payment options

[foggia]

I heard a couple of homilies once:

"Just about the time I got that damn mule weaned off hay, he up and died on me.."

and

"You pay more money and you get a better seat.."

I design, code and support software for a living.  The overhead of a twenty-four hour a day, seven day a week operation of this type will be a lot more than most of you imagine.  It will take a steady revenue stream to support that, let alone recoup the development costs!

These guys (Hitech, Pyro, etal) are undoubtedly good wonderful dudes, but let's face it!  I doubt that they are entirely in this for the love and adoration of WWII flight sim enthusiasts!  I'll wager they want to make some MONEY some day!

So, if you guys are like me and you don't feel complete unless you've logged 20 or 30 hours in the virtual cockpit every week then you'd better get ready to pay the piper!

I, for one, am more than willing to do it.

P.S.  Sorry about the mixed metaphors...

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foggia
XO
457th Bomb Group


[This message has been edited by foggia (edited 07-24-1999).]

[Brazos]

Val is right,

And another thing to consider is the type of players you get with flat rate pricing. Daddy won't foot a $100 per month bill. That leaves the serious sim fanatics you love to fly with and against. $2 per hour is just about right.



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Cya up...Brazos

[BnZ]

Just get me a good conx, a game as good as 2.5 with closer range gunnery and I'll pay the usual

[Ozymandias_KoK]

Also, let's not forget that RPG type games and a high fiedlity flight sim are two very different things.  An RPG just has to keep track of where you are, do some hit modifications based on random #'s, and pop up text indicating results.  It doesn't really have to track continuing motion in 3 dimensions.  EQ doesn't have bad lag, oz would say, but would rather not have to try and shoot at the creatures as they lag back and forth -- minor of course, but in a lfight sim that would be intolerable.  And another thing, those type of boxed sims make money from selling millions of copies, advertising revenue, and the like, whereas this type of flight sim is much more of a smaller, niche market.

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Please help Oz find his sig, he lost it!

[Pyro]

We are not yet ready to state what our pricing structure will be.  We realize that this is an inconvenience to everyone and apologize for that.  The reason we wish to hold off on this is because we have a long way to go before we can start charging. A lot of things can change in the market and in our business during that time.  We feel that it would be better to delay an announcement on this issue than to possibly have to change it later.



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Doug "Pyro" Balmos
HiTech Creations

[Rebel28]

I have read the posts on this message board and have a few comments. First a lot of you gentlemen are snobs. I guess you would say I am from the unwashed crowd because I play Airwarrior3 for the flat rate plan they have. That does not mean that I may not be a good pilot online just that I can ill afford $2.00 and hour to play a game. Keep a game priced out of reach of the majority and you will end up with a sub standard game with few players and minimal profits. But you will have your “elite” community but it will not grow or expand and will be doomed to die. I followed CK for 4 years hoping it would be the next game but alas it died before it ever got off the ground. With the problems now introduced in Airwarrior with the new arenas they have just posted with 3.12 players are looking to move in masses. The new airfields are so far apart you must spend 30-45 min. just looking for a fight. Imagine that at $2.00 an hour. So if they plan on making this a flat rate game the “elite” had better watch their 6 it would be very embarrassing to be smoked by one of the low life crowd. Some of us are not that bad just poor by your standards.

Reb28, Gpkr I/JG 52
JG 52 Zweite


[This message has been edited by Rebel28 (edited 07-26-1999).]

[Yeager]

Interesting post reb.

This elite snob bashing seems kind of self insulting when one considers that there are common snobs as well as elite snobs (BTW, which variety are you?).

For what its worth, most everyone I know in Warbirds are of the common snob variety.
We are perfectly suited to be snobs and such in AW but prefer a better sim.

Dont you agree?

Post Script: The use of the word *snob* when describing people I know in Warbirds is used only for the puropse of "illustrating my point" in this re-post to reb!  I honestly do not see any elitism or snobbery in the great crowd of people I have come to know and appreciate online in Warbirds.

Every single person I have exchanged banter with have been stand up folks whom Im proud to sim with.

Kevin -Yeager- Hall

[This message has been edited by Yeager (edited 07-26-1999).]

[Flathat]

AW3 and Ultima Online are poster children for why AH *should* carry an hourly rate. AW3 (which I've played) is an inferior sim by just about any reasonable standard, and I doubt FA (which I haven't played) is any better. As for UO, does anyone know whether it still carries the infamous warnings in the intro screens?

A flat-rate species of the Air Combat Arena might help ( to Vermillion for making the point) if it drew enough players to pay most of the freight, leaving us hard-core, high frustration tolerance types to pay a low/reasonable hourly rate for full realism and a state-of-the-art FM. :-) Where those breakpoints are is anyone's guess. On the one hand, a small company should have less overhead than a large one, unless Hitech, Pyro and the others decide that they deserve multiple P-51s as much as the id guys deserve multiple Ferraris. :-) On the other hand, price makes the market and vice versa.

[val]

I guess being a realist is to be a snob, eh Reb?

I won't bash AW or it's pilots. There is no reason to start a pissing match. I don't give a rats arse who has the better pilots. In the end it is just a game.

To date WBs has exceeded AW in flight model fidelity as well as damage model granularity. There is nothing 'sub standard' about WBs. It seems to me that you would rather play WBs over AW, but are forced to fly AW due to financial limitations.

You can't deny that AW has stagnated. The main reason is that they do not generate enough money to support full time development.

I am not made of money, and I have spent money I didn't have to get a WBs fix. I don't regret a single penny spent! I have recieved full value for every dollar.

I resent the fact that you consider me a snob, because I am willing to pay and support a premium game.

val

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Scott (val) Valline
Dweebs of Death


[This message has been edited by val (edited 07-26-1999).]

[rend]

As someone familiar with UO, you don't want AH to have a similar pricing plan, unless you want a lot of idiots sharing your online experience.  Call me a snob or whatever *shrugs* but there are a lot of idiots out there that enjoy purposefully ruining the game experience of others, and their online presence seems inversely proportional to cost.

Not all those who can't afford hourly pricing are idiots, and not all those who can afford hourly pricing aren't idiots, but generally speaking, the more something costs a person the more responsible they are about it.

If you disagree, give UO a try for a month, then see what you think.  In UO, that killa person wouldn't stand out from the crowd.  In UO people who treat each other with couresy and consideration are the ones who stand out.

No offense to anyone intended, except the idiots, of course  

[Belgar]

ok...we got 2 guys who play warbirds one holds a credit card and the other is on a payment plan of flat rate....both will play
25 hours a week on the game at $1.99 per hour

if i say the flat rate is at $100 (£60) per month the company is already licking the shoes of the guy with the credit card as in a month hes gone about $99 over the flat rate price
ok fare point...but the problem with credit cards is that the payment fluctuate up and down so one month he may play alot less than the month before or not play at all and that income for the company is also going to be less but if a flat rate is applied then it is of a consistant rate and the income is at a steady flow with no fluctuation (only if a customer leaves and cancels account) and with how many pliots do we have i heard roughly 8000 though not all playing at the same time of course so with a steady income of $100 per month x 8000 or whatever the exact figure is EVENTUALLY going to go alot higher than the income of the guy or guys and girls that pay with a credit card,
The customer count is dropping on warbirds...slowly but its declining
so if Warbirds or Aces High want to have a consistant or a increased customer based product then a flat rate will or does need to be applied....i have no problem paying a hourly rate its just not going to be like this for much longer....and with probably Warbirds being the only Pay as you go game on the net at the moment it is set to doom is i say about 2yrs max....im thinking ahead and being realistic...IMOL/IEN are not but which path is Hitech Creations going to go...we have to wait and see

Belgar

Member of 249 RAF [Tangmere Wing]

[Disco Fever]

I really don't understand al the debate over pricing and never have. Everybody wants to have their cake and eat it too. I know I do but we all know it won't happen. You can debate how this other game does this or that but when it comes right down to it; it doesn't mean a damn thing. The game isn't even out yet and people who may never even play it are debating over price. I'll let you in on a little secret. They'll charge what they think they can based on what they want/need inspite of any debate going on here.

[wklink]

Well, as one of those who flies both AW and Warbirds I can see it from both sides.

We are snobbish in Warbirds.  I compare it to drivers of Cadillacs verses drivers of Chevrolets.  Both are similar and get you where you want to go but some of us will pay a little more to get the fancier car.

I am all for a flat rate, to a point.  I kinda like IMOL's different price plans with a little revision (10 bucks for 10 hours, 20 for 23, 50 for 75) or something like that.  In all hosesty, If I tried to pass a hundred dollar bill past the wife I would walk funny for a month (it would take that long to pass the joystick out my butt).  

If you spend more than 75 hours a month on a game, maybe you should go look for a girl anyway:-).

Wlink
332nd Flying Mongrels

[Beaz]

If your going to adopt a pay per hour pricing structure for AH in the same way as WB then fine... I bet you'll have alot of Warbirds guys turn up who don't have Mac guys in their squads. I'm quite prepared to pay hourly. However there are a few points to consider :-

1. The WB pricing plan is a bit strange. Until just last week you payed $29.95 for 20 hours which equated to $1.50 an hour roughly and when you went over 20 hours you then got hammered at $2 an hour... which is fine for a few months but people wise up pretty quickly and realise they shouldn't play past the 20 hour mark. It just doesn't encourage you to play. iMOL have just changed this and people now pay $1.50 past the 20 hour barrier if they are on the premium plan.

2. If your going to employ an hourly charge plan then PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE make it a stepped rate plan... so the more you play the cheaper it gets and the more you are encouraged to play.

3. If you intend to capture WB and AW pilots and try to put the people that run AW/WB out of business then you need to be very competitive... HTC appears to have the lean infrastructure to do this but you need a competitive pricing plan to achieve this and keep your customers. A flat rate pricing plan at say $19.95 or $29.95 "all you can eat" may appeal to AW pilots who would then have access to a high fidelity premium sim and would also appeal greatly to the WB crowd who have been screaming for flat rate pricing for aslong as I can remember. This is of course if you guys can afford it and keep afloat at the same time and pay for all that pizza you must be consuming  

Regards

Daren

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Beaz
249 Squadron RAF "Gold Coast"
"With Fists and Heels"

[Wardog]

I totally disagree with flat rate pricing. You put it to $10.00 a month and every Quake Dweeb will bring the child like antics to a
sim that we want a good community in. We have this in WB except for a few,(Very few) people who can spoil the whole game for the rest.

Keep it close to WB pricing & the community as a whole will do well,remember..This is more than just a sim. It is a community.

 

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** Death From Behind **
  Wardog 32nd Panthers
         --wd--