Paying for PW
 

First of all, i want to say how stupid i think this idea is...
The downfall of graal is slowly coming because of :

1. the first p2p server (G2k1) , ok stefan needs some cashmonies, and as long as we can play classic servers, this is fine, well, acceptable.

2. All of graal goes p2p. This was a stupid move, stupid, you lost like over 1/4 of your fanbase.

(smartmove)3. you let trial accounts stay. (badmove) you put ungodly restrictions on them, x.x

4. And now you want us to pay for the server we build, hmmm, stefan and unix, what exactly will you pay for?


Also, j/w, will servers already up have to pay too?

Re: Paying for PW
 

Gah, I wish people would think about things from all angles before forming this kind of opinion. You say it was stupid, but do you have financial data to support this claim? Can you show that their profits fell? Like heck. It's pretty obvious that they make more money now than when they let players play for free.

Restrictions make people upgrade, yeah? That's the whole point.

They will pay for 99% of the server costs, all official development costs, any advertising costs, things like that. If you don't want to pay for your server to go online then don't. Nobody's forcing you to.

Not the good/popular ones.

I was going to reply to this but Kaimetsu summed up everything I was going to say.

Lost 3/4th's of there fan base? Just because 3/4th's of graal population where people who where just interested in getting something for nothing.

Also people can donate to the servers they play on and player worlds can break even and not have to pay anything. I know I'd support a server that I played on if it ment staying up. :) As would many people who have a few bucks here or there that they can invest in something they enjoy.

Just because you want something for nothing. Or as little as possible doesnt make it stupid. -_-

Re: Paying for PW
 

Oh yeah man like...it's so terrible that people can't pay a low price to have full privileges to play in classic, and player worlds with no restrictions. Stefan and unixmad are bad people because they’re trying to make a some revenue off of a product in which they invest time, and money in to. Honestly... -_-;; If people don’t want to pay for things on Graal, then they don’t have to stay. That is always an option.

1. i said 1/4, not 3/4
2. well, i am not going to leave, i will pay, its juss all the people they are going to lose...

'Lose' is a poor choice of words. Perhaps 'evict' or 'dispose of' would be better.

Sorry my bad got mixed up when posting on the 1/4 to 3/4 numbers. :)

You cant really lose free loaders. :)

If you aren't devoted enough to making a playerworld that you're not willing to pay to have it up, I don't think your playerworld is going to be very good.

If players like graal that much (which the better bunch of us do like graal that much) we are paying for it, the idea is to stop all these millions of accounts, hackers and people who spoil it for the rest of us as they can no longer come online and say "**** YOU'' and then get another account and do the same, you have to PM them first which is a better idea. and Paying for PWs is for UC or really poor populated ones, its for the best. If you want FREE graal and FREE pws then give Unix 6 lucky lottery numbers and you never know.

Just to let you know, they aren't sure how this is going to work. So wait until they announce it and then complain :p.

I couldn't agree more :)

I think they gained alot more people after the went p2p because before p2p there was like about 200 on main srever and now theres like 500+ on all servers combined

did someone hit you in the head with a brick?

No, no;
Graal "lost" a lot of "players" as soon as it went Registration Required For All Classic Servers (R2P). These players fell into two groups - those that were too cheap to pay for the game/those that thought Graal unworthy of the $15 investment, and those that would later upgrade - either because of a temporary argument, because they were out of money at the time, or because they used to belong to the first group but realized over time that they were Graalcoholic and needed a fix. ;)
Graal has since gained (or regained) a substantial ammount of these players. It is nearing the high-water mark - Graal had roughly 300 players on Classic, 100 on Bomy Moon, and 100 on the other PWs combined. It doesn't usually average 500 accounts like it used to, but it will in time. Meaning that yes, Graal will soon have more paying customers online than it had nonpaying customers a couple years ago. It is less than Graal would have in a hypothetical world where Graal never went pay, but only in such a hypothetical world that Graal ran without server costs.

Incidentally, as of last check Graal's only breaking even - it covers server costs, but Unixmad still has to pay Stefan's salary out-of-pocket. They get around an average of $10 a month net, including the months when they lose money. The overhead on a massively resource-eating server like Graal's is prohibitive.

Here's my only complaint about having to pay to play...We don't have enough options...I don't like having to buy everything in a package deal like we do now...For example, a lot of us who purchased gold accounts do not even use half of the features. Like me, I only play classic, so why should I have to pay for graal gold also? I would be more than happy to pay a fee for just classic, but I don't think it's fair that people who don't want to play gold HAVE to buy it just to play classic...It's kinda crappy...

Sir Pickles
BTW - I realize that those of us who got lucky and purchased graal gold for 2 bucks don't ever have to play for classic, but I'm mostly talking about people who want new classic accounts etc...

There is some truth to his statement. Because of the p2p Graal, new content has been made available or made possible. This is what attracted new customers. To say that going p2p had a negative effect on Graal is only looking at one side of the coin. Most of the players that probably whined about the p2p stuff eventually paid for it and most were probably satisfied to a degree.

You don't have to anymore. You can get just forum access by buying a VIP account.

....didn't that happen when Classic servers went Lifetime Registration?

*checks*...huh, I guess not. *shrugs* It was gonna be $15 for just Classic, but I guess everyone opted for $19 and three months Gold for $4. Maybe it was there and vanished...yeah, though, they could stand to have some more attractive deals on that page. We were talking about that in Main, like Platinum Membership, a combo Gold/VIP at a fraction of the combined price...

I saw on the meter thing like before Christmas that we had about 450 players.

errrrr I pay almost 185.00 a year now with things that involve Npulse so I wouldn't say we aren't devoted to Npulse but to pay to have it online, that is very doubtful I would.

Out of curiousity, where does all that go?

Yeah i'd like to know also, i assume 35ish goes to npulse's domain name and maybe a pay forums??? other than that i'm lost

For last year 2002

$ 15 Domain name

$ 69.00 Site maintance ( I own the site)

$ 39.00 +39.00 is for Moonies and I's Gold accounts

$ 19.00 VIP account for me
-------------------------------------------
$ 181.00


Granted the VIP account may not be nessary , but in order to keep up with Graal and everything that is going on , this will benifit Npulse if I do.
This is what I spent last year , this year it should come down with the VIP accounts and we would still have access to the Forums, which I think is also nessary to have to run a PW. Otherwise you cannot keep up on new things or rules for PWs.

added note : a year and a half ago when I first got the site I shelled out $200.00 for it , to buy the space on the servers. This is not counting the $75.00 and then some I lost in a England Hosting Co. that screwed me over.

good god! I can get a server better than yours for free :O (web)

Ok I didn't read it all but...

Heres a FACT that may be put in Place, if you continue to have high amounts of people playing your PW each and every day [This will be impossible soon due to the vast ammounts of PWs that are up but still] about 100 people, You may get paid for having.. such a good PW.

Thats what I've heard anyway, people like MoonGod could use it to help pay things like website.. And maybe if the staff need an account upgrade but cant get to pay it , that money would pay for it, other wise its going to be a fight for who gets the money (Sent to Manager I suppose, but what he/her does with it may cause argument)

Don't you think that is a pretty stupid thing to say since you have no idea what I have and what is availible to me on my site? Not to say I own the web space and you don't.

It's not necessarily a stupid thing to say. Perhaps he is ignoring what is available and concentrating on what you use. Although even then I don't know for sure if he would be correct.

What nice rationalizing... wonder if that would work on my parents..? :)

hehe, if you got the right contacts, free php and a few free mysql databases isn't that hard to get, domains aren't that expensive either

He doesn't know what I have, he doesn't know the disk space or bandwidth or anything, so to make an out of the blue statement like he did, doesn't show much intelligence on his part. The options you have on your site makes all the difference in the world on price verses free sites. What do I need to do have him list what he has opposed to what I have just to prove he doesn't know what he is talking about? :\

True, but he could make logical deductions based on estimations of file sizes and traffic. It's possible for him to check what you use just by searching the site, so it would be possible for him to compare that against what you pay for. Again, I do not know if the hosting truly is reasonably priced, I'm just saying that he is not necessarily as unintelligent as you suggest.

He may not be but his post was because it lacked any facts to back up what he said.