[MUD-Dev] Buying benefits

[Corey Crawford]

-----Original Message-----
From: Neil Brown
> --- Matt Mihaly <the_logos at achaea.com> wrote:

>> even continues to make, a ton of money. Magic is a good example
>> of why to sell things, not a good example of why not to.nod

> So are you saying that any MUD developed using the same sort of
> buy-to-play method that MTG uses is guaranteed to be successful?
> I'm imagining a mud where you are able to purchase any number of
> "grab bags" of random equipment, stats, whatever, and throw out
> the junk until you have an uber-character.  Ehh, perhaps you're
> right, but I wouldn't play it.  I'm just not interested in being
> forced to compete financially with my fellow players in order to
> be a successful player.

Ok how about some other ideas then?

Personally, I'm hugely interested in any way to make my little
venture semi-profitable without charging subscriptions. "Why not
charge subscriptions?", asketh you. Well, generally speaking, most
text MUD players (and yes, my game is text) are too use to playing
free MUDs, thus being turned off by the idea that they might
actually have to pay to play.

I'd much rather offer some form of *optional* payment, but something
that would (obviously) be appealing enough that players would
actually do so.

So far we've talked about letting players buy things unassociated
with character power, such as:

  -- houses
  -- titles
  -- fashion statements (re-colored; re-names for text games)
  -- any other frills

Things that have to do with player power:

  -- stat increases
  -- skill increases
  -- weapons and armor

I mentioned utility things, such as:

  -- providing online guild/clan tools

And I really like Kevin L's idea of charging subscription fees for
belonging to a guild, which could very well tie in with the above
guild/clan tools.  (Letsee, you need at least 5 members to start a
guild, costing $20 to startup and then $3 per member a month after
that.. you get a guild website, special guild halls in the game,
special guild items (buyable with $$$, maybe comes with one), etc.) 
Hmm, I might just have to do that.

Other than Kevin's pay-to-belong-to-a-guild idea, none of these
affect gameplay. Which could very well be a good thing; but how
about some more ideas?

Along the lines of EBay and the major item selling that goes on
there, one of my ideas was a secure auction system tied into the
game. You could skim a bit off the top of the buying price and
things of that sort, but also be able to provide your players with
*secure* purchasing: at the moment of sale the sold items are
automatically transferred from the selling character to the buying
character, also eliminating the fact that people could auction
things they don't have. In an item centric game like EQ that'd work
well, not sure that'd work at all in a game that's hardly item
centric (like my own). Unless you could sell other things? Training
perhaps?

---
Corey Crawford | myrddin at seventh.net

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