I saw some posts on people complaining about Standard vs Premium membership, and it got me thinking.  What if I sponsored a tournament (a large one) and gifted to the winner a free 3 month premium membership (or extension if they are already premium)?  Has anyone ever done that before?  I'd be willing to sponsor one every few months, perhaps.

Would having a reward like that cause any problems, and/or encourage cheating?  Standard Risk board, with 2 players? 3 players?

And of course, tom would have to approve of it.

Thoughts?

In that it is set up so you can pay for a premium membership for other players, it certainly wouldn't be difficult to implement.

How about if it were set up so the tournament auto-invited every standard member?

BRILLIANT!!!

it's been done in the past (gifting of memberships) and i think i was part of a tourney with that as the reward. I think the host of the tourney worked out the particulars with tom (host paid for x amount, and tom altered the membership of winner/host).

i kinda like the idea of an invite to all active standard members, only problem is that you (or whomever) in starting the tourney are part of the tourney, so you'd have to caveat it with if you win, then 2nd place gets the reward.

Very cool idea.  +1

Already done but still very cool

http://www.wargear.net/forum/showthread/1831/Free_Premium_Membership_Tournament

I suggest an Antastic 1 vs 1 Total fog tournament. Would be a great opportunity for me to venture into these tourneys.

Slander, a bastard/devil to face in game with a matching pic seems semi saintly now...

itsnotatumor wrote:

Slander, a bastard/devil to face in game with a matching pic seems semi saintly now...

Oh, I'm just an old loveable little devil.

And I checked the payment options, and it appears you can now easily gift a membership to any other player, so it would be easy to payoff at the end.

Great Idea!

Ok, it's on!!

http://www.wargear.net/tournaments/view/1049

Good luck all.  Invite your friends.

Slander wrote:

... Invite your friends.

I see your tournament takes time to fill in.

Why not posting it on major games forums saying it's only for new members joining before the end of april for example ? Tom would have to adapt the site also to make the size of the tournnament fit to the number of new members.

I'll probably just cancel it and try again with a smaller tournament, and I'll set it up with 2 player games.  Just need to sit down and do it.

Ok, tournament cancelled and replaced with this one: http://www.wargear.net/tournaments/view/1076

Tom should run one of these every 6 months, newbies with basic accounts should be auto enroled

Aiken Drumn wrote:

Tom should run one of these every 6 months, newbies with basic accounts should be auto enroled

Given a choice between "standard members get good things because Tom gives it to them" and "We have some premium members who are randomly nice to people they feel are deserving", I prefer the latter.  I think that it awesome that this is being done by a random user.

I've got a pretty solid suspicion based on my guesstimate of numbers of users and membership fees that this is mostly a labor of love for Tom.  Random generosity is therefore good in that it makes standard members happy, and good because it helps cover Tom's costs.