Regarding The Price Raise Discussion

[san_tropez 394]

I thought you thought that part of the silver is CURRENTLY being paid to the rules of each kingdom on the PvP servers. But yeah, nobody should get free money, title or not

[Ayes 3,715]

Reduce Trader payouts like they were when it took 10-12 months to get back the money from buying the coin from the shop. Not 1 or 2 months and you can keep buying and planting them endlessly sucking money from all new and old players who buy coin and plant just deeds who to not have Traders.

At least then there was some benefit to Rolf because the player had actually play awhile and pay some even after the 10-12 months.

I just don't see how the Current system of People cashing in on other peoples deeds upkeep for large sums of coins is helping more people in the end.

That said I have bought traders a long time ago when they were first allowed and bought much coin from the shop to have them. Over time they paid out slowly, but eventually paid me back.

Just recently I move to a new server for the first time ever and I plop down a trader and get 40-50s or more the first month or two and am still getting 30s+ a month.

I just feel this is way to much and its taking advantage of new players and those who are against them who actually buy coin from the shop and make deeds.

These Payouts should be reduced and some of that Coin passed out in other ways to enhance gameplay for all players.

Protunia repents from years of Trader Draining profitability to make disclosure of the extent to which it is damaging to Wurm's financial profitability! You have my blessing young one. Go in peace.

=Ayes=

[yarnevk 257]

Judging by the temperature from in-game most people seem okay with the price raise.

Sure the community of draining traders is OK with it since they do not pay to play.

Of course the f2p player is OK with it since they already accepted the compromises that come without pay to play.

So of the ones that actually do pay to play, players are a mixed results of these types

1) single deed/alt are OK paying more as it is not above the industry benchmark of WOW sub

2) multi-deed/alt players are talking about cutting back to a more reasonable recurring fee level

3) more casual players just in it for a friend or spouse are saying well maybe they will go play another game.

4) Rolf is the creator god and he needs us to tithe more now, so lets buy more deeds, guards and alts.

5) Hell no I am not paying 60% increase, but I will buyout the store of all its silver now and lock in my rate for years.

The only thing that matters is what percentile these categories are, as that will determine will determine the +/-% short and long term income earned. What trade to play and free to play has to say about this has no influence on that number.

Recurring fee cutbacks already started happening with the firing of deed templars who are merely as functional as tower guards now, as well as the shrinking of former breeder deed. So most certainly revenues will NOT increase by 60%, and have a very real possiblity of declining.

Edited April 19, 2013 by yarnevk

[Torluk 21]

Wurm's worth it to me Rolf, I hold this game right up there with the best I've played.

I'd rather support you and the game for doing something unique and innovative than line the pockets of some giant gaming corporation which is too scared to take any risks.

[yarnevk 257]

These Payouts should be reduced and some of that Coin passed out in other ways to enhance gameplay for all players.

Revised me get rid of traders idea. Lets keep them and have the king payout become a drug pusher and pay in sleep powder instead. There is not going to be much market for sleep powder when everyone already has powder coming in every month, so it will not be profitable to sell the powder (if you do think otherwise then I have marble to sell you). So if you want more powder payout you have to use the stuff to skill up on making things the trader actually wants to buy.

This still increases the virtual economy because of the increased skills and crafted goods in the shop, but has no impact on CodeAB financials as there is no more recirculated silver. It cost CodeAB nothing to give out powder and they are already in the biz of creating addicts so might as well have more outlets for it. Silver only comes into the game with cash shop, and only leaves the game with kingdom items bought from traders. The only way silver recirculates in the economy is players mutual trade in goods and services, and public traders and merchants.

You could also put the kingdom items on the cash shop, but that removes the risk of having to go to the trader for them, so it should be higher convenience price for cash shop kingdom items than paying for it in silver from trader. These kingdom items will also be earmarked for developing specific new features, say Jun earnings are high then the company will commit to making a new bison texture with those extra funds now rather than never or later.

Edited April 19, 2013 by yarnevk

[RomaN 890]

I'd be much happier if buying premium ingame was disallowed first so that players cannot get infinite premium from trader draining. If this issue was addressed, there wouldn't be as much of a need to raise the price of silver.

I honestly do not see how raising the price of silver can help with Rolf's tax issues either. Any business analyst will tell you that raising prices reduces demand from that source. If trader draining and premium purchases are not addressed first, Players will still be able drain traders, pay for their premium and/or sell the drained silvers for far cheaper than what the wurm shop can offer. It doesn't fix ANYTHING.

[FireWalker 12]

I think the core of the problem people are having with the price going up is that the trader drainers and the people paying for prem with silver are not being asked to carry any of the load. So the price of prem and sliver needs to go up fine but in turn get rid of trader draining and paying for prem with silver. That way the finical load is carried by all the players that want prem. If the trader drainers and the players that pay for prem with silver stop playing so be it they don't add any finical support to the game they are just on a free ride from the people who do give support to the game by buying prem and silver from the shop each month.

Edited April 19, 2013 by FireWalker

[JackBurton 903]

Don't worry about any price increases Rolf. These [explicit world] will pay no matter what.

[Kegan 3,926]

OKay lets look at this say you do take out all the traders now the only money that is going to be circulating is from sales of tools, bulk goods and services. Do you think people are going to be buying the goods and services as much if they did not have a little trader funds to play with every month? My guess is no and for sure not like it is now you will have people making their own stuff no one has any silver unless they buy it from the store now and that little bit they do needs to go to the deeds upkeep.

I don't think you guys are seeing what a trader does for the game but sure i will play the game either way i can afford to pay for my game. i just won't be sending +1g back out into the community every month and i am just one player. All the trader holders will be doing the same and lets face it that is most every established player here.

Edited April 19, 2013 by Kegan

[yarnevk 257]

Players will still be able drain traders, pay for their premium and/or sell the drained silvers for far cheaper than what the wurm shop can offer. It doesn't fix ANYTHING.

And that is why trader draining needs to be banned. Banning in-game premium payments with silver does nothing but harms the noob of the right to earn premium to get started until they are good enough to be the one crafting and hiring other noobs, that is why the premium onversion ratio is so high that you can earn your way into the game and more slowly convert to a cash playing player.

It is the age old trick of the drug pusher saying you can have the taste for free, knowing that the crackhead will come up with the cash buys later once they realize they are hopelessly addicted.

All it that stopping silver premiums will do is then increase the market for drained silver to be sold for cash so that they can buy premium on the shop, which is going to increase the use of draining traders for real world profit.

Edited April 19, 2013 by yarnevk

[Shrimpiie 3,665]

I understand Rolf, just fix the housing bug and gimme bridges and I will be a veeery happy camper ;D

[Kegan 3,926]

And that is why trader draining needs to be banned. Banning in-game premium payments with silver does nothing but harms the noob of the right to earn premium to get started until they are good enough to be the one crafting and hiring other noobs. All it will do is increase the market for drained silver to be sold for cash so that they can buy premium on the shop, which is going to increase the use of draining traders for real world profit.

no one will be hiring noobs they won't have any extra silver maybe a few that can afford it IRL or the high skilled crafters enchanters but not like it is now.

[yarnevk 257]

OKay lets look at this say you do take out all the traders now the only money that is going to be circulating is from sales of tools, bulk goods and services. Do you think people are going to be buying the goods and services as much if they did not have a little trader funds to play with every month? My guess is no and for sure not like it is now you will have people making their own stuff no one has any silver unless they buy it from the store now and that little bit they do needs to go to the deeds upkeep.

Just look at the daily character and deed sales on the forum for cash not silver for proof that there will always be those who have more cash than time willing to buy there way into the game, and those with more time than cash willing to take that coin. This is why you have to leave silver premium in the game, so the latter has a sink for that coin. And if circulated silver is non existant because of trader drain ban, Rolf captures that cash himself rather than a player. That player will still spend the same amount of cash even if no discount silver is available, and even if new silver cost more, yes those combined mean the value of silver is inflated which means it does not go as far.

So far the majority of trader drainers that have come out as a free to play premium player have not said they will rage quit, they have said they will pay to play but maybe cut back on their in-game holding. That is good because it is increase income to Rolf, and it is good because there is increased server avaialbabilty for others to play in. So even if someone cuts back their pay, it leaves room for someone also to start to pay in an improved game that sees more development, so in theory financial growith should be positive. No longer will one person own an island with 5 trader/deeds for free.

However if a virtual economy from recirculated coins collapses or expands it does not affect Rolf bottom line. It is a virtual economy that Rolf makes nothing from. He only makes money from the coin/premium sales. People will still be willing to pay their personal limit of 10e or 100e or even 1000e so Rolf makes money, do you think he cares how many bricks that is worth?

Stop trying to justifying trader draining as noob employment. The noob to premium conversion ratio is 10% and premium retention is 25% that means only 2.5% of the noobs you employed with your recirculated silver ever became retained premium, in other words you would have to hire 40 noobs to result in only one retained premium player. And of course that player is not yet as addicted to the multi-alt/deed lifestyle, which if you was paying for your addiction is easily 10x more than what min deed one alt noob would pay, thus you would have to hire 400 noobs to result in one of them being your equal. And of course them being your equal, they will cash out the gold they acquired from making bricks from you, and buy their own damn trader and repeat the cycle of not being a cash paying retained premium, that is now off CodeAB books and is nothing but a drain on server resources.

Edited April 19, 2013 by yarnevk

[Protunia 735]

no one will be hiring noobs they won't have any extra silver maybe a few that can afford it IRL or the high skilled crafters enchanters but not like it is now.

If these Kings funds were passed out more fairly among the player base in reduced upkeep fees and other ways they wouldnt see to make as much money from people soaking all the kings funds from upkeep up draining Traders.

I am sorry at one time sure they were and investment that took a long time to get a benefit from and gave the player discounts and kick backs on prices from trader items.

Now they hand way too much to coin from all the deeds and players who pay upkeep who don't use them because of the new deed sizes that came to be when the deeds were changed.

Players with Traders Could easily receive 1/2 the amount they now do and still get by.

Those King's funds could be passed out in other ways to help all the players of the game who are seeing this price increase to play.

In other words ITS TIME to fix Traders to be more about what they started out to be and not an easy mode coin drain of other players deed upkeep.

Like I said when they started out you have to wait 10-12 months to see a return and pay during that time as well and even after.

Now players with the higher costs of deeds and bigger payouts can make trader after trader after trader endlessly once they get a couple going.

That is not fair to those at all who do not have them and are paying these upkeep funds.

And it sure as hell does not help Rolf gain More income.

Traders should be a benefit yes and they are right from the get go as they give you ability to purchase items for less than other players. They should also see some benefit later like they did when we had lower populations and it took 10-12 months to get the coin back.

What they should not do is promote quickly massive spammed trader deeds to drain profits from the game into some players pockets while taking from coins other players upkeeps.

Reduce Trader payouts 50% or limit them to 10s a month and use the rest to give players a break for the price increases by reducing upkeep, giving all players a way to gain coin through other means, more silver when first starting premium, increased referal silver, etc...many ways to help all players instead of some.

Edited April 19, 2013 by Protunia

[Keldun 335]

I'd be much happier if buying premium ingame was disallowed first so that players cannot get infinite premium from trader draining. If this issue was addressed, there wouldn't be as much of a need to raise the price of silver.

I don't know how often it has to be said:

All silver ingame has been exchanged against Euro. So in game payers may not pay 5(8) € from their own money, but instead they pay 10(16) € from someone else's money.

There is no way the in game premium option should be removed as every month sold in game doubles the income from that player.

The traders may be another issue though, but a difficult one to solve.

Edited April 19, 2013 by Keldun

[Protunia 735]

The traders may be another issue though, but a difficult one to solve.

No its not, you say the same thing.....due to yadda yadda traders will now yadda yadda....

The same thing as said in the price increase.

If they cannot except lower payouts to help the overall player base then don't let the door hit them on the way out.

Edited April 19, 2013 by Protunia

[Kegan 3,926]

The subscription price increase needs to happen regardless of what happens to the traders. I would be fine with the pool getting split in shares that include deeds as long as the people that do have traders get an extra share. Like every deed gets 1 share and deeds with traders get the 1 share plus a share for every trader owned. We did buy the right to take from the pool and now you are wanting to give that to everyone for free and not give anything back to the people that bought them how would that be fair?

Edit: Better yet figure in the trader into the cost of the settlement form they now cost 60s you want to talk about the old days well it use to cost what 1g for a deed i thnk too?

Edited April 19, 2013 by Kegan

[Protunia 735]

The subscription price increase needs to happen regardless of what happens to the traders. I would be fine with the pool getting split in shares that include deeds as long as the people that do have traders get an extra share. Like every deed gets 1 share and deeds with traders get the 1 share plus a share for every trader owned. We did buy the right to take from the pool and now you are wanting to give that to everyone for free and not give anything back to the people that bought them how would that be fair?

When they were first allowed if was to boost income and give a long term investment.

That is not really the case now is people are getting more funds from then and just spamming them with coins the got from the traders not from the shop.

I could have spammed Pristine with 10-15 traders at least by now, but its just not right in my mind that its so damn easy to exploit the game this way.

I paid from the shop for 4 of them way back then and it took a good year to see the coin come back and I was getting 3-5s a month.

Then the deeds changed and more upkeep, from players who bought larger deeds, was being added into the pool trader payout became larger.

The system for traders is not balanced anymore and gives too much benefit for the price.

If we go by how traders were when they were first made available they should cost 2-3g or more right now.

I mean if we are going to raise prices on people........to play the game and all..that wouldn't change anything though.

What needs to happen is less upkeep fees for players and deeds overall and less payouts.

That would help everyone and give everyone a break and more coin to spend into the economy.

Edited April 19, 2013 by Protunia

[Kegan 3,926]

If we go by how traders were when they were made they should cost 2g or more right now.

I mean if we are going to raise prices on people........to play the game and all..

okay that is fine with me i have mine already.

Edit: I just want to clarify that on new servers you will get the crazy money until they level off but the average is 10-15s. take on them every month it takes about 3-4 month to pay for themselves on the older servers. .

Edited April 19, 2013 by Kegan

[Protunia 735]

okay that is fine with me i have mine already.

Edit: I just want to clarify that on new servers you will get the crazy money until they level off but the average is 10-15s. take on them every month it takes about 3-4 month to pay for themselves on the older servers. .

What needs to happen is less upkeep fees for players and deeds overall and less payouts.

That would help everyone and give everyone a break and everyone more coin to spend into the economy

It would also take the sting off some for this price increase people are having.

Edited April 19, 2013 by Protunia

[Kegan 3,926]

What needs to happen is less upkeep fees for players and deeds overall and less payouts.

That would help everyone and give everyone a break and everyone more coin to spend into the economy.

I am fine with that like i said as long as the people with traders get a larger share for the investment.

[Protunia 735]

I am fine with that like i said as long as the people with traders get a larger share for the investment.

Over time they always will......so 50% cut would mean 5-7s a month and that wouldn't be bad as its about what it was when they were first allowed to be bought.

I would still limit pay out to 10s a month max too for new servers.

you could leave deed prices to buy the same and cut upkeep costs 50% and make a lot of players happy.

Edited April 19, 2013 by Protunia

[Kegan 3,926]

Over time they always will......so 50% cut would mean 5-7s a month and that wouldn't be bad as its about what it was when they were first allowed to be bought.

I would still limit pay out to 10s a month max too for new servers.

And the other 50% gets distributed to the deeds? (that would be a much smaller amount as there are way more deeds than traders.

[Protunia 735]

And the other 50% gets distributed to the deeds? (that would be a much smaller amount as there are way more deeds than traders.

yeah in the form of an upkeep costs cut which would help people afford the price increases for premium more.

it would also give all players more coin to spend in the economy and actually might help keep more players.

Edited April 19, 2013 by Protunia

[Mattown 349]

i have no problem with this price increase, whatever gets updates out faster hehe