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Mike, that post was great, and not selfish at all; I think everyone who represents a playerworld or even those who simply enjoy one should try to make sure that they are represented and their needs heard.
Valikorlia is heavily impacted by the current subscription model and observer mode restrictions. Playercount is, of course, essential to keeping any game alive. We can make content until the cows come home, but if there's not enough community to actually experience it together people will lose interest and fall away.
Of course, Valikorlia is a role-playing server, which means our needs are sometimes different. Our playercount is naturally going to be lower than an action-oriented server, and that's fine, but the issue we have now is that it is nearly impossible to get new players. We have frequently gotten in contact with roleplayers all around the internet and even in our real lives, and seeing our graphics and story quality people get super excited...
...And then we have to mention that, at the minimum, they have to fork over $30 for an 8 month Graal subscription. That is a complete dealbreaker, and we have had so many people who even tried the server and liked it not play because they did not feel that the price was fair for what they were getting, and we can't really argue with them. The truth is $30 is a lot of money to throw to a 2D action game, regardless of which server you want to play.
Where things get confusing for the PC crowd is how the Facebook and iPhone models are more affordable and many times more populated than the original version, and yet we're still using this archaic pricing model that is heavily restricting the amount of new players that will come to the game. I understand that when you're running a business, you go where the money is, so it is not unthinkable that you would focus more on the platforms from which the most profit is coming, but an F2P model with a cash shop would work just as well on PC.
I have been playing Graal since 1999, and I have no regrets about the time I've spent and the fun I've had, but in the current online games market Graal only has one really major advantage over others; the ability for players to really impact their world. I cannot speak for other playerworlds, but Valikorlia encourages players to create new areas, new storylines and new events to advance the world and create new gameplay. Every playerworld is made by players, though, and all our volunteer staff members work hard to create something that is community-built. It’s our most unique trait, but it’s being buried under a payment system that clearly is not working to our benefit.
All you have to do is look to Maple Story to see a 2-D MMO that has frequent updates, a cash shop and an absolutely massive, dedicated playerbase. I don’t think we need to be Maple Story (they have 70 million registered accounts - 70 MILLION accounts for a 2D side-scroller that came out in 2005!), but we can take lessons from their model. Right now, PC Graal players feel unloved and uncared for, and there is a HUGE market we could be tapping into but are choosing not to, in favor of sticking to an antiquated system that is inefficient at best and draconic at worst.
There is a trend where P2P games are moving to F2P models, and that’s because people want to buy things they feel are actually useful. Someone will spend $20 a month on items, stat boosts, mounts and other in-game items and not bat an eye, but that same player will not pay $10 monthly for the same game, because that money doesn’t feel like it’s actually getting them anything. We have to be careful how we monetize things, but even a roleplaying server can be profitable if you actually give it a chance.
The best example for this: Gaia Online. Gaia is a forum community of RPers, in which everyone gets a cute lil’ avatar that they can customize. What’s amazing is that Gaia turns a massive profit selling hair, clothing and emotes for these forum avatars. They have no purpose! People will pay for cosmetics, especially RPers because those things are directly relevant to their characters. Such a system could be easily leveraged onto Valikorlia. We could very easily sell outfits, heads, and weapons as cosmetic upgrades to characters. In fact, talented artists on Valikorlia have actually made player graphics for money in the past, so this is proven to be something that our players desire and will engage in.
The key here is that our playercount, under an F2P model, would easily double or triple, based purely on the various other roleplaying groups our players belong to. There are many online forums and RPing games out there, but few if any as graphically customizable as the one on Graal’s platform. Players would flock to our server, and I’m sure they would hang out on the action servers too, if they did not have a $30 wall blocking them from playing.
Of course, we have the observer/trial system, but as has been pointed out a couple of times so far, the system is so restrictive that it leaves a terrible taste in a prospective player’s mouth that they are very unlikely to subscribe. Valikorlia’s gameplay is almost entirely community-based, and although it may come in a slightly different form every other server hinges on player interaction to be fun. Taking someone out of the community and not allowing them to experience it as a real member doesn’t encourage them to pay more money; it encourages them to go and look for any of hundreds of F2P MMOs that offer more reasonable ways of actually getting into the game.
As I said earlier, I know that Facebook and iPhone are where the money is, but I have to think that if Facebook Graal can be that popular then PC Graal can, once again, be a thriving, bustling game full of active communities. There is most definitely an audience for this kind of game, whether you want sparring and quests or roleplaying, but we’re blocking them out by ignoring what dang near every other online game in the market is doing right now. There is a massive potential revenue that PC Graal could get, but it needs support, and it needs care.
An example: about a month ago we paid for a Dev server so we could develop some major new systems without compromising our server while we tweak things. Unfortunately Classic accounts cannot log onto our Dev server, which is kind of an issue because damn near our entire dev team has such accounts. We were told weeks ago that this would be fixed, and we have not heard one word back. We are very aware and understanding that the globals are incredibly busy people and that these things take time, but we’re making a real effort to develop things to attract new players and we feel like we’re being told we’re not a priority, which when our players fork over $100 of their own money is kind of disappointing.
Right now we’re working on a lot of things like housing, combat, questing and economy, and I know a lot of the other established and developing playerworlds are putting in a great deal of work to new features to attract players, but if we cannot get new players we’re really squandering the potential of these developers and these games. Right now PC Graal is not in a position to accrue significant amounts of new players or revenue, and it’s only as frustrating as it is because there are an incredible number of games that are showing massive success with a much more player-friendly model, including this same game on another dang platform!
I love Graal, I have since I was in middle school, but I feel like where I have kept growing it stopped several years ago, not in content but in infrastructure. I do not wish to minimize anyone’s work or presume that these things are necessarily easy, but I think it’s plain to see that there’s a lot of frustration and wasted potential here, and that if a viable F2P model was implemented we could see Graal explode in popularity, and more players means more graphical and developmental staff that will be able to churn out content and make some truly incredible servers. |