Champion Rank: A Discussion

This frankly seems funny as hell.

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Anyways, this thread is basically my thread:
https://forums.wynncraft.com/threads/ideas-for-champion.276787/
(Not to be confused with "I'm worried, new rank.")

Instead of typing all of my thoughts again, on your, frankly, better thread, while still on a phone, I figure I can link it here and maybe give some additional ideas.

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Horse skins

More horse skins locked to champion would be cool. The obvious every color and pattern combination available, but also mules, donkeys and maybe even pigs and llamas if possible.

Feel like most people would love the prospect of riding a pig, not going to lie.

QnA?

This is an odd suggestion, as its not an in game suggestion, but I imagine you could add a QnA section to the forums. Maybe a place Champion rank players could be far more likely to get a replie from the elusive Salted. (Not just Salted by the way, like a place for people to talk to all gms.)

I'm not saying Salted actually live there, but checking it once a week and attempting short replies or on going conversation.

This would also hopefully be a place for more casual questions, like whats your favorite game or what moives do you like?

I imgaine Salted won't like this one becuase yeah, I wouldn't either.

Armor Customization

The ability to hide, or change the type of armor you're wearing. I think if a champion wants to run around wearing no pants but full leather armor other wise, they should be able to disguise their current outfit as such.

You remember when armor would turn into a slime ball when you put it on? Yeah well do that, but it can turn into leather/gold/chain/iron/dyed leather/invisuable for select players.

Easy right? Probably not, but I don't have to code it, so who cares.

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I think that's it for now?
I may post some more ideas later, but its 4 am and I feel half dead. (You can tell I'm half dead because I made attempts at humor. I have autism, I don't normally do this 'humor' thing.)

 

I honestly love all of these ideas; if it was possible, armor stand mob horse skins would be super cool, but sadly I can't really see it working with my understanding of how it works.

The QnA section really should just be a common thing, I'd love to host a QnA style thing with some random CT members, but it being a rank specific thing is a little strange.

The armor customization is something I really like too; I remember wynncon had a similar system and it was pretty easy to use. I personally use an invisible armor pack because I think it looks better, and having something built in would be great.

 

Problem is that people would be able to disguise their armor. They could look to a hunted mode player as a noob coming through Emerald trail and quickly turn into a giant threat. This would have to be disabled in pvp.

 

1. Merchant booths
There’s this server called dungeonrealms which has almost exactly what was shown in the picture for merchant booths, and uuuh ye no I don’t like it the way they do it there.
The system they have in place there is basically just that anyone can place their own little chest (their shop) anywhere inside a town. This causes some problems since they usually just clutter the area around the bank and makes the town look less nice overall.
If merchant booths are to be added to the champion rank, I think that there should only be specific spots that you can place them in so the aesthetic of towns won’t be ruined as much.

2. /switch
On its own I don’t see any problem with this one, it’s just a nice QOL feature. But together with the bomb bell I definitely don’t like this perk, since ye it would basically give champion ranks a clear advantage over other players.
“Oh but have you heard of the bomb tracker discord”
The bomb tracker discord isn’t perfect. Bombs don’t get pinged the exact second they’re thrown and sometimes not at all. Giving players who spent money an immediate and guaranteed ping with no delay is highly unacceptable in my opinion.

3. Instant class deletion/class backups
Basically just what kio already said.

4. Bomb bell
Having this feature behind a paywall is a big no no for me. I like the idea someone suggested earlier in this thread, that throwers should get a Yes/No sort of thing where the game asks you if you would like to ping everyone when you throw a bomb.
Although there should definitely be a toggle on this and a cooldown if it’s the same thrower/bomb so you can’t just get a few friends, buy bombs and then spam everyone on the server for a minute or so.

5. Reserved slots
I think this one could work since it won’t actually make a huge dent in someone progress. It’ll only save you 5-20 min of spam-clicking trying to get into a specific world. But yeah I like the idea of there being 50 slots for non-champions and then 5 reserved for champions.

6. Character nicknames
I like this feature but I would also like it to not display the nickname above your head since hunters are a thing.

 

I think the QnA thing that Jaydon is talking about is that there would be a forum section where only champions could post (but viewable by everyone) and people on the CT would be more likely to reply to questions there.

If there was a section where only CT could post threads but anyone could comment and all the threads were QnA style then that’d be cool too

 

Personally, I think bomb tracker and switch is the perfect thing for a high rank. Entirely quality of life: Bomb tracker for players is just a perfect advantage that anyone could get. /switch is said to be able to make raids but it should only be slightly better then just spamming if there's, say a 1 second cooldown per /switch command.

 

My Contribution to the discussion and as promised a follow up with my research I found.

Very Very Important Disclaimer: I am just a idot I don’t actually know what I am talking about. I also have a bias (not a fan of Champion Rank bomb tracker). Also I am not taking this seriously guys, this stuff is actually really fun for me. I like research and I like grinding professions. I'm also a noob. I have been here a month. I watched one youtube video on what not to do and one thing they said was don’t make low quality posts on the forums. So I’m not.

Definitions and Terms​

Pay to Win (P2W) - “if players could pay real-world money to in any way increase their chances of in-game success. An example of a game that would test positive for pay to win microtransactions is Grand Theft Auto V, in which players may pay real-world money for in-game currency that can be used to purchase powerful new weapons. A game that would test negative for pay to win microtransactions is the team-based strategy game DOTA 2. In this game, players can pay real-world money to unlock new aesthetics for their in-game characters: However, spending money can never confer an in-game advantage.” citation


Loot Boxes - “items in video games that may be bought for real-world money, but which provide players with a randomised reward of uncertain value.” from a UK House of Commons briefing. In 2020 Sony Microsoft and Nintendo will all be including the success rates on loot boxes. Citation (There is a metric ton of research involving loot boxes and it making you predisposed to gambling. If anyone wants it let me know and I’ll pull it.)

Application to Wynncraft​

So technically speaking all ranks including Champion fall into this category due to mob totems. However I was not able to find much research on the effects of P2W in games. All I could find is this. Basically stating that players in general feel negatively towards other players who use P2W features, but those same players are more likely to buy a P2W thing if they see other players using it.

With the item crates they too would be considered loot boxes.

Monetization of Wynncraft to Cover Operating Costs​

How much is the new rank going to bring in will give an idea how much the server needs to operate. My first though would be to pull a list of all vip, vip+, and heroes we currently have. I could then plot them on a graph with price on the x axis, players on the y axis and find a line of best fit and then exproplate out how many people would buy champion rank. Then multiplying it by the theorized cost of champion rank ($160 double that of hero) get a cost prediction. However this data has been hard to find. My next attempt is to price out the server cost and add in the 2 new developers monthly salary at about $60,000-$100,000+ per year (estimate from Microsoft Minecraft developer salary link). So now to pricing the server costs. Assuming Matt Salsamendi, Founder & Chief Technical Officer @ MCProHosting (link) is correct in saying its 4-12$ per gigabyte of memory needed and 1GB of ram per 5-20 players (depending on mods). So I would assume Wynn runs at 5 players per GB of ram and averaging the cost of memory at $8, with a max player load of 2,500 players. That would result in the cost of the new server being $20,000. Now to the salary of the three hard working developers. Which per year would be about $225,000. Add in electricity and cooling to the mix and it's likely the server cost is a couple hundred a month (lets just assume $1000). So in total per year it could be assumed to be $246,000.

Taking into mind just how much this block game takes to run lets all be reasonable here. They need a way to offset the cost to keep the thing running. And I also don’t want to hear anyone going oh wow that's way too much money. It's really not. These people are on call 24/7 if something goes wrong and they need to fix it. “What could go wrong?” you ask. A lot. Having seen servers (not minecraft) catch on fire, power outages and backup generators fail I have sneaking suspicions my estimates are way off and that they actual cost are way higher. Plus waking up in the middle of the night to holy crap everything is broken and I need x y and z is not fun and mentally draining if done over long periods of time.

So we don’t like Champion Rank, we as a community have to now offset the cost of the rank should it not go forward. I think the conversation from here on out should be less “Champion Rank Bad” and more “Monetize this Way”. So that brings me to this next section. Unfortunately I don’t have hard numbers on how profitable any of these are going to be so I'm just yeeting them out into cyber space.


Now - see the shop (ranks, loot boxes, shouts, bombs, pets)


Proposed - Champion Rank


Other Options -

1. Merch - takes about 2-3 months lead time till you can purchase pull together (numbers taken from personal experience getting merch for about 300 people)
   
   
   1. Apparel
      
      
   2. Themed items from lore, ie nemerack whiskey glasses, or foam bobs weapons
      
      
   3. Wybel Plushies
      
2. Season Pass/ monthly subscription - gives the player a value pack of shouts, bombs, and creates. These would expire at the end of each month or period.
   
   
3. Guild Ranks - Much like player ranks the guild rank would give cosmetic items such as unique banner displays (or custom banner displays) to a guild and a color change in the chat every time the guild is mentioned. (Think custom colors that wyntills uses to highlight your name in the chat)
   

Personal thoughts Post-Research​

Previously I said I wouldn’t support anything that is P2W and then went on to say but I would buy ranks. That was because I had been defining P2W as “anything you buy with real world money that provides a distinct in game advantage” now realizing its commonly defined as any advantage I realize I have contradicted myself. I will probably still abide by the distinct advantage for myself because its is surprisingly frustrating to find monetization strategies for a lot of games that are free to play. After all this I would argue that the bigger issue is creates and you should show the odds of success in the store. I.e. you have this % of getting rare, % of common, % godly. This would bring Wynncraft in line with all the bigger game companies. Furthermore, my request is to nerf the bomb tracker but implement another monetization scheme.


PS. An acceptable response to this thread is MntRunner never post anything again.

 

MntRunner please post stuff like this again.

 

bumping decent discussion on champ rank

 

Okay turns out I'm not done. Also we have a big problem. Posting here instead of a new thread because apparently people are tired of seeing Champion Rank threads. Also I saw some vague mentions of the EULA but no one citing it or saying Champion Rank violates it. So if someone has I apologize.

MOJANG EULA
​

"Therefore, if you comply with and follow the Brand and Asset Usage Guidelines and Naming Guidelines above, YOU MAY:
...

• 
  
  
  • sell entitlements that affect gameplay provided that they do not adversely or negatively another player’s experience and provided they do not give a competitive gameplay advantage. A competitive gameplay advantage is something that, given identical skill levels, time investment, and circumstances, can cause one player or group to perform better than another.
    • Be aware that certain games or game modes can be designed as non-competitive (such as a player-versus-environment (PvE) game) and become competitive by adding gameplay elements such as a leaderboard. "

--- from Minecraft commercial server rules.

Application To Wynn
​

Champion Rank is an entitlement that will be sold. The bomb bell combined with the /switch here would give a competitive gameplay advantage. This is because given the same circumstances any other player without that rank would have to go to /lobby then click the world once they were notified of the bomb through any other means. Normally WynnCraft would not be considered competitive gameplay if not due to the one simple fact on the website there is the leaderboards. The existence of the leaderboards and player levels in game transition Wyncraft from a player versus environment game to a competitive game by Mojang rules.
Long story short in my opinion Champion rank violates this section of the Mojang rules.


I should actually watch lectures now and do my class assignments instead of getting sidetracked by wynncraft stuff. But nooooo, I just happen to have to wonder what does EULA stand for and google the damn the thing.

 

So you would agree with me that HERO violates the EULA as well, because its impossible to get onto the total combat leaderboards without HERO?

 

Maybe? So the thing is the only thing ranks have that nons don't is mob totems. However when you place a mob totem everyone in that area who could use said mob totem gets a notification. Because that notification gets sent out I would assume it makes the competitive gameplay advantage argument vague. So I don't think so... But all that is above my pay grade so I'm not gonna touch it. I can only tell you the facts and the numbers and give opinions but that's it.

 

All ranks have more class slots than a non (and trade market slots, but that's immaterial for this). It is not possible to get onto the total combat level leaderboard without the HERO rank because hero has 14 class slots. In having more class slots, HERO gives an advantage to only the player with the rank, and that advantage lets the HERO player get onto the leaderboards. I don't actually think additional class slots violate the EULA as they've been around forever and Mojang hasn't complained, but I do think there's a better argument for additional class slots violating the EULA than the Champion features.

 

remember when dyed armor was an 'upcoming feature' for donors? I forget when they removed it, but its been seemingly scrapped forever now

 

Wynncraft is now dead because it’s technically p2w,
By gods...

 

I could have sworn I read somewhere that Champions would have the ability to switch the between the cosmetic classes, i.e normal mage vs. dark wizard. Is that still in?

I think that would be a pretty cool cosmetic only feature for Champions.

Maybe Champions could get an exclusive Champion world? Idk if that's really pay-to-win but I think it could be cool.

 

It would be p2w and piss off most people, because a lot of bombs would be thrown there

 

Champion has that class swap ability but so do other ranks

Also wtf this is a month old thread why the hell was it bumped champion already has made its way into the beta and this thread was literally just suggesting features for champion

 

Because it still as issues.
I.e. pet task.