PlaneShift
Gameplay => General Discussion => Topic started by: aircows on March 08, 2004, 08:59:34 pm
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I don\'t know if there was previous discussion of this or not (if there was I couldn\'t find it). But what would be the advantages/disadvantages of making a boxed version of Planeshift? It would probably cause some upfront costs (CDs, printing, duplication), but if you charged like $20-$30 for it, I assume that the project could generate a little funding so that they may put it towards other things related to the project (new server, a mac to help the mac-client development, etc). Obviously you wouldn\'t start charging to get connected into the game, and there would still the downloadable version of the client. It would also be a nice option for those of us that don\'t have broadband (me).
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I have heard a discussion about this but i don\'t remember really the end. Only that a dev (Vengeance?) warned that publisher can trap a \"weak\" community (understand who can\'t do a trial).
Whatever, i don\'t think this is the time to do such a thing. Even CB won\'t have a public large enough to start to release Planeshift boxes.
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I\'m talking more big picture, like when the majority of features are implemented and when the game becomes like 99% playable.
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Yes, could be. The only problem is as i said to find a publisher reliable since i don\'t think PS dev team will once have the infrastructure to do such a thing.
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I wouldn\'t mind paying 10 or 20 dollars for a nice PS CD with a printed manual (hell, I\'d even pay $50 for it). But there\'s no real need for it, they\'ve went without money this long with donated servers and such...
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I don\'t think a boxed version would work just yet. The CD and manual would be out dated too quick. But in the future it may work.
However something like T-shirts or posters (maybe maps?) would be easier to have made.
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if somebody paypals me the cost of pnp + cd i will copy it for free for ppl.
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Well, at a later point when PS is considered \"ready for prime time\", it would work, LastAndroid, no of course not now. But the CDs are always out of date on MMORPGs, I remember I got SWG the day it came out and there was already a patch for it... The manual would be fairly static, since UI and the core skills and abilities won\'t tend to change beyond a certain point.
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T-shirts and posters, now there is a good idea. I\'d definitly pick up a PS t-shirt if one were made available.
elscouta, i do see your point on the publisher thing. but if PS had one person that was part of the PS team (obviously not the devs, they\'ve got way to much else to worry about) do the publishing (printing, duplicating), then you could probably pull it off.
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More importantly: any manual could contain numerous fanfics, official history, small bits and ads about guilds...
Posters would be cool, and T-shirts as well. 8)
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This is definently not a realistic idea to me. PS is and always will be a free game. If you charged people to buy it in the store then it is no longer a free game. And the PS team has actually refused donaations because they don\'t need the money. If you don\'t have broadband go and get DAP or something and spend a week dling it.
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It isn\'t neccesary to start paying for the game like even if it was just a 1 time payment, but if it had to happen I would purchase the game thats if it came to my town
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Originally posted by AendarCallenlasse And the PS team has actually refused donaations because they don\'t need the money. [/COLOR]
You could always take donations to pay for servers. I wouldn\'t mind paying a few $ to have a fast US server.
Or you could always sell stuff at cost. It would help promote PS and give people something in the real world.
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See when I started playing this the first question i asked was is this game going to stay free or ever go p2p and I was pounded with the answer ITS FREE ITS FREE! Now you people are starting to bring money into the equation! If this game goes p2p, boy ill be...
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Originally posted by LastAndroid
You could always take donations to pay for servers. I wouldn\'t mind paying a few $ to have a fast US server.
Heck, why don\'t we just all pay $10 every month so they can actually keep the server that you want to buy for them? Eh?
People, it\'s been said so many times. If you want to make T-Shirts, talk to one of the top devs. It\'s probably easily done. If you want to donate money to something useful, give them to the guys working on CrystalSpace. They need it, and they\'re willing to accept it. The reason why PlaneShift is, and stays, free, is because they don\'t have any money, they don\'t use any money and they don\'t get any money. As soon as you start breaking one of those things, everything will cost money, and everyone will be pissed, and unhappy.
So stop talking about money!
P.S. If you\'re really serious about wanting to depart with your money, for gods sake, PM me and I\'ll give you my PayPal account. Then I\'ll donate it all to CrystalSpace for you. Geez...
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*wonders who unstickied his thread*
http://www.planeshift3d.com/wbboard/thread.php?threadid=7370&boardid=13
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By the time PS would be worth releasing on a CD, it would actually be a DVD and broadband would be the equivilant of dial-up. So it pry wouldn\'t be worth it. But a lot of big open-sourced projects do offer a CD version for a small fee (pretty much just s&h). They also do merchandising, since it\'s such an on-demand process these days. It\'d be a fun way for community members to contribute, as maybe they could help design such things. Since the devs don\'t need the money, just funnel any profits from that into CS then.
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Well, I\'m certainly glad to see the devs be so adamantly against PS turning into a pay-2-play game. :D
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It\'s core to the whole concept of the game... now where is that... here! (http://www.warcry.com/scripts/news/view_news.phtml?site=15&id=8889)
The interview with Talad/Luca Pancello, the guy in charge of this deal.
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tala.. who? laca wha? never heard of the guy in my life! :D
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Originally posted by AendarCallenlasse
This is definently not a realistic idea to me. PS is and always will be a free game. If you charged people to buy it in the store then it is no longer a free game.
So Linux or Counter-strike are not free software just because some people sell them ? Doesn\'t make any sense to me.
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So Linux or Counter-strike are not free software just because some people sell them ? Doesn\'t make any sense to me.
Contradiction? I think so. If you sell it how is it free...?[/COLOR]
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So in your opinion, Linux is not free software. Okay.
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If I offer you that you can take my TV set for free or that I can send it to you by mail for the shipping/packing costs, is it not free ?
The only problem I can see here is which person would be burning and shipping the CDs and accepting payments ?? Maybe if some company offered such service already.
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So in your opinion, Linux is not free software. Okay.
I don\'t use Linux and don\'t know much about it. But if you have to...pay...for it then no it\'s not free.[/COLOR]
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No you don\'t have to pay for it. You can download it and burn it to CDs. But for example the distribution that I use comes on 9 CDs. And I even didn\'t have a CD burner. So I had the CDs burned and shipped to me by one local company that does this sort of things, for some money (like $10).
Same with Counter-strike or Day of defeat - you can download them from internet, or you can buy them at store for money (big money in this case ... at the price of full commercial game ...).
If similar system worked for PS, people would not be buying PS - they would be paying *for the service* of burning and delivery of the CDs. Service for the people than choosed to pay for it. Even if the team decided to have a small profit from this to cover some expenses of running PS servers or something (I doubt it), there would ALWAYS be a good way to get PS for free.
But this is just a theory. I think we would have to find a company that would do all the copying and shipping and payments, if such companies exist. It seems that for example FilePlanet does this.
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Originally posted by aircows
Well, I\'m certainly glad to see the devs be so adamantly against PS turning into a pay-2-play game. :D
Offering a boxed version for a small price and P2P are two completely different things.
I don\'t really think the OP meant that it would be totally P2P... I think he just meant that it would be cool if they offered an \"official\" box set for both dial-up users, and PS fanatics such as I.
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I think a few of you people are confusing free and gratis...
Linux is free, Counter-Strike is not.
Linux is gratis, so is Counter-Strike.
You can buy a boxed distribution of Linux, but its still free. You can buy a boxed copy of Counter-Strike, but its nothing like Linux.
When describing software, specifically Linux or other open-source software, free is short for freedom; that is the freedom to redistribute, resell, and modify so long as you grant the same freedoms to the next generation.
psclient is free, Planeshift\'s content is not.
So the biggest problem with burning your own CDs is the content, which you\'ll need prior consent from the copyright holders, that being the PS team. Although if you\'re only charging for CDs/S&H, then I doubt they\'d have much of a problem with it.
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aendar
Paying a small amount for a CD of the client delivered for your door:
- PS client = Free
- Service of having it delivered to yer door in a nice protective box = Small fee
As for distribution.. if you wanna have the PS client in the shops (like PS) itll cost a bit no matter who u go to... a much simpler method would be to have an online order form & a pc or 2 with cd burners.... demand shouldnt be too high as most people would be happy to download... but those 56kers wouldnt mind waiting up to a week or 2 to save the download im sure
Keeping PS free.. u could offer the CDs as a free gift but the cost of P&P would mount up with no decernable income to replace it... if CDs are to be then the best method would be to emphasise that no profit is made from them and that the cost charged to the player is the EXACT cost of P&P
if players feel they have paid for the game they will whine/moan a whole lot more if problems arise as they feel they have paid for a service they are not recieveing... if it is made clear to a player that any money they paid was for the service of having the CD delivered to their door then the only complaints they could have will be directed at the postal service :P
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http://www.fsf.org/
...\'nuff said ...this link applies in it\'s fullest to both PlaneShift and Linux ...now please stop flaming each other over what\'s free and what\'s now ...there you have the official explanation what Free is.
oh, and yea ...since both PS source (= not artwork) and GNU/Linux are both under GPL license, you might look that one up on that page as well ;) ...and yes, GPL does permit additional costs (like bandwidth costs, guarantee and so on) to be charged, but you still have to let people distribute it for free, and if you do charge for the binary you still have to let the source be free (this is in very short explained the GPL license ...all errors are due to my headache at the moment)
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Originally posted by hook
http://www.fsf.org/
...\'nuff said ...this link applies in it\'s fullest to both PlaneShift and Linux ...now please stop flaming each other over what\'s free and what\'s now ...there you have the official explanation what Free is.
Official ? Is FSF the authority on english language now ? Free means both free as in speach and free as in beer. It\'s their (stupid) fault that they choosed ambigous word :-P
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I wouldn\'t mind carrying some boxed copies of PS if it ever gets to that stage. The only issue is that boxed versions generally cost a fair bit to produce - The coloured cardboard, printing of the manual etc does amount to a fair bit. I think that if you want that, the people who are really going to gain are those who are printing your box and manual, and probably not the PS dev team itself.
There are probably ways to work around this. Maybe a compilation of fan fiction, or a strategy guide, and similar stuff that doesn\'t cost too much to produce but adds value to the gamer\'s experience. An interesting thing to note is that I\'ve wondered why PS has not tapped on this yet since there is obviously some demand for such stuff - the fact that we have threads asking about donations and similar goes to show that there is a market (no idea abt the size of it) that exists.
Maybe it\'s because the PS team doesn\'t want to let anybody down with crabby overpriced goods? Or maybe they just want to get CB out the door? I haven\'t a clue myself.
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Ok, well maybe there are to many complications involved with creating and distributing a boxed version of PS.
I know that this is more of a PR issue, but regardless, I\'ll say it anyways. IMHO, this project really isn\'t that easy to find. The way I found out about the project was in a LinuxJournal (or some other Linux mag) article when they were interviewing the CrystalSpace devs. I\'m sure gamer mags would eat up this stuff. They have CDs chauked full of demos and what not every month. I think it would be easier to distribute PS to the masses through one of these mediums. Hell, with what this project is, you could probably have the game be the cover story. Has this issue been explored? I know somewhere on the forum, there was an article in a PC mag in Europe somewhere. Really not that helpful I guess for those of us that live in US.
Just more to ponder.
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Being popular is a double edged sword. If we have bigger exposure we have more people interested == more possible team memebers. But then we also get more people that think that this is a complete game and may go out and tell other people the game sucks when they don\'t understand it\'s current state.
That being said, I wouldn\'t mind producing caps/shirts/guides/etc but that is a lot of work and is more \'official\' ( ie money is involved. ) This can be something we look at after the Non-Profit organization is set up and PlaneShift becomes a legal entity. Plus I have no idea what is involved with that. Maybe when we get some stuff like this produced at work I can see how it is done and get some quotes for PS related stuff.
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the t shirts and caps should say \"how many pre-alphas have you played today?\" lol
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Merchandising is very easy to do, like I said, due to the fact you can have things done on demand. So you don\'t actually have to create any inventory, it\'s all dynamically allocated. It\'s how every web-comic on the internet is able to sell t-shirts and mousepads. This only applies to generic type merchandise where you can just print a graphic onto it, but that seems to be enough for most folks. That\'s just what I can tell from basic observation, I\'m sure there are plenty of places you can look into this stuff though.
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I think merchandise and a box version would be great aslong as the game never went p2p and never costed to download.
The boxed version would be pretty cool and while it would cost it would generate intrest in the game while still keeping it free and paying for other costs that may have poped up.
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When the Devs ask for money, worry about how to make it, until then, don\'t. The game costs nothing, production does cost though, so tell me: how can they produce paraphenalia with no funds? I believe that you all have no answer for that. Even buying cd\'s costs money, money that a non-profit organisation simply does not have.
The idea of a boxed game, is useless, when there is no means for production.
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Non-profit doesn\'t mean non-money. It just means that if you have to pay for something it will be \'at cost\'. So for example, if it costs $10,000 to make 1000 shirts then they can be sold at $10 each.
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Ummm... right. What I\'m saying is doing stuff like that really doesn\'t cost that much. (http://www.cafepress.com)
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Originally posted by acraig
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hehe you can tell hes a programmer :P
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But agraig, that\'s the problem....
they are tihnking of this as a means for making money, if you sell it at cost, you make no money, abiding by the claim of non-profit yes? But, it is not fundraising per se, if you make no funds. It\'s not a viable idea to raise funds for PS.
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I wasn\'t saying a way to make money.
I was just saying that I thought selling T-shirts would
A: be cool
B: any profit that had somhow been made could be put towards making things like say a boxed version of PS cheaper, for people who just like to have a box for the heck of it.
And i\'m not saying sell it in shops I meant on a E-shop so people who have 56k could still get a copy.
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Originally posted by kyp14
B: any profit that had somhow been made
that\'s my point, there can be no profit
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Ok, well, we could sell shirts for $11 and then put the extra $1 in the bank. At the end of the year we can save up enough for the next years costs ( ie server bandwidth/website hosting/etc ) and whatever is left over can be donated to charity or something. This really is too far into the future to even speculate about though.
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the few bits of the corparate world (in canada, ianal, iirc & ymmv) that i know are:
- non-profits are allowed to make \"some\" profit. the tax people realize that a perfectly profitless organization is impossible to achieve, and one that looses money means less taxes.
- over a short period of time allowed to make \"normal\" profits. but these have to be directed towards a specic goal, ie expansion, major debt reduction etc.
but i would pay for a boxed ps set. mostly because it would mean one less thing for me to have to download on a hard drive rebuild.
plus a whole bunch of extras can be included. history of the dev ps, additional musics, etc. various character fictions. myth storys stuff like that.
in balance it can be all on the website. but, i would pay for the convience of having it all in one place.
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i have one thing to say:
\"We want to give FREE access to everyone, without the need to either (((((purchase))))) the game or pay a monthly fee. Servers and bandwidth will be donated by sponsors\"
PS.
Merchendis Is Cool Tho, i would love a kran action figure!! with rock-fu accesories
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Hmmm, I think of this as a logical idea... The devs don\'t want anybody to have to purchase the game. If they ever did do the CD boxed version, it\'d be for the convinence of the 56k\'ers and the enjoyment of the people who would like to have a PS box sitting on their desk.
It\'s not because they want anybody to purchase it. If it would take me 72 hours to download the game, I\'d rather order the boxed version and save myself time.
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I think with the lag you get on ADSL and CABLE any 56ker wouldent be able to play PS anyway, espechaly when it starts to rain and thunder.
Although your nice Planeshift Box sitting on my shelf idea is still vallid, and if it came with a manual i could read while playing so i could cheak up strengths and weaknesses of each race etc all the better.
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I used to play on 56k all the time (when it first came out) took me forever to download...but I didn\'t go any slower, now in the future? Maybe, but it\'s the same with any other MMOG.
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Originally posted by Magerranger
I think with the lag you get on ADSL and CABLE any 56ker wouldent be able to play PS anyway, espechaly when it starts to rain and thunder.
Although your nice Planeshift Box sitting on my shelf idea is still vallid, and if it came with a manual i could read while playing so i could cheak up strengths and weaknesses of each race etc all the better.
It is a common misconception that PS lags because of network traffic. That is NOT the case. Especially features like rain and thunder cause no network overhead at all. Nearly all lag is caused by rendering issues and overhead on the client itself.
Greetings,
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Wait doesn\'t the licence PS has not let the devs make people pay for the game?
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Originally posted by AendarCallenlasse
So in your opinion, Linux is not free software. Okay.
I don\'t use Linux and don\'t know much about it. But if you have to...pay...for it then no it\'s not free.[/COLOR]
You don\'t HAVE to pay for linux. You can always get linux for free from the internet. But of course for many people it is more conveniant to buy a boxed version (CD-ROM). The fact that you can buy linux doesn\'t mean that linux is not free. Because you can still download linux for free (ignoring the cost of internet itself). It is just that you have to pay for the option to get linux in a more conveniant (for some) way.
Greetings,
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http://www.planeshift.it/about.html
From the about page:
What is Planeshift?
The objective of the PlaneShift Team is to create a virtual fantasy world in which a player can start as a peasant in search of fame and become a hero. We will focus our efforts in the reproduction of a real world with politics, economy, many non-player-characters controlled by the server that will bring to life our world even without players connected!
We want to give FREE access to everyone, without the need to either purchase the game or pay a monthly fee. Servers and bandwidth will be donated by sponsors.
Our virtual world is persistent, and this means you can connect to it at every hour of day or night and you will always find players and npcs wandering our realms. You will be able to disconnect and reconnect again, the server saves the actual status of your character including his possessions.
You will use a client program to interact with our world, that enables you to have a 3D view of the surroundings.
Here are 10 reasons why you should become a player and a fan of PlaneShift:
1. Planeshift is a great place to find new friends from all over the world!
2. PlaneShift is a virtual world where you always dreamed of living
3. PlaneShift is the first 3D MMORPG to be free for players
4. Thanks to our open development process, the game will be expanded endlessly for years to come
5. Planeshift is a game made by roleplayers to bring you all the immersion you need from a virtual world
6. A unique setting, realistic combat rules, great magic system with hundreds of spells
7. No budgetary constraints will stop development of the world or prevent the addition of new ideas
8. You can build your house, your castle, your realm
9. You have the option to live as an adventurer or as a normal citizen, both paths rewarded in game
10. You can submit comments, ideas, bugs and the dev team will take those into account in future releases
Its not up to YOU to decide wether planeshift is going to be free or not, even after the Dev\'s have stated its going to be free and after turning down donations.
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I think they mean that it should be optional payment, that can work with the dev\'s statement. As they have said noone should HAVE to pay for PS. Therefore we don\'t HAVE to pay for it, but some people might opt to pay for it, making it a CHOICE not a REQUIREMENT.
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I think they, the devs didn\'t want payment, because they wanted PS to stay free. As in truly free, not having a free play mode, and a pay play mode, or anything like that.
Now I know everyone will jump and say that people don\'t *have* to pay, it\'s an option, but once PS generates any profit, some of the devs may want it to keep the profit coming, or the publishers, or whoever else gets involved may want to keep the profit coming. Because of that I think that PS does not want any money. Anyway, off with my opinion, it\'s slightly inibreated...