These days there has been a fair amount of discussion on the steam greenlight regarding payment policy and how it could be updated, there are certain issues with the current system that presently impact on the influx of new players in the shards and restrict new blood from properly integrating into the community. I believe that the following suggestions would help rectify these problems and perhaps bolster the fortunes of Istaria in the present time and maybe even encourage more players to invest their money into this game.

1. Regarding the free trial period

The single biggest problem with the staying power of new players is the trial period of 15 days for any character that isn't part of the human race. This is an issue because due to the extreme popularity and difference of appearance of dragons compared to other races most new players will naturally gravitate towards this particular race simply because who doesn't want to be a gigantic dragon?

The issue is after these 15 days are up these same new players will often not bother to create a new character either because they can't afford it or they don't see the point of it if they are going to lose it again after 15 days. This is the same with any race that isn't human and it is probably the single continuing detriment to the growth of the Istarian community, this also has a knock on effect of dissuading other new players from Istaria from staying and therefore paying for a subscription simply because of how empty the game looks.

My solution is a revision on the concept of what can be considered F2P, instead of a time limit for how long you can play with any one character i suggest a level cap instead or failing that an additional F2P choice for hatchlings only. My reasoning is with the indefinite amount of time available to play the game new players should hang around for a lot longer and will populate low level areas in hopefully large numbers, enough to encourage other new players to play the game seeing the population of the area when they first log in. Also the low level restriction would encourage new players to pay for the game so they could get access to the the full Istaria experience which would include ascension to adult dragon and advanced ability quests and schools for naka races.

if unfortunately this isn't possible I think it may be apt to simply make the hatchling character F2P, if you could make it so instead it was the adults and ancients that were actually p2p it would encourage new players to pay for the full game just so they can grow their dragon character. Dragons are enormously popular they are after all the one single race that has been carrying this game for all these years and I would think it wise if Istaria could take full advantage of it, make hatchies F2P but tell them they cannot do the RoP until they get the subscription.

Of course the latter paragraph is my choice if the former was not possible to do I think it would encourage a lot more new players to stick around and have opportunity enough to enjoy this game and not get scared off by the big scary 'YOU MUST PAY TO CONTINUE PLAYING' sign once the 15 day trial is up. The majority of the existing dragon player base is already at an adult level or higher and the non human naka races likewise are of a very high level themselves, a revision of a payment policy in this sense would have little more impact than a simple rewrite of the terms and conditions to accommodate the change.

2. ability to purchase more than one lair or plot of land

It was an idea I thought up while sitting around in order, why can a single character only have one single plot of land or lair as that character? as of right now the only way to have more than one lair or plot is to create a second character in the same subscription paid account and likewise have them purchase the lair or plot of land, this does not cost anything extra to the player and considering the amount of character slots available it is no real detriment to keep such characters either.

My suggestion is how about making it possible to purchase an additional subscription to own more than one lair or plot of land with any one character. it would eliminate the absolute need for these extra characters that are created solely to own additional property and would also increase immersion in the game which would enable you to believe you were creating your own mini real estate empire by developing all this property, it might also bring in a little extra revenue for supporting all these extra structures.

3. online cosmetics store

One thing that Istaria could be good at is the introduction of more cosmetic items, these items could be purchased from an online store and then applied to the desired character via the login screen. These cosmetic items can be anything from weapons and armor skin overrides to say the dragon winter scarf or other such stand alone decorative items or even new pets that could be purchased exclusively from this store.

People love to customize their characters especially in a way that would allow them to create a look that they would consider unique to themselves, the introduction of an online store would enable them to do this and encouragement for it would be as simple as creating a new item or cosmetic override for the shop and then advertising it to the community. The online store would also only require minimal maintenance to run on the server and would tick over as easily as the standard subscription service normally does.

Also the online store could offer other such advantages to the player like vault upgrades, additional character slots, fun non practical abilities, allowance to let characters move to another shard or even the ability to transform one character into another race species entirely. The possibilities are plentiful and cheap to make an maintain, plus the community would be enriched by the added customization available to them ultimately think this would be a benefit to all involved with this game.

4. purchasing loyalty tokens

Currently the only way to earn loyalty tokens is to wait long and patiently for them to come with each new month and ultimately the reward of such patience can be a little underwhelming in the form of bank upgrades or one or two available cosmetic items.

My reasoning is that these cosmetics may be regarded as status symbols only, among the current community only those that have been around long enough to know of these items and upgrades will really appreciate the loyalty tokens as being a legitimate reward for their time. and while a few will stick around long enough to wait for these tokens to come naturally through the months maybe it would be apt to include other methods to allow the community to earn additional tokens. all it would require would be one payment for one token or a larger single payment for multiple.

This is by far my weakest idea though and it ties in very much with my previous suggestion of a online store but i my opinion at least it is an idea worth considering for a future update.

END OF SUGGESTIONS

Ok that is my 10 pence, this of course is all suggestions on my part and again I am showing my infatuation with the behind the scenes work but I am being sincere with the points I have put above as potential ideas for this game. rather than stick out my neck any more for this list I would leave this for anyone to discuss and question at their leisure I would try to answer questions as best I can and would apologize if I have overstepped my mark with this particular forum thread.