All I'm gonna say is that reading this thread has made me remember how much I love snarky Matt. It's truly the best, and was an amazing thing to wake up and read.
Heh. I was semi-thinking the same thing, but I can't say that.
It seems odd from a business standpoint that a company would put funds into another MUD when a mud of their own is failing or at least not as productive as their other games. This I cannot understand why the company would not shuffle some pieces to fix this issue then focus on a new game unless we are strictly talking about a pure money making based scheme banking on the SCI-FI aspect. This view is more brutal and honest, but I just can't help but feel since it was acknowledged that "Imperian costs nothing to run" that it's just easier to sweep it towards the side and label it as a free game now. (Imagine if the people working on Starmourn would've been working on Imperian this whole time)-edit
Let me address this, as I think we have already talked about the rest of your comment in other responses.
The Sci-Fi genre is very different than our current games and it's possible we should have done a different genre earlier instead of opening 5 fantasy worlds in a row. I'm also not convinced adding resources a couple years ago would have helped Imperian keep going. Maybe it would have, but another game may have dropped off in exchange. Those resources are limited.
The issue with this is if the company made a conscious decision to abandon or put imperian on the back burner, then users should have been notified as such. credit costs across all games are the same or at least in line and if you are choosing one game over the other, you are essentially discriminating against your customers.
also somewhere along the line Imperian development became focused on “what we can sell” and not on “what the players enjoy”. We have had WAY more promotion items released in the past two years than events or story development. Yes, they are an important source of revenue but to just release promo after promo of items that concentrate on events seems like suboptimal allocation of resources.
The issue with this is if the company made a conscious decision to abandon or put imperian on the back burner, then users should have been notified as such. credit costs across all games are the same or at least in line and if you are choosing one game over the other, you are essentially discriminating against your customers.
also somewhere along the line Imperian development became focused on “what we can sell” and not on “what the players enjoy”. We have had WAY more promotion items released in the past two years than events or story development. Yes, they are an important source of revenue but to just release promo after promo of items that concentrate on events seems like suboptimal allocation of resources.
There was no conscious decision to put Imperian on the back burner. We figured people would move around on games a little with retirement. People were much more willing to retire then we initially had considered (across all the games). Combined with the fact that people recruited heavily to move other people to their favorite games, the movement has been pretty crazy. We had no idea that Imperian would bear the brunt of it. It's easy to say and see that now, in retrospect, but we had no idea at the time. Unfortunately, it is just the way it played out.
I think between all of people who posted, we covered just about everything (that is great, and is something no one person ever could have done alone). The last thing I want to point out right now is the ToS (Terms of Service). Not so much the ToS, per se. I think we all definitely know that those are a thing (and I didn't see anyone say something silly like "I want ma money baaaack").
Imperian's players just want to be able to continue using roughly the same level of "license" that many paid very serious money for - in a healthy game within the same suite of games. That's a really reasonable ask. But it has been denied, and I do think that is a disservice.
To be fair, it's actually hard for IRE to avoid dropping a "ToS" reminder in some cases - probably mostly when they rebalance a skill or artifact. That's a situation where even if you're pretty even-handed, someone might go sharpen their pitchfork anyway.
ToS are usually sort of a cya for companies - they provide (at least some?) real legal protection, and they're also just a way to make it clear that there will be no further negotiation. ToS aren't something that (most) companies enjoy trotting out, because it's a move that is going to make the customer pretty unhappy. But if you really need it, because the customer is wrong, and completely unreasonable, it's there. Usually, a small company that sells a lot of high dollar products to a small audience is especially eager to convince buyers that "this is a very a trustworthy company and all of that money is well spent". They definitely want to honor any reasonable requests (probably even a few slightly unreasonable ones ), because it's just good business. It's not even super virtuous, it's just rational. If you're sort of shoving the ToS in people's faces more often, as a "haha, if you don't like what we charge, don't pay it" move, then something else is going on. I guess it could be that you genuinely believe your customers are... not too bright sometimes. And maybe you're at least a little bit right.
Of course, I think we all understand that we'd lose -everything- if IRE itself was folding. What can you do if you're shutting your doors? I think we would all have been sad and also have totally understood something like that. What is so hard to take is "this seems like a pretty healthy company that's rolling out a new game they'd probably like me to spend money on... but they've let my game languish, and want to take half of my overall value if I want out of this game they're nudging me awfully hard to leave"?
I initially had no plans to post, but as a person with a serious (probably top five remaining I imagine) investment in Imperian, some thoughts. Let's assume I am active for the purposes of this post, because it'll make wording simpler and I will inevitably switch tenses a bunch of times anyhow.
As a whale, I don't feel these changes negatively affect me at all. The only thing I anticipate getting out of these changes is more people to play with, and whether people have numerous issues with imperian subsystems or not, that is the real issue that is killing Imperian: lack of players. Imperian can be the best game in the world but if noone plays it that means nothing. I do appreciate some people might not want to play in new Imperian, but I don't personally think that's because of a diminishment in investment under the new model. I think there are a few things that could motivate people to leave under the new design: - Preference for pay for perks. Perfectly valid, and the only thing on this list I think is a genuine reason for wanting more retirement value. It doesn't seem likely you will get it though and I think depending on the occasional phylactery sales that were hinted at you might be fine here regardless.
- Concerns with not being able to catch up to the whales. This is the big danger with the new system but something that is also the easiest to fix given the admin can tweak generation values easily. Might take a bit to hit the sweet spot, but I don't imagine this will be a major issue longterm.
- Concerns that people will catch up to the whales. Some people probably hate the idea that people will get to match their investment for free over the longterm. Personally, my time is what I value, so this doesn't concern me. This ones definitely depending on the individual though.
- A desire for a larger playerbase. In the nicest possible way, I'm going to just say that if this was the case you'd be gone already.
- A worry that Imperian will be left to fend for itself with minimal oversight. I think this is just a concern with little to no substantiation. Imperian's been hugely lucky to have volunteers that have stuck with it through its issues over the last couple of years. I don't see why they would stop now, given the vast potential for improvement the new model opens up. Given how much time the promotions take to sort out, their removal will likely see Imperian rapidly overtake the other games in terms of productivity. It also seems extremely unlikely that a close eye won't be kept on Imperian to determine the new model's viability, given its the company's first major foray into that sector that I'm aware of. Basically, if these people have stuck with Imperian while being put through monthly promo hell, I don't think you have anything to worry about.
Possible I missed some though.
The other thing that makes me scratch my head a little is the Starmourn comments. Starmourn started development in what, 2015? Imperian was killing it in 2015 from a player perspective - it was some of the most fun I had during my time in Imperian. What happened to Imperian absolutely sucked, but that was mid to late 2016. The times are important here - if Imperian had had its massive downswing then Starmourn development had started, I'd agree there might be cause for frustration, but that isn't what happened. There's not a successful company in the world (especially in the gaming sector) that makes plans with failure in mind when all factors point to things firing on all cylinders. It sucks things turned out how they did, but noone could've predicted how quickly things went from great to bad - basically all of those players decided to retire in the course of maybe three days.
Tldr: I'm hyped. I was pretty positive Imperian had no shot at improving given the no win situation it ended up in, but this might actually do it.
No offense to Matt and @Jeremy, but as amusing at this thread absolutely was to read, I feel like you have intentionally sidestepped the points being made here and showing quite a lot of disrespect to the people who have been your most prominent in the last years - and who have been loyal to Imperian despite its place as a game.
@Galt's question about why Imperian was never allocated resources before it was hemorrhaging players is still valid, regardless of if his knowledge of the numbers is correct. @Sarapis your own responses, sharing that his perception is *better* than the reality, makes his question more poignant, and he received no real answer other than condescension.
@Owyn's points about Imperian's finances might be based on assumptions, but it is equally true that from a player's standpoint, Imperian might as well have been left without a driver from the user-side. And regardless of if Jeremy's main focus has been Imperian, he is *obviously* investing *some* time in VP duties, otherwise he wouldn't be the VP, so it is very true that Imperian hasn't had 100% of its single staff member. Owyn received no real response other than condescension. I know it's fun to condescend Owyn, but he is your loyal customer, and, like it or not, one of the best people you will have to make Imperian viable in this transition.
@Tyden's point about why Starmourn is being produced when Imperian has been clearly neglected is also fair. Discussing the value of diversification in the market is fair enough, but you focused on the part of the question that does not address the state of the game that already exists, and even your responses to this make it clear that you do not believe changing Imperian will be as successful as opening a new MUD. It doesn't inspire confidence.
Telling @Aio with great enthusiasm that she can start over for free in Imperian and ignoring her actual issue about the timing of this change screwing her out of a more valuable retirement, is really something.
Neither of you has even attempted to justify not changing retirement in the face of valid concerns, other than Jeremy promising to investigate the value of promotional items. You know very well that you are, in effect, trapping some of your highest-paying players in Imperian. Literally nobody has asked for a monetary refund; we all want to keep our investment in your company. We just don't want to play the game you allowed to become unplayable, per @Mrycella. For literal years people have been voicing these concrens. You know that people have moved on en masse. You admit yourself that retirement harmed Imperian; but we're not stupid, that means it enriched your other products. We *want* to keep playing on IRE. We *want* to invest in other characters elsewhere. We are *asking* you to allow that and we have heard no reason why we cannot.
Jeremy's responses very clearly assume that by 'invest' we mean 'give you more money', but I'm personally upset because your system asks me to abandon the character I have established *roleplay* for, spent *time* bashing up, earning guild and city *ranks*, made *friends* with others with, in order to move a portion of my financial investment. I was fine with trying for a 1:1 ratio of credits via trades, no matter how slowly that would happen, but I no longer can after August. The fact that CFS purchases and promo items are coded mechanically into retirement demonstrates some awareness of the value players place into alternative means of generating credits. Some of us are sitting on huge sums of gold, customisations, house purchases, promo items worth immeasurably more than 5-10 bound credits mechanically, and many other avenues that are not accounted for in retirement value, and nobody is greedily asking that those be quantified. I'm not reassured by the fact that I can increase that value by things I've done playing that game; I'm bothered that that value is still gated off.
I'm glad people are excited. I am personally a farmer and a dolphin, and in a different world where I felt anything but cynicism about Imperian, I'd even be a little excited about this change. But I'm cynical, the most active players of this game from the last several years are cynical, even other farmers @Rokas are cynical. You've offered nearly no evidence that things will improve, no means of allowing people to genuinely divest from a product they do not have faith in (and transferring that divestment *back into your company*), and nothing but 'snark' (per @Aysari) in response. Not everyone is thrilled that you're bringing in unpaid volunteers to run the show when your already paltry paid staff has failed to keep the game engaging, much less improve it, and it's completely ridiculous to justify ignoring valid concerns from current players by telling us you've received positive feedback.
Ignoring the concerns of your players is exactly why Imperian is where it is. This thread demonstrates that that attitude has not changed despite you making a sweeping gesture to show us things will be better. You cannot just buy me a diamond ring to make your part of the problems with our relationship go away; you're not my rich husband. And frankly I still don't want to talk about getting a divorce, I just want to convince you to let me move my things into a different apartment because you've decided to redecorate the entire house, don't care about if I trust your decorating decisions, given me a time-limit on what I can keep in the garage BEFORE you show me paint patterns and you still won't let me take more than half of those possessions to the place I'm already happily renting.
We deserve much more respect than this and much better answers than we have received.
Post edited by Oystir on
You say, "This is much harder than just being a normal person."
I was laughing at this thread because I was blown away by how flaccid the administration's responses have been, but then the thread ended and now I feel even more strongly that I don't want to be a part of the transition. I'm not going to threaten to quit IRE and not a single person in this thread has done that. I am going to keep playing your games that I've been playing for almost 15 years, but you bet that I am going to put much less energy, enthusiasm and real life dollars into your product that you *admit* isn't one that organically grows. A friend I roleplayed with on Yahoo Chats got me playing MUDS, and I'm betting a huge portion of people patronizing your company were brought in purely by existing players, retained by an appreciation for the mechanics and roleplay, became invested by the time and money we spent, and you are willfully sacrificing portions of those priceless, user-driven benefits to yourselves from the people who have had the most to lose from leaving your company and this game in particular.
This is a really bad look. Banning people who are only being facetious (at worst) and vocal (at best) is terrible PR. Ignoring your most invested customers because you know most of them will keep buying your product is disgusting corporatism. This entire process reeks of incompetence under the guise of optimism.
We. Deserve. Better.
You say, "This is much harder than just being a normal person."
I wasn't really going to make a post here, but since you tagged me... I didn't say nothing but snark. I said snarky Matt is great, in fact there were plenty of times that both he and Jeremy answered questions... People just didn't like the answers... They also can't give you back that 'investment' you speak of.
When the questions were brought out in good faith, and not people taking their own opportunity to fire off unnecessary snark and general dickbag comments, then they are going to get answered in turn. These aren't random IRE staff who're pretty much paid to deal with people, and take it. These are the people who own IRE that you're trying to talk down to. People who actually have the data that goes against the **** people are trying to condescend down to them over. Removing these types of people from a conversation isn't bad. He gave them a chance to continue in private, if they wished.
This is nothing new from Matt. He is generally actually quite nice to talk to. But when you're dealing with people who're choosing to not actually be productive with what they're saying, he's not going to really hesitate to respond in kind. This isn't uncommon for people in his position. Ghostcrawler (when he worked there) and Ion in Blizzard do this. Morello and Guinsoo in League have done this (as have a few other higher-ranked employees). IceFrog definitely has done it in DotA. I could probably go on.
Point is, they don't have to act nice to you, nor like you. Why you're surprised at this is weird. Why you're still trying to talk down to them is even weirder. They've answered the concerns that have been brought up, you just don't like the answers. I mean this in the nicest possible way: Losing a handful of people isn't going to be a big hit to them. The customer isn't always right.
I'm disappointed because I decided to stop buying things, but I chose not to retire because Imperian might turn around, and if it didn't and I actively -wanted- to retire, I assumed that I'd have time to do a proper transition.
For example, I paid for the pieces of a warhorn, and I freely admit that I potentially paid too much for it, but I was okay with dropping the credits I did because I knew, at the time, I could always sell it for a partial, sensible return should I decide to leave.
I can't do that now even if I wanted to. In effect, the promo market has crashed. Even if Jeremy offers a tradein value on some items, said values will not reflect what the market had before for the ultra-rare/ultra-valuable items. I won't be able to sell the warhorn at what I would have considered a fair price, and I also don't want to sell the warhorn because again, I didn't want to retire currently.
I have other items that are in a similar boat: some of which have value in the market if they're there long enough while having zero value as tradein (alluring gems? I have 4).
I can't say I'm mad, but I'm definitely cynical about the whole thing. Kind of one of these "fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me" situations, and I'm not going to be fooled for a third time.
I think the change is good, actually, and have already seen people logging in again or anew.
One question I have, which might have been answered elsewhere or in a status of the game itself, is what happens with new characters to give them permanence? It used to be that you had to log in every so often or a character would be deleted. However, you could buy credits and that meant the character would never be deleted. Since you can't buy credits, you can't get that permanence?
Also this might’ve been answered in the townhall but what happens to gold. If you can’t buy credits what use is it? And there are a bunch of gold based artifacts - what happens to these?
One question I have, which might have been answered elsewhere or in a status of the game itself, is what happens with new characters to give them permanence? It used to be that you had to log in every so often or a character would be deleted. However, you could buy credits and that meant the character would never be deleted. Since you can't buy credits, you can't get that permanence?
It'll probably be a time-based thing (which is one way to make your character permanent even now). Spend X time in the game and it's permanent.
It is actually extremely relevant to the Big Changes what will happen to the existing value of credits and retirement, as it is, thusfar, the only actual change that has been rolled out in anticipation of Imperian's new economy. I say this to justify one more post on the matter here. I don't intend to get myself banned beating this to the ground, and after this one post I will move the discussion back to the new and more relevant thread, but I also haven't seen any satisfactory answer other than "Just 50% NQA" and I don't expect @Jeremy or @Sarapis to pursue the conversation there.
If IRE is removing Imperian as an investment and a revenue source and largely placing it in the hands of unpaid volunteers, doesn't it make sense from a business standpoint to allow us to migrate our credits to one of IRE's actually profitable games? Either letting us have them placed on established characters or increasing the retirement amount in general for new ones? Other than following the precedence set by other games that exceptions to the retirement rules, is there a difference in the reasoning that will allow you to make a drastic change to Imperian's economy (not just 'the game itself', but 'the way the literal game's money system works completely') but not acknowledge that those changes will impact the financial investment of your players? Why was the lock-in to retirement done before even posting about the unpaid volunteer position? I will be shocked if these changes will not eventually be accompanied by a change in the lessons/credits needed to trans or purchase artifacts and that absolutely will affect the monetary value of investment made now, will there be any circumstance in the future where the value of credits purchased in Imperian will be seriously addressed?
@Aysari - I specifically referenced the snark from the Administrators, quoting your post. I didn't and won't stoop to that conversational level in these discussions for the sake of avoiding a ban that seems more quick to strike than usual. I skimread the rest of your post, sorry, I don't expect niceness or friendship from them, I expect the basic level of respect that a small company should give its loyal customers.
You say, "This is much harder than just being a normal person."
Owyn received no real response other than condescension.
He was told the truth, he just didn't like it, and decided to call-but accuse me of lying. He has a narrative fixed in his head unconnected with reality, and was insistent on sticking to that narrative regardless of the facts.
I mean, he couldn't even spend the five seconds to get the title right he was so set on the narrative he'd invented in his head! It's not Vice President. We don't have any VPs. Jeremy's the President of the company, which dates back to when I spun off Sparkplay Media over a deacde ago (i.e. did exactly what he was saying games companies don't do - I replaced myself as the lead producer on Achaea and went off to run another venture of ours) and although I was still CEO, I needed someone with an executive title who could exercise company authority while I was running this now-separate other company. I came back actively to Iron Realms about five years ago, and while Jeremy IS my right-hand guy, literally 95% of his time was spent on Imperian.
If Owyn wants to invent delusional conspiracies in his head, he can keep them off here.
@Tyden's point about why Starmourn is being produced when Imperian has been clearly neglected is also fair.
That's exactly what I mean by these delusional narratives. Imperian wasn't neglected. We spent more development resources on it than any of our existing games except Achaea, because Imperian was trending badly and we wanted to try and turn it around. Didn't work. That's life.
but you focused on the part of the question that does not address the state of the game that already exists, and even your responses to this make it clear that you do not believe changing Imperian will be as successful as opening a new MUD.
Why the heck do you think we're pulling the final paid staff member off Imperian? Obviously we don't think it's going to be a financial success going forward, and it hasn't been for a couple years. It'd be great if this gathered enough players willing to pay such that we could somehow change that, but that's an awfully optimistic wish. People checking out Imperian now are probably going to be checking it out specifically because you'll be able to get far more credits more quickly by playing the game. That's hardly a recipe for a game population that's going to be paying much money.
Imperian's success in terms of players online isn't the same thing as its financial success. I have very few hopes it will ever be anything but a money loser going forward, but it now has a chance to be more of a success than previously in terms of player numbers, if it turns out players are attracted to a game that they can advance in more easily (without paying) than our other games.
Other than following the precedence set by other games that exceptions to the retirement rules, is there a difference in the reasoning that will allow you to make a drastic change to Imperian's economy (not just 'the game itself', but 'the way the literal game's money system works completely') but not acknowledge that those changes will impact the financial investment of your players?
Changing features or systems in a game always "impacts the financial investment of your players." Every single one of them does from fixing a typo (unmeasurably small change), to making ability balancing changes, to adding a new class, to killing off the Gods (pretty big change) etc etc etc. That's the nature of games-as-services and it is inevitable. Simply because you don't like a particular change doesn't entitle you to anything. For better or worse, when you play a MUD or MMO, you're in for the ride that the developers and publishers take you on and I don't believe that there is anyone here who thinks that Imperian was ever going to just stop changing.
A realisation struck me earlier today... @Jeremy are you aware the release date you pushed to, now coincides with when World of Warcraft's newest expansion goes live?
I don't expect full value. I have had fun with things I have. Yet, over the past years, Imperian has become incredibly bloated with promo items which have no value that add towards retirement. This needs to be fixed because 1) they don't provide me any marginal benefits in game - they never have 2) they cannot be traded-in in many cases 3) there is no market for them with other players
At that point they just become dead dollars without adding to the experience in any way.
A realisation struck me earlier today... @Jeremy are you aware the release date you pushed to, now coincides with when World of Warcraft's newest expansion goes live?
Seems like a bad choice of dates!
guess that means we can play with shiny new imperian while the servers are being screwy right?
It's amazing how addicted to outrage people have become.
You may feel that your concerns are legitimate but in the grand scheme of things they could have just turned off the game like they had to with Midkemia. I put thousands of hours into that game as a player and when it ended it was beautiful and understandable. Midkemia was dead and not worth the investment anymore. Imperian is dead but they still want to invest time into it and try to preserve all of the work done. This offers an option that is truly free to newcomers to MUDs in general. Move on if you don't like it. Life is not fair. blah blah blah cliche cliche.
Fact is, they're trying something new. The fake outrage is just ridiculous.
To be semi-constructive with my post, I may actually play at Imperian more because it is free now. I'm becoming a lot more limited in my ability to pay for games in general because my children may want college in a decade or so. I have been playing IRE for over a decade and enjoy what they create. I have options now that don't require a huge investment.
1k credits from the bashing challenge, 300 credits and 2000 lessons from the no brainer packs felt like it was just enough to get me semi-started as a character.
I was still missing a bunch of somewhat needed skills. That is about 1633 bound credits worth of lessons.
For a practical suggestion it would be good to see new characters being able to get about 2000 bound credits worth of lessons within a very quick period of time. The first month to two of play time at least.
We're talking about needing a hefty wack in order to participate.
I'd say around ~3000 bound credits within about a month of slightly-above-casual playing would be reasonable. Counting the standard leveling lessons/credits. Maybe not counting the no-brainer stuff that Jeremy said was gonna be purchasable with gold. The people who're really planning to play here could/would obviously get it quicker.
Imo, at this stage in the game's life that would be about the minimum needed to really get going. That's enough for surcoat, lv2 shield + 6 trans skills (class skills, evasion, survival + x) - x could be either weaponry if you need/want it, or 2 mini-skills. And 'necessary' tattoos. Increasing the lessons / credits per level wouldn't be a bad thing, either. I've always said 1-100 should be enough for someone to tri-trans, it'd be nice to actually see this be a reality with the game going "free" since it's not actually going to cost anything to IRE, now.
After that it would be fine to flatline if you're not going to be constantly bossing etc for steady credits. The no-brainer stuff could then be used towards secondary stuff once you have the gold for them.
Also this might’ve been answered in the townhall but what happens to gold. If you can’t buy credits what use is it? And there are a bunch of gold based artifacts - what happens to these?
That's a good question. We will have some ways to buy credits in the game. We are working on some credit auctions in the game in order to pump some unbound credits into the game. I am thinking we make turn some things that cost credits into gold sinks as well.
The speed at which you can get credits and lessons as a new character is something I am spending a lot of time on to get just right. It cannot be too slow, or people will get frustrated, but it also cannot be too fast, or it will just not be rewarding and fail to feel like an accomplishment.
The speed at which you can get credits and lessons as a new character is something I am spending a lot of time on to get just right. It cannot be too slow, or people will get frustrated, but it also cannot be too fast, or it will just not be rewarding and fail to feel like an accomplishment.
I know I'm going to sound a bit like a broken record. but with Imperian going completely free I would strongly encourage tying skillranks to something other than lessons/credits. It eases the burden on new players catching up to established players by not needing to throw a significant amount of credits at skills before they can artifacts.
The speed at which you can get credits and lessons as a new character is something I am spending a lot of time on to get just right. It cannot be too slow, or people will get frustrated, but it also cannot be too fast, or it will just not be rewarding and fail to feel like an accomplishment.
I know I'm going to sound a bit like a broken record. but with Imperian going completely free I would strongly encourage tying skillranks to something other than lessons/credits. It eases the burden on new players catching up to established players by not needing to throw a significant amount of credits at skills before they can artifacts.
You could do something like what my old MUD akanbar did. You got lessons just for being around. So many per 15 minutes logged in. The only issue this can cause is people logging in and afking to get lessons. Which akanbar had strict no idling laws so eh.
I have a citizen that currently plays Lusternia and is wondering if their Lusternia credits will transfer over to Imperian. The file he found says specifically Aetolia and Achaea. Clarification would be fantastic!
Comments
also somewhere along the line Imperian development became focused on “what we can sell” and not on “what the players enjoy”. We have had WAY more promotion items released in the past two years than events or story development. Yes, they are an important source of revenue but to just release promo after promo of items that concentrate on events seems like suboptimal allocation of resources.
@Swale
Thanks for the quick responses
I initially had no plans to post, but as a person with a serious (probably top five remaining I imagine) investment in Imperian, some thoughts. Let's assume I am active for the purposes of this post, because it'll make wording simpler and I will inevitably switch tenses a bunch of times anyhow.
As a whale, I don't feel these changes negatively affect me at all. The only thing I anticipate getting out of these changes is more people to play with, and whether people have numerous issues with imperian subsystems or not, that is the real issue that is killing Imperian: lack of players. Imperian can be the best game in the world but if noone plays it that means nothing. I do appreciate some people might not want to play in new Imperian, but I don't personally think that's because of a diminishment in investment under the new model. I think there are a few things that could motivate people to leave under the new design:
- Preference for pay for perks. Perfectly valid, and the only thing on this list I think is a genuine reason for wanting more retirement value. It doesn't seem likely you will get it though and I think depending on the occasional phylactery sales that were hinted at you might be fine here regardless.
- Concerns with not being able to catch up to the whales. This is the big danger with the new system but something that is also the easiest to fix given the admin can tweak generation values easily. Might take a bit to hit the sweet spot, but I don't imagine this will be a major issue longterm.
- Concerns that people will catch up to the whales. Some people probably hate the idea that people will get to match their investment for free over the longterm. Personally, my time is what I value, so this doesn't concern me. This ones definitely depending on the individual though.
- A desire for a larger playerbase. In the nicest possible way, I'm going to just say that if this was the case you'd be gone already.
- A worry that Imperian will be left to fend for itself with minimal oversight. I think this is just a concern with little to no substantiation. Imperian's been hugely lucky to have volunteers that have stuck with it through its issues over the last couple of years. I don't see why they would stop now, given the vast potential for improvement the new model opens up. Given how much time the promotions take to sort out, their removal will likely see Imperian rapidly overtake the other games in terms of productivity. It also seems extremely unlikely that a close eye won't be kept on Imperian to determine the new model's viability, given its the company's first major foray into that sector that I'm aware of. Basically, if these people have stuck with Imperian while being put through monthly promo hell, I don't think you have anything to worry about.
Possible I missed some though.
The other thing that makes me scratch my head a little is the Starmourn comments. Starmourn started development in what, 2015? Imperian was killing it in 2015 from a player perspective - it was some of the most fun I had during my time in Imperian. What happened to Imperian absolutely sucked, but that was mid to late 2016. The times are important here - if Imperian had had its massive downswing then Starmourn development had started, I'd agree there might be cause for frustration, but that isn't what happened. There's not a successful company in the world (especially in the gaming sector) that makes plans with failure in mind when all factors point to things firing on all cylinders. It sucks things turned out how they did, but noone could've predicted how quickly things went from great to bad - basically all of those players decided to retire in the course of maybe three days.
Tldr: I'm hyped. I was pretty positive Imperian had no shot at improving given the no win situation it ended up in, but this might actually do it.
@Galt's question about why Imperian was never allocated resources before it was hemorrhaging players is still valid, regardless of if his knowledge of the numbers is correct. @Sarapis your own responses, sharing that his perception is *better* than the reality, makes his question more poignant, and he received no real answer other than condescension.
@Owyn's points about Imperian's finances might be based on assumptions, but it is equally true that from a player's standpoint, Imperian might as well have been left without a driver from the user-side. And regardless of if Jeremy's main focus has been Imperian, he is *obviously* investing *some* time in VP duties, otherwise he wouldn't be the VP, so it is very true that Imperian hasn't had 100% of its single staff member. Owyn received no real response other than condescension. I know it's fun to condescend Owyn, but he is your loyal customer, and, like it or not, one of the best people you will have to make Imperian viable in this transition.
@Tyden's point about why Starmourn is being produced when Imperian has been clearly neglected is also fair. Discussing the value of diversification in the market is fair enough, but you focused on the part of the question that does not address the state of the game that already exists, and even your responses to this make it clear that you do not believe changing Imperian will be as successful as opening a new MUD. It doesn't inspire confidence.
Telling @Aio with great enthusiasm that she can start over for free in Imperian and ignoring her actual issue about the timing of this change screwing her out of a more valuable retirement, is really something.
Neither of you has even attempted to justify not changing retirement in the face of valid concerns, other than Jeremy promising to investigate the value of promotional items. You know very well that you are, in effect, trapping some of your highest-paying players in Imperian. Literally nobody has asked for a monetary refund; we all want to keep our investment in your company. We just don't want to play the game you allowed to become unplayable, per @Mrycella. For literal years people have been voicing these concrens. You know that people have moved on en masse. You admit yourself that retirement harmed Imperian; but we're not stupid, that means it enriched your other products. We *want* to keep playing on IRE. We *want* to invest in other characters elsewhere. We are *asking* you to allow that and we have heard no reason why we cannot.
Jeremy's responses very clearly assume that by 'invest' we mean 'give you more money', but I'm personally upset because your system asks me to abandon the character I have established *roleplay* for, spent *time* bashing up, earning guild and city *ranks*, made *friends* with others with, in order to move a portion of my financial investment. I was fine with trying for a 1:1 ratio of credits via trades, no matter how slowly that would happen, but I no longer can after August. The fact that CFS purchases and promo items are coded mechanically into retirement demonstrates some awareness of the value players place into alternative means of generating credits. Some of us are sitting on huge sums of gold, customisations, house purchases, promo items worth immeasurably more than 5-10 bound credits mechanically, and many other avenues that are not accounted for in retirement value, and nobody is greedily asking that those be quantified. I'm not reassured by the fact that I can increase that value by things I've done playing that game; I'm bothered that that value is still gated off.
I'm glad people are excited. I am personally a farmer and a dolphin, and in a different world where I felt anything but cynicism about Imperian, I'd even be a little excited about this change. But I'm cynical, the most active players of this game from the last several years are cynical, even other farmers @Rokas are cynical. You've offered nearly no evidence that things will improve, no means of allowing people to genuinely divest from a product they do not have faith in (and transferring that divestment *back into your company*), and nothing but 'snark' (per @Aysari) in response. Not everyone is thrilled that you're bringing in unpaid volunteers to run the show when your already paltry paid staff has failed to keep the game engaging, much less improve it, and it's completely ridiculous to justify ignoring valid concerns from current players by telling us you've received positive feedback.
Ignoring the concerns of your players is exactly why Imperian is where it is. This thread demonstrates that that attitude has not changed despite you making a sweeping gesture to show us things will be better. You cannot just buy me a diamond ring to make your part of the problems with our relationship go away; you're not my rich husband. And frankly I still don't want to talk about getting a divorce, I just want to convince you to let me move my things into a different apartment because you've decided to redecorate the entire house, don't care about if I trust your decorating decisions, given me a time-limit on what I can keep in the garage BEFORE you show me paint patterns and you still won't let me take more than half of those possessions to the place I'm already happily renting.
We deserve much more respect than this and much better answers than we have received.
This is a really bad look. Banning people who are only being facetious (at worst) and vocal (at best) is terrible PR. Ignoring your most invested customers because you know most of them will keep buying your product is disgusting corporatism. This entire process reeks of incompetence under the guise of optimism.
We. Deserve. Better.
https://ada-young.appspot.com/pastebin/harZ0Qus
Cuts some bits off to the side, but all the answers are intact.
For example, I paid for the pieces of a warhorn, and I freely admit that I potentially paid too much for it, but I was okay with dropping the credits I did because I knew, at the time, I could always sell it for a partial, sensible return should I decide to leave.
I can't do that now even if I wanted to. In effect, the promo market has crashed. Even if Jeremy offers a tradein value on some items, said values will not reflect what the market had before for the ultra-rare/ultra-valuable items. I won't be able to sell the warhorn at what I would have considered a fair price, and I also don't want to sell the warhorn because again, I didn't want to retire currently.
I have other items that are in a similar boat: some of which have value in the market if they're there long enough while having zero value as tradein (alluring gems? I have 4).
I can't say I'm mad, but I'm definitely cynical about the whole thing. Kind of one of these "fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me" situations, and I'm not going to be fooled for a third time.
I think the change is good, actually, and have already seen people logging in again or anew.
If IRE is removing Imperian as an investment and a revenue source and largely placing it in the hands of unpaid volunteers, doesn't it make sense from a business standpoint to allow us to migrate our credits to one of IRE's actually profitable games? Either letting us have them placed on established characters or increasing the retirement amount in general for new ones? Other than following the precedence set by other games that exceptions to the retirement rules, is there a difference in the reasoning that will allow you to make a drastic change to Imperian's economy (not just 'the game itself', but 'the way the literal game's money system works completely') but not acknowledge that those changes will impact the financial investment of your players? Why was the lock-in to retirement done before even posting about the unpaid volunteer position? I will be shocked if these changes will not eventually be accompanied by a change in the lessons/credits needed to trans or purchase artifacts and that absolutely will affect the monetary value of investment made now, will there be any circumstance in the future where the value of credits purchased in Imperian will be seriously addressed?
@Aysari - I specifically referenced the snark from the Administrators, quoting your post. I didn't and won't stoop to that conversational level in these discussions for the sake of avoiding a ban that seems more quick to strike than usual. I skimread the rest of your post, sorry, I don't expect niceness or friendship from them, I expect the basic level of respect that a small company should give its loyal customers.
I don't expect full value. I have had fun with things I have. Yet, over the past years, Imperian has become incredibly bloated with promo items which have no value that add towards retirement. This needs to be fixed because
1) they don't provide me any marginal benefits in game - they never have
2) they cannot be traded-in in many cases
3) there is no market for them with other players
At that point they just become dead dollars without adding to the experience in any way.
(may vanish for periods of time)
You may feel that your concerns are legitimate but in the grand scheme of things they could have just turned off the game like they had to with Midkemia. I put thousands of hours into that game as a player and when it ended it was beautiful and understandable. Midkemia was dead and not worth the investment anymore. Imperian is dead but they still want to invest time into it and try to preserve all of the work done. This offers an option that is truly free to newcomers to MUDs in general. Move on if you don't like it. Life is not fair. blah blah blah cliche cliche.
Fact is, they're trying something new. The fake outrage is just ridiculous.
To be semi-constructive with my post, I may actually play at Imperian more because it is free now. I'm becoming a lot more limited in my ability to pay for games in general because my children may want college in a decade or so. I have been playing IRE for over a decade and enjoy what they create. I have options now that don't require a huge investment.
Thank you for this, I look forward to it.
Thank you @Jeremy Saunders