H&H should charge for special features

[doarn]

Thought HH is still alpha with lots of issues and things to add - game is definitely mature enough to stop and think about service quality. Constant lag issues is not correct case. In such rare conditions (mostly right after downtime when heartling counter is low) when game runs smoothly - HH is different. Much more attractive. You should play against game-goals, not contest massive lags (not mention that some parts of game is not-enjoyable with lags at all). HH is serious time-sinker - those is normal - it designed in such way - but those time-sink should be rewarding and lags are just punishment with no reward.

So solution: lets add some way to feed developers with real-world money. So they can invest in better equipment (and in future - have more will to spend time on HH improvements). I mean - HH has great core idea and hardcore sandbox is place where indi-developers can have huge success. But games (and MMO especially) is not thing you can do "in spare time" good enough, I tell those as professional game-developer with AAA-titles-background so just trust me =). If we want perfect HH - we as community should pay. And as we expected to pay - we should have meaningful way to pay.

Current PayPal donate is not nearly enough (PayPal is not available for many-many peoples. And they have dark roots so many ppl avoid PayPal at any cost). May be current week/current month meter should be added so we can see is enough money collected. As large chunk of population is from Russia - also national payment systems should be added (money.yandex.ru is example of good solution. They have simple donation func afair). Those I hope is considered nice by everyone.

Now lets move to more debatable thing.

Ingame advantages by real-money. As sandbox is so fragile and easy to break selling resources or advanced thing is not acceptable in any way. Game is about player-created-world and have to be left so. Those is what makes HH attractive and harming "closed sandbox world" mechanic should be avoided at any cost.

So what is left? Special status will work. Like premium blessing. I can see it as "pay some bucks and next month you will receive special buff". Simplest effect is +25% LP gain bonus (over all other calculations, so you will receive 125% LP ratio with default sliders and with full change/peace - 450% instead of 360%). Nice to have for active players but still acceptable for those who does not want/not able to pay. I see no pitfalls except of loosing special aura of non-payable-underground-hacking =)

[ThirdEmperor]

Riiiight, that 25% LP bonus (actually it's 90%, everyone had full change) isn't exactly like getting a super sword when you donate ten bucks. If this was added in, everyone who didn't buy the LP bonus every month would fall way behind those that do. In short, everyone who didn't pay would be handicapped.

[ViciousGamer04]

Paypal is used by quiiite a lot of people but I did suggest other alternatives in a post a whille back like moneybookers, alertpay, etc. & I did some various international payment processors that whole countries seem to use which would probably be worth adding.

Riiiight, that 25% LP bonus (actually it's 90%, everyone had full change) isn't exactly like getting a super sword when you donate ten bucks. If this was added in, everyone who didn't buy the LP bonus every month would fall way behind those that do. In short, everyone who didn't pay would be handicapped.

Well yeah, but at the same time there are loads of macroers in the game so in a way it might kind of help.. but at the same time as you mentioned.. it'll just put further people behind and almost impossible for them to catch up unless they played. My theory is that if any game has in-game items that cost money that change the balance of the game in any way they generally are game-breakers. Now alternatively there could be a "Paying Server" and a "Free Server' which would definitely help to bring some revenue in. I wouldn't mind shelling out like $5 a month when the game is much more along it's developmental path.. andd! Apparently it works if you use online games for a reference point like Runescape(and this game is like already way better then Runescape other then various issues that would be offtopic bringing up in this thread.. lol.)

Paying Server would have some benefits(Perhaps something as simple as thread poster mentioned maybe just added lp bonuses in this paying server.) and you could buy cash items that actually effect in-game stats and perhaps pay for a $5 or so membership a month(or even every 2-3 months.) where as the Free server you could buy cash items that would perhaps make you look cooler but have no added in-game benefits.

Potential site profits could be feasibly enormous.

Let's say 100 people pay $5 every month. That's $500 a month already. Then let's say you got 20 items for sale. Ten for the free server for in-game looks and ten for the paying server.

Let's say each item was worth like $3-$4 and the more popular one's $7-$8?

So let's say out of those 100 people 10 of them bought something.

let's say five bought first type of item that are cheaper and five bought better items.

$15 <--------> $35

$550. So $550 in the first month.

Just an idea. All currency mentioned above and profits would be in USD. I'm not sure how it would translate into their type of currency.

However. In particular to LP bonuses, wasn't LP going to be scrapped soon at some point?

[Grog]

i play this game for NOT HAVING a premium status...

[doarn]

Riiiight, that 25% LP bonus (actually it's 90%, everyone had full change)

25% is always 25%. Same as 60 from peace over change is still 20%.

If this was added in, everyone who didn't buy the LP bonus every month would fall way behind those that do. In short, everyone who didn't pay would be handicapped.

Thats ok. If those will help with stability/lags even non-payers will receive huge bust (doing thing in 2 seconds in normal situation and in 10 seconds in current lag-fest is different). Being handicapped by not paying five euros is much-much better then being handicapped (on greater scale) with lags. And if 20 cents/day is too much for someone (huh? they have Internet in Congo, amazing!) he probably has time to play bit more (exactly hour per 4 hours to keep on same track).

[burgingham]

i play this game for NOT HAVING a premium status...

!!!

But don't worry, it won't happen. Let them discuss as much as they want to.

[ThirdEmperor]

i play this game for NOT HAVING a premium status...

!!!

But don't worry, it won't happen. Let them discuss as much as they want to.

Good point. I tried to explain why this was a bad idea, if he won't listen I shall waste no more words on him.

[Potjeh]

They should make it possible to revive dead characters without any loss of stats for a small fee. And then they should make it possible to kill offline characters without scents.

[Brickbreaker]

How about using advertising?
Not too bad imo.

[Gulluoglu]

Charge for every character beyond the first and for forum perks.