I totally understand why the premium function exists.. It is acceptable that a site wants to earn money by having extra functions only avaible for "VIP" players. Checking luck stats, being able to play more games at a time, and all that is fine. I wont complain about that...

BUT I simply can't understand why premium members are getting bonuses in the game. It is unfair, because everyone should have the same chance of winning, or else the site is wrongly constructed. Everyone should ALWAYS have the same chance of winning. Now, what are those advantages i'm talking about? Well, there are actually a few of them. Private messaging for an example. It is very useful for trucing and making plans together. I'm not a fan of trucing myself, but there certainly seems to be others who are and without the ability to make private messages in games if not being a premium member, you get a pretty big disadvantage.

Also, the game player summary should really be visible for all members. Alright, I confess you can sit and count exactly how many troops and territories everyone has, look at the rules what the minimum bonus is and count how much reinforcements everyone get. But it is extremely annoying having to do so, and it is not worth the time it takes. 

Knosken

Private messages are just a convenience.  You can send messages to that player's inbox.  This is not quite as convenient, but serves the same purpose...

As for knowing how many units you get each turn... the board game doesn't provide that information.  If you really want it that badly, throw tom a little cash money for putting this all together for us.

Krosken, I think you need to think of this a different way. "Maybe I should buy a premium membership so that I can stop having to count territories and doing math to see who is a bigger threat and so that I can make jokes with my friends or ask how the baby is with the people I play with without it being out there in the public domain."

Personally as someone who likes temporary alliances.... I use the private message more for the other reasons when playing RL friends than for alliances.

This site doesn't just want to make money. It has to make money. If the site doesn't cover it's costs than you better believe that it will gone before you know it. I don't know Tom but let's assume he has someone significant in his life... how long will they let him spend thousands of dollars for hosting, hardware, bandwith and lost labor at his real job while fixing all the stuff we break so that the rest of us can have fun and play games.... Tell us Tom how many private games are you playing right now? I bet if any it ain't much since you don't have time.  (and yes I did just use the word ain't). I can tell you how long in my house .00000001 nano seconds.

As a point of interest, I think, there are fewer advantages to having a premium membership here than on other sites like ToS. What we really pay for is the fact that it is up 99.9% of the time. (Do we know the actual percentage... because I can't remember the last time I couldn't log on.)

So good luck and pony up the money!

Edit:

I forgot to say Cheers!

Knosken wrote:

..Private messaging for an example. It is very useful for trucing and making plans together. I'm not a fan of trucing myself..

As Ed said, in-game messages are "a convenience", not an advantage.  So let's say you had private messaging. You just implied that you probably wouldn't use it yourself (to get an advantage in a game).  This should be a non-issue for you.

..Alright, I confess you can sit and count exactly how many troops and territories everyone has, look at the rules what the minimum bonus is and count how much reinforcements everyone get. But it is extremely annoying having to do so, and it is not worth the time it takes..

Once again, this falls into the category of "convenience".

But Ok, let's entertain your complaint in a constructive manner.  Let's figure out how to keep members paying (to keep the site alive) but without giving them features that make play more enjoyable (notice I didn't say advantageous).

...

Hmm...  I got nothing.

Wait!  Here's an idea. How about an alternative revenue stream model?  Yeah; that's the ticket! ..nice big pop-up ads every 10th move.   I'll bet there are some advertisers that would jump on that.  Oh wait, half the players would leave on day one and then the advertisers would leave.

Knosken, I have to agree with you in that I am a better player because I have premium membership.  But it's not because I couldn't do it without the premium features, it's because I wouldn't want to.  If you are concerned about your ratings, I strongly suggest that you make your life easier and pony up the money.

On the other hand, if you just want to play a "fair" game on WG and you really don't care about ratings, just invite a bunch of non-premium members to private games.  I'm pretty sure you're allowed to do that, right?

Knosken wrote:

Also, the game player summary should really be visible for all members. Alright, I confess you can sit and count exactly how many troops and territories everyone has, look at the rules what the minimum bonus is and count how much reinforcements everyone get. But it is extremely annoying having to do so, and it is not worth the time it takes. 

For smaller maps, such as the Risk map, this is not much time and definitely worth it. In the old days, on larger complicated maps, I use to eyeball troop counts and count the continents somewhat more closely. When a new map came out, I would play my first game knowing I would probably lose, lost in the details of continents and modifiers. After the loss, I would watch the history to get a "feel" for opponent bonuses and then play the rest of my games on that map with a vengeance. 

The stats were the number one reason I shelled out $10 in the beginning. It's extremely convenient, and that's why it's $10.

But they don't, in theory or practice for most maps, convey an edge against an opponent who knows a map but doesn't have stats.

I used two examples, but in reailty there are other advantages as well. You all seem to believe that I have the possibilty to count myself, and therefore it is not a problem. It is true that I am able to count. But it has been so complicated that it is not worth it. In real life, it is like the government forbids cars and other means of transportations, while they say "you van still walk these 100 miles through the desert. We have not made it impossible for you to meet this guy who lives over there". 

As far the financial problem goes, I believe a lot of companys would want to put up ads here. It doesn't have to be pop-ups. Just something small in the corner. On the other hand, premium is a easy way to achieve the same goal; earning money to run the site. 

All I want is the premium to be only for the purpose of having more to do, having interesting stats and so on, and not for getting advantages in the game. You are of course right that one can use the private messaging for making alliances, i'll take that back. But there ARE, and I wont back down on that matter, advantages with having premium.

Knosken wrote:

... In real life, it is like the government forbids cars and other means of transportations, while they say "you van still walk these 100 miles through the desert. We have not made it impossible for you to meet this guy who lives over there". 

 

...

 

All I want is the premium to be only for the purpose of having more to do, having interesting stats and so on, and not for getting advantages in the game. You are of course right that one can use the private messaging for making alliances, i'll take that back. But there ARE, and I wont back down on that matter, advantages with having premium.

 

For your first comment, you've actually given a logical argument for why the Premium membership exists.  In your example, the premium membership is the car/train/aircraft that allows you to meet the guy.  In that example just as on this site, you pay money to have the convenience of arriving at your destination in a shorter time vs. walking.  However, unlike in your example, the site administrators don't forbid you to have a premium membership.

For your second comment, please elaborate on the other advantages you see for premium membership vs. standard membership that have not already been addressed.  At this moment, most players feel the premium account features are convenient, not required to win games.  Most premium members here would agree that the premium account should not give an unfair advantage.

Making a claim/argument that premium features give an unfair advantage should be supported by logic that makes sense to the majority of players.

Every couple of months it seems like we get a thread complaining about the premium features.  Last time (if IIRC) it was over vacation and luck stats. I sympathize because having a couple vacation days is really useful, and having this info box is really useful also.  But if features keep going to non-premium, at some point there is not much left just for premium members, and the only people paying are those who want to support the site altruistically.  That's not sustainable.

I actually would vote to give everyone a couple days of vacation per month and the info box, but only if Tom also added some more premium only features.  I've made suggestions along those lines in the past - here is another suggested premium feature that I think would be hard to claim gives premium members an advantage:

To decide the "next" improvement to wargear, Tom holds a public vote (he chooses the candidates from the suggestions list himself, so he can keep out things he doesn't feel like working on).  Only premium members get to vote.

Of course Tom can also be working on anything else he wants, but the winner of the vote would get a higher precedence than it normally would have had.

Ozyman wrote:...I've made suggestions along those lines in the past - here is another suggested premium feature that I think would be hard to claim gives premium members an advantage:

To decide the "next" improvement to wargear, Tom holds a public vote (he chooses the candidates from the suggestions list himself, so he can keep out things he doesn't feel like working on).  Only premium members get to vote.

Of course Tom can also be working on anything else he wants, but the winner of the vote would get a higher precedence than it normally would have had.

This is a cool idea.  Premium membership analogous to "citizenship" and the right to vote.

Ozyman wrote:

Every couple of months it seems like we get a thread complaining about the premium features.  

I believe at one point the ability to make boards was a request for standard members because at the time it was premium only, which in the end tom set up standard members to be able to create/submit one board, with unlimited being the premium perk.  

In short, tom listens to constructive feedback and make a case for something and some sort of alternative and it could change things!

Knosken wrote:

I used two examples, but in reailty there are other advantages as well. You all seem to believe that I have the possibilty to count myself, and therefore it is not a problem. It is true that I am able to count. But it has been so complicated that it is not worth it.

Again, you should _estimate_, not count! I know from having been non-Premium and from playing a lot without stats in the old days that I am just as strong without the stats once I know a map. I make the same decisions. It can be done, quite easily, and it's not like it's rocket surgery. Maybe the general population is so lazy that most people just won't take the 30 seconds to _estimate_ (not count) units - I'll give you that, but it certainly isn't complicated or time consuming and it is well worth it. So, on an individual level, I strongly disagree, but I'll concede the possibility that the general population's skill suffers. If it's truly bothersome, there's a nice $10 solution :)

Knosken wrote:

All I want is the premium to be only for the purpose of having more to do, having interesting stats and so on, and not for getting advantages in the game. You are of course right that one can use the private messaging for making alliances, i'll take that back. But there ARE, and I wont back down on that matter, advantages with having premium.

Here's one: In the battle for either Top Global Ranking or Top Championship Points, volume matters. By being limited to 10 games, non-Premium members are quite limited in that competition. I too believe in the sanctity of competition, so this doesn't settle well with me. Generally speaking, I like the model of making sure there's lots of traffic, Premium or otherwise. It is the # of memberships we wish to maximize, not the efficiency of the users-to-memberships ratio.

Hugh wrote:

I like the model of making sure there's lots of traffic, Premium or otherwise. It is the # of memberships we wish to maximize, not the efficiency of the users-to-memberships ratio.

But with no advertisements, standard memberships cost Tom money, while Premium memberships earn money.  So if there are few premium members and lots of standard members, won't wargear go out of business?

Ozyman wrote:

Hugh wrote:

I like the model of making sure there's lots of traffic, Premium or otherwise. It is the # of memberships we wish to maximize, not the efficiency of the users-to-memberships ratio.

But with no advertisements, standard memberships cost Tom money, while Premium memberships earn money.  So if there are few premium members and lots of standard members, won't wargear go out of business?

Yes, and nowhere did I suggest that the ratio go to zero or that it be allowed to drop revenues. Here's what I'm saying: 10,000 users with 5% memberships doesn't generate as much revenue as 200,000 users with 1% memberships. You do have to factor cost, but it's the internet, so you can't use the same logic as you would for coffee shop loungers. As far as I understand, the costs don't scale quite the same, but there are costs to scaling. (Those are made up numbers, BTW: everything I'm saying is speculative and there is one correct person who has the information to make such decisions, and it definitely isn't me!!)

I do know that what I'm saying isn't absolutely ridiculous. To increase my blasphemy, I'd be willing to bet WF owed more of its revenues (now or its glory days) to volume than efficiency. It does have an interesting way to encourage both memberships and traffic. There is more than one business model under the sun.

From the perspective of a new member I can say two things:

1. The cost of premium membership is extremely reasonable.  It hardly costs anything, so I dont' think there can be any strong arguments contending that the cost prevents someone from being a premium member.  So everyone, join up and get the benefits.

2. Premium membership benefits are convenient and do not convey any substantial competitive advantage.

Back on ToS I played for a year or so without a premium membership, and I was really good.. I got the premium membership so that I would be able to start custom games, but quickly found that what I really wanted was the stats, not because I had to have them to be good (see above) but that it saved me time and effort.  This to me seems like a perfect benefit for premium.

Private messaging.. I hardly ever do that, and I don't think anyone would say my play suffers much for it.

Not being limited to 10 games I think makes great sense as a premium feature.  It does not effect your chance of winning on any particular game, and I would disagree with Hugh about it significantly effecting your global rating.  With a limited number of games it will take longer to gain points and reach your equilibrium rating, but once you are there, the volume of games played does not really impact your rating. 

On the other hand, it certainly does limit your ability to gain championship points.  That being said, championship points are really sort of tangential to playing risk in general.  I would be lying if I said that the championship point system wasn't one of my favorite aspects of the site, but if I had to choose between rankings and having a beautiful, well maintained site with amazing map content.. I would certainly choose the latter.

BlackDog wrote:

Not being limited to 10 games I think makes great sense as a premium feature.  It does not effect your chance of winning on any particular game, and I would disagree with Hugh about it significantly effecting your global rating.  With a limited number of games it will take longer to gain points and reach your equilibrium rating, but once you are there, the volume of games played does not really impact your rating. 

Hmmm, I made a post a while back complete with computer simulations indicating how long it can take to reach equilibrium. Perhaps it went unnoticed :)

From a competitive purity perspective, I don't like the idea that the top stats of the site are likely to be amongst the population of Premium members (with a few stray counterexamples - people who've been around long enough to have reached equilibrium and accumulated CPs).

Of course, that I don't like it is tangential to the discussion, especially since it's not a make or break thing for someone like me, and there really aren't a bunch of people who have such tastes anyway.

BlackDog wrote:

Back on ToS I played for a year or so without a premium membership, and I was really good.. I got the premium membership so that I would be able to start custom games, but quickly found that what I really wanted was the stats, not because I had to have them to be good (see above) but that it saved me time and effort.  This to me seems like a perfect benefit for premium.

Against the original poster, I also think stats is a perfect Premium feature, and a huge draw for a lot of people.

Regarding the 10 game limit, look at what you just wrote. Think back to your first days on ToS. What was the draw of Premium? How did you arrive there? It's exactly what you said: "I got the premium so that I would be able to start custom games." If you were anything like me, you were part of a circle of people who stumbled on this cool site for playing Risk, one in the circle got Premium, started games on a really cool map. You were okay having to be invited by the Premium member for a while, but eventually you caved so that you could have that kind of control and start games on cool maps.

What I liked about that model is how it fostered growth. Fringe players were content to hang on through invites. Some people got hooked (you got hooked quicker with unlimited games!), and those people inevitably needed the Premium. The barrier between Standard and Premium is important: once you've crossed the line you're more likely to stay and be comfortable shelling the very reasonable $10 out.... but it's getting to that point where you feel you need it.

I might be wrong: Maybe people are hooked with a 10 game limit and know they need more and that's what gets them... but I wonder.

Hugh wrote:

BlackDog wrote:

Back on ToS I played for a year or so without a premium membership, and I was really good.. I got the premium membership so that I would be able to start custom games, but quickly found that what I really wanted was the stats, not because I had to have them to be good (see above) but that it saved me time and effort.  This to me seems like a perfect benefit for premium.

Against the original poster, I also think stats is a perfect Premium feature, and a huge draw for a lot of people.

Regarding the 10 game limit, look at what you just wrote. Think back to your first days on ToS. What was the draw of Premium? How did you arrive there? It's exactly what you said: "I got the premium so that I would be able to start custom games." If you were anything like me, you were part of a circle of people who stumbled on this cool site for playing Risk, one in the circle got Premium, started games on a really cool map. You were okay having to be invited by the Premium member for a while, but eventually you caved so that you could have that kind of control and start games on cool maps.

What I liked about that model is how it fostered growth. Fringe players were content to hang on through invites. Some people got hooked (you got hooked quicker with unlimited games!), and those people inevitably needed the Premium. The barrier between Standard and Premium is important: once you've crossed the line you're more likely to stay and be comfortable shelling the very reasonable $10 out.... but it's getting to that point where you feel you need it.

I might be wrong: Maybe people are hooked with a 10 game limit and know they need more and that's what gets them... but I wonder.

If I were to take my own playing only, I think the 10 game limit and the stats in game were both important to me... personally I don't care about the luck stats. I have to say that I'm sure I started premium over at ToS for the same reason.... I loved playing certain boards and I hated waiting for people to invite me to them. My friends got sick of me bugging them and told me to buy a membership and I did.  

Again only taking my current playing, and not my altruism about this sight, with two kids and three jobs I have 7 games going and I barely ever look at the stats since I know the boards I play pretty well, even if I don't play them that well.  I could cancel my membership and it wouldn't affect my playing at all.

Maybe it is time to consider pulling some of the most popular games behind the premium wall. You can join but you can't start them. "Antastic" being the first board I would imagine. Maybe the board maker could get a discount on his membership. 

What do you think?

Strongly disagree with that last point.  I think you'd see membership drop off sharply by making Premium membership required to start games.

AttilaTheHun wrote:

Strongly disagree with that last point.  I think you'd see membership drop off sharply by making Premium membership required to start games.

Although I understand your point, I was only mentioning the option of moving starting a game on a single popular board behind the firewall so to speak. Antastic is, based on my understanding, the most popular board other than the Wargear Warfare. Just thinking about how to create the incentive Hugh mentioned from ToS and that I myself remember. OTH I hated buying individual boards other than that the money, in theory, was going to the mapmakers.