The Ghost of Christmas Future

[Bob_the_Cat]

So yesterday an idea came to me that would make haven money (so they can work on it more) and would help with the alt problem.

When you make an account, you would get a free character slot, that will be like free trial for 2 weeks. This gives them time to try out the game, and see if they like it. After the trial period, it locks the slot, until they pay like 5 bucks. If they want more character slots and accounts and stuff, they will need to pay more (but maybe after the first slot they would cost less, because you can only have 1 of them on at a time because its the same acc).

Most of us haven players cant live without this game, and would gladly cough up 5$. This would also prevent people from begin able to just mega spam tons of alts, because if they don't want to pay, then they cant use the alts.

Now this system isnt perfect, and would need some tweaking, but overall could do the game some improvement. Like in a 2 week period someone would only need a couple of days to make it a forage bot, then they would have another week to bot with it. Maybe it would need to be like free accounts are limited in foraging or something. But a system like this would make it so people cant just spam out alts, because if they have 20 bots, the money will add up fast.

This isnt supposed to be pay to win. It could be slightly messed up by like one village having tons of alts botting and stuff because they payed more, but If botting became a bannable offense and stuff, then people wouldnt pay to just get banned.

And obviously, you are buying character slots, not characters. If your guy dies, you wouldnt loose the slot.

Now I dont think this system is perfect in any way and needs improvement, but It honsetly is better then right now, where I can just throw all my best stuff on tons of alts, and the stuff is now protected forever, and while others alt spam bots and crap.

[Ninijutsu]

but If botting became a bannable offense and stuff, then people wouldnt pay to just get banned.

It never will be. Next idea?

[GrapefruitV]

1. You can't charge money for a test.
2. You can't charge money for additional accounts and then just ban people. Also it is not that simple to distinguish bots and people.
3. That would encourage real money trade, which is not allowed. Now mostly chars are traded for real money, but with that system a lot of people would try to cover expenses with all kinds of everyday trade. That also means an advantage in alt's amount for experienced traders and industry-oriented players.
4. "Rich" people would get advantage (quoted rich because having an extra 10-20$ isn't exactly being rich). 5$+some extra can be a big deal for kids and third world people, so they would either quit or stick with one alt, while average working adult from Europe or US can spend extra 15 to get 4-5 chars instead of one.

[Bob_the_Cat]

1. You can't charge money for a test.
2. You can't charge money for additional accounts and then just ban people. Also it is not that simple to distinguish bots and people.
3. That would encourage real money trade, which is not allowed. Now mostly chars are traded for real money, but with that system a lot of people would try to cover expenses with all kinds of everyday trade. That also means an advantage in alt's amount for experienced traders and industry-oriented players.
4. "Rich" people would get advantage (quoted rich because having an extra 10-20$ isn't exactly being rich). 5$+some extra can be a big deal for kids and third world people, so they would either quit or stick with one alt, while average working adult from Europe or US can spend extra 15 to get 4-5 chars instead of one.

1- Right now the game isnt a test. And hafen wouldnt be a test forever, and it could be used after the beta.

2- every game I know of that you can pay, you can still get banned for breaking the rules. You may have missed the part where I said if botting was made a bannable offense (cuz if it wasnt a bannable offense, then banning them after they pay would be very bad)

3- Its not encouraging real money trade anymore then the game already does. If I was going to buy a palibasher, it wouldnt matter if I payed 5$ for a char slot or not.

4.1- I origionally though that some peopel cant afford 5$, but that is mainly only the little 11 year olds playign runescape and WOW. This game the player base is mostly older people who can easily afford 5$.

4.2- This is the main part where it would need tweaking, because I definitely dont want this game to be pay to win. Maybe if instead you buy the acc, then you can have unlimited slots or something. Because then you could have a farmer alt, a skiller guy, a warrior, and so on without having to pay more, but you cant have them all on at once. This would prevent the mass botting, because then if you want 10 bots on at once you need to have payed for 10 acc's. This system would only work if botting was made bannable. With this games smallish player base, it wouldnt be overly hard to figure out whos botting the 50 flotsams they have.

[TeckXKnight]

I still think that if they wanted to monetize Haven then JLo should go the hatfortress method. On an account/lineage, if you have paid for or otherwise unlocked an alt skin for an item, when wearing that item you have the option to change it to look like alt skins you own. That way people will actually buy it, because lets be real here, sales are hit hard if you can and will lose anything you buy from a cash shop. People can, of course, still just kill you and steal your spruce cap, but they won't be stealing the skin that's on the spruce cap.

Seriously, people care a crapload about how their toon in a video game looks and, if given the option, would shell out more money than they ever should.

Heck, do the same thing with hairstyles and faces too. If it costs like a buck to have an awesome beard on any characters I make then hell yes I'm going to be doing some micro-transactions.

[Ninijutsu]

Please Teck, my wallet might not be able to handle that.

[venatorvenator]

So yesterday an idea came to me that would make haven money (so they can work on it more) and would help with the alt problem.

That really depends on what the devs want with this game. A social experiment? A script development experiment? Portfolio for a future job? Steady income?

I've handled game design before and I totally agree monetization would be a neat change to Haven. The reasons have been listed here already, and of course there will always be a few loquacious people whining about how that would fuck things up (the same people who want everything to stay as it is forever, and the same who whine that omg this game is hard I need botting to have fun). Besides, with money comes more exposure, which gives us new players. It's pretty hard to hear about this game.

The best example I have for successful paid games comes from Goodgame Studios, it's a good idea to take a look at them with a dev eye. They really know how to make you want to spend money on little things that don't break the game. For example, paying US$ 0.50 to unlock a recipe that allows your to customize your shield, or your chat font, or build a boat with sails. It looks cooler but doesn't mess up game balance since the new items keep the same stats.

If people can pay US$ 15 for a lame iphone game (or even more for an iphone, for that matter), they can surely give some U$ 20 for a permanent haven account, plus microtransactions. Plus ads and all that. Jorbtar shouldn't sell this game short. It's awesome and deserves to be treated as such.

[Arcanist]

Plus ads and all that.

Please no

[GrapefruitV]

You guys really should check out Salem forums with people calling devs scammers and bitching over money they spent, because of wipe and no updates for two months, before suggesting to monetize raw games.

[Arcanist]

no updates for two months

How sad.


They knew what they were buying before they bought it. Atleast the game is still online.