Private Server Monetisation Policy

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@Duh Is it possible to get Callum (or any other TW member of staff for that matter) to get involved in this thread? All I have seen far is hardly constructive feedback from TW / Callum. I don't want to e-mail TW privately if all of my concerns are described in this thread and supported by other notable figures in the community. Please keep it a public debate like you promised to.
 
I can ask, but it seems their current standpoint is to handle interaction via mail.

Please keep it a public debate like you promised to.
I don't think I promised anything in regards to TW. If I did, that would have been a mistake as I am in no position to make such guarantees. What I recall is my recommendation to share your feedback in this thread - which I still believe to be good and beneficial even if TW doesn't actively partake in the discussion. While it is a bit laborious, you can always submit your arguments and inquiries via mail as well and ask TW whether it is alright to share the response you receive from them here.
 
H E R O O F T H E I M P E R I U M said:
:lol: people here are massively overstating the importance of community-run servers with paywalled features. The vast majority of people who still play Warband do so in a single-player format. And the regulars on any of your paywalled servers couldn't give a single damn about how your servers get penalized - the only people who might suffer are the ones who stand to profit from those servers.
Stating that a majority thinks this and that equals zero. You talk about our regulars as if you know their opinions which is totally fine, if you are one yourself. Unfortunately, I've never heard of your name and if you haven't heard of me, then I doubt we share the same server and community. But you know what? I will probably make a google form for all the everyone in the discord server to answer.

It'll show what the majority of those responding think about this subject instead of us theorizing about stuff. My expectation is however not totally unlike yours, but instead of players not caring if their server get penalized, I think most players don't mind cosmetics being pay-walled as it's such a tiny detail without any impact.

What would be most liked would of course be having this perk available for free, but it'd give the server staff such a workload and it wouldn't be possible to combine with jobs and studies for the limited staff with access to scripts. It'd also be interesting to see the statistics over players liking having to pay to access a server as it'd likely get much more negative response.

Duh said:
Ewoksson said:
yet

''You are allowed to charge players a flat fee to access your server.''
''Offer reserved slots for donators.''
''Offer in-game custom titles as a reward.''


If this isn't to restrict access to gameplay features  :ohdear: ..maybe I need an education in authoritarian values.
Be careful for what you are arguing there. Those may well be concessions that were made in your favor.

Should I be careful so TaleWorlds doesn't restrict those things too? because a random guy asked for clarifications so we can reach a common ground instead of this going down as behind-the-scenes-totalitarian-rules-made-to-give-Warband-including-NW-multiplayer-the-final-blow-instead-of-making-a-free-weekend-on-Steam-to-promote-and-make-the-multiplayer-alive-again.

Should I be thankful for rules which openly gives servers permission to have players pay to access servers which quality and duration is then unknown, and rules implying it would be distasteful to give free access to servers and then, after a while and at the players own discretion, let them donate if they come to regard the server as a good server and be given a non-intrusive content as a thank you. (We are not talking about swords, guns, armor or in-game money)

I do hope mine (and others) point of view is understandable from an officials point of view too and I don't think anyone here demands an official answer, but it would do fine if we had a reason about the NW cosmetics at least instead of having to theorize about the whys, or if it just was collateral damage for a rule originally made for Native, but Callum stated this weren't the cause thus we're left without a reason.

I've expressed further thoughts and arguments in an earlier thread about the subject where I, in short terms, state reasons why servers don't need further rules from officials;
https://forums.taleworlds.com/index.php/topic,373916.msg8916160.html#msg8916160

Also, I've done as I promised and created https://petition.nwrp.eu
I'll give you all a screenshot of the result when this petition has been running for a few days. It's going to be posted continuously in a NW-related Steam group with 2.500 members and a NW-related Discord with 1.200 members.
Unfortunately, I cannot reach out to more people because the largest Bannerlord Steam group is owned by a scammer who isn't interested in the community, only self-promotion, internet streetcredz and spreading rumors and faking their status as an un official group. Otherwise, it'd been an excellent way to reach out and hear what the massive mob consisting of brainless kids who require their moms credit card to prepurchase Bannerlord in 2033 think of the decision.

You should actually concentrate on fixing your Bannerlord fan group on Steam before you try to fix what's not broken, but since Slovak has 70.000 plebs under his command it makes it very hard because they are future revenue thus he's very powerful and untouchable, compared to the in-game servers which as of lately lacks in activity caused by external factors such as other games becoming extremely popular (PUBG), tired regulars and admins, and a community whose teens has become adults, which generally means less free time and less interest in gaming. But of course it's the donations and rewards fault! So let's punish those few left to volunteer during their precious free time into making your game even more interesting to customers. You can embed poop in flowers and those of us with our own credit card can see past that with the help of something called rationality. Ignoring players' opinions has led to many games death.
And for such a past wonderful game to go down that path because of what reasons exactly? You don't have to abandon the entire harvest just because a couple of bad seeds popped up. 8 years a fan and this is about to be a breaking point.
 
Callum_TaleWorlds said:
Private Server Monetisation

Private servers are the lifeblood of Mount & Blade multiplayer. Server owners offer a service to the community which brings players together and allows them to enjoy the game in a way in which we as a company are simply unable to. Community events, tournaments, new game modes and custom maps are just some of the ways in which people benefit from the generosity, dedication and hard work of these valued community members, and without them, the multiplayer side of the game would be a lesser experience.

This service often comes at a considerable cost to server owners and administrators. Not just in terms of the time and effort required to provide a quality service, but also with the monetary investment required to maintain a server. We recognise that it is important that server owners are able to raise funds to help with the general costs associated with running a service, however, recently we have noticed that some servers have started to move away from the traditional method of raising funds through donations towards a payment-based method which offers players in-game rewards in exchange for money.

We certainly appreciate the great contribution that server owners make and we believe that it is fair for them to ask for help with upkeep costs, however, we also strongly feel that the game should be enjoyed by all of our players in a fair and inclusive environment, and without them being subjected to any additional costs.

We think that it is time that we set some guidelines for server owners to be clear as to what we consider to be acceptable ways for them to raise funds to maintain their service, in a way which is fair to both server owners and players.


Server Owners


You are allowed to:
• Accept donations
• Charge players a flat fee to access your server (providing you have the explicit permission to use any mods, maps, game modes, intellectual property or any other additional content hosted on your server)
• Offer reserved slots for donators
• Offer out-of-game rewards
• Offer in-game custom titles as a reward

You are not allowed to:
• Restrict access to gameplay features
• Sell any form of in-game content, cosmetic or otherwise (items, perks, skins etc.) via payment or donation rewards
• Sell in-game currency for money (or any other means that facilitate the buying of in-game content through real spending)


Server Hosts

You are allowed to:
• Lease servers which include script-sets (such as administration tools) or modules, custom maps and other modifications, providing that your prices are consistent across servers (with and without game related content) and you have the explicit permission of the content creator to use their creation.

You are not allowed to:
• Lease servers which contain the intellectual property of another person or company without their explicit permission
• Act as a server owner for pay-to-access servers


Permissions

The only accepted methods to prove you have permission to use any assets (mods, maps, game modes, scripts, models, textures, or any other additional content) or intellectual property are:
• Letter (physical or scanned)
• Email
• A post or a reported personal message on our official forums

Letters, emails, forum posts or reported personal messages should be from the owner(s) of any assets or intellectual property and they should clearly state that you have their permission to use their creation. Screenshots are not an acceptable form of proof. 


Given the complexity of the matter and with this being a new policy, we reserve the right to make any amendments or changes to these rules at any time. Furthermore, we reserve the right to take action against any server which we feel goes against the spirit of the community by attempting to bypass this policy in any way, poor sportsmanship in competition or racist/sexist/etc conduct.

We intend to give server owners and hosts a grace period of one month to bring their servers in line with this new policy, however, after that period is over we will add any server that breaches these terms to our blacklist. (09/06/1:cool:

If you have any enquiries regarding this policy or you would like to report a server which is in breach of these terms then please contact us at: [email protected]
F*ck donate.
 
Hi. Thanks for taking the time to read and reply to this. Could you help clarify something?

I get that the spirit in which this policy is being rolled out is that less well off people shouldn't have any disadvantages on any server. In going as far as cosmetics, however, aren't you risking locking out those very same people from hosting servers? i.e. from now on, are only affluent individuals going to be able to host servers?

Its clear that TW meant well with this policy but could you clarify why this is ok?

I get that if donators were getting stat advantages or the server owner was making ludicrous amounts of money, it'd be a problem but for some servers at least, the donations doesn't even cover the running costs and you only get cosmetics in return. Isn't a case by case system better then? In fact what even is the downsides to a case by case system? why is TW against it?

Thanks again for taking the time to read and reply to this.
 
Should I be careful so TaleWorlds doesn't restrict those things too?
Careful in the sense of not ridiculing and/or sarcastically questiniong options that are part of or follow a similar logic to what you want, yes. Otherwise you are just undermining your own cause.

if we had a reason about the NW cosmetics at least instead of having to theorize about the whys, or if it just was collateral damage for a rule originally made for Native, but Callum stated this weren't the cause thus we're left without a reason.
Duh said:
The standpoint of TaleWorlds as I perceive it atm is that they are generally opposed to the sale of anything that may affect gameplay experience.

Also, I've done as I promised and created https://petition.nwrp.eu
Awesome! I think this is actually one the best ways to promote your cause - beyond sharing your feedback here. Numbers talk. (Voted + Shared on Modding Discord.)

You should actually concentrate on fixing your Bannerlord fan group on Steam before you try to fix what's not broken, but since Slovak has 70.000 plebs under his command it makes it very hard because they are future revenue thus he's very powerful and untouchable
Steam Fangroups are handled by Steam.

@Scandypandy - Keep things constructive. Your inflammatory language is hurting everyone / the entire argument.
 
Alright time to be completely honest with this because its clear to me nothing will change TW's mind.

This decision is ''solving'' a problem which doesn't exist, kills anything the NW community has managed to build over the years and is a big fat ''**** YOU'' from the developers to their players. The only people who support this either are the equivalent of [snip] and are trying to get to the good side of talewords, stand to gain because they employ a non-sustainable scheme of internal donation from the owner/admins or are complete [snip]. The entirety of public figures of Mount and Blade have spent so much time writing long-ass posts trying to convince the devs to have a second look at this policy, yet they fall deaf to their ears.

The development team has made it clear, that they don't care about the servers, they don't care about their community, they don't care about their players. They have gone full retard mode and are just doing whatever passes through their heads without a second of thought.And now, they are refusing to comment on any of our arguments publicly for no good reason.

[editing insults back in gets you a week long mute]
 
Scandypandy said:
How has this even gone on so much without the developers clearing anything up? They make a thread, respond once or twice and then vanish despite continuing arguments against their decision. [Snip] who offer 0 contribution to the discussion beyond "hee hee silly angry people!!" go untouched while those of us poking fun at the decision and those involved [breaking the actual rules] get slammed. To the moderators who take their job hyper-seriously, most of us forget this forum exists except when someone brings up something stupid the TW developers do at which point we all arrive to have a look.

I sure hope Bannerlord is a massive hit and not the retextured slow-burning let down that it's shaping up to be or you're going to wonder whether the countless hours spent policing this circlejerk were worth it. The community as a whole shouldn't be held responsible for the actions of a few, especially when policing said actions-even if done by players-would be extremely easy.

Aaaaaand he got censored for having a different opinion! How DARE he speak as such for our GLORIOUS POLICIES AND DEV TEAM

I'M SURE SULTAN ERDOGAN WOULD BE PROUD OF HIS FAITHFUL TODAY. REJOICE BRETHEREN, WE HAVE SILENCED THE OPPOSITION!

Instead of censoring their posts you could actually respond to them but I guess that would be too much to ask from you wouldn't it?
 
A boi said:
Censorshippppp
Insults were removed and punished. Always have been and always will be. Nothing new.

aoS0G.png

Well goodbye then. Mute circumvention by Dupe -> Ban.
 
Please explain to me why a server that is ran and paid for can give out cosmetics to people that have happy spend there well hard earn cash on the server to keep it running.

Like what can cosmetics do to the server and the experience to people playing on the server, It gives no advantage to the player who is using this Cosmetic all it does it shows that this player has given hard earned money to a server he strongly loves and wants to support.

I can understand not letting people sell items or perks that will increase the chance of a player being to OP to even be touched. But making it so server owners can not sell cosmetics at all is super stupid.

But the other problem is you are letting people accept donation from people who play on the servers but not let the owner give something back like a cosmetic which has no perks or items that can be a advantage to him or her.  [Snipped more racist flaming]

While your letting people charge players to join there server which is a even bigger stupid idea and also letting people offer detonator slots how does this even make sense to you. Did you just wake up think lets find a way to piss of our community even more?​
 
Sorry if this is the wrong place to post this but this will be the only time that I publicly address what happened between me and Slovak and the rumors of him scamming people. I have noticed that some people in the community keep harassing him still after 6 months. I wish that you leave him alone and let me solve this with him in private. People who have nothing to do with this should stop harassing him.
 
CAMELOT_Prince said:
[Racist Flaming]
And with things like that in there, you invalidate the rest of whatever argument you are making.


Personally, I appreciate the policy as it is right now, not because
Dimitree said:
The only people who support this either are the equivalent of ''teacher's pets'' and are trying to get to the good side of talewords, stand to gain because they employ a non-sustainable scheme of internal donation from the owner/admins or are complete retards.
but because I know multiple people paying for their own (root-)servers for years now, and they don't rely on donations. How do they do it?
None of the popular mods will die off because of the policy. People might have to adapt, yeah, but it won't die off if it's all that important to them.



Just because there's ten people complaining here on the forums does not mean that all of the 7k people playing it right now feel the same. Most probably don't. And if the ten people keep throwing insults, that won't change.

 
tbh, all the popular servers that use donations (probably all the popular servers) should just shut down until they return the donation policy or the game dies
let the people who love the new "no donation policy" buy their own servers and play the same old battle and sieges on the same old maps
 
hi126136 said:
tbh, all the popular servers that use donations (probably all the popular servers) should just shut down until they return the donation policy or the game dies
So, we just try to kill the game because of this policy? Sounds extreme.

hi126136 said:
"no donation policy"
I'm not sure if we read the same policy. I'd recommend you read it again. You can absolutely accept donations.

You are allowed to:
•  Accept donations

However.
You are not allowed to:
•  Restrict access to gameplay features
•  Sell any form of in-game content, cosmetic or otherwise (items, perks, skins etc.) via payment or donation rewards
•  Sell in-game currency for money (or any other means that facilitate the buying of in-game content through real spending)

The policy battles pay-to-win situations. It doesn't battle simple donations.
 
Namakan said:
And with things like that in there, you invalidate the rest of whatever argument you are making.

Just because there's ten people complaining here on the forums does not mean that all of the 7k people playing it right now feel the same. Most probably don't. And if the ten people keep throwing insults, that won't change.
So you ignore all the factual arguments, and even the form which currently shows that a majority is for skins and actually against a flat fee to access servers, just because of a few bad seeds?
Are you TW in disguise? How will we ever be able to make you see past your own ignorance when only your own opinion ever mattered in the first place?
To be honest, ''I agree with TaleWorlds on everything'' isn't a very sustainable argument either and as constructive as the non-existing reasons why some aspects of this policy was implemented in the first place.
(I'm personally for NW skins & against flat fee access to servers as I deem those two in particular hurtful and/or pointless)

You bring probability into the question with the presumption that 7.000 users don't care or know about this policy and thus we cannot do anything cause it wouldn't be fair to them. But isn't that hypocritical since this policy has been implemented without their knowledge too? We have to form a policy on some kind of ground and the arguments within this thread could've been brought forth by 1000s of users or 10 users.

It's the strength of the arguments, not the numbers of arguments that matter.
1000 bad arguments > 1 strong argument? Ever heard of the tyranny of the majority? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tyranny_of_the_majority

I heard earlier today in the NRP discord that people have been calling us in the thread for plebs who haven't been playing the game and so on behind our backs. Those are not factual arguments either, and to be honest, not true either.
Those users are just a couple of bad seeds too. Just because someone hasn't been spending their precious time building friendships on the TW forums doesn't mean they are fools or noobs. :wink:

If you truly are having a hard time finding arguments, here are some good ones I found within a minute:
https://forums.taleworlds.com/index.php/topic,376447.msg8979577.html#msg8979577 <- TheGG go through the cons of the policy and explain how things are and how they will be.
https://forums.taleworlds.com/index.php/topic,373916.msg8916160.html#msg8916160 <- I explain why a policy isn't needed because the community (players) self-regulate.
https://forums.taleworlds.com/index.php/topic,373916.msg8920795.html#msg8920795 <- William_4 go through the pros of the donations and how to regulate/be transparent at the same rate as the blacklist/current policy.

And yes, I've been rather harsh in this discussion because for me, much are at stake and this policy came as a stab in the back without any (as far as I know) questionnaire to the current server owners. I have not intentionally been discriminating someone though. And as InnocentPeasant say below, it's when drama has been caused that users here seems to care to respond. TaleWorlds has the right to change their policies at the go. I'm just worried it will kill their, already weakened, multiplayer community. But I guess most here spend too much time on the forums and too little time in-game to realize things have changed, especially for the NW DLC. So let's blame server owners for the lack of in-game activity instead of realizing the community is growing older, the game is growing older and other external factors matter more. What worries me even more are that some people here say stuff like ''I don't care how servers are penalized'', as they seems to be against the concept of the game having a multiplayer at all.
 
You've said not to use inflammatory languages but you've seem to not reply to me when I made it a point to be civil and replied to the rather more aggressive ones.

I get you guys have a lot of work to do so may have miss it. I'll just repeat my questions here, have you considered that going as far as cosmetics and welcome messages is locking less well off people from hosting servers? The mod above says the policy is to combat pay to win but cosmetics and welcome messages do not fall into this catagory?

If they do not make a profit off it, is it really fair to prevent them from trying to cover their costs when it is not pay to win? Why then not use a case by case system? I get the argument of 'oh I've seen this server or that server survive without donations,' but it comes back to the owner having more money to spare. Should there really be a disadvantage to less well off server owners?
 
Servers don't cost that much. The vast majority of any Warband servers have been maintained without any major donations, and/or they have been run by a group of people who split the costs. This really isn't a big deal.
 
H E R O O F T H E I M P E R I U M said:
Are you people like 15 or something? Servers don't cost that much. The vast majority of any Warband servers have been maintained without any major donations, or they have been run by a group of people who split the costs. This really isn't a big deal.
We are actually the army of nine year olds.

CAN WE COPYSTRIKE PEWDIEPIE?

Anyway, I can't speak for all servers. Some servers are leasing scripts and other servers are continuously developing their own scripts for an additional cost.
Some may very well self-host, but leave the option for players to help supporting the cause and other servers goal is to become self/auto-hosted by players.
Others can't simply self-host because the circumstances changes because of various external factors. Eg, if the server owner get economically unstable after 4 years of hosting.
So yes, it might not be a very big deal in terms of whether servers can self-host or not. It's more of a big deal in terms of helping servers to develop, the players' right to support a server and the owners' right to give a thank you in any way.

As InnocentPeasant stated. Professional servers doesn't necessary mean economically stable servers. That's community servers for you. They are not hosted by TaleWorlds but by someone who might be 15 years old, 23 years old or 30 years old, and being of old age doesn't naturally lead to the ability to build a great community around you with encouraged admins and loyal players. Ban donations to get a bunch of stable servers owned by uninterested 50 year olds. That's great until you realize that most servers won't be naturally populated after 6 years.

It's however unnecessary to make policies which indirectly states developers and server owners can't do what they want with their own scripts and servers.
It's unnecessary to be against a thriving modders' community with PW/PK, NW skins, flying boats, further developed admin tools, etc, etc, most developed with the support of players and server owners alike.
 
InnocentPeasant said:
You've said not to use inflammatory languages but you've seem to not reply to me when I made it a point to be civil and replied to the rather more aggressive ones.
This seems to be addressed to me. I didnt respond to you, because I cannot meaningfully answer your questions beyond what I said in the thread already. I don't work for TW. Moderators are community volunteers that deal with forum matters.

I get that the spirit in which this policy is being rolled out is that less well off people shouldn't have any disadvantages on any server. In going as far as cosmetics, however, aren't you risking locking out those very same people from hosting servers? i.e. from now on, are only affluent individuals going to be able to host servers?
Donations are still allowed, so this is speculative.

I get that if donators were getting stat advantages or the server owner was making ludicrous amounts of money, it'd be a problem but for some servers at least, the donations doesn't even cover the running costs and you only get cosmetics in return. Isn't a case by case system better then? In fact what even is the downsides to a case by case system? why is TW against it?
If they do not make a profit off it, is it really fair to prevent them from trying to cover their costs when it is not pay to win? Why then not use a case by case system?
Varying rules on a case by case basis seems like a recipe for desaster (much more so than what we have now). It also seems near impossible to actually setup, administrate and enforce. I also don't think that anyone is actually willing to share their "books" with TW. At least I am not aware that anyone has done so up until now. Nor do I think that folks should be forced to do so.

H E R O O F T H E I M P E R I U M said:
Are you people like 15 or something?
Cut the flaming/baiting.

 
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