Seeds of Time Online gets its head above water after financial difficulties
Expenses are down
It's no secret that Seeds of Time Online was recently undergoing an economic crisis (along with the rest of the nation and world, come to think of it).
The cause was simple: the player count steadily dropped from around 400 down to about 200 active members* (that is, 200 people playing on a daily basis), which barely wasn't generating enough ad revenue to cover a server that was much more expensive than it needed to be ($125.00/month).
* That doesn't necessarily mean people were quitting the game more frequently. Due to the current circumstances, I believe it was more because not as many new players were registering as before.
Now, there is new hope. The game is now on a new server which has cut the operating costs in about half. That's quite amazing. What's more, the new server is potentially faster than the old server -- compare 1.80 GHz to 2.4 GHz, and it has twice the RAM (though the game isn't very RAM-intensive, to be honest).
Donation system is on the way
This is something many players have suggested in the past: a donation system. Many players have expressed interest in supporting the game financially, with or without benefits. I will be adding benefits of some sort to reward the players who contribute financially to the success of the game. I'm leaning toward the often-suggested Energy Potions in exchange for donations (as long as limits are in place to protect against players joining one day and reaching the top of the charts on the next*), among other things like novelty items and minor conveniences.
* Then again, if that were to happen, that would also give a huge boost to the game budget, resulting in a large amount of new content quickly available for all to enjoy. Gotta weigh the good with the bad here.
Monster farm capacity to be increased?
I'm also considering eventually increasing the capacity of the monster farm by a large margin. As it currently stands, each of your accounts (one main plus two alternates) is allowed to hold 10 monsters. Seeing as how disk space is barely the issue I originally thought it might be, I'm considering increasing this limit to something like 50 or 100 monsters per account (and potentially an even larger number, like 500, for donators). Making this all possible will require a large rewrite of much code, so don't hold your breath just yet.
It's no secret that Seeds of Time Online was recently undergoing an economic crisis (along with the rest of the nation and world, come to think of it).
The cause was simple: the player count steadily dropped from around 400 down to about 200 active members* (that is, 200 people playing on a daily basis), which barely wasn't generating enough ad revenue to cover a server that was much more expensive than it needed to be ($125.00/month).
* That doesn't necessarily mean people were quitting the game more frequently. Due to the current circumstances, I believe it was more because not as many new players were registering as before.
Now, there is new hope. The game is now on a new server which has cut the operating costs in about half. That's quite amazing. What's more, the new server is potentially faster than the old server -- compare 1.80 GHz to 2.4 GHz, and it has twice the RAM (though the game isn't very RAM-intensive, to be honest).
Donation system is on the way
This is something many players have suggested in the past: a donation system. Many players have expressed interest in supporting the game financially, with or without benefits. I will be adding benefits of some sort to reward the players who contribute financially to the success of the game. I'm leaning toward the often-suggested Energy Potions in exchange for donations (as long as limits are in place to protect against players joining one day and reaching the top of the charts on the next*), among other things like novelty items and minor conveniences.
* Then again, if that were to happen, that would also give a huge boost to the game budget, resulting in a large amount of new content quickly available for all to enjoy. Gotta weigh the good with the bad here.
Monster farm capacity to be increased?
I'm also considering eventually increasing the capacity of the monster farm by a large margin. As it currently stands, each of your accounts (one main plus two alternates) is allowed to hold 10 monsters. Seeing as how disk space is barely the issue I originally thought it might be, I'm considering increasing this limit to something like 50 or 100 monsters per account (and potentially an even larger number, like 500, for donators). Making this all possible will require a large rewrite of much code, so don't hold your breath just yet.
Labels: Seeds of Time, Seeds of Time Online
posted by Josh1billion @ 6:21 PM
2 Comments
2 Comments:
if you do bring a donater system online would it be possible to donate with phone credit?
Tonks221: Donations by phone won't likely be available right away, but it is certainly a possibility, as I'm aware of services which allow payment via text messaging. So to answer your question simply: probably at some point, but not right away.
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