No more credits?

Iocun

You do realize that a vast portion of the playerbase never (or only sparingly and reluctantly) participates in PvP, yes? And that there are also quite a few of those who did invest money in Achaea?

And I seriously doubt that people who run for political positions are doing that for the sake of credits...

I most certainly won't deny that PvP is one of Achaea's greatest assets. It is certainly an area Achaea shines in. But that's by far not the only thing it has to offer and most certainly not the reason why all of Achaea's players play this game.

If you went ahead and asked everyone on QWHO for a fight, the vast majority of them will say no.

Mishgul

Nyboe said:

Melodie said:

Achaea's greatest feature in the game is its pvp mechanics.

I think you will find many in Achaea who disagree with this opinion, so the rest of your post that is built on this foundation has a few cracks, I'm afraid.

Okay then so what is better then the pvp? Fishing? Ratting? Hunting? Typing an essay about respect for the house? Trying to run for a political position? Trying to win an artistic contest or bard contest? Roleplaying?

People do all of those activities so they can get credits or some form of power. Nobody is just going to waste their dilly dallying doing mindless things for no reward.

Have you ever met Penwize?

Eld

Mishgul said:

Nyboe said:

Melodie said:

Achaea's greatest feature in the game is its pvp mechanics.

I think you will find many in Achaea who disagree with this opinion, so the rest of your post that is built on this foundation has a few cracks, I'm afraid.

Okay then so what is better then the pvp? Fishing? Ratting? Hunting? Typing an essay about respect for the house? Trying to run for a political position? Trying to win an artistic contest or bard contest? Roleplaying?

People do all of those activities so they can get credits or some form of power. Nobody is just going to waste their dilly dallying doing mindless things for no reward.

Have you ever met Penwize?

Ruining Achaea is its own reward.

Also eagles.

Sherazad

I'm sure there are lots of artied people who don't like PvP. I do recall someone saying on an ooc clan about a Cyrenian having an expensive artefact that's v useful for combat.

My old main was merchants and Hashani and was surrounded by people who get credits because skills are fun, not because they wanna kill someone (I'm sure they'd want to kill someone but many people avoid combat because of repercussions to attacks). 

When I was a real newbie, I stuck with Achaea because of the world itself. I didn't think I'd get credits and still, I was very interested with the interactions, intrigue and power struggle I observed. 

Again, I wouldn't be opposed to making the first 3 skills easier to get.  

Mishgul

I just like talking to peeps and using the EMOTE command. I will soon figure out this TMOTE business and become a pro snowflake roleplay or whatever sothantos calls them.

Mishgul

Garao said:

Free-to-access-everything/Winning Achaea/Self-entitlement != Two trans class skills, it's not a lot to ask from a MUD that claims to be free-to-play.

Again, people do not play this game for the same reason. Yes, you don't feel it's necessary to have some of your class skills to play Achaea, but this does not mean it holds true for plenty of the potential and existing population of Achaea. Nor has anyone asked for class skills to be awarded to the player immediately. Stop making points up out of thin air. 

From an administration point of view, how do you regulate this without losing business? It is entirely possible to do well with very minimal input, if you have a little knowledge, and if people making alts to take advantage of any incentives using seperate e-mails/proxies etc etc

Drauka

I play and it has nothing to do with really any reward. I have enough success in my real life that I don't really need it in a game. I do what is satisfying to me, and all those things about why you think people play is incorrect.

Garao

Mishgul said:

Garao said:

Free-to-access-everything/Winning Achaea/Self-entitlement != Two trans class skills, it's not a lot to ask from a MUD that claims to be free-to-play.

Again, people do not play this game for the same reason. Yes, you don't feel it's necessary to have some of your class skills to play Achaea, but this does not mean it holds true for plenty of the potential and existing population of Achaea. Nor has anyone asked for class skills to be awarded to the player immediately. Stop making points up out of thin air. 

From an administration point of view, how do you regulate this without losing business? It is entirely possible to do well with very minimal input, if you have a little knowledge, and if people making alts to take advantage of any incentives using seperate e-mails/proxies etc etc

I don't know what Achaea makes off the average person's first two class skills being transed, but I can't imagine it's enough to lose out on the potential playerbase Achaea could have - which would probably end up earning them more money. It's not like anyone is asking for an entire pre-equipped character with omni-trans and a reputation, just those first initial couple of class skills. The point here isn't people making alts to benefit from those first two trans class skills which again wouldn't be free and immediate - just more difficult to attain, and probably not worth it for a large amount of people, but whether or not the money achaea makes from a person's very first two or three trans class skills not including a persons following class changes is worth the loss of potential playerbase that it suffers because of the difficulty in achieving bi/tri-trans without having to spend either a large amount of money, time, or both. 

It would be nice to have administration input here, at this point though, because all we can really do with talking from an administrative point of view is guess and assume which won't get anyone anywhere. 

Mishgul

Could you graph the economic climate of achaea/predicted economic climate of achaea pre and post change for analysis please.

Trilliana

Iocun said:

And I seriously doubt that people who run for political positions are doing that for the sake of credits...

As a Senator in Cyrene, I don't get credits for being in a political position, I don't think any of the Senators do. I think of it like this, I'm in a position to help the playerbase, in and out of the city. I'm there to help other people enjoy the game, if something happens to mess up the enjoyment, I'm there to fix it as best I can (even if all I can do is point you to the admin) 

Mishgul said:

I just like talking to peeps and using the EMOTE command. I will soon figure out this TMOTE business and become a pro snowflake roleplay or whatever sothantos calls them.

I have to put a plug in for @Iocun's extended emote script, it's amazing when it comes to figuring out tmotes. I honestly wouldn't use tmotes until I figured out the extended emote script. 

Also, doublequotes hate me.

Sarapis

This isn't really a discussion we're going to have outside of internally, though I've read the whole thread thus far. I appreciate the feedback as it's part of the larger focus I currently have on attempting to smooth out the newbie experience (which is a gigantic and frankly daunting task). You'll likely see at least a couple changes in the near future that came out of this discussion, though you may or may not recognize them as such. 

Esgar

<BLOCKQUOTE class=Quote>
<DIV class=QuoteAuthor><A href="/profile/Mishgul">Mishgul</A> said:</DIV>
<DIV class=QuoteText>Could you graph the economic climate of achaea/predicted economic climate of achaea pre and post change for analysis please.</DIV></BLOCKQUOTE><BR>Not sure about all that, but a graph I would be interested to see is the average price in gold at the credit market over the last ten years.

Sylvance

Esgar said:

Mishgul said:

Could you graph the economic climate of achaea/predicted economic climate of achaea pre and post change for analysis please.

Not sure about all that, but a graph I would be interested to see is the average price in gold at the credit market over the last ten years.

No need for a graph. It's steadily increased from the 3k it was when I started, jumped in price as things like fishing were introduced, and dropped in price with the implementation of gold-sinks like ships.

Drauka

Sarapis said:

This isn't really a discussion we're going to have outside of internally, though I've read the whole thread thus far. I appreciate the feedback as it's part of the larger focus I currently have on attempting to smooth out the newbie experience (which is a gigantic and frankly daunting task). You'll likely see at least a couple changes in the near future that came out of this discussion, though you may or may not recognize them as such. 

Sweet! All cities will get active gods?

Xith

I make $10/hr, which at the lowest price of $0.40 per credit, is 25cr, or 150,000 at current market. And since I and probably nobody else can make that much in one hour, I choose to pay for my play time in Achaea with my real work time. As an investment-minded person, this works for me.

But when I first discovered Achaea and could not trans even one skill by IG means, and didn't see how spending $100 on a text game was anything but insane, it felt like you had to pay to play. It was a big turn-off. You quickly hit a soft ceiling in Achaea if you don't pay.

When new players see 21-year-old credit whores with eagle wings, they'll feel as though they're missing something. But if the means to use their skills are more easily obtained early on, they're still Bound to buy credits (pun) sooner or later.

[spoiler]Yes, there is roleplay to be had and things unrelated to your skills, but for people who are interested in their skills or who lean toward the mechanical side of things, it's going to be a frustrating barrier and turn people away who don't have the RL money or the IG time to spend questing for years, which actually detracts from roleplay facets and forces those people into being hunting/questing drones who don't have time for house tasks, who can't help with city defense without skills, who can't learn about Achaea's mythology or history if they have any hope of reaching Tri-trans before age 60.[/spoiler]

The preoccupation with skill learning interferes with the already steep learning curve of the game world. I'm guessing part of the original intent was to keep might separate from level, so that at level 70 you only have a handful of lessons more than you did at level 30. Level 70 isn't that much harder to reach though. And the Bound credit assistance ends there.

Achaea has an advantage in the depth of its world, so that possession of artefacts or masses of learned lessons don't make up the entirety of the game. There is a balance between the organic and mechanical features. But there are a lot of costly mechanical features like ships/seafaring, shops, crafting skills, clans. I don't think lessons should be one of those things. New players are given such a small sliver of skills knowledge to start with.

There are 10 main skills, including Seafaring, totalling 17360 lessons. Lessons from leveling barely account for 1100 lessons.

Obviously I support credit purchasing. Achaea is still something of a small business, and the number of investors means the funds invested per person have to be higher. But player retention affects that number of investors. So it makes sense to focus on the issue.

Drauka

I don't mind a lower level person being trans on anything. I believe there is a difference between abstract or book knowledge, and then applied knowledge and retention. "What does this do?!" *boom* "oops, I should have paid more attention to <trainer>".

I believe that just because you know of it or your trainer said they taught you it doesn't mean that you really know it well. Then again, there may be some bright students, like Doogie Howser, M.D., etc.

Aerek

Without getting into all the "why people play" and "how much should it cost to get good" arguments, I do think it would be fair to raise the lessons per-level or the bonus credit gifts at the 5-level marks so that you could at least Transcend -1- skill by the time you hit level 80.

Right now, you get just over 1000 lessons by that point, plus the 180 you start with, which is just 70% of one skill. And realistically, everyone is actually going to spread those out over a few skills as they explore their options.

Yes, everyone plays for different reasons, but I think we can all agree that having more of your skills opens up more doors for you, whether your aim is combat, hunting, or roleplay. Giving new folks an opportunity to reach the mono-Trans milestone at 80 would be a kind gesture, especially to those classes with important, keystone abilities at Transcendent levels.

Teg

Sylvance said:

Seriously, by the time a truebie is seriously considering OOC payments, they should have discovered that Achaea blows the ass off of any other game they've played.  They should also be aware that what they're being offered at these price points has been heavily subsidised just so that people like them can get a 'fair shot' at Achaea (in quotes because all of my previous comments about there being nothing wrong with the current system still stand). T

Wait, how are those prices subsidized?

Teg

Nyboe said:

Achaea's greatest feature in the game is its pvp mechanics. So all players should have the right to enjoy the pvp without having to pay.

Oh Jesus honestly nothing is more ridiculous or entitled than people talking about how player have "rights" to access ingame items/skills on a MMO without paying

Teg

Nizaris said:

Agreed. However, I think that IRE does a pretty decent job of "hiding" the need for credits. For example, mentors are prohibited from broaching the topic, until after their protege has brought the topic up of "hey, how do I advance more quickly". Most of my true-newbie proteges actually have no idea of credits, either. So, that's testament to IRE's success, in that regard.

Wait, really? Because that is actually pretty ridiculous too and something that's genuinely unfair in the sense IRE is actively trying to hide the price:content ratio of the product you are purchasing.

Teg

Garao said:

Mishgul said:

Garao said:

Free-to-access-everything/Winning Achaea/Self-entitlement != Two trans class skills, it's not a lot to ask from a MUD that claims to be free-to-play.

Again, people do not play this game for the same reason. Yes, you don't feel it's necessary to have some of your class skills to play Achaea, but this does not mean it holds true for plenty of the potential and existing population of Achaea. Nor has anyone asked for class skills to be awarded to the player immediately. Stop making points up out of thin air. 

From an administration point of view, how do you regulate this without losing business? It is entirely possible to do well with very minimal input, if you have a little knowledge, and if people making alts to take advantage of any incentives using seperate e-mails/proxies etc etc

I don't know what Achaea makes off the average person's first two class skills being transed, but I can't imagine it's enough to lose out on the potential playerbase Achaea could have - which would probably end up earning them more money. It's not like anyone is asking for an entire pre-equipped character with omni-trans and a reputation, just those first initial couple of class skills. The point here isn't people making alts to benefit from those first two trans class skills which again wouldn't be free and immediate - just more difficult to attain, and probably not worth it for a large amount of people, but whether or not the money achaea makes from a person's very first two or three trans class skills not including a persons following class changes is worth the loss of potential playerbase that it suffers because of the difficulty in achieving bi/tri-trans without having to spend either a large amount of money, time, or both. 

It would be nice to have administration input here, at this point though, because all we can really do with talking from an administrative point of view is guess and assume which won't get anyone anywhere. 

I think the "fairest" (in the sense that I think this is what most players would expect and most consistent with more recent MMO micro-transaction models) is for players to be able to trans 3 skills at level 80. With 3 trans skills certain classes can kill pretty much anyone but the most artied top tier fighters and therefore fulfills the "free to play" spirit that Achaea is suppose to embody, since then you genuinely do not need to spend any money and any $$$ you do spend will be icing on the cake as oppose to the cake itself.

Of course I have no idea what the actual impact on revenue is going to be.

Sylvance

Teg said:

Sylvance said:

Seriously, by the time a truebie is seriously considering OOC payments, they should have discovered that Achaea blows the ass off of any other game they've played.  They should also be aware that what they're being offered at these price points has been heavily subsidised just so that people like them can get a 'fair shot' at Achaea (in quotes because all of my previous comments about there being nothing wrong with the current system still stand). T

Wait, how are those prices subsidized?

We were talking about... subsidized prices... i.e. cheaper than the usual lesson package price.

Teg

Sylvance said:

Teg said:

Sylvance said:

Seriously, by the time a truebie is seriously considering OOC payments, they should have discovered that Achaea blows the ass off of any other game they've played.  They should also be aware that what they're being offered at these price points has been heavily subsidised just so that people like them can get a 'fair shot' at Achaea (in quotes because all of my previous comments about there being nothing wrong with the current system still stand). T

Wait, how are those prices subsidized?

We were talking about... subsidized prices... i.e. cheaper than the usual lesson package price.

That's discounted prices, subsidized prices in this context are when another entity pays for part of the cost of the product you are purchasing (which would be really interesting).

Iocun

Aerek said:

Without getting into all the "why people play" and "how much should it cost to get good" arguments, I do think it would be fair to raise the lessons per-level or the bonus credit gifts at the 5-level marks so that you could at least Transcend -1- skill by the time you hit level 80.

Perhaps, but alternatively they could also just add lesson rewards to other things than leveling, like for reaching certain (lower) explorer ranks or other similar things. That would spread it around more evenly between different types of players.

Nizaris

Teg said:

Nizaris said:

Agreed. However, I think that IRE does a pretty decent job of "hiding" the need for credits. For example, mentors are prohibited from broaching the topic, until after their protege has brought the topic up of "hey, how do I advance more quickly". Most of my true-newbie proteges actually have no idea of credits, either. So, that's testament to IRE's success, in that regard.

Wait, really? Because that is actually pretty ridiculous too and something that's genuinely unfair in the sense IRE is actively trying to hide the price:content ratio of the product you are purchasing.

@Teg: I think that you missed the context. @Nim and I were talking about the need for discretion in IRE's sales strategy: value must be established before discussion on cost (put another way, IRE has to let people decide if they like the game first before attempting to sell to a new player). Hence the reason why the word "hiding" was placed in quotes. I was not trying to say that IRE is attempting to act in an underhanded manner. Indeed, I don't think that they have formal sales staff at all; it's all producers, and what sales they do seem entirely automated, with customer service representatives to handle special cases.

Teg

Nizaris said:

Teg said:

Nizaris said:

Agreed. However, I think that IRE does a pretty decent job of "hiding" the need for credits. For example, mentors are prohibited from broaching the topic, until after their protege has brought the topic up of "hey, how do I advance more quickly". Most of my true-newbie proteges actually have no idea of credits, either. So, that's testament to IRE's success, in that regard.

Wait, really? Because that is actually pretty ridiculous too and something that's genuinely unfair in the sense IRE is actively trying to hide the price:content ratio of the product you are purchasing.

@Teg: I think that you missed the context. @Nim and I were talking about the need for discretion in IRE's sales strategy: value must be established before discussion on cost (put another way, IRE has to let people decide if they like the game first before attempting to sell to a new player). Hence the reason why the word "hiding" was placed in quotes. I was not trying to say that IRE is attempting to act in an underhanded manner. Indeed, I don't think that they have formal sales staff at all; it's all producers, and what sales they do seem entirely automated, with customer service representatives to handle special cases.

I'm of the opinion that it is pretty underhanded because it's inherently trying to hide information from the consumer, which is to say it's intentionally hiding the fact that the game will cost money if you want to pk until after new players have already invested time into it when expectation runs to the counter. I understand why IRE wants to do it, but it certainly is underhanded.

Aerek

I think it's a non-issue. Mentors are only told not to talk about credits to prevent them from pressuring newbies to buy things. I don't think IRE discourages talking about credits anywhere else. and makes clear that lessons can come from credits by giving out free bound credits in newbie-hood.

The only way they could be more blunt about it would be to put USD prices beside the abilities in your AB files.

Sena

Yeah, the "don't push newbies to buy credits" rule for mentors is because there used to be problems with a lot of people doing just that and mentoring solely for the credit bonuses (mentors used to get a lot more credits as well).

Kyrra

I'm not that interested in pvp and I've always been interested in arties. I've had a wishlist that I created when I first started playing and, despite a five year absence to do other things, I am still working on attaining the things I want.

The two months I spent in Victoria with my grandparents before my grandfather died, I filled the boredom with creating custom designs for all the stuff I wanted.

I honestly like that things take time to achieve. Granted I will be bitter forever over my time spent in the Runewarden guild, I did enjoy having to work for things. I was new to the game then but not MUDing.

Achaea is massive and the newbie intro doesn't really prepare most people for how in depth the game really is. It can be overwhelming. The areas, the cities, established organisations. Being thrust into a House and reading a library worth of info, hours long orientations, and then we get to the skills... so many skills. Skills that should take ages to transcend.

I don't think increasing the lessons gained while leveling would be a terrible thing. It would be more encouraging to be able to learn a bit more. It allows for players to experiment and experience.

Maybe that Novitiate of the Spire would like to use rapiers or scimitars but can't afford to spare the lessons for a new proficiency because training Chivalry and getting Weaponry to Adept is more of a priority.

I really need to not forums before coffee. Sorry for the ramble.

Trevize

Kyrra said:

I don't think increasing the lessons gained while leveling would be a terrible thing.

Right now, getting to level 80 is 150 lessons to start, 400 lessons from levels, 600 from bound credits. 1150 total. Trans is around 1736. If the lessons/level are upped to 10, that would put them at 1550, much closer to transing one skill.