New Subscription plan suggestion: "playing time"-based plan

[mugendo]

There are already 'Pay N Play' places.....these are known as arcades.
You put your coin in the slot and play for tha allocated time...of course these are not multiplayer (though some do cater to groups of up to four).....anyone for Gauntlet..?, "red warrior needs food"

But I digress.....

The point here is Ryzom is a perpetual environment with ongoing costs distributed across a subscriber base. And the reality of operating and maintaining such a game is....the costs for GF do not stop when we logout.

So I do see your point, But I think you have wrong impression of subscription...because for GF to start operating a 'Pay N PLay' policy......I guess we would be spending a LOT more than $15 a month.....
I mean just look at the maths involved.....

672 hours in a 28 day month for $15...

or 2 minutes in an arcade for $1 ...which equates to $20160 (based on the same hours as a Ryzom subscription month)

I will stay with the sub please GF


Edit = Oops, almost forgot to say...Welcome to Ryzom Xellos85

[greymar]

There used to be pay-for-time online rpg games... I played them starting in 1991, and paid $6.95/hour prime-time, and $12.95/hour daytime for a text-based game that could only handle 50 players (if the 51st got in somehow, the game crashed).

That game is still around, has thousands of players, and is now about $9.95 a month for a basic membership I think, with upgradeable accounts for more storage space, etc etc...

Going to an hourly rate would actually be going back in time for the gaming industry. I can understand the desire to not pay $15/month if you don't play a lot, but if you can't afford it, don't pay it. If you play for 1 hour, and feel like you got $15 worth of enjoyment, then it was worth it.

[xellos85]

I guess we would be spending a LOT more than $15 a month...

Mmm, maybe you misunderstood (or else I could not understand your point): I've written that this is a suggestion for ADDING a new option for a subscription plan, not to substitute the previous ones. So you will spend exactly as before.

Welcome to Ryzom Xellos85

Tnanks!!

I can understand the desire to not pay $15/month if you don't play a lot, but if you can't afford it, don't pay it.

Hahaha! Indeed it's what I'll have to do after I finish up this month (I've not said that I'm FORCED to pay anyway and that I MUST find a way to pay less per hour of effective gameplay). That's also the reason for coming out with this suggestion.

[mugendo]

Mmm, maybe you misunderstood (or else I could not understand your point): I've written that this is a suggestion for ADDING a new option for a subscription plan, not to substitute the previous ones. So you will spend exactly as before.

This is the real point....

The point here is Ryzom is a perpetual environment with ongoing costs distributed across a subscriber base. And the reality of operating and maintaining such a game is....the costs for GF do not stop when we logout.

Obviously the subscription rate is calculated on a fixed player base with fixed outgoings.....you want GF to enter into something no company will contemplate, ..... for more than monetary reasons....
imagine if you had play hours available when ....gosh..the company changed hands !!..who would be obliged to provide your prepaid game hours for example....you see the legal as well as financial issues before we even discuss possible ways to implement this.....and all to save you enough money for beer !!.....tsk tsk

.....But we are entering into an economics discussion....not a game suggestion.

[killgore]

Stop the trout abuse-Kilgoretrout

[viper579]

and all to save you enough money for beer !!.....tsk tsk

.....But we are entering into an economics discussion....not a game suggestion.

all to keep players who dont feel that ryzom is worth 15 a month but would still play sometimes. the players who only come for op battles, the people who come to check in and see if 'anything changed' . etc etc

[mugendo]

all to keep players who dont feel that ryzom is worth 15 a month but would still play sometimes. the players who only come for op battles, the people who come to check in and see if 'anything changed' . etc etc

All so the 'regular' full paying subscription players can subsidese those who channel their cash into other 'needs'.....shall I register as a charity for this service ?...

I can then at least claim that back out of my business taxes.

besides....I believe Silan is free to play still.

[viper579]

All so the 'regular' full paying subscription players can subsidese those who channel their cash into other 'needs'.....shall I register as a charity for this service ?...

I can then at least claim that back out of my business taxes.

besides....I believe Silan is free to play still.

so what are the costs per player, lets take a few elements

- bandwidth
lets say a player plays everyday 24 hours a day. my personal bandwidth use is on average 800 bits per sec. so to get the megabytes of bandwidth each player can use a month (((((800 / 8) * 60) * 60) * 24) * 30) = 259.2 megabtyes a month.
i pay 5 dollars a month for 5000 megabytes of bandwidth a month. and thats on a non-wholesale plan. so that means 25 cents a player.

- electricity
if they are being effecient with it (clustering with blades ) then their power output varies by load, which varies by how many people are on.

- csrs
dont know their salary
- devs
these guys should be on contract considering how much development they are doing, cant imagine them being salaried
- storage space for characters
space costs nothing basically. its down to what, a dollar a gigabyte. back up to a second datacenter for backups. so to be generous we'll give each player 250mb on a raid1, thats 50 cents right there. and a san to store it on would cost say 10 to 20k. and was already there when gf bought the stuff.


so we know operational costs of bandwidth and storage are less than a dollar a month, and electricity can vary by how many players are on (if things were designed correct) . that leaves the devs, who i cant imagine work full time on ryzom. so that leaves CSRs as full time and i will admit i have no idea what they are paid.

theres not much to subsidize.

[mugendo]

....theres not much to subsidize.

So you are offering to subsidise how many players in total ?, I think it wise you clarify with Marjo how many accounts you will accept being charged to your card.....

Unless you are attempting to be generous with MY money ?......

[viper579]

So you are offering to subsidise how many players in total ?, I think it wise you clarify with Marjo how many accounts you will accept being charged to your card.....

Unless you are attempting to be generous with MY money ?......

i should have re-phrased that, there isnt anything to subsidize since costs are based off player time.

you play the game more == more likely to have tickets for csrs to handle

development == not a whole lot going on there right now..... as i said earlier i dont think the devs only work on ryzom.

everything else has been calculated out already. anyway you charge people who play by time frames more, we already know the market will pay 15 dollars for the average amount of time played per month. then just scale from there.