Loosing minutes every month

[Min Tigerpaw]

There is one thing I definitely don't like about the time-based plans like my Silver Plan:
I pay 6000 KC and get 7200 minutes in return together with the up to 10 regions. However at the end of each month the minutes are reset and I start with 7200 after the new payment again. So if I don't use up my minutes one month, I loose them.
I'd really like to have the flexibility to be in-world on month less, another month intensively. I think Kitely should seriously consider to let people keep the minutes they have payed for. Another thought to add on this: Shouldn't we think about how to attract more players that don't intend to build regions but rather like to use regions - stay in world to play, party, socialize, chat, shop - and don't do this as Kitely is for them cost-wise no alternative to SL. There should be much more regions free to visit for this type of players. If I could choose to pay for visitors of my regions with my minutes (not lost after one month) I'd be much more in favor of opening up to make my regions free to visit. Just my humble opoinion.

[Dot Matrix]

The analogy of the Bronze, Silver and Gold plans with mobile (cell) phone plans is a good one.

In the UK if you have a mobile phone contract where you pay a monthly sum, it usually has a set number of minutes of talk time included, which is reset each month. This is similar to Kitely minutes being reset at the start of each month.

If you have a pay-as-you-go phone, you pay exactly for what you use. The equivalent in Kitely terms is the free account, where you pay for time inworld using preloaded KC, at 1 KC per minute (roughly equivalent to $1 for 5 hours). Regions beyond the initial free one cost 10 KC per day (roughly $1 per month if you buy KC at the maximum discount rate).

So if one wants to pay only and exactly for time spent inworld, go for the free plan and top up the KC balance.

==========
Personal comment now: I've experimented with all the different plans now. It is very easy to switch at any time, and unlike mobile phone contracts, there are no financial penalties.

In terms of included worlds and time inworld, the Silver Plan works best for how I use Kitely services. That includes up to 120 hours of inworld time each month, plus 10 regions.

Using the free plan and paying exactly for the regions and inworld time does cost less in dollar terms, but somehow seeing the KC total go down each day makes for an uncomfortable feeling!

[Dundridge Dreadlow]

Thank you Dot,

A few comments about what you wrote that may help people better understand the logic behind how our plans work:

The plans are designed so that they can provide you with more value than what you'd pay for your own use a la carte (using KC). The more you use of that value the bigger your savings but obviously if you don't use enough of what one plan provides then you may save money selecting a cheaper plan that is a better fit for your needs.

For example, the Bronze Plan includes 1800 Minutes and 2 free time-based regions (1680 more Minutes and 1 more free time-based region than you get with the Free Plan). This means that for 1500 KC you get up to 1680 KC worth of Minutes and up to 310 KC worth of free time-based regions (= 1 (region) x 10 (cost per region per day) x 31 (max days per month)). In other words you pay 1500 KC and get up to 1990 KC worth of value (up to 32.7% more value for the price you pay).

Similarly, the Silver Plan includes 7200 Minutes and 10 free time-based regions (7080 more Minutes and 9 more free time-based billing regions than you get with the Free Plan). This means that for 6000 KC you get up to 7080 KC worth of Minutes and up to 2790 KC worth of free time-based regions (= 9 (regions) x 10 (cost per region per day) x 31 (max days per month)). In other words you pay 6000 KC and get up to 9870 KC worth of value (up to 64.5% more value for the price you pay).

Finally, the Gold Plan includes unlimited Minutes (which comes to 44640 Minutes = 60 (minutes per hour) x 24 (hours per day) x 31 (max days per month)) and 20 free time-based regions (up to 44520 more Minutes and 19 more free time-based billing regions than you get with the Free Plan). This means that for 10500 KC you get up to 44640 KC worth of Minutes and up to 5890 KC worth of free time-based regions (= 19 (regions) x 10 (cost per region per day) x 30 (days per month)). In other words you pay 10500 KC and get up to 50410 KC worth of value (up to 380% more value for the price you pay).

If a certain plan is too much for your need then you can go with a cheaper plan and pay for excess usage using KC.

[Dundridge Dreadlow]

Someone should probably do a little web app for the "best plan for me".

[Dot Matrix]

Let's do some sums to see when the cross-over point happens with respect to the different monthly plans versus the free plan for a 30-day month (this makes the numbers easier to take in).

Free+KC versus Silver Plan
Using the maximum discount for buying KC the Silver plan costs $20 x 300 = 6000 KC per month.

Assume that the user on the Free plan has 10 regions, so that 9 regions need to be paid for using KC.
This comes to 30 x 90 KC = 2700 KC.

Subtracting the region payment from the cost of the Silver plan gives 6000 - 2700 = 3300 KC to spend on time inworld at 1 KC per minute. This is in addition to the 120 minutes included with the Free plan.

So the cross-over inworld time to start to make savings with the Silver plan is
120 + 3300 = 3420 minutes = 57 hours.

Free+KC vs. Bronze Plan
The Bronze plan costs $5 x 300 = 1500 KC per month.

Assume that the user on the Free plan has 2 regions; the extra region costs 300 KC per month.

This leaves 1500 - 300 = 1200 KC to spend on time inworld, in addition to the 120 included minutes with the Free plan.

So the cross-over inworld time to start to make savings with the Bronze plan is
120 + 1200 = 1320 minutes = 22 hours.

[Dot Matrix]

By the way, one other reason why I opt for a monthly plan instead of the Free+KC route is that I see the money I don't use directly for regions or inworld minutes as going towards the improvements that Kitely is continually making to their services -- that has to be paid for somehow!

Another possible comparison is the cost of renting a server powerful enough to run OpenSim instances. From experience, the cheapest hardware server I've found is roughly $15 a month, which just about copes with 4 regions connected to OSgrid or Craft. With this, I need to do all the admin and backup etc., which is not as straightforward as it could be.

Now compare that with the Silver plan costing $20 a month, giving me 10 regions running beautifully smoothly, and with all the ease of creating and backing up regions using the Kitely web interface.

[Min Tigerpaw]

Thanks guys for all comments and detailed explanations. Seem like the silver plan is overdone for my purpose then ... however economics is not my major concern and I'm happy to donate my excess minutes if it's for the sake of Kitely developing. But still I would prefer to donate them to visitors allowing them to stay on my regions: My concern is more on the side that there is no significant in-world life that I observe and from all my long years experience in SL and my discussions with friends from there with the setup as today we will face a big challenge to attract any of the 80-90 % of players that are not builders, content creators or other commercially focused people.
For them, who use virtual worlds as a game, animated chatroom and for leisure, there is no attractive option why they should come to Kitely so far. On the other side they are the more likely crowd to spend money on stuff as they depend on creations from others. They may come to Kitely, find some regions free of charge but free of people because most of the builders and content creators are not the ones to spend a lot of time in-world for playing. Why should they stay in Kitely? And so they don't (none of my friends decided to stay so far).
So you can either say ...never mind ...Kitely doesn't want those players ...
..... or you try to develop Kitely into something that also serves the interest of those ...
I don’t have a solution to that but I feel, that the Kitely models don’t serve those people in a way that is attractive to them. Allowing visitors to visit regions on excess minutes of the owners (instead of payimng additionally as today) would be one element but of cause not a sufficient one.

[Dot Matrix]

Well argued, Min. I'm sorry I didn't pick up the non-transferable aspect of minutes in your original post.

Understanding the inworld time aspect can be a hurdle to people staying in Kitely, in addition to those that OpenSim presents more generally to those used to SL -- the ones you touch on in your post.

I can see potential problems in transferring spare minutes though, unless it were limited to a maximum number each month, perhaps.

I don't know what the solution is, either.

[Constance Peregrine]

Hi Min,

World managers can elect to subsidize their visitors' Minutes using their own KC so that the visitors get free access. Quite a few worlds are set up this way so the cost for visitors is as free as it is in SL. If worlds become popular and the world manager feels that the time based billing model will cost too much then he or she can switch that world to unlimited free access mode and pay a fixed price per moth for allowing visitors to spend as much time as they'd like inside those worlds without it costing the world manager extra.

The monthly cost of unlimited free access worlds ranges from $6.25 per region (in a 16-region world) to $40 per region (in a single-region world). This price is already a lot lower than the price you are charged in any other grid (for a region that can hold even a fraction of the 100 avatars and 100,000 prims our offering includes). Actual price shouldn't therefor limit adoption by non builders, content creators or other commercially focused people as world managers can easily provide such people with free access at a fraction of what it would cost them in other grids.

However, perceived price amongst those that have only heard partial information about our model may be a factor limiting adoption as those people often think that they always have to pay for time they spend inside Kitely. Another factor is that there are almost 5000 user regions in Kitely and our existing active user base, which is currently less than 0.1% of SL's active user count, is therefore spread out on more than 25% the amount of user-owned land area that is available inSL. If anything, you could say that land is too cheap here so people can easily get their own worlds and spend time inside them without going out to visit people in other worlds. The way to resolve this is to create social hubs where people know they can meet other people.

Currently, Kitely Welcome Center serves as such potential gathering spot as it already gets several dozen visitors per day. Once concurrency climbs up a bit more there will always be people inside that world so people will know that it is a place to meet other people. From there social bonds between new users and veteran ones can form and that can lead to a growth of group activity in other worlds as well.

[Deuce Halsey]

Another thought to add on this: Shouldn't we think about how to attract more players that don't intend to build regions but rather like to use regions - stay in world to play, party, socialize, chat, shop - and don't do this as Kitely is for them cost-wise no alternative to SL. There should be much more regions free to visit for this type of players.

I wholeheartedly agree with this sentiment, Min. In fact I've been turning this problem over in my mind for a least a week now, and I've only been in Kitely for less than 3 weeks at this point - this problem was almost immediately apparent when I arrived. Probably the fact that I spent my entire SL career on the mainland has enabled me to look at the problem from a different perspective from the folks who have always lived and worked on estates.

My opinion is that what is missing from Kitely is the availability of smaller (sub-region) parcels, preferably parcels that also have unlimited access, or at least a high number of minutes per month. Let's face it, most residents of SL have never needed an entire region for their home/store/workshop/etc (and whatever combination of these uses a particular resident had). In fact one of the main factors driving SL residents/merchants to the land sizes they did opt for was the artificially low prim limits applied to SL regions. I know I owned "donor parcels" at other locations on my mainland region to give me enough prims for the builds at my HQ complex in SL.

Do I expect the Kitely team to provide these sub-region parcels directly to members on their own? Nope. Let those folks do what they do best - provide low cost worlds to members who need them and keep the technical updates, fixes and advancements coming.

I'm suggesting that this is a problem that can be best tackled by the World Owners who have extra space and/or prims available in their worlds. In fact just last night I deleted my existing 1 region home world (Donnybrook Beach) and recreated it as a 4 region world. (BTW, you can apply a single-region OAR file to a new 4 region world with no problems. The prime (Southwest) region will have the content and terrain from the OAR file and the other three regions will be empty plain flat green regions. I guess this would also work with a 9 or 16 region world, though I never tried it.)

One caveat, if you plan to recreate your world at a different size, do it as early as possible in your development phase. Your new world will not be at the same spot on the grid and any Landmarks you have for the old version of the world will not work.

To continue with my plan, I have my Just4yucks Main Store and supporting builds on the Southwest region in my new 4 region world. The other 3 regions will be split up into quarters. The seven quarters that do not adjoin my home region will be rented out as 16,384 sqm rentals with 7500 prims available. I plan to charge $12/month for these rentals, or $120/year (effectively $10/month), with the tenants paying me via PayPal directly. This will total $70-84 income per month at full occupancy, compared to what I"m paying: $60/month for a 4 region unlimited world. So basically for tolerating a few tenants at the distant edges of my 4 region world I will be getting free use of the rest of the world - 2.25 regions worth of space and 47,500 prims. Some of the five quarter regions in the "buffer zone" will be used for landscaping and so forth. But I will still have way more space and prims that I need for my activities in Kitely, and I won't have to worry about usage time when in my world.

What will my tenants get? 16.384 sqm of oceanfront property with 7500 prims (double the SL limit) on a region with unlimited access. The same amount of space on the SL mainland would cost them $75/month. SL Estate owners pay $73.75 per quarter region ($295/4), so they will probably charge more than $75/month per quarter region if they hope to make any money.

This concept seems like a win-win to me. As world host I get free use of 2 regions (give or take) with unlimited access essentially for free, or at least discounted if I don't have full occupancy on my rentals. The tenants get a nice-sized parcel with double prims (compared to what they may be used to in SL) and unlimited access for a discount price. Finally the Kitely economy gets up to seven more individuals/couples/families/small groups that are not heavily into building and will be likely to turn into consumers.

BTW, I was likely to end up paying $40/month for unlimited access to the single region version of Donnybrook Beach, so this plan will really only be costing me $20/month extra. So even 2 tenants in the early days will help me "break even".

This is my concept for what it's worth. I'd be interested to hear what others have to say. Am I missing some key factor here?