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New Type of Payment for MMORPG
strangerdang
Member Posts: 233
http://www.dota-two.com/valve-introducing-dynamic-payment-model-for-dota2
Some pre reading, i stumbled upon this a while back, im not sure if its a joke or not, however the more i think about this the more i...like it.
To sum it up, everyone buys the game, and theres a set fee per month, lets say $15 a month. Now lets say you the player is polite, well like in game, in fact your reverd by all, known for wisdom of the game, kindness and helping others. Well you dont pay for the game per month because of it. You are adding value to the game and its community by being yourself.
Now for the other side of this. You spam chat with trash non stop, you try to scam players, you give troll help (meaning you give false info to new players who dont know the diffrence) People dont like you. Perhaps your monthly fee is $50 a month to play. You as a player is a detriment to the game and its community, therefore to play you must make up for this negative effect with financial support to the game.
Thats it, a sliding scale P2P monthly fee based on...well how you act in game. I think that with most p2p games, people dont mind paying the $15 a month, stay off the radar, and are generally decent to their fellow gamer, perhaps they shouldnt pay the full $15 a month, perhaps $5-10 based on how much they help others, how they act, what they do in game ect.
Of course the issue with this is who decided, how will it be known, how can such a system be abused (does it matter if people are faking nice if it makes the game more enjoyable for others?)
So aside from all the f2p vs p2p arguments. What are peoples thoughts on a payment method that charges you per month based on how you act and how much you play. Payment based on your actions in game making the game more enjoyable for others, or costing the game by driving away others (as we see so often in mmorpgs today).
Can something like this work? Can you somehow single out people who make playing the game less fun by charging them more, while at the same time perhaps letting well liked players stay for free? Could something like this, a payment model that rewards good community, breed a game that has become something of lore, such as the communities in first generation mmorpgs and small niche games...games where most of the players try to make the game a pleasant experience for all?
Discuss..
Comments
I assume this will be based on player reviews, if so, I don't see it working. There's too much room for abuse. Let's say I'm in a guild of 15-25 folks, guild X is better than us and we get envy so after every match with the other guild we rank them down and complain that they were rude. Where's the balance?
Very interesting indeed, however i don't think increasing the payment is a good way to deal with it, because you will not only have possible loss of player base but it also wouldn't be fair. But decreasing how much you pay depending on how much you help others etc... is a fantastic idea. Might even do something similar yet modified in the MMO we are are developing.
Well i was thinking more of a "vote for review" function.
Its completely neuteral. and lets say chat logs and actions in game are logged on a file. Get enough vote for reviews and someone looks it over...good or bad and decided...mabey this guy should get $5 off next months subs because he helped 15 players get into the game, and those players are still subbing.
Or in the case of the guild voting eachother for review, their logs are reviewd, nothing out of the ordinary, $15 sub stays.
However in cases of extreme abuse, where players spend hours faking nice and boosting the guild and their guildies up as some type of well liked player...perhaps they all should get a month paying $10 if it keeps these guys acting nice...anyway how long could such an act last?
This type of payment method would have to be programmed into the game, where actions along with text would have to be able to be reviewd and ranked as either good or bad. Someone who helps many people out, despite if its BS, and those players he helped stay subbing...even if his intentions are fake...he still helped the community and resulted perhaps in more new players staying...that might deserve a month discount in my book.
You would have to do a neutral "review player" function to prefent idtiots constantly giving players they dislike negative makes or their alts positive marks. The review would have to come from a company person whos looking out for the communities best interest.
Perhaps there are better ways to go about this, but i like the idea of rewarding good community and penalising poor community interaction.
Would never work. You couldn't get an agreement on the sliding scale of what constitutes good or bad. Were they slightly bad? Or were they only slightly good? Were they being bad because they were playing an evil race and roleplaying? As other poster said, would have to be done through player review and players would just pad their ratings with alts and friends.
There are so many holes in such a concept, you couldn't ever get a group developers insane enough to even try to tackle such a thing.
Well thats the point of it, isnt it?
People who play to ruin others game experiences have every other game on the market to play. This would force out players who continually ruined others game experience, brought about negativity to those around him/her and genreally speaking decreased everyones enjoyment.
I think this type of payment method would cause those people to quit, and give reason for normal and good acting players a game to stick around in.
The whole point of this system is perhaps to make people think twice before they scammed others, harassed others, spammed chat with obcene text, trolled others, and makes the game...well like every game currently out as far as community goes.
Hell might even give rise to some courteous pvp without the rage....mabey not though...
Either way such decisions would have to somehow be conducted in a neuteral fashion by someone within the company. Like a community manager. Im not a fan of random players voting up or down otehr players either. Im thinking more of a vote to just review a players actions, good or bad.
Well, perhaps all players would agree upon purchase to a sliding scale payment method based on their actions. Perhaps a bill should be viewable in game before payment is required. So a player could check and see how much he owes for the next month before paying it.
It would have to be where the majority of players paid around the same amount however.
Im thinking about how every game has mabey 20-30 awesome people that everyone love, and about 20-30 players everyone hates with a passion...those would be the main targets of the pay scale. Sure in the middle your average player might get a discount or a few dollar a increase here or there. I think this pay method is meant to decrease the amount of players who ruin the games for others and increase the amount of players that people love to game with.
Again...such a payment method isnt something you just slap on any game, it would have to be done with due diligence and well thought out. However i think that its clear as night and day when someone should be drivien out of the game, or perhaps lured to stay . Dont shit on your fellow gamers and your fine, go out of your way to make the game enjoyable for all around and perhaps you should be enticed to stay as long as possible. Easy concept on paper i guess.
That sounds like it would be far too open to abuse or gang mentallity if a group of players just doesn't like someone. It is one thing to blacklist someone in a game, it is another to cause them to have to pay extra.
"Because we all know the miracle patch fairy shows up the night before release and sprinkles magic dust on the server to make it allllll better." parrotpholk
Also, one other thing to consider. Without a doubt, at some point cliams of business ethics violations would eventually come up. Some one would complain they were unjustly charged more based on someone elses standard and were not treated fairly and equally. And I am no lawyer, but I wouldn't doubt some ambulance chaser lawyer would eventually come up with a case that would eventually cost the company money (to avoid going to court).
When dealing with the general public, you have to set standards that all users are expected to followed and they need to be clear and concise. Ambiguity causes a lot of problems down the line. Setting a scale of what constitutes as good and bad is defined differently by each person, so the rules have to be clear and precise.
Umm..Methinks people misseded a important point.
DOTA 2 will be buy to pway like Guild Wars 2 n stuff o.o No subbies!
Which brings me to me next point...Hao will they knoe who are the bad ppl n stuff >.< Just from ppl who pwayed stuff like Team Fortress 2 n Alien Swarm n such? Or or do they have some ninja software in steam to measure ppls badness...Like Santa Claus! :O :O
''/\/\'' Posted using Iphone bunni
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**This bunny was cloned from bunnies belonging to Gobla and is part of the Quizzical Fanclub and the The Marvelously Meowhead Fan Club**
Aren't we passed the delusional land of believing that players will not abuse in-game systems?
Anyways, why not just throw out unpopular players? Do they really think they'll stay around if they're forced to pay more money than anybody else? Even worse, why would anyone join a game when they don't know how much they'll have to pay for full features?
Sounds like rather than building good community, they'll build an elitist one.
Off topic:
Love the pink font, the new cwazy way of typing, and the new "Forum Bunny" title. Would love to know how you end up with a cute title like that after being here only one year and WTF do you DO to become a "forum bunny?" Just think about that a minute. It's very disturbing.
On topic:
I don't think having some changes in payment plans is NECESSARILY a bad thing. The generic P2P model is fine with me IF the game provides enough quality content to deserve it. My preference (of the widely known types of payment) would be buy to play ala GW1. But I think over time we'll see a wider assortment of payment plans, honestly. I don't know how I feel though about the proposed payment "assessing" talked about in the OP. I don't think I much care for it.
President of The Marvelously Meowhead Fan Club
Well the DOTA article was just something that made me think, and made me think regarding the games i play, which are mmorpgs not DOTA style games that are one time purchases. I wanted to discuss something similair for mmorpgs.
Could the system be abused? Well if it was something like voting up or down random players, yes, absolutly.
If it was, as i suggested, just a neuteral "review player" vote, where through a game design mechanism a players in game actions such as what he/she did while playing as well as chat logs, could be reviewed by a staff member...then i dont see how it could be abused really. I understand there would need to be in game mechanisms to prevent review overflow, and perhaps rampant "vote for review" voting could be considerd a negative.
Either way, the more i thought about the idea of creating a monthly payment method that punsihes players that ruin the game for others (through actions and text) while at the same time giving incentive to help new player, act like an adult, and create a positive community experience..the more it made sense.
Am i the only one who gets tired of going out of my way to ignore troll dominated chat? Or tired of entering a game new to just get troll advise when asking a simple question. What about the "im new" and need help cowd who is turned off by a community that ignores them, yells at them for not knowing, and then the game loses a subscriber? Such scenatios could be easily avoided if oftern, then community was rewarded for taking a few minuets to help a new player, or a player who needed help.
In the end, its community that makes these games so enjoyable long term. Of course this is all theory, i realize that no game would attempt to drive away customers by raising the price, or forgoe standard fee to keep players in game. This is just a thought.
I think a more serious issue here is that this could add up to discrimination.
Imagine you're in a bar. You sit down, have a drink, and get into an argument about a movie with the person next to you. You turn to buy another drink, but the bartender informs you that because you're detracting from the community of the bar, you have to pay three times as much as anyone else.
Now, this may be "good" for the bar, but who said discrimination was bad for businesses? The point is, as someone hinted earlier, this system could lead to a discrimination lawsuit with a pretty good chance of success.
Its a horrible system.
For one its completely abusable. Its not hard to manipulate it someway. If its by voting who says you cant create a crap load of accounts and just vote yourself up. or the opposite vote someone else down. If its by past play (I.E. say I own 10 valve games.. Now valve thinks Im awesome and gives me DOTA 2 for free for supporting them) thats another way of abusing the system because personally I have 3 different steam accounts, and over the 3 accounts I have probably close to 20 games. But on any one account I have max of maybe 3 games per account actually installed on my system. And your going to punish me for having more then 1 account and really its because me and my roomies/brother/family share the accounts and its so we can play more then just 1 game throughout the 3 computers we have by spreading the games out over different accounts.
How will they make money? Saying oh your a shitty person cause 1 time you got soo pissed off at someone that now your going to be punished for it. Or hey because you never talk to anyone your going to get it for free. I just feel there is a lawsuit SOMEWHERE if they take this approach to things. Making people pay different prices for the same product just seems like a lawsuit waitting to happen. I mean if it was profitable wouldn't companies have thought of it and applied it by now? I highly doubt its "Innovative thinking" and has been talked about before but not incorporated because its just so easily abusable/lawsuit int the making.
In the end it wont ever come out. And if it does and I ever find out personally that im being overcharged for something that others are getting cheapper it will be easily rectified by me talking to a laywer. Not because im an asshole but because it just cant possible be legal for this type of practice.
Well i think were breezing over the suggested neuteral method of suggesting that a staff memeber review a players in game actions, while giving no suggestions on perhaps a better way to go about it, and just tossing around "it will never work ect" Not really the point of the thread, but yes...if it were to ever work it wouldnt be easy.
As for the discrimination issues. Yes, you would be discriminating agasint players who ruin the game for others. That is the purpose of such a system. To dive them out of the game, or force them to pay for dirivng away business or making other players in game time less enjoyable.
Of couse im not suggesting that a cranky player be stuck with a $50 a month bill imediately after a random outburst. Something like this would have to take a lot of constant negative activity... as well as constant positive activity to warrent a pay change.
Again, acid, please try to read the post before jumping to the assumption that a "no kidding it will be manipulated" system was even mentioned such as the random people voting up or down random other players...because yeah, you could just go around voting everyone down and yourself up (granted you purchase the game 50 times to make 50 voting accounts) I mean you did read the thread right?
Again, a neuteral vote for review would stop this. Someone helped you, or trolled you, vote for their review, someone within the company will review that players logged actions (perhaps a vote will auto log current text and actions?) if that person recieves enough vote for reviews, along with who voted.
See, at least where I come from, discrimination isn't allowed even if it is good for the community. That's the point.
See your confusing discrimination based on things people cant change, with discriminating behavior.
Under your views of discrimination, i was dicriminated in grade school when i was singled out for asking a question and not raising my hand, and again discriminated in spanish class for speaking english...
Again dicrimination based on things that cannot be changed, such as race, sex, disability...isnt the same as discriminating against people who choose to act a certain way.
Hope that clears up the issue.
Oh and your bar example, he could charge you more, however it would be easier to just kick you out...which is what would happen in some bars, or in the bar that is every mmorpg, you would be allowed to fight to the death in front of other patrons who were just there to grab a peacefull beer after work.
I find it amusing that this payment method is even being considered. Never would i play a game where your subscription fee is based on popularity, in fact never would i pay for any service whatsoever based on that model. It's a high school mentality that has no place whatever in a business.
For some people, being a jerk is something they can't change
. But I see what you mean.
Its not being considerd, in any way, only discussed.
However the point of this would be to drive away one type of player, while perhaps attracting another type of player.
I would think gamers would know before hand wheather this would be something that would benefit them. Anyway such a system i think would create a more mature and friendly community, something lacking in most if not all game communities.
I see a void in gamer demographics not being filled, and i think a payment system that punishes one type of behavior and rewards another might be a good way to create a game community that seems to be in the shadows of all other games, games that seem dominated by one type of player, at least vocally.
But yeah, certainly not for everyone, however, populair people, at least in games, make the game more enjoyable for many people...why shouldnt they be rewarded? Im not talking about punishing players who are normal, just the ones that stand out as terrible, and rewarding the ones who stand out as helpful and positive.