Lifetime Ranks?

What do you mean by ranks? Like in the actual server role play, or on the forums?

 

There are donating packages on the server. You can take a look at them here.

This would be up to @Tomas to decide.

 

We considered one-time purchases and quickly dismissed them.

From a development perspective, they come with pretty big disadvantages. With one-time purchases, donating is much closer to a purchase rather than a contribution. The most commited members would be encouraged to donate only once, or we would be forced to keep coming up with more stuff people can buy - a cycle we don't want to fall into. Additionally, the amount of money a person can spend with one-time purchases in a short period of time is much greater than with a subscription.

When we looked at a monthly subscription, it just felt like the option that fits our vision. Unlike most servers out there, our subscription is not a "purchase" of features. If you look at the rewards, many of them are in the spirit of helping us develop the server (rather than you getting an item). The way I personally see it - if a passionate community member wishes to help us fund the project, they can pick a monthly amount they want to chip in.

One-time purchases are actually the most profitable, which is why you see them so often. They also go hand in hand with a big turnaround of players. What often happens is servers advertise to get a large amount of new players in. They put a lot of effort into the initial experience, encouraging you to make the purchase. The player buys a one-time thing. After the purchase, the player is continuously encouraged to buy either more things, or purchase the next "tier". In many cases it is beneficial if the players leave and new come in - the whole process repeats itself.

MF is very different, as it relies heavily on a healthy community to succeed. All of our staff go out of their way to make sure players feel comfortable. Our goal is to slowly grow the core community of players - many of our systems rely on players enjoying themselves and staying with us. Our donations are designed to benefit dedicated players the most. My hope is active long-time members who have money to spend will decide to contribute monthly. I have no intention to force young members to shell out money they don't have.

Additionally, the whole project is built in a way that allows me to fund it indefinitely without receiving a single donation. This reflects on our development very well. We don't need to prioritise features based on the need to get money in, nor do we need to cover the costs. The donations are there as a nice interesting thing for the players.

I can see why lifetime subscriptions are attractive. But if you really think about it, spending 5$ every month and being part of the funding process is in many ways a more rewarding experience. Both for us, for the community and for the donator.

Sorry for the lengthy response! I disagree strongly with the way some servers monetise their projects - targeting kids who don't know much about money. Hopefully this explains our reasoning behind the packages.

If you have more suggestions or questions, keep them coming

 

You can definitely cancel at any time. It is not my intention to scam anyone at all. It will be done through PayPal, which gives you the customer quite a lot of protection - and full control over the cancellation.

On top of that, you will retain some of the rewards even after you cancel. Each month, all of the ranks get a unique lore item specific to that month, which you get to keep. The item is different each month, so there is a nice incentive to stay subscribed.

You'll also get to keep any items you got while you were subscribed.

 

Then again, we don't want to let players keep too much, otherwise there's not much incentive to stay subscribed. It's a very fine balance indeed.

We could do some sort of a database that shows the total number of months you had been subscribed in total.

 

That depends though. Are the members really paying because they want to support the project and help it improve, or are they mostly doing it for the status of the ranks? So for example in other servers where people can buy ranks, they give the donators massive rewards that make it hard for normal players to compete with them (E.g Auras around the player, 10000 coins every month, loot crates). I know comparing this server to that is a bit over the top, but my point is that server is not fun to play anymore for normal players because of the rewards. I'm all for rewarding donors, but not for over-rewarding them.
Sorry if I offended anyone.

 

Ahh ok. Apologies.
I have no problem with that then. It might make the badges a bit hectic, but the list of contributors is a good idea.

 

Never mind. It was a misunderstanding.

 

I think we could make a table of donators, where you see who donated and how many months. That way the most active donators are still at the top, while someone who only donated once is still in the table.

It's a fine balance. We are definitely grateful for every donation. At the same time, the donations really are subscriptions on a monthly basis. Giving away too many perks for the first month may make the following months seem kind of "meh". The contributor section will likely only show active donators (because of the way the forums are structured).

We can give out "I have donated" bagdes, or something along those lines.

 

Yeah because you guys are really important to us!