I come across as callous, but I'm not totally oblivious. I've lived paycheck to paycheck. I've lived 6 people to a two bedroom house. I've collected recyclables to get by. I've clipped coupons and developed my meal plans based on what was affordable, not necessarily what I wanted to eat. I have friends and family on SDI, SSI, EBT, SNAP, etc.
Like @crashdown said, if I could donate the cost of a few memberships to the playerbase every year, I would happily do so.
I am curious what players and staff think about the feasibility of additional payment options to bring membership into reach of more players.
Characters first.
Is $4.20 a month (actually $4.17, rounded up) an affordable amount?
How about $2.10 every two weeks?
$1.05 a week?
At what point does having to "pay it all at once" become a financial hurdle that is a struggle to clear?
If staff and coders were to go through all of the heavy lifting of implementing a more robust payment system that allowed for more frequent payments, would players accept more stringent consequences for missing a payment?
RIght now permapads and memberships seem to be a very labor intensive process. They require staff to meet with the character and usually spend 5-10 minutes applying the membership to the apartment, etc.
The major risk I see of allowing for more frequent membership payments is that it will come with the increased frequency of people missing payments. Then staff has to deal with expired leases, characters without access to gear, the logistical challenges of being online when the affected character is online, etc.
Staff time is already limited. There's no sense in creating a system where staff time is literally dedicated to playing landlord.
For staff,
If we could wave a magic wand and make memberships payable on a weekly basis, and if staff didn't have to play landlord as described above, are there OTHER reasons for keeping membership options limited to 6 and 12 month ($25 / $40) options?
