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Retirement Value Re: Changes to Imperian
Oystir
Member Posts: 454 ✭✭✭
@Sarapis and @Jeremy have made it very clear they will not cave on increasing the return on retirement,
or change retirement to allow credits to move to existing players. This was given no satisfactory
answer in the relevant forum thread and the question was diverted to 'read the forums' and 'e-mail
me' during the townhall, neither of which demonstrate a sincere willingness to listen to or respond
to the opinions of the playerbase, especially when several people discussing the problem were banned.
I personally do not believe that they intend to change their decision, but I am also extremely
dissatisfied with the blanketed response of 'Imperian isn't closing' to justify circumventing the
conversation in a public setting and dodge the opinions of those who do not frequent the forums. I
made this thread to open up the conversation among us without diverting attention from those with
more optimistic questions and opinions.
I speak for myself in stating that I feel these changes reduce the value of my character greatly,
especially since I personally do not want to participate in the transition of the game and would
expect to see more than 50% of my current value placed elsewhere in the company in light of these
changes. I am confused about the administration's unwillingness to allow me to make that choice and
especially their locking of retirement value well before anything but enthusiasm and optimism have
been offered in response.
You say, "This is much harder than just being a normal person."
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Sarrius-Today at 4:55 PM
Achaea closed off a whole city, guilds, organizations. Even ones which seemed so necessary for the Achaea story. No one was given full refunds.
Aetolia was the same, particularly during that time people have pointed out in the other thread, when the game seemed so hopeless. Things were shaken up, changed, and no one was given a full refund even if they didn't like the change.
The only case of full refund was MKO, and that's because it closed down, completely. This is not the case with Imperian. Your investments are not made less; in fact, they're worth more. You had the opporunity to beef up your characters by whipping out a wallet. Everyone else from this point can only grind to catch up.
(may vanish for periods of time)
I hope that people have long memories about what's happened here. I think I will, even though I am a pretty forgetful person.
What IRE is doing right now is rational within the context of their experience though. Take those snark-posts from Aysari, and multiply and amplify them across the number of people who dare speak on an IRE game forum, and that's what the discussion we've had over the last day or so -would- have looked like. We'd have been crushed under the weight of posts by people who... drink some sort of Koolaid I guess we just had less of here, somehow. Just the fact that a good number of us aren't accepting whatever reply is given and saying "thank you, benevolent master", is somehow akin to blasphemy to a certain portion of IRE players, and allows IRE to not only do the sort of thing they're doing right now - but they'd generally also be congratulated for doing it.
That something else has happened this time, is fairly amazing, and a huge exception to the rule.
EDIT: as well, at some point, if you -don't- shut a game down, because it's "free" to run, and you give your players the choice to "play this game that isn't really very playable, but at least you can log on?" or "lose half the value of your license", how is that somehow better than shutting down from a player perspective? I don't get that.
I'm not asking for 100% and as I said in my opening post I really don't expect more than they're already offering. If Imperian closed that would be different, but Imperian isn't doing that and judging by these changes it never will. But it is wildly changing its economic system to something untrusted and untested, and it is perfectly reasonable to allow its customers to buy-out of this new system if they do not want to or intend to participate in it, especially when the majority of people wanting this option are willing to take a loss to do so. And especially considering we are largely people who have stuck around a dead Imperian this long asking for this, it should be a big tell to the company about the inspiration and confidence their playerbase has lost in them. I'd personally be fine with 50% if I could use it on a character I've established and spent money on in a game I trust to be well-managed.
Equally importantly, the loss I accept will benefit IRE. Me making up for it will benefit IRE. Me playing my Aetolian more will benefit IRE. Her being able to PK instead of me ABSOLUTELY buying the bare minimum will benefit IRE. Me feeling I can trust the company to protect my investment will benefit IRE. IRE loses literally nothing by changing retirement, except to let people who feel trapped in Imperian leave it without feeling like they got played.
Edit: re: @Swale the fact that we are able to be such a vocal majority is also the point. This was literally the first question asked at the townhall, asked by @Wyll who is without a doubt one of Imperian's highest buyers and who doesn't even come on the forums anymore to have these concerns planted in his mind by us. When six people's concerns accounts for so much of your playerbase it speaks directly to the root of the issue.
This is me agreeing with you. Nobody would dream of asking this in a different game because that different game isn't in Imperian's position, whether through its numbers, its reputation among its players, or through its necessity to change the entire credit and gold generating process.
My point about credit trades being removed still stands, eliminating a 1:1 (or similar) value across games. There is also the irrefutable fact that 100 credits I bought for 40$ yesterday will be worth 50 bound credits to a different IRE game (that I trust the mechanics of but can only try out for a month!) in three weeks, or some ill-defined time investment to an Imperian-shaped game with a completely unknown economy soonTM.
Again, I think it was extremely premature to lock in retirement values before even posting about the volunteer lead position, much less hiring somebody, much less having a plan for Imperian's future, much less doing any work to it. From where I sit, IRE LLC is washing its hands of Imperian and giving it to the volunteers. I sincerely think that's great, I trust volunteers much more than Jeremy at this point, no offense intended to him, but I also sincerely think I am being shoved against a wall with the retirement restrictions when IRE knows it is trying something radical and forcing me to come along for the ride.
(may vanish for periods of time)
Anyone who has had a character in any game they paid for (subscription services or through micro-transactions) and had that game go under knows what it feels like. When Auto Assault, Tabula Rasa, or City of Heroes closed NC Soft didn't give it's players "funds" they could potentially use in one of their other games. You sucked it up that one of your favorite games was going away, and you enjoyed the memories.
IRE is providing us a service they DON'T HAVE TO by allowing us to move some of the monetary value we've put into our game into their games in another form. We should be grateful we at least have this opportunity. The alternative is you get upset with the games new system and you leave, then you're out entirely.
If you really want to help the problem, get your friends to play Imperian, or bring other folks into the IRE community. The admins are doing what they can to keep things afloat for us. We need to do our part by sharing the experiences we have and bringing other folks into the realm. Or volunteer in the game. Do something other than complaining, that doesn't fix anything for anyone.
You guys have -exactly- what you had before. You have exactly the same characters and exactly the same items in what is currently very close to exactly the same world (I say very close because possibly some typos or bugs have been fixed in the last couple days, I'm unsure offhand). You even have Dec and Eoghan continuing to take the world forward, and you can now earn -more- things in the world faster without paying than before.
One note: not a refund in MKO's case, but 100% retirement, which also isn't at all the same thing as "you get to transfer the value you spent to another game" since what you spent is only one factor in your retirement value.
It'd be one thing if we were taking something away, like we did with MKO. We were literally taking away everything they had paid for. Here, we're taking away nothing that people paid for and are hoping the world will actually become more lively (if even less financially viable) with the lower barrier to entry to play.
The difference is pretty much those thousands, yeah. Thousands, and the decision not truly being ours. This isn't a "got to play that one out real good" situation. Imperian isn't a game we got tired of, it's a game that starved to death while the horses on the other side of the fence got plenty of hay.
I mean, the game is in permanent maintenance mode, my man, that's pretty clear. No more paid staff (and was already very lightly staffed). That's a pretty strong signal don't you think?
That's not a "game change", that's "this poor dead horse is still alive, -technically-". What are the players who stuck it out till the bitter end really supposed to do and think after several years of trying to hang on and make it work?
EDIT: in what weird world is this the "rebirth" of Imperian or something? I mean, what? We all just talked at length about sunsetting, and having to cut staff (to no staff!)... but now it's just a "game change" and players are somehow being sassy and unreasonable about it?
"Will development be slower? Maybe? It mostly depends on how many other community volunteers can and want to productively help I think, and don't just bail when they realize that running a MUD is hard work".
Non-existent as yet volunteer, already gets run over by bus (hey, there's a position open, guys). Poor bastard. And I mean, I don't think it's a great thing to ask an unpaid person to do the fulltime job of at least 2-3 people. And it's equally not great to ask players to not expect that level of product support. But I am sure we will be blamed for "being mean to volunteers" if we're not totally happy with what a guy who is working on stuff after his real job can produce. For free.
Also, some people I really like play some of your games. So there is that. I sort of dropped that almost too casually, but some of the people you get to know are a big part of the draw.
As for the other point, I guess we will see. But I think an important difference is that having to pay staff might be a hindrance to attracting "people", but you certainly haven't ditched that model with Starmourn, and I think paid staff is what allows you to build and maintain the kind of game that has the elements I mentioned. I guess an example of something that is NOT that, but has people, is something like Aardwolf, maybe. Aardwolf had a lot of people, but they didn't seem to be doing much.
What I do think is that giving a higher percentage of imaginoBucks to people who have spent thousands on one servergame would just be better all around. People who keep that weight in Imperian are going to be less likely to buy in real_IRE (example: me). It literally costs nothing except (overly) projected gains to reward those players for supporting IRE while the company was managing the servergame, and it gets those players back into a place where they might purchase creds again (I could spend 20k and still have stuff I'd want to buy). A higher retirement return will likely get more weight out of Imperian for the transition, and the people who remain will be ones who are really invested. The receiving serversgames get people with fresh faces and loads of credits to be roleplay and pk props for the other players already there (which even Achaea can use more of now with pops at half or lower of what they were when I played), and Imperian being free means those same people might try again here anyway.
It just feels spiteful to not at least throw a cookie to the people who are expressing interest in sidegrading (whether by bending the rules or increasing the ratio), since it seems like it'd be the smart thing to do for milking them more, anyway. But nah, flex away on the disgruntled players like Imperian hasn't been sapping money and energy from them for years. You've got the market to replace them. https://hastebin.com/eqimihohul.makefile
You say, "My bottle is empty."
Jeremy raises an eyebrow questioningly.
Jeremy slaps you on the cheek.
Heh... There hasn't been THAT much of this, as I said somewhere earlier in this thread, but it's definitely there.
I mean, they won't - which is why, if anyone buys big in the future, knowing what went down in Imperian, you really can say that the players should have known better. Of course that does assume that news will trickle out sufficiently. Hopefully it will. If people still want to buy big, that's fine, but they should go in with eyes fully open. It should ideally mean that IRE is forced to do the very thing it's repeatedly said it can't ever do - rely on much smaller purchases per person by having a much larger audience (and I actually agree with them on that point, I really do think their market is quite niche).
If your gaming company treats you like a "casual", you should keep that in mind when you spend money with them. That's a "spare change" relationship, not a "decent car still under warranty" relationship. That is also a legitimate relationship, but it means that actually spending serious money on an IRE starts to seem like a genuinely nutty idea (even nuttier than before, when it was just something you didn't tell people, but were secretly pretty okay with).
Some people being more fine with losing their investment makes a certain amount of sense - I mean, if my value were a lot less it would definitely just be a game that didn't work out you know? I get it. I am not going to cry when my first ever mmo (probably) closes, and I still probably dropped more cash than lots of people do in those games (maybe a couple hundred bucks, something like that). I am more sad that it probably will close, because I think the devs did a really good job. But anyway, even if I were a low value guy here in Imperian, I WOULD STILL TOTALLY GET WHY SOME PEOPLE ARE NOT FINE.
I'm also not really serious that they should stiff some guy who's only got a 500 credit retire value and give me teh 100% retirements (and/or other options that people mentioned) plz, but the amount of shade, just damn. What the hell is wrong with people?
I should be thankful that they're not closing down the game while ALSO denying me an exit on the terms they've previously set? It's ludicrous people are upset at those of us that are unhappy with the development.
I agree with @Gjarrus. IRE already has my money, and if they want to bet that having less imaginoBucks to take elsewhere will mean I spend more money elsewhere.... Well, they're welcome to do it, I guess. It's not like they don't have the data.
Generally, unless we're taking something away from you, we're not going to compensate you, because you didn't lose anything.