Subscriptions

This is just to see if anyone would pay to help keep the server running..

At the moment We are running on 600mb ram Server, which is not enough to support our current Capacity. If we were to upgrade to a higher capacity Server We would get allocated more RAM up to 8GB of ram for a 100 slot Server.

The Idea would be to keep Refugee's as free and to have subscriptions for members / Immortals.

The prices would be dirt cheap.

Members - £3 / $4.8198

Immortals £6 / $9.6396

These would be per Month Rates. and if you don't pay for one month you would be dropped to refugee until you payed again.

Looking at the prices you may think I can't afford that. But thinking about what you buy on a day to day basis. It is probably cheaper than buying a School Lunch or 2/3 Cans of Coke.

We would set up plans so you could pay for 3/6/12 month's all together for a slightly Cheaper price and all money would be put back into the Server, To get better quality (less Crashes) and more players...

If you are worried about more players on the Server, the RAM increase would let us extend the map bigger than the last one. So It could be Huge. It would also allow for bigger towns and factions to form.

As stated previously this is just an Idea and is by no means going to be implemented. I just want to see Numbers and hear Idea's.

I know some member's can't get access to Paypal account, but I am sure there are other ways you could Pay.. Maybe by Post. or Other things.

Voted no for a few reasons.

The first reason being that the server is still, in my opinion, too young. Not only is minecraft itself not complete, but there are still too few towns for interesting interaction/pvp to occur other than the occasional random guy killing another random guy to get a diamond pick.
While I am sure that eventually this will change (otherwise there would be no reason to play of course) for now the server simply doesn't have that many unique things, although only due to how new it is as I explained above, and it doesn't make sense to pay. Later on I'm confident this reason will no longer apply.

The second one is that while I'm all for people receiving benefits for donating, I think the basic membership should be free, and only the ranks above be paid. Say, have two ranks above member, immortal and avatar or something like that, with the same prices as members/immortals have now.
The reason is that I think people should be able to enjoy most of the server (as long as they apply for membership) and be productive members of the community even if they can't/won't pay. 3 £ might not seem like much per month, but it is a forth of what I get every month.
That makes paying for immortal half of what I get every month. I bet many people get even less. When the server grows enough, I will likely be willing to pay that much (have donated to other free games before, like League of Legends), but I think that for some people that is not an option and they should have the full benefits of membership even if they don't have acess to some of the more advanced things, like TNT, that only immortals may have.

The third and final reason is that so far I haven't seen a need for a better server, at least since the new map was implemented, didn't have any problems, lag or otherwise. Haven't seen more that... 10? people online at the same time so for now from my experience a 100 slot server is overkill (unless that cap is for saved players in the game, that is their inventory and all included, and if so scratch this part). Of course, if a lot of members complain about lags and crashes I will humbly deffer to their opinion (after all I'm usually not online when there are tons of people online too, so I guess I don't experience much of the lag) and if so feel free to scratch this point.

And that's about it. Hope that, if nothing else, it helps clarify my point of view. If it gave new ideas, even better.

As I said it is only a suggestion, and I get your points and agree with lots of them.

I would be changing the ranks so that you don't get as much limitations as you do now with refugees.

The problem with the donations at the moment, is that it requires roughly 3 immortals a month to keep the server running at the moment, considering myself as an immortal then that is only 2.

However Once people have paid for immortal once, they will never need to pay it again. and that is where the problems come in. So maybe we make donators a subscription based thing where it is £15 for 3 months instead of lifetime.

For your 3rd reason, You were not around for the old map, I believe? When we advertise the Server, which we haven't done for a long time, The server would fill up to capacity (24 slots atm) within 5 minutes. and unfortunately the Server would Crash due to not enough allocated CPU/Ram on the server. We now have the option to upgrade the ram for an additional cost, but we would get that for free if we upgraded the capacity.

Finally, 100 slots is the end goal. I would be looking at upgrading with donations, so if we hit enough money for a 30 slot server one month then I would upgrade it. and if we didn't I would have to downgrade it for that month, Unfortunately that can be really bad as if we one month get enough for a 40 slot server and get 30 active members, then the next month only enough for a 20 slot server, then that locks 10 people out of the Server.

we are kind of stuck in a Catch 22 situation at the moment, Which Is why I am exploring Solutions to help increase server reliability and performance.

On a side Note we have started Spawn and it should be finished by the weekend, Which means The admins and myself have more time to revise how towns work, and interactivity on the Server.

We did have a very active community before the map reset, and would of had to upgrade if we had stayed on, but due to the size of the map and some of the rules we had it would of been utter chaos. Which is why we chose to Restart the Server from the beginning.

And So far it looks as if it is paying off.

We also have a lot of plans for the Future that I would hate to see the Server Die prematurely

The renew date of the Server is 31st of March due to me paying 3 months up front of my own money. So we still have time to decide the future of the Server, But we do need to try and finalise a way of making money to support the Server as if we get the server to anything like we used to have it then an upgrade is inevitable.

EDIT: THIS HAS BEEN REMOVED

Brad I have no idea what you just said and what it has to do with the Topic....

"However Once people have paid for immortal once, they will never need to pay it again. and that is where the problems come in. So maybe we make donators a subscription based thing where it is £15 for 3 months instead of lifetime."

Agree with this one, that is, it makes more sense for immortal ranks and such to be temporary and renewable than to last forever.

"Finally, 100 slots is the end goal. I would be looking at upgrading with donations, so if we hit enough money for a 30 slot server one month then I would upgrade it. and if we didn't I would have to downgrade it for that month, Unfortunately that can be really bad as if we one month get enough for a 40 slot server and get 30 active members, then the next month only enough for a 20 slot server, then that locks 10 people out of the Server."
"We now have the option to upgrade the ram for an additional cost, but we would get that for free if we upgraded the capacity."
"The renew date of the Server is 31st of March due to me paying 3 months up front of my own money. So we still have time to decide the future of the Server, But we do need to try and finalise a way of making money to support the Server as if we get the server to anything like we used to have it then an upgrade is inevitable."

Yeah, I can see the problem. Well, here's my suggestion:

Since from what I understood you need to make money until the end of March to receive the ram upgrade for free, however as I said most people would be uncertain if they should pay since the server is so new, give some extra benefits for donating until then. Say, a month extra for every three months you subscribe for until the end of March, or something like that. That way, while it is still a risk for most people to donate so early in the server's life, they get a better deal if they do so.

After March 31, since the server has been around for some time and people likely feel more secure, I think this you mentioned in the first post:

"We would set up plans so you could pay for 3/6/12 month's all together for a slightly Cheaper price and all money would be put back into the Server, To get better quality (less Crashes) and more players... "

Would be great to prevent the issue you metioned of the server being upgraded and then downgraded often.

As I said, it was just a test to see what people think of Subscriptions.

Currently discussing other options as well as this one with the Other admins. So stay Tuned :)

all i need to do now is get my dads credit card details
MUHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH
i need to save up $11
me and my dad have a "plan" if you call it that
i save the up the money i would like to pay online
and give it to my dad and he pays for it
e.g

"me" Dad can i buy some thing online
"dad"no
"me" but i can pay for it now
"dad"ok then but if some thing goes wrong with my money....... well ill sell you =)

Alomancy wrote:

Brad I have no idea what you just said and what it has to do with the Topic....

umm i dont know why that post is here i didn't post it in this topic sorry