the gaming industry in a much larger way than they advertise in the west. Assuming that these are the types of games being farmed, then we must do things differently to deter gold farming and do it in a fun way which encourages players to pay. Yet having anyone pay to play SOTA is "just like those pay to win free to play games", only with a different marketing plan. The price of a COTO is one of these new hybrid ways of deterring gold farming. yet in a way, all of we backers are pay to win gold farmers because at higher levels of our pledges, we truly have no reasons to spend gold because of all our equipment and tax free lots. Asia being such a huge and productive market for games, "our SOTA has yet to capture any on that market", yet ours is the style of gaming most popular and in demand. Asia is also that same place we all think of when it comes to gold faming... in particular "China". I've been all over Thailand and haven't see a one of these gold farms yet. I've seen some internet cafes with kids in them, yet these kids are playing minecraft on very old computer systems. "Our SOTA takes a robust system to play it on", which limits our market. So if we're going to have any gold farming, then I'd place a bet it's going to be attached to one of our early backer tax free fully equipped pledge accounts and not some new account.

We've sent Lord British himself into online encounters with large western guilds in attempts to allure those guilds into our game. Some of those guilds haven't shown up in any large numbers and mostly counting their numbers on a single one hand not using all 5 fingers. We sent he and DarkStarr on many missions to conventions and not gained but a few. "So how can we do our advertisement any better" ?
The ways EA and most other gaming companies handle their advertisement here in Asia is similar to what Lord British did with the guilds he visited, yet the larger companies use the YouTuber channel people to do this and not themselves. With such a system such as this peasant account or "Dark World" I described, then I think there's ways to better invite guilds into our game and deter more gold farming at the same time.

This is one of those things I was thinking about... In the Dark World scenario...
That's one of the reasons I was trying to tie it with a gang boss who would have some responsibilities to the group. At least they'd have to be a part of a club or something where one guy has an account and has to physically collect up all of whatever any free player would create. By placing such individual steps into how they could do such a thing, then unproductive time is created. If those free accounts had skill caps, then this too would become another deterrent, by greatly limiting those free players potential of being gold farming players.

Current Gold Farmers...
We can't stop the paid player we have from gold farming. We already see gold farming in POTs where some governors are wanting gold for additional POT imposed revenue, yet this also has not been automated and game supported, causing this practice to be somewhat time consuming on the boss.

We have no way to invite guilds to try our game without them investing in it. Envy of what other player have is a proven entity that works for "free to play, pay to win games". If such free players were heavy skill capped, complex within their ability to interact with the game and invited by our players because of their good manners into the player's home, then I see no reason to fear them or suspect that they are gold farming with any great success and with far less success to gold farming than our privileged high pledged early backers.

If I can come up with so many ways to deter gold farming in such a short time, then there must be many more ways out there. In many ways, such a system deters even those gold farmers already here from becoming gold farmers.

In the Asian market of players, $45.00 is 4 days of wages here for the average citizen. Their PC Gaming ages are younger than our backer base which is 30+ years of age, while theirs is around 18-24 years of age, yet they will save that much if they like it. Dead By Daylight (game) is an example, along with Lineage as well as others.

Soon the western market's boom because of persistence will end (soon being maybe a year from now) and then we must look for other markets through a larger company having bought our game, or by our gaming company having made more on their own. Our 9-10 Million$ won't last forever and keep our game innovating and improving.

This is how to get guilds here...
~Time Lord~

 

Spammers, bots and gold sellers. Thats why not.