L2 Posted:

I could see that idea going either way. It works well for sites like Gaia (bad example, since it’s not really a game) or AdventureQuest, but it always brings up the argument of elitism and unfair advantage. I’d support CZ whichever way they go, though.

The edge given could be very slight and only cost a few BP. As far as charges of unfair advantage, so what? Life is unfair. Is FW supposed to be some bastion of fairness in a cruel world?

Something I learned about customers/clients over the course of many years. I’ve always divided clients up into three groups: A) Your best customers, either know what they want and reward you handsomely for providing it, or trust you to know what they want and reward you handsomely. B) Good customers that you need to work with or educate but they pay on time and don’t try to **** with you after the fact. Can be trained to be A clients sometimes. C) Problem customers, never satisfied, always trying to get extra work out of you, look for cheapest price rather than quality of work, make last minute changes as a rule, don’t pay on time, feel entitled to monopolize your time, don’t respect boundaries, etc. In short, PITA clients that are not worth the effort.

The idea is to get rid of your C) clients and spend more time recruiting and working for A) and B) clients, and putting more time into training those B) clients to be A)s.

For the purposes of FW, I think we can divide the customers into two groups: those willing to pay and those not. Let’s call them A) customers and ****heels.

If CZ charges for anything, they’re going to alienate the ****heels. But so what? ONOES, WERE LOSING ****HEELS!! It’s not like there’s not several billion more ****heels where those ones came from. Lost ****heels don’t represent lost profit. EP 1 is free and will attract more people to try FW, and then they can either decide they want to be A) or ****heels. So **** ‘em.

Same goes for Multi/competition. Both A) and ****heels are enjoying this aspect. But who the **** cares if the ****heels get bent out of shape and leave? They’ll just get replaced with more freeloading ****heels before the week is out. The internet is literally overflowing with them. THERE IS NO SHORTAGE111

Now, I’m not saying that CZ couldn’t handle this in a more interesting/subtle way. Perhaps the item is available for purchase (w/flezz) only after you’ve completed a PAID (w/ BP or $) side quest (either pre Ep 2 or worked into Ep 2).

Anyway, I’ve got more thoughts, but ET should contact me if he wants to hear them. I’d also like to get a better idea of what the CZ business plan is, and he might not want to disclose that to a random stranger on the internet.

EDIT: Oh, you meant the chest crapping thing going either way. Disregard the rest of the post.