Author Topic: Would trade-able discontinued items drive up the player base?  (Read 5280 times)

Ghost

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Some of you may remember me from about 2 years ago when RuneRebels flashed up during the heyday of RuneRewind, projectrs06, etc. I was pretty active and would always be working on killing giants, collecting herbs, and working on monster drops.

I haven't gamed this server in a really long time and see this server as the only glimmer of hope to recreate the essence of the now-defunct but really, really great RuneRewind and the old-school pre-2006 servers. When RuneRewind shut down, I brought the majority of that community here about 2 years ago. I remember a few guys who came with me like Francis, Honeybadger, (Maybe Cucking Funt), etc.

What made RuneRewind so great and popular was the release of trade-able and discontinued rares. Yeah, some may argue that they hurt the economy for the active player base when they first released, but I came in after their release and was dedicated and addicted the same way I was when I started the original Runescape back in 2003.  This may be due to the fact that acquiring a rare was something that I wanted to keep driving towards. I would work a lot on my levels and really try to grind away for days in order to sell-up for a different rare color, etc. It became a goal to just collect them (party hats). I think the collecting and goal driving towards them helped newer based players have a tangible yet "slightly achievable" goal. I mean in all seriousness, wasn't the dream item for any runescaper a party hat when they first started in the original Runescape? I know this has been discussed before, but taking a chance on this is what initially drove-up the player-base of projectrs06 and RuneRewind to that next level. I think they were clocking at an active 100+ people per-server every hour. My overall question is would an active trade-able and discontinued item drive up the player-base? I think the essence of a "frenzie" over a "Join now because rares just released and will be discontinued" thing may help?


What are everyone's thoughts? I think the goal is to find a marketable way to set us apart would help a ton. My motive here is to help RuneRebels grow the playerbase.

edub

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Re: Would trade-able discontinued items drive up the player base?
« Reply #1 on: July 27, 2014, 05:14:12 pm »
I believe in the short term these items would help bring some people back but in the long run I don't think much of an impact will be made. I also made a post about the possibility of adding these items into the game but making them non-trade-able. The reason most people choose not to play or refuse to play is because of the lack of updates we have received with the exception of 2.0.12. In order to bring players back we would need an all around effort meaning a very active dev team, new updates and content, more advertising and more voting.

Ghost

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Re: Would trade-able discontinued items drive up the player base?
« Reply #2 on: July 27, 2014, 07:00:58 pm »
still worth a shot given where we're headed. I think it will give a much-needed jolt to the community.

edub

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Re: Would trade-able discontinued items drive up the player base?
« Reply #3 on: July 27, 2014, 07:07:26 pm »
still worth a shot given where we're headed. I think it will give a much-needed jolt to the community.

What items would you suggest bringing into the game?

Elevate

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Re: Would trade-able discontinued items drive up the player base?
« Reply #4 on: July 27, 2014, 09:57:38 pm »
How does a PartyHat bring a player back?

edub

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Re: Would trade-able discontinued items drive up the player base?
« Reply #5 on: July 27, 2014, 11:09:29 pm »
How does a PartyHat bring a player back?

That's what I was saying basically, it would only help in the short run if that. People are not going to just start playing out of the sudden just for items. If there's a big update or something then people may flock back.

Elevate

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Re: Would trade-able discontinued items drive up the player base?
« Reply #6 on: July 28, 2014, 12:30:00 am »
Let's put it this way; No amount of players are going to "flock" in, regardless of what happens. The community builds up over time, players tell their friends, video makers join, more votes then the server starts to rebuild. Nothing we can do will start this process though, we are pretty much useless in this situation. Until Ryan shows he's interested in this project again then these topics are absolute rubbish. There are 100 of them already and it all comes to the same conclusion.

We legit can do nothing.

Janloom

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Re: Would trade-able discontinued items drive up the player base?
« Reply #7 on: July 31, 2014, 05:16:27 pm »
I stopped playing actively because there was no party hats, essentially. That may seem shallow, but you can't undervalue the significance of aesthetics and wearable prestige. Grinding is good and fun, but, without skill capes, high scores, or rare items, the levels and gainz ring a little hollow for me.

Let's think short-term a little bit, a lot of fun for a month is better than stagnation and mediocrity for another year.

Ghost

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Re: Would trade-able discontinued items drive up the player base?
« Reply #8 on: July 31, 2014, 07:49:05 pm »
that's what I'm saying.

edub

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Re: Would trade-able discontinued items drive up the player base?
« Reply #9 on: July 31, 2014, 10:31:48 pm »
I stopped playing actively because there was no party hats, essentially. That may seem shallow, but you can't undervalue the significance of aesthetics and wearable prestige. Grinding is good and fun, but, without skill capes, high scores, or rare items, the levels and gainz ring a little hollow for me.

Let's think short-term a little bit, a lot of fun for a month is better than stagnation and mediocrity for another year.

I agree with that, we need to figure out a way to introduce these items ingame without significantly altering the economy.

ZzReVeNg3zZ

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Re: Would trade-able discontinued items drive up the player base?
« Reply #10 on: July 31, 2014, 11:06:20 pm »
I stopped playing actively because there was no party hats, essentially. That may seem shallow, but you can't undervalue the significance of aesthetics and wearable prestige. Grinding is good and fun, but, without skill capes, high scores, or rare items, the levels and gainz ring a little hollow for me.

Let's think short-term a little bit, a lot of fun for a month is better than stagnation and mediocrity for another year.

I agree with that, we need to figure out a way to introduce these items ingame without significantly altering the economy.

That isn't going to happen, remember the chaos this Easter with the eggs? Everyone turned against each other and camped locations specifically so they could get more and  make more money. Any attempt to introduce party hats with this method of bringing into the game will fail badly.

The only thing I can possibly imagine being a good idea, would be to make party hats so ridiculously rare that only the most loyal players can get them.

My suggestions?

Make party hats available to claim in game, after having voted 250 times on RuneLocus for RuneRebels.

Considering you can vote twice a day for RuneLocus, 250 x 12 / 24 = 125

It'd take 125 days for anyone to ever get a party hat, roughly 3 months of voting twice a day, thus dramatically increasing the amount of publicity on RuneLocus for the game, especially if people flock and stick to it. You can make it an unreadable cosmetic also, so the phat is un-tradable, at least until the game kicks off and it won't kill the economy by making them tradable.

With the votes for the server increasing popularity, as well as players motivated towards getting this extremely rare item, it'd be beneficial, and most players won't even sell their first phat due to the accomplishment they've had, meaning they'd go through another 3 months of voting before they get one to sell. Make the item available to choose in any colour on a page on the site, and just have it claimable ingame by doing something like

"::claimvote"

Sort of like other servers. You can make party hats the only cosmetic available by voting, making its rarity more obvious, players would get voting immediately, even I would and as of right now I'd rather vote for Ikov to get my daily 36m.

Just an idea though, but people have been talking about rates and vote rewards for months, with this they come hand in hand, and this was one of my ideas when I was applying for head of advertising a few months back.

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Re: Would trade-able discontinued items drive up the player base?
« Reply #11 on: August 01, 2014, 04:05:41 am »
I support revenge's opinion. 250 votes is a lot and that makes thr rarity of phats extremely rare, as most people doesnt even play for so long.

I also want ro push in that more cosmetics should be aqcuired by voting. For example: 50 votes=scythe, 150=hween and so on. Just an idea.
The original G. Literally.

Elevate

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Re: Would trade-able discontinued items drive up the player base?
« Reply #12 on: August 01, 2014, 05:44:10 am »
Revenge you raise a good idea but I'm curious as to how the item would be discontinued if it's a vote reward. We can't just make it available as a vote reward forever and we certainly can't just remove them as a reward because the new players we gain, hypothetically of course, would complain because they don't get a fair chance of obtaining one.

If rares are going to be released they need to be released after we gain more players, in my opinion anyway. Imagine if we released them now, everyone here now will get one. Seems cool right? Alright now take into consideration that new players mightn't join at all. So now we have Rares in the game that are less rare than a Dragon chain.

edub

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Re: Would trade-able discontinued items drive up the player base?
« Reply #13 on: August 01, 2014, 09:34:52 am »
I like the vote idea, I suggested having items tied to voting rewards that would be a good way to get them into the economy but they could be tradeable if they are hard enough to attain.

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Re: Would trade-able discontinued items drive up the player base?
« Reply #14 on: August 01, 2014, 09:15:30 pm »
Revenge you raise a good idea but I'm curious as to how the item would be discontinued if it's a vote reward. We can't just make it available as a vote reward forever and we certainly can't just remove them as a reward because the new players we gain, hypothetically of course, would complain because they don't get a fair chance of obtaining one.

If rares are going to be released they need to be released after we gain more players, in my opinion anyway. Imagine if we released them now, everyone here now will get one. Seems cool right? Alright now take into consideration that new players mightn't join at all. So now we have Rares in the game that are less rare than a Dragon chain.

That's what I have no idea about man, I believe that they should be released when there's a moderate amount of players, yes, by no means should it happen now that'd just be stupid as in a years time all the vets will have cosmetics and the newer players will find it impossible thpo get them, even if they're still available.

However another thing we have to remember is that if the player base kicks back up to 70-100 people online on average (hopefully it will) that will be to many items leaking into the game I would assume, I dunno but I think they should be pretty rare, sort of like rune armour when it was first released in classic.

I feel that the impact on the economy in the short term will be absolutely tiny, because no one would want to sell such a rare item, the only time it will possibly impact the eco is when they're getting sold for a very high amount of GP on a frequent basis, which would only happen with large amounts of players, who'd have to get that high amount of GP in the first place.

As for now I think the economy isn't the problem we have to worry about, because let's be honest, there is no economy, before my most recent buying post, the last market post was weeks ago, what we need to think about is the amount of specific items getting into the game before they get discontinued, as we dont want to little to make them so rare that they're 90% unobtainable with cash, and we also dont want to many in the game making them pretty much just as rare as a dragon bone.

@Brothership, I agree that others items should be introduced also, but again we have to be careful about the amount that will get obtained, say the vote idea goes ahead, no matter what item it is getting bought by votes, it cannot be cheap, as that would just make it pointless. - on that note, I dont think too many items should be introduced as that will just make RuneRebels into another one of those private servers with a damn voting store, may as well be selling gold for donations haha.