[Discussion] The Registry Office™

[Iulius 206]

This topic has been on my mind since a while now. While I understand that the server must find ways to make VIP perks appealing, I find it lame that a normal dude must wait HOURS to change their persona name unless they buy the 100$ VIP.

I could understand if the countdown was 30 minutes like it is for persona swaps under a certain VIP, though the current timer just feels obnoxious, especially considering that players CAN and WILL metagame your identity due to the name you've on your head.

[__Stal27 2126]

yes brather u have my vote.

[cometking123 236]

I feel bad when the solution is to create a modreq or DM'ing a GM as someone else within the community suggested doing. I'm sure there's a historical issue as to why this was needed, but I do believe 5 hours is quite severe. Maybe reduce it down to two hours? 

 

 

[Chuuwys 502]

+1. Even now when I have VIP the metagaming is annoying. It was a fun little experiment to have my chars provided name be different to her nametag - people got real pissy when I told them they can't use the strange box hovering over my head as an excuse to know a character detail like that, let alone have a pink tag try to make me... Roll for deception?

 

Make it easier for non VIPs to change names, or if they really must, apply it to the cheapest rank of VIP.

[Anbennar 2349]

But how will Tythus get his money to buy 3D Printers on Company Dime? 

[monkeypoacher 8052]

You used to be able to change your persona name whenever you wanted. A 30 minute cooldown would be reasonable maybe. 5 hours is absurd.

 

I don't see why the "perk" of avoiding an artificial cooldown is at the $100 tier either. LotC's entire VIP pricing strategy doesn't really make sense.

 

Generalizing a bit, there are two types of people are going to donate to the server:

1. people who enjoy LotC and are willing to donate for an improved experience, but are price sensitive,

2. whales who are not price sensitive and will pay extra for prefixes, particle effects, cosmetics and other status signals

Category #1 includes more potential customers than #2. It makes business sense to have a "quality of life" tier priced around what your average customer is willing to drop on an impulse purchase. Fast persona switching/name changes makes sense here. So does an extra soulstone slot, and so on. The idea is to make this tier as enticing as possible to so people are more likely to donate in the first place. Each subsequent tier can have an extra perk to encourage upgrades or make higher tiers more enticing to whales. 

 

The CapitalOne average online impulse purchase is something like $30, so this would be like Iron VIP? It makes sense to put name changes there.
 

Diamond VIP is way outside of the "think twice about it" range for what I would imagine is most of the addressable market, and fast persona switching probably doesn't make the difference for someone who is deciding on whether to drop $100 on a donation to a minecraft server 

[Customable 304]

honestly, as an Aether, I completely agree, in general I don't think the cool down for switching personas should exist regardless. We can't use "preventing metagaming" as an excuse if we provide the option anyway for collecting money, but I do also think there should be a perk to replace it for VIPs if this is changed to keep the balance of actually paying for the ranks, even if it is fundamentally just a "support your local server" thing