Poll - Help shape the future of my plugins! (Please read before voting)

Hello everyone,

I'm currently working on some improvements to the setup menu, as you can see here

 Still very much a work in progress! It's only getting fancier from here.

Now, if you've been paying attention to our more recent work, you'll have noticed that custom models are slowly creeping into every release.

I want to make it official now and outright say that, for all planned releases in the near future, we will be adding at least only custom model to each release.

This means that all schematic dungeon remakes not yet published (the colosseum, the catacombs, the vampire manor and the ruins) we will be adding at least one (and probably only one) custom model.

The rattler, from the upcoming catacombs lair release.

This made possible by the fact the support level is now at a point where we have a full time artist on the team, who is spending a fairly large chunk of time working on them.

However, this also creates a bit of a problem for me.

Usually, I try to make all of our content extremely affordable, and we live and die by the fact our content is used by many people, creating a delicate economy of scale.

Now, bespoke models, even basic ones, can cost anywhere from $30 for something very basic (and, if I'm being honest, not very good - the models I got at this price point are borderline unusable) or up to > $100 per model.

Please note here that I am talking about bespoke models. I can't just go to a website and grab one of the ones for sale, because redistributing those would be piracy. I have to hire a modeler for this to make a model specifically for our content, which is obviously far more expensive.

Two example models I got for EliteMobs

Note that this does not cover the cost of rigging animations to powers.

The problem

Now, what I would like feedback from the community for is how we should figure out the price of models in general.

Before I even get into it, I want to say that regardless of price, there already are free models, and many, many more free models (hopefully hundreds) will come out! I still want people running Minecraft servers on the budget of a box of crackers and a dream to be able to enjoy what we create, and that won't change.

That being said, unsurprisingly, those who pay for more models also indirectly pay for the free models to be made. Thus, we need to figure out the price for the content that won't be free.

The problem I see is that on "normal" Minecraft model stores, individual models are sold for $5-$40+.

I could just align myself with that pricing and call it a day, but that just doesn't seem right to me.

Let's take the upcoming Yggrasil Realm as an example. That has over 11 models, plus a massive, really nice map, with quests and all custom powers. If I was to charge "normal" marketplace rates, that map alone would cost at least $400 and up to $800.

Random example from the first search result I found. Please not that I am not criticizing content creators here, things are different for us because we made FreeMinecraftModels and EliteMobs.

While I do think 2-3 servers (or maybe up to 10, over a long enough time period) might be interested in getting it at price point, there's absolutely no shot that that's how I'll be pricing things for my content.

That said, the content can't be free either, as it represents months of work from several people contributing to the same map.

So, my question is, in general: how value do you place in a custom model?

I would like to get your honest feedback on this question. Your answers will determine quite a lot - it will influence how we price the content, but it will also influence just how much content we make.

As an example, if you say you'd pay $1 per model in a model pack, that's perfectly valid. What that means is that we can only put so much time and effort into each model, and as such the models we release will be few and simple.

However, if you say you'd pay $40 for a model, obviously then I can pull out all the stops, even go out of my way to full time hire a real professional with years of experience to do nothing but work on the most lavish custom models we can, day and night.

And, of course, I've not lost sight of the fact that what people say and what people do are two very different things. Still, I would like to get the community's sentiment as a starting point.

What we're voting for

So, ultimately the question is: how much would your server be willing to pay to get a boss that has a custom model and custom animations for its powers? You can scroll down to see what the models would potentially look like at the different price points.

IMPORTANT! I will almost certainly not be selling individual models under normal circumstances. They will almost always be packaged (unless we're doing something special). This is for things like figuring out the prices of the next pack like the goblin models, or the pricing / amount of content in the upcoming FreeMinecraftModels prop packs.

Also, for now, we don't plan to change the fact that as a Patreon supporter you get access to all downloads. However, we might switch to a content rotation in a very distant future when we have absolutely excessive amounts of content on offer, if we ever get to that point.

What will this affect?

As mentioned, this will affect the initial prices of the premium content we're planning, but it will also determine whether there is enough interest (and budget!) to get another artist working on this in a more dedicated way.

While Dali is doing good work with these, he is but one artist who's never done models before, and him working on these models delay other things like the betterstructures packs, the website and the construction of new dungeons for elitemobs, to name a few. However, three people working full time is honestly really stretching our funds thin (it honestly wouldn't even have been possible even just a few months ago) and getting another artist is a risk that I would only be interested in undertaking if the community is really invested in it.

Most importantly, this will affect the FreeMinecraftModels prop pack prices. Some might be aware, but I want to add models for furniture, both functional and decorative, to FreeMinecraftModels, following the same system I've been doing for EliteMobs and BetterStructures, where the plugin is free, you can create content or use other people's content, or get the free content packs that we distribute, but the way we fund it is by selling some premium packs.

This FreeMinecraftModels prop will be used for treasure chests in EliteMobs real soon!

I really want to get the FreeMinecraftModels prop packs right, because I honestly think they can be extremely nice to have in a server, and could be a runaway success for us that will allow us to do even more interesting content.

Visual examples of how I picture models

Unfortunately it's very hard to provide accurate visual representations of what models could look at each price point, but I will do the best I can with some images we have from things I've commission before.

$1 model example

$2 model example

$3 model example

$4 model example

$9 model example 

Sorry for the jump in price there, I just don't have good intermediate models at hand, and I don't want to use models on storefronts as examples as I do not actually know if we can make models of that quality. 

Alright, sorry for the long read but this is a rather important thing to vote on, and I want to make sure I give people the opportunity to cast an informed vote.

We are working on a lot of content which you will definitely be seeing in the next few days - a lot has been teased over my streams, and a lot more is still progressing in the background.

You can expect a dungeon release, a devlog and a massive update probably by the end of Wednesday.

That's it now, make your voice heard.

Happy voting,

• MagmaGuy
  

  PS: you can also just post your own suggestion or feedback about this just about anywhere and I will engage with it. I am very open to ideas and feedback on this matter.