Reward Systems AND Paying-to-Win

[Archpoet]

Greetings All,

I've received mixed feedback on my recent release of a Multi-Tier-Rewards system, (http://starmadedock.net/content/multi-tier-rewards.3898/), and I was hoping we could discuss it openly and constructively.

I can definitely understand the rewards system / pay-to-win association, but I believe the crux of the issue to be that starmade-servers.com suggests, if not requires, these types of tactics from server owners in order for them to stay valid.

If starmade-servers.com (listforge) and it's methods truly go against the spirit of this community, then why don't we support our own server list? -- I don't believe that mod authors and community content providers should be made to feel to brunt of the community ire as it relates to this issue, because ultimately *that* goes against the spirit of solidarity. You'd only be driving a wedge between yourself and those who want to provide you free content out of the goodness of their hearts and freeness of their time.

What can we, as a community, do to correct the pay-to-win issue?

Submitted with love,
-A.P.

 

[QuantumAnomaly]

Those that dont appreciate pay-to-win, or said site that encourages that kind of behavior, dont go to servers that utilize those kinds of behavior, or ones that care so much about ranking on said site. I play on Shattered Skies, and they dont really seem to care about ranking on the list-site, or give any rewards or whatnot for voting. They do pretty well without.

 

[kookster]

I wouldn't call voting pay to win. And getting some money wont make you win at this game, then again it can depend heavily on the server.

 

[luizsilveira]

I can definitely understand the rewards system / pay-to-win association, but I believe the crux of the issue to be that starmade-servers.com suggests, if not requires, these types of tactics from server owners in order for them to stay valid.

Could you please elaborate on this? Because I have no idea how it works or what you mean by "stay valid". Thanks.

At the moment I frown upon these "tactics" because it didn't seem to me that's what the voting system is for. In other words, it's just a corruption of a voting system. I would call it cheeky at the very least, and that's to be as polite as I can

If the system pretty much "requires" such things then yeah, the problem is with the system and not the tool or the rewards. But so far I can see that there's a problem. It's just a matter of where the problem lies.

Then again, I'd be happy to change my mind if I understood more about what goes around (or behind?) it.

 

[Archpoet]

Could you please elaborate on this? Because I have no idea how it works or what you mean by "stay valid".

I shall try my best.

So, in general, a ladder-tourney is designed (psychologically) to be moved up. When someone adds themselves (in this case, their starmade server) to a ladder they invest somewhat unintentionally into a very competitive system, (by design), except here being on the front page, (being on top of the ladder), also equates to viability in relation to the other servers when it comes to receiving an appropriate share of unique and recurring visits from players. Mind you, I'm not saying this is fact, but that this system is designed to elicit those feelings.

At face value, that doesn't seem so bad.. maybe some overly competitive server owners acting like crazyheads.
But if you then consider that starmade-servers.com (listforge) makes available to you API tools and "suggests" the use of various voting systems in their API documentation (http://starmade-servers.com/help/api), a clear picture starts to form-- and just like if every other athlete in the tourney is allowed to use steroids, but you opt not to... well, better luck next year son: you gave it the ole college try.

When I spoke about a loss of validity, is it that to which I was referring.
A partial design solution for this in the multi-tier-rewards script mod is that you can give out basically anything as a reward (i.e. blocks of soil), they don't have to be game breaking things.

Thank you very much for your feedback on this.
A.P.

 

[navy3000]

how...can there be pay to win if winning is decided by the ships?