Payment Plans
 

Currently Graal only offer players to upgrade their accounts months and months at a time. These are the available packages, all packages gives you gelats and can be used for x amount of months:

• 8 months for 24€ ($33.7), aka 3€ ($4.2) a month.
• 12 months for 36€ ($50.5), aka 3€ ($4.2) a month.
• 18 months for 48€ ($67.4), aka 2.6€ ($3.7) a month.
• 24 months for 64€ ($89.8), aka 2.6€ ($3.7) a month.

First of all, I don't understand why the 12 month package isn't cheaper per month than the 8 month one, and the 24 month one not being cheaper than the 18 month one. That's a story for another day though.

What I'd like to suggest is that you add payment options for 1, 3 and 5 months. The majority of new players to Graal will not want to buy an account for 8 months before they've gotten into the game, no matter how cheap. If they were able to just get a month, play and see for themself if they like it or not, they are a lot more likely to upgrade to a bigger package next time.

People like me and any other active "oldbie" might get the bigger ones, but we already know what we're paying for.


So folks, including Stefan, what's your thoughts on this?

I think they're scrapping the monthly payments when v6 comes out and replacing it with server cash shops.

I remember reading something about that somewhere, and that would be awesome if it were to happen. I still think this deserves attention in the present though, v6 might be months away and new players won't wait until then before they decide to either upgrade or leave.

The 36 euro option is giving 'more than 12 months', it's 13 1/3 months to be exact if you don't buy separate available in-game items (the 48 euro option gives 18 2/3 months, the 64 euro option 26 2/3).
Part of the reason why we don't offer cheaper credit card options is that the credit card fees and transaction cancelation fees make it less profitable.

That makes sense but haven't you figured it out from iPhone the smaller payment choices will make people think "Oh I have so and so bucks, Why the f**k not?" but when they see these its like "Oh sh*t, I'm going to be basically be making a commitment here... I may not, games not that great anyway."

In short, Smaller choices and intervals will probably actually profit Better if you do it right.

i like the idea of free play with cash shops.
seems more profitable by a long run and for some reason it just sounds evil and awesome.

Cash shops are synonymous with every "free Korean MMO" ever. Once you delve into the cash shop market, be aware of who you're competing with and where you stand.

And the vast majority of these games you're referring to eventually wind up as games where only those who spend like hell, or, cheat like hell are able to have an enjoyable experience. Hopefully neither of those two pitfalls come to pass.

Well it's working fine on GraalOnline Classic on iPhone :)

So do you plan on changing the whole payment system once v6 is released then?

Whatever happens, Classic users better stay classy.

are people still going to be known as Graal#'s? :o

I hope not

The two topics are unrelated, so it's unlikely to change just because of a change in payment plans.

No they aren't. l2p

They're loosely related at best, but the point still stands that the Graal#'s are highly unlikely to be changed/removed at the change of a payment method.

tru dat

also i think we should do what rufus suggested, it's better in the long run

I didn't suggest it, that's what they're doing apparently.

all i know is if my lifetime classic account membership goes bye bye. then i doubt i play. I think they should do 3 bucks a month an 5 for gold a month simple as that

Waaait, If I'm reading this right.. Why would they not remove the graal#s? Since there's no account upgrades/subscriptions, you never need to create a community name. So are they just going to take community names away? Or just let F2Ps make them? Which then defeats the whole purpose of the Graal#s and people "taking good names"

Hopefully that made sense D:

It didn't, but neither did Graal#s, so it's okay

Well, as far as this goes (and I'm just thinking outside the box, because what I meant was that just because one changes, doesn't guarantee something else will), it could still easily be utilised for the desire it was originally created for but give people the option of choosing a community name without requirement of upgrading. OR, you will only be allowed to choose a community name if you've made purchases from said shops. Again, just thinking outside the box there because that's not what I was talking about at all.

D: Ok this should make better sense.

You pick a community name when you upgrade your account.

If you can't upgrade your account when the new payment plan comes out, how do you chose a community name?

Do you pick one for free? Which defeats the whole purpose of why they were released.

Or do you create an account name, which is kind of unfair to the Graal#s who are stuck with those dumb accounts and community names.

Unless they did something like this I guess....



But if they allow you to pick free community names you might as well let them pick there account names..

Guys, seriously, I don't get how you can't see how awesome Graal# accounts together with community names are.


First of all, Graal is a platform that hosts several games on it. On each and every game, your data is stored locally. In the old system, if you wanted to change your account name, your data on all servers would be gone since the local files still have your old account. Even if Stefan somehow could change all of that, each and every server also stores data on a loooot of things based on your account name. That would be gone too.

With Graal# accounts and community name, servers can still store data based on account name, but if you were to get your community name changed (think of community name as display name, it's the only thing other players should get exposed to and not your account name) all of that data would remain. Easy peasy.


Really, the new system is awesome, it's just a shame that scripters aren't adjusting too it (which is something that the PWA should enforce).

Fixed. There's no way the PWA can enforce this. We've no developmental access in our global rights, much less NPC-Control and at least have "Read" access to scripts to give them a once-over.

Note: I put "Former" in there because Skyld got liquidated into the PWA.

and Stefan in some cases where the client and RC are concerned.

You don't have to script stuff yourself to force servers, especially Classic ones, to change the way their stuff works. And I do believe that falls on your turf.

Well, yeah, but still.

I agree.

Although, not being able to check means we cannot confirm whether or not there is any need to enforce it... Dun dun dunnnn... The plot thickens!

It might be my imagination, but haven't there been countless of posts the past month or two here on the OGCC complaining about certain stuff here and there that uses player.account as display rather than player.communityname? That would be a nice starting point for you and your qualified team instead of making excuses on why it can't be done easily.

I'm not making any excuses, I'm telling you plain and simple: Telling people to do it and being able to make sure that they do are two different things. It's hardly "enforcement" to see a post here, go there and tell them to fix it, be told "Sure, it will be fixed" or "It's been fixed" and not being able to tell if we've just been bull****ted to. Catch my drift? It's far from an excuse, it's a fact.

You must be able to force servers to change things like that somehow, otherwise I don't see the point of a PWA group to begin with.

i need to open some cash shops throughout the world of graal iphone.

i'll split the profits 10%-90%. thats right i only want ten percent.

So for these cash shops on every server, will Stefan on somebody else being coming onto the servers and implementing them? Or will they expect every server to do it themselves without having a say so in the matter?

I wish I got a portion of Zodiac's 690k gelat sales...

In short that'd be about... 500-700 bucks tops?

That's crazy Jerret.

about $10,000 going off of the 2400 gelat pack...unless I failed at math

More so I'd expect my portion at minimum to be around what he estimated.