After reading (again) Incarnate's post about pplz-owned stations, I got a few ideas on a possible implementation.

Since I'm new here and like it a lot, got my flame suit on and decide post:

-New stations cost REAL money. Not credits, but real dollars for maintenance. Like a 2nd subscription, paid in advance.

-Station creation rules are:
*REAL: Devs decide what can/cant/change. Some minimal ruleset published. Request made via forum.
*RP: The (*)'s government have decided to try a new system and will rent stations to guilds or mines, who will be subordinated to nation rules, but commercially explored by new Tenant.

RP: During next months, station will be built, and lots of resourtes, ores, convoys will be required to do so. All traders, miners and security officers very positive on future profits. (rumours that pirates are hiring to cover ever)
REAL: Fee pays for a resource (devs) implement requested changes, including missions related to event and virtual goods requirements.

Incarnate, please, would that possibly could evolve into a working plan?

Not credits, but real dollars for maintenance.

Congratulations, it's a cold, blue, 19" stillborn!

You may be interested in perusing and searching the Suggestions forum and adding your thoughts to the lengthy, in-depth discussions on player-owned station implementation that are ongoing there. That is the appropriate place for this thread, anyway and it will probably be moved there soon. That being said, I think it is a bad idea to open up options like that for more real-world money. A subscription is a subscription, and it should instead require only in-game resources, and a hell of a lot of them, and an appreciable amount of time as well. They pay-off would just have to balance the investment.

This is not pro/cons of station owned, its an idea on how to overcome major limitation to VO's expasion:

Real world resources, pay salaries, hire personnel, so on.

On stations, Common subscription pays "your ship". If you want more than that, you have to pay more for that.

Also this is not "I wanna pay extra to have super-powers alone."

To a bigger extent, the scenarios would be:

(1)
Pplz: -I want to have new stuff "X"
Devs: -Refused since would unbalance game

(2)
Pplz: -I want to have new stuff "Z"
Devs: -Possible, it takes N hours of programming, resulting in a price of US$(N*H).
Pplz: -I dont have all that, but I will do a fund raising campaign....done... heres the cash...
Devs: -VO universe have expanded, all pplz now can use "Z"

On stations, a possible way to overcome major problems cited on various posts around would be to tie that station to a real world paid subscription:

(3)
Pplz: -We want to own a station at location L and aligned with F
Devs: -It requires N programming hours, so creation price is US$(N*H) and maintenance requires an special account subscription, monthly fee of US$ M. (N includes disassemble station later). Months later that group stop paying, station can be offered for rental, or disassembled, or destroyed by "ebil pie rats"...

Not RP'ng here. I work on somewhat similar service, and have contributed as volunteer with some open projects. Implementation of new stuff requires real-world resources. Since money makes the world turn around and allows hiring resources (devs), and we're a community (or more than one), that seems a logical step that we pay that resources to enjoy its results...

So devs divert their time from what they are doing now to implement this, so that a limited number of people can later pay separately for this content?
Or hire someone new to do it?
How many stations do you think current player base can support? 10?
How much are you willing to pay? Cause i somehow doubt 10$ or even 50$ would make noticeable difference to devs' income.

Don't you think that in either case the time is better spent doing stuff that was planned for years that'll (presumably) increase the number of usual subscribers?

Notice that it's not that you pay and it gets done, it's the other way around.
So devs would need to front that money first, which i'd imagine they'd have done already if they could, to speed up what they are doing.

Alloh: Really, this is the dumbest idea I've read in these forums EVER. Congratulations. Perhaps you do deserve a special honorary medal to wear. I'm sure Dr. Lecter can dig something up for ya.

wow. RL money for PC stations, eh? have you lost your fucking mind? and the fact that you would actually post a second time trying to back yourself up is even more incomprehensible. did you even search for anything? or look at another thread? or do anything besides sit at your computer and think for 5 seconds before posting?

needless to say -

[Stamp of you're out of your fucking mind]

alloh this isn't some shitty f2p micro economy game. oh and congrats you are the town fool.

Right ye are, vskye! Here ya go, Alloh:

Those f2p micro economy games are often doing a hell of a lot better than we are. His idea is not so terrible, or unusual, so I'd cut him a little slack. This does not imply we'll be doing anything like that, as shifting business models is too much for us at present.

However, we might do something like.. much-anticipated endgame features (like full-on station or capship ownership, not just simple conquest) being available to more "supportive" players, like those who have subbed for 3 months or longer. I've talked about doing that sort of thing since we launched.

Thx, Incarnate.

Was not expecting that you change your whole business model now, from a post... but contribute with possible / feasible ideas.

something a little beyond than the 82.397th new ship/weapon/gadget proposal...

By the way, thanks a lot, and I have been noticing improvements on game since I joined, 1 month ago. You're doing a great work!

(luckily I was wearing my flame suit)

please don't create things in VO that you've to extra pay for.

It's in so many games and it ALWAYS results in unbalanced and bad game play.

If you need more money, than raise the monthly fee for all.

Detructor: I don't want differentiation by spending power, that's somewhere I won't go. Putting bounties on developments of different kinds can be done in ways other than that. But no, I won't make people buy individual items that are superior. We may offer items for sale at some point that are only aesthetically different (not unlike the Anniversary Vulture), but not in any way that would impact who wins or loses in gameplay.

The same goes for making things available to people with 3-month subs or longer.. it's accessible to anyone but simply makes long-term support more advantageous.

I can imagine it is difficult to make long term plans when most of your customer base is a paying by month. In that light can can see why making a 3 months sub more attractive to people. And I also wholeheartedly support the idea of not switching to a microtransaction based game. Although even WoW seems to be going that way.

The post was sponsored by Soon(tm)

Back on original ideas:
(sorry for bad english, never had to use business jargon, only IT)

1) I never proposed to create things that you've to extra pay for, super issues sold, microtransactions or whatever. I was aiming on real world possible solutions to make things evolve faster.

2) I totally trust in Dev Team to keep game balanced. They have been doing a great job at that. They will not sell themselves, nor the super-magic-instakill-zapper. I suggest that the community should do the same and trust them more.

3) For specific itens, moments in development, some fund raising campaing could be ran to hire the job, inclusive outsourcing. Its not a permanent solution. Like Xmas for commerce, during a short time they work harder and hire additional personnel.

4) Normal subscription covers your ship. Stations could be rented, and paid for creation. And a station cannot be an "everybody has his own". *I* dont wanna have a station, no need to. But a guild seems logical. Why extra cash? To provide proper pay for all the additional work to create/keep a station on server side and inside the main story. How many additional stations do you consider possible to add to universe, as now, without overcrowding it? Very very few...
(new systems does not seems a good idea now)

5) Rented stations, not sold. So use/abuse is easy to control.

On the other hand, the fund raising or something more on Incarnate's post:

-Objective: X new subscriptions, or N months sold in 30 days. These subs must have some "mark".
-When objective is achieve via community effort, the person or guild who has "sold" more will receive the 1st station ever. Some time later the X top sellers also receive their stations.
-The newcomer must post on forum his name under entry of the "salesman" to make entry valid. The same person can hire more than one subs.

That seems within VO business model, and quite feasible...

SO, how could evolve this idea?...

SO, how could evolve this idea?...

Perhaps you could try sitting down, hard, on it -- pointy end first.

He's basically talking about a bounty system for bringing in additional people. EVE uses something like that.. if you bring in N friends via special trial keys given to subs, you get X free time on your account, and so on. We've looked at doing some variation thereof.

Tying it to exclusive new gameplay gets a little too.. Glengarry Glen Ross for me. Ie, the top sellers get the new Cadillac, heh. But, again, we could do some exclusive content that does not hand out any special gameplay; aesthetic content like the Anniversary Vulture. Maybe give you the option of a unique station texture set, or a unique look for your capship. I have no idea.

It's all about how far one goes with a concept like this. Rewards that are aesthetic are fine with me. Impacting gameplay.. I don't like. Giving out stuff "earlier" to certain people (you get to fly a capship for 30 days before it's released to the public!) is a bit further than I would want to go (it's borderline, but it still gives a very real advantage to X person for Y time, which I do not like.. even for a limited period). Once it starts sounding like we're doing high-pressure sales of Las Vegas timeshares, I start to feel a bit ill. This is not why I develop videogames, and I will only go so far for the sake of an improved business situation.

This is not why I develop videogames, and I will only go so far for the sake of an improved business situation.

...and this is why Guild is amazing. You guys have morals!

Guess I better hide my copy of "the rules of aquisition"

Dont want Incarnate getting any ideas. :P