[MUD-Dev] Re: selling Godhoods

[Matthew Mihaly]

On Wed, 26 Apr 2000, lapsos wrote:

>   In general i've found in my experience the best and most creative
> immortals/gods have little to no money in which to pay a fee even a
> fraction of this.  In factuality I find that anyone who would be willing
> to pay even $100 for such a position would be more in it for the pure
> desire of having the position over actually Doing the job the position
> requires.  What you can call the rich pri*k theory.  In this I ask how do
> you handle people who opt to pay for the position simply to shove it in
> others faces.

My experience is different. My experience is _generally_ (certainly not
always) that the people who are the most competent are the people who are
either making a significant amount of money, or who (in the case of, say,
very talented college students, such as our lead coder) will make a lot of
money later in life.

>   During my time i've done just about everything in these senses.  I've
> been the newbie player, the vetern player.  I've down the building scene
> and have done light LOW work.  I currently do adminstration and coder
> work, as noted above, and also work on a client and a variety of other
> things.  In all my experience I have found that on a topic such as muds,
> which is generally seen as freeplay, people get extremely picky when costs
> come into play.  More often then not those who have not the ability to pay
> the costs are those who make the best players at the same time the worst
> players can be found in the ranks of those who are not willing to pay.  So
> my final questions are:

Heh. Considering that the combined playerbases for EQ/AC/UO probably
dwarfs the free-mud market, I'd say that people are perfectly willing to
accept costs. Frankly, if someone isn't willing to accept costs, I don't
give a damn, just as the manager of the local McDonalds doesn't give a
damn if someone thinks it is out of line to charge for food. Those sorts
of people are mainly irrelevant to a business, as they do not constitute
potential customers.

 
>   1. Among your paying immortals how many have actually been Worth it
>      compared to how many of your non-paying immortals have been worth it.

We dunno yet. I posted the original message about selling Godhoods
literally minutes after announcing to the game that we would be doing it.

>   2. What is it about your mud that is so spectacular that you charge for
>      it and how high is that charge, and how have players reacted to that
>      cost.  This also includes the charges for becoming a god, outside of
>      the general ability to piss players off what other amazing powers do
>      you give them with their fee.

What is so spectacular about Achaea would take VOLUMES to tell (kidding,
I'm not that egotistical). Look, the fact is, people pay us quite a bit of
money. They clearly think something is pretty damn spectacular (someone
just bought a 3 room house for over US$1000, for instance), and that's
good enough for me. I'm very customer-oriented (as opposed to the free-mud
world which, no offence, seems to be mainly about satisfying the ego of
the admins).


>   3. How willing are you, in the long run, to deal with the loss of what
>      could turn out to be the best players you could ever have just to
>      turn a profit and how profitable is that profit when all is said and
>      done.

The best players, from my perspective, are those who pay the most money,
or who encourage (through being interesting people, or good roleplayers,
or whatever) others to pay money. "Just to turn a profit" makes me chuckle
a bit I have to say. Turning a profit and keeping our best players are the
same goal, for the most part.


>   4. How do you handle critisism from those players and admistrators who
>      do not agree with a pay-to-play mud.

Hmm. Mainly I wake up every day and thank Me for the fact that I get to
make a pretty good living doing something I really quite enjoy. I'd
imagine other commerical types feel the same way. I wonder why this
question was directed at me, as opposed to, say, Raph? (incidentally, once
again, I point out that Achaea is NOT pay-to-play. There are no charges
for playing.)

 
>   In general I, personally, would never work for, play on or support a
> pay-to-play mud.  But everyone is allowed their own choices.  My greatest
> worry is with the influx of larger pseudo muds that are pay-to-play can
> give people a mis-conception of muds in general.  A lot of people I have
> delt with along these lines have assumed that either all muds are ptp or
> that only the good ones are.  While the total people who think along these
> lines is lesser than the total amount of mud players that number Is
> growing daily.

Yes, the influx of larger _muds_ (Achaea is a mud. Everquest is a mud,
etc.) probably will give a lot of people misconceptions about the nature
of muds in general, and thank god. Last thing I want is people thinking
that all muds are basically the same (ie the 1000+ diku clones).
--matt




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