Pay-To-Play Conquer Online Server?

11/11/2010 16:55 |NeoX#1
I would like to see how the community thinks about that.

The advantages of monthly fee´s would be the ability to keep the server online as the hosting should be affordable via the monthly fees.

Better a stable, reilable and clever economy pay to play server than a free one wich lacks on: Stability, Economy and such things.

Please vote on the POLL.

Also since we would have nice income for the server, we would be able to hire "pro" coders wich will put their expirience into it and create a REAL server.

Anyway, feel free to vote, flame, comment,..
11/11/2010 17:25 .Beatz#2
I do think this is a good idea but I dont think you would get many people playing on a pay to play server.

Would be nice to see one though, just to see what actually happens with it.
11/11/2010 17:48 FuriousFang#3
I wouldn't pay to play because I simply can't afford it =\ lol
11/11/2010 19:17 SYSTEM 32#4
I wasted too much on paying to pservers.
coemu - 2000-3000$
lastco 500-1000$
11/11/2010 19:17 -impulse-#5
I myself wouldn't play on such a server, mostly because I dont want to spend money on games(well at least not on online games).

And who said that if a server that is not pay-to-play has no economy?
Depends on what is added and what is not, what quests exists and what not.
11/11/2010 19:44 pro4never#6
When you first think of it it sounds like a good idea but in practice it simply wouldn't work.

Sure, if you had a server worth subscribing to you would be able to attract some people but it simply wouldn't be enough to maintain an active server (say... 50 subscriptions?... server would get boring FAST with that few players)

Hell, even commercial mmo's are moving towards micro trasactions. You simply can't justify charging a monthly fee for most mmos any more if you want to get a decent player base.

That being said... there is no excuse to not run a proper ingame economy or to allow for donator over powering.

Personally I plan to have a fairly regulated and balanced economy on my server and do fund raising through other means such as selling vip levels (basically subscriber BENEFITS) or possibly through selling HmPoints (usable to start server events or other things that change the entire server, not just your own character... IE: guild halls)
11/11/2010 23:06 stealarcher#7
Would be too hard to have the community off of pure pay to play. VIP that conquer has already put in is the best thing u could do really.
11/12/2010 00:43 |NeoX#8
someone should give it a try...
11/12/2010 12:38 ChingChong23#9
$1-2 per character creation sounds good. Also your allowed to buy an account for a friend to use etc whoever can't make online payments. That's a small price to pay and seems fair.

However i'd only pay money towards someone who i think has the knowledge to create and maintain a stable, mature server. i can count the people around here who i think have these qualities on 1 hand.
11/12/2010 13:32 |NeoX#10
I agree wif that ChingChong. Maybe you should try such a project coz from what i know your decent in java^^
11/12/2010 14:10 ChingChong23#11
i had thought about taking one of these 'tq binary' servers (the earliest public one), translating it all to English and pretty much keeping it like an original server (not these stupid servers where you kill pheasants and get cps)

keep it how it is, maybe increase drops a little and then host it, make a payment system and make a subscription system. purchase a dedicated server and should be good to go. however i know fuck all about these public tq binary servers, i have no idea what they come with and what i'm limited to.

a good approach is what we do in another community i'm apart of. The server is free to play, but you may subscribe your character for $5 a month. Subscribers will gain non harmful benefits such as:

-commands to spawn gate scrolls
-a colored name on forums
-20% more leveling exp

something small like that, with a bunch of other small features to make it worth $5. no drop rate gets increased at all. no donating/subscribing for 'special items'. Only way to obtain items is by hunting the good old fashion way, and your elite 1soc bow will be praised.

each day i'm getting more motivation to do it, because i simply don't see anyone else i can rely on that won't screw up the game down the line (sell items, give up on the server) etc.



That's 1 idea, it somewhat sucks since i'll have very limited access to what i can do.


I might also dig up my conquer server i wrote in java awhile back and see if i get any motivation to continue with that. 5017 is a great version that everyone loved.
11/12/2010 14:35 .Beatz#12
Quote:
Originally Posted by ChingChong23 View Post
i had thought about taking one of these 'tq binary' servers (the earliest public one), translating it all to English and pretty much keeping it like an original server (not these stupid servers where you kill pheasants and get cps)

keep it how it is, maybe increase drops a little and then host it, make a payment system and make a subscription system. purchase a dedicated server and should be good to go. however i know fuck all about these public tq binary servers, i have no idea what they come with and what i'm limited to.

a good approach is what we do in another community i'm apart of. The server is free to play, but you may subscribe your character for $5 a month. Subscribers will gain non harmful benefits such as:

-commands to spawn gate scrolls
-a colored name on forums
-20% more leveling exp

something small like that, with a bunch of other small features to make it worth $5. no drop rate gets increased at all. no donating/subscribing for 'special items'. Only way to obtain items is by hunting the good old fashion way, and your elite 1soc bow will be praised.

each day i'm getting more motivation to do it, because i simply don't see anyone else i can rely on that won't screw up the game down the line (sell items, give up on the server) etc.



That's 1 idea, it somewhat sucks since i'll have very limited access to what i can do.


I might also dig up my conquer server i wrote in java awhile back and see if i get any motivation to continue with that. 5017 is a great version that everyone loved.
Been looking around and the earliest one I can find is 5065? I could be wrong here, would be easy enough to make with binary's I am guessing.

Although this would not be a "true" classic server I would think it would be good enough with a few modifications e.g
Remove CPs etc

Although I dont know the first thing about binary servers I am sure I could soon enough learn a bit (enough) to start work on one and make some modifications so it is a bit closer to a classic server and then put it on Tortoise SVN or something like that.

Just throwing some ideas out there :)
11/12/2010 17:18 copz1337#13
First get a HIGHLY populated server for free then announce it is a trial for the real thing (when the payment part to play comes in).
11/12/2010 21:37 |NeoX#14
Quote:
Originally Posted by copz1337 View Post
First get a HIGHLY populated server for free then announce it is a trial for the real thing (when the payment part to play comes in).
To backstab 75% of the ppl who worked hard on their char but simply cant pay to play?
11/12/2010 22:26 pro4never#15
If you're going to ever try to do a pay to play type model for a pserver, DON'T use binaries!

Nothing binaries can create is worth paying for. Write a custom, stable source running the features and patches you want! By using a real source you can code custom content, events and anything else you want that actually make the server worth using.


As for pay to play, I'd strongly suggest some form of 'free play package' to people or else your server community will die quickly.

As soon as you get into free or subscription though you really do run into issues where you're no different than other servers not advertising as pay to play.

Personally all I'm going to be selling on my server is vip subscriptions (slightly boosted functionality in game and perhaps bit higher exp rates). I may or may not also sell points which can be used to do things like start server events or unlock new game features (IE: Custom guild halls) which would be more like a paytoplay type thing... I know for myself anyways I will never really go down the road of selling levels/items/etc which would overpower donators. I've come up with a couple different monetizing methods and none of them really separate donators from normal players.