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| Our services don't run on air... |
The truth is we have operating costs, server space and bandwidth costs money, and no we don't have money coming from trees. It's not only server costs, but we have a 60 member staff - some of which have paid positions. But why do we pay our staff? Because some exceed the regular amount of admin work into jobs that drastically promotes why our server has been so successful. When you pay for VIP or anything from our store, that money goes directly into a fund that can be used to pay the server bills and pay staff members to keep doing what they do best, without this, we would see higher burn out rates, effectively destroying the staff's productivity.
We also use these funds to expand the community. Sure, we do love our roots and the success that our SA-MP community has brought us, but why stop there? Why can't we pursue other avenues expanding the possibilities of new users joining our community? Our side projects such as Minecraft, IV-MP, Killing Floor, Black-Ops, were the direct result of our VIP Program. Without it, we wouldn't be able to deliver these avenues toward our community.
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| Die Birds... Die! |
One thing that you might have noticed different in our SA-MP Server is that we constantly develop upon it, releasing updates at least every month is something that we are very known for doing. Before the VIP Program, server updates would come around every 4-6 months, and they were mediocre at best. Things like paintball arena, turf wars, new factions, new exterior mapping, etc are all the direct result of the VIP Program. Without it, we would be still sitting around waiting for the next bi-annually update with something on the scale of a simple (our guys from the Research & Development Department are still working on this one) /flipcoin command.
We find ourselves at the end of the day trying to write a formula to balance out a important problem, how can we keep people interested in our VIP Program while keeping those who don't or can't participate in the
VIP Program happy. We've known for several months that there is a problem with our server's economy, something that direct results from VIP. As a team we have discussed several different options to help mend the economy without killing VIP, and with it we have planned to introduce several fixes in stages. Such as capping interest, adding more options for players to spend money on, and totally rebuffing the prices and costs on our drug and material markets.
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| It looks like a storm is coming... |
When we started the VIP Program, we had no idea that it would have been this successful. While it's very great that we did a excellent job, it also introduced a very serious problem. The material markets that were successful in the past were slowly drilling to nothingness, this was a result of VIP's getting a series of "weapons" from the locker. The weapon dispenser is a very delicate feature of our VIPs and it's not going to be exactly the easiest to fix either. We have as a team, debilitated ideas from removing it completely to increasing token costs of specific weapons. But as of yet, we have yet decided on a firm option to smooth over the issues. I'm sure Devin will let you know a head of time when we do decide on a solution.
As for those who still grip on VIPs, please note this, we would not be where we are at today without them, just the same o' mediocre roleplaying server trying to take a stab the sa-mp market. While those who prefer that mentality of a community, then it's entirely up to them, we have never once forced anyone to use our services, and we are not going to start. In order to keep our services online and free to everyone with frequent updates, we depend on the VIPs a lot, just as much as we depend on our staff to keep doing what they do best.
That concludes this week's insight, join us next week as we take a dive through our latest performance patches toward the server.
- GhoulSlayeR (Director Of Scripting - Next Generation Gaming, LLC)
But NGG through it's existance has probably made over $40,000 USD, that is plenty more then enough to keep this server and everything else up for a long while.
ReplyDeleteWhy not shut down the VIP system for some time, and see how it goes, or at least disable some features and make weapons cost more tokens.
Because we've already established a customer base, we can't just simply cut the head off the chicken, there's no guarantee when we need funding again that they will come back. We'd basically be setting ourselves up with a doomsday clock.
ReplyDeleteAs much as we pay for, we can easily blow through 50k in 2-3 months.
Well, I won't comment any further, but I just hope to see economy re-balanced in near future.
ReplyDeleteThe VIP system has brought quite a bit to the server, and it would be a shame to just see it disappear. I'd prefer that it stay, but with minor changes to help limit the advantage of VIPs over regular players.
ReplyDelete- Frank Hunt