I guess my view is that if you feel nonmembers are 'crippled' then you should shell out $4.99 and become a member.

Also I'm not sure I like the idea of NCCoin being integrated into the game, depending how its done of course. If it just lets people 'buy' and advantage then the whole game will go to pot, I'm not sure how it could be done without moving the balance from rewarding the people who play the most to rewarding people who pay the most.



Edited by DarthNinja (10/23/08 06:03 AM)

I'm still hoping that when NCCoins are introduced they are for things that re cool and fun, but won't give you an advantage in actual game play.

Example of things to buy with NCCoins:
1. A cape with your Posse's name and symbol. No bonuses or abilities whatsoever other than showing off your Posse.
2. Rename the gnome.
3. Rename your character.
4. Chance your appearance, skin color, hair, eyes, et cetera.
5. Change your gender? (Does not come with automatic name change though the appearance will be a bit adjusted.)
6. Change color on your armor or weapons.

None of this makes the game any easier, but I wouldn't mind paying for some of them. Red and black cinder armor would be cool.

Those are good ideas. I wouldn't mind being able to change my gear colors some and make it more my own, changing my toons look some or re-naming my gnome officially to Steve (no relation, haha).

Originally posted by Stephen:

Unfortunately, since that time, advertising has been a bust. It was successful for about a month, then pretty much a failure, thereafter:

and

So, they expected to make money from advertising, but it didn't really work out. On top of that, non-membership was so good, for a while, that free-players had very little incentive to purchase membership. That's why free players are "gimped" to the extent that they are today. They aren't truly crippled, since they currently have access to all content, all levels, and every type of gear. It just takes longer to get and is more expensive. A free player can still play the entire game for free, however, which is pretty unique amongst f2p games (many of which restrict content, areas, levels, etc...).

Since advertising basically failed, DR needs a new way to generate revenue. Unfortunately, Dungeon Runner's development staff doesn't really have the resources/budget to advertise the game. That's why I suggested ideas like D.R.I.P. and D.R.A.G., both of which depend on the strength of the players and "viral marketing". Unfortunately, after a couple of responses, there seemed to be very little interest in those ideas. I even submitted a simple presentation of ideas to generate "buzz" in DR.

I bought a DR retail box this past weekend and plan to continue paying after the free 6 months.

I like your ideas, but I think the easiest way for NCSoft to generate revenue is to strongly persuade players to become premium members. My solution of switching to a 14 day trial will no doubt anger the many, many free players who never planned on getting a premium membership anyway. But, like I said in earlier posts, there may me an initial exodus, but if NCSoft puts some money in advertising DR in magazines, television, and gaming Web sites, new players will come. The DR dev team could also do more gaming Web site/magazine interviews to raise awareness, too.

Also, $4.99 is a terrific price point.

I agree with your ideas about an item mall. Costumes (with 0 bonuses) would be fun, too!

Again, to choose your 14-day trial would mean they would have to change their entire advertising platform. Have you looked at the Dungeon Runners website? You see 2 different Karl's there advertising the 2 types of play. One reason I like DR is the community base, free and member, I don't see how this transition wouldn't just leave a bad taste in the faithful community (both free and member), but would also probably receive bad reviews. Also, perhaps because you're a paying member you are failing to understand that while they may be free members, they still bring a lot to the community. Perhaps, we should let the DR staff worry more about revenue and marketing ideas and if we want to do our part, buy the game for yourself or for a friend(s) (Stephen just posted in another post that DR isn't going anywhere). Talk to people about it, refer people to it....the holidays are coming up, get somebody else hooked to our game.

P.S. I still use my widget on my Myspace page, Ripper!

Oh! Widgets! How did I miss those...?

Anyone know how they do on Wordpress blogs? I am using the Dynamic DR signature on mine now, in an effort to give DR some visibility, but a widget would be even cooler.

Check out Ripper's siggy,he's got a link to the widgets.

Here's an option I just discovered while signing onto my myspace account a minute ago that DR marketing might want to consider. Here's what it (well Tom) said:

"I'm excited to announce the launch of our new MySpace MyAds service - an easy, inexpensive way to promote yourself, your band or your business on MySpace. We've created a simple tool that helps you create or upload ads and target the specific MySpace users you want to reach. The best part - you're only charged if someone clicks on your ad -- not when your ad is displayed.

Get started here: http://advertise.myspace.com/ or click "Advertise" at the bottom of any MySpace page."

Just a thought.

Yes, going from a free with optional premium model to a trial with mandatory premium model will make many, many players unhappy. But, I think people will understand that development, servers, server maintenance, and other things needed to keep the game up and running costs money.

$4.99 a month is cheaper than going to the movies (in the U.S.) Even if you went to the movies once a month, DR's subscription would be cheaper! DR is also a top class MMO, and its subscription rate is also significantly less than WoW, NCSoft's other MMO's, and SOE's MMO's. The only top class MMO that I can think of that matches DR in terms of price/quality is GW.

I never said that free players do not bring a lot to the community. But, NCSoft is in the business to make money and that is one thing that free players do not bring. See Stephen's posts (provided by Ripper_McGee in an earlier post) about DR's advertising revenue. The economy is bad right now and companies are starting to extend budget cuts to online advertising:

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?p...d=aUS8NBuDfJ4A


Some of us are real life professionals that work in sucessful businesses (this is the Internet so some of us might pretend to be professionals), so our suggestions might be useful.

I am all for grassroots campaigns, and I do tell my friends, family, co-workers about the game.

Perhaps you should PM Stephen then and discuss it with him and discover his views on it all. Yes, Ripper provided examples, but the advertising ones are from before they even lost the majority of the DR team. I never said that suggestions wouldn't be helpful or useful, but it was obvious that you were going to feel the way you were and others were going to feel they were; when it boils down to it, it's not up to us to decide, so we might as well move on from it to something else. We all want the game to go on, and Stephen has already posted that it's not going anywhere. I think that when NCSoft decided to make a Free to Play game, they realized that it wasn't going to be a giant revenue machine. But regardless, you've made your points clear, as have I and others. Those who work with the game can decide if they wish to take the suggestion.

I'm not arguing against your idea, I've just had little time to think about it and formulate a reply. In fact, I wrote this morning's reply during a layover while returning home from a business conference (being a real life professional ). The purpose of my earlier reply was mostly to provide a source and clarification for previous comments made/questions asked.

I like that you brought up this issue and are passionate about it. If anything, this serves as forum for discussing ideas, which is really the point. Lady Vady's correct, of course, in that decisions regarding the revenue model are up to NCSoft, but this thread might give them some additional ideas to how a percentage (albeit small) of the player base might feel.

In general:

1. I believe it's absolutely critical that Dungeon Runners be heavily advertised. Unfortunately, there's little to no budget for doing so and there's unlikely to be more funds forthcoming. I'd love to see further official videos such as the infamous "junk" video, but I think we really need to see banner ads on prominent gaming sites.
2. Due to a relatively non-existing advertising budget, viral marketing efforts fall largely upon the shoulders of the players. I believe a partnership program may provide impetus for players to be more actively involved in such a marketing effort.
3. Micro-transactions, specifically for items that do not provide game play advantages. I'm not thrilled with all of the microtransaction items in Wizard101, but they did a great job tying them into their Halloween Event (linky to my reply on mmorpg.com)
4. I'm not opposed to the idea of Dungeon Runners becoming p2p only, however I think it's critical that additional content/features be added prior to such a dramatic shift in the revenue model:
   • Some sort of "end game" content. I and other players have made several suggestions for the development and inclusion of level 100 content. While I don't know whether or any of those specific ideas have been considered or are in active development, I do know of some Level 100 content being developed. Personally, I'd love to see some sort of remort (originally suggested by DR_Cial, then re-posted and edited by me on idearunners.com)
   • Additional Posse features, such as a posse bank, posse wars, etc...
   • More diverse play options/time wasters, such as badges, mini-games and contests. I've been playing this game since December, 2006. While I still enjoy it, I can also see how many players can quickly tire of simple hack-n-slash. Dangle more carrots in front of them to keep them coming back. Badge-hunting works well in CoX and the mini-games in Wizard101 are great time wasters.
   • Add more characters to each account
   • Add a mail system so players can more readily transfer items between their characters
   • Eliminate the ability to launch multiple instances of Dungeon Runners (not until both of the above are put into place however)
   • etc...

Edited by Ripper_McGee (10/23/08 06:07 PM)

Thanks! I see only MySpace and Facebook there though... I'll look closer tonight when I get home and see if I can make them work on Wordpress.

They work with pretty much anything. I just specified which version was friendlier to each of the two major social networking platforms. Technically, I have a facebook application, too, but it doesn't install directly into your profile like a widget would into a blog, so it's not that impressive.



Edited by Ripper_McGee (10/23/08 07:44 PM)

Okay heres some NC Coin ideas I came up with in another topic I posted.


For example:
Exp potion of the hypersonic monkey (give players a temporary 10% xp boost for 3 hours)
Exp potion of the slothfull turtle (gives players a temporary 10% xp boost for 1 hour)
STR potion of the punching chinchilla (gives players a 10% str boost for 1 hour)

and so you kinda get the idea, also throw in some special clothes and item pieces that can only be found there, but that do not give any bonuses. Just there for the looks.

For expample:

Santa hat
Santa boots
Santa Gloves
Santa shoulders (big bag)
Complete santa set

^Being able to purchase set parts individually or as a set

From my expirience with a vast amount of Asian made MMO's, i've realized that looks in games sell pretty darn good, everyone has some type of look goals and standards for their chars, why not use it to turn a profit?

Theres my 2 cents on that issue

"Like you all said I highly doubt they would sell equip, but like most games probably suits and outfits and things to make your character different, and then stuff like temporary xp boost cards, stat boosting items (only in pve servers), maybe a 5-10% increased chance at a rainbow, a temporary second page of items ur guy can carry, a temporary bank page, a card thats pretty expensive like 5$ that lets you unsoulbound 1 item. Maybe something that changes the color of your name to like blue, green, yellow, purple or rainbow. A styling ticket where u can go back to the creation page and redo your hair and what not. A card giving a temporary 15% gold boost, on all gold u pick up."

I would have never tried the game if there was only a 14 day trial, those "trials" do nothing but clog up valuable memory and registry space. I started the game because it was a free way to occupy my time and got hooked. The free play is what brings most gamers to us.

What if the free trial never expired, but limited you to X levels/dungeons? For example, what if you were limited to 10 levels and the highest dungeon you could access was Algernon? You could play as much as you want, complete all of the Algernon quests (or at least those that aren't unlocked higher than level 10), even farm Sissirat as much as you want, but you'd never gain any more experience or be able to run any other dungeons without purchasing membership? With this system, I'd also propose the following:

1) Assuming that free players were limited by levels and dungeons, remove existing non-member handicaps (experience, loot, kc costs, etc...). Heck, they'd hit their cap faster! Remove the ads, too - NCSoft isn't making money from them, anyway.

2) Prevent free trial players from being able to PVP - it's not worthwhile under level 10, anyway, and most of the level 10 players PVPing right now are twinks of paid (I assume) members. This would also mitigate abuse by PVPers who'd farm Sissirat for level 10 rainbows without ever affecting their xp, since they wouldn't have much incentive to do so (not being able to PVP).

3) Let free players access other dungeons as a ghost. They could run through other dungeons in order to see them, but not be able to do anything in them. They couldn't affect or be affected by mobs, couldn't interact with objects (chests, shrines, etc..), couldn't set waypoint scrolls, compasses or keep obelisk settings. This would let them run and around and see cool new things, but not abuse the privilege.

Personally, I think this approach would give free trial players more incentive to purchase membership than a 14-day free trial would.

Regardless, I still feel that the conditions in my earlier comments would be critical to moving to a (mostly) subscription only game.

What about:

1. The Non-member community
2. Pre-existing non-members
3. Non-members already higher then level 10 (see above)
4. Members who drop their membership (see above)

Also, how would this be different from the level 30 nonmember cap that was being used back before build 99, isn't this the same thing only more restricted?

Frankly I think 'if it ain't broke, don't fix it'.
Changing the way nonmembers are would only anger players and give DungeonRunners a bad rap, it's not like nonmembers are costing huge amounts of money to keep around.

WHAT??

Are you crazy?