Forums » Suggestions
Should Chatting Cost Crystal?
Would it perhaps be helpful to impose a crystal cost on F2Pers for every message they send in excess of thirty per hour? (Numbered channels only.) This way people who need help or want to have conversations still can do that for free, to an extent. It would just mean that the people want to talk a lot would have to be more selective in which things they actually say (e.g., do they really want to tell us about how interested they are in underage livestock, even if that means they won't have enough crystal to buy that ship they were wanting?). This would also provide more incentive to upgrade to a Lite Sub and help support the game, even if one doesn't own a computer for some reason.
To clarify: First thirty messages each hour would be free, no crystal needed. Only chatting more than thirty times per hour would require crystal or being subbed.
And I'm not saying we should do this; I'm just raising it as a possibility. I'm undecided.
To clarify: First thirty messages each hour would be free, no crystal needed. Only chatting more than thirty times per hour would require crystal or being subbed.
And I'm not saying we should do this; I'm just raising it as a possibility. I'm undecided.
That isn't a bad idea. 30 messages is very generous given the number of comments that most people make in an hour on 100. I'm not in favor of discriminating against players based on their subscription though.
Perhaps instead chat windows could have a title bar over the top or a background description of the channels purpose for whichever channel is currently active. After that, common channels could be given names that indicate their purpose in game in a non condescending way. For instance a appealing name for juveniles of middle school age such as 'The Reason Fluffy Never Had Kids'. Adults over 30 or so could have the 'Let Me Tell You About My Dr Visit'. Late teens to late 20's 'WTF Am I Wasting My Youth On?' And Deathspores would have his own channel 'Molestation Means I Love You For At Least 10-15 Minutes'.
The idea being that channels 1 and 100 remain help and general chat, but players are incentivized to take chatter that is interesting to only a subset of the player base out of the general chat. The tens of thousands of numeric channel options has done little to spread conversation except on rare occasions.
Perhaps instead chat windows could have a title bar over the top or a background description of the channels purpose for whichever channel is currently active. After that, common channels could be given names that indicate their purpose in game in a non condescending way. For instance a appealing name for juveniles of middle school age such as 'The Reason Fluffy Never Had Kids'. Adults over 30 or so could have the 'Let Me Tell You About My Dr Visit'. Late teens to late 20's 'WTF Am I Wasting My Youth On?' And Deathspores would have his own channel 'Molestation Means I Love You For At Least 10-15 Minutes'.
The idea being that channels 1 and 100 remain help and general chat, but players are incentivized to take chatter that is interesting to only a subset of the player base out of the general chat. The tens of thousands of numeric channel options has done little to spread conversation except on rare occasions.
Rin, while I like the idea, I'm not sure we should discriminate. What about, after 30 chats on a channel, you're location posts? There is a cost to that!
+1 OP
The whole concept of tiered gameplay is innately discriminatory in the first place; I don't see how limiting their ability to spam is any different from limiting which ships they can buy. If anything, this is a less essential feature than the things that are already restricted.
I do support better labeling of channels in any case.
I do support better labeling of channels in any case.
-0 to the OP
I want to make Est mad
I want to make Est mad
-1. 30/hr goes fast in a mentoring situation.
30/hr goes fast in a mentoring situation.
If you want to mentor someone, use PM, or group chat. Don't do it on public channels.
If you want to mentor someone, use PM, or group chat. Don't do it on public channels.
What if the Mentee's name is too long to type?
Oh wait. There's a Macro/tab for that
Oh wait. There's a Macro/tab for that
What chat spam? What are you talking about? Pfft.
While it is an interesting idea, i dont think it would be right to do this, i for one play sometimes just to chat on 100 and probably exceed 30 messages sometimes in 5 minutes. Whilst I am premium and this wouldnt affect me, others who do like to chat but are not premium would feel opressed.
What would a new player think when he starts chatting on 100 (potentially actually maturely) and is told he has to pay crystals to speak more than once every two minutes on the public chat channel, unless he pays to become premium?
What I think would be a better solution is to have a "/vote playername spam" command and if enough people vote, the player would get a hit of maybe 100 standing to his home faction? This would double every time so it becomes worse for repeat offenders.
What would a new player think when he starts chatting on 100 (potentially actually maturely) and is told he has to pay crystals to speak more than once every two minutes on the public chat channel, unless he pays to become premium?
What I think would be a better solution is to have a "/vote playername spam" command and if enough people vote, the player would get a hit of maybe 100 standing to his home faction? This would double every time so it becomes worse for repeat offenders.
Why loae faction standing? Why not ban him/her from chatting in 100 for like, 3-10 Mins?
"While it is an interesting idea, i dont think it would be right to do this, i for one play sometimes just to chat on 100 and probably exceed 30 messages sometimes in 5 minutes. Whilst I am premium and this wouldnt affect me, others who do like to chat but are not premium would feel opressed."
This is a commercial game, not IRC. If they want to treat it like IRC, they could get a Lite sub. If what they have to say isn't even worth $1/mo, then it's probably not worth hearing.
"What would a new player think when he starts chatting on 100 (potentially actually maturely) and is told he has to pay crystals to speak more than once every two minutes on the public chat channel, unless he pays to become premium?"
Sorry, I guess I was unclear about that. I don't mean to enforce a rigid rate of one message per two minutes. That would only be the maximum average over the span of an hour. In practice, people converse in bursts. They could talk as fast as they want for a bit (consuming maybe ten messages in just a couple minutes), and then they'd go off and fight for a while, and then they'd talk some more, etc. As long as the average rate worked out to 30/hour or less, everything would be fine. (Of course, the actual numbers here might need to be tweaked; I just threw out 30/h as a starting point.)
And again, I want to reiterate that this would only apply to F2P players, not to Lite subs. So no, they wouldn't have to become Premium just to chat without worrying about crystal.
"What I think would be a better solution is to have a "/vote playername spam" command and if enough people vote, the player would get a hit of maybe 100 standing to his home faction? This would double every time so it becomes worse for repeat offenders."
Assuming they have bothered us enough to be harsh with them, why apply faction penalties when we could just /vote mute them to actually shut them up?
My goal with the OP is not to punish people for large transgressions; we have tools for that already. The goal here is to add an automatic measure that gently disincentivizes excess chatter while also encouraging upgrading to a Lite sub. "Chatter" being stuff that is annoyingly frequent and worthless, but not bad enough to warrant outright muting the poor kid.
This is a commercial game, not IRC. If they want to treat it like IRC, they could get a Lite sub. If what they have to say isn't even worth $1/mo, then it's probably not worth hearing.
"What would a new player think when he starts chatting on 100 (potentially actually maturely) and is told he has to pay crystals to speak more than once every two minutes on the public chat channel, unless he pays to become premium?"
Sorry, I guess I was unclear about that. I don't mean to enforce a rigid rate of one message per two minutes. That would only be the maximum average over the span of an hour. In practice, people converse in bursts. They could talk as fast as they want for a bit (consuming maybe ten messages in just a couple minutes), and then they'd go off and fight for a while, and then they'd talk some more, etc. As long as the average rate worked out to 30/hour or less, everything would be fine. (Of course, the actual numbers here might need to be tweaked; I just threw out 30/h as a starting point.)
And again, I want to reiterate that this would only apply to F2P players, not to Lite subs. So no, they wouldn't have to become Premium just to chat without worrying about crystal.
"What I think would be a better solution is to have a "/vote playername spam" command and if enough people vote, the player would get a hit of maybe 100 standing to his home faction? This would double every time so it becomes worse for repeat offenders."
Assuming they have bothered us enough to be harsh with them, why apply faction penalties when we could just /vote mute them to actually shut them up?
My goal with the OP is not to punish people for large transgressions; we have tools for that already. The goal here is to add an automatic measure that gently disincentivizes excess chatter while also encouraging upgrading to a Lite sub. "Chatter" being stuff that is annoyingly frequent and worthless, but not bad enough to warrant outright muting the poor kid.
Ah ok I think i misunderstood parts of this, i assumed you meant it as a replacement for the vote mute function. I also did not notice the Free to play part, which fixes that problem.