Charge for Custom Items

[Nanako]

As a means of helping towards server costs, i believe aurora should charge for custom items.

This is, by no means, 'perks for donations'. It is not a donation, it is straight up, payment for a service. Entirely seperate from donations.

The service being paid for, is the time for our administration to look over and handle these applications, time for our artists to make these items and time for coders to do the necessary work implementing them.

This does not mean any change in standards. Exactly the same standards about mechanical benefits, believability and server activity would apply to custom item applications. No money would change hands before an app is approved, and payment could be made as one-off payments to patreon.

There would be a small terms of service to agree to, specifically including a clause that your items may cease to be personal, and become publically available, after some period of no server activity

The simple fact is, people will pay for customised, personal things to show off in a multiplayer environment. This has been proven time and time again, and now a very large portion of the gaming industry is sustained entirely on this business model

A fair price would be $10-20 USD for a custom item.

At these rates, i expect custom item applications would cover most or all of the server costs, with little need for donations

Another factor worth considering, is the sunk-cost effect. When people have paid for something, there is a mental compulsion to 'get their money's worth' out of it, which would result in a higher rate of player engagement, and likely longer time spent in the community

Those in charge of the current standards (Tishina i believe) would remain in charge of approvals, and continue to enforce the same high standards on applications. All proceeds would go to the server hosting to ensure continuation of the community.

Literally nothing needs to be sacrificed, and no extra work needs to be done, as payment channels are already being setup. We already provide custom items. It fits well

[Zundy]

Is the server in such dire straits financially that we need to charge real money for custom sprites?

What you'll probably find is that hardly anyone will ask for custom items.

[LordFowl]

$10-$20 dollars is a ridiculously expensive price for a few lines of code and a few 32x32 sprites. I would argue that any price is too high for such trivial effort.

[incognitojesus]

This is not an announcement, and does not belong in the staff vault section because it is not an official decision made by either the head developer/development team, or the head administrators/administrators. I'll be moving this to the general forum. Please refrain from posting in the staff vault section unless posting official records lest you give the playerbase the thought that this is an official decision. Which it isn't.

[Fiskap]

you know very well that this is ridiculously overpriced and a terrible idea unless the server seriously needs that money to stay afloat right now, and even then it's still ridiculously overpriced. just no.

[Guest Complete Garbage]

Nnnnnnnnnnno.

For the same reasons listed above. People have already expressed willingness to donate to keep the server afloat, and while generating it more revenue wouldn't hurt, it'd be good to wait and see how much we'd actually start to pull in from donations.

Even then, I would still be opposed to charging for custom items for the most part, and nobody(read: very few people) will pay $10-20 for a cool lighter or a scarf or a pair of boots.

[Skull132]

There's a long list of staff and players who would simply quit working for Aurora if any part of it was monetized. That list includes myself. It is a fantastic way to ruin a hobby and an enjoyable activity.

We in no way, shape or form, require funds this fast. If we were in financial trouble, you'd see me act about ten times faster with regards to setting up donations. Right now, I'm slowburning it because we have the ability to: the donations are there to distance the server's dependence on me as an individual, but I'm not dropping out without a word over the next 6 months at least. And even if I was to pull out, we should be able to manage just fine.

I would also suggest reading community feedback on this issue in the actual announcement thread. 99% of people who replied were against any monetization. And this sentiment has been shared by every outstanding member of the community that I've discussed the matter of donations with over the past year -- it is not simply me being stubborn.

A hobby should remain a hobby, and money should be kept as far from the actual running of the community as possible. And I don't plan on giving up this principle for shit, same goes for all higher level staff.

We'll have an ability to donate. It will be completely voluntary, there will be no rewards or services offered in compensation. We have no need for anything more. Any questions?

[Zundy]

Any questions?

 

If I said you had a beautiful body, would you hold it against me?

[Guest]

Any questions?

 

how was this not understood in the main thread the first time

[Alberyk]

No, I don't want this, and speaking as the person that added nearly all of the custom items we have now and has little plans to drop my work on them. For the same reasons stated before, I would just drop if we did allow this to happen.

[SierraKomodo]

There's also an issue of legal stuff, and tax stuff when you start charging money for a service. Couple that with the fact this would be international (Alot of users, and I suspect the people maintaining the account for this, are not U.S. citizens). I'm not going to get into details, but it's /really/ not worth it.

[Skull132]

There's also an issue of legal stuff, and tax stuff when you start charging money for a service. Couple that with the fact this would be international (Alot of users, and I suspect the people maintaining the account for this, are not U.S. citizens). I'm not going to get into details, but it's /really/ not worth it.

 

Fun fact! This stuff exists for donations in any form! Or, at least, has the chance of existing, depending on your country of residence. The main reason I've not set up a PayPal for it all yet is because I'm currently seeking legal council to see if I'm required to do anything, by Estonian law, whence I start managing the donations.

[Guest Marlon Phoenix]

If we implemented micro-transactions I would leave in a heartbeat.

[VileFault]

Evidently, should micro-transactions be implemented, we will have neither a staff nor a player-base. Which would, admittedly, be kind of a drag. Personally, I would be pretty put off by the idea of restricting people's interaction with the community according to their IRL financial means. I really think that the most viable longterm strategy here is to find a really rich guy, bate them into the community, then collectively ball-wash them whenever we see them so that they continue to fund us.

Anyway, I guess I have to thank Nanako for making this thread. It kinda amusingly highlights an issue on which we all agree. It reminds me of that moment at the end of the last debate where Trump and Clinton were forced to say nice things about each other. Whatever our differences, we can all be united in our utter hatred of micro-transactions. How touching.

[Guest]

Not that it really means anything from me anymore, but I'd definitely leave if micro-transactions became a thing. It would go against absolutely everything this server has stood for, and it would not be worth the time of anyone who has a slightest hint of a moral conscience.

I will donate for the coming days purely to attempt in keeping the server up for everyone else that enjoys this game, not to receive benefits, privileges or acclamations in-game. I would hardly care even if I had my name plastered somewhere as a "reward", it would ultimately not matter to me because I could easily disappear one day, nobody would care, and it should not matter to anyone else aside from us as individuals acknowledging we're trying to do a good thing for everyone else, together.

[sonicgotnuked]

I had a long history of joining communities that require micro transactions.

I am talking mainly about GMOD RP.

I come from SCP RP, a popular game mode server but the first server that made it started to die over a year and a half. I was part of the last few months of it dieing as a high ranking staff member. The server had perks if you donated where you can't play most of the SCPs unless you donated. If you wanted to play all of the SCPs you needed the give 80 dollars. If you wanted to make a cancerous custom "SCP" you needed to pay 30 dollars.

We one day decided to try and prolonged the death of the server and community by removing the donations for SCPs. The first day we announced it, the server hit 50 players and we where on taking care and trying to trug through the people who simply gave no shits about the rules. Getting rid of those micro transactions saved the server another month and I discovered ss13. That is when I said "Fuck it" and left because I got sick of garry's mod

We can all agree that micro transactions can ruin communitys, I have seen it

[HunterRS]

Also with Sonic, I game from gmod before I came back to Aurora, but I was on SWRP(Star Wars Roleplay). We had a minimum donations of like 50 dollars for a custom squad, and they were probably one donation ever 2 months, so the server started lowering slots and people didn't want to stay on a dying server. I stayed till the end, but besides the point. My idea, just keep it free and see if people want to donate, I'll donate next summer once I get a job.

[Pyrociraptor]

Micro-transaction on community servers are like poor kids with terminal phase cancer, AIDS, Ebola and Leukaemia in a third world country: They'll die really fast.

Only way a community could get money from would be donations. No micro-transaction, no Donators perk. Just simple donations to show you appreciate the server you're playing on.

And even if the service is just "cosmetic", its like opening a hellgate in the DOOM's universe, going half in and saying "Oh nothing could go wrong". Slowly it will degrade to more and more services, before ending like any EA's game.

[rrrrrr]

ss13 isnt lifeweb i am sorry haha just thought you should know that,

[UnknownMurder]

Is this a suggestion? if it is. It should be in suggestions sub-forum, not in the general sub-forum. I have a strong distaste in donations providing rewards that is only exclusive to donators. This is not donation. This is more of paying to get player features. For instance, if a donator gets snowflake item A, then the general public should be able to fairly access the same snowflake item.

If you plan to make the features exclusively to donators. I might as well just leave. I did not want to end up in a console war but this time, it's a war between BYOND servers.

[Blingx3]

I'm willing to pay one american USA dollar, as a donation. or canadian. whatver

[SierraKomodo]

Let the thread die already.

[Guest Complete Garbage]

Let the thread die already.

As a forum necromancer, it is my job to make sure no thread ever stays dead.

[HunterRS]

MY THREADS NEVER DIE

[sonicgotnuked]

This should be moved to off topic :/