Cthulhu Nation and the future

[Vampraist]

Hello folks,

I wish to speak from a serious point of view with regards to Cthulhu Nation. As many of you know, I am now the sole developer of CN due to the untimely demise of my best friend, Six, in May. For some time (more recent actively I will admit) I have been trying to enhance and structure CN.

It currently stands with a wealth of details, 1000+ items, over 130 maps (some considerable / complex in size), 87 quests (soon to be more than 100) and over 26000 creatures spawned across the maps. A large number of weapon and spell forms enhance this set and is further structured with the players ability to creature items from numerous components or define spells with a number of degrees of spell direction.

There are numerous areas for character professions with 10 different characer class all having tier progression, a sizeable number of skills - all with different attributes, some noticeable better or worse depending on the character type (or player direction).

Finally there should be the mention of the Guilds and the 5 levels of Guild Houses, purpose designed maps which expand and provide numerous facilities the Guild members can aim to achieve.

There may well be other areas of gameplay I am forgetting (the code complexity occuldes my mind on occasions) and yes the opportunity for expansion and development has always been the forte of CN - buying a game off the shelf provides no further change / evolution to what has been defined in its bubble wrapped mode.

Now - the problem which is happening with CN is, in the first instance, the time for me to produce / modify the game content. I am not only writing the game but creating the art work, quests, maps - content in general so naturally this does take time. CN by no means is a sole business venture, or ever has been, it is a work of passion. If the situation, of course, presented itself I would indeed work on CN as my primary work but this is a considerable distance from reality.
At this time the game has roughly 100 subscribers with a greater & lesser degree of variation on this number on a day to day basis. CN relies on a dedicated server to run the game and as such has to be funded. The margin for which CN is paying for itself is now becoming a critical concern - it is only just breaking the threshold.

Regardless of the advertising, incentives and CN community it still struggles to entice people to experience the subsciber gameplay or its various market attractions. From a realistic point of view, the monthly fee for a subscription is very minimal for the extent of subscription play, experience and support the game has to offer.

Perhaps I am being biased but I consider Cthulhu Nation to be a great browser based game which certainly offers a great gaming experience. However, if the current support level remains or even worse, declines then Cthulhu Nation could well face a final decision.

I truly hope that the players and community of CN can come together and help to support and promote the great game that Cthulhu Nation!

Best Regards,
Vampraist

[Lucrezia Borgia]

Vamp,

Assuming the subscriber number remained as it is, what do you feel that the subscription rate would have to be to avoid having the plug pulled on it ?

Thanks,

Lucrezia

[James Sexton]

Vamp:

First, I appreciate your honest and open dialog regarding the CN future. I'm sure it pains you to see your work not gain traction.

My initial thoughts are these:

1. An immediate subscription price increase is in order. I can't find the current subscription rate, however, it would appear to be 24 pounds for a yearly subscription. I would suggest a substantial increase to 36 pounds. While it could impact players at the margins, the increase should better reflect your costs of the newer server and your ever-growing code base.

2. Players (notably Hiram and myself) have suggested several options for increase utilization of tokens. The token-based subscription is a good start, as are the spells, potions, avatars, etc. I see this as a fairly lucrative revenue stream, including:

a. More spells (especially a strong attack spell for professions) to be purchased by tokens. Also bring back some of the "old" spells for those who liked transpose, ToA, etc.
b. More weapons and items available for purchase with tokens
c. Guild upgrades or guild XP for purchase with tokens
d. Allow players to purchase unavailable skills (from other character classes) with tokens
e. Access to new maps and quests (or exclusive early access) to new areas and items purchased by tokens
f. Allow tokens to be turned in for a set amount of game cash (they auction for a fairly stable price)
g. Allow some event areas to be opened for a set number of tokens
h. Allow players to create quests for a set number of tokens. They fill out a web form and you approve to keep game balance, etc.

The idea being there are some very good ways to increase token sales.

3. It would be difficult to expect more than a 50% increase in playership in the sort-term no matter the degree of marketing, so I would focus 2/3 of you effort on working with the current base, and 1/3 on attracting new players. This leaves the open question as to whether this game can exist with say a 50% revenue increase (through a combination of additional players and additional revenue from existing players). if it can, then you have a workable business model, and it can be managed. If not, then your decision may already be made.

4. Now, given this, if the game can move forward on a limited, but significantly increased budget, then I would advocate the following:

a. Bring out new material slowly. Rather than adding 15 new quests one day, add 2-3 a week for 6-8 weeks. It freshens the game and gives the players a continuing set of new challenges.
b. The same is true with new maps. Bring out one new map a month for a few months, rather than opening 3 maps at one time.
c. Utilize the tier structure so that players get a true sense of progression within the game. Tier 2 currently doesn't provide for much and Tier 3 is still just coming online.
d. Keep building content and utilizing what you have. We like events ever couple of months.

I'm speaking only for my self, but I got the impression that excitement recently wanes for two reasons. The first is that several players felt a sense that they had 'done all there was to do'. As such, with all the quests complete, no tiers to progress through, and only money and XP to gain, it became a monster kill game, and not a rich, immersive environment. The second was that there were some bugs that effectively limited some characters from moving forward. The guild storeroom issue was critical for us, and we experienced a much shorter time than other guilds.

With your return, I would hope that some additional funds could be generated and we could increase the subscriber base. I am willing to commit to:

a. Continuing my 2 subscriptions.
b. I currently run 2 subscribed characters of an inactive player. I would be willing to have his characters transferred to my PayPal account to ensure they do not drop.
c. I am willing to purchase one additional subscription, which would take me to 5.
d. An immediate purchase of the largest set of tokens

I'm willing to put my money where my mouth is, and I hope that while others may agree or disagree with my ideas, we would all work to increase the subscriber base. perhaps there is a way to contact those who have recently unsubscribed and see if they would be willing to re-engage given the new content that we would expect to see soon.

Thoughts? Ideas?

[capnq]

1. An immediate subscription price increase is in order. I can't find the current subscription rate, however, it would appear to be 24 pounds for a yearly subscription. I would suggest a substantial increase to 36 pounds. While it could impact players at the margins, the increase should better reflect your costs of the newer server and your ever-growing code base.

The highest straightforward subscription rate is £2.75/month (= £33/year). There are discounts for longer terms, but I can't easily find those rates, either. (I say "straightforward" because you can pay even more than that by buying tokens to purchase the subscription.)

This difficulty in finding out what a subscription actually costs may be part of the problem.

2. Players (notably Hiram and myself) have suggested several options for increase utilization of tokens. The token-based subscription is a good start, as are the spells, potions, avatars, etc. I see this as a fairly lucrative revenue stream, including: [...]
h. Allow players to create quests for a set number of tokens. They fill out a web form and you approve to keep game balance, etc.

Player-created content has been suggested before. The sticking point always seems to be that designing and coding the web form would take time away from working on the game itself.

Once the web form was up, you'd have the problem of finding time to review the submissions. And the submissions would be just as subject to Sturgeon's Law as any other type of publication.

4. Now, given this, if the game can move forward on a limited, but significantly increased budget, then I would advocate the following:

a. Bring out new material slowly. Rather than adding 15 new quests one day, add 2-3 a week for 6-8 weeks. It freshens the game and gives the players a continuing set of new challenges.
b. The same is true with new maps. Bring out one new map a month for a few months, rather than opening 3 maps at one time.

I'm not sure b.) is a good idea, because some maps form natural groups. To use a recent example, Arkham Town has an entrance to the Crypt, and the Crypt has an entrance to the Catacombs. Having Arkham Town open one month, the Crypt the next, and the Catacombs another month later, doesn't appeal to me. Something like innsmouth and its thirteen interconnected sewers would be an even worse situation.

I wish I had some positive ideas to add, but I can't think of any.

[gooch41]

First, this is more of an observation than a suggestion, but the underlying problem is not with the game itself but the fact that Lovecraft has a fairly limited following from what I can see. Having said that, I feel that the game seems to primarily attract die-hard Lovecraft fans and almost no one else. This naturally makes it difficult to draw serious gamers away from WoW and games of that nature.

While I realize that CN does not create the revenue necessary for advertising, something needs to be done about that. Personally I have seen no ads for the game and in fact simply stumbled across it while perusing Wikipedia articles on Lovecraft and Cthulhu. I would suggest that all of us look for cheap/free ad space that can be utilized to attract Mythos fans on a larger scale and gamers in general. Perhaps a graphic and link that can be posted on users' Facebook/MySpace pages for starters.

Finally, the current chat situation needs to be addressed. While there are, as Vamp stated, roughly 100 subscribers, there are only a few players in chat at any given time. I feel that with the number of players throughout the world (or at least in North America and Western Europe from what I've seen) one should never log on to chat to find the chat room completely empty. This should, hopefully, create a more attractive environment for new players so that they don't feel completely alone in this confusing new world.

[capnq]

I would suggest that all of us look for cheap/free ad space that can be utilized to attract Mythos fans on a larger scale and gamers in general.

I thought the Web ring banner that appeared on the main page a few days ago was a result of this suggestion. Today, the Web ring is no longer there, and I'm curious as to what happened to it.

[Disgruntled Newbie]

I am sorry to hear that it is possible that your game will have to be closed down. Let me start by saying that I love the idea you have here; rarely does a web game so fully catch my interest as Cthuhlu Nation has. There is a ton of content, and thankfully few spoilers(unless specifically asked for) floating around to ruin the experience. The community seems strong, mature, and helpful as well. With all this in mind, I will now explain my grievances with the game, and why after less than a week i know I will likely not subscribe, and maybe in the process shed some light on why more people don't subscribe.

I am an EXTREME newbie to this game. I have been playing a matter of days. Never mind that that's been almost every waking hour for a matter of days, its still not a lot of playtime. To start with, I almost didn't even TRY your game in the first place, when I read free accounts were deleted after 60 days. I don't see WHY this rule was made, I cant imagine a character takes up THAT much space on a server. In the few dozen different web games I've played, I've never run across this. And this was a sincere issue for me, for even if I did subscribe, I couldn't afford more than one character, so all the others I make would be useless in 2 months. I would recommend changing this to characters who are INACTIVE for 30 days get deleted. I understand you want to give people more incentive to subscribe, but completely wiping out your free player database is turning away potential customers. Think of the "casual player", who maybe logs on once a day, takes their turns, then doesn't check back for 24 hours. They aren't likely to come close to scratching the surface of the free content in a 2 month period, and therefore have little incentive to subscribe. Eventually, however, they would, and you could have another paying member. And I am sure there are others like me, who when seeing that their character would be gone in 2 months decided not to bother.

Next, I would like to address the issue of skills. When I started a few days back, I was frankly SHOCKED at how little a new character could actually accomplish. It is next to impossible to mine, map, research, translate, ANYTHING without a healthy +mod in the stat. And Im talking at LEAST 40 levels worth. The only path open to new players is to run around killing stuff until you get enough str/int/whatever to maybe actually mine that coal/find that book. Still, it wasn't tooo bad, in a day or two I was able to pull it off. That was until yesterdays update. Now it seems that the % chance is your mod - difficulty. So if you meet min difficulty you have a 0 % chance. WTF??????? Did you even realize that this means, on the remote island, which is intended as a tutorial kinda map, that the starter quest, which again is a tutorial kinda quest, requires a +19 mod to str for even a ONE PERCENT chance of success? So that some starting characters have to grind out 10 or more levels for that one percent chance, even with the amulet equipped? Leveling was slow enough to begin with, you've now made it almost IMPOSSIBLE for a new character to get on past the tutorial, let alone get on their feet. It seems like the game is being balanced for the older players (who have hit level 3000 or higher), while leaving the newer players high and dry, with no option but to mindlessly wander and kill things. This gets old FAST. Especially now that combat has changed, and where it once took me just one stam to kill a human level or lower mob, i now miss like 4 times each fight, sapping up my stamina and cutting my grinding speed down to 25%. Not to mention, even if I did stick with it, you need to be a subscriber to kill anything lesser demon or higher.

And lastly, the crafting issue. To begin, it seems a bit unfair that warlocks and scientists have no way to craft without being guilded, and therefore subscribers. But never mind that. Even guilded subscribers would seem to have little chance to, as I hear the mats needed are insane! I ran into this trying our spellcrafting. I got lucky, and the first thing I created required no mats to make. It does however require salt to cast, which is, if I understand correctly, only available in Innsmouth. Subscriber only. Ok, so maybe bad luck on that one. But now any spell I try to create take something INSANE, like 20 lesser god skin samples. Ok, as if that wasn't bad enough, lets say I manage to aquire 20 lesser god skin samples, and go back to make the exact same spell.... guess what? The required components CHANGE! So, let me get this straight - even tho my sorcery is low (less than 10) not only do I need a large amount of difficult (or non subscriber IMPOSSIBLE ) to obtain mats, but if I don't happen to have those rare, hard to get mats ON MY PERSON, then the spell cant get made, since next time I try it will be a different set of impossible mats. This alone is the biggest turn off for me. I love crafting in MMO's. But your crafting system, while impossible for non subscribers, seems near impossible ( or worse WORTHLESS) even to subscribers. .

All of these things have made me decide, as much as I hate to, to say goodbye to CN. The first day or so, I was really debating whether to subscribe or not, but the more these issues became apparent, the more I decided against it. If it was a matter of letting stuff get hammered out, I may have hung in there, but I don't really see the point in wasting time on building a character with hopes of these issues being resolved, when in 55 days it will be trashed anyway. You have a great concept here, vampraist, as well as all the makings of a great game. But in all honesty, most new players are likely to be driven away. The complexity alone is daunting for many gamers, and even the ones that thrive on it, like myself, are likely to be defeated by the impossibly steep starting curve. I will check back in periodically, praying that things work out, both to my desires and your own. Even if you dont change any of these things, I hope you manage to keep CN rolling.

[capnq]

I am an EXTREME newbie to this game. I have been playing a matter of days. Never mind that that's been almost every waking hour for a matter of days, its still not a lot of playtime. To start with, I almost didn't even TRY your game in the first place, when I read free accounts were deleted after 60 days. I don't see WHY this rule was made, I cant imagine a character takes up THAT much space on a server.

When and where did you read that? That limitation was dropped almost a week ago. It was added in the first place as an incentive to get people to subscribe, because having no limit wasn't working, and dropped because having a limit wasn't working, either.

Think of the "casual player", who maybe logs on once a day, takes their turns, then doesn't check back for 24 hours. They aren't likely to come close to scratching the surface of the free content in a 2 month period, and therefore have little incentive to subscribe.

That described me exactly when I started here. It took me all of three sessions to run into something I wanted to do that was limited to subscribers. I am as baffled at the idea that someone would need two full months to decide whether to subscribe as you are at there being a limit at all.

Next, I would like to address the issue of skills. When I started a few days back, I was frankly SHOCKED at how little a new character could actually accomplish. It is next to impossible to mine, map, research, translate, ANYTHING without a healthy +mod in the stat. And Im talking at LEAST 40 levels worth. The only path open to new players is to run around killing stuff until you get enough str/int/whatever to maybe actually mine that coal/find that book.

That describes every character-based MMO I've ever heard of.

Still, it wasn't tooo bad, in a day or two I was able to pull it off. That was until yesterdays update. [...] It seems like the game is being balanced for the older players (who have hit level 3000 or higher), while leaving the newer players high and dry, with no option but to mindlessly wander and kill things.

The skill difficulty formula is in the middle of being tweaked; Vampraist has asked for patience while he works out the kinks.

According to the Scores page, there are only two players "over level 3000", and only 31 over 1000. I'm "only" level 258, but the current skill formula has been giving me more problems than I've been used to, as well.

[Disgruntled Newbie]

I saw the 60 day notice upon making my character, it was under something like "reasons to subscribe". I went back to look for it, and it does seem to be removed. Guess I made my character right at the cusp.

So far as the skills, yes, other MMO's dont make it EASY to raise skills, but they do tend to make it possible to at least use them, even for starting characters. There seems to be no "newbie friendly" things to practice on. For example, mining. The way things are now, you need a +11 mod to have a 1% chance to mine coal. Thats 1 success per 100 stamina spent. Since it takes 4 levels to raise a stat by 1 mod, your looking at 32ish levels to gain that 1% chance (roughly, not starting a new character for the exacts). I dunno, it just seems a bit steep for me, for the lowest level mining. Of course, as you mentioned, the skill issue is currently being looked at. I am hoping for a sane resolution.

In the short run, tho, knowing my characters wont be deleted in 54 more days alone is enough for me to hang in there, and see if I would like to subscribe when Vamp finishes hammering out all the nuances with the system. As I said, I absolutely LOVE the potential here.

[capnq]

So far as the skills, yes, other MMO's dont make it EASY to raise skills, but they do tend to make it possible to at least use them, even for starting characters. There seems to be no "newbie friendly" things to practice on. For example, mining. The way things are now, you need a +11 mod to have a 1% chance to mine coal. Thats 1 success per 100 stamina spent. Since it takes 4 levels to raise a stat by 1 mod, your looking at 32ish levels to gain that 1% chance (roughly, not starting a new character for the exacts).

Yes, I agree that is quite a hurdle. This game requires a lot of patience and persistence.

The fastest way to raise stats at the beginning is with amulets, like that STR booster you can buy on the Remote Islands. Other amulets are more expensive, though, assuming you can find a shop that sells them, so you're back to killing lots of things to get money, and many amulets are subscriber-only. Joining an established Guild can get you access to their stockpiles to speed things up, but that requires subscribing, as well.

[Vampraist]

Hello ,

Ok lets address the issues which have been pointed out and get a little clarification on what has been stated and put the facts in order.

1. The game does not now promote any type of player time limitation within CN.If you wish to create a character then it will not be deleted
or prevented from basic gameplay unless the player requests the character deletion through the front end login screen (or through an
administration clean up of redundant accounts in the system whihc have been inactive for a considerable length of time).

2. The skills / skill chance etc. ..... CN uses a skill chance system which is progressive for all players - from the newbie level up to the uber
player level. At no point is any skill chance defined as a 1% chance rating (I am not sure how this has been figured). To use the coal mining
exercise as an example - if a level 1 player with only 1 STR were to try and mine coal they would still have a 22% chance of mining coal based
on the lower limit variable for a new players. This is taking into account the fact that the player has just been created, has acquired no experience
in any form and has simply grabbed a pickaxe and got to work.

This same principal applies to the quests and any quests which require a stat challenge.

3.

you need to be a subscriber to kill anything lesser demon or higher

This is true, however, CN does have to provide a certain degree of content which is only available to a subscription account. CN provides an open ended
free account for players, though naturally there are limitations to this type of gameplay - the content for a subscriber is certainly considerable for a
new player and will be provided with more features and content as has and always will be the case with CN.

4. The complaint with regards to the spell creation is justifiable and must temporarily be held in line with the updates to items / spot hidden etc. which
will hopefully be addressed shortly.

It must be reiterated that CN is a game which will always be in constant development. This may initially sound frightening for a new player or one
considering subscribing but the precept being that CN will always evolve to bring new content and features to its audience. If you were to pick a game
up from a shop the likelyhood is the gameplay would eventually hit a brick wall. Add to this, were you able to input and provide suggestion / feedback to
the games development, allowing you a greater gameplay experience.

CN offers all these factors and I hope players will appreciate the constant evolution of a great browser based game.

[Disgruntled Newbie]

Yes, I see the way skills work now. I think I was basing my assumptions (and we all know the dangers of assumptions) on how things were behaving while you were still getting the updates whipped into shape. I apologize for being so hasty, as indeed things seem much smoother and fair now. Which fills me with elation AND dread, as i was already becoming hooked, and now my 2 main worries have been utterly laid to rest, as well as my third being addressed in the near future. It looks like I will likely be subscribing very shortly.

on a side note, is there anyway to change my forum handle? No longer disgruntled, as it appears my gripes were mainly founded purely in growing pains of updates.

*Edit - I was wondering if combat is now working as intended, or needed tweaks. I seem to be missing my target an inordinately large percentage of the time, as compared to before the update, when I NEVER missed, was just evaded.

[mikey]

i have not resubscribed because the caves and tombs can be too difficult to get out of.
you need a button on the play page to allow one to escape. if i was new to the game and just went into a cave i could easily just quit the game and never come back. ( see "suggesstions" for my post on this.

how many would be players and potential subscribers have left the game on the first island and never got to milton airfield ?. you should allow a player to enter the game
without the learning curve. i would drop a new player into egypt. hand to hand combat can kill a brown snake so their is some experience there to learn how to make money. after one explores in a friendly environment ( don't allow newbies to enter tombs and such ) a bubble or note would appear after perhaps 300 steps and you would explain that they have been transposed by cthulhu to the first island to begin to learn how to do a quest. omit the cave as the place to get the battery box. make sure they really do
understand they need to buy and then EQUIP the shovel ( bubble instructions exactly
how this is done ) and then once the battery box is done they go directly to the airfield to fly to milton.

the chat box should be found at one of the little houses on each map. color the house
yellow and when you land on it the chat box pops up. more chat will take place that way.

you should bring back some type of gambling. the card game, a dice game or some way
to bet should be easy and give newbies or the unsubscribed some reason to hang around
if they are waiting on their yellow bar to reload.

if you wanted to add some dynamic pvp to the game you should make the stealing of money from other players anonymous. you should not print out who tried to steal money or who was successful. if money was attempted to be stolen the game note history would just report that a "someone has tried ( or did ) steal $30 lbs. from you ". this would allow players the use of the thief skill or just the fun of some pvp without fearing massive retaliation by a guild or a powerful occultist who could send them to a cave.
this anonymous attack would just be limited to money stealing and not spell attacks or other pvp actions.

you should allow non-subscribers to join a guild. each guild could have 5 non-subscribers.
the right to be in the guild as a non-subscriber would last for a month. that is enough time to make some friends and then decide to subscribe to stay in the guild. each non-
subscriber could have one chance to join a guild this way.

you should cross link your game with another site to cross-fertilize without have to pay.
you should go to chess sites where people who like geometry and puzzle analysis go. you could look up queenalice.com ( miguel owns it ) or schemingmind.com ( austin owns it ) and talk to them about them having a permanent ( non-moving ) add on the play page and you have one on theirs. each for free. you would get the right kind of people.another site that you might cross link to is a mystery site called playsleuth.com ( owned by ben ). the players at that site are also the type of people who would play this game. NOTE: the permanent advertisement would NOT have to be on the main page but on a secondary page ( auction page ) and for the chess or mystery sites i noted above you would suggest the same thing...to put your add on a secondary page. this
advertisement would also only show up on the non-subscribers secondary page.

and you need a little shop on each map where a player could sell ( for little money so as not to actually replace the auction ) some ( just a few common items ) things that one picks up. you could sell to the store some plants and in exchange get a littlel money or maybe earn a few steps on the yellow bar for turning in plants or eyeballs or bones. this gives a more immediate and effective certain recovery for collecting things than collecting and hoping someone will buy at auction. the payment would be small but guaranteed.
best of luck to you. you deserve it.