I understand that projects such as this require money, but I think that if we really search for a way, we can find it. I have a few ideas that seem to be slightly different than those already expressed.
Selling things is an unreliable source of income. You can\'t predict how much money you are going to raise over a given period of time. I think that ads are unfortunately the way to go. I have a few suggestions to keep the client ad free, but the game still contain those messages that advertisers want us to believe is so valuable. What if the ads were displayed in game, on a message board in the towns, or places like that? That would free up the client from ads, but that doesn\'t ensure that people will click without being told to.
What I\'m thinking is, what if you give incentives to click banners. It isn\'t mandatory by any means, but players have a reason to WANT to do it. For example, after X clicks, a player might get some sort of item that is non tranferrable, after 4X clicks they customize the name of one of the items, change the hue of their armor, get a new item--whatever.
The point is, give the players non transferrable items that they can show off (adding the personalized touch would really help that out a lot). If new players see what they can get just by clicking a stupid banner (no work involved), perhaps they will click so they can get the items that they see others wearing or bragging about.
At any rate, whatever you do to raise money, you need to make the players want to do it, and not make them do it. A happy player, is a returning player, and a returning player wants to click more to get the next reward...
