This will help FFR as a whole

[Afrobean]

Re: This will help FFR as a whole

Oh.

An idea for premium users that probably isn't any good, but I'm going to throw it out there anyway: beta testing new features. Whether it be a new part of the site (like the IIR or profiles) or a new game (like Spin It Up or Metrivia), I think this could work out fairly well. The only problem I can see is that it would be somewhat hard to keep it closed, because certain premium members would probably give out links for the betas to everyone else, or leak info that would be better kept a secret.

[JasonKey]

Re: This will help FFR as a whole

Actually that is a good idea. In truth, making it so that only certain users get access to parts of the site is relatively easy. So closed beta's could be restricted to premium members if we opted to go with something like that.

Good one Afro.

Oh.

An idea for premium users that probably isn't any good, but I'm going to throw it out there anyway: beta testing new features. Whether it be a new part of the site (like the IIR or profiles) or a new game (like Spin It Up or Metrivia), I think this could work out fairly well. The only problem I can see is that it would be somewhat hard to keep it closed, because certain premium members would probably give out links for the betas to everyone else, or leak info that would be better kept a secret.

[Afrobean]

Re: This will help FFR as a whole

Actually that is a good idea. In truth, making it so that only certain users get access to parts of the site is relatively easy. So closed beta's could be restricted to premium members if we opted to go with something like that.

Good one Afro.

:\

Still, even if the .swf of a new beta game isn't playable without the privaleges for it, someone could download it and I'm sure the security wouldn't be that high on it being beta, so they could easily hack it and re-distribute it. Even without that, they could take a bunch of screenshots and circulate them, which would pretty much remove the special-ness of a closed beta.

Oh and I thought of something that was in my huge post that got lost that I mentioned above. Tass was mentioning premium-only songs. Could you guys have FFR play SIU files? They are the same format, right? Wouldn't that be a nice treat for premium members, without making any part of FFR pay-to-play?

[itmorr]

Re: This will help FFR as a whole

You should put THE ROYAL KING in charge of handling membership fees and membership support.

See here for more info: http://www.flashflashrevolution.com/...ad.php?t=54656

[UberMario]

Re: This will help FFR as a whole

Having all the songs when recieving membership gives "buy 1k credits for however much money" less value.

Maybe let only all the purchased songs slide for membership. And 2 weeks of the new song if it's going to be put into secret before it gets released..

[Dronak]

Re: This will help FFR as a whole

Well, I'm not so much into FFR that I'd be likely to pay, but I'll still try to offer some thoughts that may help. One other web board I visit now and then has a supporting member option. For $15 a year, they offer you the ability to post attachments, a larger avatar, a larger profile picture, more private messages, ability to post polls, a custom title, ability to disable reputation/karma display, access to an arcade, a public photo gallery, and access to premium content. I realize that some of these features wouldn't work since you want to avoid members-only content, but some might (larger avs, pictures, more PMs, more?). It's also one reference for pricing. The $15 a year seems cheap enough that a bunch of people on that board do buy supporting memberships. I kind of thought a magazine/newsletter subscription was included in that, but I could be wrong. That might be a separate product the site offers for purchase. FYI, I haven't paid at this site because I don't really need the extra stuff and am a kind of infrequent visitor.

Recently, I signed up for a shell account and that service has pay options. They have levels of membership, with higher levels providing more features the lower levels don't have, so the feature ideas they use probably wouldn't work here. Maybe the pricing levels could give you some ideas though. They start with free sign up, which gives you very basic access and essentially lets you get used to how a UNIX system works. They then request $1 to validate the account and open up the normal set of very basic features. They say this is how they keep out the spammers and bad guys -- normal, legitimate users will fork over a buck for access, but the spammers and bad guys won't. Above that, there's a one-time $36 fee option that offers more UNIX features/programs, and a $36 per year option that opens up just about everything. They also have specific features available for annual fees, e.g., database access, should you want to use them. Again, the way features are done may not be great, but you could consider a similar level structure (one-time cheap, one-time higher, annual) with whatever is deemed appropriate bonus feature offerings here. FYI, I've paid the one-time $36 fee, and that gives me basically everything I want right now.

I kind of like the idea of a pay membership here unlocking secret and/or purchased songs or providing early access to songs of the week. Things like that aren't giving pay members anything free members can't get, but it makes it easier/faster for pay members to get them. Keeping up a donation box is fine, too, as long as it doesn't cost you anything to maintain it. Even a couple of dollars is better than nothing (if keeping the box up doesn't cost you). I'm sure there were some other good ideas in here. I only skimmed over the thread. Depending on what you offer and what/how you charge, you should be able to get some people to buy and/or donate. Hopefully these two examples of pay memberships I gave above will give you some other ideas on how you could work that side of things.

Good luck with everything, and thanks for offering this game for free. I'm not a great player and usually play on and off, but it's still a fun way to pass some time now and then, so I enjoy it.

[rade0110]

Re: This will help FFR as a whole

Dronak: I think your ideas on bigger avatars and bigger profile pics and access to premium content. The only objections I have towards what you said is that 1: Most of the stuff that you have to pay for on the first web board you mentioned, is already given here for free. Things like polls, private messaging, arcade access, and photo gallery all are given out for free. And the $1 sign-up fee seems kind of like a sketchy way to lure people in.

Uber: Like IWhai said, Even if you are in Canada, you can still pay electronically at a USD value. $3 US is about equivalent to $5 Canadian (give or take 50 cents). And if you pay electronically then the balance will still show up as how much was taken out in canadian dollars for you.

Afro: Last night in your big long post, you also mention access to a forum where the staff could only post threads but get input on stuff from premium members. You mentioned it including input on future SotW, like taking polls on which ones they should be. You also mentioned it giving out hints or talking about new ideas that they are working on for the site. I frankly thought this was a great idea. I would love to know what's going to come out or what they have in store for the site.

[Iwhaiwnfi]

Re: This will help FFR as a whole

I have an idea to impliment this "premium-only song section" that everyone is mentioning, while not aggrivating anyone too much. How about there's a section where Premium members can have their stepfiles displayed (after review by one of the admins, of course), and as long as it's synced and not just random arrows to a random song, it gets added to the section. Perhaps they get displayed for 1-4 weeks, depending on how much feedback it gets.

In this way, songs BY premium members get displayed in the actual game, and only premium members can play them. Maybe the premium members can even vote if they liked the file or not, and add comments about it, viewable by the admins. In this way it's almost like a seperate judging system for SOTW submissions.

..of course, premium members can still submit songs for the SOTW without being added to the game before, if they wish.

Can I get some feedback on this? I thought it was a decent idea..

[Tasselfoot]

Re: This will help FFR as a whole

Possible.... but remember that one of us has to manually add new songs. Figure it takes about 30 minutes to make the .swf file, to upload it to the game, then test it and make sure the sync is on...

so given that we'd assume a thousand or more members, after a few months, this could prove to be quite a lot of time for myself or Shash. not to mention keeping up with which songs need adding, which ones to remove after a few weeks....

plus, permission from artists issues.

[rade0110]

Re: This will help FFR as a whole

And the only little tweek I would do to it, would be to (if you actually wanted to impliment a members only section) have it so that everyone could play the songs; but members obviously be the only ones able to submit them. That way, non-members still have the ability to play every song. They are just missing out on a feature that they might want.

[Dronak]

Re: This will help FFR as a whole

Dronak: I think your ideas on bigger avatars and bigger profile pics and access to premium content. The only objections I have towards what you said is that 1: Most of the stuff that you have to pay for on the first web board you mentioned, is already given here for free. Things like polls, private messaging, arcade access, and photo gallery all are given out for free. And the $1 sign-up fee seems kind of like a sketchy way to lure people in.

Remember that nothing I said was meant to be directly copied here. I just wanted to show examples of what a couple of other places have done, so that people here could see if something similar could be used. I appreciate the feedback, but some of it basically repeats what I said. I indicated that I thought the other sites/systems I mentioned were a bit better for pricing examples than feature examples. I also noted that we couldn't just copy the first web board because things are different here. As for the $1 sign-up, maybe it's not so good on a web board. I'd agree on that. But this was used for a shell account -- providing users direct access to a shared UNIX system via their own accounts. In that case, working on the computer system itself, it makes more sense to be careful about protecting the system. Here where an account isn't much beyond a way to log their stats and use the web board, a $1 sign-up fee probably doesn't make much sense. However, we could consider the other thing they do -- a one-time fee for some content/features and an annual fee for some other, better content/features.

[Synthlight]

Re: This will help FFR as a whole

Can I get some feedback on this? I thought it was a decent idea..

As Tass said, this is not nearly as easy as it sounds. In order to have people working full time converting files, it would take take a hefty amount of money. There is currently no way to automate this. Don't get me wrong, it's a good idea. It just isn't an idea that is feasible at this point.

Cheers,

Synthlight

[ToshX]

Re: This will help FFR as a whole

Ok, lets see if we can get an agreement on this and or discuss this list:

No banner ads whatsoever, anywhere on the site.
SOTW early. Maybe 2 weeks early?
Special forum titles and or more information under your avatar
Private forum areas where you can say whatever the hell you want.
Special rooms in the chat that only allow paid members..
Instant access to all available songs
Special color name within multiplayer so you can play other members if you choose
Merchandise or T-shirt with membership or at slightly higher membership rate?
Active customer support network for the new people that come in as members

Monthly: $3.50
Bi-Annual: $19.00
Annual: $35.00

Pay by paypal, via credit card on automatic renewing subscriptions or one time payment. Or paypal pay by phone payment.

Can you guys think of anything else? Doing my best to implement your ideas here. Again, remember that this is all just brainstorming.

Cheers,

Synthlight

I would pay for that stuff, but I'd pay much more for merchandise.

[Afrobean]

Re: This will help FFR as a whole

Can one of the staff members comment on my "let premium members play SIU songs in FFR" idea? Is that feasible or not?

And Tosh: yeah, you'd pay more for merchandise, but Synth would bring in less revenue from each merchandise sold than he would from simple donations. Additionally, it would take a lot of work to get merchandise running.

[Biff_tech]

Re: This will help FFR as a whole

Would it be possible for people to pay to get there Ban times Shortend???
Cause that would be pretty cool.