Broadside Premium, Real Money Purchases, and Treasure Chests

Broadside is being released as a Free to Play game, that will in no way require any purchases in order to play.  The game is being balanced with the assumption that the majority of players will never pay a dime for the game, and that is fine.  The idea is to make a great and fun game first, something fun enough where players will want to get their friends to play as well, and bank on at least someone in your group of friends seeing the value in some additional purchases which are what supports the costs and continued development of the game.

Free players are in no way looked down on, or considered lesser players.

Broadside Premium

One of the two primary ways the game will be funded will be through the Broadside Premium DLC.  This will be an optional DLC that provides a handful of benefits for the owner.

• Skill training speed will be increased
• The amount will be determined during balancing, but the expectation is between 20% to 50% over the standard game
• Treasure Chests will drop 2 items instead of 1
• Effectively like opening 2 Treasure Chests at the same time
• You'll be able to equip new skins to your ships

Broadside Premium will be a 1 time purchase, not a subscription, and will be applied to your game client and not a specific account.  That means if you have multiple accounts with their own characters, or if multiple players share the same computer, all those accounts used will benefit from Broadside Premium.

The expected price for the Broadside Premium DLC will be between $10 to $20 USD.

Treasure Chests

Treasure Chests mentioned above will be available in a number of places in the game, such as in item drops when sinking NPC ships.  There will be multiple types of Treasure Chests, and will require an associated type of key for that chest to open.  KEYS WILL NOT BE A MICROTRANSACTION ITEM!  Keys will also be available in item drops, in roughly the same number as the chests themselves.  This differs from the now standard "loot box" system seen in many free to play or even premium games, where loot boxes are free but you need to purchase keys with real money.  

It will be possible for players to sell both Treasure Chests and their keys in the in game market places for in game currency.  So if you enjoy them, you can purchase them in game from other players.

The only encouragement that Treasure Chests provide for a real money purchase is the above mentioned benefit of the Broadside Premium DLC in doubling the items dropped from Treasure Chests. 

Skins

Feedback from early play testing is that everyone wants optional color choices for their ships.  These are generally referred to as skins in other games, so I'll use that name here.  These skins will be some of the higher value items dropped from Treasure Chests.  A skin will be a 1 time use consumable item applied to a ship, and stays with the ship until the player either removes the skin or the ship is sunk.  Changing to a new skin or removing a skin will not return the old skin to your inventory.  

Skins, like Treasure Chests can also be bought or sold on the in game market places.  Skins though can only be applied to a ship where the player has the Broadside Premium DLC.  It is specifically allowed for players to temporarily trade their ships to a Broadside Premium player for the purpose of applying a skin and trading it back, where it will stay equipped and be usable by the non-premium player.  In that way, it is possible for everyone in your group to have skins on their ships, while only a single player has purchased Broadside Premium.  

Note that the in game market places do not handle the sale of fitted ships, only packaged items such as an empty ship hull, so it will not be possible to buy or sell ships on the market with skins already applied. When you sell a fitted ship on the in game market, all fittings on the ship and items in its hold are transferred to your storage at port.  Since equipped skins cannot be removed from a ship for reuse, they are destroyed in this process.

Purchasing Pieces of Eight with Real Money

Besides Broadside Premium, the only other means of real money purchasing currently planned is for the Pieces of Eight in game currency (the primary in game currency).  This is available for several reasons.  Some people may enjoy the PVP aspect of the game, but not the trading, some people may have lost their ships through a string of bad choices or bad luck and would like to quickly get back what they had, some people may just want a much larger inventory of ships than their current amount of play time allows, some people may want to quickly fund a large expansion to their manufacturing or trading.  Whatever the reason, the game will allow for the purchase of the Pieces of Eight (Po8) in game currency for real money.  There will not be any alternate "premium currency" in the game.  

Purchasing Po8 with real money will in no way require the Broadside Premium DLC.  The various means of generating your own Po8 in game are being balanced with the assumption that the player will never purchase Po8 for real money, nor is any game item or system being designed in a way to specifically encourage its purchase.  The adventurous trader, manufacturer, or privateer should be able to generate ample Po8 on their own with a little planning and some good execution, making real money purchases of Po8 unnecessary for the vast majority of players.  A primary design goal of Broadside is it will not be a "Pay to Win" economy.