Lord Whirlin
03-30-2004, 04:31 AM
Well, I wrote a nice letter to simutronics...
Let me first start by saying that I've been a loyal player of gemstone since it's roots on America On-line. I joined with my character, Whirlin, at the time when Simutronics was releasing it's first version of the wizard front end. Since then I'd dealt with the switch over to the internet, the introduction of charging for the game, an unjust arrest IG that cost me 80 million silver worth of equipment (which was declared a week later no longer an arrestable offense), the turmoil around the introduction of reallocation and Growing Pains, the long awaited change to Gemstone 4. I have been walking with Simutronics in all of it's major steps. I've made friends, I've made enemies, I've even gotten married in Elanthia, and I've met more people through Gemstone than anything else on the internet.
As a student at -edited- College, which my e-mail address should directly convey, I understand the costs involved with the upgrading of the systems and servers to gemstone 4, as well as the costs of the programming that went into the system. However, after the double-billing that occurred recently, and the current announcement of price increases, I can only fore see the downfall of Simutronics corporation as a result. I do not mean to come across sounding condescending, or bitter, but I merely feel that your recent call for financial help has occurred too quickly. I also do not wish to write a letter which contains the purpose of simply complaining about the financial burden it places upon myself, I wish to offer suggestions as well.
The changes that have been recently made to the premium membership are extravagant. The current price of the premium account does not accommodate for the amount of benefits they receive. Currently, a basic account, plus 10 additional character slots is equal to the price of a premium account. With a premium account, the account holder is allowed 10 character slots, therefore making the overhead cost of the account equal to a standard account, plus 1 character slot. Therefore, the difference in base cost between a standard account and a premium account is just the cost of the 1 slot. Under this pretext, the Simutronics corporation is stating that the in game ability to own a house, with customizable furniture, layouts, and actions; put extra strain on the server, by the utilization of extra typed lines ahead; having access to Frost Acres, which not only has a universal bank (making promissory note exchange rates obsolete) that gives an interest rate, but also allows players an easy way to transfer items from across Elanthia in a matter of seconds, using two mules; the access of special merchants, which the man-hours is then paid for by the corporation; plus other benefits that I am probably unaware of, having only been premium once for a month.
I do not preach for an increase in cost to premium members, on the contrary, I believe their costs are substantial enough monetarily. I believe that the biggest way to turn a profit out of this market would be to lower the allotted character slots per premium account. This would save a burden of data storage on the server computers, as well as increase the number of purchased character slots per account. However, there are other paths that can be taken.
Currently, I am unaware of any affiliate program or marketing done by the Simutronics Corporation. The only system that I know about is the buddy referral system, in which a member obtains a buddy point for each member that they refer. However, the buddy system is long past due for an overhaul. First, the rewards from being drawn in the buddy raffle are meager. Lets face it, alters are commonplace nowadays, and I don't think Simutronics has hosted a quest for players since the conversion to gemstone 4. Secondly, there are not enough names being drawn from this raffle, and not enough marketing of the events to cause an impact on the players. Lastly, the website has not been updated to reflect the current use of the buddy point system. The last recorded winners were in September of 2002. However, this can be fixed with a few solutions, First, to solve the rewards issue, I would recommend reinstating the 'replacement ticket' as a reward. I forget the official name of these tickets, but if my memory serves me correctly, it replaces 1 item that you've lost over the years, due to janitor, game crash, implosion, or any other miscellaneous act. Another option would be to have more unique items raffled each month as a reward, similarly to the raffles that occur at paid-for merchants. To solve the second problem of lack of publicity, it would be beneficial for the corporation to announce the raffles as they take place. A possible example would be to put it on the events calendar, and to set up a booth in the game, where people can look into the barrel and see how many tickets they have in there, and what the prizes are. Then they can watch as the names are drawn. As for the third problem, simply update the website as it happens, or write a quick program to copy the results from the in game raffle to the website.
I believe that if the Simutronics Corporation wishes to achieve the highest level of professional success, then it would be prudent to spend time searching for solutions to the problems at hand, before deflecting the costs onto the consumers.
I thank you for your time, and I hope that I have opened your eyes to alternatives and solutions.
I know it probably includes more grammatical mistakes and wrong words than I'd ever like to admit, but I believe the overall message remains. Did anyone else write letters to the corporation that they want to share? other than the cancelation notices?
-Edited because I don't feel like mentioning my college-
[Edited on 3-30-2004 by Lord Whirlin]
Let me first start by saying that I've been a loyal player of gemstone since it's roots on America On-line. I joined with my character, Whirlin, at the time when Simutronics was releasing it's first version of the wizard front end. Since then I'd dealt with the switch over to the internet, the introduction of charging for the game, an unjust arrest IG that cost me 80 million silver worth of equipment (which was declared a week later no longer an arrestable offense), the turmoil around the introduction of reallocation and Growing Pains, the long awaited change to Gemstone 4. I have been walking with Simutronics in all of it's major steps. I've made friends, I've made enemies, I've even gotten married in Elanthia, and I've met more people through Gemstone than anything else on the internet.
As a student at -edited- College, which my e-mail address should directly convey, I understand the costs involved with the upgrading of the systems and servers to gemstone 4, as well as the costs of the programming that went into the system. However, after the double-billing that occurred recently, and the current announcement of price increases, I can only fore see the downfall of Simutronics corporation as a result. I do not mean to come across sounding condescending, or bitter, but I merely feel that your recent call for financial help has occurred too quickly. I also do not wish to write a letter which contains the purpose of simply complaining about the financial burden it places upon myself, I wish to offer suggestions as well.
The changes that have been recently made to the premium membership are extravagant. The current price of the premium account does not accommodate for the amount of benefits they receive. Currently, a basic account, plus 10 additional character slots is equal to the price of a premium account. With a premium account, the account holder is allowed 10 character slots, therefore making the overhead cost of the account equal to a standard account, plus 1 character slot. Therefore, the difference in base cost between a standard account and a premium account is just the cost of the 1 slot. Under this pretext, the Simutronics corporation is stating that the in game ability to own a house, with customizable furniture, layouts, and actions; put extra strain on the server, by the utilization of extra typed lines ahead; having access to Frost Acres, which not only has a universal bank (making promissory note exchange rates obsolete) that gives an interest rate, but also allows players an easy way to transfer items from across Elanthia in a matter of seconds, using two mules; the access of special merchants, which the man-hours is then paid for by the corporation; plus other benefits that I am probably unaware of, having only been premium once for a month.
I do not preach for an increase in cost to premium members, on the contrary, I believe their costs are substantial enough monetarily. I believe that the biggest way to turn a profit out of this market would be to lower the allotted character slots per premium account. This would save a burden of data storage on the server computers, as well as increase the number of purchased character slots per account. However, there are other paths that can be taken.
Currently, I am unaware of any affiliate program or marketing done by the Simutronics Corporation. The only system that I know about is the buddy referral system, in which a member obtains a buddy point for each member that they refer. However, the buddy system is long past due for an overhaul. First, the rewards from being drawn in the buddy raffle are meager. Lets face it, alters are commonplace nowadays, and I don't think Simutronics has hosted a quest for players since the conversion to gemstone 4. Secondly, there are not enough names being drawn from this raffle, and not enough marketing of the events to cause an impact on the players. Lastly, the website has not been updated to reflect the current use of the buddy point system. The last recorded winners were in September of 2002. However, this can be fixed with a few solutions, First, to solve the rewards issue, I would recommend reinstating the 'replacement ticket' as a reward. I forget the official name of these tickets, but if my memory serves me correctly, it replaces 1 item that you've lost over the years, due to janitor, game crash, implosion, or any other miscellaneous act. Another option would be to have more unique items raffled each month as a reward, similarly to the raffles that occur at paid-for merchants. To solve the second problem of lack of publicity, it would be beneficial for the corporation to announce the raffles as they take place. A possible example would be to put it on the events calendar, and to set up a booth in the game, where people can look into the barrel and see how many tickets they have in there, and what the prizes are. Then they can watch as the names are drawn. As for the third problem, simply update the website as it happens, or write a quick program to copy the results from the in game raffle to the website.
I believe that if the Simutronics Corporation wishes to achieve the highest level of professional success, then it would be prudent to spend time searching for solutions to the problems at hand, before deflecting the costs onto the consumers.
I thank you for your time, and I hope that I have opened your eyes to alternatives and solutions.
I know it probably includes more grammatical mistakes and wrong words than I'd ever like to admit, but I believe the overall message remains. Did anyone else write letters to the corporation that they want to share? other than the cancelation notices?
-Edited because I don't feel like mentioning my college-
[Edited on 3-30-2004 by Lord Whirlin]