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| VP • Is DM ever worth it? |
| So, quick disclaimer: This is meant as an informative blog and maybe a tiny rant at the end (and in the middle, if you feel adressed by this matter, you might have a few things to think over - not necessarily change, but just think about them). It should give you all the right information for you, to make your own choice, if you want to spend your credits on manager and DM or if you don't. This is in no way meant to put people (no matter their decision) in a bad light. This blog is brought to you by all the people asking this on a weekly basis and my unwillingness to say it every single week. Read it through once, memorise it and maybe think I have a point and know what I'm talking about. Also, if I got something wrong, please do tell me so, this is only loosely researched (in this case research being me contemplating the systems of 5 websites for over and hour and thinking of how they can be cross-referenced with VP). I'm no investigator, this is all common knowledge and no secret at all - I'm certain that every single one of you would be able to come to that same conclusion, if you'd invest the time, to think about it in great lenghts (yes, I have no life and basically wrote an essay on VP, please don't shame me). This is a ton to read, so feel free to read only the chapters that appeal to you, they should be all as complete as possible, so you don't get confused or miss information relevant to the chapter's topic. I'd still appreciate if you read it all, but that's up to you. Feel free to discuss this in the comments (civilly) and maybe help exchange other reasons as to why you like or dislike DM (not the DM sets, the function!) and Manager on VP. What even is DM (and Manager)? Golden sinks explained H o w d o g o l d e n s i n k s w o r k ? Well, in the gaming world (and probably beyond), on-site "investments" like DM and Manager are called golden sinks. A golden sink is a tool used to keep the economic environment of a game healthy. This means, that you can buy in-game perks (often by using the VIP currency that you have to spend real money on to get) and eventually help out balancing out the amount of money in the game. In other games, this often refers to special vehicles/weapons/clothes/tools, further customisation options and more often than not a fancy badge or icon that helps you show the entire community what a great person you're being. Well, if rated by the game and the in-game economics. G o l d e n s i n k v s p a i d m e m b e r s h i p DM and Manager on VP could be referred to as paid memberships on other sites, but it's a bit more difficult than that. Usually a paid membership costs real money and brings you a bunch of perks you lose, as soon as the membership is up. This is somewhat true to VP. While you lose the perks after your DM or Manager ran out, you still are left with the sets you got during that time and can use them. In many games, this option is lost and you only get to keep, what you paid for. Also, on VP you pay for the VIP currency you have to use to buy the membership, but you could easily get the membership without paying a single cent to the game (it takes longer and a bit of talent, but it's absoluetly possible - kind of because the system is broken). T h e b i g g e s t d i f f e r e n c e s Something you'll have to always remember: golden sinks aren't meant for you to be able to speculate with them and go all wolf of wallstreet, trying to figure out what you have to buy to get the most credits out of the game. These golden-sink perks usually are dead-ends; only you can use them and they only bring you additional fun. This will be important for the discussion of DM reward sets later on. One big thing to be aware of: Golden sinks don't "unlock" special features you need access to, to enjoy the content of the game to the fullest. So a pay-to-win game (from what I gathered) aren't really golden sinks. V P s p e c i f i c s But lo and behold, DM and Manager aren't the only golden sinks on VP. Special (shop) events that motivate you to spend great amounts of credits for only an (honestly small) perk in return, can be considered as such too. So, in conclusion, DM and Manager might be seen as a mixture of paid membership and golden sink system, but are neither really to the fullest. So what does this mean when it comes to VP? T h e i n - g a m e e c o n o m y Well, essentially VP wants you to reinvest the credits they sold to you into the game; meaning not other players but helping remove the excess credits from the game altogether. And to get you to do this, they give you additional options to further enrich your gaming experience on the site. In this case, this means (but not limited to) making polls in threads, getting special outfits, customising your profile page and forum icon and customising your forum posts if you buy Manager and DM. The issue with the DM sets... Now here comes the fun part. And as a designer, let me tell you, there is nothing I hate more, than this discussion - especially as it comes up every single week on at least one of the three servers. (Ok, I hate it even more when people go around saying I'm a shit designer because I'm not XX hyped designer, but that's just idiocy and I should be able to look past that.) T h e " w o r t h " o f s e t s The main issue when it comes to DM, is people always asking, if the set is worth 175 credits (the total cost of 1 week of manager and DM if bought indiviually and not in a monthly package). Now this is a multiple tier question, so it will be answered in sections. 1. Go up a bit and re-read that thing about golden-sinks not being a refund of the money you spent. So obviously, the DM set (being one of the many perks Manager and DM offer) of course can't be worth the total or even more of what you bought it for. 2. Even if that was the point, it would never ever in eternity be possible to achieve this. No designer, no set, nothing will ever be able to reach this insane ideal of perfection. Which mainly is linked to personal taste. Not just the personal taste of the people buying DM, but also the taste of us designers. We don't like the same stuff, you all don't like the same stuff, so how on earth should we be able to create something everyone on all servers would think is the best ever?! (Well, except you think that everything should be about you and only your opinion counts and you go around thinking every designer not making what you adore is doing it out of pure malice and evil spirit. In that case, kindly go love yourself, none of us want you around and you're literally the reason some designers on here (could) end up with something alike ptsd and have to take breaks to focus on their mental health, because the community is way more toxic towards them than towards any other players around here.) 3. Even if we all had the same taste in everything, as every server has their own economic cosmos (based on how many users are registered and how many sales of credits there are per month), sets with equal (percentage-wise) in-game counts can differ wildly in currency-defined worth. This also meaning that some servers sometimes have an exceptionally low or high amount of people having DM for a week (either by boycotting the website or a bunch of them winning DM in a code), so the amount of sets will never be evenly distributed throughout the three servers. Meaning, some of the DM sets will be more rare on one server and thus be considered "worth more" regardless of who designed it and how many items it has. B a s i c a l l y , a s k i n g a b o u t t h e w o r t h m a k e s y o u a n a s s h o l e So, after reading this, I really do hope you can see how nearly every designer thinks it kinda rude to go around deeming DM sets worthy or not in the grand scheme of things. Of course, we all have our personal views on what makes a good DM set, but as we don't share these ideals and as there are no official rules regarding the DM sets, it is hard to find a clear-defined consensus. And taking it out on the designers ... it's a dick move. But more about that at the very end. Why does DM and Manager feel so crappy oftentime? W h y V P f a i l s t h e s y s t e m And here comes the biggest issue with the system on VP - at least in my opinion. We are used to paying a certain amount and then getting something in return. So of course having a golden sink/paid membership without some nice perks wouldn't get anyone to invest in them. This is why it is so important, that the perks you grant with the system are amazing and make people really want to do everything they can, to get them. (Quick example, because it's one of the best I could find: On Stardoll, you also have a paid membership, that is meant to enhance the gaming experience. But contrary to VP, on Stardoll you get additional features like an exclusive shop or exclusive items, rooms, currency. There basically is the added bonus of getting something more when having the paid membership for every single function . On VP - as we basically just have the forums - customising your appearance and the outfits is basically all you get and it does feel really lousy as a "reward" compared to not having access to these perks if you don't have DM.) B u y i n g m e m b e r s h i p v s b u y i n g c u r r e n c y Though to be fair, in most communities it's you paying for the membership with real money and thus validating the perks more compared to VP, where you buy the currency with real money. And this currency unfortunately is too easily accessible on the site in general and is used for way more than just the membership perks. It's kind of like money vs gold in real life. I n c o n c l u s i o n So if you feel like DM is just the crappiest thing ever, it's basically because of the limited functions VP offers and your mindset, that you should be getting more, because most other sites are better at convincing you that the perks you get are so much more worth it, than they actually are. In a way, VP is just really bad at marketing things... Amongst other issues, but that's not relevant for this discussion. How to find out if DM or Manager is something worth for you? D o y o u n e e d i t ? So in general, you can say that the worth of DM and Manager comes down to what you personally think it's worth. And here is the great thing about it: You don't need either to have a shitton of fun on VP. VP is all about the community and not who has the best colour on their posts or the most hilarious profile background. D o s p e n d y o u r c r e d i t s , i f y o u f e e l l i k e i t So, if you think that paying up to 175 credits a week (going with the highest amount here) to get the perks listed in the overview and the chance of a weekly lucky bag (think back to when you were 6, lucky bags never were that great...) is totally your style of playing on VP, then go ahead! Same goes if you have so many credits, you don't know what to do with them anymore. No one judges you. You do you, truly. O r d o n ' t a n d s h u t u p a b o u t i t And if you think everyone doing this is an imbecile: don't buy it and shush. You have no right to criticise someone's love for shiny things if it doesn't harm you. D M f o r t h e s a k e o f t h e o u t f i t s If you buy DM and you only do so for the outfits, please keep in mind, that it's a wild card every single week. We are different designers with different standards about what a DM set should entail. So hoping for it to be your favourite designer every week ... it makes you the idiot, because that's not how it works or ever will. DM will never be a XX designer exclusive (like for instance the last tiers on MCW) with the current set of values and work distribution we have on the three servers. If that's your goal, save your money and try to buy the set after it is released, it will be the best for all of us. There is literally no right or wrong to this discussion, just a "yes, I feel it" or "no, I don't". Why is the worth of DM something so heinous for designers? I actually feel terrible having to explain this, but I do realise that most people don't really know how much the point of view of a designer varies from that of an "ordinary" player. Spoiler alert: It doesn't that much and that is a bit the issue. D e s i g n e r s j u s t g o t a s h i t t y d e a l In the end, we designers are no hired workforce. We are casual players like all of you, who just enjoy helping create things for the website. Compared to other teams, we just got the shitty end of the deal, because the website is making money from our efforts and takes no blame for things not being up to code, but pushes it kind of back to us. We are basically held responsible if people don't like sets - maybe not in those words, but it comes down it. If people don't like sets, they go around acting like they do when there is a new collection from a fast-fashion brand. "Oh yeah, don't like what they did this week, hope their next collection the upcoming week will be more my style." That is a valid point and you can have it. Like I said, we all have different taste. But more often than not, it boils down to some designers being hyped up and others nearly always getting the stink-eye for creating something. W h y w e a r e n o t p e r f e c t Well, here is the point: We (as designers) don't design sets you don't like to mess with you. We do it, because we like the sets or other users like it or sometimes just because we're delusional and think you want this in game, when in reality no one even asked for it. Don't go hating on us, we're just humans like you. We are ordinary players, just like you. We are on this site to have fun, with you. We create, because we want you to feel the same magic we do on this site and because we want to share it with you. No one asked us to do it and we still do. We design, because we want you to feel great, to look great, to feel like you're valued on here. Because this is a community based site with barely any interference from above or outside. So it's basically us creating for ouselves. And making someone feel bad because you don't like what they create or because they are not who you'd rather have ... it's not really our fault, is it? We're all in this together and you wouldn't go around writing hate-mail to a cars company because you think their cars look hideous. You just don't buy them. T a l k t o t h e d e s i g n e r s Now, if you feel like the sets in general have started to lack in ... style or quality or whatever, don't go around shaming the designers. Go around and ask those, who you feel represent your style and your quality-standards, to design what you feel is missing. I know, it really sounds wild, but you can actually go up to a designer and hand in a requests. We are basically the DJs at this party here and there is a bunch of us who'd love to play the songs you're absolutely losing it to. B a s i c a l l y , d o n ' t b e a d i c k ? Also, don't go around whining about the designers, that have quit. Yes, they are dearly missed and even some of us designers can't get over the fact that there won't be any new sets from them either. But you don't go to your local artist and shame him for Picasso not creating any new masterpieces. The man's dead, there's nothing you can do about it. All you do is make your local artist cry, because you're basically a dick to him. Don't be that person. If you don't have anything constructive to say, just don't interact with them. S e e u s , f o r w h o w e a r e : j u s t r e g u l a r u s e r s w h o m a k e s t u f f f o r y o u I know, this only scratches on the surface of it, but please do keep in mind, that we as designers have the same interests in mind as you - because when it comes down to it, we are the same as you. Sure, we get the perk of seeing what will be DM, but that's truly a shitty perk. Don't think of us as some other people on VP, we are your friends and we want to have fun with you together. If we get treated badly by you, because you think we ruin this community that we all are creating at the same time, maybe rethink your stance on what a community really is and really should look like. Because this ain't a dictatorship, no matter how much you'd love to be able to dictate what goes around here and what should be used for what occasion. If you've made it this far and read all of it, thank you. I really would love to hear your opinion on all of this and maybe even see if there is a point I completely neglected that you feel should be mentioned in this too? |
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