Iron Elite Membership - Can we have higher "enterprise" level plans?

13

Comments

  • I sort of already have double. One for Achaea, one for Midkemia.

    I'm not the richest lass in the world, not by a very long shot. I recall an old comment someone else made that they believed they made less money than anyone else in Achaea. I thought then, that they were mistaken. I still think that's me, or it's a tie. Possibly with more than just her.

    I live in the same country as she does, and I'm on disability - which I'm sure surprises few here.

    In my real life, I've very little to do, and apparently due to stuff that I choose to describe here as the reasons I am on disability, make me a very difficult person to employ, no matter how much I want to do something more meaningful than Achaea. No matter that I get real-world pieces of paper to 'prove' I've done the training, no matter that I refuse to be as useless as my lack of employment appears to claim I am. At least I can help people who I can only assume live lives in which they're made to feel just as useless, forget for however long I can manage.

    Even seeking a nonpaying job, didn't work.

    Ye gods, what sort of lives do you think you're running from, all you high-rolling folks who put thousands of dollars into credits more than once every few years?
    Miin-aan baash kimini-sij-i-gan bitooyin sij-i-gan-i bukwayszhiigan = blueberry π
  • edited November 2015
    Dochitha said:
    Manach said:
    Hey, how about they start selling blue pill Artefacts that you eat to instantly become dragon. And satchels that are full of every combat Artefact. Maybe a client that ships with an automated offensive script and curing system too.

    maybe you can pay someone to play the game for you too.
    Not funny. This is serious discussion.
    The use of sarcasm does not automatically constitute a joke. You are correct, this is a serious discussion. I seriously think it is a bad idea. That should be pretty clear from my comment.
    If a man wishes to be sure of the road he treads on, he must close his eyes and walk in the dark.
  • edited November 2015
    Manach said:
    Dochitha said:
    Manach said:
    Hey, how about they start selling blue pill Artefacts that you eat to instantly become dragon. And satchels that are full of every combat Artefact. Maybe a client that ships with an automated offensive script and curing system too.

    maybe you can pay someone to play the game for you too.
    Not funny. This is serious discussion.
    The use of sarcasm does not automatically constitute a joke. You are correct, this is a serious discussion. I seriously think it is a bad idea. That should be pretty clear from my comment.
     Even though it was sarcasm all of the above points wouldn't give a player an advantage over another player, that couldn't already be bought or timesunk into. Dragon "boosters" would simply kill the process of getting dragon which is literally just a time sink and nothing more. Satchels full of combat arties? Why not? There are already periodic sales that have artie bundles. If you want to hand grind the gold for arties then jump into that timesink and go, otherwise just make that price right if you're gonna bundle stuff. Clients already practically ship with defensive scripts. Offensive scripts? Those aren't exactly hard to get your hands on and not knowing what makes them tick wouldn't get you too far anyways. Paying someone to play the game for you? I guess that was the sarcastic part implying that you thought your previously points were absurd and that this was the cherry on top, but I didn't think so as I've explained.

     Breaking even in this case would only apply to profit margins in a "do this vs that" situation. IRE is clearly not a non-profit organization. I believe I read somewhere that f2p games make the bulk of their money on "whales" or the big spenders. As I mentioned previously if that is true then giving further discounts to the whales would just be the company undercutting itself. Free players are still gonna play free regardless of memberships or promos. Casual spenders are still gonna spend casually and are more likely to sit on a membership and only whip out their wallets during the especially sweet promos. Big spenders are just gonna keep on making it rain every month, they just need enough interesting stuff to keep the money train rolling.

    tl;dr I speculated on alot of stuff.

  • It's more fruitful to discuss and put together something that'd balance most part of the game while returning better ROI than right off assuming it won't work.
  • @Aerek right, I wasn't disputing that. 

  • edited November 2015
    I think Iron Elite is for strategic, patient people. Credit packages are for the rest. There's nothing wrong with buying credits, because it makes the game enjoyable and also keeps the game from having to shut down. I've seen much less hateful envy towards people with credits here than their equivalent on other games.

    But if your resources are short, you are on a budget, you simply CANNOT buy credit packages, but are willing to be patient, Elite is for that. In my opinion it's the "equalizer," because if you use it long enough, and manage it well enough, you end up with tons of great arties, good experience from the boost, and a bunch of lessons, though I don't think those lessons at this point keep up with the demand of multiclass; I am, however, pretty sure you can get a 2nd class with it provided you buy no-brainer lessons.

    You cap at 150 cr, multiply that by 12 and that's 1800 bound cr a year, and 9000 cr in 5 years. Past that, and it's over 9000. I'd say many of us could gear up pretty well for 9000 cr and many people play this game for over 5 years, so provided you save towards set goals and don't splurge, you should eventually be well-geared at 25 dollars a month. It's not what I personally have done, but I can see people doing it, and it does mean people can play this game and enjoy it and still have credits without buying giant packages.

    I don't have this sort of patience, but some do.

    Sorry for being long-winded.
  • The more expensive plan can just ignore adding more credits but give perks like crit bonus, 15% credit bonus on purchase, 10% more xp bonus, a trans oceanic orb every month etc that ideas. 
  • Thing is, there's no real need for any of that. Almost all of what you're talking about can be accomplished by using credits/crowns to purchase elixirs from the shop of wonders that do those very things. As far as the orb goes, that's a pretty niche reward that can also be found pretty easily in game for credits. 

  • Trey said:
    Thing is, there's no real need for any of that. Almost all of what you're talking about can be accomplished by using credits/crowns to purchase elixirs from the shop of wonders that do those very things. As far as the orb goes, that's a pretty niche reward that can also be found pretty easily in game for credits. 
    The need is real. They can be found ingame, that's what makes paying for it worthwhile. We are paying for speed, convenience and more fun, and those are they sell, not arties, not credits.
  • This seems like kindof a hit -and- miss discussion. I can see the logic behind wanting a -cheaper- elite membership with fractioned benefits from the original 'iron' elite membership. That I can completely support, as for someone on a budget I would feel much safer paying $15 per month for 50 credits and 2-3 lessons per day rather than the 100 and 5 ratio that the Iron elite gets you. It doesn't really seem to present any harm in regards to the Achaean economy and it presents them with the opportunity to clientize (Probably just made that word up.) the less powerful incomes here.

    There of course is always the argument that spending countless hours grinding out bashing gold is more cost effective than going to work 40 hours a week and  using the extra you have to buy those bulk packages. The discount is great, the promotions each month are generally very generous. The time however, spent bashing and hunting in comparison to the amount of credits that could be bought should the person be working a fair paying job, are leagues below beneficial.

    The real card that IRE has to play here, the hole card so-to-speak, is the fact that humanity is inherently lazy. The vast majority of people do not want to sit around for hours grinding out 50-60k in gold per month (rl day) to buy house/cheap market credits. Nor do they want to wait a month for their membership to 1up. Therefore in my opinion, while I myself wouldn't be wealthy enough to spring for the 50-100 dollar per month subscription. I don't believe the amount of bulk credits purchased at a time would be affected much if at all by higher membership brackets.

    NOTE: I do however think that the Achaean economy could possibly take a hit in the rubles with the cheaper credits are to gain OOC as opposed to the market rate IC. This is the part where we have to balance, gaining future players that value the game as a well-balanced and equally opportunistic platform and those that just want to powerhouse their way to dragon/combat/riches.

    Long live the roleplay junkies that didn't care for credits as much as the role their character played in the game.
  • edited November 2015
    Tahquil said:
    The you have the wages of certain members of staff, servers.. blah blah blah. I'm sure there is a long list of behind the scene things that needs to be paid for one way or another.
    Um with nearly 100 people playing at any given time and a generous 75% of them with an iron elite membership? that's 75x25.. that's only 1875 which is only one half of the achaean population as the other half are online five hours ahead of then. so double that is around 2750? I'm bad at math and too lazy to open the calculator so I hope i'm not too far off.

    I can see your point, as the base monthly pay rate for someone at 7.25 (nearly if not minimum wage), providing IRE is one of those that doesn't really pay their staff as well as they should, that is about what? Part time=800-1000 per month per person and full time wages=1200-1500 per month. 1500xhowever many employees Achaea has on payroll and take that from what the elite membership generates in revenue....yeah...there's no -way- that Achaea would survive off of Elite memberships alone. they'd -have- to keep credit packages as their priority over membership packages.

    I concur Miss.
  • Antonius said:
    I'm not sure how or why you'd jump to the conclusion that people are running from anything just because they spend a lot on Achaea. I enjoy playing the game, have done for years, and I can afford to support it by buying credits. That's really all there is to it.
    Fair enough. My personal experiences have made me a very, VERY jaded person. I don't like that about myself.
    Miin-aan baash kimini-sij-i-gan bitooyin sij-i-gan-i bukwayszhiigan = blueberry π
  • Ralae said:
    Tahquil said:
    The you have the wages of certain members of staff, servers.. blah blah blah. I'm sure there is a long list of behind the scene things that needs to be paid for one way or another.
    Um with nearly 100 people playing at any given time and a generous 75% of them with an iron elite membership? that's 75x25.. that's only 1875 which is only one half of the achaean population as the other half are online five hours ahead of then. so double that is around 2750? I'm bad at math and too lazy to open the calculator so I hope i'm not too far off.

    I can see your point, as the base monthly pay rate for someone at 7.25 (nearly if not minimum wage), providing IRE is one of those that doesn't really pay their staff as well as they should, that is about what? Part time=800-1000 per month per person and full time wages=1200-1500 per month. 1500xhowever many employees Achaea has on payroll and take that from what the elite membership generates in revenue....yeah...there's no -way- that Achaea would survive off of Elite memberships alone. they'd -have- to keep credit packages as their priority over membership packages.


    You have vastly underestimated our costs. I'll just leave it at that.


  • You don't keep good programming help in this day and age at 7.25 an hour. I would estimate that any full time employee is at least double that figure.




    Penwize has cowardly forfeited the challenge to mortal combat issued by Atalkez.
  • TharvisTharvis The Land of Beer and Chocolate!
    Aesi said:
    aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaand

    • the rackspace rental
    • the server cost
    • the bandwidth cost
    • the anti-DDoS cost
    • the maintenance contracts
    • coffee
    • advertising
    • coffee
    • countless coding hours
    • countless test realm hours
    • anti anxiety meds for when perfectly working code in test realm blows up live realm
    • more coffee
    • the .com
    don't forget : anti anxiety meds when you hear the backups haven't been made for weeks

    then again, maybe Anarchaea -was- the anti anxiety med
    Aurora says, "Tharvis, why are you always breaking things?!"
    Artemis says, "You are so high maintenance, Tharvis, gosh."
    Tecton says, "It's still your fault, Tharvis."

  • I think he was just pointing out that even if IRE was the cheapest employer ever, operating at the unrealistically-bare minimum costs that iron elite wouldn't come close to covering it.

  • He's right!
  • No doubt. I've often wondered just what goes into keeping the game running and whether or not it's sustainable in today's age of gamer, as the small group of people mud games appeals to dwindles. Of course, it's just baseless speculation, I've never bothered to research it. But it seems like the younger generations are less likely to be interested in such a long term game as achaea. But I'm more than happy to throw in my little bit a month. 

  • Alaskar said:
    No doubt. I've often wondered just what goes into keeping the game running and whether or not it's sustainable in today's age of gamer, as the small group of people mud games appeals to dwindles. Of course, it's just baseless speculation, I've never bothered to research it. But it seems like the younger generations are less likely to be interested in such a long term game as achaea. But I'm more than happy to throw in my little bit a month. 
    I dunno. I see some room for conditions to exist that will help a MUD prosper. But the people who can create them, need to be the ones who want that.
    Miin-aan baash kimini-sij-i-gan bitooyin sij-i-gan-i bukwayszhiigan = blueberry π
  • All challenges aside, I don't plan to leave MU*s any time soon. This is kind of how I view it:

    I won't paste the image here, since it's so long, but link: http://xkcd.com/1227/
    Current scripts: GoldTracker 1.2, mData 1.1
    Site: https://github.com/trevize-achaea/scripts/releases
    Thread: http://forums.achaea.com/discussion/4064/trevizes-scripts
    Latest update: 9/26/2015 better character name handling in GoldTracker, separation of script and settings, addition of gold report and gold distribute aliases.
  • What I wonder is if more people would subscribe if a 15$ option was available.  Make it much less of a benefit than the 25$ mark so current IRE members don't want to downgrade, but people without it would wonder why they don't have it.  Lessons perhaps.  Just throwing it out there.
  • Lately I've been thinking about upgrading the game, and I thought we could have subscription plans that goes all the way up to hundreds per month. Like allowing us to choose what upgrades we want, and add that to the subscription prices, on top of Iron Elite basic, options like

    - Increased crit rate (Like the rate given by wheel) - $12/m
    - Increased willpower/endur regen - $8/m
    - Increased xp gain (5%) - $5/m
    - Increased xp gain (10%) - $12/m
    - One more major trait slow - $10/m
    - Increased talisman drop rate - $10/m
    - and other benefits on subscriptions...

    I know I'd take up a few of those to make the game more enjoyable at the same time increasing predictable revenues for IRE.


  • Dochitha said:
    Lately I've been thinking about upgrading the game, and I thought we could have subscription plans that goes all the way up to hundreds per month. Like allowing us to choose what upgrades we want, and add that to the subscription prices, on top of Iron Elite basic, options like

    - Increased crit rate (Like the rate given by wheel) - $12/m
    - Increased willpower/endur regen - $8/m
    - Increased xp gain (5%) - $5/m
    - Increased xp gain (10%) - $12/m
    - One more major trait slow - $10/m
    - Increased talisman drop rate - $10/m
    - and other benefits on subscriptions...

    I know I'd take up a few of those to make the game more enjoyable at the same time increasing predictable revenues for IRE.


    No. Other ones are fine I'd say, but probably wouldn't happen either. I think they're fine with how elite is right now.

  • I don't understand why you try to bring this up again five months later ... You tried and you tried, even with support of (a few) other members. All the responses you got from any sort of admin, was them short-sticking(I don't blame them, you're annoying) you with answers like, "You're wrong", or "Buisness plan blah blah". The other thing, is if one game changes its Iron Elite, it gets changed IRE wide. I'm not going to sit here and say I know anything about this, other than your constant nagging for this is super annoying.
  • edited March 2016
    No one is forcing you to read the thread, if you dislike an idea then don't read it and move on.

    The fact that all five games have different secondary factors to their elite says you're wrong on that end, too. If that was the case, then Achaea's would give out mayan crowns or globes.

    PS. It's the ideas thread. His thread, at that. You can tell someone you disagree, without saying well... What you said.

    PPS. Why create another thread for the exact same topic he's discussing? Think it through.

  • KlendathuKlendathu Eye of the Storm
    It does kind of feel like this question was asked and denied, then is being asked again. It's like when my kids ask my wife if they can have / do something and she says no, then they come and ask me...

    Saying other IRE games do it, therefore Achaea should is disingenuous. They are from the same company, but they're different and unique beasts with their own commercial pressures.

    Tharos, the Announcer of Delos shouts, "It's near the end of the egghunt and I still haven't figured out how to pronounce Clean-dat-hoo."
  • Dochitha said:
    Lately I've been thinking about upgrading the game,.


    That's where I stopped reading. Never a good idea as a non admin to come out the blocks firing shots such as that.

    (Party): Mezghar says, "Stop."
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