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I'm not sure how I'm going to type this out so I'm just going to spit it out here. If it makes sense, please comment and give some food for thought.

The question I have is simple; "Would people pay for customized experiences in games?"

Regardless of how this is handled, when you read that question what comes to mind? Would you pay for a unique experience in a game environment like an MMO where your character became immortalized through a series of stories?

That is probably about all I can come up with at the moment. Drop your thoughts on this.

I am not sure about being immortalized or how that would be handled, but the first thing I thought of when reading that was EQ2's "Adventure Packs", where players could pay $5 or so for what was basically a small expansion pack with a dungeon, some new items and monsters, etc.

Short answer: Yes, there are players who would. But should you provide that to them? I'm not sure...
Taking your example as proof, imagine WoW having that system, your character would have some unique content but that wouldn't be fair to the other players, so basically it would turn into a "Pay-to-win" game like most AAA titles nowadays (Im looking at you CoD, Battlefield and FIFA).

Just my thoughts

I'm not sure how being immortalised in a story is 'winning' or 'pay to win'?

I think people would pay for it, but I think you should list it up front of your game as one of it's features. For people who don't like that, then they know not to play. I'm guessing very few people would avoid playing because of it. But you might lose more if you sprang the feature on them by surprise.

Callan S. wrote:I'm not sure how being immortalised in a story is 'winning' or 'pay to win'?

... you serious? Would you like to PvP with a immortal player?

vitinho444 wrote:

Callan S. wrote:I'm not sure how being immortalised in a story is 'winning' or 'pay to win'?

... you serious? Would you like to PvP with a immortal player?

That's not what imortalised means, in regards to story. Imortalised means people will read about you for a long time (or so is the hope). Boromir is immortalised (as a fictional character) in the lord of the rings story, though he died in it.

It doesn't mean immortality in PVP, it just means you get to be written into a story.

Would I like to PVP someone who I'd read about in the games story/lore? Actually yeah, that sounds exciting!

Ahhhhhh I get it now, sorry Yeah I think people would pay for it indeed.

Yeah, that is where the idea came out of, when EQ2 tried to do that. I was thinking of more on the lines of the good old AD&D games where you have a DM and a group of people going out adventuring. So the idea was to create a team of people that would engage your characters in the game environment and give you that old AD&D feel that you would have. So create the game free to play, and allow a feature to be where you can pay to help development, and with that you get to be part of the storyline. Could have a wiki setup that the chroniclers could update, have a game newspaper, and make a game experience engaging not with the game, but with what is happening in the game.

Was trying to come up with an interesting concept to tie it into a game and see if it can fly.