Seriously?
I mean it.  Seriously?

I know I'm not the most regular player, I come and go, sometimes only staying around for a little while.  I want Sindome to stay around and grow, cause I do love coming back and discovering all the new features and players and places and such.  But have we seriously come to the point where we need to offer in game rewards for real world contributions?  The thing I always liked about Sindome, and what set it apart from other online games I play, is that you get out of a character what you put into it, through roleplay, building connections, etc...
Offering in game resources and favors to those people who can afford to pay the price has great potential to unbalance the game.  Even to the point of passing on a unique residence from one player to the next.
Then again, I haven't been on the game.  Maybe it isn't doing that.  Maybe it's helped the game grow and expand.  Maybe it's adding more flavor and fun to the game.  I love the idea of unique residences, the places to stay always seemed some what bland.  Hotel, apartment, nice apartment, whatever's up on blue.  But just offering them to whoever has the money just doesn't feel right to me.

So pony up the $1000 a year it takes to keep this beast running.

:D

This serves a number of purposes:

1) It is adding a lot of new areas and things to the game.
2) It pays for the cost of the game.
3) It rewards people who make a difficult financial commitment in difficult financial times, giving them something that becomes a permanent part of the game.

Just be happy I still haven't convinced Jman to do pay-for-chyen business models. :D

It isn't really a major policy change. We have always given out unique rewards, be it roleplaying events or crash pads or rooms or whatever to players. They have paid for them in blood, sweat, and shit from us admin and earned these places in the game.

Considering that getting a hold of a paycheck right now isn't the easiest thing in the world, we think that offering players a reward for their help in financing the operating costs of the game is a fair trade.

Pay in cash, or pay in blood in the mix, either way you pay. I know they are at heart different things, but one does what one has to do when times are tight.

Yes, we are building full IC and RPed out sessions to justify all of this stuff. It is built in conjunction and relation to history of the character, previous RP, and with future plot potential. You know us admin, we live to make player's lives difficult every time they get a reward.

:johnwoo:

I had no idea that Sindome "needed" the money. � �A couple months ago I voulnteered on these boards to help pay for advertizing and noone ever got back to me on it. �If someone would have came to me at any point in time and said "Hey man, I've noticed you donated before and your've been a long time member of this community, we could really use the money" � I wouldn't have hesitated to donate whatever was necessary. �

I was quite possibly one of the first to email Johnny about what I can do with these places and was genuinely truly excited about the prospect of having a 6 room place of my own. � I still am. I think that regardless of my position on the issue It'd behoove me not to take every advantage set before us. �

� That said we've discussed this before and my position has always been that paying for -anything- IC with RL money is wrong, worng, wrong, fucked up, and unfair to those of us who can't afford to donate. �

I know noone from the sindome staff wants to go around begging so could Johnny please post all costs related to running sindome. � �To take it one step further we could even post how much money (in dollars not a scale) that is avaliable through player donations to offset this cost?

edit:

Oh yes and you can expect a no strings attached donation from me before the weekend's up.

(Edited by Jotun at 5:56 am on May 14, 2009)