weathertop wrote:

Kjeld wrote:

Or just join or start games with a longer turn-timer. That's why the 7-day was created.

i guess i wouldn't be opposed to letting the standard player have 2 days of vacation as part of their package.

This seems okay to me or two days a month, non accruing.  Then, maybe premiums get 3 days a month accruing or something like that (probably some initial amount as well).  I think that it is best to keep people addicted and not make them choose between a weekend off with lots of boots or forced logins.  Then again, players, both standard and premium, could just plan ahead and stop joining games for a couple of weeks in advance of a vacation.

as to membership dues; I'll admit i balked a bit at the raise in cost as i couldn't pony up the $30 at first. However, after 6 months of playing from the beginning and seeing how much Tom put into this place and how much say we as a community had in it's upbringing. I don't have a problem with $30/yr.

membership perks: it's been a while since i've seen info as a standard player, but i don't recall there being much difference between the game info perks between ToS and WG, in fact i liked what was available here more than ToS as a standard on both when i quit giving $$ over there. Granted above and beyond the game info (which is really all you need to play) it is pretty staggering how much Tom has created - the luck stats, the chat...feature, ability to leave yourself notes, amount of vacation time, work mode, and all the other non-advantagious features.

so yes i think i get a helluva lot for <$3/month

I played on warfish from the days when it was in pre-Beta up until the collapse and end of support and never joined because I didn't see a reason.  I knew most of the core players there and what was happening, but stayed outside of any involvement and was happy just being a player. 

This site is different and as stated above, provides real support and implement changes.  I was happy to pay for this site even though I had more ability as a standard member here than I did on warfish.  After being here for a month, I could not see one feature that warfish had that was better than the potential on wargear.  That was over a year ago and now the potential is here and wargear is a far better site.

Each player can make their own decision, but there is nothing that says you cannot play on both sites.

Alpha wrote:

Each player can make their own decision, but there is nothing that says you cannot play on both sites.

wasn't trying to say that; hope it didn't come across as that. just that this site is so far above what ToS was in terms of just about everything (cept maybe number of players). i quit playing over there cus it was always broken - and when work blacklisted it, that didn't help matters any.

I was trying to say it, but I didn't intend it as if you were trying to say it (I didn't think you were).

weathertop wrote:

Kjeld wrote:

Or just join or start games with a longer turn-timer. That's why the 7-day was created.

i guess i wouldn't be opposed to letting the standard player have 2 days of vacation as part of their package.

as to membership dues; I'll admit i balked a bit at the raise in cost as i couldn't pony up the $30 at first. However, after 6 months of playing from the beginning and seeing how much Tom put into this place and how much say we as a community had in it's upbringing. I don't have a problem with $30/yr.

membership perks: it's been a while since i've seen info as a standard player, but i don't recall there being much difference between the game info perks between ToS and WG, in fact i liked what was available here more than ToS as a standard on both when i quit giving $$ over there. Granted above and beyond the game info (which is really all you need to play) it is pretty staggering how much Tom has created - the luck stats, the chat...feature, ability to leave yourself notes, amount of vacation time, work mode, and all the other non-advantagious features.

so yes i think i get a helluva lot for <$3/month

Warfish standard vs. Wargear standard:

WG: send private messages to teams / start games on any board / get booted for having a life

WF: see board stats / see luck ratings / set vacation days (limited to 12 days/year, I believe)

I'd rather know what the stats look like, and whether my rolls have just been crappy or if I should change my tactics in a game, as opposed to being able to send a private team message or start a game on any board.

I'm not saying "Tom" shouldn't get any money for the time he puts in (as you all seem to love misinterpreting what was said and pulling nonexistent words out of my statements), but I'd be surprised if he has no job outside of this site, and I don't see where the harm is for some of the money to be returned to the premium players by some mechanism or another. Some of the money heading back to the players is an added incentive for membership.

I don't plan on staying on wargear once my games are done. I've found another site that is ranked, by players, as being ~2x better overall, and by the looks of it, thus far, it outweighs wargear, and warfish, substantially.

And for a total hijack..... this thread made me want to go check out ToS and see if there were a lot more Dead Fish for player photos..... you'll never guess.... it's down!

And now back to our regular scheduled program.

I think at times we give too much to the standard player. I love that as a standard player I wasn't at an obvious disadvantage against plus members  and I especially loved that I could try any board! However, seeing that there is a vacation feature that I could use if I was a premium member only makes me want to pay 30 dollars. My mother always said, "If you give away the milk, they will buy the cow, but save the beef for paying customers."

emz wrote:

WG: send private messages to teams / start games on any board

Really? That's all WarGear has?

Oh and BTW, WarGear has board stats and lucks stats.  They may not work the way you expect because, uhm.. they're the way we asked tom to design them.   And they only get better and more detailed with time. Remember, WG is a fairly young site, built from the ground up by one person, who I can only guess is practically doing this full time.  From a board designers perspective, it's a dream.  Ask and receive.  Players reap the benefits.

I don't plan on staying on wargear once my games are done. I've found another site that is ranked, by players, as being ~2x better overall, and by the looks of it, thus far, it outweighs wargear, and warfish, substantially.

2x? Awesome..  I hope for your sake it's half the price.

Honestly E, I don't get the sour grapes thing, but thanks for finishing your games.

Let me put this another way:

What is being offered for premium members and the cost to get those features are not in line, IMO. Some of the premium features should be made available to all players, for starters.

The point of this thread is to add even more to the premium accounts and add nothing to standard accounts, thus broadening the gaps between the two, i.e., giving tax breaks to the rich, and assuming it will "trickle down" to the middle and lower classes (a trend that has not been proven to work).

The supposed idea of giving features to premium members that wouldn't create an "unfair advantage" can be contradicted, w/ at least one example: luck stats. W/o this feature, player won't know if their strategy is what is failing them, or if they are failing d/t "bad luck" in their rolls. If their rolls are fine, and they are still doing badly, then they will know to change the way they play that game.

emz wrote:

The supposed idea of giving features to premium members that wouldn't create an "unfair advantage" can be contradicted, w/ at least one example: luck stats. W/o this feature, player won't know if their strategy is what is failing them, or if they are failing d/t "bad luck" in their rolls. If their rolls are fine, and they are still doing badly, then they will know to change the way they play that game.

Not true..  You can have some very good rolls and a board full of good players will make sure that your lead doesn't get out of hand.., to say nothing of positional luck and a host of other complex variables that keep luck in check or certainly render it less meaningful

Statistics don't lie. For example, the likelihood of losing ~10 armies to kill 1 at a standard 6v6 attack is unbelievably low...for it to happen several turns in a row...also unbelievably low. That is the kind of luck stats that I am referring to. Anyone with basic common sense can look at the ratings/graph and have a pretty good idea of how much of that is probably d/t bad rolls and how much of it is probably d/t larger #s of attacks to/from your armies.

As I've said before, once my games are done, I'm no longer sticking to wargear, as even the standard account plays no incentive to stay on here, let alone the premium account, which has more features that should be added to standard accounts, as opposed to features actually worth paying for.

emz wrote:

I don't plan on staying on wargear once my games are done. I've found another site that is ranked, by players, as being ~2x better overall, and by the looks of it, thus far, it outweighs wargear, and warfish, substantially.

Hmmmm, I'm quite curious as to what the other site is and where the ranking comes from, because if both are what I assume they are, then I definitely have some rebuttals to this comment (well, other than the site outweighing warfish ).

emz wrote:

The point of this thread is to add even more to the premium accounts and add nothing to standard accounts.

Well if you look at the new features thread, and the feature tracking spreadsheet, it looks to me like 90%+ of the new features affect standard and premium accounts the same.

You seem to be simultaneously saying that premium is not worth it, and that it is too good.  It's literally less than a dime a day. 

It sounds like you are primarily upset about getting booted when you miss your turns & I can see where you could get into a situation where that would suck.  Maybe you can convince Tom to give standard members a few vacation days a year.  Being able to see luck stats is convenient, but if you really want to see how much affect bad luck has had, you can review your history.  Yeah, not as convenient - but you can't just get rid of everything that makes Premium better than Standard - Why would anyone pay?

P.S.  I also think trickle down economics doesn't work, but I don't think that is a valid analogy here.

emz wrote:

I don't plan on staying on wargear once my games are done. I've found another site that is ranked, by players, as being ~2x better overall, and by the looks of it, thus far, it outweighs wargear, and warfish, substantially.

Perhaps you have some information that would be valuable to us. Is there a site where players (plural) rank the various Risk-based web sites? I know of a site that is run by a single person who rates Conquer Club (and its frustrated user migrated spinoff site) very highly for some reason. Has anyone been on these sites in a while? It might be good to know the features and setups of these sites. It never hurts to know what the competition does well.

I don't think it's good to alienate the standard user, but we all probably disagree as to how much and in what ways that happens here.

Hugh wrote:Has anyone been on these sites in a while?

I've never played/browsed much on Conquer Club, but I follow Major Command (the spinoff) fairly closely, or at least the Forums closely as it is in closed beta and can't join (unless someone wants to invite me!). 

Yertle wrote:

Hugh wrote:Has anyone been on these sites in a while?

I've never played/browsed much on Conquer Club, but I follow Major Command (the spinoff) fairly closely, or at least the Forums closely as it is in closed beta and can't join (unless someone wants to invite me!). 

Major Command is the one I was referring to earlier. I've already received confirmation that I will get an invite, however, they have said that they do it in batches, so I just have to wait for it.

I've seen Major Command as having the highest reviews of CC, MC, WF, WG, and others. I played a game on CC, but I wasn't too impressed with the UI or the method of play.

Ozyman wrote:

emz wrote:

The point of this thread is to add even more to the premium accounts and add nothing to standard accounts.

Well if you look at the new features thread, and the feature tracking spreadsheet, it looks to me like 90%+ of the new features affect standard and premium accounts the same.

You seem to be simultaneously saying that premium is not worth it, and that it is too good.  It's literally less than a dime a day. 

It sounds like you are primarily upset about getting booted when you miss your turns & I can see where you could get into a situation where that would suck.  Maybe you can convince Tom to give standard members a few vacation days a year.  Being able to see luck stats is convenient, but if you really want to see how much affect bad luck has had, you can review your history.  Yeah, not as convenient - but you can't just get rid of everything that makes Premium better than Standard - Why would anyone pay?

 

P.S.  I also think trickle down economics doesn't work, but I don't think that is a valid analogy here.

I can see the confusion in what I've been saying, so I'll try to put it all right here.

Premium has some features that standard should have, therefore making it too good.

Premium has few features outside of those standard-deemed features that make it worth the money that is being charged, especially when comparing it to "ToS." as you all call it.

emz wrote:

Major Command is the one I was referring to earlier.

Have you looked at how games are handled there?  I'm fairly certain that Standard members are able to play less than 10 games (perhaps only like 4ish), and that there isn't concept of Vacation (I think games have a max of 24 turn timers, although you may be able to allow another player to take your turn for you)...two concerns that you have raised on this thread.

I believe they have a 1 or maybe even 2 tier payment group, meaning pay a certain amount and get a few more features, pay more and get more features.

I also believe the guy that runs Play Risk Online (who does the reviews I assume you are referring to) also has some pretty high stock in Major Command, and pay even let some bias interfere with his Review of it.

That said, Major Command is doing some original things and they seem to have a good development group and have a great looking site and some awesome map designers.  IMO they are "the competition" which in the long run I think can help both WG and MC grow.

I think luck stats are trivial to success on this site or any other.  I don't or hardly ever look luck stats.  If you can't tell if your strategy is working or not without looking at luck stats then you are using the wrong strategy. 

Ozyman wrote:

It still sounds like maybe you are misinterpreting the undo.  Undo would only be allowed in situations where a dice-roll is not involved.  Its primary usefulness would be when you misclick something like the # of fortifies - sometimes when I play, the UI (or maybe it is me), screws up and I accidentally fortify the wrong amount - usually this is when I have to scroll to pick my fortify #.  Or maybe depending on how it is implemented - lets say you turn in cards, but then realize you didn't want to turn them in. 

In any case, it's nearly a moot point because I doubt Tom would get to it in the next year or so.

that happens to me too! sliding my mouse over the # and sometimes it sticks on the wrong amount, and won't accept a new #, even though I have not clicked on anything. Undo would be very nice for transfers.

Mad Bomber wrote:

it is 9 cents a day for premem! just do it emz

Paying off student loans, rent, tuition, books, and food is a little more important to me, financially.

Here, Here.  Premium membership should be included within the cost of an education.