Multitallented
Legacy Supporter 5
- Joined
- Aug 31, 2011
JK, here are my real suggestions:
EDIT: People are worried about Pay-to-Win situations so let me say this: Don't sell anything that gives an advantage unless you also let players buy it for in-game money. If something is more fun (premium), or flashy (peacocking) then by all means sell it. HeroCraft get's by just fine as a non-profit, but if it doesn't hurt anything, then why say no to extra money?
Free-to-Play suggestions:
Make a giant store for items, enchants, potions, donator-specific items, etc in the center of the world. Shopping is a huge part of any free-to-play, yet I don't see a whole lot of stuff you can spend money on besides static, buy-once donator packages. Micro-transactions aren't really encouraged in the current setup.
RTS mode:
Let town owners go into RTS mode (a new plugin I'm volunteering to make). It would let them go into creative, but not drop items or otherwise spawn anything for themselves or hurt anyone. They can only fly around inside of their town (teleports them like worldborder does). Lets them use blocks from their survival inventory only. They can also copy/paste small selections using limited world edit if they have those blocks in their inventory (could charge money for this). Also could let them load schematics they buy with gold or donations. If this clashes too much with survival, make them pay to go into RTS mode.
HeroStronghold:
Using the soon-to-be-revamped HS plugin, re-create the current HeroTowns config and migrate all towns over to HeroStronghold. Then, add housing sub-regions that can only be built in towns. Then, add animal farms, ore refineries, item factories, arrowturrets, landmines, etc. Allow for item-to-cash stores to sell non-raw items to npcs over time. Let donators buy conveyor belts and middle-men factories to completely automate the farm-to-shop process for a steady income. Warehouses would also be nice for this purpose. Set up evolving siege engines to promote multiple-day long sieges to give towns a chance to defend themselves.
PvP MatchMaking:
Using the soon-to-be-finished matchmaking plugin, let players play a limited selection of gametypes (probably vanilla, anything-goes, team death match, etc). Let donators buy tokens to spend on other game types such as pitfall, spleef, and rts. 1 token = 1 game. Let them also donate to reset their rank.
Heroes Revamp:
Re-write the Heroes skill framework to allow for modular skill construction for players. (/make fireball projectile damage:5 combust). Players earn experience in individual skills, which not only unlocks other similar skills, but allows them to make more extreme skills (/make fireball projectile damage:15 combust) for a higher cost/cooldown etc. Costs and effects will be figured automatically based on skill level. When a skill is unlocked, it's components become available to that player as part of a pool of components from which they can build new skills. If the player doesn't know about this feature they will still have the basic skill. Allow donators to buy exp boosters or exp booster items that expire.
Jobs:
Jobs are already a huge part of HC, but this is to make it even bigger. Allow players to post job applications on a board. Have a plugin manage those employer-employee contracts (even if 1 of the players is offline) to allow for salaries, raises, bonuses, etc. Let employers give feedback and black-list/white-list employees. Jobs could be in the form of mercenaries (bounties/escorts), item suppliers, profession skills, and HeroStronghold builders. This gives players with lots of money a way to spend it by hiring their own personal army/slave force. This would encourage players to donate to get money to hire people in a war.
Town Governments:
Let players decide not to be a dictatorship, but instead be a private or publicly owned corporation. This way towns can have their own stock in a global stock market based on growth (in subregions, size, population, bank, etc). This would encourage town investment and community. Town ownership could be bought in stock (town destroy command only available through vote). Town bank withdrawal through voting. This gives players something to spend money on and further stimulate the economy.
These suggestions fall under 3 separate genres (RTS, RPG, and FPS) but don't force players to do anything they don't want to. This way you will draw more market share in addition to having many more ways for player to spend money. On top of that, these suggestions promote a kind of replay-able gameplay through matchmaking, town warfare/building, manufacturing items/services for money (not grinding).
The reason for this post is cause HeroCraft may or may not have plans to be a free-to-play game. Right now HC is a non-profit game.
EDIT: People are worried about Pay-to-Win situations so let me say this: Don't sell anything that gives an advantage unless you also let players buy it for in-game money. If something is more fun (premium), or flashy (peacocking) then by all means sell it. HeroCraft get's by just fine as a non-profit, but if it doesn't hurt anything, then why say no to extra money?
Free-to-Play suggestions:
Make a giant store for items, enchants, potions, donator-specific items, etc in the center of the world. Shopping is a huge part of any free-to-play, yet I don't see a whole lot of stuff you can spend money on besides static, buy-once donator packages. Micro-transactions aren't really encouraged in the current setup.
RTS mode:
Let town owners go into RTS mode (a new plugin I'm volunteering to make). It would let them go into creative, but not drop items or otherwise spawn anything for themselves or hurt anyone. They can only fly around inside of their town (teleports them like worldborder does). Lets them use blocks from their survival inventory only. They can also copy/paste small selections using limited world edit if they have those blocks in their inventory (could charge money for this). Also could let them load schematics they buy with gold or donations. If this clashes too much with survival, make them pay to go into RTS mode.
HeroStronghold:
Using the soon-to-be-revamped HS plugin, re-create the current HeroTowns config and migrate all towns over to HeroStronghold. Then, add housing sub-regions that can only be built in towns. Then, add animal farms, ore refineries, item factories, arrowturrets, landmines, etc. Allow for item-to-cash stores to sell non-raw items to npcs over time. Let donators buy conveyor belts and middle-men factories to completely automate the farm-to-shop process for a steady income. Warehouses would also be nice for this purpose. Set up evolving siege engines to promote multiple-day long sieges to give towns a chance to defend themselves.
PvP MatchMaking:
Using the soon-to-be-finished matchmaking plugin, let players play a limited selection of gametypes (probably vanilla, anything-goes, team death match, etc). Let donators buy tokens to spend on other game types such as pitfall, spleef, and rts. 1 token = 1 game. Let them also donate to reset their rank.
Heroes Revamp:
Re-write the Heroes skill framework to allow for modular skill construction for players. (/make fireball projectile damage:5 combust). Players earn experience in individual skills, which not only unlocks other similar skills, but allows them to make more extreme skills (/make fireball projectile damage:15 combust) for a higher cost/cooldown etc. Costs and effects will be figured automatically based on skill level. When a skill is unlocked, it's components become available to that player as part of a pool of components from which they can build new skills. If the player doesn't know about this feature they will still have the basic skill. Allow donators to buy exp boosters or exp booster items that expire.
Jobs:
Jobs are already a huge part of HC, but this is to make it even bigger. Allow players to post job applications on a board. Have a plugin manage those employer-employee contracts (even if 1 of the players is offline) to allow for salaries, raises, bonuses, etc. Let employers give feedback and black-list/white-list employees. Jobs could be in the form of mercenaries (bounties/escorts), item suppliers, profession skills, and HeroStronghold builders. This gives players with lots of money a way to spend it by hiring their own personal army/slave force. This would encourage players to donate to get money to hire people in a war.
Town Governments:
Let players decide not to be a dictatorship, but instead be a private or publicly owned corporation. This way towns can have their own stock in a global stock market based on growth (in subregions, size, population, bank, etc). This would encourage town investment and community. Town ownership could be bought in stock (town destroy command only available through vote). Town bank withdrawal through voting. This gives players something to spend money on and further stimulate the economy.
These suggestions fall under 3 separate genres (RTS, RPG, and FPS) but don't force players to do anything they don't want to. This way you will draw more market share in addition to having many more ways for player to spend money. On top of that, these suggestions promote a kind of replay-able gameplay through matchmaking, town warfare/building, manufacturing items/services for money (not grinding).
The reason for this post is cause HeroCraft may or may not have plans to be a free-to-play game. Right now HC is a non-profit game.
