Citazione:
Ok. As much as I love a riveting discussion, this is heading in the wrong direction. Let me settle the debate now with a few final notes.
The game isn't for everyone. It's not designed for the masses. It's designed for those who want to feel their existence in a game has meaning. And straight up... life is meaningless without the risk of death.
Our business model is the same as Pac-Man, Centipede, and Mortal Kombat. The better you are, the longer you get to play. The worse you are, the more it will cost you. Instead of playing for 3-10 minutes on $1, it's 10-14 months on around $30.
We're assuming people would still rather pay $30 / yr for a new Spark, than $14.99 per month.
We're also assuming people would rather pay $30 / yr and get access to all game content, then have an item mall that requires real-world currency for them to get the cosmetic/cool stuff. Everything in CoE can be purchased with in-game currency. No exceptions.
People with more money may take more risks, but if they're not good at the game, all they're doing is buying more deaths. If I live 80 years in one life, I will see more benefit than living two lives to 40. Money may make you more willing to take risks, but it doesn't guarantee you any more reward. That's on you. I will lay money now that some 15-year old with no money and a lot of skill outlasts 90% of the server.
Being incapacitated costs you nothing. Having to spirit walk costs you Spirit, but if you DC while spirit walking, the timer stops. The next time you log back in, you resume your walk.
As you've correctly pointed out, there's a delay in-between DC'ing and the server recognizing you as disconnected. This has to do with latency, packet loss, and what we consider to be a dropped packet vs. a disconnect. There's a few things we can do about it. But the short of it is, if you happen to permadie during the 10 second interval in which you DC's but we didn't recognize it... and you happened to be within 10 seconds of reaching your body, we'll give it to you. If you weren't within 10 seconds of your body... you were gonna die anyways.
If you're "alive" and DC... and happen to be incapacitated while you were DC'd.. that sucks. It still costs you nothing except the purse some thief may steal from you.
If you're "alive", DC, and someone coup de grace's you, we'll do a ping check to see if you respond. If you don't, the timer never starts. It'll begin again the next time you log in. No loss off spirit.
The basic edition comes with 1 Spark, and 3 Souls. Those three souls are your beginning choices. You can choose to pair any one of them with a Spark in order to create the character you want. The other two are yours to do as you please. You can create a second character simultaneously with your first, use one of them during your second life rather than the first soul you used, or trash them. It's like buying a M:TG deck and getting more cards than you need. It's not that they're useless... it's whether you decide to use them.
As to how we know people have 10-14 months... aside from statistics, we own the server. If we see people die on average X times per day, with a standard deviation of Y, and we want people to live 10-14 months, we can set the boundaries accordingly.
We are also considering a Karma system. Rather than using in-game currency to buy new Sparks of Life, you earn it through your participation in the story. You make the game more entertaining and interesting to others and we'll invite you back for the next life for free or at a reduced cost. Karma.
Cheers!
Jeromy "Caspian" Walsh
Owner/CEO, Soulbound Studios
P.S. Who registers for a game community only to post on the forums why they "wouldn't even bother making an initial purchase?" Why bother? I mean seriously. Did you really expect to join the community and convince others not to buy the game? Move along.
Un plauso per il P.S. :sisi:
