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Red
21 Jul 17 01:46 PM |
This afternoon I decided to create a thread dedicated to the Cyntara Staff's policy and firm stance on the refunding of Cyntara Coins when it comes to the server resetting. I intend to use this thread's main post to primarily address a few of the questions, concerns, and criticisms we commonly receive around the time of a server reset. From here on out, I will be linking this thread in response to the e-mails I receive regarding the issue. This post will be formatted in a "Frequently Asked Questions" style.
As always, upon making a monetary contribution to Cyntara, you automatically agree to the Cyntara Terms & Agreements.
Q: Who, generally, is eligible for a Cyntara Coin Refund in the event that Cyntara resets its characters? (#1)
A: Generally, players receive a Cyntara Coin refund of 100% for all payments that were made during the previous Cyntara season (or version) at 4 different stages:
Finally, players are able to determine how many Cyntara Coins they will receive as a refund for the next season of Cyntara by logging into their account and hovering over the "I" icon on the right side of the "Cyntara Coins" table. (Some browsers may require you to click and re-hover once or twice to get the popover message to appear properly. The refund value is the exact number we use when actually replacing Cyntara Coin values at the time of a reset.
Q: Are there any exceptions where players will not receive an automatic Cyntara Coin refund? (#2)
A: Yes, exceptions are as follows:
Q: I've been using the same account name since I started Cyntara. I made a payment last season yet I still did not receive my Cyntara Coins / my refund is too low - what happened? (#3)
A: Approximately 3 years ago we implemented the most modern version of our Cyntara Coin Refund system; since its inception (in 2014) we have received and processed 151 e-mail requests (up to 2017) to manually investigate the misappropriation of Cyntara Coins. Of these 151 e-mails, we have had a system failure rate of 0%. On average, it takes 20 minutes to research and respond to each e-mail (that's >50 hours that could have been dedicated to new, awesome content)!
The most common issue is that the Cyntara Coins have simply expired; in rarer cases, the player has forgotten which account they used to make their Cyntara Coin purchase.
From this point on, we will require the following information prior to performing a manual inspection:
Q: Why do you refund Cyntara Coins at all? (#4)
A: We refund Cyntara Coins from the previous season of Cyntara as appreciation to our players that decide to purchase Cyntara Coins. They're helping us pay for the dedicated server, the advertisement, the outside-work consultations; they are the reason Cyntara is still online today.
Q: Why don't you refund Cyntara Coins from all the way back to v1? Why do Cyntara Coins expire anyway? (#5)
A: TL;DR - It keeps the server online.
Non-TL;DR Answer: It pays for the advertisement space we use to keep the server population as high as we can.
When Cyntara v1 was online, $40 got us enough exposure to bring the player count from 25 to 140. These days, we could spend $150/week and maintain player count. The reasoning for this is multi-factorial, but largely in part due to the progression of OT as a whole. The entire community was much different in '09 than it is now; OT always has, and likely always will follow a similar path that the original game is, and so far, that has been one that produces less players (up until mid-2017 - we'll see about the future!) Advertising costs us approximately 4x more than server hosting every month. If we're paying at least $80/mo to host Cyntara, you can do some simple math to calculate the average price of running Cyntara each month. And, for a project as large as this one with as many staff members as dedicated as us, the overhead is quite low.
We don't refund Cyntara Coins older than coins purchased from the previous version because we've analyzed the business structure and ran the numbers - we cannot stay online if not for the veteran players and the veteran contributors. If we hadn't ran these numbers and made these decisions, well, you wouldn't be reading this thread - seriously! You would have forgot about Cyntara back in 2011. We could probably come close, to breaking even on payments if we refunded all Cyntara Coins, but we'd have much less to put toward consulting outside work, advertisement, and dedicated server cost.
Q: You're meeting your dedicated server costs / your advertisement costs - where's the rest of the money going? (#6)
A: We do take some money home. We spend a ton of our personal time developing Cyntara - and have always done this - primarily for the fun of all Cyntarists. I have done the math comparing hours worked on Cyntara versus money made, and I make somewhere near $0.50/hr for my time put into Cyntara. $0.50/hr pales in comparison to the value of my time working at the job of my current employment. If I wanted to make more money, I'd pick up more hours at work; instead of taking the opportunity to pick up more hours at work and make more money, I spend my free time on Cyntara. Diath and I develop Cyntara primarily for our love of Cyntara - almost anything else is secondary. We've been doing this for over 12 years. To our players, we want to provide the most fun server possible.
I will continue to keep this main post pertinent and up-to-date with any upcoming changes. Feedback, as always, is welcome.
Red
As always, upon making a monetary contribution to Cyntara, you automatically agree to the Cyntara Terms & Agreements.
Q: Who, generally, is eligible for a Cyntara Coin Refund in the event that Cyntara resets its characters? (#1)
A: Generally, players receive a Cyntara Coin refund of 100% for all payments that were made during the previous Cyntara season (or version) at 4 different stages:
- 1. 25% refunded immediately, at the beginning of the season.
2. 25% refunded at level 300.
3. 25% refunded at level 600.
4. 25% refunded at level 1000.
Finally, players are able to determine how many Cyntara Coins they will receive as a refund for the next season of Cyntara by logging into their account and hovering over the "I" icon on the right side of the "Cyntara Coins" table. (Some browsers may require you to click and re-hover once or twice to get the popover message to appear properly. The refund value is the exact number we use when actually replacing Cyntara Coin values at the time of a reset.
Q: Are there any exceptions where players will not receive an automatic Cyntara Coin refund? (#2)
A: Yes, exceptions are as follows:
- » If you lose access to the account in which received the Cyntara Coins from your payment. We encourage you to e-mail the Administrators directly at <admin@cyntara.org> to resolve this issue; however, if you are unable to login to the e-mail registered to your account, or if you do not know your account name, we may not be able to recover your account - these rules are strictly enforced! The best way to keep your account secure is to write down your recovery key and write it down somewhere safe where you will not lose it!
» If you are playing on a new account or an account that you did not use to purchase Cyntara Coins last season. Cyntara Coins on your old / alternate account(s) will not magically find their way to your new account; we have no way to determine the "main" account of any one user.
» Your payments are older than the cut-off to receive a refund. Payments for Cyntara Coins for the current season start at the moment the next season is announced. To put it another way, if the date is January 1, 2020 at 00:00 and we announce the release of Cyntara v14, a player that makes a payment for Cyntara Coins on January 1, 2020 at 00:30 will receive the Cyntara Coins for season v14 AND the next season.
» If you attempt to chargeback your payment at any point, you are automatically ineligible for a refund from prior to the date of the attempted chargeback unless the situation has been resolved with one of Cyntara's Administrators.
Q: I've been using the same account name since I started Cyntara. I made a payment last season yet I still did not receive my Cyntara Coins / my refund is too low - what happened? (#3)
A: Approximately 3 years ago we implemented the most modern version of our Cyntara Coin Refund system; since its inception (in 2014) we have received and processed 151 e-mail requests (up to 2017) to manually investigate the misappropriation of Cyntara Coins. Of these 151 e-mails, we have had a system failure rate of 0%. On average, it takes 20 minutes to research and respond to each e-mail (that's >50 hours that could have been dedicated to new, awesome content)!
The most common issue is that the Cyntara Coins have simply expired; in rarer cases, the player has forgotten which account they used to make their Cyntara Coin purchase.
From this point on, we will require the following information prior to performing a manual inspection:
- » PayPal: Your PayPal e-mail address that you used to complete your payment, your account name, the unique transaction ID, the date of your payment.
» Fortumo: Your account name, your unique transaction ID, the date of your payment.
Q: Why do you refund Cyntara Coins at all? (#4)
A: We refund Cyntara Coins from the previous season of Cyntara as appreciation to our players that decide to purchase Cyntara Coins. They're helping us pay for the dedicated server, the advertisement, the outside-work consultations; they are the reason Cyntara is still online today.
Q: Why don't you refund Cyntara Coins from all the way back to v1? Why do Cyntara Coins expire anyway? (#5)
A: TL;DR - It keeps the server online.
Non-TL;DR Answer: It pays for the advertisement space we use to keep the server population as high as we can.
When Cyntara v1 was online, $40 got us enough exposure to bring the player count from 25 to 140. These days, we could spend $150/week and maintain player count. The reasoning for this is multi-factorial, but largely in part due to the progression of OT as a whole. The entire community was much different in '09 than it is now; OT always has, and likely always will follow a similar path that the original game is, and so far, that has been one that produces less players (up until mid-2017 - we'll see about the future!) Advertising costs us approximately 4x more than server hosting every month. If we're paying at least $80/mo to host Cyntara, you can do some simple math to calculate the average price of running Cyntara each month. And, for a project as large as this one with as many staff members as dedicated as us, the overhead is quite low.
We don't refund Cyntara Coins older than coins purchased from the previous version because we've analyzed the business structure and ran the numbers - we cannot stay online if not for the veteran players and the veteran contributors. If we hadn't ran these numbers and made these decisions, well, you wouldn't be reading this thread - seriously! You would have forgot about Cyntara back in 2011. We could probably come close, to breaking even on payments if we refunded all Cyntara Coins, but we'd have much less to put toward consulting outside work, advertisement, and dedicated server cost.
Q: You're meeting your dedicated server costs / your advertisement costs - where's the rest of the money going? (#6)
A: We do take some money home. We spend a ton of our personal time developing Cyntara - and have always done this - primarily for the fun of all Cyntarists. I have done the math comparing hours worked on Cyntara versus money made, and I make somewhere near $0.50/hr for my time put into Cyntara. $0.50/hr pales in comparison to the value of my time working at the job of my current employment. If I wanted to make more money, I'd pick up more hours at work; instead of taking the opportunity to pick up more hours at work and make more money, I spend my free time on Cyntara. Diath and I develop Cyntara primarily for our love of Cyntara - almost anything else is secondary. We've been doing this for over 12 years. To our players, we want to provide the most fun server possible.
I will continue to keep this main post pertinent and up-to-date with any upcoming changes. Feedback, as always, is welcome.
Red
Earl, Relaxx like this post.
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Red
21 Jul 17 01:55 PM |
Reserved…
Red
Red
Earl likes this post.
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