Jan 10th 2011, 18:45:10
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!
Earth Empires Staff
pangaea [at] earthempires [dot] com
Boxcar - Earth Empires Clan & Alliance Hosting
http://www.boxcarhosting.com