If you owned Gemstone.

[Lucas]

If you owned Gemstone, what changes staff/in-game/out-of game(monetary) would you make to improve it?

Personally, I wish some rich eccentric who used to play this game a long time ago and wants to remember his childhood or whatever would just freakin BUY this game from SIMU and turn it private with it's own website/boards and set way/criteria for picking on-board staff etc.

Changes if I were this eccentric:

- Set awards bonuses for GMs completing work. Yes I would pay them for their work, it won't be much, but they'll get paid consistently.

- Out of game changes

*Lower price of basic to 12 bucks even, extra characters are 1.50.
*Lower price of Premium to 20 bucks even (with 15 character slots) and all the premium goodies.

- In-game changes, I would move Gemstone away from the...

*Log on, go hunting chit chat with friends (although you can still do this if you prefer)

And completely change the gameplay to...

*Allow player(s) limited access to the GM tools so they can make their own adventures. Once the adventure is approved by GMs (exps awards and other abusable things will be hardcoded into the game) , a open roster will appear in town square (RP it however you wish "Seeking adventuring group to slay Red Dragon etc.") The player DM or DMs (if theres more then one) will run the game, NPCs, traps,story what have you.

Further, GMs will once in a while run a mass adventuring event. Maybe several adventuring parties competes for the same goal.

-And I would advertise. Gaming mags mostly. Will have an Ad campaign each current player who posts a colorful AD of their making at their local bookstore/library gets a free whatever.

Overall,

The game could garner 1000 players at peak hours, at the very least. And it would be just as profitable if not more then it was before.

[radamanthys]

I would advertise, most assuredly. The playerbase needs to be opened. With more players, there's more money. With more money, there's more development. Shift mundane tasks off of the devs onto a data entry firm- In my job, I've hired out to the Office of the Mentally Retarded and Developmentally Disabled for simple repetitive data entry tasks.

RPA's need to become more common (for the playerbase, not specific players- forces crappier roleplayers to interact.) for good roleplay. Create a system of RPL. Roleplaying Loss. Caught talking about your DS? RPL.

I would also assign a more feedback-oriented way of updating the websire. It's pathetic that so much is out of date, missing, etc. on the website. If something gets talked about/clarified on the boards, the relevant post would be hard coded into the part of the website to which it is referring.

Way more quests and GM/Player interaction. The reason that players here are so GM attention whorish, I think, is the relative location on the supply and demand curve for GM (and therefore world/storyline) interaction. Demand is high, supply is low.

The idea of "job based pay" for devs seems better. Let them get paid for finishing work. Open QC to players to beta test, like the testing instance was. Offer a slight IG reward for real testing work done- number of bugs, time spent in the instance, etc.

CHE would get way more love, and maybe even pitted against eachother in some sort of contest more often. Or have a RP event where the houses have to work together to acheive a common goal.

Somewhere for people to go to kill the crap out of eachother, ad nauseum.

Maybe a (payment required) place to practice, sin experience, but sin risk. I want to be able to try my luck on killing certain things before I go out hunting them.

Maybe warring states. Maybe open New Ta'Faendryl. Command npc critters on the assault (mercenaries). PvP ranks- allow command of certain sized forces. Squads, Platoons, Companys, Battalions, 8 Divisions, 4 Brigades, 2 Corps (Defense/Assault), 1 Army. 0 PvE benefit to it, but raids onto the other town would draw PvP weapons, armors, and funds for the "war effort". It'd all be about dominance, fun, and respect. Pick a faction and buckfutt the other, just for fun. Try and politically tie in the CHEs. Have a real reason to live where you do. Do not balance PvE abilities at all for PvP. If one class proves PvP superior, then so be it. All RP based.

Implement most of Psinet and Lich's features. Make all scripts server-based for transparency reasons.

This is not a 'family' game. Look at the crit tables if you don't believe me. I'd no longer adhere to the 'no swearing' policy. If you want to roleplay a foul-mouthed dwarf, then feel free. If you get killed... feel free to say "shit".

[Drisco]

I don't like what you would change the gameplay to...


Nothing really else bothers me so much.

[radamanthys]

Who?

[Heshinar]

Simple changes.

As someone who has run and developed a MUD and worked on several others I understand a lot of the inner workings of coding and management.

1: Uncap the system. Or at least Keep raising the Cap to coincide with development.

2: Reduce Prices to $4.95 Basic but no additional Character slots. $14.95 for Premium and find ways to improve Premiums perks. I cannot say about Platinum and wouldn't mind having someone explain why it is so great.

3: Develop a small marketing strategy.

4: With prices of T1 and such coming down I would get a better pipe for the game. As well as improves the server it is on. Lag in the game should not happen with 700 people at peak. The server should not be that bad.

5: Improve customer feedback responses and actually listen when multiple customers are complaining about the same GM over and over and why.

6: Hire coders to first go through the code and make sure that it is clean and hopefully close any memory leaks. Then work on improving the tools to create new areas.

7: Create surveys for customers to fill out so I can get an idea of what they like and do not like about the game and the mechanics.

I can probably come up with more over time but for now this is a start if I were a rich man.

Ohh maybe the first thing I should do is find out what a real sales prices for the game might be. Maybe if I hit the lottery.

[Poppatrunk]

Simple changes.

As someone who has run and developed a MUD and worked on several others I understand a lot of the inner workings of coding and management.

1: Uncap the system. Or at least Keep raising the Cap to coincide with development.

2: Reduce Prices to $4.95 Basic but no additional Character slots. $14.95 for Premium and find ways to improve Premiums perks. I cannot say about Platinum and wouldn't mind having someone explain why it is so great.

3: Develop a small marketing strategy.

4: With prices of T1 and such coming down I would get a better pipe for the game. As well as improves the server it is on. Lag in the game should not happen with 700 people at peak. The server should not be that bad.

5: Improve customer feedback responses and actually listen when multiple customers are complaining about the same GM over and over and why.

6: Hire coders to first go through the code and make sure that it is clean and hopefully close any memory leaks. Then work on improving the tools to create new areas.

7: Create surveys for customers to fill out so I can get an idea of what they like and do not like about the game and the mechanics.

I can probably come up with more over time but for now this is a start if I were a rich man.

Ohh maybe the first thing I should do is find out what a real sales prices for the game might be. Maybe if I hit the lottery.


Sounds good to me...particularly the pricing structure
________
Depakote settlement (http://www.classactionsettlements.org/lawsuit/depakote/)

[LordBacl]

If I was the boss of the game I'd be interested in figuring out a way to bring back the Platinum players somehow. I'd talk to them, and see if there wouldn't be some way to 'merge' Platinum with Prime in a way where they'd keep every single aspect of Platinum they love, but still be connected to Prime, even if this was just in the form of a portal that let them be able to walk their character back and forth from Plat to Prime.

I just wish Gemstone had one fee, and that Platinum, Premium and Prime was instead just one single game where EVERYONE got the same benefits and treatment.

[Lucas]

I like the idea about PvP wars, with organized armies etc. Very cool idea. Playing free MUDs I realized that PvP included MUDs are usually the most popular.

Finally, GM interaction and listening to players. The GMs and Whatley believe they know everything there is to know about MMO's and what customers want. They believe this so much that they refuse to listen to players. My only retort to that is... if you know THAT much about MMOs, then why are you one of the smallest MMO companies in existence catering to a handful of relic players from a bygone era?

Hero's Journey? Please... give me a break. Even if this thing comes out I doubt it can even light a candle to the 4th gen MMOs, and don't give me well we sold license to Bioware or whatever. Look at Age of Conan... that game is totally insane, it's like Oblivion on steroids but ALL MASSIVELY ONLINE. And it's coming out next month. I've got my BestBuy copy reserved.

[Drisco]

Who?

Not yours. Lucas's

[crazymage]

Simple changes.

As someone who has run and developed a MUD and worked on several others I understand a lot of the inner workings of coding and management.

1: Uncap the system. Or at least Keep raising the Cap to coincide with development.

2: Reduce Prices to $4.95 Basic but no additional Character slots. $14.95 for Premium and find ways to improve Premiums perks. I cannot say about Platinum and wouldn't mind having someone explain why it is so great.

3: Develop a small marketing strategy.

4: With prices of T1 and such coming down I would get a better pipe for the game. As well as improves the server it is on. Lag in the game should not happen with 700 people at peak. The server should not be that bad.

5: Improve customer feedback responses and actually listen when multiple customers are complaining about the same GM over and over and why.

6: Hire coders to first go through the code and make sure that it is clean and hopefully close any memory leaks. Then work on improving the tools to create new areas.

7: Create surveys for customers to fill out so I can get an idea of what they like and do not like about the game and the mechanics.

I can probably come up with more over time but for now this is a start if I were a rich man.

Ohh maybe the first thing I should do is find out what a real sales prices for the game might be. Maybe if I hit the lottery.

People complain about MAing now, 4.95 everyone would have 3-4 accounts all scripting / power leveling each other.

They need to market, market some more, market there marketing then after all that they should market again and more free in game events like that ice mule caravan recently I didnt go but people told me it was fun.

[Lucas]

People complain about MAing now, 4.95 everyone would have 3-4 accounts all scripting / power leveling each other.

They need to market, market some more, market there marketing then after all that they should market again and more free in game events like that ice mule caravan recently I didnt go but people told me it was fun.

I don't think marketing will work. The game has imho achieved a relative ceiling. Maybe with improvements in-game especially PvP, lowering of price will there be more players,and a revamp of staff policies will push the number up and over 1k players on busy hours.

[Drisco]

Does the person who owns GS also own all the other games like MO, HJ, DR, AoH, CS2. Does anyone even play those games? What are the avg. amount of people on those games? Why don't they just shut them down and focus on there major income games?

[Lucas]

Whatley owns Simu, or at least has a major stake in it. DR is slightly more popular then GS. MO is like 50-100 players on peak times. I don't know anyone who plays any of the other games. DR currently brings in the most cash. GS is a close second. Simu keeps all the other games around because it costs them nothing.

[Heshinar]

I understand the issues of Multiple accounts. I have 2 premium. BUT you play WoW and you can MA. You play any of the others and you find MAing.

Also consider this. If you have to choose between paying 15 a month for multiple characters for a Graphical or paying 15 a month to play 1 character in a text game which is your most likely choice to even start playing.

Simu needs to drop price in order to make the game more enticing to people. There are millions of DnD players who get together every week to play pen and paper and who will shell out money for the new online stuff to go along with 4th edition DnD. They are the ones you want to get hooked in because they can work with Text and enjoy it.

[Alfster]

I understand the issues of Multiple accounts. I have 2 premium. BUT you play WoW and you can MA. You play any of the others and you find MAing.
.

There is little to no MA'ing in WOW. Yes, it can be done, but it requires two computers.

[Warriorbird]

Simu's main income stream is licensing the Hero Engine.

DR makes money. GS makes money. I don't believe any of the other games do.

Marketing would be the main change I'd make. Everything else suggested is either gloss or stupidity.

[Amaron]

Marketing would be the BIG thing.

Without knowing exactly how GM's time is structured, I would take a look at assignments and work with the GM's so there is less burnout, but still gets the goals completed while giving them a bit more flexibility to persue personal projetcs.


J

[Warriorbird]

Simu doesn't seem to really care about burnout.

[thefarmer]

Lag? 700 people?

When the hell have you seen 700 people on? I sure haven't lately.

[Warriorbird]

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2372/1524248763_bd850c9260_o.jpg

[Amaron]

Well, I would care about burnout. Thats what I would change!

J

[Khariz]

There's been over 700 on quite a bit lately, actually.

[Sean of the Thread]

If I owned gemstone I'd set up a stock market, banking and gambling system.


And upgrade the servers to pentium II.

[Asha]

Create a few uber items and a few billion coins, then sell them all for cash and go on holiday.
Would probably, definitely fuck up alot but I would be too smashed to care.

[Stanley Burrell]

I already do own GemStone.

Or should I say, "PWNWNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!111111111 111111oneuno,dos,tres,cuatro,sinco,sinco,seis" that which is known as GemStone.

I'd get rid of the level cap so my chars could be as old as ParkBandit again. Then I'd make warriors suck less, nerf empaths, allow sorcerers to make skull & crossbones deathly ACSIIs pop up when they cast spells... And I'd tell all the GMs and GHs what an awesome job they were doing an invite them over for a dainty lunch of magically 10x poppy seed bagels with lox & cheese + sliced onions.

lol, I'm awesome.

[Latrinsorm]

Ban anyone who made threads like these. :D

[Tea & Strumpets]

Simple changes.

1: Uncap the system. Or at least Keep raising the Cap to coincide with development.



They've already done the opposite. They capped the system, never develop shit unless it's a nerf or a new way to wink, and just decided to remove over a 1/3 of the levels from the game rather than creating new content.

[Dwarven Empath]

5 bucks per acct would more then likely get the DnD folks to join.

But to keep the player pool as we know it now, we need higher hunting areas no doubt.

Make two spots in Zul 110-130 and 130-150. This way us older folks do not have to deal with the helping dumbasses and the stupidness that the landing has.

I'm not saying I don't want to help, I'm just saying if I don't feel like helping that day, I can go to Zul.

So in summary... 5.00 and you get one player. Forever.

Medi...

[Lucas]

In the end, I don't think Whatley really cares about GS or DR all that much. It's really the onsite GMs and other GMs about the game that care enough to keep the game running.

Simu at this point is all about getting Hero's Journey out in the market within the lifetime of our sun.

[Apathy]

I'd do what's needed to be done for years and just pull the damn plug.

[Drew]

Allow one free character spot, capped at level 19, 1 reroll per year, no charge. Enforce a no MAing rule with this free spot. No GH/GM support, no/limited GM merchant access, can't attack other characters, etc.


This does two things:

1. Increases population, some people will never upgrade, but they make current players happier.

2. Gives people a real chance to get into the game, 1 month just isn't enough, if only 5% of people actually upgrade to paying I imagine you beat your bandwith/server costs two-fold.

[Stanley Burrell]

Allow one free character spot, capped at level 19, 1 reroll per year, no charge.

That's not a bad idea, actually. Maybe get rid of Lumnis cycles (although that might prolong the grind to 20: Hence, bad for business.) Maybe affect the ability to join CHEs, modify locker space, use the forums, etc. I dunno, only play Warriors. Stuff like that.

I like.

[Dwarven Empath]

Wasn't Whatley's GM name "Pardon" or something like that?

I always thought that was funny.

Medi...

[Makkah]

Bardon.

[bennym]

There is little to no MA'ing in WOW. Yes, it can be done, but it requires two computers.

Or use one computer with ZMUD and run 20 accounts at once with scripts that talk to one another.

[Celephais]

Or use one computer with ZMUD and run 20 accounts at once with scripts that talk to one another.
I want to make fun of you, but for some reason I'm going to take the high road.

He said WoW, WoW cannot be played with ZMUD as it is not a MUD, it's a graphical MMORPG with it's own client interface.

[bennym]

fuck WOW! I'd still use ZMUD on it.

[mgoddess]

There is little to no MA'ing in WOW. Yes, it can be done, but it requires two computers.

I know people with 4+ computers that MA in WoW consistently. :shrug:

[Alfster]

I know people with 4+ computers that MA in WoW consistently. :shrug:

I don't doubt that you do. There's still less than in gemstone, seems everyone I ran into in gemstone was running 2+ accounts.

[Heshinar]

I don't doubt that you do. There's still less than in gemstone, seems everyone I ran into in gemstone was running 2+ accounts.

With so few people finding a Locksmith or Cleric is tough. You have to run 2 accounts to be able to even survive sometimes.

[RichardCranium]

With so few people finding a Locksmith or Cleric is tough. You have to run 2 accounts to be able to even survive sometimes.

Most towns have NPC locksmiths and clerics, right?

[Tolwynn]

Most towns have NPC locksmiths and clerics, right?

The prices NPC locksmiths charge are ridiculous, though, often in excess of what you get from inside the box in the first place.

[Latrinsorm]

NPC locksmiths have racial biases just like any other merchant. For instance, I don't play a scum elf and I've never lost money on getting a box opened by the NPC locksmiths in Landing or Solhaven. It's certainly more expensive than PC locksmiths, but "often in excess" of the gain is simply not universally the case.

[RichardCranium]

The prices NPC locksmiths charge are ridiculous, though, often in excess of what you get from inside the box in the first place.

Be that as it may, you still don't need 2 accounts to "survive".

[Stanley Burrell]

I'd tweak the Premie hunting grounds to spawn to char level, or have it be settable on some kind of mind control device before you enter the fields, which would only be adjustable every 24 hours. It would be strictly solo, and, if you died, you automatically get brought back to an in-town altar, like the kind from the last EG Festival. This would be my priority before a group hunting area expanded, because it helps the solo'er mess around with stuff.

I'd also place an AG on Four Winds, correspondingly.

[Some Rogue]

NPC locksmiths have racial biases just like any other merchant. For instance, I don't play a scum elf and I've never lost money on getting a box opened by the NPC locksmiths in Landing or Solhaven. It's certainly more expensive than PC locksmiths, but "often in excess" of the gain is simply not universally the case.


What level of critter did the box come from? The higher the lock, the more is charged. Throw tough traps in there and the price climbs even higher. And somehow the box magically costs more when there is something more valuable inside. There are alot more variables than just racial bias.

[CrystalTears]

NPC locksmiths have racial biases just like any other merchant. For instance, I don't play a scum elf and I've never lost money on getting a box opened by the NPC locksmiths in Landing or Solhaven. It's certainly more expensive than PC locksmiths, but "often in excess" of the gain is simply not universally the case.
This is so not the case. If he were so reasonable for certain people and not others, people would actually prefer to take him there than a PC and just hand their boxes to that person getting the deals.

The NPC, regardless of who he picks for, will ask for a stupid fee to open the box, depending on the size of the lock, the trap, the weight, and the items inside. Hell I've seen him want to charge 3k only to find it had about slightly over 3k in silver and maybe a gem or two inside. That's grossly expensive.

You won't necessarily lose money, but in the end, it doesn't even seem worth picking up the box in the first place.

[Suppa Hobbit Mage]

The point of the NPC locksmith is a last out for people who can't find a PC locksmith. The game is meant to be interactive, after all.

[CrystalTears]

Oh I'm not saying there aren't choices. People are dragged to the Solhaven NPC cleric all the time for raises because of the scarcity of PC clerics there, or because some just don't like the one or two there.

However in my experience and opinion, the NPC raises and healings are reasonable. The locksmith isn't. They make him that expensive on purpose in order to encourage you to find a PC locksmith and interact. They don't plan on changing that, and that's fine. He's a thief, afterall.

[Celephais]

I just hate how such a large portion of the wealth in the game goes has to go through the hands of a single profession (I frequently pop my own boxes as a wizard, but you get my drift). I understand wanting people to interact, but rarely does a locksmithing endevour lead to interaction, it's a strict business transaction 90% of the time.

Gemstone has a terrible idea of how to encourage interaction, locksmithing and spellups are the two worst offenders... they need to encourage grouping, with large attentive needs (to discourage MAing), not these stupid "service center" interactions.

[Danical]

With max trading and citizenship, I can go to the NPC locksmith and cheaply rip through 5 nelemar boxes in, literally, mere seconds.

IF I could actually find someone to do it for me, I'd have to wait and in that time I could get 4-5 more boxes.

It's a retarded set up.

EDIT TO ADD: I'd like to see some post cap advancement so I don't feel like playing a capped character is even worse of a grind.

[Latrinsorm]

What level of critter did the box come from? The higher the lock, the more is charged. Throw tough traps in there and the price climbs even higher. And somehow the box magically costs more when there is something more valuable inside. There are alot more variables than just racial bias.1 to 50. I certainly agree that race is not the only factor, but in my experience it's the only thing that puts people into the red at all, let alone all the time.
If he were so reasonable for certain people and not others, people would actually prefer to take him there than a PC and just hand their boxes to that person getting the deals.I never said he was reasonable or that the deal was necessarily worthwhile (I even said it was certainly more expensive). The only thing I said you agreed with - characters do not necessarily lose money.

[Heshinar]

Okay I don't need the extra account to survive. BUT it makes things easier.

Hell AG. My Level 11 Warrior can kill better than my 15 Wizard. Which is not bad since I don't have much of a clue about Wizards for the most part. So I get a bounty for the Wizard and tag the Warrior along to help with it.

It is very hard to solo even like level sometimes depending on your profession and ability to get a spellup.

I think the three biggest things to change that I can think of are these.

1: Better Server (More Robust)
2: Better Pipe - OC3 Maybe
3: Remove Cap and re-develop the system to expand higher and higher levels.

The third one by far I think is the most important.

The only thing about higher levels I could see as a problem is this. What do you do about Spells? How far can you expand the spell ideas before it is redundant.

After all if I owned GS I would definately need other people on the development team to help me get the right things done.

[Ashliana]

What would I do to fix the game? Well, ideally, fire whosever idea it was to eliminate the casual playerbase and then suck the dedicated playerbase bone-dry.

Gemstone had what it needed to be successful, when it was free. Don't get me wrong--I don't think charging for Gemstone was necessarily a bad move. But it was made very clear that Simu didn't care about the wants of either playerbase. Else, why implement drastic, massively unpopular changes?

I paid for six years of premium service; mostly because I type so quickly I NEEDED the extra type-ahead lines. Is there any reason, at all, in this day and age where bandwidth is enormous and text is tiny, that everyone should not have ten, twenty, etc, lines of type-ahead?

In any case, I think the worst decision they made was making the basic level of service cost money, and an equally bad decision: requiring a credit card for a trial. What is the point of this? Do they think that the trial system would be massively abused? Just seems unlikely.

I saw the game go from 3,500 players on at max, to today, where we're lucky to top 500. Why? Because Simutronics hasn't responded to the gaming market competitively. I think Gemstone is unique, special and the playerbase is priceless. But to a new player, it seems audacious and removed from reality to not only charge the same price as MMOs charge, charge much MORE for "Premium" and "Platinum."

Platinum was another horrible decision. Let's milk either the most affluent or most devoted slice of our playerbase, further fracture the dwindling playerbase, and in return give them the direct GM participation we should have been giving the NORMAL game.

Summary: If I controlled the game, I'd make "normal" service free, "Premium" service $15 a month, re-incorporate Platinum into the main game and reverse the treasure changes to being purely level-based.

[Latrinsorm]

A fan of hyperbole, I take it.

[Parkbandit]

When was GS free... when you had to pay AOL or GEnie by the hour? My wife didn't think it was free.. "You paid FIVE HUNDRED DOLLARS TO PLAY A GAME!?!?"

And let's be honest.. if you want to make 'regular' GS free, then you are dumber than anyone at Simutronics.

[Ashliana]

When was GS free... when you had to pay AOL or GEnie by the hour? My wife didn't think it was free.. "You paid FIVE HUNDRED DOLLARS TO PLAY A GAME!?!?"

And let's be honest.. if you want to make 'regular' GS free, then you are dumber than anyone at Simutronics.

When I played Gemstone on AOL, I did not have to pay by the hour. I paid for Internet access only, which was unlimited per month..

Anyway... In order to attract new players, you need to make people feel open and with as little at stake as possible. A credit-card based that automatically renews at the end is about as far from the ideal solution as possible.

What does a free base-line Gemstone accomplish?

1) It gets all those hardcore people who have left in annoyance over various, horrible changes Simutronics has implemented, to come back and see how it actually ended up, as well as casual people who left because they weren't willing to pay for it.

2) People will play anything that's free. Anything. Look at RuneScape, Maple Story, etc. This might not be the ideal player for Gemstone, but it can also attract the same kind of people we were when we started.

At this point, every time there's a new high-profile MMO, people leave. Every time Simu implements an unwelcome change, like the treasure alterations, people leave. Something needs to be done to counteract people leaving. Charging absurd amounts for even basic service--one character slot for $15 a month?

People like to make excuses for the things they like. But when I can buy a 750GB drive for less than $100 (it's possible, trust me), I find it hard to believe a text-based character profile takes up enough space to justify charging for each character slot.

Nickel-and-diming people for every little thing, like Simu does, is not the way to attract a thriving playerbase.

[Methais]

Despite all the gayness that happens in GS, Simu just needs to advertise. They literally do no advertising at all.

Also can you link me to the 750GB hard drive for under $100? I'm still using my 2 80GB hard drives :(

[CrystalTears]

Also can you link me to the 750GB hard drive for under $100? I'm still using my 2 80GB hard drives :(
QFMFT! Let's have the info!

[Ashliana]

Despite all the gayness that happens in GS, Simu just needs to advertise. They literally do no advertising at all.

Also can you link me to the 750GB hard drive for under $100? I'm still using my 2 80GB hard drives :(

Do you know the site NewEgg? They're ridiculously cheap. Sometimes they have fantastic deals; other times you can get stuff "open box" that works fine--somebody decided to return it for whatever reason (unless broken) and they can't sell it as new.

Looking today, you can get a 500GB for $80 or a 750GB for $119.

Sometimes they have special deals, like I said. The prices fluctuate quite a bit.

[Sypher]

If they redid their pricing plan they could draw in a flood of people at the runescape level and the "casual" hobbyist AND make more money.

Possible Pricing Plan:
They could make the game completely free for players up to level 10, and within the confines of the Landing/Icemule/Solhaven and a couple of surrounding areas. If they want to move outside of the world and goto level 50 they can pay 7.99 per month. For full features and full level access to cap they pay 11.99 per month. For additional character slots its 1.00 on a account. For Premium which includes all the premium goodies, the price becomes 19.99 per month.

You can get a ton of multi accounts opening up, and draw in a ton of newbies who'll get hooked on the gateway pricing which is free. Kinda like how drugdealers tell ya, the first one's on me... which is kinda wrong now that I think of it but anyhow. Yeah, think that'll really boost the pop and the revenue for simu.

[Methais]

If they redid their pricing plan they could draw in a flood of people at the runescape level and the "casual" hobbyist AND make more money.

Possible Pricing Plan:
They could make the game completely free for players up to level 10, and within the confines of the Landing/Icemule/Solhaven and a couple of surrounding areas. If they want to move outside of the world and goto level 50 they can pay 7.99 per month. For full features and full level access to cap they pay 11.99 per month. For additional character slots its 1.00 on a account. For Premium which includes all the premium goodies, the price becomes 19.99 per month.

You can get a ton of multi accounts opening up, and draw in a ton of newbies who'll get hooked on the gateway pricing which is free. Kinda like how drugdealers tell ya, the first one's on me... which is kinda wrong now that I think of it but anyhow. Yeah, think that'll really boost the pop and the revenue for simu.

This makes far too much sense for Simu to ever consider it.

[Ashliana]

I agree. Makes a lot of sense, but I very much doubt Simu would care.

[CrystalTears]

I'd be happy if they made basic and premium the same thing, charged $20, and only charged extra for events and the Four Winds area.

[Ashliana]

I'd be happy if they made basic and premium the same thing, charged $20, and only charged extra for events and the Four Winds area.

I'd agree that it would be better than the current system to charge the flat fee for Premium and get rid of "basic."

It makes it really hard to justify the price when you're trying to get a friend who is otherwise interested in trying it, when they see the horrendous pricing and how comparatively little you get for Basic--when basic costs as much as a full account in basically every other MMO, including the top dog of the moment.

[CrystalTears]

I just don't want to pay $2.50 for each additional character (having three characters costs $20 anyway) and really want lockers in all towns (and manifests) back.

[DCSL]

In addition to Sypher's interesting pricing plan, I would institute a curriculum of customer service standards with required participation and enforcement to go with it. Many of the GMs behave in an extremely unprofessional manner and they are, for lack of better paid and trained representatives, the face of Simutronics.

[Lucas]

The making it free up to level 10 is actually a brilliant idea. It'll not only get more people hooked but get that old GS bustling feel that I miss. Plus, even though you can only get to level 10 that doesn't mean you can't do some RPing. Which I think is more important then levels.

[Rocktar]

Update the website. There is absolutely no excuse for any information on the official documentation to ever be more than a few minutes out of date, especially when dynamic websites only take updating a fricking text document. Sheesh, give me access and I bet I could have the whole thing updated in a week and that is only messing with things part time after work.

I like the changes proposed for the pricing schedule. The flat 19.95 for premium, 4.95 or free basic, 1 dollar per additional character for basic and end the plat after a re-merge with maybe a straight move over back to general population.

The level cap and such is not the problem, the lack of over all change in the game is. Focus some development for the higher end of the scale because frankly that is where all the long time characters end up.

Enforce good documentation for coding so that if a GM disappears, the ability to mess with their stuff does not.

Implement a customer service rating for GM, GH and everyone that interacts with customers so that problems can be isolated, additional training can be implemented or others options followed through on.

Get rid of the “Disneyification” family game or not, kids see more on MTV, Nickelodeon and at school than they will ever see in GS. The overbearing, over dramatic and overly intrusive monitoring hurts the game, get rid of it.

Implement a real search feature for the boards and a player accessible, though not modifiable archive of things past 3-6 months old.

Get the server(s) on decent machines, I mean hell, high end quad core machines with high speed raid 5 drives and stable OS cost less than 2K each, get a pair and run them in parallel for backup redundancy. Get the pipe updated and speak with the ISP to get better overall throughput guarantee. Also, see what can be done to reduce over all net transport requirements. I mean shit, this is a text based game, room descriptions and so on for the entire game can’t be over say 100 megs, damn, make it an optional download for the install and reduce the net traffic needed and thus the speed.

Make any script that is beyond the ctrl-r for resting, known transport scripts and maybe .guildx and a few others alert the staff if they run for more than say 3 minutes. That way, you want to catch script hunters, then either they will have to be very clever or there every 3 minutes to get caught.

Get the ALAE going with making new areas and such and actually USE the skills of the people that volunteered to work for free. Adding critters is simple, we have a critter list, let them build the area, add history and maybe develop an introduction RP event and have a suggested critter list to go with it, with a little dev QC, BINGO, new hunting areas done and ready to go every couple weeks or so. I bet that would make people consider coming back. Especially for the supposedly promised hunting areas for 4 winds.

Scrap the PRO system, fold it into the CHE and call it good. Make the PROs with buildings and such meet the guidelines for CHE admission or make them not take up resources. Splitting them was a crock of shit and wastes resources, time and caused a LOT of bent feelings. Not a smart move, especially since the whole damn separation was to prevent having all these new house buildings pop up and houses to crop up with bank accounts pouring money into the economy.

Speaking of economy, make a lot more nifty things to buy at high prices. Like the neato enhancives in the treasure system, people pay millions for a good one, then fine, make good ones buyable over the shelf at town merchants. Yeah, make them cost hundreds of thousands or millions like on the boards, make them non-rechargeable and crumbly. That should drain some silver from the market.

Make padding available in town, as well as weighting, on a per charge basis. Rich would pay tons to have 100 charges of heavy crit weighting added to a weapon, will that unbalance the game, hell no, no more than having a pack of blue crystals charged on the reach or a pocket mage to cast spirit strike.

Make a simple auto altering system where you can put anything in, turn in your note for say 3 million silver and you get your item altered. Isn’t that want pay events are anyway?

Make some kind of upkeep fee in the game. Say, in silvers, for every hour logged in for food, lodging, entertainment, shoe strings, whatever. Say, 100 silver. Not a lot, but enough to make sure that if you are logged in, you are playing and it will drain a little silver from the economy. If you belong to a CHE house, then say it is 50 silver an hour. After all, we aren’t vagrants, we are heroic or villainous, larger than life types.

Fix imbedding, enchanting and infusing to allow a more realistic level of work and base it on skills entirely.

Have a casino and gambling all the time, with the same kinds of games as Vegas and the same odds, I am sure that will drain a TON of silver from the game. Make staying there a lot more expensive too unless you have played a casino game in the last 15 minutes, say, 500 silver an hour or part spent in that town or location. Yeah a few will get rich, most will loose some money and all will have a vacation spot for spending coin and having some fun. Make tunics to wear with logos and such for casinos to sell in game or give away as a premium for coming and staying a while.

Get rid of the whinny assed PvP restrictions. Also, make it policy that griefers will be banned for 10 days per offense (character ban, not account) if there is no logged interaction with the target. Make a toggle where you can make a server based log turn on for you that will capture the last 5 minutes of your interactions and such. I know they can do that crap, they have logs, make a way that log snippits can be triggered by you to save so that if you are griefed, you can capture the log so they don't have to search for it. If you don't complain in say, 24 hours, then the server deletes it. You also have an option to download it to your local machine to use in reference if needed. Multiple complaints against a griefer in a 6 month time will result in fines in game (silver), account lock out (month at a time) and potential permanent banishment. Want to be a dick, then fine, be a dick, want to harass someone out of the game, then get the boot.

Add an adult only location where you can go to rent rooms for adult things and have adult facilities available for such.

Make the action command less retarded so that you type the action and it looks like every other action in the game.

Quit nerfing everything in sight. If something is deficient, then bring it up, don’t push others down. Squares should be able to stand toe to toe with pures and so on.

Get rid of retarded audience reps for all the guilds, no one likes them, no one wants them and people always complain of screen scroll.

That should be enough for now.

Rocktar the Scumbag

[justincredible]

um, yeah, what he said

[Xeromist]

I'd remove Tsin and any/all of his affiliates. That's about it.

...this is the part where I suddenly kiss my account and belongings goodbye, huh?

[LMingrone]

-PvP server or town.
-More GMs acting like they owe something to PAYING customers instead of like the guards from the Stanford prison experiment.
-Spend more on advertising
-Two girls at once.

[DCSL]

Two girls, one cup. Michiko can be the cup.


...I kid. Mostly.

[LMingrone]

Damn, sorry for the edit.

[Lucas]

Again, thumbs up on the pricing plan which will generate the 2000+ players and BIG THUMBs up for the idea of a PvP town.

Maybe not a town, maybe the "badlands" like the border kingdoms in Age of Conan.

Plus... a small scale looting system is allowed. Muwhahahaha.

[thefarmer]

Update the website. There is absolutely no excuse for any information on the official documentation to ever be more than a few minutes out of date, especially when dynamic websites only take updating a fricking text document. Sheesh, give me access and I bet I could have the whole thing updated in a week and that is only messing with things part time after work.

I like the changes proposed for the pricing schedule. The flat 19.95 for premium, 4.95 or free basic, 1 dollar per additional character for basic and end the plat after a re-merge with maybe a straight move over back to general population.

The level cap and such is not the problem, the lack of over all change in the game is. Focus some development for the higher end of the scale because frankly that is where all the long time characters end up.

Enforce good documentation for coding so that if a GM disappears, the ability to mess with their stuff does not.

Implement a customer service rating for GM, GH and everyone that interacts with customers so that problems can be isolated, additional training can be implemented or others options followed through on.

Get rid of the “Disneyification” family game or not, kids see more on MTV, Nickelodeon and at school than they will ever see in GS. The overbearing, over dramatic and overly intrusive monitoring hurts the game, get rid of it.

Implement a real search feature for the boards and a player accessible, though not modifiable archive of things past 3-6 months old.

Get the server(s) on decent machines, I mean hell, high end quad core machines with high speed raid 5 drives and stable OS cost less than 2K each, get a pair and run them in parallel for backup redundancy. Get the pipe updated and speak with the ISP to get better overall throughput guarantee. Also, see what can be done to reduce over all net transport requirements. I mean shit, this is a text based game, room descriptions and so on for the entire game can’t be over say 100 megs, damn, make it an optional download for the install and reduce the net traffic needed and thus the speed.

Make any script that is beyond the ctrl-r for resting, known transport scripts and maybe .guildx and a few others alert the staff if they run for more than say 3 minutes. That way, you want to catch script hunters, then either they will have to be very clever or there every 3 minutes to get caught.

Get the ALAE going with making new areas and such and actually USE the skills of the people that volunteered to work for free. Adding critters is simple, we have a critter list, let them build the area, add history and maybe develop an introduction RP event and have a suggested critter list to go with it, with a little dev QC, BINGO, new hunting areas done and ready to go every couple weeks or so. I bet that would make people consider coming back. Especially for the supposedly promised hunting areas for 4 winds.

Scrap the PRO system, fold it into the CHE and call it good. Make the PROs with buildings and such meet the guidelines for CHE admission or make them not take up resources. Splitting them was a crock of shit and wastes resources, time and caused a LOT of bent feelings. Not a smart move, especially since the whole damn separation was to prevent having all these new house buildings pop up and houses to crop up with bank accounts pouring money into the economy.

Speaking of economy, make a lot more nifty things to buy at high prices. Like the neato enhancives in the treasure system, people pay millions for a good one, then fine, make good ones buyable over the shelf at town merchants. Yeah, make them cost hundreds of thousands or millions like on the boards, make them non-rechargeable and crumbly. That should drain some silver from the market.

Make padding available in town, as well as weighting, on a per charge basis. Rich would pay tons to have 100 charges of heavy crit weighting added to a weapon, will that unbalance the game, hell no, no more than having a pack of blue crystals charged on the reach or a pocket mage to cast spirit strike.

Make a simple auto altering system where you can put anything in, turn in your note for say 3 million silver and you get your item altered. Isn’t that want pay events are anyway?

Make some kind of upkeep fee in the game. Say, in silvers, for every hour logged in for food, lodging, entertainment, shoe strings, whatever. Say, 100 silver. Not a lot, but enough to make sure that if you are logged in, you are playing and it will drain a little silver from the economy. If you belong to a CHE house, then say it is 50 silver an hour. After all, we aren’t vagrants, we are heroic or villainous, larger than life types.

Fix imbedding, enchanting and infusing to allow a more realistic level of work and base it on skills entirely.

Have a casino and gambling all the time, with the same kinds of games as Vegas and the same odds, I am sure that will drain a TON of silver from the game. Make staying there a lot more expensive too unless you have played a casino game in the last 15 minutes, say, 500 silver an hour or part spent in that town or location. Yeah a few will get rich, most will loose some money and all will have a vacation spot for spending coin and having some fun. Make tunics to wear with logos and such for casinos to sell in game or give away as a premium for coming and staying a while.

Get rid of the whinny assed PvP restrictions. Also, make it policy that griefers will be banned for 10 days per offense (character ban, not account) if there is no logged interaction with the target. Make a toggle where you can make a server based log turn on for you that will capture the last 5 minutes of your interactions and such. I know they can do that crap, they have logs, make a way that log snippits can be triggered by you to save so that if you are griefed, you can capture the log so they don't have to search for it. If you don't complain in say, 24 hours, then the server deletes it. You also have an option to download it to your local machine to use in reference if needed. Multiple complaints against a griefer in a 6 month time will result in fines in game (silver), account lock out (month at a time) and potential permanent banishment. Want to be a dick, then fine, be a dick, want to harass someone out of the game, then get the boot.

Add an adult only location where you can go to rent rooms for adult things and have adult facilities available for such.

Make the action command less retarded so that you type the action and it looks like every other action in the game.

Quit nerfing everything in sight. If something is deficient, then bring it up, don’t push others down. Squares should be able to stand toe to toe with pures and so on.

Get rid of retarded audience reps for all the guilds, no one likes them, no one wants them and people always complain of screen scroll.

That should be enough for now.

Rocktar the Scumbag



This would be an entirely different game and one not owned by Simu.

[Rocktar]

Yep, that is true, but the question was what if *I* owned it. Of course, I think my version would have more players and be more fun. I could be wrong. I also won't be a GM any time soon as I tend to piss them off too much, get posts pulled and so on.

Oh, and work on customer service. Did I mention working on customer service yet? Yeah, need to work on customer service.

Rocktar the Scumbag

[Celephais]

Despite all the gayness that happens in GS, Simu just needs to advertise. They literally do no advertising at all.

Also can you link me to the 750GB hard drive for under $100? I'm still using my 2 80GB hard drives :(
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822152100
Enter code: EMCAGBHBG at checkout for $20 off... $100 for 750GB.

[Paradii]

If they would lower the basic price to between 5-10 dollars. I'd probably re-activate even if i would only log in once a month. The current price is pretty redunkulous for any game, let only GS

[Sypher]

I seriously believe they can earn more money if they lower their prices. There is just this massive pop where if you would lower the price the floodgates will open.

[arlia]

Or at least make it so you can have at least three characters for $5 to $10 a month. I know several who would play the game if it only cost $10 a month and they could have more than one or two characters.

I would also make a "Fallen" for those who want that.

[RainyDay2080]

I think he had to wait 5 years to talk his parents into giving him the millions, cause he wasn't willing to bump them off to get it right away.

RD

[CrystalTears]

Doesn't the guy who started The Dragon Society own Gemstone now?
No.

[Loyrl]

There is little to no MA'ing in WOW. Yes, it can be done, but it requires two computers.

Maybe on your server, and I had two wow accounts, and could run both on one computer.

[longshot]

There's a huge difference between a free game and a game you pay for, no matter much you actually pay. Even a dollar a month is a huge deterrent.

So I don't see how lowering the price by a few dollars a month is going to bring some huge influx of 14 year olds currently playing Runescape. It's not going to.

The game is more fun with more players. I would try to get back the people that used to play.

After the move to the web, there were times when over 2,000 people were on. Obviously, the player base is not what it once was. But, I'm sure a lot of these people have, at some point, thought about coming back. Even on these boards, how often do we get a "should I play again?" thread?

I think the biggest problem is that when people do come back, their friends aren't there. It's tough to come back and not know anybody.

I would promote September (or whatever) as "The month when everyone comes back." Former players would most likely have enough interest to see what's new in the game, or whatever happened to so and so. Character restorals would be free for that month, and if they want to keep playing, then charge them some nominal fee to keep their character.

... Then I would burn down one of the towns. The game is too big.

[Sean of the Thread]

There's a huge difference between a free game and a game you pay for, no matter much you actually pay. Even a dollar a month is a huge deterrent.

So I don't see how lowering the price by a few dollars a month is going to bring some huge influx of 14 year olds currently playing Runescape. It's not going to.

The game is more fun with more players. I would try to get back the people that used to play.

After the move to the web, there were times when over 2,000 people were on. Obviously, the player base is not what it once was. But, I'm sure a lot of these people have, at some point, thought about coming back. Even on these boards, how often do we get a "should I play again?" thread?

I think the biggest problem is that when people do come back, their friends aren't there. It's tough to come back and not know anybody.

I would promote September (or whatever) as "The month when everyone comes back." Former players would most likely have enough interest to see what's new in the game, or whatever happened to so and so. Character restorals would be free for that month, and if they want to keep playing, then charge them some nominal fee to keep their character.

... Then I would burn down one of the towns. The game is too big.

WWII ONLINE BE does this from time to time every year. The activate every account every created as a "Welcome back soldier" promotion. People can come back to check out the changes and get addicted again. It works well as the population surges hugely and a fair percentage resubscribe for awhile at least.

It's like every other mmorpg in that aspect.. people come and go but it's a cool program that works well. Simu should consider something like that.

[Lulfas]

.. Then I would burn down one of the towns. The game is too big.



That'd fix so many problems it hurts. Just shut down the EN as a whole, bring everyone back in, and work on having a community and not a bunch of empty rooms.

[Rocktar]

Nah, burn down Zul, well, cave it in, I mean really, unless a merchant is there, the only reason to go there is to join Sunfist, right? Does anyone actually ever really go there long term? It is majorly just out of whack, not a neewb town, not a high end, not anything really unless you fit into the levels to power hunt there and even then, welllllllll


Rocktar the Scumbag

[Warriorbird]

They're unwilling to burn anything. I find it kinda sad. I'd just do a hard border (and potential ways of sneaking across) between the EN and the Landing area.

[Borismere]

Make the game completely free until you title. Restrict access to all but the Landing and Landing proper I.E. Graveyard etc.,no GM services including merchants and fests quests etc. until you start paying the monthly. You'll get a massive influx of people, maybe more then the pre-web move.

Also, no multi accounting on free accounts. I would estimate anywhere from 2000-3000 people on peak hours. Out of those I would estimate at least 1000 -1500 are paying customers. Thats still a heck ton better then the 700 max you get now.