By "a little digging" I assume you mean you looked at the pricing sheet. You obviously don't know what the concept behind the Platinum servers is, and you probably also don't know that the price for those used to be $80. The BASELINE price for the games is $15/mo. If you want to pay more for premium benefits or to play on the platinum servers, it's up to you. I don't see any reason to believe they would make the baseline subscription fee $50/mo.
Platinum services include: A premium account for Gemstone Prime Access to the Platinum server - A smaller, tight-knit hardcore roleplaying community with bigger death penalties, serverwide communication and quick teleportation between towns. The emphasis is on roleplaying rather than leveling. Discounts on Simu merchandise, including in-game tickets and Simucon tickets. And some other features I'm not aware of.
If you're really interested in understanding how/what people do with their games now, I suggest that you examine some of the feedback that people have to say on the player's corner, it's an unnoficial Gemstone website, but has a large number of users, who have a wide variety of opinions on the game.
Remember, these services are MUD's, so in some aspects, they're very different from MMO's.
Since you can't access the official forums, these come in a close second, but take everything you read with a grain of salt.
Hero's Journey will have a pricing structure similar to our other games -- though they won't be exactly alike. (Pricing may be different, for example. Or features may differ -- in our curren games player housing is a Premium offering, but housing will likely be available to all players at the basic rate in HJ.)
However, it's safe to say that if you pay the basic rate, you'll have an amazing experience, and you'll have all the standard benefits you expect from a game subscription -- actually, more than you've come to expect. We really don't feel that our pricing structure is about "nickel and diming" our customers (as someone stated above.) We feel that we're offering various levels of service and allowing our customers to decide what price point THEY are comfortable with. More choices is a good thing.
While we will be utilizing a tiered pricing structure, it's important to understand that what you see done in our text games will not necessarily be echo'd in Hero's Journey. It's a different culture, and a different type of product. It all has to be carefully reconsidered and researched for Hero's Journey. I suspect you'll be seeing more surveys about this sort of thing before the game goes live.
I'm thinking that this is probably not the best place for this discussion ... Hrmm.
Will it be hack/slash/kill, gain exp, repeat over and over (I'm sure with the add exp from completing a quest succesfully)? or will it be (My personal preference) a gradual gain based on how much you use certain skills and whether you succeed or fail at the skill?
basically that can be read as: Basically all RPG's out there experience system OR DragonRealms' experience system.
2. How will money be made by players and introduced into the game world?
Will it be (again) like DragonRealms where you basically only make money from hunting critters and picking up the gold/boxes they drop? Or will it be like other games out there where monsters will drop gold as well as the most sought after items/weapons which will then be sold off to other players and/or NPC merchants.
Personally, I like the DR system because it seemed to be harder to flood the market with money, thus raising prices of items/weapons when compared to other games (eg Guild Wars)
Originally posted by Renian If you have a character with two classes are you given a skill tree from each class to choose abilities from?
Considering you have to have a character with two classes, I'd say yes.
Alright, let me rephrase that
In UXO (Ultima X), the abilities werent put into a skill tree, they were put into tiers and (although im not sure if i remember correctly on this) either once you gained enough levels or had enough points in that tier, you unlocked the next tier of abilities. Similar to GW and HJ, you picked from two different classes and classes like HJ, were under different categories like Fighters, Mages, Nature and Balance, and i tihnk you were allowed to pick abilties from any of the classes that fell under your category, as long as they were in that tier.
Will HJ's be similar in that you can pick skills/abilities from the other classes in your category? Will it be a classic skill tree where you are given a few basic skills and it broadens later on? Will it be a lot of unique abilties? For example with UXO you could level your abilities up. So while in other games they would claim they have 100 spells, 90 of those are just variations of 10 unique spells which have 10 different variations such as firebolt is unique, fireball is a variation, exploding fireball is a variation etc but they count them each as one spell where really theyre just an upgrade of firebolt. Whereas in UXO when you leveled an abiltity up it only ever counted as the one ability, so firebolt levels up to fireball which levels up to fireball with an explosion. This way every skill is unique and when they say they have 100 skills they actually have 100 original skills instead of a bunch of variations... if you know what I mean. It probably sounds a little confusing, as im a little tired and trying to remember exactly how UXO's system worked.
Ya, the tier stuff sounds cool but just not sure what effect it will have on player performance, in terms of who will care to pay good money to play a game that forces you to make decisions you may or may not want to make at any given time, I don't know I'm just speculating, I can foresee something like this happening and I don't know how comfortable I am with that. I am new to this forum but I have been reading a lot about you guys and I wrote something in another forum and I almost want to take what I said back because I just went to your website and I really liked what I saw and read about, You guys are doing a great job and I am aniticipating the release of this game. So keep up the good work, and on a scale of 1 to 10 you guys are an A+ in the suck factor!!!!!!!!!! good job.
Originally posted by froichx You guys are doing a great job and I am aniticipating the release of this game. So keep up the good work, and on a scale of 1 to 10 you guys are an A+ in the suck factor!!!!!!!!!! good job.
Sorry, I wasn't able to right what I was trying to say and it sounded wrong, now that I see what I wrote I don't know what the heck I was thinking, I was pretty tired at the time. Well what ever I was going to say it doesn't matter, this game looks good......thats all that matters...
Will the be a lot of unqiue monsters in the game, as opposed to seeing numerous copies of the same monster with a new name and slight change in their skin hue? In most other MMORPGs youll see a Goblin Welp, then a Goblin Basher and a Goblin Cracker then a Goblin Brute etc, but they all look exactly the same. Will HJ move to remedy this with a large amount of different creatures to fight and interect with, or are you focusing on having a smaller number of creatures that are more fleshed out?
Originally posted by Orcc Will the be a lot of unqiue monsters in the game, as opposed to seeing numerous copies of the same monster with a new name and slight change in their skin hue? In most other MMORPGs youll see a Goblin Welp, then a Goblin Basher and a Goblin Cracker then a Goblin Brute etc, but they all look exactly the same. Will HJ move to remedy this with a large amount of different creatures to fight and interect with, or are you focusing on having a smaller number of creatures that are more fleshed out?
Considering what Simu has done with their MUDs, I'd have to go with both. In Gemstone IV, you may see 2-3 different kinds of Kobold, a bunch of Orcs and a bunch of Trolls. But, the description of some of the orcs varies from others, while very few are the same. Same with the kobolds and trolls. So, they make look similar, but not be the same.
Also, Gemstone has some retarded number of creatures all with unique descriptions, so I'd say they are going to flesh it out. Note that this is just an educated guess.
Originally posted by Orcc Will the be a lot of unqiue monsters in the game, as opposed to seeing numerous copies of the same monster with a new name and slight change in their skin hue? In most other MMORPGs youll see a Goblin Welp, then a Goblin Basher and a Goblin Cracker then a Goblin Brute etc, but they all look exactly the same. Will HJ move to remedy this with a large amount of different creatures to fight and interect with, or are you focusing on having a smaller number of creatures that are more fleshed out?
Considering what Simu has done with their MUDs, I'd have to go with both. In Gemstone IV, you may see 2-3 different kinds of Kobold, a bunch of Orcs and a bunch of Trolls. But, the description of some of the orcs varies from others, while very few are the same. Same with the kobolds and trolls. So, they make look similar, but not be the same.
Also, Gemstone has some retarded number of creatures all with unique descriptions, so I'd say they are going to flesh it out. Note that this is just an educated guess.
Good point. However, we must keep in mind that it takes quite a bit more effort resource-wise to create different looking graphic models for enemies than in does to add several different text-based descriptions.
Originally posted by SIMU-MELISSA Hero's Journey will have a pricing structure similar to our other games -- though they won't be exactly alike. (Pricing may be different, for example. Or features may differ -- in our curren games player housing is a Premium offering, but housing will likely be available to all players at the basic rate in HJ.) However, it's safe to say that if you pay the basic rate, you'll have an amazing experience, and you'll have all the standard benefits you expect from a game subscription -- actually, more than you've come to expect. We really don't feel that our pricing structure is about "nickel and diming" our customers (as someone stated above.) We feel that we're offering various levels of service and allowing our customers to decide what price point THEY are comfortable with. More choices is a good thing. While we will be utilizing a tiered pricing structure, it's important to understand that what you see done in our text games will not necessarily be echo'd in Hero's Journey. It's a different culture, and a different type of product. It all has to be carefully reconsidered and researched for Hero's Journey. I suspect you'll be seeing more surveys about this sort of thing before the game goes live. I'm thinking that this is probably not the best place for this discussion ... Hrmm.
Well, I've been excited about this game's release, now I dread it...considering that it will have a tiered pricing structure. This looks like it will be a great game and and I hate to see the "tiered pricing structure" become popular. This allows for the game to offer a competitve price at launch to make it mainstream enough to sell a lot of boxes. The ONLY thing I see healthy about a tiered pricing system is if it charges more for extreme hardcore play (just to discourage it) ...so the devs aren't constantly trying to stay ahead of the extreme gamers, using up all their resources at the expense of fixing existing bugs and furthering the story line.
Tiered pricing structure means that for an outrageous price you get added benefits which ends up actually meaning reduced services to the "basic" gamer.
Why?
In order to assure that the premium members get their money's worth for that added $$ per month, the normal members have to get inferior customer service and less of everything..char slots, bank slots, ubar weapons, etc... less GM events, less added content....less everything....otherwise those premium gamers would be raising hell about how they weren't getting their money's worth.
Really sad to see this happen, but it will probably work, few gamers think that far ahead, they will see a normal price for basic play and not see that the existance of premium content means mediocrity for them in the long run.
Originally posted by anwar Well, I've been excited about this game's release, now I dread it...considering that it will have a tiered pricing structure. This looks like it will be a great game and and I hate to see the "tiered pricing structure" become popular. This allows for the game to offer a competitve price at launch to make it mainstream enough to sell a lot of boxes. The ONLY thing I see healthy about a tiered pricing system is if it charges more for extreme hardcore play (just to discourage it) ...so the devs aren't constantly trying to stay ahead of the extreme gamers, using up all their resources at the expense of fixing existing bugs and furthering the story line.
Tiered pricing structure means that for an outrageous price you get added benefits which ends up actually meaning reduced services to the "basic" gamer.
Why?
In order to assure that the premium members get their money's worth for that added $$ per month, the normal members have to get inferior customer service and less of everything..char slots, bank slots, ubar weapons, etc... less GM events, less added content....less everything....otherwise those premium gamers would be raising hell about how they weren't getting their money's worth.
Really sad to see this happen, but it will probably work, few gamers think that far ahead, they will see a normal price for basic play and not see that the existance of premium content means mediocrity for them in the long run.
Anwar/Geezer/battrosl
All of this is mere speculation on your part. If it is not, then show me how the tiered pricing structure has harmed Simutronic's other games.
Originally posted by anwar Originally posted by SIMU-MELISSA Hero's Journey will have a pricing structure similar to our other games -- though they won't be exactly alike. (Pricing may be different, for example. Or features may differ -- in our curren games player housing is a Premium offering, but housing will likely be available to all players at the basic rate in HJ.) However, it's safe to say that if you pay the basic rate, you'll have an amazing experience, and you'll have all the standard benefits you expect from a game subscription -- actually, more than you've come to expect. We really don't feel that our pricing structure is about "nickel and diming" our customers (as someone stated above.) We feel that we're offering various levels of service and allowing our customers to decide what price point THEY are comfortable with. More choices is a good thing. While we will be utilizing a tiered pricing structure, it's important to understand that what you see done in our text games will not necessarily be echo'd in Hero's Journey. It's a different culture, and a different type of product. It all has to be carefully reconsidered and researched for Hero's Journey. I suspect you'll be seeing more surveys about this sort of thing before the game goes live. I'm thinking that this is probably not the best place for this discussion ... Hrmm. Well, I've been excited about this game's release, now I dread it...considering that it will have a tiered pricing structure. This looks like it will be a great game and and I hate to see the "tiered pricing structure" become popular. This allows for the game to offer a competitve price at launch to make it mainstream enough to sell a lot of boxes. The ONLY thing I see healthy about a tiered pricing system is if it charges more for extreme hardcore play (just to discourage it) ...so the devs aren't constantly trying to stay ahead of the extreme gamers, using up all their resources at the expense of fixing existing bugs and furthering the story line. Tiered pricing structure means that for an outrageous price you get added benefits which ends up actually meaning reduced services to the "basic" gamer. Why? In order to assure that the premium members get their money's worth for that added $$ per month, the normal members have to get inferior customer service and less of everything..char slots, bank slots, ubar weapons, etc... less GM events, less added content....less everything....otherwise those premium gamers would be raising hell about how they weren't getting their money's worth. Really sad to see this happen, but it will probably work, few gamers think that far ahead, they will see a normal price for basic play and not see that the existance of premium content means mediocrity for them in the long run. Anwar/Geezer/battrosl
More options =/= bad thing. It doesn't limit the person who's paying less it opens doors to players who can't afford to pay more. For everyone else its irrelevant, if you can AFFORD to pay 15$ a month on it and you choose a lesser option, thats your indication you're not willing to pay 15$ a month for what you get for that price, that you're content with what you get for 10$ or something. For those who CANT afford to pay the full thing, this gives them options. Which is definitely great, bigger audience.
Plus even if its tiered the top price isnt going to exceed 15$ im sure, it would likely be 15 and below. Maybe 3 tiers with 5$ increments (all speculation of course) so it really has no affect on you if yo uwere going to pay 15$/mo anyways. You'd still be doing so and getting the full services.
Plus even if its tiered the top price isnt going to exceed 15$ im sure, it would likely be 15 and below. Maybe 3 tiers with 5$ increments (all speculation of course) so it really has no affect on you if yo uwere going to pay 15$/mo anyways. You'd still be doing so and getting the full services.
I think you're mistaken about the top price not exceeding $15. In fact, I assume that will be the basic price ($14.95/month is the going rate for WoW, EQ2, EVE, etc). Dragonrealms and Gemstone IV's "premium" price is $25.00/month, and their "platinum" price is $49.95/month (Gemstone IV and Dragonrealms are run by Simutronics). While Melissa did say that much of the pricing system was still to be decided, I suspect a premium or platinum price that's equal to today's average monthly fee of $15.00 is extremely unlikely.
I think the largest danger of tiered pricing lies in the minds of the players and potential players, not the differences in services offered. If they're paying $15.00 a month (because that's all that they can afford) and aren't getting as many features, goodies, etcetera as other players, there's a real danger that they'll just take their money to a game where all players are treated equally. Even if the differences between the tiers are minimal, the perception of $15 per month buying a "lesser" game may very well exist in the minds of consumers. Heck, it exists in my mind already.
I'll play Hero's Journey for the features, but I'll resent it for the pricing. Ultimately, that means I'm ripe for alternative games from the very beginning. Perhaps I'll be in the minority, however. Perhaps no game with similar features will launch to pull me away. Or perhaps the tiered concept will be scrapped before the game is released. There are a lot of "ifs" at this point, so I suppose it's too soon to be speculating. I do have fairly strong feelings about this issue, however, and I'd really like the opportunity to take part in some of the upcoming polls Melissa alluded to. If Hero's Journey were any less of game than it's shaping up to be, the mere idea of this pricing system would've already pushed me in a different direction. For better or for worse, that's not the case right now.
Originally posted by Jenuviel Originally posted by sygmas Plus even if its tiered the top price isnt going to exceed 15$ im sure, it would likely be 15 and below. Maybe 3 tiers with 5$ increments (all speculation of course) so it really has no affect on you if yo uwere going to pay 15$/mo anyways. You'd still be doing so and getting the full services.
I think you're mistaken about the top price not exceeding $15. In fact, I assume that will be the basic price ($14.95/month is the going rate for WoW, EQ2, EVE, etc). Dragonrealms and Gemstone IV's "premium" price is $25.00/month, and their "platinum" price is $49.95/month (Gemstone IV and Dragonrealms are run by Simutronics). While Melissa did say that much of the pricing system was still to be decided, I suspect a premium or platinum price that's equal to today's average monthly fee of $15.00 is extremely unlikely.
I think the largest danger of tiered pricing lies in the minds of the players and potential players, not the differences in services offered. If they're paying $15.00 a month (because that's all that they can afford) and aren't getting as many features, goodies, etcetera as other players, there's a real danger that they'll just take their money to a game where all players are treated equally. Even if the differences between the tiers are minimal, the perception of $15 per month buying a "lesser" game may very well exist in the minds of consumers. Heck, it exists in my mind already.
I'll play Hero's Journey for the features, but I'll resent it for the pricing. Ultimately, that means I'm ripe for alternative games from the very beginning. Perhaps I'll be in the minority, however. Perhaps no game with similar features will launch to pull me away. Or perhaps the tiered concept will be scrapped before the game is released. There are a lot of "ifs" at this point, so I suppose it's too soon to be speculating. I do have fairly strong feelings about this issue, however, and I'd really like the opportunity to take part in some of the upcoming polls Melissa alluded to. If Hero's Journey were any less of game than it's shaping up to be, the mere idea of this pricing system would've already pushed me in a different direction. For better or for worse, that's not the case right now.
They won't be able to pull that off in the MMORPG genre, because it would never work (As you said people would think its a lesser game) MUDs are much less of an investment than MMORPGs, so if they plan on tiered they will likely be offering LOWER priced options capping out at 15$ for the highest (or 20$ if they want to push it, but likely nothing above that) I can't see them doing anything more because then it will just do as you said.
They won't be able to pull that off in the MMORPG genre, because it would never work (As you said people would think its a lesser game) MUDs are much less of an investment than MMORPGs, so if they plan on tiered they will likely be offering LOWER priced options capping out at 15$ for the highest (or 20$ if they want to push it, but likely nothing above that) I can't see them doing anything more because then it will just do as you said.
On the contrary, I don't see how they wouldn't be able to pull it off. I mean, right now they've got payment options lingering around the fifty dollar mark for TEXT BASED GAMES, and those options have been around for a while. Are they the most popular options? Probably not, but they are there nonetheless.
If they can offer premium services that expensive for a text based game, I don't see how it's out of the question for a graphical MMO. If you think about it, a fifty dollar premium service for a graphical 3d MMO seems less ludicrous that one for a MUD.
Originally posted by Kane I gotta say $50 monthly fee for ANY game seems ludicrous to me. Anything more than $20 and I wont touch it.
Well yeah, I agree--I wouldn't pay fifty bucks a month for any game either; I was just saying that if they can have a premium service that expensive for a text based game, then it surely wouldn't be out of the question for them to offer one for HJ.
Comments
By "a little digging" I assume you mean you looked at the pricing sheet. You obviously don't know what the concept behind the Platinum servers is, and you probably also don't know that the price for those used to be $80. The BASELINE price for the games is $15/mo. If you want to pay more for premium benefits or to play on the platinum servers, it's up to you. I don't see any reason to believe they would make the baseline subscription fee $50/mo.
Platinum services include:
A premium account for Gemstone Prime
Access to the Platinum server - A smaller, tight-knit hardcore roleplaying community with bigger death penalties, serverwide communication and quick teleportation between towns. The emphasis is on roleplaying rather than leveling.
Discounts on Simu merchandise, including in-game tickets and Simucon tickets.
And some other features I'm not aware of.
If you're really interested in understanding how/what people do with their games now, I suggest that you examine some of the feedback that people have to say on the player's corner, it's an unnoficial Gemstone website, but has a large number of users, who have a wide variety of opinions on the game.
Remember, these services are MUD's, so in some aspects, they're very different from MMO's.
Since you can't access the official forums, these come in a close second, but take everything you read with a grain of salt.
In any case, the forum is http://www.forum.gsplayers.com
Hero's Journey will have a pricing structure similar to our other games -- though they won't be exactly alike. (Pricing may be different, for example. Or features may differ -- in our curren games player housing is a Premium offering, but housing will likely be available to all players at the basic rate in HJ.)
However, it's safe to say that if you pay the basic rate, you'll have an amazing experience, and you'll have all the standard benefits you expect from a game subscription -- actually, more than you've come to expect. We really don't feel that our pricing structure is about "nickel and diming" our customers (as someone stated above.) We feel that we're offering various levels of service and allowing our customers to decide what price point THEY are comfortable with. More choices is a good thing.
While we will be utilizing a tiered pricing structure, it's important to understand that what you see done in our text games will not necessarily be echo'd in Hero's Journey. It's a different culture, and a different type of product. It all has to be carefully reconsidered and researched for Hero's Journey. I suspect you'll be seeing more surveys about this sort of thing before the game goes live.
I'm thinking that this is probably not the best place for this discussion ... Hrmm.
I have a couple questions:
1. What will the experience system be like?
Will it be hack/slash/kill, gain exp, repeat over and over (I'm sure with the add exp from completing a quest succesfully)? or will it be (My personal preference) a gradual gain based on how much you use certain skills and whether you succeed or fail at the skill?
basically that can be read as: Basically all RPG's out there experience system OR DragonRealms' experience system.
2. How will money be made by players and introduced into the game world?
Will it be (again) like DragonRealms where you basically only make money from hunting critters and picking up the gold/boxes they drop? Or will it be like other games out there where monsters will drop gold as well as the most sought after items/weapons which will then be sold off to other players and/or NPC merchants.
Personally, I like the DR system because it seemed to be harder to flood the market with money, thus raising prices of items/weapons when compared to other games (eg Guild Wars)
Yes, I'm partial to DR... hah
Bumping this thread, for obvious reasons
Can you expand on how the skill tree and ability system works?
Considering you have to have a character with two classes, I'd say yes.
Considering you have to have a character with two classes, I'd say yes.
Alright, let me rephrase that
In UXO (Ultima X), the abilities werent put into a skill tree, they were put into tiers and (although im not sure if i remember correctly on this) either once you gained enough levels or had enough points in that tier, you unlocked the next tier of abilities. Similar to GW and HJ, you picked from two different classes and classes like HJ, were under different categories like Fighters, Mages, Nature and Balance, and i tihnk you were allowed to pick abilties from any of the classes that fell under your category, as long as they were in that tier.
Will HJ's be similar in that you can pick skills/abilities from the other classes in your category? Will it be a classic skill tree where you are given a few basic skills and it broadens later on? Will it be a lot of unique abilties? For example with UXO you could level your abilities up. So while in other games they would claim they have 100 spells, 90 of those are just variations of 10 unique spells which have 10 different variations such as firebolt is unique, fireball is a variation, exploding fireball is a variation etc but they count them each as one spell where really theyre just an upgrade of firebolt. Whereas in UXO when you leveled an abiltity up it only ever counted as the one ability, so firebolt levels up to fireball which levels up to fireball with an explosion. This way every skill is unique and when they say they have 100 skills they actually have 100 original skills instead of a bunch of variations... if you know what I mean. It probably sounds a little confusing, as im a little tired and trying to remember exactly how UXO's system worked.
All I know is that it does 'branch off', so to speak, and that abilities are acquired through Hero Points. Not sure about this 'tier' stuff.
This is a worthy question.
rICHARD p dIDDY
Sorry, I wasn't able to right what I was trying to say and it sounded wrong, now that I see what I wrote I don't know what the heck I was thinking, I was pretty tired at the time. Well what ever I was going to say it doesn't matter, this game looks good......thats all that matters...
rICHARD p dIDDY
sounds like froichx isn't very smart, sorry
Will the be a lot of unqiue monsters in the game, as opposed to seeing numerous copies of the same monster with a new name and slight change in their skin hue? In most other MMORPGs youll see a Goblin Welp, then a Goblin Basher and a Goblin Cracker then a Goblin Brute etc, but they all look exactly the same. Will HJ move to remedy this with a large amount of different creatures to fight and interect with, or are you focusing on having a smaller number of creatures that are more fleshed out?
Considering what Simu has done with their MUDs, I'd have to go with both. In Gemstone IV, you may see 2-3 different kinds of Kobold, a bunch of Orcs and a bunch of Trolls. But, the description of some of the orcs varies from others, while very few are the same. Same with the kobolds and trolls. So, they make look similar, but not be the same.
Also, Gemstone has some retarded number of creatures all with unique descriptions, so I'd say they are going to flesh it out. Note that this is just an educated guess.
Considering what Simu has done with their MUDs, I'd have to go with both. In Gemstone IV, you may see 2-3 different kinds of Kobold, a bunch of Orcs and a bunch of Trolls. But, the description of some of the orcs varies from others, while very few are the same. Same with the kobolds and trolls. So, they make look similar, but not be the same.
Also, Gemstone has some retarded number of creatures all with unique descriptions, so I'd say they are going to flesh it out. Note that this is just an educated guess.
Good point. However, we must keep in mind that it takes quite a bit more effort resource-wise to create different looking graphic models for enemies than in does to add several different text-based descriptions.
Well, I've been excited about this game's release, now I dread it...considering that it will have a tiered pricing structure. This looks like it will be a great game and and I hate to see the "tiered pricing structure" become popular. This allows for the game to offer a competitve price at launch to make it mainstream enough to sell a lot of boxes. The ONLY thing I see healthy about a tiered pricing system is if it charges more for extreme hardcore play (just to discourage it) ...so the devs aren't constantly trying to stay ahead of the extreme gamers, using up all their resources at the expense of fixing existing bugs and furthering the story line.
Tiered pricing structure means that for an outrageous price you get added benefits which ends up actually meaning reduced services to the "basic" gamer.
Why?
In order to assure that the premium members get their money's worth for that added $$ per month, the normal members have to get inferior customer service and less of everything..char slots, bank slots, ubar weapons, etc... less GM events, less added content....less everything....otherwise those premium gamers would be raising hell about how they weren't getting their money's worth.
Really sad to see this happen, but it will probably work, few gamers think that far ahead, they will see a normal price for basic play and not see that the existance of premium content means mediocrity for them in the long run.
Anwar/Geezer/battrosl
Tiered pricing structure means that for an outrageous price you get added benefits which ends up actually meaning reduced services to the "basic" gamer.
Why?
In order to assure that the premium members get their money's worth for that added $$ per month, the normal members have to get inferior customer service and less of everything..char slots, bank slots, ubar weapons, etc... less GM events, less added content....less everything....otherwise those premium gamers would be raising hell about how they weren't getting their money's worth.
Really sad to see this happen, but it will probably work, few gamers think that far ahead, they will see a normal price for basic play and not see that the existance of premium content means mediocrity for them in the long run.
Anwar/Geezer/battrosl
All of this is mere speculation on your part. If it is not, then show me how the tiered pricing structure has harmed Simutronic's other games.
More options =/= bad thing. It doesn't limit the person who's paying less it opens doors to players who can't afford to pay more. For everyone else its irrelevant, if you can AFFORD to pay 15$ a month on it and you choose a lesser option, thats your indication you're not willing to pay 15$ a month for what you get for that price, that you're content with what you get for 10$ or something. For those who CANT afford to pay the full thing, this gives them options. Which is definitely great, bigger audience.
Plus even if its tiered the top price isnt going to exceed 15$ im sure, it would likely be 15 and below. Maybe 3 tiers with 5$ increments (all speculation of course) so it really has no affect on you if yo uwere going to pay 15$/mo anyways. You'd still be doing so and getting the full services.
I think you're mistaken about the top price not exceeding $15. In fact, I assume that will be the basic price ($14.95/month is the going rate for WoW, EQ2, EVE, etc). Dragonrealms and Gemstone IV's "premium" price is $25.00/month, and their "platinum" price is $49.95/month (Gemstone IV and Dragonrealms are run by Simutronics). While Melissa did say that much of the pricing system was still to be decided, I suspect a premium or platinum price that's equal to today's average monthly fee of $15.00 is extremely unlikely.
I think the largest danger of tiered pricing lies in the minds of the players and potential players, not the differences in services offered. If they're paying $15.00 a month (because that's all that they can afford) and aren't getting as many features, goodies, etcetera as other players, there's a real danger that they'll just take their money to a game where all players are treated equally. Even if the differences between the tiers are minimal, the perception of $15 per month buying a "lesser" game may very well exist in the minds of consumers. Heck, it exists in my mind already.
I'll play Hero's Journey for the features, but I'll resent it for the pricing. Ultimately, that means I'm ripe for alternative games from the very beginning. Perhaps I'll be in the minority, however. Perhaps no game with similar features will launch to pull me away. Or perhaps the tiered concept will be scrapped before the game is released. There are a lot of "ifs" at this point, so I suppose it's too soon to be speculating. I do have fairly strong feelings about this issue, however, and I'd really like the opportunity to take part in some of the upcoming polls Melissa alluded to. If Hero's Journey were any less of game than it's shaping up to be, the mere idea of this pricing system would've already pushed me in a different direction. For better or for worse, that's not the case right now.
I think you're mistaken about the top price not exceeding $15. In fact, I assume that will be the basic price ($14.95/month is the going rate for WoW, EQ2, EVE, etc). Dragonrealms and Gemstone IV's "premium" price is $25.00/month, and their "platinum" price is $49.95/month (Gemstone IV and Dragonrealms are run by Simutronics). While Melissa did say that much of the pricing system was still to be decided, I suspect a premium or platinum price that's equal to today's average monthly fee of $15.00 is extremely unlikely.
I think the largest danger of tiered pricing lies in the minds of the players and potential players, not the differences in services offered. If they're paying $15.00 a month (because that's all that they can afford) and aren't getting as many features, goodies, etcetera as other players, there's a real danger that they'll just take their money to a game where all players are treated equally. Even if the differences between the tiers are minimal, the perception of $15 per month buying a "lesser" game may very well exist in the minds of consumers. Heck, it exists in my mind already.
I'll play Hero's Journey for the features, but I'll resent it for the pricing. Ultimately, that means I'm ripe for alternative games from the very beginning. Perhaps I'll be in the minority, however. Perhaps no game with similar features will launch to pull me away. Or perhaps the tiered concept will be scrapped before the game is released. There are a lot of "ifs" at this point, so I suppose it's too soon to be speculating. I do have fairly strong feelings about this issue, however, and I'd really like the opportunity to take part in some of the upcoming polls Melissa alluded to. If Hero's Journey were any less of game than it's shaping up to be, the mere idea of this pricing system would've already pushed me in a different direction. For better or for worse, that's not the case right now.
They won't be able to pull that off in the MMORPG genre, because it would never work (As you said people would think its a lesser game) MUDs are much less of an investment than MMORPGs, so if they plan on tiered they will likely be offering LOWER priced options capping out at 15$ for the highest (or 20$ if they want to push it, but likely nothing above that) I can't see them doing anything more because then it will just do as you said.
On the contrary, I don't see how they wouldn't be able to pull it off. I mean, right now they've got payment options lingering around the fifty dollar mark for TEXT BASED GAMES, and those options have been around for a while. Are they the most popular options? Probably not, but they are there nonetheless.
If they can offer premium services that expensive for a text based game, I don't see how it's out of the question for a graphical MMO. If you think about it, a fifty dollar premium service for a graphical 3d MMO seems less ludicrous that one for a MUD.
I gotta say $50 monthly fee for ANY game seems ludicrous to me. Anything more than $20 and I wont touch it.
Are any races going to have speciality weapons. aka the cat race may be better at whips and dwarves (if they have them, not sure) at axes.
And any armor that some cannot wield aka in Morrowind, or that they may have a better proficiency in.