Fellow MechHeads and Forum Warriors, First, I apologize for the TL;DR - Text Wall of Doom but it is necessary. As you may be aware, there is a new forum platform system coming for MechSpecs. This software is called XenForo and it is far more robust than the current free based software we have been using for the last couple of years. Evolve or die right? PGI did it, MWO is doing it and so is MechSpecs. What does this mean for you, the regular guy who stops by to read stuff and get advice? Nothing. You can continue to come here day in and day out and check out the builds, participate in the various discussions, polls, rants, whatever. It will be the same as it has always been; on the public side of things. On the private/Benefactor side of things there are going to be a large number of changes. First of which is going to be a membership based system. That is right, I said membership based system. If you are going to have access to Valhalla (as well as all the content that will be housed there) then, in the new system, you are going to have to donate to get there. I say donate because nobody is forcing anyone to subscribe / participate in that section. All the builds and everything you currently see is still available in the public section but there will be a bunch more stuff that is restricted/private that you won't have access too unless you are promoted into those groups. What is Valhalla? If you have ever read the Battletech books then you might recognize this name. Valhalla is the bar where the Solaris Champions could eat, drink and do business away from the unwashed masses. It was the for the elite, the best of the best. What will this cost? That all depends on what level you want to go with. Allow me to break it down. 2 Month Starter: $2.00 6 Month Upgrade: $5.00 12 Month Upgrade: $10.00 Lifetime Upgrade: $25.00 Space Pimp Upgrade: $50.00 What if you are already a Benefactor or donated sums larger than above? Well, I'm going to be auditing the Benefactors log and cleaning them out retroactively. There is a caveat to that thought; let me break it down for you. $10 to ?? during this pledge drive will receive automatic basic lifetime membership and full content privileges. What does this mean? Anyone who donates during this pledge drive (which has been going for a few days and goes till the end of October) of $10.00 or more will receive lifetime membership when the new system goes active. Yes, I am paying attention to this quite closely. I repeat, anyone donating $10.00, or more, during this pledge drive, will automatically get set up with a lifetime access to Valhalla. What if I have donated in the past? $50 (total cumulative) or more over the years? If you have donated a cumulative total of $50.00 over the course of the years then you will receive a lifetime membership of the Space Pimp level (this will be our Deluxe level). Yes, I said Space Pimp. There will be some goodies that Space Pimps get that others do not. There are a few of you guys out there so don't worry, we have you covered. $25 (total cumulative) or more over the years? Automatic basic lifetime membership. $20 (total cumulative) or more? Automatic 20 month basic subscription to Valhalla. What happens if I donated $20 three months ago Michael? Then I will go through and set the manual expiration date based on your donation. So you would expire in 17 months. $1/month * 20 = 20 months - 3 for the past three months. Simple, right? If you donated $2.00 two years ago then you are out of luck as your membership will long since have expired. I will be going through the existing Benefactors user group and auditing for these types of things. Why is this being done? Because several things are happening. MechSpecs has grown to the point that it requires 400-500 a year in expenses for bandwidth alone (VPS costs). That has to come from somewhere and a few people have been donating large sums to help keep this site running. While it is appreciated it shouldn't fall to them to cover as much when it can be spread among everyone who is serious about MWO. The ad system (the Google Ads) is going to be phased out. Anyone and everyone who has a package will not be bothered with stuff like that. In the current system it was something I had to go and manually change but in the new system, due to the progressive membership options, there will be zero banner ads for people. Sure, some of you run Ad Blocker type stuff but you've been missing out on a lot of content cause secret messages are hidden in the banners. I swear! Another reason is that we are going to be developing a content system that will include in depth articles, videos, even twitch stream stuff. Some will be for the general public and some will be restricted to Benefactors. Finally, if you are serious about MWO then you will want access to where the big boys discuss stuff. Where the guys who eat, sleep, breath MWO are doing the talking and not being drowned out by the masses of players who always think they are right. What is that saying from The Rock? "Your 'best'! Losers always whine about their best. Winners go home and fuck the prom queen". Well Champions belong in Vahalla. Some people will like this idea, some people will not. To borrow a line from another great show; "Nimen de bizui! Way it is is the way it is. We got to deal with what's in front of us." Regards, MechSpecs Team
So where do I pledge my ship? Or should I say the Mauler/Unseen package? No ads? I mean, 400-500 a year is quite some $$$, and the ad from google would pay for some of it at least. I do manage to click on it once in a while, if reasonable ads shows up.
LOL Right? Actually the Star Citizen project I have put together will be utilizing the same system, and the same membership model, but all the costs for that have already been covered by the core group involved with it. We are just waiting on some revamp work by Smurfy once he gets back in to the fold. [quote author=enileph link=topic=8086.msg54709#msg54709 date=1411887900] No ads? I mean, 400-500 a year is quite some $$$, and the ad from google would pay for some of it at least. I do manage to click on it once in a while, if reasonable ads shows up. [/quote] It is a fair amount. The last couple of years we have managed to cover it but it has required some large donations and a bit of money out of pocket here and there if we go over. The ads DO help offset the extra costs yes but a lot of people find them annoying and intrusive. I'm going to set it so that guests see them everywhere, members see them in one area and Benefactors do not see them at all. I suppose if there are Benefactors that DO want to see them I can find a way to set that up I just didn't think anyone WANTED to see the ads. The weird thing is that even if MWO has been in a slump the bandwidth costs have continued to increase a little bit each quarter. Guests eat up a LOT of that, and I mean a LOT. XenForo will allow me to restrict what all guests can see which will cut down on a little bit of the bandwidth costs and hopefully the CPU costs; they won't be able to see sig files, use the search feature, view members list or members profile. That should shave down a bit of the white noise generated by guests. We've reached enough to get the XenForo license portion of this drive so I will begin that portion; probably next weekend when I have some time to really sit down and begin the installation process. Once that is done I can begin skinning things here and there and then get everything ready for when we reach the milestone that will allow the migration. This weekend I did a massive server cleanup and removed all the old old MechSpecs Version 1.0 stuff off the server so got a fair bit done.
Tat is what I am thinking, guests seeing ads, and asking them to help click a bit. I am sure there are lots of "regular guests" that are in here for the builds.
Speaking personally, it depends on the ad type. I do not find the odd banners intrusive. What would bother me is NOISY ads (the sort where you have to mute a running component), or the kind to expand to fill space. And where do I sign up to pledge during the donation drive?
Gotchya. My wallet is still smarting from PGI's sneakery with the Wave 2 Clan package, but I should be able to give some support after my first paycheck at the new job (mid-October).
The pledge drive runs till the end of October. Any monies above and beyond what are REQUIRED will go to purchasing some plugins or maybe move to a new VPS host as the one we are currently with is getting out of the "Managed VPS Account" service. Booooooooooooooo You don't have to donate if you don't want to man; there will be benefits to it for sure but it isn't something "required" to use the site.
I've been getting a lot of good use from the site and feel it's helped me a better player. I'd also love to be able to shoot the shit in Valhalla. A year ago, I'd have said 'thanks for doing this, but I'll remain a generic user', but as things stand (and having steady income from work again) I'm definitely looking to at least hit a lifetime membership since it seems PGI is managing to weasel me into regular play
Update: XenForo license purchased. Software is being installed on the server within the next 24 hours. I will begin acquiring the necessary plugins and additions to the site and laying the ground work for the new theme/format. The site itself won't be cut over until the bare bones are working. There may be SOME data loss (a post or two here or there) but I will try and mitigate that as much as possible. FYI: All your password will need to be reset by you when you log in to the new forums. Essentially it will ask you if you lost your password and will email you a new one. This is a security feature, used by every major forum software, to prevent theft of passwords by database hacking. We went through this when we went from vBulletin to SMF and we will go through this again when we go from SMF to XenForo. The site will recoup the costs as more donations roll in from those who stated they needed to wait a pay period or two taking us in to October. Bare in mind though, now is your chance to get a lifetime pass to Valhalla. That offer will not go past the pledge drive and we do have some goodies for those who are Benefactors and especially for those who are Space Pimps.
Michael also allows for other ways of payment I think, like giving him cash face to face, your kidneys, or boxes of living penguins.
