Nah, you're not a crabber, it's perfectly reasonable of you Firn!

So, updated idea:
Looking at the recent donation meters, the average amount of donations is somewhere between half and 3/4 of the bar. So how about this:
If the bar reaches 3/4 donations (or any other amount of your choosing that's more than average, but not impossible like a full bar) three months in a row, you would host a donation event afterwards where even small donations get the extra gift. (But still have the normal gotq for 20fc so donations don't plummet that month)

The reason I'd advocate for an event the following month instead of simply giving it to everyone who donated in the three months prior, is giving people who don't normally donate a chance to get onboard once the item is "unlocked", so that they donate at all.
There'd be no reason to whithhold donations, because then the event wouldn't happen in the first place. But you also wouldn't need to, because a tiny donation would already suffice to get the item.

Of course this would only work if you'd give out no more than one item per person. Because if someone can get ten by donating more, there'd again be no reason to donate for the people who usually don't, because it'd be way to easy to just buy it

And it would also require an exact number of how many donations are missing to reach the goal... because if you want to get people excited and squeeze out an extra donation to unlock the gift, not knowing how much is actually still remaining and then missing the goal by a hair would be frustrating

Anyway, I have zero experience with running a site like this and am just tossing out ideas that might or might not be functional. Everyone's more than welcome to take them apart and dig out all the plotholes

jacobgrey wrote: I was trying to think about the fees issue also, because with PayPal it's really complicated. I don't understand how it works but some of my clients pay me and have a fee deducted from their payments, others pay me and it doesn't take a fee. I don't understand the difference between the transactions, if someone knows anything about that maybe it can help.

I don't exactly know whether that's what is happening in your case, but there is an option on PayPal to send money "as a friend" and then you don't have any fees. But I think that only works if you send the money directly via the E-Mail and select this option? I am not sure, I never used that method.

If we can't beat the PayPal fees, one alternative would be to work the percentage in to the costs. So, for a small donation of 1FC it would be the price plus the PayPal fee so that the money that actually comes through is still the price of 1FC. For a bigger donation like 20FC, the fee is gradually reduced so that the user gets a discount for buying more FC while the money coming through would actually be more than previously.

I think that would making the thing super complicated for people. No one would really know what they would have to donate, as the whole fee thing is complicated enough for me already. There is the fixed fee for each transaction (I think $0.30. The fee is way more than 10% in total for 2.50 donations) then there is the %-fee, but there is also a fee for us for different currencies. We pay more fees if someone donates in $ than in € and I haven't even figured out what that fee is, because the convertion rate of $->€ is different all the time, so we get out a different amount for each $2.50 donation all the time.



I appreciate everone's suggestion, but why don't we take it one step at a time and focus on simple 5,10,15 and 20 FC donation perks first, before we think of other methods? That seems like a simple enough thing to start with.

Argh, so many ideas I missed and had to catch up and now my head hurts from all the details and English

Firn wrote:I appreciate everone's suggestion, but why don't we take it one step at a time and focus on simple 5,10,15 and 20 FC donation perks first, before we think of other methods? That seems like a simple enough thing to start with.

This. I completely agree it's the easiest thing to comprehend. *mem is always confused*

We're left with 4 tiers (which is awesome) and I think we could totally stick with the Queen-King-Princess-Alchemist (or Hooded Stranger??? ) gifts. I also love Feanor, but I feel he's not very suitable for the part XD (Although Feanor is love, Feanor is life ) Unless the 4th gift (like for the lowest 5FC tier) would be changing: one month it's Feanor's Gift, other month it's Lucretia's Gift - but then every NPC would need a theme color of their own... Too much work XD Plus it may be confusing to people maybe? Like why is this thing changing every month, man, the others aren't? XD Okay, let's drop it, it's not changing, let's stick with one NPC per tier

Anyways, in my opinion the easiest thing would be to just release the GotQ in different colors for every tier. This way Firn wouldn't have to come up with different items and colors.
Unless she decides to take the challenge on the "diamond" and/or "shimmering bronze" colors, because surprisingly Fire showed very nice examples x.x Though we just had new colors introduced not too long ago
The big question is: How big of an incentive the same item in different colors would be? If a person doesn't like the item at all, no matter the color, then it's not really a big incentive. But making 4 different items each month for donation incentive? @Firn, you'd have to decide for yourself if it's worth your time and effort. On the other hand, there's always a person who dislikes an item, but another person may love it. Of course some items may be less popular than others but that's something you can't avoid.

IF we go for 4 different items - we don't necessarily need them in different colors than Gold. But we can, I don't see why not other than the number of items in Gold would grow a lot faster XD ... Actually yeah, that may be a slight downside, and we could use some more Rose Gold and Silver items *is hooked on them* lol (good thing mem talks to herself a lot eh? )

I have no other ideas, I think they escaped my head a few minutes ago ;>_>
Now I'll remember to bookmarks this

I think it would be best to have the items in all kinds of different colors - Just because not everyone liks gold, or silver or rose gold, etc. Everyone has different preferences, so if the items have different colors, we can basically cover most peoples' tastes at some point.
And I don't think there is any need to really label them. Why not call them all queen's gift? All we need would be some info what amount of donation gets you which item. With more different names, it just gets more confusing, especially for newer users.

Yes I never suggested an item for every donation (I just gave an example of another site tier ranking system). I was just asking for a 5fc tier for the lowest amount which some people didnt agree with.

The only problem I saw with calling it a queen's gift is that it might be hard to tell what tier it was later on (if you switch up the colors every month too it would make it harder as well). Especially for new users or returning users who missed out. Of course they could always ask others or yourself since you would know best

Thanks for taking my suggestion Firn

edit: I think I misunderstood something. i think Firn meant it would be different colors for each tier. But throughout the months it would still be the same color. E.g. 5FC tier will always be Rose gold. Yea there's no problem with calling it queen's gift if you like just wanted to make it more creative/lore based since the original queen's gift is lore based

*silly mem forgot about new/returning users* Sure, they can all be called the Queen's Gift It just sounded interesting, as Carrot said, but Queen's Gift in different colors would be just as cool

Fire wrote:

If you are torn on colors, Firn, why not have an official poll? Make an announcement about it and list some popular colors from people to choose from? Ones YOU would like to see as Queen's Gift, since this is your gift to us, after all. What you want matters, too!

You could let users choose from a short list (maybe four or five options) of long-time popular colors (such as Ecru, Aqua, Blue Iris, Mocha, Lilac, Midnight Blue, Gray White), or recently popular colors (such as Denim, Periwinkle, Rose Gold, Scarlet, Lime Green, Jade Green, Plum, Soft Ruby, Bright Berry), or even your favorite colors here on Kofk, Firn (guised as the Queen's favorite colors)!

I agree with this This is an excellent idea!

I like the idea of not sticking to fixed colours all the time. People do have different tastes, and I think the point mem mentioned about the chosen colours getting more items than other colours on the site is valid, too.
I for example like gold and silver, but rose gold items wouldn't really incentivize me to donate (because I just don't like pinks so much). But there's tons of colours I love and if it was like "Wow, this month the 10 FC gift is one of my favourite colours! Exciting!" that would motivate me a lot more, I think.
It would also give Firn the opportunity to react to trends regarding which colours are popular, which might be a good idea.