Okay, so I've run into the inevitable problems with rewriting the Hunter's Lodge.

The cost structure of many items, as far as I see it, is gonna have to change.

Right now, you can buy your first custom avatar for $5, and then change it for 25c. Likewise with custom weapons, custom armour, custom race, named mounts (which, honestly, we need to ditch; not many people use the option, it doesn't do what people expect (doesn't give you a custom mount, just lets you name your mount Timmy the Budget Horse or similar), and it's on an everyhit hook so the server load is preposterous), name colourization and custom titles. All these things cost $5 to change the first time, and 25c for each subsequent change, and $10 for permanent, free changes.

The $5 - 25c - $10 thing bugs me a little, because I think it might lead to moments of regret - moments of "Why oh why didn't I just pay the $10 up front, then I wouldn't have ended up spending $15!" Even though it makes me more money, I don't want to encourage any sort of moment of financial regret in my game. It should all be feel-good purchases.

But the bigger problem shows up when you start gifting these items. So you go and buy a 25c title change, and gift it to someone to whom it'd cost a fiver. What happens, then? Does it bounce back? Can the recipient use it? Can the recipient use it, but only if they pay $4.75 for the privilege? And what if you gift a $5 title change to someone who can buy them for 25c? It all gets really messy, both for the programmer and for the players.

So, the simplest solution is to get rid of the $5 upfront charge. That's also the solution that costs me the most money! All those fivers add up! So we've gotta increase the per-change cost.

I'm thinking 100 points per change, scrap the initial 500 point outlay entirely, and we'll leave the permanent options at 1,000 points each. Then, title changes and so forth can be gifted easily. Also, the code is in place to bring back some of the "If you've donated more than x in total then this thing becomes free" options.

Most of the serious roleplayers who would be most affected by this will have the permanent options already, but I'm aware that this solution isn't ideal for some people. The people who are gonna be negatively affected by this are the few folks who lie in between Rookie and Roleplayer - people who have bought their first set of changes, but haven't bought permanent changes yet. New players will get a break, and veterans with all-permanent changes won't notice a difference. It's probably gonna piss some folks off - if you've got any ideas on how we can create an iitems-based Hunter's Lodge with gifting options that won't suffer from these problems, or a better way to solve the gifting issues without the whole thing turning into a big complicated mess for all involved, please do comment and let me know. Otherwise, to reiterate, the plan at the moment is this:

$5 -> $0
25c -> $1
$10 = $10

Scrap the five-dollar initial change fee present on all cosmetic Hunter's Lodge items. Increase the prices of cosmetic changes to one dollar a time. Keep the ten-dollar permanent access option. Make changes and permanent access giftable (along with all other Hunter's Lodge items that aren't free-past-a-certain-donation-threshold).

Is this the one?

Sure is.
I got so lost in there way back when.

That's... that's the web hosting site I used to run, before I sold that business and went full-time on the Island.

I don't know how you ended up putting money in there. I don't know where it went, either, 'cause it might have gone to me or it might have gone to the guy who bought the business, but it certainly didn't ping the Island's servers to give you your points.

PayPal will have sent an E-mail receipt to whatever address sent the money. If you can get me that, somehow, I can put the points in manually.

AHA! GOTCHA!

There was a ping to the Island's servers, which went through when you weren't logged in, on the 18th of June last year, for a tenner. That sound about right?

EDIT: Yeah, that's the one all right. I've put it through and confirmed it manually.

And, once again, a public service announcement: When you donate money to Improbable Island, make sure you're logged in. Also, the points should show up straight away, if you use any sort of card or the money from your PayPal account (pulling money from your bank account can take a few days (like, long enough for the Emily Bundle to sell out, hence the MotD)). It's all automatic. If it's been more than ten minutes since you've donated, and the points haven't shown up, Petition me!

I have no idea how I did it either!

I'll try to go look for the receipt, then. Thank you for helping me figure out this old, dusty mystery.

Many eons later:
Annnd I just found it. I'll e-mail you through here with a copypasta of it.

No need, I've found the transaction and added the points. Have fun spending them in our dusty old Hunter's Lodge.

(srsly, what do people think of the new cost structure? It's been like half an hour since I posted and there's no AAAAARGHs yet)

Oh! Well thank you. Very, very much.
I'm surprised you could even figure out what site it was that I seemingly snuck my way into.
I can see why I got lost and confused in it too!

Looking it over in my Monstah account, it's very interesting. I'm actually kind of glad you gave it to her and not Bob, cause I can see the prizes of things.
Although I can see the title and name color prizes haven't changed from 25.
Weren't they supposed to bump up to 100?

Re-doing the Lodge bonuses as iitems is going to offer a lot of flexibility, that's for sure. Since gifting these will still cost the giver scarce DPs, I guess we won't have to worry about runaway inflation, even for dangerous items like req and cigs. We aren't going to see a situation where every raw Rookie starts off with an Invisisuit and Chainsaw! Gifts are still going to be rare, and therefore valuable.Is there a way to find out who these players-in-the-middle are? The ones who have started buying changes but haven't plumped for the permanent yet? If they can be identified, then perhaps they can be offered a special one-time upgrade deal.

Hey now... How long were you thinking about it before you posted? Some people are undoubtedly scratching their heads and trying to see if they can come up with a better structure, but you've given pretty good reasons for this one, so it's NOT EASY!

As someone who has already bought the perma-changes, I can't exactly put myself in the right position for the new prices. Though I can say that they all sound good to me. (Whether that means anything or not remains to be seen.)

---

You can toast them, but it's dark magic. - MotPax on hotdog buns.

srsly, i think it sounds brilliant. yeah, callia's got the perma-changes already. but i have a habit of inventing other characters, sometimes several at a time, for story-telling purposes. i used to do it all as specials, but that got too expensive. creating them as alts gave me a similar level of narrative freedom, but meant i had to decide what to do about the "Rookie" title. I usually bite the bullet and pay the $5 per character, but not without a wince. The prospect of a $1-option ... *glee*

I'm still sleepy, so my AAAAARGH will be running on a 1-hour delay.

Actually I can't find anything to complain about. Of course like others above, I have The Bundle (*covet*). But it looks like this would allow someone to fully customize their character, more than once, for under 1k DP. Is that a good thing? I'd go with yes. Let them set their title once and they'll get used to it and possibly forget they can even change it. Let them set it twice, and they'll become ADDICTED to changing their title. A new title every week! For every race change! Every different scene! Okay maybe that's a bit much. But yeah.

Now, if you want to go completely into no-financial-regret territory, you could make every title change item used (whether bought for yourself or gifted to you) count toward the cost of free changes forever. Use ten and you've bought it, use seven and then pay the remaining $3, whatever. Of course, that's those first couple $1 charges less money in the bank for the Island. I'm very prone to those moments of regret myself, and even I wouldn't be bothered by having spent 200 or 300 on one-shot changes before I went permanent. Certainly nowhere near the level of having paid the $5 fee and then agonizing over paying the $10 one (I think eliminating that is an excellent idea).

Looking back, I said "title" a lot, but the same goes for any change. I just really like titles.

I may have rambled a bit. I can't think of anything significantly better than what you put up here.

I like my named mount, but I can see how anything that hooks to the sidebar could get crazy expensive. Can we keep it in our bio at least?

Back to work I go.

waking up some more, and re-reading this thread...

raises hand. six times.

I think this might be better than what we already have. I have the emily bundle myself, so it is somewhat hard to not sound biased with my opinion, though.

I personally found it a bit overwhelming when I started off. It felt borderline ridiculous to pay 500 points upfront just to change my title one time. Being new, it was a little hard to figure out that they would be so much cheaper after the initial purchase. In the long run, I think more people would be willing to buy their first custom title, or even use the hunter's lodge at all, if the first prices they are shown are lower. The lower initial price is idea for those who use alts for roleplaying, and only want to change that character's title once.

I'm not quite sure how willing people would be to change their title after the first purchase, however. I know that in GERM, we often have clan-wide themes for a short time. So, every time there is a theme, I would actually have to change my title twice. Once to fit the theme, then again to return to normal once we are done with that theme. If I weren't using the emily bundle, I don't think I would find it worth $2 to have my title fit the theme every time there is an event. Granted, I suppose that's the whole point of having a permanent purchase available.

I understand that gifting items will be much deeper than the current lodge system we have now, but...I just don't quite understand it all. It makes sense to gift a more tangible item...but, why exactly does a title change need to be an item? Would it be possible to morph the current system of gifting points together with the system of gifting iitems?

The biggest reason is that it makes it easier for me to make new Hunter's Lodge items, and have them immediately available for purchase. But for an example of how a title change being an iitem could benefit players...

Say I drop the prices of title changes to 50c, as a one-day special. With the current Lodge, you could only get the savings by changing your title on that day. With the new Lodge, you could choose to stock up on title changes (they show up as weightless iitems in your Inventory) and carry them around with you, give them as gifts, etc.

Curious question that may or may not be dumb:
What would happen if someone tried to gift a title to someone who already has the Emily Bundle, or Perma Title Changes?
Would it just tell them?

And I'm not sure if this has been covered yet, but is there a way we can have at least a few Hunter Lodge options on the FailBoat? Like special comments and Title changes? It would help to those who RP on the Failboat and they accidentally forget to stock up on specials. We already can change our bios on the Failboat so why not take it a bit further? Just a thought.

And I-uh-have a character or two that is Failboat exclusive, and the only way for me to play that character is to change my main's title in advance. I don't normally [i]plan[/i] on dying.

---

I make the many models of a mutant individual. To make them I use vegetables, animals, and minerals. From robot bugs to zombie bears to many singing barnacles.

That would be kinda cool.
I love the League. >:B

Too much? Really?

Huh..

(And i'm not even getting close Bernard when it comes to title changes...)



I... had something else to say, but i forgot. meh.

Oh, right! SHEDSshedsSHEDSshedsSHEDSshedsSHEDSshedsSHEDSshedsSHEDSshedsSHEDSsheds!

---

"Censure acquits the Raven, but pursues the Dove." "So, that means i'm -always- innocent, right?"