Having always bought the 3 month premium, I switched to buying the 1 year premium membership recently. I noticed the following :

• Purchasing 3 month's premium membership gives you 10 days of vacation.
• Purchasing 1 year's premium membership gives you 30 days of vacation.

That seems interesting to me.

So, while the site incentives you to buy the yearly premium in terms of cost (30 US$ vs 4x10US$), it disincentives you in terms of vacation days available.

Noticed that this last time I renewed and decided to buy the year.

I almost asked Tom about it.

It's kinda fair I guess.  You basically get 1 vacation day per dollar.

If you want a deal & can afford it - go for the 5 year pack.  It's $99, but I believe you get 30 days each year, so 150 days total.

Ozyman wrote:

It's kinda fair I guess.  You basically get 1 vacation day per dollar.

If you want a deal & can afford it - go for the 5 year pack.  It's $99, but I believe you get 30 days each year, so 150 days total.

I'm reasonably sure the last bit is wrong.You don't get 150 extra days at a go.

• Purchasing 5 year's premium membership gives you 30 days of vacation each year.
• All items above are subject to a maximum accrual of 60 days vacation.

Seems to suggest that on buying a 5 year membership, you will get 30 extra vacation days at the start of every year of those 5. i.e. The same (in terms of vacation days) as renewing the 1 year membership each time.

While 5 years is certainly cheaper, I'm not sure if the site will last more than 3 years (need at least that much for the 5 year thing to be cost effective). I've been on WarGear for slightly under a year. While I am absolutely hooked, given the repeated outages during that time, I worry about the sites future.

Yes, you are right, it is 30 each year. 

I also worry about the future of wargear, although I'm feeling a lot better since the server migration.  I don't know how many people on wargear are still around from the ToS (The Old Site, i.e. WarFish), but I think I was traumatized by that whole thing.

ToS was "that OTHER site", IIRC...

between work blocking WG (which is no longer the case!! woo hoo) and the trauma of the site stability; i'm still not back to 2016 levels (either in # of games, forum activity, or likely game skill - tho that really was never as high to begin with).

I'll try to be a 'bit' more active in the forums again now that work allows me access (will have to see how long before that ...mistake... gets corrected). And by a bit, I mean i'll check more than a couple times a month! maybe couple times a week!

weathertop wrote:

between work blocking WG (which is no longer the case!! woo hoo)

woo hoo!1

I'm open to ideas about how to structure membership fees and vacation more fairly... I agree it currently incentivises 3 month instead of annual memberships which is the wrong way around!

ps wt glad to hear your work isn't blocking WG any more... I wonder what changed!

tom wrote:

I'm open to ideas about how to structure membership fees and vacation more fairly... I agree it currently incentivises 3 month instead of annual memberships which is the wrong way around!

I don't really think that the current way is unfair. It is just interesting. In this way, those who want more vacation days, can pay slightly extra for it. I certainly don't have any issue with doing so when I will need extra days off.The majority of the premium members would still be incentivised to buy the yearly membership due to the cost (I believe that is a bigger factor for most, as they may find 30 vacation days to be enough).

However, if you do want to change things to incentivise the yearly membership in every aspect, there is a simple change needed. One of the following would need to be done:

1) Since 3 months gives you 10 vacation days, change 1 year to 40 days. And 5 years to 40 days a year.

2) Or change 3 months to 7 vacation days. So, 4 times 3 months gives 28 days, while a year gives 30 days.

Pratik wrote:

While 5 years is certainly cheaper, I'm not sure if the site will last more than 3 years (need at least that much for the 5 year thing to be cost effective). I've been on WarGear for slightly under a year. While I am absolutely hooked, given the repeated outages during that time, I worry about the sites future.

Was reading your post and thought I'd check my account seeing as how time flies. My 5-year membership will expire in June of 2019, so I'm into my fourth year on that payment ;P

Gone are the days when Tom was very active building and expanding the site's features ..for both players and designers, and with a lot of input from the community. For instance, the idea of factories and how they worked pretty much came out of forum discussions, so it should come as no surprise that the forums were much more active back then. Anyway, I do worry about the longevity of the site (because I have boards on it that I not only designed, but still play) and so over time I've come to view my  my membership dues as an investment that keeps the site alive - not the other way around.