Suggestions

The problem with another Kickstarter/IndieGoGo/etc. is that it takes a lot of planning for the initial "pitch" and then more for stretch goals. They would have to promise more than simply opening registration as an end result. Like... At least a new mechanic to the game, but also a new breed would be applicable as well.

Also forum vistas would be given to those who donate directly to the site? As in, no gems given back in return. Just a thought.

@Praeses
Thank you for digging up some of the guidelines! I think they could run another FR kickstarter if it was clearly goaled with a separate purpose - not like the goal of opening the whole site to the public for the first time like in the first KS, but to stabilize the current site and get up the registration and new features. Not sure, of course, since I've never ran any KS project myself either. It wouldn't necessarily need to be in Kickstarter, though, someone mentioned alternative sites like IndieGoGo.

Because none of us really know which kind of sums of money we are talking about it's hard to say if increased in-game stuff would be enough (they would probably help at least!), that's left for the admins to decide. If it's not, though, a fundraising of a sorts could be of some help as well or at least work as some kind of alternative. c:
When it comes to in-game stuff, monthly items and subscription to remove ads would both work in my opinion, and I highly support them. When it comes to a kickstarter an inclusive dragon breed, gene(s), familiars and/or apparel are all that'd work and probably make new and old players all alike interested to support.

And no problem, I just became really worried the whole idea would be shot down because I was thoughtless and added the imp scroll in the suggestion list! It was silly of me since I'd personally have no use of it anyway, I'm more invested in WCs when it comes to the rarer breeds. :,D I'm thankful for the discussion! I can understand why it's a sore subject.

@AMADEUS
A new fundraising event would be a lot of work, that's true, and I have no idea if the admins would be willing to do it again or if it'd be worth it in the end. They would have some stuff to put up as a bait, though, there were apparently three to four unrevealed dragon breeds in the "making of" and first kickstarter videos, blurred out to keep them as a some sort of secret I understood. One of them could be worked up as a KS inclusive breed? Along the possible dragon breed, apparel, items, familiars (and maybe even some skins?) forum vistas are a really good idea as well - semi simple to make and not really much of use but they do work as some kind of status raiser, thus possibly interesting some people to donate a little bit more.

I'm definitely in support of cheap monthly gem items (especially apparel, I love dress up xD)

I'm also in support of cheaper gem items in general.

Buying anything worth buying with gems in the mp feels like pulling teeth. A more streamlined way to buy gems (that takes out the five year wait) would be FANTASTIC. I don't like having to wait several days for gems to get into my acc. I don't like having to wait at all, and this entire site is waiting. If I want gems I want them the moment I buy them, not a week later. But that's another issue.

If they had stuff that was more in the 25-150 gem range for little things, especially things you would want multiples or diff colors of, those would sell FAST. and often! Which is great! The little stuff really adds up!

Right now when I want something like genes or whatever, I'm looking at spending a MINIMUM of $12 USD. THAT'S REALLY A WHOLE LOT and it's kinda a scary number. I'm not saying reprice anything NO, I'm saying release cheaper gem only genes so I'll not be nervous when I wanna buy them. Right now I'd rather just get a dragon with the genes already even if the colors are wrong for whatever project I have going on because that amount of money just isn't worth it.

If I only had to pay, like, $5-7 USD to get a gem only gene (or even a BREED SCROLL WOW) shoot I totally wouldn't mind. I'd get like, seven.


tl;dr -
• monthly gem only items yes
• cheaper gem items (with lots of variation to encourage multiple buys)
• cheaper gene scrolls
• cheaper breed change scrolls for NEW breeds (maybe make them common or uncommon to go along with the cheapness?)

- also having more stuff to do around the site would be A+, more reliable gaming, more forums for more conversations (ie: GOs forums are fantastic you can literally get lost in them which is great since there's so many subforums so you always know where to go for a certain topic)

@thecatsred
Affordable monthly items and other cheaper gem exclusive items/apparel/familiars/genes/scrolls would really encourage buying more gems in the first place. I don't think the current genes should be cheaper, but it is crazy that if you'd like to irishim your dragon, you can't do that with 20 bucks... it certainly doesn't encourage buys.

I'm sorry to hear you've had to wait ridiculous amounts of times to get the gems :c I've bought gems twice and got them to my account immediately after the transaction.

I think a new breed would be nice and some cheaper priced items would be great.

I find this is getting ridiculous. I'm starting to lose interest in the site. Only reason why I come on now is to check out my prettys and breed them. I'm not even fond of playing the games any more since their drop rate for gold is tiring to achieve.

I feel something big would be great.

I saw the comment of throwing money at people doesn't do much for coding problems. Actually it's the only thing that does help them with coding. They need money for good coding programs and stuff that they could use towards it. Coding does cost a lot of money to help things run smoothly so long as they have the proper programs for it.

I feel maybe a huge event or something like a limited edition item that only comes on special holidays would be amazing like the Black Friday sales they have and whatnot. Even after each holiday is done there will be people craving to get their hands a nice item or something exclusive.

Maybe add more forum decore like some people have since they were kickstarter exclusive they could make different ones for different amounts donated or bought that way everyone could have something like that but different.

Anything new to spice up the site would be amazing. I don't like being bored.

I think that simply throwing money at the site isn't necessarily the solution. I somehow doubt the slow development of the site is because they have a bunch of programers they can't afford to pay; it's that they're a small group of devs working on a very large scale project and they can't be everywhere at once, so they have to focus on one thing at a time, which delays other features. Anytime you're promising even more features in exchange for money, you're looking at even more programmer and artist time being used up in creating those new features before you can even dip into fixing the pre-existing problems. You can very easily run into problems where you sink deeper and deeper into a hole as you try to fulfill the promises from your last promotion while you're getting the stuff for the new one together and you never quite have enough time or money to work on the stuff that really, really needs to get done for the site infrastructure but you did promise a new familiar on Friday so you'd better finish that first... It just turns into a vicious cycle.

Money helps development, but more money brings with it it's own set of problems. You can't just throw coders at a problem until they fix it; it's far more complicated than that.

@Weenyah

Thank you for posting this. I did skim the responses, however, this is a really good suggestion.

First though, Flight Rising wouldn't need a second Kickstarter project. One, those are limited to usually 30 days. It would end up only allowing the administration a short amount of time to raise another funding project. Two, like it was mentioned before, I am uncertain if KS would allow a second funding project for something that was initially funded.

However, here is a better suggestion.

I play another game called Furcadia that has been running since 1996. The game actually made it into the Guinness Book for longest running MMORPG. For a long time, Furcadia had a stall where the player base was not seeing any fashioned updates for more then a few years due to the economy crash and lack of funding to commit to updates. Pretty much everyone on Furcadia's staff are volunteers. Getting people to continue to work for free; yeah, not happening. Furcadia was at a standstill for so long with old, outdated programming, artwork and avatars. But on November 14, 2012, Furcadia opened a KS line with a 55,000 goal and multiple stretch goals. At the end of the run, Furcadia raised 106,835 of the 55,000 needed for funding.

The kicker? Furcadia didn't meet all stretch goals posted, but, the project was so popular and successful that Furcadia decided to keep the project going.

How?

Use of a Paypal system. Which has raised triple the funding needed to get Furcadia the money needed for some serious upgrades and to keep the staff and game running for a long time now. The project is so successful that the line has continued to remain open and keep Furcadia pipelined.

What they did? The original backer rewards was called the Angelcat packages. There were several different packages with different rewards that were yielded to people based on what they donated, each with bonus rewards added to the original packages designed for backers as an incentive. Those who packages were carried over onto their Paypal line when that opened up.

Original KS page for Furcadia: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1810822448/furcadia-the-second-dreaming?ref=live

Their current Paypal line: https://www.catnipstudios.com/market.html

So far, with the current Paypal line, Furc has raised 193,420. And with backer rewards.

As stated, they first carried the Angelcat packages from KS onto the Paypal line. So, everything you see on the original KS page was available for a longer amount of time on their Paypal line. Now, to spice things up a bit, Furc has switched to a 'Darker' side and is continuing the Paypal line, but, with slightly different reward packages, all the while meeting stretch goals that were not previously met within the original KS project.

Honestly, I think this would be the way to go. Not only will it help fund FR for better art, servers for smoother experiences and open up the pipeway for a bigger player base, it will also keep FR open for everyone to enjoy. While keeping FR from ever being pay to play. Noticeably, it's worked for other sites/games.

And when you think about it, why worry how rare something is? Who cares if half the masses on FR have a Bonefiend? Rarity means nothing when it's for the better of the site as a whole.

Since the original project was released back in April when the playerbase was small and hardly anyone knew about FR, it would make a nice incentive to mimic Furcadia's idea and release the same via Paypal. Not only will it aid in making the game better, it will also give newer players the chance to get in on some items and familiars that there is hardly any influx of with a higher result of giving much needed money to better FR then the rarity of FR items.

Also of note, the current cost of prior KS stuff sold secondhand is usually too expensive for most people to afford.

The Angelcat (which was the key reward to KS backers) on Furcadia isn't really that rare, however, it was a decently wanted item and the idea itself carrying on just allowed the staff to pull in much needed funding to do well overdue upgrades to the game. And in turn, making the gaming experience better.

Not to mention, funding for FR would allow for better servers to handle the high traffic and keep registration open. It's limited right now, with yes, as mentioned, FR being a hot commodity and registration unavailable. I have several people, my BFF IRL being one, itching to join, but can't.

I would really behoove for something like this to be considered. I would like to see FR improve. More games to play, more dragons (owow would that actually be a nice addition) ontop of more places to explore and intereact, etc etc. The possibilities could be endless and make FR above most as a pet site.

For the benefit of FR to grow and expand, this would be a really great way of doing it. You could even do as Furcadia did and later on switch to a different 'theme' and offer different rewards. At least it will help FR become so much more while making it's player base happy with the experiences and keep playing.

If something like this does come to light, I would most certainly be willing to back the project and donate.

@Darksilverhawk

That isn't necessarily the case. Furcadia has a much much smaller Dev team for a much larger site and game then FR and with the Paypal line open and funding the project, much needed updates and fixes are coming in more regularly then without the funding. Which has started improving the game as whole.

Keep in mind, most people working on sites and games are usually volunteers and either a) work full-time jobs and don't have a lot of spare time to work on non-essential avenues. Or b) depend on these projects and the money they get paid in doing them to survive. This is why Furc went into a LENGTHY standstill before the KS and Paypal lines as most of the core team quit due to insufficient funding from Furc or working full time jobs and having inadequate time for the game. Can't sustain yourself on air you know.

Not everyone who works on these things is young and living at home or has a high paying job.

Considering this system has worked more successfully then perceived, I think the pros outweigh the cons.

@thecatsred

I can totally feel with you. Not everyone is in my circumstance and can afford Gem packages with USD. I just purchased 15 USD worth in packages today; I usually can spend 10 a week on Gem packages to fund my Treasure need. Not everyone has that kind of money.

This coincides with how someone else said tossing money at people doesn't work. It actually doesn't work without funding as a lot of sites /depend/ on funding to pay for expenses like maintaining servers. Nothing runs on air as I said.

And all considering the high demand for Gems, I gather not everyone can afford them and the player base who can afford them like me is small. So here again, I wager FR won't be able to make it off Gem sales alone.

You have to look at the bigger picture and think of what is best for FR as a whole. I support the idea of another project as I stated and other possible benefits as incentives. Even as thecatsred mentioned for cheaper Gem packages in the MP. Even though I could potentially afford anything in the MP if I wasn't pawning the Gems for Treasure, there are a lot of people who cannot.

Also, @thecatsred have you looked into why it's taking more then 5 minutes to receive your Gems? I get them within minutes when I purchase the packages. o.O

@Rangiku

All the mods have told me is it's how my paypal works. I'd much rather do some sort of direct payment system than having to go through paypal, since that's sketchy at best. But oh well.