Wren_Fritsche wrote:Ok just posting this to see feedback on whether it would work or not.

I know that there was a thread recently about changing usernames, and yes I know that changing a username would cause server lag. Now onto my suggestion.

Maybe if someone really wants to change their names they can purchase a name change ticket where they fill out what they'd want thier name changed to. And then when the site gets taken down for maintenance We have had that on occasion. The names could be changed at that time and perhaps that would minimize server lag since no one is really on the site to impede it.

Maybe it's a bad idea (or it just won't work), but I won't know unless I suggest it right? ^^;

I am afraid that's not possible. Whenever starkad takes the site down it is to perform phpBB updates, which means that the server is processing an update in that time. Changing usernames will still interfere with the server's capacity in the same way.

ich liebe dich wrote:I want to suggest if it hasn't been already, is a different way to earn FP when posting. Like if you could earn it for what you posted. It seems a little unfair that I can get 4FP for this post, but 8FP for one that is significantly shorter.

Size does not matter xD

No, really, what's the point of valuing a post lenght?
You could go spamming your posts by adding plenty of smilies and that would count as a long list of characters.
I could reply in my hangout and add "hahhahahahahhaha" and get more FPs!
I could quote everybody in a conversation so I add more and more characters, instead of going straight to give my reply.
That would encourage spamming imho.

Lenght is not related to quality posts. If quality posts where somehow measurable I would definetely go for it, but since it's impossible I'd rather leave the system as it is.

Isn't there a rule against spamming though? A ton of smileys or repetitive characters should count as spam. (Do you really need more than a couple ha's? lol) I was on a site before though that did this, and they were able to make it so BBCode/HTML and smilies didn't count toward your amount for the post. So it's possible to do that.

Firn wrote:

Wren_Fritsche wrote:Ok just posting this to see feedback on whether it would work or not.

I know that there was a thread recently about changing usernames, and yes I know that changing a username would cause server lag. Now onto my suggestion.

Maybe if someone really wants to change their names they can purchase a name change ticket where they fill out what they'd want thier name changed to. And then when the site gets taken down for maintenance We have had that on occasion. The names could be changed at that time and perhaps that would minimize server lag since no one is really on the site to impede it.

Maybe it's a bad idea (or it just won't work), but I won't know unless I suggest it right? ^^;

I am afraid that's not possible. Whenever starkad takes the site down it is to perform phpBB updates, which means that the server is processing an update in that time. Changing usernames will still interfere with the server's capacity in the same way.

Thanks for the answer I was just curious. ^_^

What about zong? I don't know the details but I've seen it used before.

EDIT: also is there a way to see which users are online at the moment? If not, I think it'd be a cool addition. I find the forums are slow sometimes and it makes me wonder if no one's on or if people are but just being quiet.

ich liebe dich wrote:What about zong? I don't know the details but I've seen it used before.

EDIT: also is there a way to see which users are online at the moment? If not, I think it'd be a cool addition. I find the forums are slow sometimes and it makes me wonder if no one's on or if people are but just being quiet.

Zong is not very transparent regarding their fees, but what I get from reading their information is that they take about 10% and the carrier (mobile service) takes additional 25-45% fees. That's, in worse case scenario, over 50% in fees, which is a lot. In comparison, PayPal sometimes takes $0.30 + 2.5% fee (In "best case scenario". There are higher rates if the donation comes from certain countries and there is an additional fee for converting $ to € for us. But this is always different from case to case, so I am using their lowest fees as example)
Someone donates $2.50 for one Fairy Coin, PayPal gets $0.36 and we get $2.14. If someone donates $25 for 10 Fairy Coins, they get $0.92 and we $24.08. With a Fee of 50% we would only get $1.25 from a $2.50 donation and only $12.50 of a $25 donation. That's quite a huge difference.

I think if you are a really big company that makes a lot of money, then it is worth for you to sell virtual items at even such a rate. After all Zomb supplies big companies like Facebook or IMVU, which make tenthousands to millions of $ each month. Getting half a million is still worth it, even if they pay half a million in fees. But for such a small site like us it is really not worth it. We would need to give out FC at a rate of $5 per FC for it to be worth it. And even with OneBip, where the donation was something like $3 per FC (I don't remember the exact "price" we had), hardly anyone ever used it.

You can see which users are online if you have them on your friendlist, otherwise not and I do not plan to change this. Personally I don't like fore very user to always be able to see whether I am online or not.

Ah. Hm. I don't see why they need to be so expensive. Are cards expensive too then? Like those gift cards you can get for Gaia?

And well, you could always have the option to hide that you're online. But if it's not something you want to do that's fine.