Pay2Play

[KeiKun]

Source: http://rathena.org/b...-4974-pay2play/

Original Topic: @ eA = showtopic=274690 ( Sorry not giving full link. i dont know if its legal xD )

since rA is on renewal

and Devs are doing its best to get its official features

why not adding Another official Feature

This Topic is Already Discuss @ eA

Pay2Play

Everybody knows what Pay2Play means.

Im not suggesting this due to i want them pay before they can play my Private Server

this feature is on official right?

why can't rA Have it too?

i don't think there is a really bad disadvantage?

only i think is them stopping playing your RO Server. xD

Edited December 6, 2011 by KeiKun

[jTynne]

I can see this turning into "Vote to Play".

[Mirage]

Ok, here is my take on this.

As a RO Player:

• Plays private servers to get out of p2p
  
• If feeling kind enough, donations are always open
  
• P2P or any kind of cash pull servers are not appealing. I.e: OP Donations and Only obtainable by donations etc
  

As a RO Server Owner:

• Why p2p? We have a unique fully customized server you. You won't even find some of these things in official.
  
• Donations don't always cover server funds
  
• Keeps loyal, hard-working and honest staff.
  

My take on P2P....Yes/No

It has its pros and cons.. =/

[Maki]

As an official feature it would be good to have, (ethically) how you use it is up to you imo. Moved to Source Discussions!

[Chemical Crush]

Actually iRO ( international ragnarok online ) does not make you pay to play anymore. If you pay the monthly fee you get a vip status account for a month and you have boosted exp and something else, I can't remember. But anyone can play. I have no idea about other 'official' servers, I assume they're doing the same thing but then again, dunno.

As a player I wouldn't even consider joining a server that is pay to play requirement, especially if its a private server. I know there are other private servers out there that I would be able to join for free and enjoy. So i'm not sure why anyone would want to even do this.

I am on the same page, right? >> I assume I am. If not, disregard what I say. Haha.

[KeiKun]

Well its just for me

Why Implementing This...

1. Since My server doesn't have Donation Thingy. We are finding Options instead of Donation Items( not that we need ). ( Like Premium Acct or Even Pay2Play )

2. Of course. As a Player Like me ( I played F2P and even P2P official Servers ). I play P2P more than F2P since they have more Implementation than F2P ( This I compare with Official Server @ pRO ). Some Private Servers of course Implement alot even its F2P. But why not Implement More @ P2P as their Strategy to gain Money. ( Alot of Owners i know are needed of money for them to get their server alive )

Again..

Im not forcing this Feature to be implemented.

But Since its Implemented on Some Official Servers.

Why not rA Implement it too.

[whitesn]

It's really bugging for using P2P system.. I think it's better if it's just using cash shop or item malls

instead of P2P because some of us doesn't use paypal and it's hard to transfer the cash to

other country without it..

also agree with Olrox's it's an open-source, we are forbid to

"exploit" money from it, except for volunteer donations

Edited December 7, 2011 by 2essy2killu

[Olrox]

Do you know a cent abou what license eathena runs?

The only way to ask Money under a GPL license software is with voluntair donations.

What you said its ilegal

[Elven]

Honestly, if RO is implementing P2P, RO populations will definitely drops dramatically. Some others idea to earn money can always be implement, like you said premium account which is a choices for players to choose whether to buy it or not.

But P2P is different. It is compulsory in order for players to play. They would rather choose some other private server that are F2P unless that players is rich. Don't think about humans from other country, try to create a P2P server and invite your real life friends. I believe most of them will not play.. =="

Edited December 7, 2011 by Elven

[Toshiro]

I can see this turning into "Vote to Play".

There's no need for the Pay2Play settings to "force" anyone to vote. There are enough other ways to prevent users from logging in that could be used instead.

In case of emulating official servers, I'd say, add it, but for what realistic use?

Edited December 7, 2011 by Toshiro

[Kamion]

I agree with Elven about RO private server communities dropping dramatically, if P2P gets implemented.

For example, if something like this did happen, who's to say that the hundreds of private servers that run a server as a source of income, rather than as a hobby, or as an alternative to the official servers, won't implement this as another way to get money?

And yeah, about the legalities: most (if not all) of us know that sometimes Gravity sends cease-and-desist letters to private server owners, once they find out about them. What if they find out that a private server is charging players just to play their game? Won't they decide to step it up, and rather than a cease-and-desist letter, they file a lawsuit, instead? I might be totally wrong about this, but that's just what I think might happen.

[Chemical Crush]

The thing about pay to play is, officials used to be pay to play, they have switched now. you pay for a premium account, I honestly, as a player, wouldn't even pay for that. I'd much rather go to another server that suits my needs and isn't obviously run by money.

I mean if you wanna put it as an option whatever, but imo its still a bad idea as a server admin to force players to pay or even offer a 'vip package'. People on the officials don't even really like the vip package. You might as well just offer Battle Manuals and other things ( since on the officials its just boosted exp. )

I agree with Kam, Gravity already sends out those letters for people owning servers even without p2p, I would dread to see how it would be if there was a p2p private server out there.

[Triper]

Adding this feature would[for me would be] just mean that the entire initial idea of eAthena was a lie.

Also, from all the servers that I've seen with this that tried it, I think only 1 survived for more then 1 year with it and was like a low rate highly customized $30 a month with like 50 players...

I don't know but I think this just shows that in the end it kinda ends being the same result as without.

Edited December 7, 2011 by Triper

[Mirage]

Honestly, Olrox is right above all which was said here. The only way I see P2P being in affect is through a premium membership which only MIGHT pass if you run a LR server or you have some genius scheme, which is just morally wrong might I add, but other then that..This shouldn't even be up for discussion. If we are truly in need of money, there are other ways of making it besides trying to hustle our player community. Have special events that people can donate to play or some kind of art challenge, 1$ entry and the winner gets 50$ or something. I dunno, but this whole P2P is crazy talk...

[SkzBR]

I Suggest to correctly implement some systens before add anything new like it. We all know that CashSystem is a looooooooooooooong way of their correct implementation. If you look at AEGIS Zone dump and packets, you see that it have more packets of errors (like system offline), and of course, they doesn't save on a ##CASHPOINTS variable.

I suggest to cleanup rAthena (like i suggested on eA and got ignored) and make it more AEGIS like.

Cleanup the messages when some action doesn't goes good, like, if you try to drop a item undroppable on aegis, you just dont drop it, on eAthena it display a hacked packets that make a mensagem on my head like i'm saying "THIS ITEM CANNOT BE DROPPED NOOB". Its longer from official implementation, and dificult to others languages translate the entire system (some msgs are hardcoded too!)

Edited December 7, 2011 by SkzBR

[Xantara]

rAthena is an emulator trying to be as official as possible. It is not a private server. Because of this, I voted yes - I think it should be added. However, when I voted, I forgot that some official RO servers moved away from this, so I am a bit more neutral to this being added now. In any case, I am still leaning towards my initial choice - adding it but with a low priority.

Additionally, I don't know why any private RO server would use this feature as there are many other private servers out there and they are free to play. So I am not worried too much on the affect on the pServers. Also how/why they use it is up to them.

Edit: After more consideration, I have deleted my vote. Although I see no harm in adding it to the emulator (since it does not force pservers to use it and I don't think it would nullify its license), there is no use in adding it in (since a pServer should never use it).

[bits]

I vote no because if you set up a p2p private server you're gonna get into trouble with the law. It's emulator to emulate the real server. i remember the topic back at eA where there's a discussion between selling the items vs giving the items as donation gift and server owners getting legal letters from gravity. I suppose if anyone who uses the p2p system in an emulator it'a a direct violation. I know eA and rathena gonna tweak the emulator close to the official but some systems as such are not meant to be followed.

PS: Think of it as a trap. Because by that Gravity has a reason to shut us down. If you really want to do it, implement it in your own server not the main eA or rAthena.

Edited December 7, 2011 by bits

[Lighta]

Beside Law and monney I think that systeme could be hack for other use, so won't be bad to implement it.

But as everyone state, people won't like nuch to pay to play in your server, unless yes unless it is very attractive, have special feature etc.. In other word your server should be much better then other Ra Ea emulator... I'll resume this like that it's something who will disencourage sharing.

All in all I'd say no.

[bits]

But i strongly suggest we do not push aside the legal issues, i don't care how servers make money off it by donation system and i think gravity already made a peace at it (if you're rich enough to donate to private servers is your problem) but P2P is like forcing players to pay for it then we are really stepping on their toes. It was made clear that the emulator wasn't made to make money off it as the title suggested Pay2Play or P2P and it is enough to capture gravity's attention for their next move against eA or rAthena because it is an option to make money off it if it got implemented. It will be an issue.. It doesn't matter if the p2p system will enhance the emulator or any other server for that matter but one way or another you will get shut down.

Edited December 7, 2011 by bits

[Jezu]

Implementing like this feature may lead your players to seek to F2P private server.

Private Server means it's a FREE to play server, that's why they chose to play private server instead of official one.

I am an owner of RO server too and I implement VIP Status like iRO. There are more advantages like using @warp, @storage on any maps and exp/drop boost that free users don't have. If you do this, there will be a big question of your players asking why ' P2P' ?

Edited December 7, 2011 by Jezu

[KeyWorld]

Why not a Pay2Administrate server mod ? -> Admins have to pay every month rathena's devs to run the emulator (sarcastic).

In my own mentality (and a mentality shared by a big part of the french community) administrate athena/rathena is only to have fun and pleasure and share your work and passion with your players. Not to gain money and manage a business (if so, buy the Ragnarök Online licence and run your own official server).

Just my two cents.

[Vince]

In my humble opinion, the good question is : is eAthena/rAthena stable/up-to-date enough to ask players for money ;< ?

Once upon a time, eAthena dev team launched a "bug tracking session" (it was about the PR1, a bit old I know xD) and tried to fix as much bugs as they could. Maybe a "code cleaning session" could be better than a pay2play system, in a first time ... (I could help, I'm really used to C language, but not really to the code of eA/rA :/).

And to answer to the initial topic : Imo, Yare, eAthena, oAthena, jAthena... were all made to allow people to play for free.... It would be really sad if people were able to use (free) contributions (customs, etc) of the community to earn money. (Well it's already the case with cash shops, but players are free to play without any fee ^^).

Edited December 7, 2011 by Vince

[whitesn]

rAthena is an emulator trying to be as official as possible. It is not a private server. Because of this, I voted yes - I think it should be added. However, when I voted, I forgot that some official RO servers moved away from this, so I am a bit more neutral to this being added now. In any case, I am still leaning towards my initial choice - adding it but with a low priority.

Additionally, I don't know why any private RO server would use this feature as there are many other private servers out there and they are free to play. So I am not worried too much on the affect on the pServers. Also how/why they use it is up to them.

Edit: After more consideration, I have deleted my vote. Although I see no harm in adding it to the emulator (since it does not force pservers to use it and I don't think it would nullify its license), there is no use in adding it in (since a pServer should never use it).

Err.. If the rAthena only put the features in, could Gravity lay a hand on it ? It's just way too

much to fight Gravity.. Maybe it's better not to put that features.. Let the server owner add it

him/herself..

[Xantara]

Wait, what? Maybe I misunderstood what the OP is suggesting as I see no indication that rA is asking for money? If so, then totally disregard everything that I have said so far regarding this matter. xD; I thought this was just adding a feature to the SVN (ie. I didn't think the OP said "Pay to use SVN")

Anyways, if I did understand correctly, then I get the feeling that people are assuming that if Pay2Play is added to the SVN, then private RO servers will have to use it. No, of course not - that'd be absurd. If it was to be added, it should be an option where, of course, the default is set for it to be disabled. I also doubt anyone would even use this system anyways.

Another aspect I noticed is that the assumption that rA would violate it's licence and/or Gravity would go after this place if this was to happen. This should not be the case as the SVN would still be a free program (GNU GPL) and not forcing anyone to use this feature.

And again, in this post, I am not agreeing nor disagreeing with adding it in. If you think I am, please read it word for word as I just want to clear up any inaccurate premises (provided that I am on the same page as the OP lol).

[whitesn]

@^ Even though it's optionable but I think gravity is ready to fight against it since it'll increase the

population of P2P Private Servers..