04-01-2011, 07:13 PM
Isn't this more or less exactly what many old-school PBM games did? Didn't Tribes of Crane charge extra the larger your tribe was, or the more special actions you used, or the more combat reports you had? I remember reading that some unscrupulous players would launch spitball attacks on their enemies every turn, just to generate combat reports and drain their enemies accounts.
My own alma mater, Empyrean Challenge, charged a flat rate minimum or more depending on how many ships/colonies or orders you had on a given turn. Those who were willing to pay could expand as quickly as the game would allow, while those who tried to stick to the base rate had to carefully budget themselves.
So now I'm imagining, what if I could play Far Horizons for free, as long as I stayed with one home system, one colony, and 3 ships -- anything beyond that would entail some sort of "buy"? That would give people a chance to play, and then the serious gamers would take off from there.
My own alma mater, Empyrean Challenge, charged a flat rate minimum or more depending on how many ships/colonies or orders you had on a given turn. Those who were willing to pay could expand as quickly as the game would allow, while those who tried to stick to the base rate had to carefully budget themselves.
So now I'm imagining, what if I could play Far Horizons for free, as long as I stayed with one home system, one colony, and 3 ships -- anything beyond that would entail some sort of "buy"? That would give people a chance to play, and then the serious gamers would take off from there.