Neuronia

Actually, the new Ghoul code (many thanks to my emissary @Shotty Mario, who donated his from Comic Con) lets you at least get close to "flailing limbs".

I got a Micro and Web got a Membrane that day, so awesome.

Hey Flea.

I did some quick googling and found something related to Tabula Rasa:

"ROI = Vf-Vi/Vi
where Vf equals money saved/earned and Vi equals your initial investment.

So let's consider this, please change the numbers and recalculate if you know more accurate numbers. Using Tabula Rasa's rumored $100 million price tag (may only be $20 million, lol, who knows). In 2007-8 it was estimated there was 88k paying customers (see article below). We'll estimate that 200k bought the game initially. Obviously, these are gross assumptions, but it is a starter, as players come and go, some paid a month or two, and more may have purchased it originally, etc etc.

Money going out:
Initial Investment: $100,000,000
Monthly cost to maintain, server upkeep & hosting, pay support, devs, etc $2,000,000

Money Coming In:
Initial Sales: $50 box, say $25 directly back to developer: 200k*$25 = $5,000,000
Monthly revenue from subscriptions: 88,000 * $14 = $1,232,000

Therefore the game would be bleeding money of over $700,000 a month with the possibility of never paying for itself, that is why it was shut down. Even if the monthly maintenance was closer to 1 million (based on Frotus' estimate), it would take over 400 months to repay the $100 million dollar initial investment. So essentially, what we need to know is what it costs to maintain a game monthly including the cost for hosting, server maintenance, customer service, development team, keep the water in the crapper flowing, etc."


From MMORPG.com...where it was claimed WoW cost 50 million a year to upkeep (?).


If we're at 50K-70K paying subs...we need more subs and recurring subs to keep the game afloat.

This would probably only work in zones, and even then it might not due to the conning rules.

You might be able to make a 3-team Arena match and so on...they could certainly be damaged but probably not healed by anyone. Also, people quit matches if they drop from teams now, iirc. Not sure though.

There is a simpler, though admittedly more set-intensive, way around the Capture the Flag issue:

Capture the Flag - Brainstorm

Two teams of 8 players.
Travel Suppression off
Diminishing Returns on
Heal Decay off

Have a bubbler (stop looking at me like that ) or Sonic be the flag. Why? Their AoE bubbles make them easier to spot. FFers also have PFF for whatever good that would do. Once they are captured, have them 'drop' their Sonic/Forcefield toggle to indicate capture. Have the capturing player announced in broadcast in the Arena and the hunt is on!

Assign points for:
i)X Points for capturing the original flag.
ii)Bonus points for the flag NOT being captured
iii)Points for returning the flag to your base

Or don't assign points at all and go with it!

Suggest map for this:

Cargo Ship
Perez Park
Outbreak

Map you shouldn't use:

Eden
(HEY GUYS, I HAVE THE FLAG. WHERE ARE YOU? AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGH FELL DOWN A CREVICE!!! /stuck /stuck)

Option II

Warburg

Why Warburg? Cos no one ever goes there except to farm...

How do you get it done?

Have a person from each side head toward the globe. Give general hints as to location and see if the other team can 'capture' them. Additionally, you can turn this into a King of the Mountain thing for who can hold the globe the longest.

I think the key here should be fun and seeing how long your flag can be kept alive.

Sounds good, 9 pm it is.

It's on now!

Arena turns off travel suppression completely.
In zones, suppression is a factor of (iirc, someone correct me as needed) power activation time, heals etc. Basically, in a zone if you do anything that targets, buffs, heals someone is getting suppressed for a few seconds.

Arena matches now are set to no Heal Decay (removing suppression from Heal effects) Diminishing Returns on (excluding heals...since all players have a global resist bonus and their resist toggles...as an example I fought a Dark Tanker with DR off and his Psi Resist was 81% or something crazy), No Travel Suppression and map picks to challenged, challenger, random.

Holds do affect you for a short period, so there is some stop and go, but it's not as bad as zones. You're not really going to see Sonic around much, even though Clarity does activate faster than CM, the shields will add all of 4-5% Res at that and everyone is using Psi Blasters...so yeah.

Outside of that, there's a buff period at the start of each match so you won't get nuked...but nukes do about as much damage as a ladybug crashing into a hum-vee's windshield, so no issue there. You respawn on a rolling 15 second timer, so if you die at 9:22, you'll respawn at 9:15, get a few seconds to retoggle then go.

Matches that are in a draw state after the timer go to Sudden Death, which is basically lame so we call it a draw.

AS doesn't do as much damage as it used to, but the epic attacks of Stalkers and Tankers are like getting hit by a Buick.

You an also email inspirations to yourself so you'd have a ton of Respite, but that's been fixed on test so you'll have your regular load of greens...Sturdy doesn't do much outside TP protect, adding all of 6-8% Res at most because of DR.

A lot of the old school guys are gone though...dUmb is still around, Silit too, Hot Heals...Smoke Signal, Peril and some others but there's some new people too.

Also, there are PvP IOs that add a lot of range to your attacks and have a combination of PvE and PvP bonuses that work in Arena...ask Slax or Psoma or Lib to get you in dUmb chat so we can catch up.

P.S. A friend on Pinn has your account info and it's always funny when NotPutzing pipes up in the LethalLadies channel or I see one of your toons kicking around, heh.

Welcome back (?)

Just poking my head in, but would increasing the drop rate accomplish what the OP is asking?
I think they want more items on the Market; do players obtaining items list them on the Market de facto, or do they use/delete/store for a rainy day?

Market usage, at least on a permanent basis, seems something a more involved player would be doing. Said involved player probably isn't affected much by the vagaries of pricing since they know how to move influence via transactions...so while there might well be a drop in sale prices, how would it affect item creation as a whole? Anecdotally, I know sgmates that just don't roll their Merits, ever. They save up for their big drop then buy off the Market but they rarely supply the Market because they don't want to "lose their work", so to speak.

If the Devs want more players to get LOTG 7.5s they can lower Merit costs, increase the seeding table for LOTG 7.5s on random rolls or heck, just give them as rewards for certain tasks. I'm always leery of the consequences of dev placement of items...the whole unintended consequences bit.

But what if you've got the combined minds of Louie.Kaboom and Dahjee starting an insane teleport chain with Teleport Foe-Wormhole-Teleport Foe? Louie even has the Teleport Foe activation record...

Doom, I say. Doom.