Here's my idea of how to handle finances instead of the standard, "Pay for Premium" and "Pay for Boards" ideas:

Players are allowed to buy "Points" from WarGear; if you'd like, I can come up with slightly clever/corny names for the points if anyone wants (example: with Warfish, I wanted to call them, "Fish Scales").  The price of points would be something to the effect of:

$1.00 = 30 pts

$5.00 = 175 pts.

$10.00 = 400 pts.

$20.00 = 1000 pts.

Then, you can "buy" things with your points:

• 1 month Premium = 150 pts
• 3 months Premium = 400 pts
• 12 months Premium = 1,000 pts
• Lifetime Premium = 10,000 pts
• You can also break up specific benefits of Premium like; 1 Week Vacation Period = 30 pts

Board designers could then designate how many points it would cost for their boards to be played:

• Starting 1 game = 0 - 50 pts
• Owning a copy of the board = 0 - 1000 pts

This system also allows for more interesting games to be played with points at stake:

• Players would be allowed to create "Wager Games," where each player has a buy-in of a predetermined number of points and then the winner(s) either take them all, or get a cut of the pot.
• We could also have tournaments (hosted by the site admins to prevent devious attempts to gain) with a buy-in amount and then point awards to the winner(s).

Of course, WarGear would be able to collect a small percentage of points spent on games and boards to account for its costs.  I'm thinking for private wager games, the pot may devided 100% the way the host chooses, but it will cost them a small number of points (1 -5) to start the game.  Public wager games have a standard system of; 25% to WarGear, 50% to 1st place (divided evenly between teammates) 20% to 2nd place, and 5% to third place.

Also to protect the asset liability of WarGear, the points would have no redeemable monetary value, but a system would be in place for those with unneeded points to offer them up for sale (at standard rates) to players who are looking to purchase them.  This way, a player would be able to "cash-out," but WarGear would not have to set aside specific funds that could be used to help further develop the site.

Open for discussion...

Sorry Toaster, but I disagree. Here are my reasons:

1. The player is already paying for a Premium membership one way or another, adding a potential additional cost to play a map on top of that is not acceptable. Paying to "own" a copy of the map I still support.

2. As a designer, I do not want to be "paid" in points. They have no value to me and I have already put enough hard work into making the actual map, I don't want an extra level of making an effort to convert my points into cash later.

3. This might be the biggest problem, the gambling. This is almost as bad as Steven's idea of "paying for a re-roll". If there becomes an option to wager on games, then the entire concept of the game changes and the focus leans entirely on winning, and nothing else. No more enjoying the map, having fun with friends. I know that the wager games would be optional, but even having that ability changes the site overall. Bottom line, gambling is addictive and I will personally leave the site if this ever comes around.

-- I hope I wasn't harsh. I don't mean to be completely contrary to your entire idea Toaster; I just think that we can come up with a better idea as a group. :)

While the Gambling idea is somewhat cool (giving more cost/reward for a game), I think that would have to be a site all by itself. Merging it in with a site like this would be questionable and could cause huge headaches with backstabbing/multiple accounts/taxes (especially if you win a lot!)/etc.

There is no reason to cheat at this game unless you are neurotic. If you add gambling, you add a real reason to cheat. I had never heard of the re-roll idea, that's truly horrible.

Points systems are too complex, I don't have the time or patience to have to think hmm, do I want to join this game and spend x of my y points? Life is too short for that kinda carp.

The ideas of say, offering some more vacation days for some more $$ makes good sense. Doesn't give anyone an advantage in a game, and man if you're taking that much vacation you can afford a few more ducets.

Some sort of points system for board designers that operates in the background might make sense. Something like, for every game played on your board you get a point, and for every x points you get a day added to your premium membership. Excluding games played by the designer, of course.

Without a tournament system I can't think of a good reason that I would have to purchase a game board.

Without a tournament system I can't think of a good reason that I would have to purchase a game board.

Without a GOOD tournament system there is still no reason to purchase a game board.

Good point, which is why I haven't purchased any boards on WF.

Well, my historical problems with PayPal when I was doing Ebay sales is the primary reason, but if that didn't exist I still would not buy any.

Which brings up a point, are you going to offer any way to purchase subscriptions other than Paypal?

I kind of like the idea of the points system as suggested, but agree that gambling is a bad idea. However, the ability to gift points may be a way to provide a prize system for tournaments (although it could also be easily abused I suppose).

Vataro wrote: I kind of like the idea of the points system as suggested, but agree that gambling is a bad idea. However, the ability to gift points may be a way to provide a prize system for tournaments (although it could also be easily abused I suppose).

Lol "gift points" = gambling :P

Hence why I said it could be easily abused. :P

The current Warfish reasoning for buying a board is totally broken and backwards. You're right, there's no reason to buy a map except to start a tournament. That's something I always figured ought to come as a privilege of paid membership. Make versioning (modding), rule-changes & customizations, greater flexibility in starting public games the benefits of owning a map. Still nothing super compelling, but it at least makes sense.

my thoughts on payments are that the author of a board will have a set price for unlimited play (tournament/ranked/open) but there should be a option. if some one wants to start a tournament and they haven't "bought" the board they can buy a single tournament creation for that board for a specified number of ranked games that they can start.

eg. board XXX has a unlimited price of $5.00 but you can buy a single tournament package of the board for $1.00 or the ability to start 5 ranked games for $1.00

i'm fine with paying X amount for membership, but what is that membership going to be beneficial for? the only thing on WF that i really use +membership for is the secret messaging (HUGE option, i'm hoping this place has - haven't found out yet).

i like the ability to play normal games without purchasing the board as i don't want to spend money to find out its a board i don't like. i'm fine with buying a board to start a tourney, and up to the designer to set the price (note that i'll completely avoid buying those that cost more than a couple bucks).

while i think a limited vacation policy is good, it is nice to be able to just set it for the weekend if you know you're going to your inlaws who don't have a computer. add up all those wknd trips and the week for deer hunting and then the holidays, 30 days comes up awful quick, so either having more, or the ability to add a week for a SMALL fee (i'm fine with the $1 amount) might be ok too.

Okay, shot it full of holes. Before the idea goes down in flames, let me rebut.

Let me preface the whole thing, and hopefully give you guys a better idea of where I come from, by mentioning that I work in a video arcade. The most profitable thing in an arcade are what are called, "redemption games." You know, those silly games that take a little skill and a little luck and then it spits out tickets for you. You can then go redeem the tickets for fun little prizes that you enjoy for a day or two and then throw away.

I didn't initially plan for my idea to model the redemption game system, but upon reflection, they are very similar. I would also like to point out that the points idea is a business plan that it designed to keep the site running and improving. Hosting costs can add up quickly. In the future, it would be nice if things could progress to the point of needing additional paid staff to keep all things running full steam.
Now, along the lines of a business, this model would be designed in mind to have the only professionals being the people at WarGear, not designers or players.

Okay, now I'll address all concerns individually:
Doom
1. I think you're misunderstanding what I was going for here. If you've paid to own the board then you don't have to pay points each time you want to start a game. The idea is that you can play a board a couple of times for relatively few points and then decide if you'd like to buy it. Think of it as a rental fee. Of course, designers can set their boards to have "free rentals for Premium members," or "free ownership for Premium members." That's up to the designer to decide.
2. The points would have value if you used them. You can keep your Premium membership going with points. You can buy other boards with your points. You can give away points to players who impress you, or win a tournament you hosted. In the future, you might be able to exchange the points for T-shirts and other cool WarGear swag. The "cash-out" system would be a painless click of a button; less effort that Warfish. The difference would be that instead of WarGear now being "on the hook" for your money; your request would enter a queue for the sale of points. The next time a player wanted to purchase points; they would simply buy the next players points in the queue instead of having WarGear generate new points.
3. Just because it would be an option, doesn't mean that it would become the one and only way. I envision two game queues; one for standard games, and one for wager games. If you don't want to play in a wager game, then don't even look at the list. Equating this to the re-roll idea is not at all fair. This would simply be an incentive add-on, not a circumvention of the rules with $$$.

Yertle
The point wagers would be regulated to make the incentives small at best. As in, the average public wager game would have 40 points at stake (4-player, 10 pts buy-in); this equates to roughly an $0.80 (USD) pot. WarGear gets (25%) $0.20, the winner only gets $0.40 ($0.20 net after buy-in cost). Even if you're cheating your way to winning 100 games/month you're still only making $20/month. And if you're playing enough multiple accounts to make the profits worth it then you'd be making a big enough splash to be caught by the administrators and banned.

IRoll11s
It would be one pop-up dialogue when you go to join a wager game, "This is a 4 player wager game. The buy-in amount is 10 pts. You currently own 255 pts. Would you like to join the game?" [Yes] [No]



I may have patched enough holes to keep her in the air. I guess you can keep shooting though...

Cramchakle wrote: The current Warfish reasoning for buying a board is totally broken and backwards. You're right, there's no reason to buy a map except to start a tournament. That's something I always figured ought to come as a privilege of paid membership. Make versioning (modding), rule-changes & customizations, greater flexibility in starting public games the benefits of owning a map. Still nothing super compelling, but it at least makes sense.

Not sure why you say this - you can't play a game on a Warfish non-free board unless you pay for it so isn't that an incentive to buy it?

The problem I always had was that I wanted to play the board to see if it was any good first before shelling out for it so I wanted a way to allow players to evaluate a board at least once before having to but it to get repeat plays.

tom wrote:

Not sure why you say this - you can't play a game on a Warfish non-free board unless you pay for it so isn't that an incentive to buy it?

The problem I always had was that I wanted to play the board to see if it was any good first before shelling out for it so I wanted a way to allow players to evaluate a board at least once before having to but it to get repeat plays.

I say this because I always made my boards available for free with the option to purchase. Part of my goal as a designer is simply to have people play and enjoy my maps. The purchases are just a lucky side-effect. Except, I never found much motivation, aside from leaving a tip, to actually purchase a board available as mine are/were.

What if paid members got to play for free, and non-members always have to buy the individual boards? Just a thought.

Cramchakle wrote:

What if paid members got to play for free, and non-members always have to buy the individual boards? Just a thought.

OK so are we agreed that the WF system works pretty well where designers release boards as pay to play only, we just need to fix the situation where designers release a board for free but would like to incentivise a purchase regardless.

I don't really plan to implement the concept of modding from WF, I think it's overly complex and it's not used by many people (correct me if I'm wrong), the only time I have played a mod done by someone other than the original designer is Pre-Beta and your Wizard vs Wizard mod. So we're left with the following incentives to purchase:

1. Tournament play
2. Rule changes

Any others? It's not very compelling so far...

ps Toaster I'm sorry the points system does not sound that great!

I have to weigh in against a mod system.

Too many choices can backfire. There have been studies done in that respect, where the more choices someone has the less happy they are with the choice they eventually make.

Now rule changes are in effect mods, so you can make a mod of a board by changing the rules. I wouldn't miss the 15 released mods to fix borders or other errors, and you won't need them anyway since of COURSE these will be caught before a board is approved. Mods to change artwork always struck me as stepping on someone's toes (with obvious exceptions such as Krock's Mod Contest and People Who Have Left WF). So I think you can have most of the benefits of Mods without having the huge mess of choice when starting a game.

You might want to make secret messages paid only. It's something that is extremely useful for playing well, and almost worthless if you're just playing randomly. In other words not enough to make a casual player quit the site, but incentive enough for a serious player to pay for.

Well, I used mods pretty extensively. Part of the reasoning, though, was that the mods were the only place to add some features, and also it offered ways to get past some of the limitations of the warfish board creator.

Graphically, I released a lot of my boards with a variety of themes. There are at least 3 Hordes! mods, including the standard Parchment Map, a Computer Screen-style Satellite like view, the original 100kb basic blue ocean, and I have/had others in the works. It would be silly to release all of those as individual boards, as they are essentially the same game with a different skin. Same with my Wizards graphic mods, my Tank Battle graphics mod, and a few others.

I more-or-less agree with IRoll11's in that we don't need to allow other people to do graphic mods of someone else's board. I may have done a lot of that on Warfish, but I also didn't really want anyone else tinkering with mine.

I know Cumberdale made his Mortal Kombat map with a dozen or so mods, each one having a battle between different characters. But again, same game, different skin.

Your "Scenario" feature in the map design tool takes care of the primary reason for mods, which was to create scenarios. In warfish, you couldn't do this in the base map maker. Though, sometimes its nice to have a variety of scenario options. For example, in Fallout, the ranked game is neutrals on the roads and a free-for-all. There is a 3v1 mod where one person starts in the Canadien fort and everyone else is in the open on a team. That scenario is pretty specific, and doesn't make for much of a ranked game (teams and assymetry). It's nice to have it tucked away as something for people to do as a diversion without taking up a spot as its own map.

Other features on warfish only available in mods that were must haves for a veteran map-maker were Default Game Names, Default Player Names, Custom Player Colors, starting cards and reserve armies, Team Scenarios. These could easily be implemented into the base board designer here.

I'm not at all opposed to having no mod system so long as the base map designer is flexible and robust enough to handle all the little details (such as the ones I mentioned). I would like to see the ability to add more than one graphical skin to the same board.

Nevermind, I think I've figured out the answer.

Cramchakle wrote:

Other features on warfish only available in mods that were must haves for a veteran map-maker were Default Game Names, Default Player Names, Custom Player Colors, starting cards and reserve armies, Team Scenarios. These could easily be implemented into the base board designer here.

You may have meant Custom Player Colors as in mod-enforced player colors for certain positions? Plain old custom player colors you can do from the base designer.

The perks offered by WF Plus membership that I used were, in ascending order of importance: vacation time, secret messaging, and the Stats tab (clutch if, like me, you're too illiterate/lazy to use plugins). I truly can't play without Plus because of that last one. I could live without secret messaging if I had to although I'm fairly certain I use it in Ranked games more than anyone else on the site.