Annihilus Account: Game
Adding Subscribers and Perks, Patch 5.1 Information
Hello everyone! There has been a subject I have been thinking about for a while now, so I decided to see what the community thinks to get an idea of how to proceed next. As I am sure many of you know, the ability to trade Gold has been really requested over the years, and while you can technically buy Gold and have it delivered to someone else, it isn't really trading it. Let's give into the details.
Why can we not trade Gold as of now?
- This one is easy. People would make multiple accounts and send it overtime to their main account, allowing them to buy more expensive things from the Gold vendor way faster than usual.
Why not just ban these people?
- We definitely do when we catch people, but you have to realize not everyone will be dumb or obvious about it and simply make a second forum account and just add a number to their original name. We have caught many people who are very sneaky and even go as far as to proxy or use a VPN to hide themselves just so they can build up Gold on multiple accounts. We still have ways of catching people but this adds SO much more manual labor on what is already a lot of work for myself and Acyroma if we had to moderate every single Gold trade made. This would cut down on development time for new content, and other duties / chores such as handing out event prizes. It is just not efficient at all to put this into place, regardless of the argument somebody makes about this, and more than anything we risk the economy getting ruined by people who actually follow the rules. The only way I could make Gold trading available to everyone would be to disable Gold rewards for voting, or for anything else aside from events and purchases.
So what's the plan? How can we trade Gold and avoid abuse?
- I am glad you asked! What we have been considering is a "Subscriber" system. What this would consist of would be setting up a subscription directly through our website via a PayPal account. It would be $15/month, and would come with some nice perks. The process would be completely automated, and the user would be moved to the Subscriber usergroup instantly.
What perks would that be?
- This is where Gold trading comes in! Subscribers will be allowed to send Gold to ALL members, including non-subscribers. They will also get 2000 Gold a month which is just a little more than a $15 purchase would make you normally. They would also gain access to a hidden "Subscriber" forum, which would have previews of patches and content a little sooner than the whole public. They will also be allowed into any beta tests we do in the future for upcoming patches. They also will get a special title on the forum, and a group / color in the Discord channel. There is definitely a chance we add more things in the future as perks, such as user icons on the forum you can only purchase with Gold if you're a Subscriber.
How would this prevent Gold trading abuse?
- The biggest thing to take from this is anyone spending $15/month or investing any money at all is much less likely to attempt and abuse the system, because if they do they'd obviously get banned and not only lose their items but be out the $ they spent as well. Naturally anyone investing money is more likely to care about being banned, but there is more to it. Getting multiple PayPal accounts is MUCH harder than simply making another forum account, and also if the PayPals have the same name on it that is a million times easier to moderate and track as opposed to forum accounts.
Makes sense, but how do I benefit from this? I never plan on buying Gold or spending here, so I hate this idea! I vote no!
- This actually benefits all players, even ones with no intentions of ever subscribing. The first benefit would be you can still RECEIVE Gold for your items, so trading items for Gold will be a lot easier for you as you don't have to track someone down who is okay with spending $ on Gold on every Gold trade they make, you will be way more likely to find someone who spends $15/month and has a decent amount of Gold to trade from their own trades or voting rather than someone willing to buy several thousand Gold to trade for your awesome item. That is not the only benefit though, this will also support Annihilus to have a little more consistent funding, which allows me to rationalize spending more of my rare free time on development for Annihilus and future content. It is a win / win for everyone.
I would really like you all to think of the benefits for the whole server before quickly voting just because you have no plans of becoming a subscriber yourself. Please feel free to leave any questions,issues, or concerns you have with this, and I will do my best to address all of them. Now then, on to the fun stuff!
Where is Patch 5.1? What is in it? I hate you.
- I swear I am still working on it! This is one of the quickest times I have ever released a full content patch so close to a recent patch, let alone a ladder reset as well. This is strictly due to the massive support you guys have given Annihilus over the last month, I appreciate all of it and so does my family, they aren't so mad at the hundreds of hours I poured into 5.0 during the holidays nowI just want to return the favor and get some more content and bug fixes to you ASAP!
- As for what is in it, we have fixed the damage cap! Because of this a few classes can reach absurd levels of damage, (looking at you War Cry) so they will have to get toned down just a little, but will still be overall stronger than they are now as there is no 87k damage cap.
- There is also some new monsters and items. I will be adding 2 new areas that are similar to Dreamlands, as in the bosses are always there and are farmable, and have a chance to drop their own exclusive items. There will be 1 super rare item, similar to Frostmourne / Flame Horizon. There will be a total of 5 bosses in these 2 areas. No worries guys, no puzzleboxes this time around!
- I am also adding a bonus level to The Crucible, which will be The Crucible Level 17. Since Uldyssian was technically meant to be the last boss of The Crucible, the upcoming level will be a little different. Your time limit will not be extended from the original 30 minutes, summons will be DRASTICALLY weakened health wise, and the boss will not be joking around. You can expect some useful items to come from this guy, and if this is a big hit we may add a few more bonus boss levels to The Crucible in the future.
- One thing I have kept somewhat quiet but am ready to officially confirm is the ability to make Runewords in magic (blue) items. This adds a little power to Runewords without making them best in slot in most cases, as I have always said since the beginning I do not want Annihilus to be nothing but Runewords like vanilla Diablo 2. Obviously the prefix will be taken up by Jeweler's or another socket prefix on most items, so you will only be benefiting from the suffix. However we are considering re-adding the 3 chipped gem + magic weapon = rerolled magic weapon with 1-3 sockets cube recipe from vanilla, just to add some potentially strong runeword weapons without having to use the prefix up on a socket prefix.
- Neo Annihilus will finally have its time to show its real potential.
- World drop puzzleboxes will have their drops modified some, I am well aware they are way too rare right now compared to the boss specific puzzleboxes.
- The vast majority of Line #1437 crashes should be fixed, no holding your breath during The Crucible now!
This is obviously not everything in Patch 5.1, just a summary of some of the bigger things, and all of this is still subject to change and could be removed between now and the release, I just wanted to get you guys a little hyped and let you see what is going on in my head right now!
As for the release, I wanted it out in March but many things have prevented this from happening. I still hope early April, I am doing my best! Thanks again for all of the support guys, this was one of our best resets yet!
Originally Posted by Tyrael Shasd
Annihilus Account: Savior
