jorb wrote:There were lots of people voicing their dissent at the time, but the problem was always "Ok, so what do we do instead?"
Indeed, many complained, but few offered viable solutions. There were dozens of pages of useless posts without anyone putting any real thought into the issues.
jorb wrote:It is also worth mentioning that the message was quite mixed, because there were also quite a few people playing, paying, and seeming at least reasonably happy.
As expected, there were a handful of people saying they'd gladly pay $6/mo for the game they've loved sinking their time into all these years. This was highly controversial and misunderstood at the time, though. This is why I suggested you have a poll to collect opinions in a more organized and efficient manner.
I'm glad you've taken some of the "general feedback" (RIP Haven, people calling you a Jew, random people saying the game is too expensive, etc.) from that time into consideration. I hope in the future you will consider surveys/polls. You could even have it in-game and offer a small reward to those who complete it (like some special item, some metal bars, LP, etc.). Having player opinions easily accessible and digestible would take a lot of guesswork out of the equation.
jorb wrote:At the time we wanted to let everything sink in and die down before we started making random changes in a panic, and I'm fine with that decision, though happy that we are in a better place now. We shouldn't respond too much to anger.
The payment system was not at the forefront of our minds, an afterthought, and our mental shorthand was most definitely "Well, the game is still free, so you don't have to pay if you don't like it". That was a miscalculation, and I hope we have learned from it, but I also do not dwell on it too much.
What gets me is you admitted you didn't think about the payment system thoroughly enough, but refused to clarify the store page right away (many people were confused and thought they had to pay $15/mo to subscribe). That's kinda like watching the place burn without pulling the fire alarm. It's good to stand your ground on new, controversial ideas that you've been planning for a long time (like the introduction of LP), I don't expect you to specifically cater to my every whim when I don't like a change. It'd be a good idea to poll the players to see how they'd react before introducing something that could make or break the playerbase, though.
It's also ironic you'd rather take $1 from 1000 people when there's nothing priced at $1. I dunno what your sales data is like, but I'd probably aim for smaller microtransactions instead of $5 items if I were you.