Category: Zone BBS Suggestions and Feedback
Provided that the current point system is allowed to persist (and I really do hope it does):
How about letting people buy site enhancements with their points?
I'm an audio profile fanatic, so I'll outline how it might work for audio profiles, but the general idea could be applied to anything else on the site.
Presently, standard and premium members receive 20 and 120 seconds, respectively, for their their audio profiles. It would be great if we could use points to purchase small increments (within limits, of course).
Standard:
Purchases would cost 250 million points each, and would allow the user to add ten seconds per purchase, with a maximum of four upgrades (that's a total of 60 seconds for a standard audio profile).
Premium:
Same as above, but premiums can make a total of six upgrades for a total of 180 seconds of record time.
This special time allotment would only last for, say, a week, possibly a month. All profiles uploaded after that time window would revert to their customary 20/120 second time limit. Of course, if they don't choose to upload a new one, the upgraded profile should be allowed to persist.
Also for consideration is a compression ratio upgrade purchase for premiums. Currently, audio profiles are compressed at 56 KBPS. While this is tolerable, I've always wanted the ability to upgrade my file's quality.
250,000,000: Upgrade to 64 KBPS.
750,000,000: Upgrade to 96 KBPS
1,000,000,000: Upgrade to 128 KBPS
The same time window should apply to these premium upgrades as the duration purchases, since we don't want people flooding the site with huge files for no reason. Obviously, ZBP posts would be locked to a certain compression rate, since their quality couldn't really be enhanced anyway.
Just my two yen, and I'm sure I or someone else will flush out the concept more thoroughly in the future.
Kai
i like this idea a little, but when the points are reset what would people that almost had what the wanted do?
I'm not sure that'd work so well for audio profiles given that one would have to continually keep recording new ones every time the maximum length reset itself, but I can certainly see that working for other premium features. The important thing here though is making sure people still have reason to perchase a proper premium membership.
agree with the previous poster, think maybe this needs a little more thaught...
Speaking as a regular zoner, not a cl, I like the general idea, though I'm not into audio profiles.
It might also work for purchases of additional name changes.
Bob
If you're premium, upload a two-minute audio profile, and later switch to being a standard user, your audio profile is left in place.
I like this idea, especially the name change one. (I've never changed my nick on here, and don't intend to, but I know some do like to do so.) It should be pretty hard to get to though. The audio parts I'm not as sure about. I like the idea, but I do wonder if the premiums are mostly bought by some just to get the longer audio profile. I wouldn't want to put too much of a dent in the people that actually do buy premium.
I'm thinking people really do need to learn how to read.
Rat: I'm not quite sure what you mean. If someone's saving up points to buy an upgrade and points are reset... Well, they'd just build up again, wouldn't they? It's the same concept anywhere else on the site with this point system.
Stevo: I did say that the files created during that upgrade window should be allowed to persist. If you look, there are still audio profiles that are 60 seconds from standard members back in the day.
Valhalla: If the idea needs more thought, by all means share. As I said in the original posting: This idea would need flushing out. It's silly to post with one-line statements like "This idea needs more thought," without actually having any suggestions of your own. Might as well say the food sucks, but not know why it's bad.
Singer of Songs: I doubt that people buy premiums expressly for the audio profile limit. As I said, the ideas I outlined here are because I myself enjoy audio profiles. I'm not sure if the zone's mp3 encoder can accept arguments to generate differing mp3 files, but if it does, the compression rate idea would do me a lot of good, too.
Also remember that, just because you have a billion points, you're not necessarily guaranteed a new premium membership. This way, you can spend your points on something that's both concrete and explicitly available.
The concept could be applied to games... Spend points for the ability to bet slightly higher for a time, for example. When Alternate Universe is reinstated: Spend points to buy more rooms, objects, etc. Name changes, too, are a good option, though I can't see premiums really needing to buy that many name changes -- if they need more than their allotment per year... umm, issues?
The possibilities are very nearly endless.
Kai
i see how using points for name changes or something like that could be useful, or to get higher betting limits.
Personally, I'm not agenst the idea of useing points for something such as upgrade to audio profiles, premium upgrades, etc. I'm not all that great at the games myself, and right now the points are "pointless" so there for I have no reason to even bother trying to get points. I'm not the type to get a billion points just to say that I have them. If there was a reason to get them, say me being able to do what ky outlined then I might bother.
John
Kai, I like this idea a lot. What do you say J and Chris?
I think over all this is a well thought through initiative, constructive to the Zone, etc.
As Kai said, the possibilities are endless.
I like this discussion. Let's hammer out some more details and see where it goes.
kai, i very much like this idea, too. a point to points, finally. lol. it's great