Two requests we commonly get are the ability to purchase rupees and the ability to donate more to the server. Today we have launched this ability in the Rupees section. We recognize that the ability to purchase rupees is somewhat controversial. For the past 6 months we have played with many different scenarios and I have tracked data very closely to try and measure the effect of allowing more rupees into the system would have. I measured the impact on prices of different items over several servers. Things like the big Christmas giveaway, and the 1,000 rupees per player give away we did when we hit 10,000 members were also experiments to test the fluctuation of the economy. We want to prepare even more servers (including the new hardcore SMP, Dystopia), and we want to upgrade smp1-4 to the better hardware setup that smp5-6 run on. This of course requires money, so the more people contribute the more we can do! Every dollar ever brought into EMC has been spent back on it. We didn't even take back our initial investments to get it started. I will continue to measure the health of the economy closely. The worst case scenario is the economy suffers and we remove the ability to donate for rupees. Over the next week I will be working to prepare our code for MC 1.2. From the backend MC 1.2 is a HUGE change and will require a lot of plugin rewriting. After I am done with that I will be working on a secret update involving animals. Once MC 1.2 is out and we bounce back from that we will begin discussing the new dystopia type of server. We are going to design and build this server as a community, it is going to be awesome! At some point during all of that we will add another SMP server if needed. Thanks for your time, long live EMC!
Very nice! Edit: Sure you want a 1$ limit? Doesn't paypal pretty much eat that ? Imo the 5$ limit looks better ^^
We've had people beg us for subscription upgrades less than $5 and we think that under $5 was kinda silly for that...but for a one time donation, if someone wants to donate less than the $5, they now have an option, as requested by many. Protip: Watch what happens to the totals at every $10 increment.
As far as the economy, are you referring to the REAL economy...or the in-game economy? HAHA. Maybe look into an additional method of funding, similar to the Wikipedia plea's? I'm a diamond supporter already, but definitely would not mind donating extra funds occasionally.
I forgot to add, what does everyone think of the slider idea instead of just basic buttons? It was a sudden idea I had and turned out well.
I can assure you that we're working closely with the governments of the world and came up with the best possible solution to NOT crash the various world economies (more than they already are) with our rupee donation system.
Clearly, no one lives in the Manhattan Metro area. Real Estate may have dropped, but the taxes are still a mortgage payment all by themselves. As far as the game economy goes, I did not become a diamond member for the rupees. I did it because I believe in the community. And, I got tired of waiting for a free slot. 70/30, in either direction on that.
I love the slider, especially after you hit the higher button. But if one were to donate the $500.00, could that include some special code writing to get a cool underground vault filled with rupee images? I want to act like Scrooge McDuck and swim around in my 900,000 rupees.