Premium accounts and elements that can be bought inside the game are something normal in free-to-play games. We would like to give you an overview of how this will work in Broken Ranks.
The first part of the monetization series can be found HERE and the second one HERE.
What’s a premium account in Broken Ranks?
A premium account has some expanded features and quality-of-life improvements. Let’s start with assuring you that all of the content of Broken Ranks is available to all accounts, so there’ll be no situation where, e.g. you try to enter a boss instance and can’t, because you don’t have a premium account. You also don’t need it to loot gear from bosses and champions.
Premium account variants and how they work
There’s only one variant, but you can choose the duration you want to buy it for. We offer two options: 1 month and 3 months. The longer option is more cost-efficient.
You can activate your premium account with our special currency (platinum), which, as we’ve mentioned before, can be traded between players (you can get it in exchange for items, gear, gold, or even as a gift).
It’s worth noting that a single premium account works for all characters on a given server. You don’t need to activate it for every new character you create. Premium accounts work on all servers using the same language (only applies to new Broken Ranks servers).
Premium account bonuses
In the combat article, we mentioned that you have two premade strategies at your disposal. With premium, you can have four of them to better prepare for more situations.
You get faster resting (exactly 40% faster) as we mentioned in the first part of the monetization series. Of course, the ability to rest is available also without premium, but it’ll be slightly slower. Just to remind you - resting allows you to regain resources in a safe place outside of combat.
Having a premium account also gives you +300 carry weight. In Broken Ranks, you don’t need to buy additional slots in your backpack, but every item has a weight and you can’t carry more than 800 weight units.
The package also includes a 26% bonus to experiences and gold from mobs and bosses as well as gold from platinum chests. This value was chosen in a way that the bonus is beneficial, but, at the same time, doesn’t provide an insurmountable advantage.
With a premium account, you can ignore more players, which is useful if you’re getting spammed a lot. Ignoring a player means they won’t be able to message you and you won’t see their messages on the chats. You can normally ignore up to 10 people, but a premium account can ignore up to 100.
What else? Character death is an element present in every MMORPG (after all, you can’t always win). In Broken Ranks, you need to choose a random penalty card upon death, so what you lose is not always the same. You may lose some experience (but can’t lose a level this way) and gold. If you have a premium account, death treats you kinder (30% kinder to be exact) meaning that the cards will be less harsh. Here, we’ve also tried to choose a value that wouldn’t unbalance the gameplay too much.
With premium, you also get access to a daily lottery. You can’t get legendary gear (e.g. rares) this way - these can only be looted from bosses. However, you can get some useful items, e.g. elixirs, inhibitors, other currencies (excluding platinum), platinum keys used to open chests hidden in various areas.
Platinum and premium account prices
Let’s start with the fact that you can buy platinum in a couple of variants:
- 50 pieces,
- 100 pieces,
- 250 pieces,
- 500 pieces,
- 2000 pieces,
- 5000 pieces.
As for platinum, its prices are more or less the same across regions and in the currency of the region. We want full transparency, so here’s a handy table:
On the other hand, the prices of premium vary depending on the server. We tied the premium price to the currency to better reflect the economic situation in each region.
Payment methods
We understand that having a big variety of payment methods is important. At the beginning, US, EU, FR, RU, PT, and DE servers will have the following payment methods (a full list of servers can be found HERE):
- credit/debit card,
- PayPal,
- online wire transfer,
- MINT.
We’ll be adding more options over time.
Broken Ranks Shop
In Broken Ranks, there’s no shop outside the game (e.g. on our website) with items available for real-life currencies. We have an in-game shop (“premium store”) where we put some of the elements mentioned in the previous part of the monetization series.
Only platinum, which you are free to trade with other players, can be used to buy things in the shop, but you can’t buy anything with cash directly.
Gear skins are something we want to really focus on after the release. You’ll be able to buy skins for each gear type separately or as a set. Then, you’ll need to use the morphing system to change the appearance of your currently equipped gear. There’s no way to freely change skins in the interface - you’ll have to use morphing every time. Of course, you’ll get a preview of how your character will look.
Here’s an example of a skin set:
Next steps
As far as monetization is concerned, we’re planning on adding more and more elements allowing you to better customize not only your character but also your companions. Themed skins will also be available.
After the release, we’ll add pigments (items that let you change the color of your gear). Pet skins will also be available some time after the game launches.
We’ll be closely monitoring the situation and trying to respond to player needs. We would like to hear your feedback about our store and the available cosmetic elements.
