DarkLife

I'd like to help, i know a little scripting, but i can help with builds, and as for pay, i guess i'd just want darklife packs and equipment

Thanks for your offer, but at the moment I do not have any small tasks

Update: we decided we go for a big update instead of several smalls. I will be doing the stuff I said, but the following gameplay features will be added too:
-Materials
-Complete new range of equipment
-Upgradable equipment
-enhancements for equipment
-deteriorating equipment (and fixing of it by blacksmith)
-selling of equipment
-Removing all magic spells and creating a whole new line of spells
-more power to the light mages (and dark as well): stat-alterting spells will also increase in duration and power if you levelup your magic skills, and there will also be more and higher level spells to buy
-Everyone will receive all their speed-statpoints to levelup points so mages can decide not to level up speed at all (it's pretty useless when casting spells), but put points in magic or other stats
-Monsters less static: monster will have a range from level x to level y, so for example you can have a level 10 culiseta but also level 13, so in general that means the monsters in total will have a much bigger range of levels (I'm aiming at level 1 to level 70 to start with. Stronger monsters will appear when players start needing them)
-more lag resisting groupbadge
-Some NPC's in game (for example the blacksmith who will be upgrading, enhacing, buying and fixing your equipment)
-A very cool HUD, displaying your fighting stats like HP/MP/XP with meters, as well as gold, level, leveluppoints, options for the backpack (for the messages private/public etc.) and buttons for all regular commands
-More potions

I also will change a little thing in the backpack that enables us to host 'PvP events' (probably 2 Vs 2). At first you would need an extra attachment that your opponents can click on to target you as an enemy. In later updates I will try to add the PvP into the backpack itself. So prepare for PvP Events

Besides the gameplay features: Crash and Logan are working on a WHOLE NEW DESIGN for the SIM, which, I can tell you, will look very very good as well as much better models for some (or most?) monsters, and possibly some new monsters.

Basically all these things are needed to create a much better 'base' for darklife. It should be much more enjoyable to play, less lag, more options, better looking, better economy, and taking more into account all our loyal high level players, who might be getting bored.

POSSIBLE we are going to intruduce a new payment plan. You would pay 500 each month and everything in the game is free then (think about it, that's the same price as 10 pieces of equipment now, not even talking about L$ you pay for potions) and if you pay in advance for more months you can get it as cheap as 250 each month, which probably is much less then you are spending now. Reason for this is that we don't think it's fair to ask L$ for equipment and potions, because that would effect your decisions on what equipment/potions to buy, thus ruining the game.
Also we hope to get better insight in, and a more balanced income from darklife. If that is the case we might get to the point where we can afford a second sim, giving more space for adventure areas, quests, guilds, arena's etc. etc.
So please don't think we are trying to rip you guys off... regular players just try to find out how much you payed last few months on equipment (except people who are very high level). I'll bet it will be near, or more then 500 L$ each month.
After the update you'll get one month of free play
Please let me know what you think about this payment plan!

Other additional updates that are planned for later are: PvP, mining skill, crafting skill, alchemy skill, quests, Guilds, NPC's you can hire to sell your stuff, bows, battle arena (like in FF7) and more.

Ofcourse after we did this first big update we will start adding more equipment/monsters/spells/potions etc. (that you can find when fighting), while we also will be working up the additional updates. If everything goes as planned, then after this update we are actually at 'darklife 1' which mean we consider it a real game, ready to be expanded while players reach higher levels

Our time schedule says we want to have the first big update up and running in about 2 months.. can't promise anything ofcourse, but I'm sure there won't be any new monsters/equipment etc. for the current version. We need all our energy to get this new update done

And for Crash and Logan: thanks very much for helping me on this beastly update

Well that's all I can inform you about. if you have questions let me know, maybe I can answer them sometimes between the hard work I'm putting in this

Does this mean I can finally actually do /spell armageddon without it telling me I don't know that spell?!?! Well, I guess it would be /1spell armageddon now. Which also removes the use of DarkLife titlers if you're moving to llOwnerSay (thank the Gods! been wanting that since I started playing DL, not the lack of titlers, just llOwnerSay )

I had also been pondering the use of HUD for health stats and such as it should be a lot less laggy than sending full updates to the client everytime the SetText changed.

And no, you can't disable outside scripts. It would render DL useless as the backpacks would unfortunatly be considered outside scripts. As would my (and other people's) teleporters, Arjan's battle chair, heck, even Arjan's leaderboard would all stop working.

EDIT>> Disregard the following:
And Mark, I know you handle all the stuff scripting side, but if you need to outsource some of the smaller, less important scripts, you'll find a lot of us more than willing to help.

Reason for Edit:
That was weird. I goto post and after I post I see like 5 posts that weren't there before that the forum says were there yesterday, and the post I was replying to was aparently made after my post... Something freaky going on here.... lol

Good to see that DL is happening again.
I think my main concern is, are we going to be able to use/update our *old* equipment and still keep all the levels and all stats? I wouldn't like to see my months of hard kills go to waste.
As for the pay system, not sure how this will work, some people aren't able to spend 500L$ a month. Some end up saving up for yet better piece of equipment and fighting the *weaker* monsters in the meantime.
On the other hand, would the monthly payment entitle a player to an unlimited suppy of equipment/potions, etc? If so, I can already see a scam coming up....get loads and sell it to the smith. I guess this would have to be explained a bit more.
Thumbs up.

unlimited supply? You'd still pay the gold ofcourse

And if I look at is from bussiness point of view: those people who hardly can pay for 1 piece of equipment, they do not generate any income for darklife anyway, so from pure bussinesspoint I would have to ignore those players in my decisions (but ofcourse I won't)
But what's the problem of spending some USD on L$? it's not THAT expensive...

Anyway it's not certain if and when we will introduce a payment system. I would like everyone to be able to play if they want, but I also would like to get a second island and right now the income is too uncertain to do that.

What I would like even better is like a 'free' version of playing darklife and a payed darklife, which would have big diffrences. Problem is I have no good ideas on how to do this

But let me hear your opionion please about this matter

OK, makes sense, thanks for the clarification.

if there is two SIM by this you can have lag not show up when more people come.. there was before SL went offline is when the SIM is emtpy but me and my friend were there having fun playing darklife

GO FOR THAT NEXT SIM WOOHOO DOUBLES MY FUN more land = less lag = more events = more challages = more options = more fun

<biiiig grin>

I hear you, Ethen. That's a big reason why we're moving towards a monthly fee. L$500 per month works out to about $2 US, which IMO is a pretty fair price of admission - if people out there feel it's not a fair price or wouldn't pay it please speak up, because we need to know - we want to make the best experience we can for DL players. Of course as more people were active and playing, it would mean more L$ that can be put towards the heafty purchase price and monthly fees for an additional sim.

Well, if I can be of help at all, let me know. I've been trying to figure out ideas to promote sim and land earnings without disrupting the gameplay to players.. meh. You guys aren't the first with the problem Although I've wondered how you do it.

Regardless.. hm. I have a very interesting proposition if you would like to hear it sometime.

If that proposition is something in the terms of you buying 8 additional islands for us and paying me a monthly fee of 2500 USD then I might be intersted
no serious IM or 'personal message' me your proposal, I'm curious

But Logan is right, we want to know what you think is a reasonable montly fee (or other kinds of payments?) I can promise you if we notice we can afford the monthly fee of a second SIM we will buy it (after we saved enough money)

And hopefully said second SIM won't go disappearing on us again this time would it?

*knows why and how that happened, but couldn't resist*

And as to how much I'm willing to pay, I'd like to see what the new system is going to be like first. Perhaps do like most other games, free 30 day trial, or 2 week trial or something...

If you need beta testers, as I mentioned a long time ago (and probabally forgoton) to Crash, I'm willing to help out.

Yeah, I'd like to know how things would work out with a monthly subscription -- and what would happen to your character/stats if you went inactive for a few months, and didn't pay.

But in all, remember that basic account owners make at max, 200L a month, without having a job. And that's what quite a few people run on. 200L would have to be a cutoff point, and even 200L will make those basic account holders ask if they really want to spend all of their monthly allowance on Dark Life.

I'd suggest maybe a 100L subscription fee at the most, and then charging a small fee every time someone wants to upgrade their equipment with that new feature. I'm not sure if you would still need to charge 50L per piece of equipment purchased or not. But, if you make the high end stuff pay to achieve (and then make a failure rate involved), it will make those final pieces a lot more valuable.

I would like to know if the current weapon/armor items, and possibly our current gold, will become useless, or if we will be able to use it after this new update.


On the contrary though, for anyone whom thinks that 100L is a lot.. imagine how much money Mark must be putting into this game out of his own pocket, just to keep it online. If Sim upkeep costs are $195 USD a month.. well, 100L from 100 subscriptions would only produce $25-40 USD. I don't know how he can afford it now, under the current system, and I can only assume that he is already losing money. So.. this subscription has a lot of reason and logic behind it.

lol, hey ya'll, by the way its 200 a month for fees last I checked, could be wrong. but 100 linden a month I do not think could work. My working on darklife full time like i am, as a proffessional MMORPG developer almost done with college, the only thing keeping me with darklife after im finished with this degree and not going to sony or blizzard or something would for us to take darklife alittle more seriously. and if people want a proffessional game within secondlife to play than there going to have to consider paying some money for it.

Think of it this way, you pay taxes in your country hoping that your Gov't will use that money to improve your standard of living, or fix up your city etc. the monthly fee youll pay to darklife will go towards making the game even better. so the more players there are, the more money we take in, the better the game will get. Honestly we did not take into account people only using there stipend from LL to pay for things because there are other ways to get lindens.

Sorry for the long drawn out response but developing for this upcoming expansion has drained many hours from my life that i couldve used working on serious MMO titles for another company, but i believe in this title and i wish to see it succeed, I really want to hear the opinions of the players and very soon I will be hosting monthly or bi weekly town hall meetings where Ill do just that.

Thank you all for your concern, Mark your a good friend, Logan as well. Lets stick to this and make it happen.



Michael -Crash- Adams

"Think of it this way, you pay taxes in your country hoping that your Gov't will use that money to improve your standard of living, or fix up your city etc. the monthly fee youll pay to darklife will go towards making the game even better. so the more players there are, the more money we take in, the better the game will get."

thats the only part of the last post that i really wanted to get out there. the rest of it you can all just disregard. unfortunately i havent been able to edit my own posts for a year now. lol.

I can totally see how you need to generate some revenue. I haven't had time for playing DL in ages, but for someone like me a monthly fee would not be a big deal to pay when i got a bug to go on a DL jaunt. I think for people who play regularly and do not make income in SL, it would also not be a big deal to buy some Lindens. I wonder, however, about newcomers to the game who are often new to SL as well. I don't want you to implement something that discourages people from playing. I have seen new people come and nearly be deterred by the backpack cost alone and have given people money to get it. I am concerned that if there was a monthly they may just pass it by.

Here are some thoughts...
Are you charging appropriate rents to your vendors? Or, are you getting a percentage of the sales of vendor items? This can bring in a nice monthly. You have plenty of room for more vendors as well which means more choices for players. Why not post a thread inviting other vendors to set up there. I am sure there are others who would consider designing special items to be a part of the Dark Life game, just as Phobos has done.

THis may sound silly, but why don't you put up a donation box? Many who believe in the game will donate money to see it developed further and improved upon. I have seen this done at communities as an expansian fund and 10's of thousands were donated by supporters in the course of a month.

I assume the money accrued from buying mana,potions, spells is generating some income for you guys. Maybe there are other ways you can be generating off the regular game play?

What about the people who play to make gold and sell it to other players? I would rather pay you guys for gold then another player. Have you considered this? Or is this just taboo for some reason?

I dont have the answers and am rabbling, sorry. Whatever you guys choose to do, I sincerely wish you the best of luck. I would love to see you find RL success in this and your efforts and time and passion pay off big time!!!

all the best,
kaia

i realized that first post may have sounded a bit arrogent and i wanted to let everyone know i didnt mean for it come off that way. unfortunately again i was unable to go in and edit it. but all my intention was for anyone reading it to realize that Mark,logan,Freyja,several others and myself are putting alot of work into Darklife and we all have skills that could be used on a title outside of secondlife that we could get payed good for but the difference between that title and darklife is that we believe in darklife and wed only be leaving DL for another game for the money.

thank you all for your support and let me assure you that we arent going anywhere.

*Crash*

thanks for all the ideas kaia. And no, it's not some kind of taboo, but a logical reason why we don't sell gold... beacause... if you pay for a weapon you pay gold and L$... L$ goes to us anyway. if we would start selling gold, you'd be paying... L$ and L$ to us, so we might as well just ask only linden $ for equipment... which ofcourse would ruin the game, because it would only be a matter of how much money you spent on it and not how much monsters you slayed (and later: how many items you crafted and sold)

it's just that L$ is not related to the game... you also cannot MAKE L$ in darklife. it's just a way of paying for the expansive island, and if possible a fee for the creators. So that's why it would be more logical to just do a montly payment, and seperate all the darklife stuff from L$

or... just popped in mind... sell montly subscriptions but also sell game-hours (for less frequent players)... like 1 hour of gameplay costs 15 L$... does that sound like anything that people would do??? sigh... don't know what to do

And for new players: I can make the first two weeks for free, so they can try the game out. Or maybe ask like 100 L$ for first month (and the backpack) so at least we'll make a little money from the people who try it out for 2 weeks

And perhaps I should also rent some space out to guilds, as soon as guilds are possible in DL... or just to persons who want to live near darklife

oh and another small update on the update:

logan told me a very good idea to improve the performance... I'm going to re-organize all the scripts and messages that they sent, so I can spread the scripts over the prims in the backpack. That means that all the messages that are used for communications between the scripts can be sent directly to the scripts that need the message. There are over 20 scripts, so every message goes to all 20 scripts (and one attack or heal usually is 2 or 3 internal communcations). So you can guess how much unneeded stuff is going on. In the new verison it will only go to the 1 or 2 scripts that actually do something with the the message.

If this is all a bit confusing for you, because you don't know anything about scripting; bottom line: I expect that at least 2 times more people can play on the sim without getting lag

I just double-checked with Mark - your character's level, stats, ect, gold - all will be safe. He is recoding and redoing a lot with the equipment, and it is highly likely that your existing weapons and possibly equipment may not be usable. However, if we're charging monthly you won't have to pay any L$ for new equipment, just gold.

Sounds good to me. Looking forward for the update to kick off.

Another random question. I remember back last year, it was said that in the next major upgrade of DL that we would not be able to move scripts out of the weapons and shields and such. Is this still going to be implemented or will we still be able to use our custom items and such?

Which I'd like to mention that by being able to do this, I have all my items other than backpack, staff and hat in single prim objects. I'd have combined them into one object, but I was told that wouldn't work though I've not tested it...
Give me 10 minutes and I think I might try finding out with some old equipment.

It would also be possible to actually just sell the scripts as a no-mod, no-trans item as well to be put into your own object(s). (Such as the transparent cube inside my left foot.)

Also, do you plan on implementing a teleporter feature into the backpack (or just in general as an official item or such) or do those of us who sell teleporters still get to sell them?

If not, I think it's about time for me to go updating my teleporter to the idea I've had. Though I've also read about an even better way to go about it, unfortunatly LL took away the means for it.

I look forward to getting a new computer and/or more access to the computer that meets SL's minimum requirements so I can start putting some more time into DL. It's just hell running around Navora with a computer that shouldn't even be running SL.

Your making sense, mark. Yes, why not have an option to purchase game hours or better yet a day pass for those who are not playing frequent enough or can not afford to do the monthly fee. Of course, price it so that it is a better value to buy a month's subscription to encourage people to do so, but day pass option might be good and less of a bitch to manage than tracking hours. IDK.

I think you are on the first ripple of the coming waves of event/play fees which are inevitable with loss of dwell, developer incentives and rumor has it stipends. This makes you vulnerable as there will be people who don't understand or agree. I know how expensive it gets and how much time you guys are putting into it. I still reccomend generating funds from the game, rentals, etc and then supplementing that with reasonable fees. I commend you on openly discussing your thoughts, concerns, etc here while you go through some growing pains. I'm sure you will come up with a great solution that enables you to expand and grow your user base.

psssst...in the meantime, go ahead and put out a donation pot and see what happens
all the best,
kaia

Hi. We're looking at much these sort of ideas, don't worry

..And I'm not sure how we'd all feel about a donation pot. If people want to make a donation, that's fine.. but as the game pays for itself now I would feel a bit weird about taking money off people. What do others think? ...Unless we give you SupA G0lD l33t badge o' Doom or something?!