Poll: Were Avalon to cost less

[Isen]

Feel free to elaborate on your response if the spirit moves you.

I have no illusions about the likelihood of a reduction in charges.  Just idle curiosity.

[Jammond]

Not quite sure which of these I should mark... I don't play currently, but I do when it suits me. I don't worry about it since my characters have lifetimes, and I wouldn't want to create any new alts with the lesson changes that have gone in. Just takes way too long to get a new character up to anything resembling par. So it wouldn't really change anything for me, but I would feel odd marking either of those. 

[Isen]

*chuckle* I wouldn't say that this was an expertly crafted poll.  I'll add an option.

By the way, I thought the changes sped up skill progression.  Did the rate at which you acquire lessons slow down?

[Dundee]

hmm, I got a lifetime subscription just because I tired of having to pay monthly, and that building up over time, it made more sense this way. Not sure how many people have done this.

[Furion]

I'd have to echo Jammond's sentiments - I have a lifetime, so it's not the monetary side of things that drives me away from the game.

[Isen]

What drives you away, Furion?

[Furion]

A combination of the people, my real life activities and my personal state of mind.

I just found that Avalon wasn't worth the effort any more. For the amount of energy and hours I was putting in, I was getting very little out of it. Investing that much of myself into something that I wasn't enjoying just wasn't healthy for me. The things that made the game worthwhile for me - having fun and interacting with my game buddies just weren't there anymore. It's probably more my own outlook on life changing than anything in Avalon changing.

It got to the stage where I was just disgusted with myself for interacting purely with text for 50+ hours a week and just logged out and deleted all my Avalon stuff then and there.

What keeps me from returning to the game is that I found something else to do with my time - unlike previous occasions where I've returned purely cause I have nothing else to do. I've managed to fill the chuck of time that was dedicated to Avalon with other stuff, rather than just sitting on my ass doing nothing. I'm doing something every day after school every week, so I simply don't have the time for Avalon anymore.

All in all, I think the most important factor is that I started playing Avalon at a very shit time in my life - going through the usual high school dramas and such. It was like a form of escapism for me - now that I've sorted myself out, I don't really need that escape anymore, thus Avalon became redundant. It was a chore to log in, instead of being a relief - it was like a job that I wasn't getting paid for. Screw that!

[Kresslack]

I'd consider it....then stay dormant. Not paying to play a game.

[Jammond]

So you are strictly flash games? O.o

[Furion]

Uh, after last night's antics, I'm going to have to change my answer to "I'd come back if you kept me drunk and angry."

[Narissa]

Sounds like the kid takes after me way too much.

[Jammond]

I think I have to change my answer... I'd play more if people like Esprii (ahem) stopped giving me such fascinating books... or made them smaller, that would work too

[Kresslack]

Wouldn't really be hard to still turn a profit if you make it free to play, but set up a good system and rate for procuring lessons. Run a special every few months, set up a shop that sells unique items that can be bought with special tokens from procuring.

It's being done a lot lately I know, but it's also working. Just my opinion. Most people won't really pay to play on a monthly basis, but will drop some money to have an item to wave around and brag about.

[Emrin]

Wouldn't really be hard to still turn a profit if you make it free to play, but set up a good system and rate for procuring lessons. Run a special every few months, set up a shop that sells unique items that can be bought with special tokens from procuring.

It's being done a lot lately I know, but it's also working. Just my opinion. Most people won't really pay to play on a monthly basis, but will drop some money to have an item to wave around and brag about.

Contrary to what you might think, Avalon would almost certainly make far more money from a "free to play" system than it does at the moment. However, such a system would fundamentally change the nature of the game and you have to assume that the owner prefers it how it is otherwise he'd have made the change already.

With a free to play system you'd see a much higher turnover of new characters and this would have a detrimental effect on the cities and their PR staff. One of the things I've always loved about Avalon in comparison to an IRE game for example is how helpful people are to new subscribers. You just wouldn't get that with an influx of newbies and no way of telling if they were planning to stick around.

The current housing system wouldn't be compatible with paid for private player housing either, and any kind of premium items (ala IRE's artifacts) would change the balance of the game completely.

I don't know Yehuda personally or anything, but it seems that he's not primarily motivated by profit and is probably happy with Avalon chugging along as it is.

[Palim/Capaal]

Wouldn't really be hard to still turn a profit if you make it free to play, but set up a good system and rate for procuring lessons. Run a special every few months, set up a shop that sells unique items that can be bought with special tokens from procuring.

It's being done a lot lately I know, but it's also working. Just my opinion. Most people won't really pay to play on a monthly basis, but will drop some money to have an item to wave around and brag about.

From my experience of IRE games, the free to play works great to bring in a big crowd. But it completely RUINED PvP in almost every way. With weapons that do extra damage, and armour the nullifies a percentage of damage, you pretty much have to spend hundreds to thousands of dollars on gear in order to compete in PvP.

You also get the situation where people want to avoid paying money to gain lessons, so instead they'll look for the activities they can do that earn them lessons. These then become the game. For IRE games, it is bashing up the 100 levels they have, and doing the achievements.  I think I've started rambling.

But I still do think Avalon is a bit too expensive, once people hit that point when he starts charging 25.