Guys,
Would we consider selling reserved slots?
There is going to be some concern over the early months that the supply will exceed the demand. Would we consider advertising reserved slots for smaller clans so they can play on our server guaranteed? It would be a way to mitiagate our risk to a certain extent but could also help to grow the community?
Just a thought.
NF
We all ready have a supporting member status.
So can't we pimp that instead?
It comes with added benefits.
ie : "become a supporting member and have access to a slot"
Getting a supporting member gets us as much as we'd get per year for a slot and a constant steady supply of money too.
So why have something else? unless we want to try the slot route as it is cheaper short term for an individual but we aren't talking huge amounts of money here we're talking pocket money for both really.
Ghost,
You're missing the point.
All of our registered members get slots when they need it. There's no differentiating between supported and non-supporting members on any of our games.
Where I'm marketing this to is smaller clans that may want a regular place to play but not want to fork out for a server. The benefits to dMw are to reduce our costs and fill the server.
However the CL's and GL's need to consider the merrits of having non-dMw clans play on our server with a reserved slot.
We have approximately 27 dMw members confirmed as purchasing the game. You and I both know that 64slot servers are the most fun to play on (recalling our BF2 days!). We don't want to be another clan with an empty server.. :)
Well if we're having a 64-slot server and we are unlikely to ever have 64 dMw players then that means we have at least 30 free slots that we could sell, no point letting pubbies fill the empty slots if we can get some spondulicks for them.
Just concerned if we sell guaranteed slots that we do not over-allocate our resources.
Background:We've got the launch of BF3 coming up real soon and Ninja put in a request to go for a 64 slot BF3 server with KillerCreations instead of Multiplay for this server due to the problems we've had with Multiplay's reliability and customer service.
The cost of a BF3 server for 64 slots for 3 months is £165.89 incl VAT & a 10% discount.
As a comparison, when we started the BC2 server it cost £94.50 for 32 slots, but we later jumped onto a special deal and got the price dropped to £52.50 for 3 months, we suspect similar discounting will happen in coming months for BF3.
We have a month's overlap with BC2 as that is paid up until November, so we'll get to see what happens to the population of both and then make a decision about keeping or dropping the BC2 server in November.
If we're in there on day 1 with an admin'd & ranked 64 slot BF3 server then we might just get decent numbers on there in the longer term and that has to be good for us.
If the numbers do not show, then we can drop to 32 slot at the renewal, or whatever number is appropriate.
Council are minded to approve the request on the basis that we review it after 3 months to see what the population level is like.
Re selling of slots:Council have been discussing this and we can see some pros and cons to the idea of selling slots.
The Pros:- Financial benefit of a certain number of slots per month
- Potentially higher server population
- Potential cross-sell of dMw to other clans
The Cons:- We have no idea if the admin controls available will allow us to manage reserved slots in that way - I checked this with KillerCreation's Pre-Sales team and they said "Our admin tool would just use BF3’s own reserved slots functionality, which assuming it was the same as BC2 (this has yet to be confirmed), would work as you described." I have no idea if that actually handles reserved slots in the way you describe as required, perhaps you could clarify?
- We have no idea if the T&C's for the server provider allow us to resell slots - I checked this with KillerCreation's Pre-Sales team and they said "In principle there wouldnt be objections to that."
- We have no idea who these potential buyers are or any guarantee that they pay up each month, so we might end up carrying the can financially anyway
- There's additional administration in running a multiple clan, split-cost, multiple reserved slot server
- We have to run the server our way, not the way that a 'paying clan' wants it run, so they would have to buy into our philosophy and may not like it that way
- If we provide a home for a clan then they remain their clan and have less reason to join dMw
As we understand it, there is a preference for a 64 slot server due to the better gameplay (as per NF's post in the BC2 section), so in theory a 64 slot server should fill up better than a smaller server irrespective of whether or not we sell slots, so that lessen's the greater population argument.
The cost argument seems a good one at the moment, but we know it should drop 6 months or so after launch, so in reality we're looking at small financial benefits to the community in the short term. What we'd really prefer is more people signing up to be Supporting Members of dMw.
So we're left with political & administration problems as the cons.
Right now we can see more negatives than positives to selling server slots. Is that a fair summary?
Although we've not had any feedback from my post, we'd like to confirm that we'll support a 64 slot server at KC. I'll post details of it when it is known. In the meantime perhaps everyone can think further on what council thought on selling slots and post your thoughts. If not we'll assume that our summary was correct.
Sent from my Xoom using Tapatalk
See my responses below in Red.
Background:We've got the launch of BF3 coming up real soon and Ninja put in a request to go for a 64 slot BF3 server with KillerCreations instead of Multiplay for this server due to the problems we've had with Multiplay's reliability and customer service.
The cost of a BF3 server for 64 slots for 3 months is £165.89 incl VAT & a 10% discount.
As a comparison, when we started the BC2 server it cost £94.50 for 32 slots, but we later jumped onto a special deal and got the price dropped to £52.50 for 3 months, we suspect similar discounting will happen in coming months for BF3.
We have a month's overlap with BC2 as that is paid up until November, so we'll get to see what happens to the population of both and then make a decision about keeping or dropping the BC2 server in November.
If we're in there on day 1 with an admin'd & ranked 64 slot BF3 server then we might just get decent numbers on there in the longer term and that has to be good for us.
If the numbers do not show, then we can drop to 32 slot at the renewal, or whatever number is appropriate.
Council are minded to approve the request on the basis that we review it after 3 months to see what the population level is like.
Re selling of slots:Council have been discussing this and we can see some pros and cons to the idea of selling slots.
The Pros:- Financial benefit of a certain number of slots per month
- Potentially higher server population
- Potential cross-sell of dMw to other clans
The Cons:- We have no idea if the admin controls available will allow us to manage reserved slots in that way - I checked this with KillerCreation's Pre-Sales team and they said "Our admin tool would just use BF3’s own reserved slots functionality, which assuming it was the same as BC2 (this has yet to be confirmed), would work as you described." I have no idea if that actually handles reserved slots in the way you describe as required, perhaps you could clarify?
- To be honest, we never used reserved slots as it wasn't necessary. However, the technology is there and working. Even the basic admin tools provided by multiplay afforded us this functionality. While we never tried it, I've seen other servers with it in action.
- We have no idea if the T&C's for the server provider allow us to resell slots - I checked this with KillerCreation's Pre-Sales team and they said "In principle there wouldnt be objections to that."
- This is a no-brainer. If someone complained we'd pull the option.
- We have no idea who these potential buyers are or any guarantee that they pay up each month, so we might end up carrying the can financially anyway
- To be honest this is an obvious point. My thinking was along the line of 3 months up front. I wouldn't consider a month at a time due to the admin hassle.
- There's additional administration in running a multiple clan, split-cost, multiple reserved slot server
- Also obvious. However, this would be easy to administer imho. A simple spreadsheet would suffice. Also, by keeping the buy-in to a three month minimum then it would reduce the admin.
- We have to run the server our way, not the way that a 'paying clan' wants it run, so they would have to buy into our philosophy and may not like it that way
- This is all about being clear up front. We'd be up front about the way we run and admin the server. We'd also be up front that they would input to the server like any other member (eg: map rotation). They would have to abide by the server rules like any other.
- If we provide a home for a clan then they remain their clan and have less reason to join dMw
- That's the rub. While some may still want to remain as they are, they wouldn't get the benefits of being a dMw member. Unless they joined they wouldn't get badges etc and we wouldn't stack them on our side on Friday nights. What I would market is a well admin'd, server with acceptable rules of gameplay and regular map rotations. What they would get would be a guaranteed slot on our server. Over time I'm sure we'd be able to convert quite a few.
As we understand it, there is a preference for a 64 slot server due to the better gameplay (as per NF's post in the BC2 section), so in theory a 64 slot server should fill up better than a smaller server irrespective of whether or not we sell slots, so that lessen's the greater population argument.
Yes and no.. The first month or two will be the land grab. We want to get our server popular so people keep coming back. While we picked up momentum following the launch of BC2, we lost that initial land grab which made the going that much harder. By going onto KK and starting a seeders group and selling slots through the message rotation on the server, we can have a real good go at building a popular server. This in turns into a breeding ground for dMw like the success we've had with BC2. The cash from selling slots would just be a loss leader.
We could use the battlefield3.co.uk url to pimp it even more.
The cost argument seems a good one at the moment, but we know it should drop 6 months or so after launch, so in reality we're looking at small financial benefits to the community in the short term. What we'd really prefer is more people signing up to be Supporting Members of dMw.
So we're left with political & administration problems as the cons.
Right now we can see more negatives than positives to selling server slots. Is that a fair summary?
Net-net I see some of the negatives easily negated as I've outlined above. However, I have no desire to rock the boat with the CL's so I'll go with the flow. However, if we designed a landing page and drove traffic to it, it would either work or it wouldn't. I know of a few smaller clans that I would circle back with and sell this option to. I'm sure other admins know a few as well. This isn't about the money, it's about growing the player base.