Using SP to unlock custom maps

As I started playing this game I found it quite enjoyable. I actually started playing this game cause I saw it on Kong with a picture of a map of the world based upon the book series A Song of Ice and Fire.

After a few starting days I returned to the game with new stealth troops, learned strategies of city protection and to my shock I saw that I couldn't make the games I wanted. Guess which

I needed to unlock that option by buying premium. I wanted to play so I went to get the credit card, but before I bought anything, I've stopped to ponder about something so I tried some other maps. All locked. Custom maps locked. After I found out that those that make the maps don't even have an option to make the maps available to everyone. They automatically go to premium pack stack.

Needless to say that I was rather disappointed by this dreadful business model of getting cash. Don't get me wrong, I support the idea that developers should get cash from their creation. Just where they get it from, that's a different story.

Why having a LARGE and growing portion of the game locked for players that don't pay is bad: It damages the quantity of the player base, amount of innovative maps being played and so forth. I shall skip the talk about this for I am not called upon here to correct the business model implemented so far.

I'd like to, rather, propose a mild change in this situation. Allow for players to BUY/UNLOCK one map at a time with SP. This shouldn't damage the present Premium business model [so skip the autism in defending it] while it would allow players to play more maps which would not only increase the quality of gaming, but also the quantity of the players present.

In turn I believe this will lead to more profit, but I don't care about that >:3

Anyways: Bottom line of this possible Don Quixote idea would be this ~ Allow the unlocking of custom maps, one by one, with SP.

Express your support if you can and let's get this idea rolling.

This is what i wrote to him in game chat ´my point of view =)

Needless to say that I was rather disappointed by this dreadful business model of getting cash. your quote<>Full game is 18 euros if you want to support the game than you can buy monthly for 4 euros..
or you can buy the features you want general go for it all maps and creation of maps go for it support the game and the devs !
want the full game buy it for 18 euros for lifetime want to support it monthly buy monthly membership and so on !
whats so hard to understand this buss model its clear and simple no loop holes its a clean buss model and VERY fair buss model i say and the best i seen on the Gaming ONLINE BUSS MARKET.
and Proto coins are if you for example have 5ksp and want more so you use your proto coins if you want to advance faster your choice no pay2win or bla bla get over it ! mate nothing is free
18 euros for full game is a fair price tag.

Janek, you're haggling about the price tag while ignoring the principle.

There is a famous story about sex and money that I have heard in myriad variations. A man asks a woman if she would be willing to sleep with him if he pays her an exorbitant sum. She replies affirmatively. He then names a paltry amount and asks if she would still be willing to sleep with him for the revised fee. The woman is greatly offended and replies as follows:

She: What kind of woman do you think I am?

He: We've already established that. Now we're just haggling over the price.

So, let's stick to the principle and the idea.

Also, you've seem to have ignored or didn't find a way to challenge my statement that this change would in the long term be more financially beneficial to the developers

EDIT: Also ~ Thanks Skull, for pushing me in the chat to post this here.

I don't care and will not care about your example with a prostitute we are here talking about a business model of the gaming market not prostitutes by the way prostitutes are not that expensive but they don't have a one time price of 20 euros but about 50 euros for 30 minutes or some services depending where you at and what quality that prostitute is.

Look i post a rational comment with some opinion you post a example of opinion and prostitutes what is a more rational comment ?

20 Euros or on some sites its 18 Euros also 4 months euros is a OPTION if you want to support the Devs the game. If you are low on money and want all maps and map creator than you can one time price of 4 euros i think which is cheap !!!!

Damn whats with you mate , are you trying to troll or what ?
This company the devs are the best my opinion that i have seen in the online gaming industrially there fair and great devs the 2 of them well or 1 nah 2 ? =)

-John

Those that want to participate in the thread are invited by the creator of the thread to ignore Janek since he is failing to understand the point and would rather inform us about the prostitution rates in Prague.

Now, let's hope for some replies in regards to the topic.

I think the idea of SP to unlock maps would limit the buy in on the said package. It essentially takes away a reason to buy that particular package, leaving it something to buy only if you want to make maps, which actually is more limited in appeal than you would think.
So it doesn't increase revenue at all, it reduces it by eliminating another 'market' ie those that want to buy it so that they can set-up custom map games scenarios etc. I think this package is probably why most people go premium/ spend their money at all.

I do see how the idea may keep people playing for longer though. However this part of your argument is somewhat flawed, I disagree that players who don't have premium cant play these games and therefore don't stick with the game. Just ask someone to set it up for you, luckily we have some players that are charitable in this respect and will happily oblige.

P.S the only thing about premium that IS unfair is the general, but again if it bothers you that much then spend the $5 or whatever it is now.

Also just out of curiosity, janek defending premium prices but yet to go premium, why do you chose not to?

First off, blessed be the devs that put ignore on the forum as well.

Secondly ~ If people are to buy a map for, let's say 5k SP [just the first number that I thought of] They will pass on a curtain upgrade. So, if you want to do stuff quickly without much hustle, you will still buy the Premium pack.

As for the revenue, I didn't say that the amount of euros spent on Premium would rise. I said that with more more maps being available to more people, the game would have more players. The sustainable growth of the player base would be affected in a positive manner and this would in turn increase the "gravity" of the people towards the game.
More people would, for revenue, mean more chances for a purchase of any pack available.

Also, this would work of ONLY one map at a time, so the benefits of the Premium pack, while lessened would still be present.

As for the mechanism of bagging for players to make the map you want to play, as I write this it's failing in the main room for quick games. While there are quite a few regular world games with a low number of players each, there are those who are asking for ASOIAF, Ancient World and other maps there.

This is simply because even tho there are those who would kindly oblige, they might be afk, in game, not able to wait and be patient as the player that wants the map would.

That "mechanism" if flawed on some many fronts that it cannot, simply cannot be seen as a reasonable way to bypass the limitations put in place for the sake of creating a market for one pack.

What my idea would do, I believe is to get more people to playing [since unlocking maps offers much more options for the game then strategies and is thus more rewarding], would keep more people around them game since they could freely play the maps they want to AND for the developers it would provide more chances [that they could] exploit to make more cash by allocating the purchases from the Premium to all other packs [existing and soon to be created].

Cheers

I think this is a very interesting thread and I can agree with you Tris - if the maps option were open to everyone, perhaps more people would be playing it. But the idea of unlocking each map is interesting, depending obviously on the amount of SP required for that.

I support this.

By the way, I changed the thread title so it fits the theme better.

At the time of me writing this 19/22 games in the quick game lobby are ones that would have been needed to be set up by someone with prem or a package. So no I don't think there is a problem with availability or different game types/maps, the limitations are not drastic in any way.

I don't see a correlation between this being a free feature and more people playing the game. Earning SP to unlock maps will not IMO bring more people into the game. It will only if anything make those who have played and already liked it stay a tad longer, it won't bring in new players. The thing that will bring new players in is awareness that this great game exists. Hense the recent push for recruitment, street team etc etc

As I said previously I see your logic here, and actually there should be more diversity in the things you can spend SP on, I just don't think this is one of them.

EDIT: However having certain maps 'promoted' or 'featured' as stated somewhere else for SP is an idea I can agree with. Goes hand in hand with what I have said about awarness, there are some good maps out there that get ignored.

Skrivet av b0nker2, 19.03.2013 at 11:20

I don't see a correlation between this being a free feature and more people playing the game. Earning SP to unlock maps will not IMO bring more people into the game. It will only if anything make those who have played and already liked it stay a tad longer, it won't bring in new players. The thing that will bring new players in is awareness that this great game exists. Hense the recent push for recruitment, street team etc etc

Promote and prolong and two vastly different things.

Promote is raising awareness (Desura, Twitter) and appeal (Custom Maps)

Prolong is making SP curve easier for beginners and maintain a variety of features available.

Letting current players stay longer is effectively having more people playing at any one time.

NOTE: Let's take atWar as a bucket with water flowing in and a leaking hole. Increasing water flow is temporary to let the bucket hold more water. Decreasing the leak hole size is the permanent solution. We need to make sure more players climb over the Rank 4-5 gap.

PS: Trist, what b0nker2 said about map advertisement/endorsement is already in experimentation. Therefore the chances of this topic going through is slim.

With love, ezzatam.

Skrivet av ezzatam, 19.03.2013 at 15:10

Skrivet av b0nker2, 19.03.2013 at 11:20

I don't see a correlation between this being a free feature and more people playing the game. Earning SP to unlock maps will not IMO bring more people into the game. It will only if anything make those who have played and already liked it stay a tad longer, it won't bring in new players. The thing that will bring new players in is awareness that this great game exists. Hense the recent push for recruitment, street team etc etc

Promote and prolong and two vastly different things.

Promote is raising awareness (Desura, Twitter) and appeal (Custom Maps)

Prolong is making SP curve easier for beginners and maintain a variety of features available.

Letting current players stay longer is effectively having more people playing at any one time.

NOTE: Let's take atWar as a bucket with water flowing in and a leaking hole. Increasing water flow is temporary to let the bucket hold more water. Decreasing the leak hole size is the permanent solution. We need to make sure more players climb over the Rank 4-5 gap.

PS: Trist, what b0nker2 said about map advertisement/endorsement is already in experimentation. Therefore the chances of this topic going through is slim.

With love, ezzatam.

just don't ally-fag

@Ezzatam, I already understood the difference thanks. I just think that promoting is more important than prolonging at the present moment. IMO its better that 100,000 see a product and 10,000 use it rather than 10,000 see it and 9,000 use it.

Also I do agree with you = "there should be more diversity in the things you can spend SP on" I just don't think these 'rewards' or targets to aim for are actually why people do stick around, or why there is this 'leak'.

I have no problem with Tris idea being implemented, I may be wrong and his theory that it would increase footfall/prolonging play may be right. I just don't personally think that it will.

@hazard - this is actually correct, people with the ability to ally everyone will eventually get bored, there is no challenge in this situation. In my experience the people who have played the game longer and stick around are the ones that jump out of their comfort zone and start challenging the more experienced players/take on as many people as they can. It took me a long time to have the balls to challenge them myself and actually I enjoy the game much more having done so.

No Shoes

The ideal is not bad but the game is already at a fair price tag i still have not got it because i did not want to and also because i spend all my money on beer and tobacco no im kidding kind of but well im poor right now waiting for summer to finally arrive so i can set sail to the unknowns. =)