I am sure I'll regret making the suggestion since it may set a precedent I'd rather not follow, but with the expansion of crowd sourcing and go-fund-me style money grabs, there are services I would consider spending a little extra money to fund time consuming but important to player features as long as they were well implemented. I still think expansions should fund raids, zones, maintenance, quest, spells etc like they currently do. I'd be willing to fork out some money on popularly requested items. If there is a "whale" that wants to spend big on something obscure then I don't fault them for asking, since the developers/powers that be will ultimately decide what they want to hire the intern to work on outside of standard expansion upgrades. I would much rather pay extra for some known service that goes to all players than frills (ornaments and most things from the market place which don't entice me to spend). Adding some simple entry level raid targets, necro dot revamp, cross server instancing, improved barter/bazaar/player selling options are all things I would toss the occasional token toward to make sure they get addressed.
The problem with the concept is that it would either require funding someone to work over time, or they'd need to bring in a contractor on demand when things get funded. That contractor would likely not have the institutional knowledge to implement the feature and ramp up time would not be cost effective. This isn't a project that uses standard tools that you can just find someone to help here and there. You need to be able to fund a full time resource who then might work on projects voted upon by the funders. That would require enough funding well in advance to create stability for such a position.
This is a great idea, and in theory with all the loyal die hard EQ players out there (read : addicted), something like this could/should fruition. Problem is you are going to get attacked by other players and all the noise and drama it causes will make this not even leave the drawing board. You'll get two responses. "Lulz EQ is fine as is there is no problem we don't need this" or 2 "lulz this would never work daybreak won't hire another dev with money we give to them, they will just pocket it they don't care" To be honest, I am shocked that a hardcore loyal player who is an expert at code hasn't been able to volunteer their time to help fix things or make the game better. (kinda like how a vet donates their time and resources to help a stray dog with surgery or other care) Ultimately, this is 'their' game , 'their' rules. We the player base have no say. I'll probably get attacked too. lol Also I don't think we are allowed to talk about stuff like this on the boards so I assume this will be locked/deleted. But I am with you Belkar, and i bet a surprisingly lot of people too.
Mainly because I’ve never see a company that allows random (no matter how loyal) people come in and have access to all of their tools and proprietary informations. Also because those people most likely either: A. Applied to a job and work there currently. B. Have a job that pays much more elsewhere. Personally I code all day ever day for money...I log on video games to not be at work anymore (not that MMO’s don’t often feel like a job lol). But P99 and others get enough labor to do what they do and it’s cool, but I think for a company to allow someone to touch the real stuff they are going to be an employee. (Yes even interns are employees...maybe, kinda)
Go fund me pages are not geared for companies that are for profit. It's up to us as consumers to speak up to the powers that be at DBG and give the Devs the resources (as in people) to develop the quality of content they want to for their base. How we go about that, I'm not the one to ask - but it usually involves handing over less money which could be cutting off our noses to spite our faces. There's 1000 different ways, all have been suggested in the past for revenue increases to *cough*hire2moredevs*cough*. Sell Collectors Editions of older expacs for clicks, illusions, hero's forge, mounts. Offer a wider range of vanity items in the station store - no more holidays, just leave it all our year round - why are you avoiding transactions? Ditch the random cards and put LoN items themselves up for purchase for SC. Most important - ALL items in the Station store be trade-able in game, all vanity, all services - pretend you're a modern MMO. All other games do this. The Devs are both right and wrong about investing in higher level heroic characters. Giving up one zone for an expac is better for the long term financial health of the game imo. Yes, some people will be rubbed the wrong way by the selling of power but they'll get over it as the game continues to be on.
Hmm passive support an idea or ideas that create more funding.. for eq... A. Im sure behind the walls the data shows what active players.. are spending and what they like to spend. I believe behind them wall that is a given. Define that as X. Do more of X. B. With an outdate flop chart or creation tree.. the use of lump sumping abcd in a.. just to make room for new bcd has be used in the past. example AA, potion belt. I feel this happen again and again.. its only way to create new things from limited range chart or structure. God I love to copper removed.. and new coin.. ultimatium.. so in game coin had a larger scale.. creating bazzar markets to support modern ranges. I think they attempt that with nobles.. and who really uses that?? C. Is there room to create modern vet rewards.. to people that sub 1 year annual? something to effect of gyph reward weekly gifted? D. How do get more out of a krono.. make useful to market place like the game cards were.. either sub or use for insta in demand access to wanted gimmie now stuff.. All of the above.. a promise note to players.. that sources created by EQ will used for EQ.. maybe that promise note by the deves.. to the players.. improves sales.
Jhenna is correct, companies by design fund themselves to succeed or fail monetarily. Gofundme and other sources are not designed to prop up corporations that are not sustainable by their design concepts. Startups with good ideas can use these types of funds (and Kickstarter) to get off the ground, but eventually need to be self-sustaining in the same manner as corporations with solid business plans. Paying subscribers and investors (not Gofundme/Kickstarter, etc.) and solid investing in available funds (think stocks, bonds, capital, etc.) continue to grow available funds for new content, employees, etc. for corporations. Loss of subscribers, investors, inadequate investing or poorly performing investing impacts availability of available funds. A solid corporation can handle some bumps in the road but demand vs supply is always a balancing act and keeping up with technology will be ongoing with any corporation.
I think this idea would work only if they had someone "on call" for development of a new service, item, zone, or what ever it might be. Depending on what this thing is it would probably require multiple individuals in reality for art, coding and all of the other things that goes into developing things. These individuals would need to put a bid on the project and then DBG would need to do presales with the idea being that production would not start until a certain dollar amount is reached. As mentioned above a better way to make money now would be to sell things that have already been created but thrown into the vault. Maybe use the extra funds from those things to hire on more people for development and maybe utilize these extra people specifically for development of things that they can continue to sell for years to come like mounts, illusions, and keeping up with things like making heroic character sales relevant and worth the purchase. If needed these individuals can cross over to help the main development team also. I have mentioned before and gotten so much negative feedback about a premium section in the store that you cant use your free DBG cash. The above items could go here with the idea that only new funds will be able to obtain these items which will make sure that at minimum these new workers wages are paid for. These items like the current store items should not have any actual power gains and the current store items would stay in the non premium section. Those who want to pay for a cooler mount or illusion or some other cosmetic upgrade can do so and those who don't want to open up their wallets are not any worse off in terms of power for keeping their money.
Crowd funding a tool kit for mod or content development would be nice. Player made missions prehaps as a result. Highly polished well balanced missions that see time in test before release. Prehaps one a month voted on by the community/devs. Anyway i wouldn’t want to see something simular to let’s say HEroic adventures more like instanced quest zones.
