Would you pay for cool features?

[uv23]

Well someone has to play devil's advocate so why not me.

Typical disclaimers. All respect intended etc. Not intended as a flame but as a reasonable counter.

"Cool features" such as the ability to search a message board are not cool but rather expected from any and all forum systems.

Stuff like private messaging or who's online, couldn't care less about. Thats what email and messenger is for.

As far as paying to get this stuff goes, I don't like it. The site already has advertising revenue. The standard web site business model is to generate revenue by using advertising, selling market data (evil) and so on. This revenue pays for hosting and domain services. I'm not following why you personally need to buy a server unless you are hosting the site yourself, which is never a good idea.

Anyways just some feedback that this thread needed.

 

[smetzger]

I said 'No', because I wouldn't be willing to pay for those extra features. Heck, I would rather have a regular NNTP newsgroup server that did threading.

But, I don't mind if you do ask for donations to get the extra features.

*:>Scott

 

[GuardianLurker]

Like others, the ones you suggest aren't interesting enough to me to pony up for. In fact, for some, I'd actually pay to keep them OFF the board.

But in principle, with the right features, I'd be interested. Unfortunately, I have no idea WHAT those features would be. Not very helpful, I know, sorry.

 

[Utrecht]

Features - could not care less about them (except the 200 user limit - that blows -

However, as others have said, this site to me is easily worth more than the price of a single d20 puchase per year - so I will gladly support.

 

[Quickbeam]

I will definitely pay to support a server upgrade (and this site in general), even if it didn't yield cool features and a custom title. Heck, of the features listed the only one I really miss is "search" any way. And if you made custom titles available, I'd probably have to solicit suggestions just to insure a proper array of acceptable monikers to choose from . I'd make the donation because I want to support this particular site out of all those available for RPG fans.

Question, though, Morrus: When would you like these donations and submissions for the custom titles? I've got my credit card at the ready, and would be happy to make the donation today.

 

[Nareau]

Some thoughts on raising money

Since we have such fantastic and professional talent frequenting these boards, why not hold some kind of raffle to win a free copy of an adventure/miniature/painting/computer game, complete with autograph?

Or do an NPR-esque fund-raising drive once a year for the boards (come up with some annoying pop-up ads that float around for a week, with a direct link to a Paypal donation page).

Or even combine these ideas with the "advanced features" membership. You become an "advanced member" by shelling out the $25; this automatically enters you in the annual raffle.

As it stands, I don't think I'd pay $25 just for avatars and searching. I come here for the content of the boards, not the frills.

 

[Umbran]

With the amount of people that would sign up for it, even 10% of the people on ENWorld signing up for this would be around 6k people if not more.

I have no idea where you got that 6,000 number from.

Check the Forums main page. The EN World forums currently have about 4,411 members.

Mind you, that's still plenty. On the Temporary boards, Morrus mentioned that the upgrade would cost something like $650 more per month than what we are using now. To cover those new costs would require... about 15% of the membership to pay $12 per year.

Personally, the custom title and private messenging aren't a big sell, but search, and the hope of a server that handles the traffic, might be. It could well be a reasonable goal.

Before launching into this, though, there's something that ought to be considered - how fast has membership been growing? Paying for a new server that can handle the current load is good. If it again fails to handle the load in six months, then we'd have to go through the whole process again, which wouldn't be so good. I'd suggest not aiming to be able to meet the current needs of the community, but the expected needs some time (say, a year?) in the future.

 

[clvrmonkey]

um... hmm...

Not a bad idea. I would have trouble convincing myself to spend my gaming budget on it vs a new book however.

Alternate fund raising?

What about a raffle? Perhaps offering something like an autographed book (Mr. Gygax?) You could think even bigger if enough people are interested. Something like an all expense paid trip to play in a game run by ___________ (piratecat would be my choice Good deals can be had on flights, such a trip could probably be accomplished for $300-500. If the buy in is $10 and and even half of the members buy a ticket thats $22000 roughly.

 

[Jeremy]

I'd pay $25/year (what's that? 50 cents a week? bah) even if I didn't get any features. Just to keep this place accessible and fast loading.

 

[CaptainCalico]

Yes if......

This site is my primary source for all things game-releated and I would be happy to pay/contribute. HOWEVER I do not use paypal, never have, never will, so I hope there will be some other avenue of payment available.