Hi all,

I'm eager for a frank discussion and I'm going to explain in detail, or at least try to explain, what we're planning to introduce.

First let me explain that Ankama is a business. We're passionate about what we do but you must understand that we have to find money to pay 40 people and 7-8 servers. Some people have suggested raising the subscription fee but that doesn't really tie in with what we want to do.

I should explain that the items that you'll be able to exchange for subscription won't make you stronger. We're talking about pets, or dungeon keys. I'll give you the explanation, and the subject'll be open to debate.

It's simple: Dofus has grown enormously since we added Astrub - too much, even. We're worried that one day we'll have more F2P players than P2P ones. We're ok for now, but we're going to have to add servers and increase the size of the F2P area (because Astrub is supposed to be fun for new players and it's hard when they find themselves on a map with 60 other people). But I must admit it's a vicious cycle: the more the area grows, the more it attracts free players, and the more free players we have the more money we lose.

The point of selling pets (which will NOT add skills or abilities, let me reassure you) is an idea that we hope will turn F2P players into paying customers. The idea is to have players eager to try out the new dungeons we'll place in Astrub, and so buying a one-time "key" in exchange for a subscription period.

Increasing the current subscription, for example raising it to 6 euros, would be worse because the P2P players would be the first to suffer. Adding a new payment method for F2P players, to try to lure them in, should work for everybody. At the moment we haven't decided on much but the focus is mostly on personalization, with 10 or so pets, and dungeon keys. That's all.

Something else, that may not come as welcome news, is that we're currently working on another game that won't have subscription, but just items to buy. Obviously we'll have to test if the system is feasible in France. And even if it goes ahead, it won't be another Gunbound where the richest get the most powerful equips - the focus will again be on personalisation.

We're going to add monsters with reactions towards these new creatures, that'll be a great feature for Dofus, but essentially this is a test for our next game.

(Tot continues with some comments about how work is done in Ankama Studio but the main information is there.)

Tot's summary:

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