As we move forward with the development of Winds of Valen, we want to clarify our plans for both future development and monetization. We know monetization isn't glamorous, but how it is handled can fundamentally affect gameplay and ultimately make or break a game. We believe you deserve full clarity on the game’s future and how we intend to support its development long-term.
Before we get to anything, we want to clarify some things we will NOT be doing.
No Microtransactions (MTX): We will not add any MTX to the game, with exception of account services such as character slots.
No Pay-to-Win: We are not interested in making a pay-to-win game. We will never sell power or convenience items like extra inventory space, as we believe everyone should play on a level playing field.
Why not just Cosmetics? Selling cosmetics goes against our core design pillar of satisfying progression. We want the coolest gear to come from high-level gameplay, not a credit card. Furthermore, monetizing this way would force us to spend valuable dev time constantly pushing out skins rather than focusing on making a better game every week.
We believe a subscription-based model is the most honest and consumer-friendly way to sustain an MMORPG long-term.
Sustainability: Unlike "Buy-to-Play," which is unsustainable without additional MTX, a sub allows us to focus entirely on making the best game possible.
Fairness: It ensures that every player has the same experience and that cosmetics remain a reward for gameplay, not a purchase.
Focus: It lets us spend 100% of our development time on content and mechanics.
To show you exactly what we have planned for the game, we are excited to share our Development Roadmap. This outlines our plans for the Members Release, near term content post members release and future content.
The Members Update is what we are actively working on, we are expecting it to take us another month. We will give an exact release date once we are closer to finishing it. This will also mean patches will be on the smaller side until then.
As of next patch you will be able to find this roadmap in-game, and we planning on keeping it up to date as updates come out.
Here's how the membership subscription model is going to work.
Membership Cost: $5 USD per month.
Character Slots: One subscription covers all characters on your account. Extra character slots can be purchased as a one-off fee of $5 USD.
Multiboxing: One sub allows for one simultaneous login. To play on multiple characters at once, you will need multiple subscriptions, which stack.
Here's a breakdown of a Free Player vs a Member vs a stacked Member
Feature
Free Player
1 Subscription
2+ Subscriptions
Simultaneous Logins
1
1
2, 3, etc.
Free Content
Yes (All Characters)
Yes (All Characters)
Yes (All Characters)
Members Content
No
Yes (All Characters)
Yes (All Characters)
Extra Bank Space
No
Yes (All Characters)
Yes (All Characters)
Vote on Updates
No
Yes
Yes
Due to technical limitations, we cannot receive payments from accounts that are not linked to steam and therefore cannot become members or buy character slots. For this reason we have already disabled signing up as an email account and will be providing a way to migrate your non steam account and its characters to a steam account. If you have a non steam account you have two options for migration: 1. If you do NOT already have a steam linked account, you can login to your account after launching through steam, this will show a popup prompting you to link your account to steam. 2. If you DO already have a steam linked account, you will be able to transfer your characters from non steam linked account to your steam linked account. We will provide more details once this is implemented which will be before members release.
We want a unified community, so free and members players can co-exist on the same servers.
Free Access: All current content will remain free.
Members Access: New content will mostly be members-only. Free players cannot access members areas or interact with members items via trading, shops, ground pickups, or any other way.
Lapsed Subscriptions: If your subscription ends, you keep your members' items, but you cannot use them. Equipped members' items will stop providing stats.
Banking for Lapsed Subs: Any items stored in the "Members Only" extra bank space can only be withdrawn once a subscription lapses; you will not be able to deposit new items into those slots until you resubscribe.
We are incredibly grateful for the support we have received so far. We are a self-funded, two-man development team, and we are 100% independent. We truly love the artform of video games and we want to stay entirely developer owned so that making a great game always comes first, and making profit never overtakes that. For this purpose we have not, and do not plan to take any investment, funding or publisher. This definitely makes things harder in the short term but we believe this will pay off in the long term with a hopefully amazing game made with pure intentions. Head Coach & Dog