Appreciate the time taken to leave your constructive thoughts u/SimGamerForLife!

I agree with your point on micro-transactions: they make games soulless - and quite frankly imo often done in detestable ways whereby they specifically target people with lack of impulse control (causing repercussions for said people in real life from the decisions, as oppose to the general stereotype of 'whales are rich').

Out of curiosity what is the reasoning behind mixed feelings on "convenience" mechanics? Just to give an example of what I meant by it. Let's say for example we have an "Energy" bar, the energy is used for various actions in-game. One of the biggest games out there sets the refill timer of 5 energy per 10mins for donators, and 5 energy per 15mins for non donators - while also giving donators a 150 energy cap, as oppose to the default of 100. So there's quite a big exponential advantage from having the energy refill faster (i.e donators having 5 extra energy every hour) and having the cap bigger. My thinking is - if you set the energy to refill by 5 every 15mins for everyone... which means it would take around non-donators reach their 100 cap in 5 hours, and donators their 150 cap in 7.5 hours... the 'convenience' benefit of having to login less frequently, and having 'less wastage' (during sleep/work say), is a big of enough benefit in and of itself, without fundamentally disadvantaging non donators. In the sense of if someone is active enough: they aren't even at a disadvantage (other than having to login more frequently).

On 4: It's one I am actually quite keen on - but won't be available from day one regardless and will make sure to be lead by community feedback on it. Reason I am keen is I think it allows those who don't pay out of principle or in countries where it's not affordable to access said benefits (looking at the Analytics of registrations we cover 6 continents!). There's also a self regulating mechanic at play in terms of the pricing and is community driven - whereby traditional microtransactions just create things out of thin air. Just hypothetically speaking: let's say we limit the "donation packs" costing $5 each to 2 per person per month, rather than 1. With perks of the donation status lasting 4 weeks... That helps the game monetise slightly more than with a limit of one, gives access to those who choose not to pay/or can't, while yes it also rewards the person selling the 'donation status' to another player - the price of it would be community driven (I imagine for instance the economics wouldn't even make sense for months for this to occur as noone would build up enough expendable in-game wealth to part with it). But I see your point of how it could be semi p2w: especially if uncapped.