Just trying to find logic and common sense in your words and im really struggling, no offence.
You say your main goal is “protect players from spending huge amounts of money really quickly” and you are planning to do it by “prohibiting the discussed miscrotransactions, but allowing permanent purchases, donations, monthly subscriptions, etc”.
So, lets try to follow the logic behind this. First of all, we should understand why players are spending more money on one server than on another. Answer is probably that server is more popular, more active and players find that it is worth to do it because they enjoy it.
I doubt that it is possible to force player to buy something if he doesnt want. But lets go back to the idea of limiting micro transactions. What does this limitation solves when there is option to sell permanent purchases and monthly subscriptions?
It seems like you don’t understand how most of the servers work, what are possibilities for donations for those ranks/kits. Lets take two already mentioned examples.
Server 1 sells permanent/monthly ranks which gives extra useful commands, items kit, certain amount of money right after purchase (lets say 100000 in game currency), money kit (you type certain command and get extra money over time).
Server 2 sells maplestrike as an item for 1 usd. So according to the logic, first server is doing nothing wrong, but second for some reason is treated as a bad thing.
If you implement such changes, first server has to do nothing and can keep selling as he used to, but second server has to rename his package, for example instead of “buy maplestrike for 1eur” he has to do something like this - “kit maplestrike1 30d”.
Lets say that “kit maplestrike1 30d” gives you maplestrike right after purchase as an item and some clothing like orange hoodie and blue jeans as a kit which lets say you can use every 10 days. And you create like ~20 kits with same maplestrike, but different shirt and pants.
Technically we have monthly ranks, just instead of having 1 item on store, we have 20, not even considering, that package always look better than a single item.
Lets say, technically you could limit purchase of a rank/kit so that player could buy only once in a month, but if you have extra stuff to sell (~20 maplestrike kits with minor changes), it makes no difference in the end.
This is example, considering that everyone can edit their stores and implement some kind of blocking system. Again, limiting purchases with monthly/permanent doesnt change anything, since there will be just more packages/ranks/subcribtions selling same stuff with minor changes as packages or
players will just buy same packages/ranks/subscribtions over and over, even though those subscribtions will be listed or work as permanent/monthly. While your method doesnt change anything, there is one thing that caught my attention:
“This will help with the most egregious pay-to-win, and protect players from spending huge amounts of money really quickly.” How you decide if server 1 is less pay-to-win than server 2? Do you have a special scale?
On a server where everything is hard to get or takes a lot of time, even simple things like certain commands or a bigger vault could be more pay-to-win thing than a maplestrike for 1 eur. With all respect, you shouldnt decide what is more or less pay-to-win. Only players can
decide, but again, what seems pay-to-win for one player, may not look as a pay-to-win for another. It leads to a conclusion, that if a certain server is so bad, why do players choose to play on it? Why they play on a server where you can easily buy maplestrike for 1 eur,
while you could buy full package of pay-to-win perks on another? Final decission is yours, so in the end you will decide who is good and who is bad. I just hope that you will take your time to actually play on that server for a while to understand how every server works.
And if no, it is like deciding which person is good or bad, based on his profile picture, skin color, gender or by the talks you heard from a stranger. Quite a judgement i guess. And what about all players who spent their money on a server and that server got banned?
Who will refund them? Or it is considered as collateral damage? Everything leads to a conlusion, that there will be lots of uncertainty and subjective decissions.
Lets dont forget about emotional side of people. Constant attempts to sabotage servers just because that player got banned for breaking rules? Other servers who think that they cant succeed, just because your server is more popular than his? Dont understimate the power of will
of some people. Would you pernsonally work on a server with an idea that one day, you would be banned, just because of someone wrote game developer long letter that he spent 2k dollars on a server and according to him it was extremely pay-to-win server, who banned him for no reason.
You already can see how some individuals are talking. I dont really want to get into such drama and hope everyday that some really dedicated individuals wont decide to destroy all the work you have done, just because they dont like it. Thats why i ask to make a strong decision, instead
of bringing this chaos into community. Stop trying to make everyone happy, it is impossible. Rules on such sensitive things should be very clear and simple, with no place for interpretation. 0 p2w donations or private servers decide how they want to operate + separate server list/filter for
servers with no p2w features. Who really would like to get into dramas with mad kids or jelous lunatics? It is better to completely remove all p2w aspects from server and sleep tight, than constantly be afraid to check your email or server to see if you got banned or not.
Personally, i think there should be separate server listing for servers with no p2w aspects and banning p2w servers who mark their servers as non p2w while having p2w goods on their store. Private servers have full control on how they want to operate, what to sell or not. Players decide
if that server is worth their time or money. There are lots of “unturnov” servers they all looks the same, what is different is server rules, longevity and reliability. Some seek for quick fortune, some focus on a longterm idea, but in the end players recognizes that and makes a decission.
It is not a secrete that servers who dont care about their community dont last forever. Players talk with each other, community isnt that big for bad servers to sustain on new players for years. We all can name multiple servers who seemed like very sucessfull networks which generated huge
amounts of money, were always populated, but for some reason, they dissapeared. Started my server 2 years ago, for like half year it was pretty much empty, until little by little some players started recognising it. I was and i am now really dedicated to my server, maybe thats why now server
slots are filled almost everyday. Someone said, that servers who have pay-to-win donations look fancy, they can afford creating new plugins, content. How is this a bad thing? Dont be jelous, everyone started from 0, just others work more on servers than comments section while trying to smirch
for being sucessful. Doesnt matter, if it will be 0 p2w or freedoom for server owners, i will not support something in the middle because i will not be targeted or judged by some mad kids. 0 p2w policy is way better than being involved in some dirty games. I dont want to try to get around the rules,
pretend, but fact is there would be such things. Your note about “This will help with the most egregious pay-to-win, and protect players from spending huge amounts of money really quickly.” It is imaginary scale which has 0 clarity. Be realistic. Sorry if this critique sounds too harsh, but im not trying
to flatter you here.
