OK, what's with this new Membership anyways?

Category: Let's talk

Post 1 by Batman413 (Zone BBS is my Life) on Tuesday, 04-Jan-2005 16:54:51

Hi everyone,
I just thought I'd post, and ask all of you, what you think of this new membership?
We are paying $20, and there are no changes as far as I can see besides the audio profiles. Also, a few additional games, and that quicknote thing.
So, is there going to be inhancimance to the membership, or what, how is this going to work?
I don't think we should be paying for this, and in all reality, we are not paying for anything special.
For the record, I'm not trying to be rude to anyone, I just want some oppinions.

Post 2 by JH_Radio (I've now got the silver prolific poster award! wahoo!) on Tuesday, 04-Jan-2005 22:09:08

Hi there. While I can agree with you that there isn't anythig special (And I wouldnt' pay for it neither), they have to run the server from somewhere. Someone's gotta pay for this. Ya know what... How about h this? A 30-day trile! Try all the featuers of preamum for 30-days. You can do any thing that anyone else could do, but for example, to make sure people dind't just use this to create audio profiles... You could set it up such that once the 30 days is up and membership isnt' paid for that the 2-minutes audio profile gets deleated. Then all of us who would rather not pay, or just don't see the point can get a glimps. Maybe if I saw all of these things in action, and coudl try before I buy, I might just find a reason to pay for it. How's that? John

Post 3 by Jess227 on Wednesday, 05-Jan-2005 0:47:32

Yeah I like the idea of a trial or demo on the site to see all of the great features. I don't know if they'd consider a 30 day trial. But maybe a 2 week trial? Shouldn't take 30 days to try everything out.

Post 4 by Big Pawed Bear (letting his paws be his guide.) on Wednesday, 05-Jan-2005 1:50:55

the premium features are as follows. A: Here's the current list. Please know that we are always looking to add to this list, and welcome your ideas.
List of 6 items
• Audio profiles - up to 2 minutes in length
• Quicknote history - view all public notes and private notes that you sent/received
• Anagram Extreme - A second, completely separate game of Anagram Mania each day
• Custom board title - Replace the standard titles under your name on board posts with one of your own choosing
• First for new games - Be the first to try out new games that are added to the site
• More coming soon - please send us your ideas

Post 5 by Batman413 (Zone BBS is my Life) on Wednesday, 05-Jan-2005 7:45:09

Hi, again,
Well, I guess I can't really comment until I see the new games. Hope it gets a little better though. lol
I've needed help on here a bunch of times also, and no one ever gets back to me, what's up with that? Anyone else have that problem?
I can't send private messages, and I eamiled the "owner," or whatever of the site, and I got no response at all. Actually, he said, what is your error message, and when I told him, no response. Real helpful.

Post 6 by wildebrew (We promised the world we'd tame it, what were we hoping for?) on Wednesday, 05-Jan-2005 9:57:22

Well, in the owner's defense, we've all been on holidays, the guy is not paid for writing code and working on the site but is doing that in his spare time I wuld assume and he's needed the vacation as much as the rest of us I am sure. I know new developers are being added to take care of the site and deal with problems such as this one. I've been talking with admin to be given access to the code behind the site to help out and I think more people have been making similar suggestions, if this works out and we'll have a team or 3 or 4 developers running this site you'll get a quicker response and more time will be freed up for game development. I still can't seee how $20 for 12 months membership is unfair, even just for a quicknote history you are only paying $1.7/month, it's 2 candy bars and before those 12 months are up I am sure you'll see more premium features. I know the reason the trial memberships were abandoned was people changing their email address or sining up again with a new user name just to continue enjoying the premium features for free, this is not just cheating the system but very annoying for those who want to get to know a user by his/her user name and in order to build a community you need to have the names consistent. So that's just my 2 cents :) not saying it's wrong to complain about the lack of features or anything and I'm not on the admin team as of yet and I'm not familiar with all their reasons but this is my opinion coming from a development standpoint, the site takes a lot of time and work, more than a lot of people realize and I just sort of wanted to make people aware of it and ask for some patience on behalf of those working on the site, I don't doubt there will be up and coming new features for the premium folks.
cheers
-B

Post 7 by Batman413 (Zone BBS is my Life) on Wednesday, 05-Jan-2005 17:14:12

Hi,
Well, yes, I see your point.
Thanks for the post, and I'll just keep waiting. lol
Goldberg

Post 8 by Jess227 on Wednesday, 05-Jan-2005 18:41:21

yeah I agree with Wildbrew. Pretty much the idea lf making new usernames with other email addresses just for one or two things. Actually being honest I'm content with the free membership. I mean I don't have a need for a audio profile, or a member title for the boards. I just enjoy playing some of the games on here and reading, posting and replying to topics on the boards. I think the way they have the membership set up now is pretty decent.

Post 9 by JH_Radio (I've now got the silver prolific poster award! wahoo!) on Wednesday, 05-Jan-2005 19:51:43

There are ways to avoid setting up multibel e-mail addresses and usernames... How about logging everything to IP? Might that cut down on that? Hmmm... John

Post 10 by Batman413 (Zone BBS is my Life) on Wednesday, 05-Jan-2005 21:09:27

I agree they could of solved the molti account setup a different way, but whatever they didn't.
My main point from the start here was basically saying that they made this Premium Membership such a big deal, and it's really nothing yet anyways.

Goldberg

Post 11 by Dave_H (the boringest guy you'll ever know) on Wednesday, 05-Jan-2005 22:15:02

Using one's ip address as a user identiier is a bad idea; those with dynamic addresses would never be the the "same user" twice.

Post 12 by JH_Radio (I've now got the silver prolific poster award! wahoo!) on Wednesday, 05-Jan-2005 22:24:43

There have to be a way, though. Hmmm... John

Post 13 by TheIceMaster (http://www.myjuggalospace.com/Iced_Hatchetman) on Thursday, 06-Jan-2005 2:59:31

I've also expressed an interest in helping with the coding on here as well. Goldberg you said, "they made this Premium Membership such a big deal, and it's really nothing yet" the key word in what you said is, "yet" as part of the listing of things that comes with a premium membership says, "More coming soon - please send us
your ideas"

Post 14 by wildebrew (We promised the world we'd tame it, what were we hoping for?) on Thursday, 06-Jan-2005 9:04:14

Well, Goldberg has a point in that right now the premium membership isn't all that much, but the dues were for the entire year of 2005 so I think we should cut the admins some slack and see what the next year will bring. :)
Well, as for IP addresses, what if multiple users want to subscribe to the zone? I mean e.g. if you have a dormatory with 12 to 20 blind people using the same two computers, you'll have a lot of users on a shared ip address, you don't want to block all but one of them, not to mention the roaming ip address problem mentioned before, most ip addresses are assigned dynamically at this point, it's more expensive to have a fixed ip address.

Post 15 by Kwork (Premium Zoner) on Thursday, 06-Jan-2005 10:07:51

Well, I paid for premium. In one way, I consider it a donation. However, the most attractive part of it for me right now is the quicknote history. I've utilized that many times already. I love it. I don't regret paying for it.

Post 16 by Batman413 (Zone BBS is my Life) on Thursday, 06-Jan-2005 16:27:39

When I signed up for the Premium Membership, I did think of it as donating in a way. I didn't, and still don't mind donating or helping out either.
I guess as WB said, let's see what this year brings, and hopefully more people will be satisfied.
As far as IP addresses, the Admin, or Admins have to come up with the way to solve that problem, for there are just people out there today who can find out how to do anything they want to do on the computer these days. lol Oh, and just to comment on the quick note feature, yeah it's cool, but I'm really not that impressed.
Goldberg

Post 17 by Caitlin (I've now got the silver prolific poster award! wahoo!) on Saturday, 08-Jan-2005 19:24:44

I may get Premium. I don't know yet. There just doesn't seem to be a ton there. I especially want more profile search options, a buddylist. etc.
Caitlin

Post 18 by Caitlin (I've now got the silver prolific poster award! wahoo!) on Saturday, 08-Jan-2005 19:25:07

But I'll probably get it soon for the two minute profile, talent contest, and just to support the zone because it rocks.
Caitlin

Post 19 by Batman413 (Zone BBS is my Life) on Sunday, 09-Jan-2005 20:35:12

Hopefully, something can be done with all the points people earn?
People on here with billions of points, and they can't do anything with them? Also, How come you don't get anything for winning the sports challenge? In the beginning when I first signed up, it said you would get points.
Goldberg