Premium Membership
 

We are working on setting up Premium Membership features for our sites. Let me make this very clear. None of our existing features are going away. Everything you can currently access, you will still be able to access whether you get a Premium Membership or not. Everything you are used to from our sites, from file moderation queues making sure that all downloads are completely safe, to standards of behaviour on the forums, to me being a big flirt will remain. So with that being said:

What are your suggestions for some of the things you would like to see as a Premium Member on our sites? Ads no longer showing is a given. But what else? What additional benefits would you like to see? No guarantee that it'll happen, but any and all suggestions will be considered.*



*With one exception - before Dolby or Kudane even get the chance to suggest it - no, autographed posters of me are not an option.

Autographed 4x5 glossy prints ???

No.

extra letters

To be able to use a handy dandy program similar to WowAceUpdater to update all mods from wowi.

* Mod Favorites (ie. Download a package of mods that you select)
* Mod Downloader/Updater

I'll think of more later I'm sure :)

This is what I would like, too.

Third

And autographed sexy pics from Cairenn 2nd!!!

Dynamic compilations!

Something I've never quite understood is why people package a bunch of addons and publish a "compilation". The addons in this comp quickly become out of date. It seems more logical to have the creator go thru the site and check off the addons they want in their compilation. Then when someone downloads the server grabs all the latest versions, zips it, and gives that to the user.

Hrm... what else could you do...

*shrug* That's all I got right now.

The only thing that comes to mind is a larger limit to number of PMs you can keep in your PM box.

I've seen a couple of other superficial things that sites sometimes add with premium membership. They sometimes make the user's name a different color or give them a title of some sort. They also sometimes lift restrictions on the size of the avatar files, which primarily benefits those who like to use animated avatars.

HEY! I want a title and a colored name! That'd kick ass!

*snicker*

I can think of things that I used to do on my premium membership...

* emails based on your username ([email protected], [email protected], etc). Could be real emails, or email forwards.

* blogs (authors can use them to list progress, or just overall blogs)

* secret forums (every forum has forums that only certain groups/people can access!)



or things other places have done...

* discounts on MMO merchandise (partnerships with other companies like allakhazam did)

Well i don't think this should be an premium feature, well atleast not if the intention is to publish the compilations, then both authors and users should be able to make them/download them.

But you could put in a personal compilation, one also supporting compilations and then it would get each unique addon for that self made compilation.

Other stuff i'm thinking about:

1. ZOMG special titles
2. No Ads
3. If you got any competitions or other stuff like taking questions, then supporters has priority over normal users, of course stupid questions supporter or not are ignore. For competitions you could make it so supports automatically enter and/or gets higher chances.
4. An UI feature suggestion/bug report compiled and suggested to Slouken, complete with a "not gonna happen"-section, and people ignoring or purposely posting stuff that won't happen will be temporarily suspended from the feature or whatever floats your boat :P (Yes i know you could just make a topic and Slouken would read it, but not all are on the US boards, also i think it could reduce some of the workload by compiling it into a bigger report).
5. Feature for authors to auto-update their mods through their svn server(Not one by WoWInterface, but their own, i.e. projects hosted on google code and so on).
6. Related to the above feature should be some kind of This-is-release/This-is-beta so that people know what they're downloading, optionally you could restrict beta releases to subscribers only, thus reducing the whine about
7. And if you're considering a download client to automatically update addons then i think you should also provide a manager for savedvariables so to clean them.
8. And speaking of that you should be able to store savedvariables and other settings, which could be autouploaded through the client mentioned before.

Thanks to Firefox I don't see ads anywhere at any time, so I couldn't give you a suggestion as to what to add really because everything I need is here already, anything else would just be wasted.

Well honestly this site provides alot of the things I would already expect to have to pay for but here is a small list of things.

No Ads (yes I know it was stated already there wouldnt be :) )

This may be stretching things a bit but a possible discounted premium price for addon authors.

I also like the idea of an all in one downloader for various addons to be all downloaded at once.

A subdomain email would be nice like what was suggested by a previous poster.

Possible discounts for various WoW related merchandise such as stuff from Blizzard or Jinx etc.


A couple of questions also, would the premium membership from WoWI be spread across the rest of the network as well? (i.e. EQinterface, LOTROInterface etc.) Curious since the current membership for this site is not spread across the various domains for *Interface.

Also since Dolby is a fellow cheesehead can he be forced to buy other Wisconsin premium members Packer's tickets for the upcoming season? :)

Ideas I love:

Compliation authors to just choose what addons they use. For example I have an addon pack I have to keep updated. This way I could just release my UIs with the WTF folders and it auto download the latest versions of the addons for use. I do realize that anything not hosted here would have to be included but with added options other authors might put them here too.

More PMs and more characters in the PMs

Ability to select more than one addon maybe by a checkbox and download them all at once in a large zipped file.



Idea I have not seen

Subscribe to your addons so they are automatically sent to your e-mail and not just a notice.

A weekly list of new addons added to wowinterface sent to your e-mail.

Also add a list of any updated addons maybe taking a brief descirptions from each.

I am tapped but still early in the day.

More bacon per button push?

hahahahaha

I tried that once... took me a week just to get it to spit out any... not gonna screw with that again.

I noticed email suggestions, but not this specific one... When receiving update notifications for favs, allow prems to get the actual addon attached as a zip! They're a paying member, you don't need to drive their traffic to the site, you know you've got it already.

Also, featured artists should get a free premium *grin*

Well as long as you are still going to flirt I for one say good deal the rest just a bonus :D I have been using your boards with one nic or another since EQ and found your sites and have found them to be very helpfull so would probably get the premium just to get rid of the adds again the rest just a plus.

How about a blizzy-insprired feature? Give people with different titles (Featured, Moderator, Paying Member) a "special" text color on the forums. Like Iriel's green text, basically.

I think an alert via email or text message would be great.

I would have to second both of these requests.

Since WoWI already has most features I want, it's hard to suggest stuff....

- select multiple addons for group download (shopping cart/batch idea)
- WoWAceUpdater program would be cool
- colored text for mods, featured artists, etc.
- more PM's, PM size, avatar size, and custom email

I'm not greedy... any pic of Cairenn would rock. It would be cool to see what our site goddess looks like. :D

Other than that... a feature request for all members:
- Seperate Beta sub-section (similar to Curse-gaming). I dont like creating a "new addon" for a beta; much better to have it listed as a Beta under the existing addon.

Hmmm....
*gears churning inside head*

On another note, I do have to agree something like a "premium" title on the user would be a given.

EDIT: Hey I finally found a reason to post!

Separate, faster download pipes like FileFront and FilePlanet do.

Normally this site is super fast (at least for me), but on major patch days it can be slow. I'd definitely pay for faster and/or exclusive access on patch days.

Along the same lines it would be cool to offer direct download of the patch to premium members.

Thanks for providing such a great site to begin with!

Patch days are a whole different issue in themselves... although this last one (which was the super huge killer one) went a lot better than most. I think they've got a few tricks up their sleeves to keep the site working smoothly for everyone now.

* Allowing custom avatars only for premium (may upset current custom avatar users).
* Organization of My Favorites. Allow creation of groups with various checkbox options for batch downloads.
* Add Premium user flag for posts
* Perhaps some sorting or separate inbox for PM's from premium users allowing authors to give priority to them.
* Not sure what kind of affiliation this site has with Allakhazam.com, but maybe coordinate combo membership for both sites.
*** I really hope this one will work out and not cause any problems with the featured artists. I would like to see a compilation offered only to premium that selected featured artists work together on that can be branded as an official compilation of this site. The compilation will of course be given priority on bug fixes and updates when broken by Blizzard patches. In return, these artists can be provided with a free premium membership with some sort of uber title.

You should also consider including information about donations. Some people may not want to purchase a membership, but wouldn't mind donating. This is an awesome site after all!

Good idea, but might put a strain on email servers. Some ISP's have limitations on file size attachments.

* Cair said they weren't going to take features away from non-paying members.
* I do kinda (slightly) miss my alla sub, but then again I've taken a great liking to Wowhead over alla lately.
* Donations... hrm... maybe some setup for donating to authors? Don't get me wrong, I love WoWI, but in the end we're the ones providing the content that keeps this site alive. Hell, I posted it to the Blizz forums somewhere, but how about adding a "lend a hand" section to the subscription page that would go to the most popular artists on the site. Or maybe let the user designate authors they'd like their donation to go to.
* Email servers my butt. 90% of addons are damn tiny (compilations not included). The ones that are big are the ones with lots and lots of textures in them *coughAtlascough* But if this is a premium service they are paying money that could help with the poor email server ^^

I've seen some great ideas in this thread and want to thank all of you that have taken time to post them. Keep it coming! Please try not to comment on other peoples suggestions as it may discourage other people from posting.

We just want your ideas and what you would like to see for premium features. Some of the ideas may be used for the premium membership (added right away or down the road), others we may choose to code for every one, and some may not be possible. That is what we are going to decide as we compile all your ideas. :)

Good call. Sorry, I didn't take into consideration the time and effort of the artists. I was only thinking about possible costs this site might be incurring for providing the bandwidth. Since I'm not an artist, I'll let the artists and the powers that be of this site work out anything to do with the donations idea.

I am extremely pleased with the site, I don't find the ads obtrusive, downloads have always been fast for me. One idea I did see mentioned was a direct download on patch days! That's I would pay a preminum and truthfully I'd feel better about paying here then some other site/s!

I seriously wouldn't mind paying a small price to keep the site as good as it is now. The moderators, artists and other gamers make this site worth a fee to me. Not sure how much help that is, but its my two cents worth.

Bellator

I made the Op laugh.

*takes a victory lap*

-Housellama

Hmm go Big and i mean REAL BIG! Hmm lets see Flash Chat would be nice, lets say with a Modders Area for Modders only and either Realm Specific or Faction Specific Rooms, Faction woudl be easier but get filled up fast, realm specific woudl make alot of rooms. Highly doubt this is something u were thinking of tho, shyt while your at it throw in Character Profiling better than the rest where you upload a pic of yourself and tell about yourself as well as upload character data with full html editable profiles (like Myspace).

For thos elong lonely nights when our servers go down! :(

OOH cams, cams = good nakie NELF dance FTW!

Forumspy ftw.
see macrumors and foh-guild

I wouldn't mind seeing something with the "My Favorites" section to allow a premium member to link between multiple xxxInterface sites. And it would be nice if the premium membership extended to all the different sites. As someone who's started looking at LotRO, and the UI stuff that could be going on there ... it would be nice to have an easy way to transition back and forth between the different sites and all.

This may not fall under the premium category, but I'd like to know how many times my mods have been downloaded through compilations rather than through the main download.

But hell, I'd pay just to have Cairenn flirt with me.

All premium members could have a chance to have their mod posted on the front page as a "mod of the day, or week" it would either be a news post, or a new top/side block. Giving additional exposure, some requirements would have to apply, like a certain # of downloads, certain rating, etc...

cheers!

-The 'updater' would be amazing.

-Increased file size for avatars.

I'd LOVE being able to pick which catagories of addons make it on to your own list of updated addons. Seeing half of them be compilations is annoying.

QFT

Same goes for forum threads on the front page.

A downloader that will let me update my addons would be nice. Similar to macace updater. I think that macace updater is the only mass updater for the mac. If you implemeted one that was functional, worked and was easy to configure Mac users across the globe would rejoice.

Damn hippies.

What's the word on premiums? Been a bit quiet here as of late...

Soon (tm) ;)

Translation: "When it's finished" ??

Is it gonna stop the ads? I would pay just so I didn't have to deal with the ads.

Yes, it will.

Dreadlorde - while I agree that ads are annoying, I also never block them on sites I use all the time, since that is how I support them and the bandwidth they go through to be able to provide me with the service. Just my way of thinking about it.

Leeching sucks.

How about an RSS feed for addins where somebody could just open up the newsreader of choice and all the addons they use would download to the desktop. This would not install/uninstall old addions but if somebody is paying a fee to the site they really should know how to do that anyway. That would solve the installer issue, even though an installer would be way nicer. But at least this way people could get the updated addons of choice quickly and regardless of operating systems as Mac & Windoze both have newsreaders available.

<Proud MAC user>

Testing premium gold sexyness.

Yay for golden TC :P