News Launch Date Revealed

After receiving few critical confirmations I have felt the confidence to declare launching date. The launch date is to be set forth July 29th, 2016. The approximation of time to launch is 10PM EST. The time selection is due to attribution that the fact, While western countries will have first start, But only to met necessary rest not long before the eastern day is to begin, Thus making up and ultimately western will have more hours during the weekend due to the fact eastern will be finished with weekend earlier than western does.

Another consideration lies with the game account slots system, To ensure server's legitimacy success we have decided to harness the power of Facebook relations, All currently registered members automatically obtains one game account slot, Should one desire to open up more game accounts will be required to invite a friend to PKONLINE. This is very sensitive topic and I want to make it first and foremost that we do not hold nor harvest data users information, We have never and never will store data related to your Facebook either. To successfully invite a friend into system, Your friend must complete the register under your URL as provided by the game accounts panel. And you will receive permanent game account slot, Regardless if they ever play the game at all. This decision is not made lightly and ultimately was decided in best interest for the players itself, In order to give this server the real chance it deserves, It needs the utter most best chance it can receive. And to accomplish that, We need to promote and encourage users to truly bring their friends to this server, After all, It is not generally favorable to play alone. If you are adamant about being not inviting any of your friends into this game, then perhaps you are not the prospective player this server deserves, This server is going be recognized as super hard-core and a lot of things that are accustomed such as purely individual motives and relying on only own self will not succeed at all. In my experience of running servers, When I ask players to bring their friends, Very little actually let alone attempt to bring up about the server to their friends or let alone asking them to join and help them. It's in my best interest to not waste anybody's time nor the developers' and in order to make this project into something I am going need to require players to invite so that the server will have much better odds and everyone's time playing here will be not gone wasted quickly.

This project is not self-funded, We(developers) are subject to all living costs including resource costs that hosts and maintain the server, Item Mall will be critical component. And so Item Mall will be made available immediately after the launch of server. It is going to market fairies related, apparels related, and forging-miscellaneous. The dollar to rum(points) ratio will be 1:10 or in other word $1 will be equal to 10 rum. We do not have a website mall, There is only in-game item mall where you will be purchasing items using rum points, However to purchase points will be done via forum.

• Fairies 7 Rum
• 99 Fairy Rations for 11 Rum
• 99 Auto Fairy Rations for 19 Rum
• Fairy Fruits 11 Rum
• Great Fairy Fruits 29 Rum
• Novice Fairy Skills 9 Rum
• Devil Fruits 79 Rum
• 5 HB 10 Rum
• 5 CB 10 Rum
• 5 Nana 20 Rum
• Pliers 15 Rum
• Equipment Catalyst/Stabilizer 25 Rum
• Strengthening Scroll/Crystal 7 Rum
• Fusion Scroll/Catalyst 7 Rum
• Assortment of Apparels between 25 Rum to 250 Rum
• Backpacks 29-39 Rum
• Tickets 5-10 Rum

Now, I won't lie this server is doomed to failure if we cannot get proper item mall economy, Players are expected to mall, The more players mall the more benefits exponentially increases server-wide. Things starts to get really much better for everyone, As it promotes more activities in the server itself, Creates healthy economy flowing, Provides new comers opportunity to catch up. The more coordinated and dedicated players agree upon malling the better chances server holds for future. So that means if you and your friends can pledge to mall a little bit here and there, It would help server tremendously, not only it boosts server' revenue but also brings new players indirectly, Increasing user base.

Now that I've announced almost all main elements of this server, I am working very hard to deploy server to per specifications and prepare measurements to provide stable and fair game play. The future of this server is very vague but potential is very clear on other hand, I am interested in maintaining the server in terms of reliability and originality keeping things in consistency and I think the combined of experience and resource I have gained over the years I strongly believe I can provide that.

 

[Leba]

Demonic Fruit: 1x for 75 Rum
Fairy Ration: 99x for 10 Rum
Auto Fairy Ration: 99x for 20 Rum
Small Fairy Fruit: 1x for 9 Rum
Great Fairy Fruit: 1x for 25 Rum

I agree with everything here.

Bundeling them up might work, too.
If you, e.g. sell 3x Great Fruit for 60 Rum instead of 75, someone just might buy that bundle and sell one of those fruits ingame because he does not need all three of them right away.

I think that bundles could be made for absolutely necessary items (Normal fruits), while there could be bundles on special occasions for items such as great fruits.

Great fruits are a very sensitive topic because making them more worth buying than normal fruits isn't a good idea. They should be a luxurious item for people who are willing to spend the cash to save them time. (One whole fairy level, especially after it gets to two-digit levels is A LOT of time and rations saved.) I'm personally fine with mallers using great fruits for themselves and not necessarily putting them on the market, whilst making normal fruits cheaper so that they're more available to the common, non-maller folk to have SOME way of leveling fairies up.

I think this balance in fairy item prices is pretty great, but forging items could use their share of price balancing, (particularly sockets, str crystals, fusion catas) if you ask me.

 

[Shinon12345]

I think that bundles could be made for absolutely necessary items (Normal fruits), while there could be bundles on special occasions for items such as great fruits.

Great fruits are a very sensitive topic because making them more worth buying than normal fruits isn't a good idea. They should be a luxurious item for people who are willing to spend the cash to save them time.

Maybe you are right, we could have a bundle of Normal 3 Normal fruit + 99 Fairy Rations for a reduced price.
And bundle more luxurious items up for special occasions.

 

[Leba]

Maybe you are right, we could have a bundle of Normal 3 Normal fruit + 99 Fairy Rations for a reduced price.
And bundle more luxurious items up for special occasions.

Well, there's time to smooth the edges and still see what's good and what's not to bundle. We first need Zankza's reply to see his opinion on all of this, planning ahead is pointless at the moment.

 

[Shinon12345]

I also find the price of Party EXP fruit to be a bit too high.
Maybe with HB and nana we should have a bundle...since we'll need to buy both anyway for leveling.
So maybe the leveling bundle should look something like this:
5 x HB
5x Nana for 20 Rum

as opposed to buying each of them solo for a total of 30.

We don't need to keep bundles in the shop forever, maybe for the first week or even first month.
But I think this is neccessary.

 

[Zankza]

I have adjusted the items pricing as follow:

• 99 Fairy Rations for 11 Rum
• 99 Auto Fairy Rations for 19 Rum
• Devil Fruits 79 Rum
• Strengthening Scroll/Crystal 7 Rum
• Fusion Scroll/Catalyst 7 Rum

I think the following changes are in accordance with community needs, As some pointed out about bundles, Yes there will be "events" for item mall itself that provides bundles/sales. The following list are standard and always available.

 

[Shinon12345]

I have adjusted the items pricing as follow:

• 99 Fairy Rations for 11 Rum
• 99 Auto Fairy Rations for 19 Rum
• Devil Fruits 79 Rum
• Strengthening Scroll/Crystal 7 Rum
• Fusion Scroll/Catalyst 7 Rum

I think the following changes are in accordance with community needs, As some pointed out about bundles, Yes there will be "events" for item mall itself that provides bundles/sales. The following list are standard and always available.

I like your changes, but please consider changing HB/Party Fruit in some way to make it more accessable.

 

[Radagast]

I have adjusted the items pricing as follow:

• 99 Fairy Rations for 11 Rum
• 99 Auto Fairy Rations for 19 Rum
• Devil Fruits 79 Rum
• Strengthening Scroll/Crystal 7 Rum
• Fusion Scroll/Catalyst 7 Rum

I think the following changes are in accordance with community needs, As some pointed out about bundles, Yes there will be "events" for item mall itself that provides bundles/sales. The following list are standard and always available.

These price changes seems wonderful!

However, I still think that standard pet fruits shouldn't be 11 and great fruits totally shouldn't be 29. Like 7 and 20 seems fairer prices compared to all Item Mall. Everyone will need standard pet fruits, and if reputation exchanger isn't implemented with this item in it, mallers will have to mall these for whole server. Great fruit for 3x price compared to normal fruit makes sense, as it saves so much time with 1x fairy exp rates and also saves alot of rations you don't have to buy. People would have to sell stack of rations for the same price as 1 normal fruit to non-mallers right now.. Doesn't make sense. To me atleast. ;/

 

[eRazil]

Hey Mall will be available with the opening of the server or a few days after?

 

[Radagast]

Hey Mall will be available with the opening of the server or a few days after?

With opening.

 

[Leba]

However, I still think that standard pet fruits shouldn't be 11 and great fruits totally shouldn't be 29. Like 7 and 20 seems fairer prices compared to all Item Mall.

Those are generally nice prices, the importance is the price gap between the two. As I said countless times so far, great fruits need to be priced multiple times higher than normal fruits, and shouldn't really be an item on the market. It should be one of the ways malling gives you an advantage. Although I won't mall, I think this is fair, because malling should give you a nice boost; not competely babysit you through the entire grinding, but it should make your life easier, if you're willing to pay, and easier pet leveling is one of the things included.

 

[Radagast]

Those are generally nice prices, the importance is the price gap between the two. As I said countless times so far, great fruits need to be priced multiple times higher than normal fruits, and shouldn't really be an item on the market. It should be one of the ways malling gives you an advantage. Although I won't mall, I think this is fair, because malling should give you a nice boost; not competely babysit you through the entire grinding, but it should make your life easier, if you're willing to pay, and easier pet leveling is one of the things included.

I agree that great pet fruits should be around 3x the price of normal ones. I disagree that 1 normal pet fruit has same price as stack of fairy rations.

 

[Falonne]

Some question left :
1- The price for inventory backpack is just for 1 item or for the whole thing? Cause 39 rum just for the 48 slot sounds me quit low but 39 rum X6 ( 24$ ) for the whole 48 slot sounds me quit high, what about something like 100-150 rum for the full thing?
2- Are you guys going to do any promotion pack at the server start or it will be later ? Like lvling pack for a certain price with some hb,nana,etc.
3- And last question, is there any event planned for the server start ?

 

[Shinon12345]

Leveling Bundle for the first week would be quite a good idea imo!

 

[Radagast]

Leveling Bundle for the first week would be quite a good idea imo!

Agreed!

1- The price for inventory backpack is just for 1 item or for the whole thing? Cause 39 rum just for the 48 slot sounds me quit low but 39 rum X6 ( 24$ ) for the whole 48 slot sounds me quit high, what about something like 100-150 rum for the full thing?

yeah! 24$ for extra inventory slots looks super overpriced. 10$ sounds more like it!

 

[Shinon12345]

I generally think "bundles" are a very attractive thing to get people to mall.
And I'm not talking about limited availability.
If there's a constant bundle of Inventory Slots, people are much more likely to buy them even for alt characters and hence bring more money for development team.
They are also more likely to "consume" more at once or more often since it seems like they are better off that way (and maybe they are).
@Zankza you should definitely think about permanent bundles and also about limited offers and ingame / forum events to keep server alive.
It is really important that you show that you are active. (not only talking about replyin on forum)
I know you probably are active even if we don't see it, working on the server, but the important aspect is, that people can SEE it.
And as I said above, you can show your "activeness" by holding certain events or updating the mall every now and then or such things

If you wanna show activity on forum, open threads for people to discuss certain things (maybe about holding events? a poll ?) keeps the forum alive and people interested and informed about the latest news.

 

[Radagast]

I generally think "bundles" are a very attractive thing to get people to mall.
And I'm not talking about limited availability.
If there's a constant bundle of Inventory Slots, people are much more likely to buy them even for alt characters and hence bring more money for development team.
They are also more likely to "consume" more at once or more often since it seems like they are better off that way (and maybe they are).
@Zankza you should definitely think about permanent bundles and also about limited offers and ingame / forum events to keep server alive.
It is really important that you show that you are active. (not only talking about replyin on forum)
I know you probably are active even if we don't see it, working on the server, but the important aspect is, that people can SEE it.
And as I said above, you can show your "activeness" by holding certain events or updating the mall every now and then or such things

If you wanna show activity on forum, open threads for people to discuss certain things (maybe about holding events? a poll ?) keeps the forum alive and people interested and informed about the latest news.

Totally agreed. So many servers have died ONLY because of monotomy and boringness.. And on server like this, that can be crucial. There definetely should be an event atleast once each few days. Nothing like Sandbag events or anything like that. Maybe sooner some scavenger hunt event, or Hide and Seek. Prizes could be something like few HBs, Nanas, a pet box. That would flood people to be online at those times(if it's announced like 24h before happening or something like that), also would help cheer up players who are just grinding and grinding and grinding (and that is what will happen in server like this).

 

[Shinon12345]

Totally agreed. So many servers have died ONLY because of monotomy and boringness.. And on server like this, that can be crucial. There definetely should be an event atleast once each few days. Nothing like Sandbag events or anything like that. Maybe sooner some scavenger hunt event, or Hide and Seek. Prizes could be something like few HBs, Nanas, a pet box. That would flood people to be online at those times(if it's announced like 24h before happening or something like that), also would help cheer up players who are just grinding and grinding and grinding (and that is what will happen in server like this).

Well events keep the players, who are not in the strongest guild or who are relatively new, interested and they get things to do when they're not grinding or farming. Just keeps the server fresh!

 

[ORREBHC76]

1st week every1 should have the opportunity to level up the hard way

 

[Arcadios]

1st week every1 should have the opportunity to level up the hard way

we all know that you don't need to tell us lmaooo

 

[Vladist]

Let me give my advice as someone who's been playing TOP since 2008.
Fairy Stuff/Bundles
i agree, great fruits should be around 3x the price of normal, great fruits are a true luxury. rations, with my experience, need to be a little cheaper because when your fairy gets to say, lvl 15,20(not to mention lvl 30) you'll start blowing through rations and 1 stack won't be much so something like 6/7 rum for 99 normal and 11/12 for auto seems quite okay, as for the backpacks you don't want it too expensive really.. i think 100 rum for the whole set is quite in order, and probably sell each by itself for 25 rum. I also agree with putting an HB/Nana bundle 5 of each for 20 rum is very reasonable, also for the apparels i believe you should sell them in bundles as well as single. For the beggining of the server i believe a few bundles for the necessities some suggestions are: HB/Nana, Fairy/Ration, Fairy/Ration/Pet Skill, Fruit/Ration
the strengthening scrolls and crystals
slight price reduction, based on the failure rate and max strengthening, let's do some math here:
with max strengthening being 120%, with each strengthening it goes up by 2%, it fails, it drops by 2 and consumes and 1 extra scroll/crystal (from what i've seen). assuming you get lucky and don't fail and you start at 100% you'll need a minimum of 2 strengthens that's 70 rum, just $7, not bad, but then we think about having to do that for each apparel piece that's 5x7 (6x7 for crusaders) which is $35/$42 for full strengthening assuming there is no failure if we even go to consider that there is a flat 20% failure rate at any percentage(just for example) that's 1 of every 5 strengthens you fail, meaning you will need an additional minimum of 4 enhancements(1 to get back to where you were and 1 to go up) and an additional 4 scrolls/crystals you need to purchase, per apparel, so that's 98 rum, $10 per apparel($3 increase) which is approximately $50/$60 in total, approximately a $15/$18 increase in price, hope you see where i'm going with this. the price should be adjusted based on the failure rate, i addressed this assuming that your max failure rate will be something in the range of 60-80%, because it should be fairly hard to obtain 120% effectiveness then we gonna look at that fact that players will be spending on other stuff and then there's the fact that apparels will be sold and new ones bought to be strengthened
Socket Makers
Now, this is something that you'll have to buy whenever switching to new gear.. 75 rum for 3 sockets, $7.50 for 3 sockets per equipment, which adds up to $37.50 or $45 for crusaders, quite a hefty amount, slight price reduction necessary i believe, better to have a fair price where people won't be afraid to buy a lot than the high price where people buy sparingly.
Server Economy
So, now about the economy once you've dealt with further pricing matters, you have to think about keeping a stable and fair economy, generally you want it to be a free market where players decide prices based on demand and supply but in the beginning there will be 1 issue, and that is cash at the beginning of the server you will need to inject some cash so that the economy can start off, the method you use of putting cash in the economy will determine everything cause the more cash available, the higher the prices(which is good and bad). i suggest a farming event where players farm certain items that are available from monster drops and you attach a cash value, based on the drop rate(of course people with CBs get an advantage here), it's very difficult to find a method where mallers don't have an advantage(though i believe this is the point of malling) but the farm event is the best i can come up with aside from a drop event done by a GM, which is random but somewhat evens out the odds. You could choose to do the farm event and then level the playing field a bit by giving each person a CB or 2 based on event duration(i recommend making it a weekend farm event so everyone can participate) also, i hope you don't plan on selling gems in mall, unless they are for a hefty price.

This is my input for now, also with the prices of mall items, take into account that people will not only buy for themselves, but will also buy to gain extra cash and for friends also that the price of items in mall affect the stall price(we don't want things too expensive for non mallers, we don't want some large gap between mallers and non mallers like i've seen in many , but i believe mallers still need their advantage) don't want them too low but some very slight price adjustments still needed