I might have an extended idea that could be based on Youtube's system in reference to entries. While you can pretty much find any listed game (including featured ones). I think a promotion system would not hurt one bit by charging a bit per hub entry that is being promoted.
With this promotion system, it could potentially bring back an ad-styled system found in earlier versions of the BYOND website. One condition may need to be that such games must not be fangames (though that is your choice) since it is illegal to make profit off of them anyway (due to copyright infringement concerns). So, I would say utilize it for original projects that can gain additional exposure through this system.
I would say make the promotion cost monthly or yearly-based if you were to implement such an idea Tom. Hopefully through this system, it can help y'all out and even developers who want additional exposure to their projects. For anyone who wants to extend this idea may provide ways that could also produce revenue for developers of original projects or any other idea. Admittedly, there maybe drawbacks with the whole promotion idea.
And I can't wait to see the site update. :D
It was convenient to use the blog features for non-byond stuff. I can understand wanting to avoid some of that non-byond noise but at the same time, google picks up on those blog postings about random stuff and brings in new people doesn't it? o.O
At the same time, by kicking people off their BYOND blog for personal stuff, you will in fact, have us all posting stuff about BYOND on other blog sites which in turn, is a great thing for BYOND. Fun. :) Have you made any considerations for some sort of visible ranking and award system for contributors? O.O Some examples: - Visual rank indicator showing how much a person has contributed as seen on many forums. - Discounts on memberships based on traffic to whatever contributions. - Increase in storage/bandwidth based on traffic. One of the reasons I've horded my own efforts was that sharing requires a mostly selfless act on BYOND because its give and rarely get anything back which can be hard to justify at times. :\ Having more visibility into your impact and getting some sort of reward (ego or $) for your efforts can go a long way in terms of motivation. :) One other thing that is partially related and has bugged me about our forums is that you can never tell the riffraff from the mods, owners, and respected contributors. All modern forums have this so I've never understood why BYOND chooses to hide it from us. o.O On a different note, I'm really happy to see the consolidation and standardization of information. :) I've always felt that BYOND's distribution of data has been terrible... to put it lightly I guess ;). The new forum changes with best answer voting also addresses one of my other all-time pet peeves. Searching the forums for real answers has always been a lot like dumpster diving. :) In hind site, the RC seems to have been my own personal outlet for trying to fill in what I felt were some needed features on BYOND. It tries to address the "get something back", "rankings", "best answers", "activity/visibility", and up to date resources (always debatable) but the goal nonetheless. As an example, I just added my own implementation of a best answer system in the RC without realizing you guys were doing this (would have been nice to know before doing all that work but oh well) :P and it looks like the new site changes will get the job done and remove the need for that feature. I'm truly thankful because it would have been too much work to back fill. The design I came up with is pretty neat and I would love to have BYOND consider a similar implementation if and when you have the time. Let me know if I need to demo the functionality. In the end, I'm thinking of retiring the Resource Center and perhaps the site change will be a good time to do so. Anyway, I look forward to the changes and appreciate your continued efforts. | |
I managed to drink some tea, (passion fruit green if anyone was curious .__.)And read THE ENTIRE THING. As I stated before the membership thing is pretty dumb. You're charging with 24 dollars for a hub. I mean I'm pretty sure I said all this before but that is EXTREMELY underwhelming and definitely not worth my 24 dollars. Yes I know, people like tibby and Teka and who the hell ever will buy memberships to support BYOND but you can't rely just on that. To me, the consumer, this product is not worth my money. And then I don't see the point in losing ads. They don't bother anyone and BYOND members can already disable them. No reason to lose extra money.
I am happy about the forum updated. I honestly hate the way the forum currently is. It looks messy and unappealing. I was thinking about yahoo answers when you did the best response thing lol. A question about the "Coming Up" calender. How is that going to work? Can anyone just make events or do they have to be apporved by staff. Personal posts are perfectly fine, but we will not stand for the drama-fueled flame wars that plague the current blogs. This will not last. Because the simplest thing turns into a flame war. I dare someone to mention silkwizard and his entire ego comes and there are at least 60 "U SUCK SILK" post. Everything else looks nice. | |
Love the updates that are coming. I like the 'maptext'. Wish I could win the lottery, then I could contribute more to BYOND lol. I'm kinda half and half on the removal of the blog pages. I think it's a good idea because I tire of looking at the countless pages blasting on people, etc. But I'm also gonna miss my blog page, I think it's sexy o.o
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I love it all. When will we see it? My guess is Jan. 1 but I'm hoping sooner.
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Well... seeing as I'm getting more bang for my buck, I have no objections to anything! Looking forward to BYOND's continued progress in 2012.
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OK. I'm going to be the first odd ball to nay this. Can't wait for the changes.
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Why not more ads? I wouldn't mind a few more ads in exchange for a cheaper membership and stop forcing it! If you lower the price more people will buy it, what kind of business scheme is this? When people aren't buying, you raise the price! Some people can't afford a BYOND Membership or don't have access to a credit card.
http://ultimategamecard.playspan.com/ You should try to get onto that, the kids playing this probably don't have access to their parent credit card. For the Non-members maybe you can instead of taking their hub privileges away, you make a video ad appear when the resources for a game is downloading or you have to watch like a 30 second advertisement before you can login to ANY game. Members don't have this restriction though, you're just killing the site by taking away hub privileges. | |
The Narutard kids without access to their parents' credit cards are the problems with the site and community. Why accommodate them when you could accommodate potential developers that would contribute something WORTH HAVING!
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Moussiffer wrote:
That doesn't answer my question... Maybe you should learn to read better. "Existing "blog" posts -> Community Forum (or another forum TBD by the post author or an admin)." | |
With recognition or not, these 'Narutard kids' plays a big roll on BYOND. Like it or not, they are a big part of BYOND's community.
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Neo Rapes Everything wrote:
With recognition or not, these 'Narutard kids' plays a big roll on BYOND. Like it or not, they are a big part of BYOND's community. They are. That's the problem with the community, like I just said. | |
I would think the reason for no-more ad's is because they all use a part of the sites bandwidth and not only that but ad's are ugly and take up space on the page that could be put to better use.
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oh no
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As a suggestion for more financial gains, if you lowered the year based memberships into months, and lowered the prices a bit, basically charging people to pay the month based fee(Memberships) to keep their games hubs up, you'd probably be eating lobster instead of ramen.
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Turn membership into a monthly based fee (1 month, 6 months, 1 year, 5 years) and have membership sales regularly advertised on the main page, 101 of marketing.
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I can see it now... selling hubs to non-members for 10$ and making them the helper so basically it's theirs.
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The entire membership plan is stupid. However, if it turns into per month I surely won't be renewing mine. The benefits aren't worth it at all.
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Great post and an enjoyable read as always... would be cool if you made these more often.
I can't say I dislike any of the coming changes, in fact, I adore them -- 2012 will be one hell of a year for BYOND! | |
EDIT: Also, I am very pleased to see built-in on-map text support being added.