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Extra races, extra features
It's been fairly common over the past year or so for people to ask for extra features (and more recently extra races added to the calendar) and in the most part Dave et al has been incredibly helpful in adding and fixing things that people griped about.
But I think it's come to the point where the hard-core of people who've played a couple of years and compete in every race are wanting the game to become more involved than I think is reasonable, especially for a free game, and the number of races included has already increased dramatically in the last couple of years to the point where adding many more might be a step to far for the Road cc team.
My point is a question really, would people be willing to pay a little bit for extra races and functionality over and above what the free game currently offers?
My suggestion (and it's not a request, I'd love for all of the below to be free!) would be some kind of premium membership that included extra (or all) world tour events (including those that overlap like the Dauphine and TdSuisse) and a few of the other bigger races as well as providing extra functionality for those wanting to play differently.
Extra functionality could include stuff like:
More than one team per account (for those wanting to stop running two or three accounts at once to play the purist game etc...)
Squad based game where you pick maybe 25 riders for the year and rotate them based on the race with no 'transfers' in an out of your squad through the year
Extra league types like head to head (you're drawn against another team in your league and the highest scording team wins x points for the stage) or keeper leagues (maybe 10 teams in a league with each rider only available once through some kind of draft and you keep the team through a number of years)
At the minute I see us all getting an excellent game for free and because the team has been so obliging in the past we just keep asking for more and more, surely there's a point at which Dave says 'No, that's too much work' without some kind of recompense?
Obviously I'd hate to see the free game dissapear and it's already excellent!
If you're new please join in and if you have questions pop them below and the forum regulars will answer as best we can.
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21 comments
You could do a cup comp during the grand tours. Start it with a group stage then 1v1 knockouts every stage after that. Top teams from the groups go through then highest scores on each stage wins.
Given that there are about 6000 teams in the race (registered) you could whittle it down to the top 4096 over the first ten stages then draw lots randomly from there onwards playing a random opponent to get through to the next stage.
Could be fun but it'd be a bugger to program.
I'd pay more....but then I'm in a position to be able to.
I think the team do great work for the pittance of income they get to be honest.
how about this.....a series of 'knockout cups' whereby everyone is put in a hat and drawn against each other one on one.....you pick a team for a stage and the winner proceeds to the next round.....150 credit limit but unlimited transfers.....the price could be varied per 'knockout cup' with 50% of the income to a prize pot and 50% to road.cc?
as soon as one finishes you have a couple of days for registration to the next 'knockout cup'? good source of income and a great one for the stagehunter specialists?
apart from that any extra features would be a bonus for the pittance we pay.
I really like this idea! How much fun! A stage by stage duel-off!
Cherry picking quotes again?
You omitted the bit about 'price per competition' and 'prize funds'.........I wonder why?
Well, it's great idea! Not all of it, but still (!) a great idea!
My concern about changing to a paid version is that is is likely to change the nature of the game and the people who play it.
Currently if something goes wrong, we will complain, but somebody will respond "it is only a free game", we will grumble and get back to working on the next race/stage.
If it is pay to play and something goes wrong, we will complain and then complain again with "I paid good money for this, so fix it NOW!"
Is there be enough players willing to pay to make it worthwhile? Currently 2500 players this season, a good take up of "paid premium users" is around 10% so 250 players at say 10GBP is only 2500GBP per annum. A 5% take up is only 1250GBP and that excludes any costs in setting up the "premium" service. The cost will be losing players who are unwilling to pay and see the "premium" players getting an advantage.
I view the game as a loss leader for road.cc, like those ridiculously cheap specials stores have to get you in the door. Last year, I visited the game site every race day, this year I visit the forum most days and the game site each race day and a couple of times in the days leading up to race. Quite often, I follow links to the main site to read articles that interest me. Without the game I would not visit road.cc at all.
So the really the current ROI for the game for road.cc is the increased number of regular readers of road.cc.
How road.cc could improve the ROI for the game.
1. Provided a hosted/branded version of the game to companies like Halfords, SBS, NBC etc for a fee. For me it is the best cycling game around and gets people back to a site on a daily basis. (Note could be for a GT only)
2. Expand the game by getting into partnership with other companies, getting a title sponsor who is willing to stump up the prizes and promotion (Rabobank sponsored the SBS game in AU last year), and/or a media sponsor like Eurosport (just need to include all races Eurosport cover live, for a little on air promotion and eurosport get to "market" their product to cycling fans). All road.cc gets is the links to drive traffic to their main site and maybe ad revenue for an expanded group of players.
ps I don't know if I would pay to play because the only upgrades I want are more races and losing the 4 star/5 DS rule
The game is ace....I think we should just enjoy and let Dave and the guys tweek it as they see fit....The thing that impresses me is that they listen to the feedback and comment on it....Personally I would pay for the game but like I said lets enjoy and not try to over-complicate it....If its not broke...then dont fix it....
I agree with Stevespro79. I think it works fine as it is and expanding it or introducing a fee could damage the game. Things can become to big. I like the personal feel of this game. I think we should all feel free to make suggestions to tweak the game though as Dave is obviuosly interested in the feedback. If Dave likes ideas its up to him if he wants to introduce them or not. As it should be. Its his game (and ours
).
I figured seeing as the purist teams always score much lower than the main teams I wasn't having two bites at the big prize cherry.
The maximum is one in theory although I can't remember if it's in the rules this year, it definitely was last year. (NB Dave, please don't delete me
)
the maximum in theory is one although there are some people running two so they can play purist and non-purist; we don't really have an issue with that although it's technically NOT ALLOWED and you'll all be BANNED.
@ drheaton
I'll go with that thought but still would pay a fee to have it on one page.
I didn't think you could have.more than one account. What's the maximum number of accounts?
@ drheaton
I'll go with that thought but still would pay a fee to have it on one page.
I didn't think you could have.more than one account. What's the maximum number of accounts?
@ drheaton
I'll go with that thought but still would pay a fee to have it on one page.
I didn't think you could have.more than one account. What's the maximum number of accounts?
I agree that overlapping races could be confusing and too many races might be overkill but offering it as part of some package might make it tempting for those for whom 110 days of racing just isn't enough
I will hold my hand up and say I have two accounts as I love to play the purist game as well as the normal game, being able to do this all on one account might be nice and would promote a little more honesty
I'm actually enjoying the forum based purist games at the minute and am tempted to start one up at the start of next season, if Dave's happy for that to continue or to allow more community support (ie the community might provide and upload points for some 'unofficial' races) then maybe we could have a few more races without adding too much burden to the system?
I only joined this forum 8 months ago & it being my one & only fantasy
I am totally engrossed with it. The craic with other members is great, taking advantage of their great cycling knowledge & hints on rider choice 
I was happy with the game as it was last year & with Dave's et al tweeks see how it's improved this year. It's great as a free game, but if it would give us more flexibility & choice I wouldn't object to a small fee. I'm not sure if more races would improve the game. I did ask for an extra race be added at the end of last year, which was gratefully added, but as more races are added worldwide which overlap, wouldn't this get a little confusing
I started playing a few days into the GIRO last year.
I've been hooked ever since, (to my wife's annoyance)
This season the game looks so much better and slicker and personally like the fact that its free and believe that if it ain't broke don't fix it or try to over modify it, because eventually the point of this game to have a bit of fun will be lost and if someone happens to be good then a prize via sponsors is up for grabs.
Playing for the short amount of time that i have, my cycling knowledge and passion for cycling has increased 10 fold!
If it was to become a pay to play game a lot of people will drop out and i would too. Not so much fun when u gotta pay
Besides i'm doing very well this year...beating our very own Dave and currently sitting 2nd in the south west
I agree...
This is a great game. It's very engaging. I know the people at NBC Universal have their Fantasy Cycling Challenge as a promotion for their sponsors... I guess Roadcc may have it just for that or for fun. But it's worked. It's engaging and fun and even... addictive! It's the best out there, for whatever that's worth!
I wouldn't want to lose it! But I see nothing wrong with asking and asking for more... It just means we like it and want to be more engaged...
I'm guilty of this... But I'm also ok with Dave setting limits... It's their game... They decide how to manage requests...
I love the free game, but I don't know if I'd pay for more races... I've seen competitions set up for Tirreno and Catalunya here on the forums and it's pretty cool and except for the flashiness of the actual game pages, I may be wrong, but it looks like those people that are playing on the forum are having a lot of fun!
I will say this, though, I used to play a game where you would pay €10.50 per team and you could have as many teams as you wanted. What was attractive about that scenario, though, was that they had cash prizes.
The grand prize for winning a Grand Tour was €250 plus
50% of Prize Fund, 2nd place got you €125 and 30% of Prize Fund, 3rd place got you €65 and 20% of the Prize Fund.
The daily stage prizes were a free team registration for a future competition.
I really liked that game. Until I found this one.
Here's the link:
http://fantasy.cycling-games.com/game/
This game is much better than the Fantasy Cycling Games [link above].
Part of the advantage of the Roadcc game is that you can swap riders every day. That means if a sitaution happens like last yera's Tour, when Voeckler keeps the yellow jersey for 10 days or so, you can swap for him and not lose out on not being able to 'acquire' him. It keeps the game competitive. In the FCG game you choose 15 riders and then you can only play those 15.
One nice feature of the FCG game was that you could have several teams. You just chose from a drop down list which one of your teams you wanted to manage. That part I liked, in a sense, because I like the idea of having both a purist team and a transfer team.
The other davantage to the FCG game was that you could choose your riders days in adavance. You had different tabs for each stage and you would click and select the riders you wanted to play on that particular stage. It wasn't esthetically pleasing, but it worked.
As for this point it may be an advantage for some people on certain occassations (ie being busy or away on a certain). but in most cases people wont want to make transfers in advance people like to see how stage has panned out, Gc has panned out, withdrawals etc before commiting to a team for a stage further down the line. As it is now you get pretty much 24 hours during a stage race to make changes beofre the next stage (as you can change as soon as the current stage has started), which in the majority of cases is ok for most
You made me search for that point in time you forever ruined my life. And here it is. March 19 2012.
Why, dear God? Why?
But, honestly
Especially me! But all that's said above still holds true! All of it!
Ah, so true!
Couldn't have said it better myself...
The sad things is I used to play that game, too. Until I lost my job.