Forum Premium Suggestion

Not sure if it technically feasible with the forum software we are using at the moment, but it's a interesting idea nonetheless.

/Alltheabove

I'm not sure how much of it is a limitation of the forum software, how much of it is a limitation of the Seattle web team's capabilities and how much of it is a limitation of the NCSoft billing system.

The NCSoft billing/accounts system only recognizes 2 types of accounts, VIP or Free (applies to Free and Premium). To recognize a third type would require work to change the billing/accounts system. We already have people locked out of their accounts due to the changes to the billing system last week that split Aion and Lineage II accounts into a different system. How long would it take them to get this implemented and working correctly just to add a third type of account?

The web team tied our forum login (and therefore, forum access levels) to our game accounts and since part of that linkage includes the billing system, both would need some serious work to allow recognizing multiple types of accounts.

From what I'm told by some forum admins on other sites that use vBulletin, adding another level of logged in permissions is doable in vBulletin and restricting the access to sections based on those permissions is doable as well, although it can be a bit involved to initially set up. It may or may not require updating to a newer version of vBulletin, something the OCR team is already trying for (and has been for some time from some things that have been said). It may also require the purchase of some specific vBulletin add-ins and people learning how to correctly configure them (oops, that's the Seattle web team again, good luck). The first obstacle would still be recoding the NCSoft billing system to recognize a third type of account.

Since that is something that would have to be set up by the Seattle web team, I'm not sure if A) they'd agree to something like that or B) if they could successfully configure it without fouling more things up. This is the same team that decided that users couldn't be logged in to the forums for more than 8 hours and in setting that up they've fouled up the cookies so that they expire or delete if you close the browser, sometimes expire or delete if you hit the Back button, randomly still log you out for no apparent reason and other problems.

As for tying it to a Reward Tier, I'm not sure if the Paragon Rewards system has a way to tie a Reward Token or a Reward Tier to anything on the forums. As it is currently configured it only applies to things in the game itself. There likely would be quite a bit of work needed on the system to be able to interface with the forum software, and again, that would require more work from the Seattle web team and I've lost trust in their abilities to get things right. It would likely also require more work by PlaySpan (the people that developed the Market interface).

All in all, I really don't see them doing something like this because it would require quite a bit of work in several areas, most of them not under direct control of Paragon Studios (Billing being under NCSoft Austin, forum software being under the Seattle web team and the store interface requiring more work from PlaySpan). It would also be quite a bit of work for very little tangible benefit and would also require more work from the Paragon Studios staff for increased moderation of those forum sections. I frankly don't see that happening.


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That being said:

If they ever do find a way to allow the Rewards system to interact with the forum software then you still have need for a UI system to allow the user to select which forum sections to apply it to as well as configuration from the Seattle web team to implement those selections.

And as others have pointed out, what about people that run mulitple AT's? What about those that operate actively on multiple servers and need to participate in that servers forum section?

If they were ever to implement something like this I'd recommend opening the following with a fairly high level Reward Tier (I'd rather it be a Tier fill requirement than a Token unlock simply to keep from losing current Token slotting, but either would work):

News, Events & Announcement Discussion
Archetypes and Powers (yes, the entire section, no limitations to a specific AT)
Servers (yes, the entire section)



If they could ever work something like this out, which would require a huge amount of work as it is, I'd say put one of the unlocks at Tier 6, one at Tier 7 and one at Tier 8 (either a specific section at a specific Tier or a choice of one of those sections at each Tier).

In addition maybe add a Token unlock for 1 forum section in For Fun OR 1 forum section in Player Help in Tier 9. Some would have to make a choice between say CHVC and Market & Inventions sections, but as part of the reasoning behind limited forum access was due to the need for increased moderation I could see them limiting it to a choice of one specific forum section for a Tier 9 token.

Originally Posted by Paladiamors I love you, I Burnt the Toast!

Nope. It looks like I Burned The Toast wins this round.

But TJ is right. Setting up the forums for Premies would be a logistics nightmare. So nice idea, but highly unlikely to change.

Toast, I would like to hear your reasoning on why you fully support the current limitations instead of entertaining an idea that could help build the community and possibly cause more people to subscribe to the game and gain full forum access?

Exactly.

Originally Posted by Paladiamors I love you, I Burnt the Toast!