A lot of people have asked if we will up the amount of gold you get per game.
There are a few reasons I don't want to do this:

1) Obviously we need people to by gold for money since that is how we are able to keep the game running. That art is expensive :)

2) There are a lot of other ways to gain gold in the game. Specifically by playing in tournaments with entry fees. The winners of those Tournaments get gold as a prize. See the bottom of http://thefarwilds.com/wiki/index.php/Leagues There will be a lot more Tournaments with a potential to win gold starting monday.

3) You don't actually need gold for a variety of ways to play the game. You can play in Leagues cheaply and Drafts and Sealed Deck tournaments for free. Drafts are the most fun way to play IMHO and right now they are totally free.

4) It is pretty easy to just play games not to win but to gain the gold. I don't want to make this more appealing to do. The gold per game is just a way to get you started and able to join the tournaments that have fees. We didn't really intend for you to be able to buy packs just by playing games.

But I could be wrong about this stuff so please let us know what you think.

Bringing a good comment about gold over here...

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Another thing to consider would be, if you want to keep it low, the winner of the game gets 2 gold and the loser gets 1.

How bout a double triple or 5 gold weekend. were for a select weekend you get more gold per battle.

If you win so many games you could get a coupon for 50 pct off 1000 gold. or with your next purchase of 1k gold you get 200 free, that would let someone buy an extra two packs with there 1k gold

I appreciate that you don't want to undermine the sale of gold. I'm not suggesting that you make gold gained through games a feasible alternative to paying for it. However, it does seem that constraining people to the alternatives you mentioned is a steep curve for someone who is just checking the game out to see what's being offered. The gameplay isn't the only product here, you could argue not even the primary product. As an avid CCG player in the past, most of my impetus for playing was the collecting and deck building. The gameplay itself will grow repetitious in time without getting people involved in the customization and personalization. Right now the accessibility to those products is severely inhibited.

I've put in just over 30 games now and several hours of playtime. At five gold per game I would just now be able to get a single booster. Obviously, in the long term, playing several hours for a single booster is not feasible for anyone who wants to be involved in this game and buying the gold is going to be the only option to keep up.

If upping the general gold per game still seems like a bad idea you could consider other options as Sinamas mentioned, giving out free booster's to new accounts for their 25, 50, 70, 85, 100th games. Or graduated declines of gold earned per game 10 for the first 10, 9 for the second 10 and so on would give 540 before they hit 1 per game again. Once you have expansion sets you could limit the free booster option to cards from the standard set to further the incentive for people to buy gold to get the "newer" cards which also cuts down on the options for abuse. The problem with all of these methods of course is when you have people abusing multiple accounts to reap the benefits which is why giving a straight increase seemed more feasible and easier to implement and regulate.

There are plenty of ways to go about it. Some way to be involved in deck building and let people get a sense of ownership through customization and personalization seems like an essential hook. It stimulates the player base, gets new people involved, talking to everyone else and sets an initial goal to work toward. Let's them feel that they're engaged by trading with older players, challenges them to try to keep up by giving them a leg up without making them feel the game has left before they arrived. That was a common complaint by the time I got around to playing MTG and a common complaint in the MMORPGs I played. Right now you have a good game but people like me, who aren't willing to shell out for it right away, are going to move along without something to work towards. Perhaps you feel that drafts and tournaments address this though.

Anyhow, there are my two cents on the matter.

I pretty much agree with everything Tryste said. As an avid player of online games, I can tell you that one of the best ways to keep your players interested is to hand them small victories and accomplishments every now and then. Be it gaining a level, a new piece of gear, or in this case, earning a new card or booster pack, little achievements like this give the player the sense that he or she is making progress, and their time playing the game was well spent.

I can sympathise with your need to keep a flow of income, but please keep in mind the need to strike a balance between gaining income and putting those who are unable to pay at a disadvantage. If you decide to make paying the only way to hold your own, you may as well just make this a p2p game.

Agreed, it took me a few hours just to get to 10g to join the League.


I like the free boosters idea, it'll allow people to start getting used to how decks are made and let them start thinking about what they want to play, as well as a feeling of getting something back from the game.

An alternative to the 10 for 10, 9 for 10, etc. could be 2g for the first five or ten (get used to the game). Five would be enough to get into the League at least. Then start with 10 for 10, 9 for 9, 8 for 8, etc. This curve would be 60-65 games (depending on the first 5 or 10 games @ 2g), giving 385g[5 2g games] or 395g[10 2g games] both minus League fee. Add in the previous idea of free boosters, then at that point you have a person with 3 boosters (2 free, 1 bought).
Then it would only take 5-10 games to get to 70 for ANOTHER free booster, which at this point should be more than enough to make a decent enough deck.

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There have been some great points raised here, especially with Tryste.

The simple fact of the matter is that online games live and die by their player base. With it almost always being bigger is better. Right now players who aren't willing to pony up any money are going to move on pretty quickly. Bumping the reward to 5g per win, or the progressively diminishing 10->1g are both excellent ideas that will catch some of those people.

Those who would buy gold are actually more inclined to stick around because they'll be getting a more robust community (and better play experience).

And has been stated before, even at 5g per win, we're still talking about a few cents an hour equivalent. Anyone interested in the game is going to reach a point where they'd rather buy in than grind another who knows how many hours for one more pack.

Free packs, while good in theory, are terrible in execution if you can't verify accounts as belonging to one and only one person (which is hard to do online).

1. Add options like
200 Gold for $4.97
If this game goes long term then options like this would also be good.
2000 Gold for $34.95
5000 Gold for $69.99

2. League designs:
-Pay $1 or $2 to buy tournament special tickets that allow you to join the chosen tournament
|--Payouts: Booster packets, card, perhaps even special cards
|--Tournaments could then vary from Draft to building a deck from your own cards to open card deck tournaments.
-This could also be used as a way of giving people medal or badges that they can then view from their character profiles.
-Draft Deck Tournaments. Seeing as how I've play one of these in real life for an MTG. Everyone who joins the tournament pitches for the boosters so 150 Gold a booster and that equals 15 cards a booster so 600 Gold *Give or take a few silver* to join. All decks made are kept and tournament is played as normal with whatever payouts for the winners.
-Statistic sheet might also prove useful in see peoples stats. Similar to those card in naruto with the octogon show where we lean and how ratios of victory along with most popular cards for personal visual only.
|-- Perhap making it to where a certain amount of battles/ victories will show you parts of an opponents stat sheet.
|-- Or they could be placed as cards that you can buy from Far Wilds for a certain amount of gold / real money. That way you may get the one up in a tournaments when facing new opponents.

3.It would be a good idea to leave a good number of things free so that new players can get the feel and increase your player base.

4.Gold per game is fine how it is. We call it grinding in Rpg language. lol

Scaling gold down i think is a bad move, i would just start a new account and transfer my good cards in some trades, the idea that playing a lot gets you free cards is pretty cool, even if it takes a ton of games, although the alure of it goes away when you've spent an entire day playing and get only 1/15th what you need.

What is definantly needed is started decks or some bonus to start, no trading card game is sold in strictly random packs because your not going to be able to build a reliable deck, much less one that had synergy and strategy out of 6 random packs, maybe not even 12, and spending 20, 40, or more dollars just so i can get a deck of my own together, it's a put off. But you could also give out one or all three of the starter decks, you would be able to mix them up and try them out, they contain some nice cards, and would provide a good start to the collecter. you could by a few packs and merge two of the decks together, get something different quite quickly. I am eager to get my own deck, but as long as random packs are my only option im going to be reserved about spending my money.

As far as money for games played i think that, i have a few ideas,

If you quit the match you shouldn't get anything, for the match you get 1 gold, plus 2 more gold for each PLAYER you've outlasted, thus multiplayer grants more gold.

Or you could give gold for games in ranked matches, getting a scale of gold dependent on how much higher or lower your rating is compaired to your opponute.

Or by the difference in glory at the end of the game, each 5 points you win by gets you an extra gold.

Anywhich way you have to get more then one point per match, or people are going to get fed up trying.

well theres my 2g

The regular booster is prohibitively expensive to buy with gold that has been won from games.

What if you were to put prices on random individual cards based on rarity?

EG:
Random Common: 5 gold
Random Uncommon: 20 gold
Random Rare: 60 gold

This way hardcore collectors/players who spend more money can concentrate on picking up the rares they need rather than stockpiling thousands of duplicate commons. Equally, casual players who will be spending very little or nothing on the game will still be able to build a basic deck of commons and a few uncommons and have a small collection. Everyone benefits.