Out of pure curiosity

[jerome]

why exactly can`t Jolt let one of the upcoming rounds be free, and also test some new "stuff" in the round too?

Oh, if not that atleast note that p2p speedgames suck. Make them free so enough players play & they are worth of actually playing.

[mist]

Originally Posted by _ryzekiel_

why exactly can`t Jolt let one of the upcoming rounds be free

jolt are a business, in order for them to give stuff for free you have to convinced them that they'll make money from it in the long run. while a free round may get people back, you'd have to prove that it'll also result in increased payments laterly - to the point where they'd cover the cost of a free round.

last i heard jolt were saying that planetarion doesn't make money, so i'm going to assume that's still the case. which means that a round of planetarion costs about 2000 accounts (isn't that about how many there are this round?) to run. demonstrating that a free round will result in 2000 more paid accounts might be a challenge

-mist

[jerome]

ah, there i was thinking they were people who wanted to give some back to the community in payback for some loyalty

[The Real Arfy]

Originally Posted by mist

demonstrating that a free round will result in 2000 more paid accounts might be a challenge

-mist

or 1000 accounts for two rounds
or 667 accounts for 3 rounds
or 500 accounts for 4 rounds

you get the picture

Sure, it probably won't make quite as much money as it costs, but I bet it would bring in alot more long-term players

[I am Idler]

Originally Posted by mist

jolt are a business, in order for them to give stuff for free you have to convinced them that they'll make money from it in the long run. while a free round may get people back, you'd have to prove that it'll also result in increased payments laterly - to the point where they'd cover the cost of a free round.


-mist

I dont see how Jolt can possibly defend a business plan that is simply aiding to milk whatever they can get out of planetarion and eventually close it when its starting to lose money. Instead of taking a risk with a potential profit.

Obviously we're constantly being told about the great plans Jolt have for PA.. but isnt it about time that they started realising they only announce these plans to the same people over and over again, without new people coming to the game?.

2-300 people does NOT count as a valid profit for one round, when the same ammount are leaving the game as a whole since they basicly find the stagnation in playercount horribly boring.

You dont NEED paid creators to maintain planetarion, you NEED a dedicated person from the community that is in touch with "everybody" and actually knows what he is doing.

Make one round free, annoaunce it a LONG time before the new round starts, and voilà.

Ofcourse I do not have a fancy degree, so obviously my thoughts cant hold any grounds in the real world of business echonomics, but hey... they just might

[mist]

Originally Posted by The Real Arfy

or 1000 accounts for two rounds
or 667 accounts for 3 rounds
or 500 accounts for 4 rounds

how many people do you think would pay for pa after a free round that wouldn't pay for it anyway? how many of those do you think would stay? realistically, i don't thnk you'd get 2000 person rounds out of a free round

-mist

[mist]

Originally Posted by I am Idler

I dont see how Jolt can possibly defend a business plan that is simply aiding to milk whatever they can get out of planetarion and eventually close it when its starting to lose money. Instead of taking a risk with a potential profit.

all products have a life cycle, planetarion is blatanlty approaching hte end of its life, at least in its current incarnation. without significant infestment, either in time or money i don't think pa's userbase is going to increase - therefore, as a business i guess the safest thing to do is milk it while it dies

Originally Posted by I am Idler

You dont NEED paid creators to maintain planetarion, you NEED a dedicated person from the community that is in touch with "everybody" and actually knows what he is doing.

yeh, 'cus pia's doing really well... the only paid creator is spinner, who does some of the coding. if you can find someone who's willing to sign a rather harsh (i suspect illegal, but that's another story) nda and will then work for nothing, then good luck.

-mist

[I am Idler]

Originally Posted by mist

how many people do you think would pay for pa after a free round that wouldn't pay for it anyway? how many of those do you think would stay? realistically, i don't thnk you'd get 2000 person rounds out of a free round

-mist

you wont get 2000 people, but you might get 1000 people that pays attention to the community from time to time

[barney]

Originally Posted by mist

last i heard jolt were saying that planetarion doesn't make money, so i'm going to assume that's still the case. which means that a round of planetarion costs about 2000 accounts (isn't that about how many there are this round?) to run. demonstrating that a free round will result in 2000 more paid accounts might be a challenge

surely the advertising on the site also brings in monies (i may be stupid?) Maybe more advertisements could be put on the portal site and forums (so long as it doesn't interfere with gameplay) to fund a free round ?

if the level of advertisement was acceptable maybe it could be a long term solution. Thus jolt makes money=>game is free =>larger comunity=>more advertising potential??

putting up with adverts would be a small price to pay for this i feel.

however know little about the advertising industry on the internet so it may be a silly idea?

just a thought

[mist]

i'm curious. does jolt run its own banner adds within pa? and if so, would pa 'make' more money by running google ads?

-mist

[The Real Arfy]

free planets have ads.

Originally Posted by mist

how many people do you think would pay for pa after a free round that wouldn't pay for it anyway? how many of those do you think would stay? realistically, i don't thnk you'd get 2000 person rounds out of a free round

I said you might get less players, but for a long-term stay.

I came back to the game in r9.5, and have played and payed since. If its free, people have nothing to lose by playing, and since there would be no limits for unpaid players, they might have a chance of enjoying the game and continuing.

Having said this, I think you're right that jolt wouldn't give us a free round

[Zh|l]

if Planetarion had been pay for play when I first started I would never have carried on. I would never have been able to get involved in the community and thus find my place here.

A free round would bring more customers to the game - whether it would be enough to cover it's cost to run this free round then who knows. But a free round without restrictions at least gives that potential.

Problem I see is more the multi aspect from a free round

[Razorback]

ppl have to realise that Pa is in a wider sense a product of the past. A small group of dedicated players is still behind it and its genre, browser based strategy games.

Still you have to realise that this concept is 10 years old and gets worn out, its like still playing on your first atari compared to modern ideas / games.

Pa will pull new players with a free round but dont fool yourself, not many will stay with the current prices and the self consuming always repeating circle of life ingame and this barely covers the "losses" of those who leave for good after beeing bored/fed up / grown up.

[biffy]

We're looking at doing a free speedgame at some point after the end of this round, probably in the same way as the last p2p speedgame worked as that proved very popular with the people playing it.

Planetarion has to generate a certain amount of accounts each round to keep it going. If we could be guaranteed that number through a one-off speedgame then we would be more than happy to run a full round for free, in the same way that if a company wanted to sponsor a free round and skin the game to advertise their product then we would do that too if they covered the cost of it.

Marketing the game on other ways we can also improve on. This round has seen us do a lot more to track new players coming into the game via various routes, along with developing new admin tools for this. We've used this to see how effective certain ad campaigns that we have been running have been.

[mist]

Originally Posted by biffy

If we could be guaranteed that number through a one-off speedgame then we would be more than happy to run a full round for free, in the same way that if a company wanted to sponsor a free round and skin the game to advertise their product then we would do that too if they covered the cost of it.

how many, and how much?

rather than wait to be told i'm going to go with the rant now, 'cus tbh i'll be too amazed with jolt telling us anything useful to care about having got it wrong.

so. you tell us that there are these options, but then you tell us that you can't tell us what they actually are, meaning that they're not actually options at all, they're just more jolt propoganda, more 'lies'. pld

[edit]
<biffy> 2,000 credits
<biffy> not sure about the second one
appologies and due amazement
tho, odds of that many playing a speedgame seem small
[/edit]

-mist

[biffy]

They are options. I can't give exact figures about sponsorship because there are a lot of factors to take into account in that situation. The Speedgame thing is an option but it is one that would be unlikely to work out given the numbers of people who play Speedgames. It is still a possibility though.

[I am Idler]

Originally Posted by biffy

They are options. I can't give exact figures about sponsorship because there are a lot of factors to take into account in that situation. The Speedgame thing is an option but it is one that would be unlikely to work out given the numbers of people who play Speedgames. It is still a possibility though.

well, if you would be so kind to mail me the EXACT figures it will take to run one round of planetarion to [email protected] , I might be interested in sponsoring one free round of planetarion, effective immediately.

I will require figures in detail, this includes salaries, expenses for running the servers, etc.

[JC]

They wont give it to you despite your kind offer. They wont even give that info to PA team.

[biffy]

You wouldn't get all that information - for example we don't advertise our costs to companies who are purchasing ad space on our sites.

But I'm happy to talk to you if you want.

[mist]

Originally Posted by I am Idler

well, if you would be so kind to mail me the EXACT figures it will take to run one round of planetarion

in fairness, if you're sponsoring a round knowing who gets paid what is rather irrelevant, all that would really seem important is the cost of said sponsorship. what would seem more of interest is if you sponsor a round, what guarentees will jolt give over the performance of the pateam? while i've no complaints, if a volunteer screws up a sponsored round what would jolt do?

my guess goes in at £8000 btw, assuming you get to run your own ads, should you want them etc etc.

-mist

[pig]

to be honest the question still remains, is Jolt using pa to make a quick buck or do they genuinely want to increase the player base and give back to the community something. It went what p2p rnd 5 was it? I buy on avg 3 credits a round, now lets exclude rnd 9.5 which was free that means

rnd 5 - £10
rnd 6 - £10
rnd 7 - £10
rnd 8 - £10
rnd 9 - £10
rnd 10 - £10
rnd 10 - £10
rnd 11 - £10
rnd 12 - £10
rnd 13 - £10

Now by rnd 13 I would have spent yes me alone £100 on something which I have no guarentees of remaining or getting better, there has been one major development if you call it that and thats PAX, admittadly its a good game now (imo not as good as back in the day) but still good. However I am gettin NOTHING back. I dont get discounts off jolt, i dont get discounts in gaming stores, i dont get free credits for referring friends. Instead every rnd I think PA might die.

I can applaud jolt in effect they have kept the game running, developed it, servers are stable. However I would rather see someone from the community like Idler who has the finance and understanding of the community however most importantly LOVE for the game. He is passionate about the game, doesnt neccesarilly have to be Idler but someone along those lines. What we need is free rounds, if the player base can reach 25k ppl could you imagine that? Sheesh only about 2k atm, 1k in playing active.

Please Jolt think about selling and do it in a way which wont cause disruption nor harm to the game.

ps

while writing this post I am seriously thinking of phoning or visiting Jolt HQ to put my suggestions over. heh you never know you could offload pa for profit.

[mist]

in fairness, this is the same with most 'per month' type software packages.

take planetside for instance. you pay your £30 up front, and then you pay your £whatever a month. you have no guarentee that sony won't decide it's not making enough money and close planetside down. likewise with ultima online, and pretty much every pay per month game i can think of

with pa, at least you didn't have to pay £30 to start with

-mist

[Kal]

also saying u paid £10 per round is a bit odd when the prices have varied loads over the rounds e.g. round 10 was £10 for 1 account now its £10 for 3 accounts. If pa was really in danger of just dropping dead, you would think jolt would be increasing prices to milk it to death, but instead they minimise costs and prices to keep the game going.

obviously anything has its price so someone could buy pa, but I for one think jolt is doing a good job overall.

[Agerus]

free round or at least making free account more attractive would be a very healthy idea.

If Jolt has some smart marketing guys which I doubt they would do it

[pig]

Originally Posted by Kal

also saying u paid £10 per round is a bit odd when the prices have varied loads over the rounds e.g. round 10 was £10 for 1 account now its £10 for 3 accounts. If pa was really in danger of just dropping dead, you would think jolt would be increasing prices to milk it to death, but instead they minimise costs and prices to keep the game going.

obviously anything has its price so someone could buy pa, but I for one think jolt is doing a good job overall.

i was avging it. minimising the cost, so ppl wudnt go WTFOMFGPWNED you are lying etc, thankyou for pointing out that i have infact spent more on this game :/

on another note i never in my post said jolt were doing a bad job, i just dont feel they are up for it the same as someone else from the community would be...wheres Zeus?

[Zeus]

here

[Razorback]

Kal you dont consider 10 pounds alot for a 2 month account in a browser game ? (like in r10)
Nearly for the same money i can pay 2 month eve (with the best subscription method).

the point is, pa is still to big to run for free and too small to make huge profits.

All this discussion is really moot if you dont get new ppl inside, something which was tried and failed (and we dont talk about just 200 ppl here and there but multiple k's)

[Kal]

Originally Posted by Razorback

Kal you dont consider 10 pounds alot for a 2 month account in a browser game ? (like in r10)
Nearly for the same money i can pay 2 month eve (with the best subscription method).

the point is, pa is still to big to run for free and too small to make huge profits.

All this discussion is really moot if you dont get new ppl inside, something which was tried and failed (and we dont talk about just 200 ppl here and there but multiple k's)

i agree completely that £10 was to much for a round, this is why we cut costs and its now £10 for 3 credits.

[mist]

Originally Posted by Zeus

here

last i heard you didn't want to work for pa anymore tho?

-mist

[Zeus]

Originally Posted by mist

last i heard you didn't want to work for pa anymore tho?

-mist

I will never turn my back on Planetrion as long as there is some resemblance of life in it. But I also refuse to work for free. I did my bit, served my time, put it whatever way you like. It doesnt seem like there is much going on in the way off future development/planning I will also refuse to help without seeing some kind of strategy/investment plan, if there is one?

Simply put, I wouldnt work on Planetarion again if I thought it couldnt be regenerated to a resemblance of its early days. You cant even call its a mass-multi-player game amore, with the numbers it has playing

Anyways who to feck brought me into this conversation?????!!!!

[Eol]

Originally Posted by Zeus

Anyways who to feck brought me into this conversation?????!!!!

pig.

[pig]

Originally Posted by Eol

pig.

why do u always have to blame me :/

everyone was thinking it, i just had the balls to say it

[CrazyConrad]

Originally Posted by Zeus

Anyways who to feck brought me into this conversation?????!!!!

Not who but what, and I believe it is your love for us idiots still playing this game

[Zeus]

Originally Posted by CrazyConrad

Not who but what, and I believe it is your love for us idiots still playing this game

SSSsshhh! Dont tell them that, everyone will think I'm a bit softy!

[Proxi]

still living beside Mannys, Zeus? :] food outta there be crap now!

edit: best grammer ever

[alch]

i think we should have an option with the payment method, to check a box where we ask to pay an extra 5$ for zeus to come back and work on PA im sure it will help PA in the long course, bring back its creators and you will get a game like in the past, but for this you will have to regenerate the motivation theses creators had once, for its community, very very very hard thing to do at least.

[Veil05]

on a serious note;

i would be more than happy to aid the Jolt in a free round of planetarion... if we could find some more players willing to sponser this. ofc i dont have £8000 to waste, but id be happy to contribute a smaller amount. maybe you should think some in-genious plan to get people to pump in some cash?

--

Also, how can this game cost you £8000, another online game very simular to planetarion funs for free every round. i dont think Ollie is willing to lose close to £10,000 for abuse and moaning and very little praise he gets...

[mist]

it doesn't cost £8000 to run.

however, it costs to pay spinner and it costs to turn jolt a profit as well as costing to run

-mist

[Veil05]

Originally Posted by mist

it doesn't cost £8000 to run.

however, it costs to pay spinner and it costs to turn jolt a profit as well as costing to run

-mist

well, let assume jolt are willing to make no profit from this, spinner and co. is willing to work for free. how much then?

[mist]

that depends how you define profit.

for example, jolt rents servers for cs clans etcetc, so therefore by using servers for pa it's encouring an 'opertunity cost', as it could be using them for other things. say, for example that a CS server that jolt sells for £200 a month actually costs them £100 a month, that's a £100 profit, however if your accountancy's a little... dubious, you could say that selling a server to pa for £200 a month was selling it at cost, because that's what it's costing you not to sell it as a counterstrike server.

likewise, jolt is owned by, or has some relationship with, nilram. as such it gets bandwidth cheaply, however whether pa pays for bandwith at cost to nildram, or the cost that jolt could sell it on for is debatable, and i know which side i'd guess for.

anyway, jolt say that pa costs about 2000 accounts per round, at 3 rounds a year to run. as they don't seem to care whether those accounts are signed up on a single or 3 in a bunch basis i assumed that they'd cost jolt about the same regardless. figures to make this work out give a credit card charge of £2.50 and a charge of £2.50 an account. 2000 accounts at £2.50 is £5000 for the cost of a round.

as this is what jolt are happy with pa making, i assume it's close enough to a break even point, given the opertunity costs rather than the actual costs, for jolt to be happy with pa's performance.

obviously, that's a lot of assumptions (and i can't remember where i got to figure of £8000 from, so there may well be a hole somewhere that i've forgotten), but i don't think they're unreasonable. with them in mind i'd say that a round costs about £5000 to run at no profit, if you take jolt's definition of profit.

-mist

[Kileman]

I dont know if anyone has said this....

But a free speed round is a complete waste of time if the aim is to attract new players. Any new player attempting to play a speed round will
A) get completely owned
B) miss the community aspect of the game (the whole reason ALL of us play)
C) have no idea wtf is going on

Im all for a free normal round - providing its done correctly..... who knows - we might see a R3 again some day :\
________
Extreme q vaporizers

[Veil05]

Originally Posted by Kileman

I dont know if anyone has said this....

But a free speed round is a complete waste of time if the aim is to attract new players. Any new player attempting to play a speed round will
A) get completely owned
B) miss the community aspect of the game (the whole reason ALL of us play)
C) have no idea wtf is going on

Im all for a free normal round - providing its done correctly..... who knows - we might see a R3 again some day :\

R3 would rock, i could fire an arrow through your kiley's heal sorry bad joke

[mist]

jolt won't run a free round of pa.

pa has to get 6000 signups a year to keep jolt happy.

currently 3 rounds are run a year, that's 2000 signups a round. if one of them was free pa would then have to get 3000 signups a round for the other two. this is not realistic.

alternativly, 4 rounds could be run a year. this would involve shortening the rounds by 2 weeks each, and opening signups straight after the previous round ended. there would be no havoc. no downtime is apparently unpopular, and this would cut the amount of development time per round. hence, it is unlikely to go ahead

alternativly, a free round could be run at the same time as a paid round. even with significant hamstringing, there's a fear that this would reduce the amount of people paying for the round. hence, will not happen

therefore, unless someone has a cunning plan to get a free round, you're not going to get one.
-mist

[Rudmer]

Originally Posted by Kileman

I dont know if anyone has said this....

But a free speed round is a complete waste of time if the aim is to attract new players. Any new player attempting to play a speed round will
A) get completely owned

R6B could play 50% strength......oh wait forget that.

[Veil05]

Alot of online games which i play advertise as free, but members can get "premium accounts". maybe this would be better for us, to be honest, alot of our active players would want this premium account as it gives them a small edge over everyone else...

a premium account could give u maybe +1 eta // battleships // 1000 roids. this would attract new players surely as they are not given the crumby limitations offerd at the moment?

[mist]

the less limited free accounts are, the less people will pay.

or so goes the thinking

-mist

[Wandows]

not if you limit them in the right way

And besides, its more important atm to increase the playerbase then only trying to keep the paying costumers you have now, as they will quit at some point since there will hardly be any new competition

[agrokid]

Originally Posted by Kileman

I dont know if anyone has said this....

But a free speed round is a complete waste of time if the aim is to attract new players. Any new player attempting to play a speed round will
A) get completely owned
B) miss the community aspect of the game (the whole reason ALL of us play)
C) have no idea wtf is going on

Im all for a free normal round - providing its done correctly..... who knows - we might see a R3 again some day :\

Firstly I can't see R3 ever happening again, would be amazing if it could, maybe admin could orchastrate changing the stats midround like they did with the thief in R3, although everyone would say thats unfair

Anyway I agree a speed round or free round is basically as waste of time because you have the same player base. Although if you had a free round and majorally advertised beforehand it would be probably very productive.
Make the round very noob friendly, e.g. have guides all over the place, which let noobs understand the game really fast. In the end though its all about the people getting into the community and with such a close knit community its difficult for noobs unless they end up in a reasonable galaxy.

I dunno, at least there are less internal error pages, they were the real b***h