Runes of Magic US / AU

Quoted from "regentego;509054"

Wolf see interview with Tony Tang of Runewaker done last year, that's where the stat comes from, he stated 10-12% of payers play. Sheesh am I the only one who remembers anything? Google it buddy, then say oh snap Eb you're right again!

If you don't mind I'm just going to link the interview here in case anyone wants to read it (and so vwiffo doesn't come in here to mention how to site sources rofl): https://forum.runesofmagic.com/showthread.php?t=369448

Exact quote of reference:
"GamersGlobal: How many of your players pay for items in Runes of Magic?

Tony Tang: In the free-to-play market it is normal to have around 3-10% paying customers. Our proportion of paying customers is around 11 or 12%."
Dated May 18, 2011

On a side note I would prefer if we just had the 2011 annual report available so we'd have something more recent...but of course it hasn't been posted yet. *Taps foot*

Yes I never fail to notice how those who are interviewed speak very generously about the game and its content accessibility >.> It's quite the propaganda. What I would do if what they ever said was truly the case...haha... now that would be a great game =P

Quoted from "regentego;508924"

Remember the part I said, I used to run a chain of nightclubs? What they actually do is have the doorman slow down if not hold the line. They will use "Were at compacity" In fact every nighclib owner in San Diego, Arizona, Texas I knew used this. Never heard of anyone paying to make line, maybe its an LA thing. Let me know the names of those clubs though, I would love to google it k.

Wait a minute... so you're saying here... that you have used "potentially" paying customers, in an environment where they've not actually paid for your services, as a method of attracting even more people to your business? You know, you and this game have a lot more in common than you fail to realize.

PS: sorry, was at work and missed the thread drama till now.
PPS: yes, they probably shouldn't have inflated the CS items' prices until after they fixed the problems with content. It makes a bad situation look more bleak.

Quoted from "EsxCape;509053"

But really, you'd be surprised (or maybe you wouldn't?) about how much people are willing to drop on cosmetics

I wouldn't. Look at WoW, they have a subscription game with an item marketplace. A buddy of mine was trying to convince me to play it for 3 months so he could get a mount, even offered to pay for the subscription up to that point. What people will blow their money on doesn't surprise me anymore.

Quoted from "regentego;509054"

Wolf see interview with Tony Tang of Runewaker done last year, that's where the stat comes from, he stated 10-12% of payers play. Sheesh am I the only one who remembers anything? Google it buddy, then say oh snap Eb you're right again!

I'll respect that quote as given, as an estimation. But it could be argued that he's talking about regularly "Paying" customers, I'll bet if a look was taken of the percentage of players to have put some money in at any one point the number would be higher. Also those numbers may not reflect when one customer has multiple accounts or accounts that have been abandoned or are just dormant.

Feel vindicated if you wish, but the quote still took some steam from your argument when RoM's average is 4 times the average of other F2P games for paying customers.

That interview was on April 15th, 2011. That was not long after the 2 year anniversary fiasco here. The numbers they pulled would have included all those players that bought during the sale and then had their diamonds taken away. Also, it is quite possible Europe is still growing. After all, they have a lot better customer service; the company never stole from them, and they have had the diamond NPC's for roughly a year or so. Those diamond NPC's would supply all the diamonds a casual player would need. Why do you think they never activated them for us?

As it is, the employee count they mentioned sounded like EU only. FA only had 20 employees. If they did an interview about the game now and especially if they did it about the U.S. side, they probably would not even have 5% P2P anymore.

If you read the forum after that interview was posted, the EU players were cracking jokes about it. For isntance "[COLOR=black !important]"We don’t try to sell anything that will have a direct influence on the power of the player."
L o L ? What game is he talking about? I will agree with this once pfs start dropping from bosses (like promised in CB)"

When ROM was created the item shop was for cosmetics only and promised it would stay that way. How fast things changed.
[/COLOR]

Quoted from "regentego;509089"

But oh well, everyone but me seems to think everything is fine with the game, and its in such great financial state we don't need to try anything different. I guess I should just move along, everything is good here, the f2p told me so.

Is that what you've understood from everything we've said? I've tried particularly hard to explain why your suggestion would not work for a majority of players, but I've never said everything is good here. It's not that everything is good and your suggestion is bad; it's that your suggestion is only more of the same thing we already have, which is slowly killing RoM. Frogster already communicates by their actions that they don't care about the happiness of their playerbase as much as they care about their own profit. Now clearly, profit is good; there is nothing inherently wrong or evil with wanting to make a profit. However, the best way for any business to make the profit it wants is to offer products and services that customers want. This is true in EVERY business, regardless of payment model. In free-to-play games there clearly needs to be some restrictions, else there is no reason to ever pay. However, RoM is in shambles because they sell too much power in the CS, not because they sell too little. Many other games testify to this, some of which I've already shared with you.

In short: no, not everything about the game is fine and good, but your suggestions do not alter its course. What we need is a turn around, what you're offering is only acceleration in the same direction we've been heading for a long time. I understand what you're saying, but I think we're wasting time since your last post seems to indicate you have ignored everything I've said.

this is kind of like the real life arguements to take away welfare and entitelment programs, wich have been in place for so many years the removal of wich would sureley cause riots in the streets. personally, i somewhat agree, take down the birdfeeder.

but in this game with the way the economy works, ur idea does not regent. it is time or money. u said urself u dont have much time to play so u spend money. where did u get daily items to level or did u still have enough time in ur limited schedule to do ur dailys urself. what about the stats for your gear? did u farm every stat? or did some enterprising f2p player on ur server do the legwork. nothing personal man but this is the system the game works in. well, it did until the people who p2w jacked prices on everything sky high. because cs costs went sky high. wich means the f2p have to farm harder and harder to get enough gold to do anything, or buy anything. for example dias on my server still sell for 100k per. really? u know how many runs through ks it takes to get enough gold to get enough dias to buy one single golden repair hammer? cash players bought easy mode game. thats all. f2p play hard mode, from start to finish in entire game.

Quoted from "regentego;509102"

Diamonds are 100k because the supply isn't there anymore, sellers are not competing so they can and will dictate the prices.

Do you have any proof to back up that statement?

If you don't, you are just wasting everyone's time.

You want to know why? The main reason why I feel diamonds are 100k per is because the sales in the past few months have been so good that the demand is so high.

Quoted from "regentego;509102"

Okay you're still looking at it in theory as gamer, look at it as Frogsters CFO, he doesn't say "Oh your playing 8 hours a day, nah were good you don't have to pay" he is a money man hired to make the company more money he is thinking "deadbeat"

I've no doubt you're right. And this is exactly the reason RoM isn't doing well. Treat people like dollar signs, and pretty soon you won't have any people left.

Let me get this straight: you've ignored nearly everything I've said, mocked what little you did read, dissed my "silly walls of text", and now you're asking me to share a "real" business plan. I'm patient, but I'm not stupid. I've made my opinion abundantly clear in this thread, and I've shared more specifics elsewhere. If you're really interested, go find it.

It's been a good convo, but I don't think we're going anywhere. Peace.

Quoted from "regentego;509160"

you are never going to change a persons mind no matter how many facts you have.

which is exactly why i wonder as to why BJHawk tried to discuss with you over and over again ... because hes the one with the facts.

Quoted from "YomanROM;509163"

which is exactly why i wonder as to why BJHawk tried to discuss with you over and over again ... because hes the one with the facts.

+1

Quoted from "regentego;509041"

Desinated Driver analogy is further from reality then you can imagine.

Okay Ladymac to answer your question, I don't know here was my idea.

1. Implement a $5 premium player package, you get say 250 diamonds and an adventure pack.

2. With this frogster lowers CS prices seeing they have a predictable stream of revenue.

3. In order to promote players using the prepaid plan they would need incentive, 90% of MMOs restrict access, I asked the community what would be an acceptable loss for the survival of the game. Everyone said they are willing to give up nothing, in fact they want more.

I posed a question and got 100 I hate you ebil go eat peanut butter sandwiches posts.

For starters, Ebil, I don't hate you. Peanut butter is kinda blech. I do however feel that your idea needs a little tweaking to be viable.

Frogster/Runewaker already have several limitations placed in game that entice a player to buy diamonds. Want more bookbag or bank space beyond what is provided at the start (2 bookbag pages and 1 bank page)? That's going to cost you some diamonds. Want more storage space in your house? That costs diamonds too, and worse, there's no guarantee your stuff will stay where you put it. Want a pet? You need to keep it fed, in addition to raising its attributes to help you in the game. Want to move around at more than a snail's pace? Get a permanent mount or raise a housekeeper's alchemy. Even setting aside what it would ordinarily cost a F2P person in terms of Phirius Token Coins for one advanced bind lifter (19 days' worth of running dailies to sell one piece of gear) or a puri for a stat (10 days, I think), you also have repair and upgrade costs (I'm not even sure what a golden repair hammer goes for in the PTC shop).

Why don't we start with where you feel F2P can afford to lose something and work up or down as needed? The F2P road is already a long one, as I described above, and alts only help so much. However, I would like to see that package offered in the item shop. Perhaps you actually kind of hit the nail on the head in terms of getting people to buy more dias- they need to offer more options, and more frequently than they currently do.

You can Rant that enough "players" don't pay all you want......it's the design of the game. They set the payment system up with the plan that players would pay at some point and some do pay while others never have or will. The fact that CS items are bound tells me that had no intention of letting them be traded. Then they allowed Diamonds to be sold on the AH and broke that wall down. Then they removed the diamonds from the AH and allowed Gifting for Gold not much of a change really. The payment system is functioning the way they want it to or there would be no gifting for gold.



RoM is to far in it's life cycle to restrict F2P access anymore then it is currently. Your big spending is your choice and is starting to sound very Elitest. You want to force everyone to do as you do or become unable to reach endgame because you feel you are above everyone that isn't able to pay the insane amounts you can. The fact is the amount of money required to reach endgame far exceeds any subscription game per year. Your idea to force people to buy or never see endgame would only have RoM closed last year if it even lasted that long.

I've played F2P games with Sub/members options and in those games non-subscribers had no support options and Very limited game content. The F2P servers were sad sad places where there was basically no "law/rules" and players constantly argued and scammed each other. All there was for F2P is grinding Mats to sell for whatever the P2Pers felt the "Leachers" deserved to get and that was next to nothing. Updates were rare and the content was stagnate so it was nothing more than a grind fest. At best it was a never ending Demo.

Do you honestly think pumping more money into this game is going to get anything fixed? If you do I feel sorry for you because this game is nearing it's end. I think it's going to be dumped by Frogster this March and I can't see any other publisher picking it up because none have even Picked up Runewaker's new game. They are going to Publish it on their own, that's a bad sign to me. It makes me think Runewaker is not the best developer to deal with. I suggest you hold on to your money and wait to see what happens next month.