Would you pay for this kind of stuff?

[kiwibonga]

Hi everyone

I am on a new crusade. I believe that we have reached a point where the gameplay is very close to Gunbound: Thor's Hammer -- enjoyable enough to play several games in a row without getting absolutely frustrated.

This crusade is basically something that is affecting us all:

GIS revolves solely around cash ; a lot of things are being done to make cash and avatar on servers more appealing.
There is also the problem of crippling legit users when trying to fix abuser problems, but that's minor.

Anyway. I have been thinking about creative ways for Gunbound to make money, while not relying solely on avatar on players.

We right now are having trouble entering the avvie off servers because of the reduced capacity...

Here is one of my ideas for softnyx to make money.

The name of this feature is "Custom Graphics Shop"

This basically allows players to buy:
- Name/font colors
- Custom background avatars
- Custom power user room color
- Custom room/user decoration

How it works:

For name/font colors, basically people can pick any color they want their text or name to appear in the chat and other screens. I think a good idea would be to let people pick 2 colors, one for the background, one for the foreground, and prevent people from picking the same color for both, so names will appear like this: [doHTML]<SPAN style="background-color:yellow; color:red;">kiwibonga</SPAN>[/doHTML]
Of course this looks horrible... Maybe they'll have to let users pick low brightness colors only, so that nobody gets blinded ;p
Name coloring -> 1 week: 400 cash, 1 month: 1000 cash, 1 year: 4000 cash, perm: 10,000 cash
Font coloring ->  1 week: 400 cash, 1 month: 1000 cash, 1 year: 4000 cash, perm: 10,000 cash

For custom background avatars, you submit a bmp file of certain dimensions through a form on the website, and pay cash. Someone then reviews your entry and if it is appropriate, the background goes through and becomes selectable in your avatar shop, else the cash is refunded.

It would involve some extra programming in the game, to dynamically load avatars from the server.

Price: 1 month (minimum) : 4,000 cash, 1 year: 20,000 cash, perm: 35,000 cash

(expensive because of the very nature of the whole process)

For custom power user room colors, well, same thing as name colors, except it replaces the yellow checkered rooms with other colors. Buying such a decoration could possibly allow those rooms to be listed higher up than regular power rooms?

Price: should depend on the amount of hours left on the power card maybe?

The room decorations would be submitted in the same way as custom backgrounds, and they would be maybe 32x32 pixel icons. When someone buys such a decoration, their rooms will have a little icon on it in the list, and it will also be visible in the waiting room. For user decorations, it would be a smaller 16x16 icon which appears next to people's names in chat rooms and such.

Price: 1 month (minimum) : 1,000 cash, 1 year: 8,000 cash, perm: 25,000 cash

Anyway... This is all to allow MORE non-stat related articles that can be bought for cash, are absolutely optional, and do not conflict with the current avatar sales.

I'd like to suggest it to GIS, and I want to know if people find it good, if there's things that could be added, etc...

[SLdK]

Although I wouldn't spend money on this due to my lack of dedication, I do find that they are interesting propisitions and if I had easy access to a credit card, I'd probably get the custom background. I'm sure that plenty of people here on this site still playing would buy the things shown above but some of those things seem really expensive for the perm. Even if it is perm, $35 for a unique picture behind my avatar isn't that great if I'm not going to constantly see it. The unique colors for the poweruser rooms is a good idea as well, imho.  

[Brenneh]

On topic:  I personally wouldn't pay for this, but I'm sure many would.

Somewhat off topic: Someone on another board suggested that the reduced capacity is simply GIS trying to make it appear that WC is more successful than it is, not a result of lacking the funds.  It makes me wonder...

Other suggestions:

- Make a powercard that gives better bonuses for gold and GP than the current powercard, but no other bonuses.  Make it cheaper than the regular powercard.  This should appeal to both groups.
- More special avatars when you charge cash.  I know that snowman set inspired me to charge cash more.  

[LayneStal3y]

Rank Limited Cash Avatars, would be sweet....have only popularity stats, these would be purely for looks (like avatars should be ^.^).

Could be like....

baxe-silver baxe+
gold b axe-violet wand
blue - ruby
diamond-silver dragon

[Monkey Fat]

that would give more reason for the higher ranks to play cheap and bot or whatever they do these days.

Kiwi's idea is nice though.  What I think would be cool though, you pay maybe 20k cash, and you buy your guild an in-game logo.  Like, next to all your names you have a little custom picture for your guild, I think that would be cool, and make them money.

[Rhymer]

They should make it so using special characters in the guild name costs cash. Hey, if they are gonna be lame, be lame all the way.

[TonksLT]

That would be so awesome. I would most definally pay for it. =P

[UaERuLeS]

I voted yes because i like the idea. but wouldnt lag gunbound more?

[Diabllo]

I voted yes because i like the idea. but wouldnt lag gunbound more?

Most definitely. But couldn't they make it fetch the image from a website instead of updating GunBound every hour?

When I say uploading it to a website, I mean when softnyx approves of it, it could be uploaded to their website, then your background item would be linked to the URL of the image.

I am just assuming that you are talking about Background images..

[DietSnappple]

Great idea, kiwi. This is what MS has, and they get TONS of customers through this.

I'll try to think of more ideas and post them later... But how about giving your mobile a different 'suit' (colors etc), which would of course cost cash.... And guild logos is also a great idea...

[Brenneh]

Great idea, kiwi. This is what MS has, and they get TONS of customers through this.

I'll try to think of more ideas and post them later... But how about giving your mobile a different 'suit' (colors etc), which would of course cost cash.... And guild logos is also a great idea...

Fear my purple turtle! :lol:

[DietSnappple]

Hahahaha, maybe even DISCO TURTLE!!! HEHEHE.

[UaERuLeS]

I voted yes because i like the idea. but wouldnt lag gunbound more?

Most definitely. But couldn't they make it fetch the image from a website instead of updating GunBound every hour?

When I say uploading it to a website, I mean when softnyx approves of it, it could be uploaded to their website, then your background item would be linked to the URL of the image.

I am just assuming that you are talking about Background images..

Nice idea, softnyx must apporve the BG pictures so no one put porn or bad stuff.

[Kitty]

Neat ideas, but there's plenty more possible ideas for customizations. Custom/different user skins. (Ingame, lobby, etc). As mentioned, different color schemes for mobiles. (Not that sure if this is do-able. Wouldn't be hard to code, but if you charged cash for each bot changed, it would stack up bigtime.)
Custom Maps. From what I've seen, the land data file sizes aren't that big, compared to the graphics. In game, the land would appear as how you made it, and the land coloring / game background would be a generic coloring for the theme you picked (Stardust, miramo, meta mine, etc.) I'm sure there's many more ideas, I'm just quite too tired to brainstorm at almost 3.

The more customization, the better.

Ps: Excuse my spelling and grammar, I'm tired. Yay.

[AtheistFury]

Rank Limited Cash Avatars, would be sweet....have only popularity stats no stats at all, these would be purely for looks (like avatars should be ^.^).

Fix'd.

As for kiwi's idea: the name coloring thing is awesomly cool! I would certainly think of recharging for that purpose. But then the custom background/avatars is not something Softnyx could go for, na-ah. They would have to hire like 1k additional workers just for the purpose of ensuring no porn/racist/vulgarity images makes their way to our screens. No way this could work.
Custom coloring of names (or anything else) is however an easy thing to implement -- go for it Softnyx!