Diamond Sharing

[DeletedUser1685]

I've seen other games that reward all members of a team if a member of that team buys something from the game store.

I was wondering if that would work in Elvenar.

For example, a member of a clan buys 10,000 diamonds, then a week later each member of that clan gets 5% of that purchase for free. So 500 diamonds each.

What say you?

 

[DeletedUser441]

I say that there's no likelyhood of that ever happening . I've seen the cost increases happen in this game so getting free diamonds is extremely unlikely .

 

[DeletedUser1685]

Yep, I doubt it will ever happen, but I like to write ideas down as they occur and then forget them. Other games have this sort of network building reward, so I thought it may be apt here. Like you, I've noticed the increasing cost of diamonds, coupled with the increasing cost of the items you buy with diamonds. Which for me harks back to the old reliance on whales philosophy of free to play games.

The price of virtual currencies is an interesting topic, well, really every currency is virtual. With diamonds the supply is virtually infinite, same as real dollars I guess, the interesting question is how to create a value in the mind of the user of the currency.

 

[DeletedUser441]

I find the cost to be exclusive. Only the wealthy can afford such high prices. £40 , roughly , for a Premium expansion. To me that's extortionate .

 

[DeletedUser1685]

That's the whale philosophy. Reliance on a few heavily paying customers out of the thousands of free players. Whales is a term from the casino business, where a big spender is worth millions. That same term has carried over to the virtual gaming business and is used to describe players who spend big. However we see different pricing philosophies out in the online gaming world, such as the famous Steam game sales. And games where you buy something and your team gets something too. Or we could take a step sideways and look at songs being sold online for 99 cents, that's entertainment content too, but maybe they have better payments systems that cost less to operate.

Elvenar has tournaments though, where you can only do one province and yet still share in all the prizes at the end of the tournament. That's the game design that encourages team play towards a goal. I thought perhaps that design could work for payments too.

I've played Elvenar for over a year, and had good value out of it, but when I do think about buying something in Elvenar the prices put me right off.

So, at least for me, they probably need a more graduated payments system, and probably a more stable one, I never really like seeing special offers pop up on my screen. Perhaps because I'm too old and have seen tens of thousands of special offers, so none of them are special any longer.

 

[DeletedUser441]

I'd better not write what I really think every time a "Special Offer" pops up and counts down .

 

[DeletedUser1685]

Yeah it's not an amazing innovation in marketing. To yell louder and more often and urgently than your competitors. Which is why we got ad blockers.
At the same time I fully understand they want to make a dollar and that's perfectly fine. I've even looked at buying some stuff but I just can't commit to the model.
For example, when I buy a beer it's $7.50, and so is the next one, and the one after that. The beers don't ramp up in price, and/or become smaller in size, as I buy more.
I use beer as an example because it provides a virtual buzz, much like a game should.

 

[DeletedUser441]

I've been priced out of ever drinking in pubs , not that I drink alcohol much anyway , but the price you quote is even more expensive than here . Luckily I don't miss it . I'm getting the same problem in the virtual world now , can't afford to game play also .

 

[DeletedUser3406]

Good idea
+1

 

[DeletedUser1685]

Thank you Jackob

 

[DeletedUser1685]

Yeah drinking in pubs is getting prohibitive. I prefer drinking in virtual taverns. I must have a built-in ad-blocker these days, I got a pop-up offer on Diamonds in my game and clicked it off without even realising it. Which makes me think. Advertisers try the same thing over and over, when they really should try differing their approach. Because customers automate their responses in response to automation.

Advertisers try to automate a human experience and wonder why results progressively worsen. From my experience working in retail therapy, people buy things for emotional reasons, mostly. For example, when was the last car ad you saw that went into detail over the cars engineering specs, rather than showed the car speeding down an adventurous road into an exciting future.

All good fun to think about while I wait for things to build.

 

[DeletedUser441]

Nicole ....... Papa (and the obligatory beauty).

Photo witheld on the grounds that it may be inappropriate for younger viewers and get me kicked out