Zalifer Nakamoda
Subdreddit
Test Alliance Please Ignore
56
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Posted - 2012.08.22 10:42:00 -
[1] - Quote
My 2 cents.
1) All the VoIP relevant to the gameplay is free. Battle comms, and squad comms, even out of game. No one is ever at a disadvantage in battle.
2) EVE voice is not used in EVE, so nobody will be buying it to talk to EVE people. Corp/alliance chats, or other text channels that are used in EVE are free for text use from DUST too, so that's that covered.
3) EVE corps with VoIP servers will just let their dusties use it for free.
These 3 points mean that 99% of people will have access to all the comms they need. Play now and again on your own, or with a few friends? Battle and Squad chat is free, so you're sorted. Play with a big corp or alliance? They will have their own text channels, and external VoIP servers.
Now the only people left are those new DUST corps starting up. The vast majority of people these days have computers, especially the people who will have an internet connection and PS3, which are required for DUST anyway. They can therefore be presumed to be able to use external comms like mumble or TS3. A 100 person mumble server , at the quick pricing I just did, was $32 a month. For 100 people to get the voicebox, costs $360 a month (using the numbers at the start of this thread).
Now while that is a case of each person chipping in a little, it's clearly not just them covering bandwidth costs. There is a massive profit to be had there. I'm not saying they can't make money, it's F2P so there has to be some nice profits from somewhere, but assuming that mumble hosting is not making any profit (which is, of course, false) then CCP are making $328 a month, assuming similar costs hosting the VoIP (which, again is probably wrong, their huge datacentres are no doubt tuned better than small VoIP hosting companies.)
If it sells, I don't mind, people will pay for what they need, and per person, it isn't a lot per month. But to make it an attractive option to anyone in the know, they will have to drop costs dramatically. I would suggest moving the cost away from individual users, and making voiceboxes something that a corp or person requires to open a channel to voice comms. Price it along the same lines as similar VoIP offerings on PC. So for example, a 10,000 aurum voicebox, allows 100 voice users on the corp channel. That is around $40, which is a much more realistic cost for the service. Actually, just price voiceboxes at 100 aurum, per month, per slot. Then when creating a channel you select the number of voice slots, and it creates a standing order for that from the corp aurum wallet (which all members can pay into, to help fund the voip costs, and whatever else the corp is buying).
Edit :
While this idea does mean that each channel needs to be paid for, instead of each person, meaning i can't pay my 900 aurum and talk anywhere, it does mean that each individual person does not need to buy it. If john doe can't afford aurum, or is not able to buy aurum for some reason, then he can still talk. |