Iron Elite Membership Updates!

Telinus

Ozmatiah said:

I don't like the idea of a free class, even if you could magically limit it so that people didnt just make a free tritrans alt in each city.

Instead I feel that while this thread is credits and cost the novice problem is easily multidimensional. Why would and 18 year old be tritrans and how do you even RP that. Instead things like attainment help address this and made things feel incrementally feasible, maybe a lessons boost per day on a primary character for elite or something to that effect.

But I started playing and continued because of the easy growth to be useful and the interactions wih my first House leader and HoN. I think those initial interactions are more critical than any credit cost. Looking at Naminos numbers a lot of people didnt pay anything yet keep playing. 

If someone grinds to level 80 as an 18 year old (doable) fair play - cap it to a 1-character per account + 1 RL month to change or 3 months or whatever - and you can change the character it applies to once per year if you fuck everything up and want to start over.

Essentially by not having this, if a new player wants to experience all of the mage class, but then decides actually no I hate it, I hate it for the RP elements transcendence opens up, the hunting, and the abilities, i will then cost them another 400cr to do this + any credits for trait reset + any credits for reincarnation if they are beyond the free access for them.

Imagine paying $50 first for teh 300cr and going lets say, priest, then you decide suddenly "Mhaldor is definitely more my jam" or "Actually I want to be a sentinel" it now costs them between 104 - 139 dollars to change their class.

Imagine playing a FIFA but you could only have 6/11 players on the game unless you paid $50 dollars - ok fair enough, now imagine deciding you wanted to change the team you played as and they said "That's another 140 dollars thanks to get those 11 players again".

Instead they decide to quit, make another character and then its another $50 to try a new class.

Then they decide fuck this, I'm out, $100 spent to try 2/X classes in this game.

The RP will make people stick around, sure. Giving them a free trans class will, in my thoughts, broaden the net of people who want an exciting  combat game to play, or just not feel shafted.

No way would I play now if I hadn't already spent so much on this game - the premise of being involved in combat back when I started could be done at minimal investment cause no one really had systems and things were possible. Now? Fuck off $50 to play a class to get the minimum needed to take part in combat or raid defence or even hunt reliably well.

Also how would this change 18 year olds already being tri-trans? It's something that already happens but they spent money for it. If its an age issue, we're back to th ewhole can't embrace till over 21 change that was made and then changed to level 50 or 50 hours or level 30 with a house etc.

The idea is that free tri-trans at 80 can be A) attainable let people play all the classes and find what they want C) not reduce the spend on multiclass if its gated behind a once per RL time period, D) not impact artefact purchases because it will still require those.

Even just removing the credits earnt from hunting and changing that to tri-trans on 80 and some credits every 5 levels over 80 to dragon would be better IMO.

This probably is a rambling mess of thoughts, sorry.

tl;dr

remove credit gain from 0-80 - replace with skill gains from 0-80 up to tri-trans.

add credits from 80-100 (5/6/7/25) for each 5.

Keep lesson gain so they can start learning another damn skill.

Get them hooked on the RP but for gods sake keep them hooked by giving them access to classes without spending $50 to TRIAL one, as lucrescent nuts are not something they can just gain.

Fully expect to see lucrescent nuts now sold on website for $15.

Isaeri

Thaisen said:

As it should... but it doesn’t.

if you renew within 30 days the benefits don’t reset.

Has this been confirmed?

Minifie

Isaeri said:

Thaisen said:

As it should... but it doesn’t.

if you renew within 30 days the benefits don’t reset.

Has this been confirmed?

should always work like this, if your sub lapse, it is "dormant" for 30 days, if you resub it continues at the point you stopped (so if you were at 20% and 120cr, and it drops off, you resub 15 days later, it moves up to 125 and 25%). It'll also work with the multiple month option, but if it doesn't, just issue yourself or message nicola or Makarios.

Iaxus

Utianima said:

ANNOUNCE NEWS #5177                                      (02/07/2020 at 18:39)  

From   : Nicola

To     : Everyone

Subject: Iron Elite Membership Updates!

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

[...]

Note: There is a 30 day grace period once a membership goes inactive during which you can renew your

membership without losing your previously accrued benefit levels.

[...]

Penned by My hand on the 16th of Mayan, in the year 821 AF.

What do you think? Discuss!

@Isaeri

Thaisen

Torinn

I ran into the issue Telinus mentioned as well.  Tritransed a class then switched cities and had to buy credits to tritrans again.  The other skills other than class skills are also important so if you want to make up for the difference in credit cost is even be okay with increasing those skill's lessons cost to compensate tritransing the first class at 80.

Urnhlug

I'm glad there's a lot of discussion pushed around the new player experience. Fully agree with a lot of sentiment here.

If we want to talk "shitty RP", how about the fact that I've bashed to Dragon and my Serpent has barely any lessons in Avoidance because there's none to spare? How about the fact that "lessons" are just an arbitrary thing and no matter how many enemies I fight I fail to improve at avoiding things?

Trying to claim "but muh RP" when it comes to lessons/learning skills is ridiculous.

The main reason I like Achaea is the PvP, but I'm still hording gold hoping to one day afford my T2 Dirk so I can *actually* feel like I'm PvPing the "correct" way. Until then I'm not spending a single credit on things like sip rings or SoA or whatever else, and never will.

The fact that I have all these things I feel like I MUST purchase, and I have NO WAY of also improving my skills as I do so, is pretty ridiculous. I think lessons should be *far* more plentiful in game, and players should have access to a second class for free.

Also, again, I think there should be stepping stones to starting to earn artefacts. Like membership rewarding some kind of currency that can go towards T1 artefacts or something, or award credits that are only allowed to be used on weapon/stat/sip artefacts. Or make credits convert to bound credits at a higher rate than 1:1.

The barrier to entry feels ridiculous right now. As much as I love learning PvP in Achaea and figuring out the ideal ways to kill people and trying to get things to work, I constantly feel like any work I do is footnoted with "but still can't fight efficiently cuz no artes".

The poll numbers clearly indicate that the biggest group of players is non-spenders, and the highest answer by a long shot is that the barrier to buying into things is too high. All that shows is there's clearly an enormous untapped market of people likely willing to spend, but not spending because base costs on everything is too high. If that's not crystal clear that stepping stones/lower prices of the cheapest things is free money for the business, I don't know what is.

Sothantos

Prices aside, with the margins calculated from city credit revenue, Achaea can afford to put some more of that money back into the game.

There are a lot of quality issues that I think another staff member or two would go a long way towards. Just looking at mechanical issues alone... New releases are bug-ridden, existing broken systems are not reworked, and new systems introduced are frequently DOA and don't integrate well with the rest of the game. (A lot of the stuff introduced is essentially its own discrete mini-game in Achaea.) The fact that Achaea doesn't currently support Telnet over SSL right now is also a big problem. In this day and age, it's rather absurd that this game doesn't allow encrypted connections, especially since all the popular MUD clients already have support for them. That's not even considering dedicated content generation/roleplay staff. The people who are responsible for roleplay are split between multiple roles with customer support, managing volunteers, etcetera.

Secondly, if IRE isn't already looking at this, there's been a huge renaissance of 'nerd' culture in the past couple of years. DnD has increased dramatically in popularity. I think it could be valuable to advertise on places such as roll20.net and other such DnD sites. Another option is Stack Exchange, since a lot of the people who are drawn to MUDs are programmers.

Namino

People who argue that MUDs are a dead genre that can't generate interest are missing a major resurgence in popularity imo. I agree with Soth that advertising will help to attract new people, but achaea.com/credits is going to drive them away again no matter how nice the ads are. Virtual currency is now really well tread territory for any new arrivals to the genre thanks to EA and other mainstream MMOs. The new players today are a lot more wallet conscious due to their experience and increased options than the group recruited in the late nineties.

I understand that we can't be as cheap as WOW. But we can be a lot more affordable than we are, and if we want to ride this wave, we have to be.

[Deleted User]

I think some motion to make sure people are tri-trans in a reasonable timeframe without needing any purchases would go a long way to attract (and retain) new players. The way that classes are designed means that a good portion of them lose viability without having the full kit available; this works against the narrative that you can jump in and work your way up, because you're not even starting with base viability unless you drop money on the game. My instinct is the the no-brainer lesson package would still see a ton of use, because a) supplemental skills like vision, riding, weaponry, mini-skills, tradeskills, etc. still consume a lot of lessons, and b) people are fickle and impulsive, and will want a different class/more classes once they're hooked. I also feel like people are more likely to buy in further to fund class artefacts if they're able to use the class routinely at full capacity.

I would love for some mechanical way to be able to have your primary class switch without costing as many lessons as it does now, but I'm not sure how it would be gated in a way that wouldn't push people to rely on it for their existing class changes (which are very clearly a solid source of income). Maybe changing it so that the no-brainers can be purchased periodically instead of once per character, so the class changes aren't free, but can be done more efficiently every so often. Especially for factional classes, it leaves characters in a tough spot if their tethered org wanes in activity and they're left with the options of playing a much quieter game than they'd prefer, or shelling out (a lot of) money just to find a more active org.

Vakvyr

No-brainer refresh is an interesting concept. Maybe a bonus for 6/12 month subs? From player perspective it's a good deal (because it is) and from IRE perspective it's two consecutive purchases. Probably easy to implement too unlike some of the suggestions being thrown out.

Annnnnd back to justifying spending a lot of money. Mental gymnastics is pretty easy with practice. And addiction.

Numira

I would like to second Sothantos’ and  Namino’s comment that this genre isn’t dead. Mud, in the form of Achaea Achaea initially attracted me in part because I was interested in D&D but couldn’t find a group, and also because I wanted to find a new free to play game that would last me a few months at least, having found Torn City and Neptune’s Pride intriguing in format but not compelling in the long run. 

Typically, if I describe mud to someone else who a) has interest in RP or tabletop games and b) enjoys games that have well fleshed out concepts and systems and is willing to try new ones, I get a response such as “huh, never knew there where multiplayer games like that. that actually sounds pretty intriguing. I would give that a shot”. The trick is making the words MUD and Achaea known to the people who fit a and b, and making them memorable or persistent enough that they actually make a character. Its not that there is no interest, trust me. It’s about presence.  

I have never seen Achaea mentioned on any platform that was not already dedicated to text based games. Word of mouth by players only does so much. And voting on top MUDs will not help people who don’t know the genre. 

Kriex

Just the room credits alone are worth getting a membership now. Thats a huge discount if you bought from the comms market. And saves a lot of time from mining and foraging if you do it this way as well, considering you can get 100 room credits for the price of the membership on top of all the other benefits just from the first month.

Morzakai

Love love love the membership wares. I would also like to see ~90 lessons for 10mc as well, but.... I'll take what I can get for now.

Milabar

💯 approve of room credit prices.

Kinilan

Can we not bury the problem that is mining and foraging under a subscription?

Namino

Yeah...

I mean, the comms market went haywire because of changes that were made: largely foraging was not returning enough wood to meet demand. Breaking a function of the game and then charging people for the return to normalcy seems a bit...

Eh...

Skye

Question: Can the minipet caches (or the crated pets generated from them) and the sleeves still be traded in?

I ask because I perceive some people might use up their membership credit stash to generate a particular pet or sleeve and wind up with an excessive surplus of unwanted pets or cards.

Urnhlug

Membership credits are exactly the kind of idea I was hoping would come up.

That being said - it still feels like these are largely geared towards players who are beyond the "initial investment" stage.

I still think that it would be nice to see -

1) Some kind of VERY good deal on lessons via membership credits. This would push new players to looking at membership as a first choice, and given the other discounts, you'd expect that's the ideal kind of sales concept IRE should go for. Agree with @Morzakai

2) Low level artes. And this is the biggest point I'd like to push. If you let people work towards things like their level 1 class weapon or a sip ring or a stat item with MCs, you could have people HOOKED on membership INDEFINITELY. And beyond that, once they get a decently priced introduction artefact, they'll be more likely to actually buy credits (with their IE membership discount) that go towards buying level 2/3 artes.

I think the best use of this new membership credit idea is to push it to retain new players and to act as a stepping stone into higher tier credit purchases, while allowing them not to feel totally isolated for not having spent $5000 on the game. Instead let them get a membership for 3 months and likely feel like they have a solid character.

Perhaps things like : T1 con, T1 wp/endurance recharge, T1 health regen, T1 mana regen, mayan bracelets, T1 health/mana sips, and any T1 weapon. And maybe a couple cool utility artes, I'm not really up to speed on what's popular/fun these days but whatever.

Say they all go for a 33% credit discount through MCs. So 3 months of membership would get you 315 MCs, and a T1 weapon would cost 234 MCs. (NOTE IRE BUSINESS PEOPLE : THIS IS STILL A WORSE DEAL THAN SOME PROMOS.)

You could essentially set it up such that you can buy "introductory" artefacts at their tradein value via MCs. This works out nicely given you can just transfer MCs to BCs anyways, so there's nothing to be gained by "gaming the system".

In terms of value, yes, a player could spend ~$70 on 3 months and get 315 MCs right away and buy the T1 arte they want. To buy a 350 credit arte outright for a new member is, you guessed it, $69.99 using the no brainer credit deal.

All in all, my suggestion boils down to - extend the concept of "no brainer" deals into the membership/MC system via letting younger players pick up commonplace T1 artes at a steep discount via membership.

Paux

Discounted Diadem would be nice,  since all of the eq balance classes' PvP is gated behind it. 

Austere

I love the changes thus far.  I do think crowns, sleeves,  and customization credits are entirely too expensive though.  Both can be bought using cheaper methods ooc(see buying someone globes ooc for these items) and ic. I'd be incredibly surprised if the new membership credit shop sold anything but room credits. 

Membership items should be cheaper than the standard,  not twice as expensive. 

Accipiter

Have to agree that the membership store should be like 50% market value so it is the cheapest way to get the common currencies if you only want them bound.

Paux

Austere said:

I love the changes thus far.  I do think crowns, sleeves,  and customization credits are entirely too expensive though.  Both can be bought using cheaper methods ooc(see buying someone globes ooc for these items) and ic. I'd be incredibly surprised if the new membership credit shop sold anything but room credits. 

Membership items should be cheaper than the standard,  not twice as expensive. 

I disagree. I think these are premium items for those that don't have a use for Membership Credits, so it's a way to use those for the person who has everything. 

Rackham

Actually I'm glad somebody said this. Room credits are at a severe discount and I like that. Customisation credits would be nice if they mimiced IC means of acquisition (25 for 50 custom credits). And unless there's some worry about people gaming the system for unbound credits (which somebody has to buy anyways, more sales etc) then I don't see why sleeves are so damn expensive.

Trey

I'm honestly thrilled with the results of discussion on this thread. It had prompted me to cancel my subscription (not out of kneejerk anger, it just reminded me that I had kept it up while barely logging in and I didn't need to spend the money), but I want to sign back up now once the paid period is over to support and encourage that kind of response. It wasn't caving, it was constructive, careful thought and concession. 

Vhaith

Milabar said:

💯 approve of room credit prices.

Am in agreement with Milabar. Can now build my house.

Thank you @Admin

Caelan

Austere said:

I love the changes thus far.  I do think crowns, sleeves,  and customization credits are entirely too expensive though.  Both can be bought using cheaper methods ooc(see buying someone globes ooc for these items) and ic. I'd be incredibly surprised if the new membership credit shop sold anything but room credits. 

Membership items should be cheaper than the standard,  not twice as expensive. 

Agree. I can buy sleeves with it but there is still so much RNG that it just sucks up my 'mc's and turns them in to half the cost in bound credits.  I can buy a sleeve for 60 but only trade the card in for 35.  Mayan Crowns go for half the 'mc' cost fairly regularly IG as well. 

Even If I could buy the sleeves for a certain suit (MEMBERSHIP BUY SLEEVE FOR <SET>) it would at least reduce SOME of the RNGesus needed to not just piss away your credits by turning them into half of their value in bound credits 

[Deleted User]

Paux said:

Austere said:

I love the changes thus far.  I do think crowns, sleeves,  and customization credits are entirely too expensive though.  Both can be bought using cheaper methods ooc(see buying someone globes ooc for these items) and ic. I'd be incredibly surprised if the new membership credit shop sold anything but room credits. 

Membership items should be cheaper than the standard,  not twice as expensive. 

I disagree. I think these are premium items for those that don't have a use for Membership Credits, so it's a way to use those for the person who has everything. 

Says who? If you're someone who wants a house, then they're great for you. The others absolutely should be cheaper than they currently are, for the exact reason Austere said.

Milabar

Also for those talking about artefacts with the membership, you can still use the credit as usual to buy such artefacts.

I've bought a number of mine off the years I did have elite.

Paux

I'll be buying sleeves at that price once me credits come in, so it seems a fair price to me.