Runes of Magic US / AU

Quoted from "Silenteye7;508606"

WOW! That was absolutely spectacular keymakr, I've been trying to explain this for so long to people like regenteo, and this video just put is all right there, served up in crayon. Couldn't make it more simplified. Bravo... personally, I think you need to make a whole new thread with just this link as the opening statement, and title it for attention to FM/CM/GM's to forward to Frogster & Runewalker, because they're at the "wrong way" point and this video explains it from top to bottom.

Yeah, those guys are great. Take a look at their other episodes (they update every wed).

Funnily enough though, rom actually isnt -all- that bad by these standards. They obviously screw up in quite a few places, but I have seen sooooooooooooo much worse.

Systems like the pet food quests are a prime example of doing it right (well...except the whole botter's heaven thing...)
It is possible to get pet for your food, level your pet, increase its loyalty and apt and etc, all without spending a dime. However, if you value your time over your cash (as many do, and rightly so!), you'd rather pay for pet food w/ diamonds and have more time in the game w/ less time farming for food.

The complete lack of limitations on where f2p players can go? PERFECT! now you've got your f2p playing right beside to your p2p: best way to get your f2p-ers turning into p2p-ers.

I personally have a bit of a problem with the way diamonds are sold in this game atm. The only way for a f2p player to get diamonds is to buy from a diamond seller. But the only way to sell the diamonds is to gift them. Not trade, not exchange...gift.
If I was a seller, Id have some serious trust issues w/ gifting people my money and hoping they pay me afterwards. And as an occasional buyer im always a bit hesitant about handing over my long-farmed gold when they could cheat me out of it (obviously i screen my sellers/ask for references when they are low lvl, but you never know).

Just from watching the forums i realize diamonds used to be able to be sold on the ah or something like that (is that correct? haha). Anyone know why this was switched out? Ive never quite seen the reason behind it haha.

But anyway, yeah. those guys are great. glad you enjoyed it

They stopped allowing diamond selling on the auction house, because at the time, gold sellers, would buy out the AH of diamonds then sell them back to the players for real money at slightly lower prices than what Frogwalker was offering. Basically they were charging people twice for the same in-game generated diamonds, and was causing a lower sale rate of diamonds by Frogster.

Personally, I think that now that the gold-spammers have been cleaned up quite a significant bit, they need to do exactly the opposite, and allow you to purchase player auctioned gold on the AH with diamonds. That way diamond buyers can buy the gold they need in-game directly, players who have the gold and want to sell it can make item shop purchases at their prerogative, and both can do it with a bit of security on the backend. The idea has it's own flaws though, as does most, but if anything, it will open up a more free-flowing exchange of monetary consumption between gold, diamonds & gear/stats in the game.

Quoted from "squirrlee;508579"

1. How are F2Pers going to stat gear?

2. How are F2Pers going to new gear.

3. How are F2Pers going to enhance their own gear? (Plus/ Hammer/Drill)

4. How are F2Pers going to sell their old gear and or any drops they get that are Bound?

You know in the item shop there is a tab that says "Phirius Tokens". THAT is where F2P Players can buy your list of items. Oh, you don't want to do dailys for 3 weeks for one puri stone? Then buy some diamonds. That being said, I agree with OP. Possibly add a monthly fee to the game using in game items? 20 Million gold? 500 Phirius tokens? Whatever. Anyone that buys dias in a month gets a free pass that month. So it still is "F2P". As an added bonus it also keeps alt's to a reasonable level, AND if using gold as the fee acts as a gold sink.

Quoted from "dexhunterz;508615"

You know in the item shop there is a tab that says "Phirius Tokens". THAT is where F2P Players can buy your list of items. Oh, you don't want to do dailys for 3 weeks for one puri stone? Then buy some diamonds. That being said, I agree with OP. Possibly add a monthly fee to the game using in game items? 20 Million gold? 500 Phirius tokens? Whatever. Anyone that buys dias in a month gets a free pass that month. So it still is "F2P". As an added bonus it also keeps alt's to a reasonable level, AND if using gold as the fee acts as a gold sink.

... yes... cause what we need to do right now is to drive even MORE people from the game... great zombie jeebus on a rubber crutch, is someone spiking the water in this thread?

Quoted from "regentego;508578"

Yes I'm a businessman, no I don't do free work, and I would never ask my employees to work for free, but that's what every F2P player here is asking of Rom. You want things fixed fast and answered fast, and you want it all for free...

As for falling behind, it would take a new chapter to do that.

Problem BJ you're looking at the little picture, there is a whole lot of selfishness in the F2P welfare mentality. I'm looking at keeping the servers on while F2P players just assume others will buy enough diamonds so that they can play hours a day without ever showing RoM financial support.

If $5 a month is too much for someone for 100 plus hours of play then I think it's time to rethink life, not just a game. Seriously I'd be embarrassed to show my face to the world if that was my financial situation.

Can't afford $5 a month Hah! That's funny and scary at the same time. Maybe I'm just cut from a different clothe, I work 12-14 hours a day so I don't have to worry about money, if I ever needed to take second job to get ahead I would have one under a week. And I would happily become the best at whatever it was.

Some people can't afford $5 a month for a game. Deal with it. It's easy for you to sit there and look down at your nose at those who don't have what you have, but have you ever considered some of the demographics of people who play online games? How about those who are handicapped or crippled and live off disability payments, and play online games because it's one thing they can still do? Hmm? Did you ever think about that? By the condescending tone in the post I'm quoting, I get the picture you haven't thought of that.

I pray you never find yourself thrust into that life. All it takes is one accident, and you are potentially screwed for the rest of your life. Be thankful for the health and affluence you have. Be very thankful. And before you thumb your nose at them, just remember - one slip and that could be you...

On top of that, making horrid assumptions about others by lumping people into the 'welfare' category just because they apparently don't like your subscription idea, is not very intelligent.

I could afford $5 a month. Hell, I could afford a lot more than that. I could afford to buy diamonds now - probably not $300 a month worth, but I could afford enough. So your assumption fails on me, and I dare say it fails on a lot of other people.

I could pay a subscription, I could pay for diamonds. However, I refuse. Don't like that? Too bad, so sad, my heart bleeds runny custard for you.

If you walked into a coffee shop where the espresso machine was broken and spat all the coffee grounds into your cup, would you keep buying it? Even if the owner begged you to keep buying them so he could afford a new one? Hell no! Get a new espresso machine first, and then I'll buy coffee off you again. To suggest otherwise is... well... just... dumb. Besides, if the owner needs people to prop up his business to help him pay for a new espresso machine because he's too broke, then he's got bigger problems.

If Frogster need players to pay to prop up a broken game with broken servers and broken management, then they have bigger problems than siege servers or housemaids...

I've said it before, and I'll say it again. If Frogster don't have the ability to host and manage the game properly, then either change and get the ability, or give the game to somebody else. You want my money, then fix the game (on your end), fix the cash shop, and fix your management.

I am not paying for fail. End of story. If you choose to pay for fail, that's your good luck. Don't come crying to the free2players or refuse2payers to help you prop up the game. It's your choice, and only yours. Enjoy the coffee grounds.

Good Lord Keymkr, that was genius.

RoM sort of broke the cardinal rule of "DON'T SELL POWER."

They kinda sell power. Kinda. Just enough that the poisonous effects show, and they show consistently on Froggy's bottom line. Because we pay for power, Runewaker has to constantly ramp up content to match it, and that's part of what has been driving dissatisfaction. The more they ramp, the less attainable endgame gets to the F2P community.

Now, F2P players can and do become endgamers, but they have to either make a P2P investment first, they spend ridiculous amounts of time farming, or they get lucky and get subsidized by a good guild.

I wish I was good at graphics, because a graph showing the effects of power increasers like the +12 and +16 weapon jewels would be illuminating. I wasn't buying when the +12 jewels appeared in game, but I sure as heck was when the +16 jewels came out, and they broke the economy and the game in far-reaching ways (one way being the eventual Nerfsgiving fiasco, as Runewaker tried to ramp the dps back).

When you consider that Runewaker and Frogster manage this game in a battle of Push-me, Pull-you- the mind boggles. Runewaker is forever trying to balance and scale content, while Frogster looks always for more ways to monetize. Because of the "Pay for Power" sin, they have to battle.

I am not sure that there is a realistic long term solution to the problem. They've already made "Pay for Power" something we're used to. The entire gear modification system depends on it. We pay for puris, we pay for plussing stones, we pay for runes, we pay for charges.... As long as that is true, Runewaker will have to make instances harder and harder, while the FtP community wonders how they will be able to afford to clean tier their gear to t7 to be able to do Chapter 5 content. In the meantime, more and more pay to players will wonder why they need to spend $100 a month to clean tier their gear to t8 or t9 and get their weapons to t13.

There's a good reason that the cash shop is so stupidly expensive- Frogster can't afford to make it cheaper. More properly, Runewaker can't afford to let them. Let's say they cut the item shop prices in half (which is a step I have argued for in the past, and still might- costs are insanely high in this game, and they need to do something)- what will Ebilone do? He'll become a 250k rogue overnight, and he'd probably clean tier his weapon to t10. Ok, that may be slightly exaggerated, but the pattern holds true- these big spenders aren't going to spend less money; they will spend the same amount, just mod that much more. The more they mod, the faster they will clear content, the more unbalanced PvP will get, etc etc etc. In the meantime the FtP community would get further and further away from endgame, as Runewaker will have to make content more and more difficult to compensate.

Many of the problems in this game can be pinned squarely on breaking the "Pay for Power" rule. How in the heck can they fix this? As the game is now, there are very few brakes that can be applied- that's why we keep getting these random nerfs. Frogster wants us to buy power- Runewaker wants to slam on the brakes.

If they really wanted to fix this game- like really fix it fix it, not just put a bandaid on it, they'd need to release the "Pay for Power" items from the cash shop and make them available for gold. Puri's, plussing gems and runes. Maybe some more things like rune drillers also. ABL's on the other hand would not need to be gold items, as they don't affect gear power at all. Charges need to be available for less Phirius tokens (a lot less) or for gold. Those things all affect gear power. They'd also need to make things less powerful. They'd need to set built in limits for how high we can tier and plus things. No +20 gems, no weapons tiering higher than say 12. Gear too. You can already tier gear higher than it needs to be.

Things like aggregators and dye need to become more expensive. Mounts too. Pet transformation potions, maybe even transport runes (just a little more expensive). And they need to do something with golden hammers. Either make them available for gold while making some sort of permanent OD-changing hammer available in the cash shop for a LOT of dias (like the now-defunct cleaner stones were).

Things which increase convenience need to become the backbone of the cash shop. Things which increase power need to go to an ingame gold shop. They would have to do some thinking on how to prevent people from gaming the system- but I think it would be doable. If the dia sellers needed to trade dias to the F2P'ers for gold to buy stuff to increase their power, they'd be more likely to sell dias. The FtP community would benefit by being able to reach endgame with enough of a time investment. Everyone would benefit from the game being more balanced, in PvE and PvP.

Ebil would probably quit, simply because you would no longer be able to pay-to-win. Well, you still would- it would just be much less of a sharply defined line between the payers and the non-payers. Eventually there would be fewer non-payers, especially if we all could spend say 10 or 20 bucks a month to get transport runes, aggregators, ABL's, the new stat-extraction stones, costumes, mounts, xp and tp pots, daily reset tickets, Big Angel's sighs etc etc etc. All the stuff we buy anyway, but the stuff we could technically play the game without.

Think what that would really mean. Think how much more we all would enjoy this game, and how much more likely we all would be to actually pay for stuff- I would probably sell diamonds again. If I didn't have to spend so many on myself, and I needed gold to get stuff like puri's, I would. It would make sense. And the peeps I know who are pay-to-play would want to get that gold quickly, and they'd sell dias to do it. More people would be willing to spend a little. We'd have actual micro transactions. The "I wanna be insta-uber" would still need stuff like reset tickets, and they'd need gold too. They'd sell dias to get it.

Remember back when you were a lowbee and you sold dias to get stuff? Or maybe you were the lowbee that farmed KS for a week to buy the dias you needed. Back when you were 55 or less, when this game seemed like it would be a good investment? Remember that? It would be like that again, except even more people would be buying a few dias to sell, and more people would be farming gold to get them. We'd have a real economy back, and less of a gear-cartel. We wouldn't need a dia NPC. We would balance ourselves, and so many more people would be willing to spend a few bucks a month to get transport runes and dye, and a permanent mount, if they didn't have a mountain of puri's they knew they'd have to buy down the road. More people running instances would mean cheaper gear. A more-even playing field would make for a more-balanced game, and the flexibility would mean that more people would want to play.

They would still need to do a lot of work on bug fixes and PvP, but... a lot of our issues would disappear overnight. And while Frogster would probably take a short-term loss while they figured out the pricing issues, in the long run I honestly think they'd see growth, maybe even exponential growth. So many people I know who were heavy cash-shop users stopped playing all together as soon as they realized that they were overpaying. What they need to do is share that burden around and make this game work in a way that encourages micro transactions. As it is, those of us who choose to pay tend to make macro transactions, and we get tired and quit.

Fix it so we can't Pay for Power, and suddenly this game seems a lot more appealing. Frankly, if I wasn't expected to pay so much to become competitive at endgame, I would complain a lot less about the bugs in this game. A lot of us would.

as much as it pains me to say it... that was very well put mnkmurphy885. A bit long-winded and directed mainly at the removal of "pay for power" items from the diamond shop... but still, at least it seemed like you learned something from the video too


Click Here -> Thread for Keymakr's video

It's all back to having few well paying customers (that in process become OP) or having more less paying customers. In the end, if done properly, FI can make more money, new player will more easily progress in game, and more people will be happy.

Do you think that some thick head in corporate office can/can't figure out why people are responding so badly on 'sales'??

Better question would be, do they even know that people are arguing about CS prices?

IMHO, make game more accessible, and we (users) will easier sell the game. On couple of boards that I post on, I created thread about RoM, and only answers were from people who already tried or heard that it cost far more then any subscription game. Wonder why...

Wow mnkmurphy just WOW.I think that might be ur longest post to date, but what you said is true. Make this less of a CS oreinted game. Know what they could do sell puris for 2.5 mill a pop thats roughly equal to how much it would cost you to buy the dias to buy it with they dias being 50k apeice. That would bring more people to this game and make old people come back. And it would make endgame easier for the f2p to reach.

@regentego - i am sure that more people would pay if average payment as you stated is 20 bucks.

IMHO, CS prices are so bad, that 20 bucks on regular DIAS price will not buy you much...

Missing wof's singature, where he broke down the cost of end game, and that is only if you gear at the end. (and we all gear as we progress)

The price of an item is decided not by what an item is worth but what a person is willing to pay.
Yes the game is worth $5 or $10 a month and even more but the vast majority of the F2P players will never pay anything on a monthly basis so the game will vanish. The number of people who are only P2P wouldn't be great enough to make the game an enjoyable experience. There are other F2P games that are nowhere as good that the F2P people will migrate to. A lot of F2P players just hate the thought of the monthly subscription and even buy diamonds on rare occasions but for the most part remain F2P.
What happens is if you are paying a monthly fee and you have maxed out, bored or just not available to play for a while? You stop your subscription and will never start it up again.
However, if you do not have a subscription you just start again when new content appears there is nothing that you have to do to play again no investment other than time and maybe even buy a few diamonds to catch up.
This current business model works, the length of time this game has been running proves it. There have been countless other games of this type who have tried the subscription model and failed even some that were very good and very cheap. It doesn't matter that this game is worth a good subscription price and even more it is just that people won't pay it in great enough numbers to keep the game going.
What happens here is that when new content is released there is a huge influx of money to the company from P2P people buying diamonds. Many people spend more on the diamonds than they would on buying a new game and paying for years of a subscription. All businesses make 90% of their profits from 10% of the people, the concept of trying to change to a subscription to change that basic law of business in this style of a game is a fail.
I can't even count the huge number of mmorpg's that have been eagly awaited that had subscriptions and failed and are now turning to the current business model for this game.

Screw it. I say that Frogster/RW should just do all this for free. Noone should have to pay and whoever can spend the most time online can become the OP toons in game. Did anyone ever stop to think that maybe for some, paying for power is exactly why they are here? If it wasnt for those people that drop hundreds or even thousands a month, F2P wouldnt be POSSIBLE. Yet, for someone who spent all this money, to charge people mucho gold in game for gear is "greedy". The OP has a very valid point. Frogster can't just let eveyone and their mom become endgame for free, or what point IS there to buy dias.

Quoted from "dexhunterz;508659"

Frogster can't just let eveyone and their mom become endgame for free, or what point IS there to buy dias.

Actually, they can. Key word being "let". Freedom of choice is the first and primary attraction of a F2P to most players. I have 36 MMOs installed on my computer, and I've tried most of them. The best are the ones that offer the most freedom of purchase, and the most optional CS. Those are the games with the highest population, the most healthy economies, and the fewest bugs. Giving everyone a choice does not mean no one will spend money. Essentially you're saying NOT to put customer satisfaction first; that Frogster's profit is more important than player happiness. This is the reverse of all successful business sense, and it is nonsense. Put customers first, and your profit will increase on its own. Put profit first, and your playerbase will decrease naturally. It's not rocket science. Really.

Quoted from "regentego;508666"

IMHO they already make it too easy which is why you're all against any change. There is no other F2P this good that gives this much of their content and CS items away. Most of you still want more!Bottom line, each of you contributed to Frogster America shutting down, and people losing their jobs, because you used their product and support and had a mindset that you should not have to pay anything. I call that self entered, selfish, and entitled. You all still take advantage yelling at FE to fix things when you are not willing to support them. Then you do whatever you can to justify it. Well sit down with a fired employee of Frogster America and justify it to them. I'm amazed simply amazed. Boy I hope Frogster sticks it to all of you somehow.

I'm not against change. What you suggest is just more of the same. Real change would involve actually giving a damn about their community. They've never tried it, but it just might work.

There are MANY other MMOs that give away as much as RoM, and more. Most are much healthier games for it.

Frogster America shut down because they failed to provide a service that was needed or desired by enough people. I bear no responsibility for that, especially since I've always been very free with my ideas, and none of them have been implemented.

You're confusing free-to-play with piracy. Using a product AS ADVERTISED is not piracy. If they do not have support to actually allow people to play their game as advertised, they should adjust their advertising.

I've mentioned many times in other threads the reasons RoM is not worth my money. Frogster has ignored all my reasons for the most part, and thus RoM is still not worth my money. Again, it's not rocket science. Offer me something I want, and I'll pay for it. To suggest the reverse is preposterous.

http://img4.imageshack.us/img4/4179/scapegoatk.jpg

"IT WASN'T ME! IT WAS YOU! DAMN YOU ALL YOU F2P PLAYERS! I PAID FOR MY SUBSCRIPTION! YOU DID NOTHING! YOU LET THE GAME DIE! YOU HAVE NO FRIENDS! YOU HAVE NO LIVES! NOBODY LIKES YOU! I'M THE BEST! YOU THE FAIL! DIE F2P DIE!!!" ~ Excerpt from regentego's mind

Quoted from "regentego;508666"

Ugh its not a subscription, its a guaranteed diamond purchase with bonus items, that will get you full access to the game. Someone a page ago said "this idea will make it easier for the F2P to progress" that is a selfish statement. Why should Frogster make the game easier for freeloaders? IMHO they already make it too easy which is why you're all against any change. There is no other F2P this good that gives this much of their content and CS items away. Most of you still want more!Bottom line, each of you contributed to Frogster America shutting down, and people losing their jobs, because you used their product and support and had a mindset that you should not have to pay anything. I call that self entered, selfish, and entitled. You all still take advantage yelling at FE to fix things when you are not willing to support them. Then you do whatever you can to justify it. Well sit down with a fired employee of Frogster America and justify it to them. I'm amazed simply amazed. Boy I hope Frogster sticks it to all of you somehow.

That is the textbook definition of a subscription a regular payment no matter what it includes or what it is for is a subscription.

In order to get your profits from the 10% who pay the freight for everyone you have to have the other 90% of freeloaders around and keep them happy so there are enough people to make the game playable and not empty.
Every business does this to some extent from grocery stores to airlines and everything in between sells some things below cost and loses money on a great number of customers. The concept of making a profit on every single person and every single item is an epic fail and leads to going out of business.
You take an airline, a basket of apples in a grocery store and this game it is all the same. The person who flies first class, the person who buys the best apple and the P2P players in this game who become OP get the very best stuff and pay for everyone else. The people in business class, the average apples and the people who buy diamonds rarely get the same basic stuff but pay a lot less and the company is lucky to break even on them. The people in economy, the ones who buy the damaged fruit and the true F2P cost the companies money but are necessary to keep the business going.

please lets loose the flaming guys, Id rather not see this thread get locked.

Both sides raise valid points here.

@silenteye, thnx for the info about diamond selling. It makes sense that they took it away the way it was.

@mkmurphy I absolutely agree. Selling power is the super major no-no for a f2p model game (which rom is! so stop denying it -glares at others-). Your idea to remove these power items from the item mall and have the game rely on convenience things is a completely radical one from the point of view of frogster/runewalker. There are very few games that completely stick to this (and if someone knows of one pm me on forums w/ the name) so they see this business model as a giant risk that will crash them. This is why I don't think we'll see something like this happening in rom, which is a shame.

@RoMage correct, your either going to have few who pay alot, or alot who pay little. However its called MICROtransactions for a reason. Lets do a little math:

Lets take a very small game, only 100 users. I'll assume 10% are big buyers, who pay $10 per month on in game money, and the other 90% are f2p:
profits/month= 10 [$/paying user] * 100 [users]*1/10[paying user/user] = $100 per month.

if instead you have 90% paying $2 per month microtransactions you have
profits/month = 2[$/paying user * 100 [users]*9/10[paying user/user] = $180 per month.

The difference in these numbers only gets bigger when you increase the population size. Obviously you could change around the numbers and say 'oh, but what if the microtransactions were only paying $1! then the macro model would be better!' But why evaluate how one model is better when you make all the others worse, when you can evaluate how great a model is when you push it to its potential. Put in 5000 people with the same $ and %s, now it comes out to $5000 macro and $9000 micro. The difference in those numbers got bigger. Now imagine this with the active population of runes of magic....yeah...

@regentego, check the bold

Quoted from "regentego;508643"

The thing that haunts me is here is what all you f2p sound like to a p2p

1. You need me!
Yes, f2p game models need f2p players. But it also needs p2p players. The economy of a f2p game is a really interesting balance between p2p players which directly bring in the profits and f2p players who bring in more players (if this doesnt make sense to you watch the whole video i linked) and give reason for the p2pers to buy diamonds.
2. I play all day, I'm not paying for this buggy $#!@.
You're right that this can often be a silly point from f2pers, which ive made myself. But at the end of the day I personally want the know that my money will get me exactly what I'm told it will give me. Perhaps this strays a bit from your point, but I still think its relevant
3. Screw you rich paying player we don't need you so quit.
This is so incredibly false. We need p2p players...period. Anyone who denies this does not understand this game's business model.
4. If they change anything I'll quit, then they sure will be sorry.
What a lot of people are saying is 'If they don't change anything I'll quit.' However, this game community will indeed be sorry if the entire f2p population quit. How long would you stick around in this game if 90% (rough percentage, i realize) just left. The entire game would be a ghost town. PLAYERS MAKE CONTENT! again look at that video if this is confusing.

I'll respond more later, but i've gotta run haha.

EDIT:
Also as a side note, the people who made that video are in the industry, not just gamers. I think one of the runs or is a major part of a gaming consulting firm, and the other is a dev (i think, dont remember exactly what they do, but they are in the game industry).
Just puts a little more weight about what they've said.