This is a copy of a post I made on AT, but I want to also get the FFA take on it to see what type of FFA-centric services would be valuable.
Thanks in advance for your input!
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So we've been having a few discussions about patron status lately, namely what we can offer to Patrons to enhance their gameplay without unbalancing things.

The last thing we want to have is a system where you basically need to pay to win.

So I have a few questions that I'd like to have folks discuss! If you feel you want to keep your opinions private, that's fine.

I'm posting this on AT first, as I feel the majority of Patrons will come from the Alliance, FFA and Team servers.

So here are a few quick questions:

What type of rewards should Patrons be given?
Examples include: access to a special "Patron" board, new feeds for hosting sites which allow access to ingame events without logging in (market sales, defending news, spyop info, etc), forum badges, an in-game phonbot which calls you when you get hit, etc

How should the service be offered and priced?
Examples include: Subscriptions (with a graduated pricing model) or 'lifetime' membership

What type of "status symbols" would be appropriate to include with this service?
Example include: forum badges, integration for clan hosting sites to know who is and isn't a patron, badges on countries on the past rankings pages, counts of patrons in tags at the set's end

Any other thoughts?

I want to just clarify that we haven't really made any decisions on what we want to do, and this is merely me seeing what our users want to do on this topic.
I should also note that we still plan on keeping any and all money this project makes within the project. If we are able to generate enough revenue, we can begin bringing in professional resources (which I can get at cost :D) to help with various aspects of the game.

Thanks for your input!

I would like Pang to send me a 12 pack of beer if I become a patron.

that's a good idea, I never thought about spreading the EE brand to the alcoholic beverage market, but it's a natural fit!

i was thinking beer too

I believe the Patron Status should be determined in an increased donations = increase duration fashion. I would not presume to guess at what people feel comfortable donating, or what you guys would concider for this. But I'll give an example below


$10 = 3 Months of Patron Status
$25 = 1 Year of Patron Status
$50 = Lifetime Status


As for incentives to become a Patron, I think you should add in a * next to country names for online users ingame.

The rest of your incentives look pretty good as well. Patron Board here I come ;)

a * next to online countries would be annoying in wartime :P

joe2 they used to have the * next to all online countries

i like these ideas

I am pretty sure joe2 said that with as much sarcasm as he could muster.

i'd say

$5
$15
$30

or so

and i love the ingame phone bot idea :)

Well lets be honest here.

Most of the current players in FFA are veterans of the game. We are no longer teenagers, most have jobs now and can afford to pay a little more for a game that has been fun for us for 10+ years.

It may be more money with my suggestion, but I still think that those that want Patron status would likely be willing to pay a little more for the benifits and the title.

it was $15 for lifetime on the swirve site and yes i paid it

but i wouldn't pay $50 for any game :P

also no ads :P

the more we pay the more benefit it is to the game. id say anywhere from 30-50 for lifetime is fair, or something like $15 a year.

and for $10 extra not only should patrons get a phonebot but it should also automatically wall for them until they are able to get online :P

lol i will just take a text

somethin like a phone bot shouldnt just be given away for just $5. id think whatever the middle price ends up bein should suffice. i dont think $25 is too much

also do a competition among the non-patrons. give away prizes for the top netters and killers for each set. winner could get a free set or 2 of patron status. once they get the phone bot they wont wanna get rid of it :P

I wasn't being sarcastic, its already easy enough to kill a country by guessing when its offline thanks to boxcar and hard enough to wall without the other side knowing that you are online. I was thinking of giving wallers a break by not giving away one of the best defences they have in the element of suprise. :P

Id pay 25$ for a phone bot. NBK members are pretty good, but sometimes it takes up to 10 seconds for them to type a message to wall. When your lifespan is 40 seconds from first hit, that 10 seconds is vital.

yea 25 for the phone bot sounds great to me

$5
$15
$30
phonebot, and maybe addit'l land , or some other kind of incentive.

this was suggested on the AT version, and I thought about it a bit while running and came up with an idea.

What about a way to "record" your countries, so you can play like 100, 200, or 225 (or whatever the max total turns stored is) turns or something as a template and then paste that onto another country or countries.
So you could do 1 casher startup, 1 farmer startup then apply the casher to 9 others and the farmer to 5 others. This would have to be done at turn 0, and you must have the total number of turns on hand to do the entire startup.

This would be ripe for abuse in terms of how the recorder country is run, so a couple of other things I have thought of would be:
- Countries can't attack other players
- Countries CAN BE attacked by other players, if out of protection
- Countries can't interact with the public market
- No alliance offers can be sent or offered to a recorder country
- Recorded countries wouldn't span between rounds, meaning you always need to perform at least 1 start up per round

When you paste a recorded country over a blank startup, it would take all the required turns instantly, even if they are saved.

Thoughts?

so i only have to do one start up a set for the first 200 or so turns. then i can play them anyway i like?

ya... I'd probably choose 100 and 200 turns as the cutoffs for recording.

After that point, you'd be able to play it however you want... no restrictions compared to how you play normally.

the countries you paste it on would be instantly at that level btw

so for instance: you created 16 countries at the same time, waited until each has 120(100) turns
Then, you record a 99turn startup using country #1
Then you choose to apply it to all 15 of your other countries,
At that point you'd have 16 countries sitting on turn 99 (I think 99 makes more sense, so you're still in protection) with identical country stats, all with 21(100) turns available to be played.

did I explain it well? ;p

I like that.

I dont really like the record turns part, except solely for countries below 200 total turns used. Itll get rid of startups, but using this whenever you want is a bit too powerful.

it would only be for startups and restarts.
You would not be able to record turns past turn 99/200 at the very MOST :p

That makes sense, although phone bot is by far the best idea. Most clans have war channels where people will let em know when they are hit. If EE had something that did it automatically, I would pay for it, charge 5$ a month, and I bet you would get a lot of buyers.

i really like where this is going

actually i really dont care about this cos i´m not going to buy it... but dont all clans (in alliance and FFA) already have a phonebot? just saying.

i can see why K4F might not like the whole recorded startup bot it would kill NBK's advantage of causing people to not want to restart. :P

i think its an awesome idea since all my countries no matter the strat always have the same first ~150 turns.

They do, but not automatic. That is enough on its own.

And nah, startup bot wouldnt really matter pain, in all honesty.
Only people who pay to have it will use it, and most of the people who pay to play are the active ones that dont stop making restarts.

lol

wouldn't a startup bot fall under not unbalancing the game?

how is it unbalancing?

it not giving any advantage over any other player. its just making some players have to spend less time on a few startups.

Sell for $5/mo Phone Bot App for EE =) I'd buy it.

K4F there is already automatic ones and of course "manual" ones like you said...

If it was automatic I would be ok with it, but if EE had a completely reliable one I would prefer to pay 5$ a month.

It is fairly easy for them to setup, and would actually make some steady money which can help the game in the long run.

The fact it isnt a requirement, and does not really give someone an unfair advantage over other people (such as free land or something) makes it the ideal thing for everyone all round.

It would be worth it for me to save myself the BW my server would take up to run a phone bot in FFA. It would be more logical just to pay.

If an option was set for a clan price (Group Discount per say) giving a clan the option to pay EE a group price for the entire clan to access the app, that would be good as well.

there's automatic startup bots?

I believe he was speaking of phone bots. At least thats what I thought.

pang i think he maybe meant phone bots?

Yea what Pain said.

good stuff.... because if there's startup bots... *shakes fist*

uhhh

no he didnt

i think price it on two seperate levels,

maybe one with phone bot maybe one without. as i rarely war so i wouldnt neccesarily need it. which is part of the expense.

OR do it as patron status. yearly with optional extras along the way for additional fees. think like xbox live is £40 a year. but if i want extra maps i pay a little more.

also a test server would be awesome where you could set variables. like a 700 turn start-up were the market buys your goods at the prices you set (its a waste of time if u put in silly numbers cause u wouldnt get them)


also if patrons got all the bonus stuff without doing the clicks that would be good :)

Pure WIN

Agreed with trainboy, if Phonebot was an extra item only available to patrons, then it would be a lot better all round, for those patrons who do not want a phone bot.

tb's right on the money on a lot of this, although I think patron status should be all or nothing. If you're not willing to give it to someone foasically r $10-15 a year, then don't include it.

The phonebot could be great, a certain number of bonus points being available as often as you could earn them with clicking on the links/ads could be good, and the test server which is really just an individual test scenario where players could control all the normal variables (turn on/off 2B bug, set market prices, turn on/off droughts/earthquakes/fires) would be great.

I think a yearly charge is the best way to make this feasible without cutting off a potential valuable trickle of income (as a life-time charge might) for the server. I think $10-20 a year would be a reasonable charge that would allow the administrators to bring in some money to further expand the game (not to mention potentially even put a little money in their pockets for all their trouble re-working this game), and yet would be cheap enough that many of us would probably see the value in paying for those bonuses and in helping the admins keep the game moving forward.

Charging for a life-time membership might be great for servers that have less dedicated players that might just disappear, but anyone still here probably isn't going anywhere.

I'd be fine with a Girl Of The Day on the portal screen

Primeval

Rumor has it you were using "Fiat"

That rumor was started by ignorant trolls.

OK

Had to ask, I never accused you, just having to explain to people we are not the same person is getting old.

Everyone I speak to seems to think it was you and you don't seem to have many fans here.

What the hell did you do?