I’d just go with an auto-resetting game that anyone can join, and then (as I suggested) charge on a per-game basis for other games. This applies pressure on two fronts:

1) You’ve got to start all over every month. No matter how invested you get, or how many cool story threads you still need to wrap up, you’ve only got a month to do it. The temptation to start your own game, without that time-limit, should be high.

2) Multiple threads. You can only play a single character in the free game. If you want to explore two different things at once, well tough. Though you’ll have the option to explore something new when the game resets, you can’t do it simultaneously.

One thing that might work would be a simple limit on how many scenes you can play in the freebie game per day/week/whatever. So, one scene a day (which is what I would consider) would give you about 30 scenes, but you’d have to log in daily to get them all.

Thomas

Ads are also a major possible revenue for such a game.

That actually occurred to me right after I posted this. In fact, I bet they’d make great cross-promotional things. “You like playing online? Then buy this book and you can play with your friends!” And conversely “You like playing with your friends. Imagine playing in a massive world that changes based on what people you don’t know do!”

I offer you whatever assistance I can (which isn’t much really, I’m more a talker than a doer) in making this happen :)

Thomas

If I was really energetic and not bogged down with a dozen other things in life, I could code a close proximity of that for Foundry MUSH — just need the databasing to keep track of PCs and Obstacles, and that’s not even that difficult. Then “playtest” the ever-evolving game as people drifted in and out.

Notably, there’s also nothing in your web-app version that would actually conflict with publishing Agora in print, as well. Iiiinteresting!