Sugestion

FlyGuy · October 03, 2007, 01:57:10 AM

What origonaly made this game stand out from the others was it being free. $:-\$
A sugestion I have is instead of charging to play, put adds on your site and add donation area and/or a shop.
Thats how many flight sim sites afford there servers for their masive file librarys.
I dont know if that could pay for the servers needed to host the game.
Another ide is a premium membership that can access more features like (the following are just suggestions)
Customizable UI
Airports in need or Airlines
ect.
Again everything I said is just a suggestion and my opinion.

Sami · October 03, 2007, 08:03:19 AM

Hi,

That extra features thing has been already suggested and discussed but it's a bit difficult to implement in my mind so that the extra features are really interesting. But like already mentioned the game will be rather affordable to play and in my mind will also clearly beat any other ones in the market, so it's worth it

And you also have the chance to test the game before you buy anything, as the free demos are still going to be available then.

I've also commented the advertising and donations option in another thread but to repeat shortly, it's not a feasible option in my mind. As to have the ads work the site requires a massive user base, several thousand visitors per day (our other site FSnordic.net has approx 7000 daily visitors and it is running on it's own by ad revenue but that is totally different kind of site with huge forums). AWS is not getting to such figures very soon due to the nature of the gameplay. Plus the regular ads cannot be used in the game area as that is closed (for example google's ads do not work there).

Giom · October 03, 2007, 11:06:54 PM

I also think that it's not good to make the games pay if they want full features. There must be other possibilities to cover the costs. Have you ever considered sponsoring? As this is an aviation game, wouldn't it be more effective to ask some airlines or airports to donate, and you can put ads of those airline(s) in the front page. I registered a long time ago, and I can't wait for the game to be released, but making it commercial is a good reason for me to not play it in the future.
Which brings me to a second Idea. Why don't you at least make it free for students. Currently I am at university studying aviation management and that's also a reason why I want to play this game. It's a simulation of real life events...

Think about it...

FlyGuy · October 04, 2007, 01:45:24 AM

Making it free for students would be kind of hard to validate. It would be really easy to just check im a student and play it free.
But sponser ship seems like a relativly good idea. I know of some airlines that are heavily involved in the virtual aviation community. For example, im pretty sure that united airlines hosts their virtual airlines site and gives them extensive info on their routes and fleet. Im sure many airlines might want to sponser this project. But again, just an idea. $:-\$

Sami · October 04, 2007, 07:09:40 AM

Quote from: FlyGuy on October 04, 2007, 01:45:24 AM
Making it free for students would be kind of hard to validate. It would be really easy to just check im a student and play it free.

Sorry, but how you would actually check that??

I can just register and say that I am an school student from Japan for example, and there is no way I can check if even such school would exist. And the validation, if it somehow could be done, would need manual work and would be very slow for admin to check each and individual new user. The idea is that you must be able to play instantly after you have registered (possible credit payments are made on the fly and there's no validation or any other delay).

Quote
But sponser ship seems like a relativly good idea. I know of some airlines that are heavily involved in the virtual aviation community. For example, im pretty sure that united airlines hosts their virtual airlines site and gives them extensive info on their routes and fleet.

This is worth checking, but in my mind its also a bit difficult option as running the servers contain some recursive costs every month and finding a sponsor to cover it in the long run especially may prove difficult. But if you have any contacts just drop me a PM via forum

Powi · October 05, 2007, 03:15:43 PM

Personally I'm ready to pay reasonable sums to play the game. Taking some money from ads and sponsors is of course a good thing, but that should not limit the development or release of the game. What should be taken care is that everybody have a practically possible way to pay for the game. Sadly Paypal only accepts credit cards today. Are there any other possibilities to those without credit card to pay for the game?

ps. I have a credit card, but I still remember the time when I didn't.

Giom · October 05, 2007, 05:34:17 PM

QuoteSorry, but how you would actually check that?? Grin

I can just register and say that I am an school student from Japan for example, and there is no way I can check if even such school would exist. And the validation, if it somehow could be done, would need manual work and would be very slow for admin to check each and individual new user. The idea is that you must be able to play instantly after you have registered (possible credit payments are made on the fly and there's no validation or any other delay).

How to check if you are a student is easy. Usually every student has an own email adress at his university. He just needs to register with this email adress, this way you are sure he's or she's a student and you can validate him as a free player. just add a comment field at the registration page and a few words to tell the people that they should indicate that they're students.

Sami · October 05, 2007, 06:10:47 PM

Quote from: Powi on October 05, 2007, 03:15:43 PM
Are there any other possibilities to those without credit card to pay for the game?

Tell me what options would be needed in your mind and I'll check if they can be added.

GOT · October 05, 2007, 06:26:37 PM

Quote from: Giom on October 05, 2007, 05:34:17 PM
How to check if you are a student is easy. Usually every student has an own email adress at his university. He just needs to register with this email adress, this way you are sure he's or she's a student and you can validate him as a free player. just add a comment field at the registration page and a few words to tell the people that they should indicate that they're students.

No, they don't.

Why can you not accept the fact that Sami needs the money to run the whole game. Their will still be a free demo.

YamazaruNinja · October 05, 2007, 06:44:50 PM

If the free demo doesn't involve everything, I'm going to not play

Though it is nice... I found things a little "buggy". You know if you start now, everybody will keep reporting bugs and...welll...Sami would lose his sanity. Just a thought.

Sami · October 05, 2007, 07:18:00 PM

Quote from: YamazaruNinja on October 05, 2007, 06:44:50 PM
If the free demo doesn't involve everything, I'm going to not play
Though it is nice... I found things a little "buggy". You know if you start now, everybody will keep reporting bugs and...welll...Sami would lose his sanity.

umm.. What? May be the few "coding drinks" that are affecting but at least I didn't understand what you tried to say?

jmi · October 05, 2007, 07:19:20 PM

Quote from: Giom on October 05, 2007, 05:34:17 PM
Usually every student has an own email adress at his university.

University? And how about those who study somewhere else. Just to forgot them? Not every school give mail addresses to students...

Sami has spend almost all his free time for this year to do this (at least it looks like that...) Hardware costs are not just few euros. Yes, this game will need dedicated server as it wont be able to run on current server as there will be great impact on performance on other sites that is hosted on this server. Server hotel is not free, like i have told earlier. So running game costs money in every month.

How it is so hard to understand that system this large is not absolutely free.

Sponsors can be one solution. Who wanna be a sponsor and donate a server to us. We need rack-compliant system with some Dual Core processor. E6600 or 6700 will be just fine. At least 2 gigs of memory. 4 is more preferred. DVD-drive for installation and two 200GB SATAII disks. And some good motherboard. And please give same amount of money for ISP costs as well. so we can run this from 6 to 10 months for free. You do math and look your personal budjet. Do you have free money to run systems like this?

Also advertising is one solution, but in game? There is no space for commerencials and someway it looks like it wont work.

Perhaps that system where you get additional tools with little money can be it. But who can say what are those tools? Just some extra charts are not enough. And because style of the game. There is not so much to take away from player. Also as there is no production and building things. Travian style payment won't work.

Just my 2 cents...

- J

ps. Yes there is still bugs, things need to adjust and so on. But i believe everything will be fixed until game is released.

GOT · October 06, 2007, 02:44:33 PM

Sami,

Have you thought about paying over SMS?

Sami · October 06, 2007, 03:36:33 PM

Quote from: GOT on October 06, 2007, 02:44:33 PM
Have you thought about paying over SMS?

Yes, discussed that just yesterday. It's not a good option as the service provider takes approx 40-50% to himself of the cost.

But however in the future I may be able to offer an extra service where you would get SMS alerts in your mobile about the happenings in the game. For example when your airline is about to go bankcrupt, a SMS would be sent

That's not in anyway an essential feature so that's perhaps coming next summer then

GOT · October 06, 2007, 05:05:01 PM

40-50% !?

Jesus...

FlyGuy · October 07, 2007, 02:26:48 AM

You could make it free for real world pilots...

I dont know how you would valitdate that though.

Powi · October 07, 2007, 10:09:30 AM

I'm willing send a copy of my GPL for free game, but i don't understand why I should be allowed to play for free.

Sami · October 07, 2007, 10:14:08 AM

Well how about us real world pilots who code this software..?

Sami · October 07, 2007, 08:35:30 PM

By the way, another option to cover the costs would be a "daily" running fee of your airline (= you pay for the number of days that your airline is in existance in each game). This method is used in one another online game. It has it's advantages but on the usability side it's hard as you cannot predict how much the game would cost all-in-all.... Also the "pay for extra features" model could be an option but at the moment there are little of such extra features in the game that (in my mind) could be marked as payable extras. Personally I'd find it best to the users test the real game with full features which after they can continue to the full game and pay the few bucks to enter.

Feel free to throw in ideas but however I think the current fee per game model is best as there you know exactly what you pay when you play. And it's also affordable, though final prices are not fixed yet (which again most likely depend on each game "scenario" too). The previously mentioned ~4-7$ per game may come a bit lower too as I believe majority of the players will be from the States and the current euro vs. usd rate is poor which makes the game perhaps too expensive in their eyes. Though still nothing compared to over $25 a game that certain other online game charges

But like mentioned we plan to keep it affordable to have big games with many players so it's the most fun for all players as then there's some competition around (that truly does affect in the game)

Back on previous suggestion though - in my mind anything that gives a certain group a full free access is not fair. As mentioned already, it's slow, hard, and often impossible to validate. People would try to abuse the system and it would generate lots of extra work for us. Ideas are appreciated though still.

Quote from: jmi on October 05, 2007, 07:19:20 PM
Sami has spend almost all his free time for this year to do this
...
We need rack-compliant system with some Dual Core processor. E6600 ........ Do you have free money to run systems like this?

Well spoken by the way (the project started somewhere in February and it's pretty much the only thing I've been doing on my free time .. I still do live with my girlfriend though - which surprises even myself .. LOL). Have to mention too - regarding on some badmouthing going on elsewhere about this project, everyone does not seem to understand the complexity of the project, nor seem to know any of the real facts...

Of the server, just out of curiosity - we are already running on a dedicated server right now (of FSnordic.net). But when the game will be released we wish to move this site out of this current server to it's own dedicated one, as we do not wish to cause problems to our other services as this game will require some calculating power.