Check 'er out yo:

http://www.producthunt.com/posts/nevergrind

lol, are you supposed to upvote yourself? =p

Hells yes. Didn't get much bounce from that website. Was plotting for mega viral status, but the internet is a strange beast.

I don't want to be a dick, because I know you are in the red for this game, but with nightmare/hell obviously gated behind paying money, I doubt the game will ever reach viral status.

The first thing I do with f2p games is research any mechanics that might keep me from enjoying a game 'before' I play it. The knowledge that I can't play the harder difficulties without first putting money in almost kept from me playing the game at all. I was fine with even only one character slot, or the bag space and bank space, but that lock to keep me out of content is always something I stay away from.

In fact, the only reason I am playing is because I looked on the forums and I can tell that you are reluctant to do much with the f2p aspect of the game in terms of Monetization. In fact, your candid sarcasm about the whole thing was pretty refreshing.

My guess is that nightmare/hell lock is there to keep people from making many accounts to get behind the character limit, and it makes sense. But it is a turn off for a new player.

My suggestion would be a way for f2p players to earn the nightmare/hell unlocks in game(make it rather difficult so people would rather buy character slots then do it on another account) That and remove the obvious "Unlock Nightmare" on the main screen.

Just a suggestion from a guy who's barely level 15 and just joined yesterday. Take of it what you will, I don't mean to be an ass about it, just want to let you know what almost kept me from playing and continuing this game, even after I played it for a bit and enjoyed it.

Hm, that's the first time I've heard that. I feel like I get different opinions on this all the time, so there's almost no way to make everyone happy. I'll definitely think about this though. Maybe you're right.

I am planning some ways for players to earn crystals, btw.

Oh, don't get me wrong. It's not going to die with that lock in there, it's not the end of the world, the game can still earn a healthy player base of players willing to spend money.

But I find a large % of players in F2P games go in with the full intent of remaining F2P, and the more people you have playing, spending or not, the better. If your goal is to go viral anyhow.

I think you may have convinced me, actually. I'm planning to monetize in other ways that don't block game content, such as an expanded bank and mailboxes, so maybe that's the way to go. Thanks for the feedback.

Isn't it 300 crystals to unlock nightmare and hell? That's $3, it costs me that much every time I want to tell Lirik he's an asshole.

And i thought I was stingy. If you play through normal you've already got 4-5 hours out of the game and it's earned your $3!

What? LOL btw, I'm 99% sure Occlo has convinced me.

It's not a matter of how much it costs, nor how much time you get out of normal. It's a matter of not wanting to 'start' playing at all when you see the locks on difficulty.

In the same way that I look up how p2w a game is before I start to play, I also check for locked game play. They are the two largest turn offs for any player who's looking to strictly f2p a game. P2w can usually even be overcome by the f2p player with a lot of time, locked game play can't be.

With how many f2p games that appear everyday, many f2p players will make snapshot decisions on whether or not to play a game in only 5 minutes.

I wasn't going to say anything at all really, because this system can work just fine as a f2p game, I just don't think it can ever hit that viral status when nightmare and hell are locked behind pay. I wasn't sure if Maelfyn was being serious or not about the viral comment, but I figured I would simply give my 2 cents on the matter.

TLDR: If you want a game to be viral, you have to be just as appetizing to those who have no desire to spend money to those who will spare their cash to support you.

This is no way of me insulting this game or its Monetization.

I am really enjoying this game at the moment.

Extra bank slots will earn tons of $$ for hoarders like me. I am having to delete gear and 14 of my 16 slots are used for extra bank space at the moment!

Its so hard to delete stuff when you think you may use it at some point, hehe.

Yeah, I am sort of expecting a surge when I expand that feature. When I was allocating the legendaries I was surprised to see how completely stuffed the banks were. In some cases I couldn't find a slot to put the legendary items.

For what it's worth, I think $3 to unlock NM and Hell is perfectly reasonable. Let's face it-- he gets nothing out of 100% F2P players other than network traffic and more complaints about class balance. It's NOT like an MMO where you need the numbers that the true f2p players provide so that the place doesn't look dead...so you have a vibrant AH...and more people to update the wiki, etc. And he can't rely on cosmetic microtransactions either...he's got to charge for something.

Just my US$0.02.

LOL, I wrote this before I saw the post that it was a fait accompli...NM and Hell are now free.

In reading the blog post, #2 makes a lot of sense but never would have occurred to me. I'm about as uncompetitive as they get.