Why this new development?

Well, two things. Firstly, I'm probably gonna be moving at the end of July, and (OPTIMISM!) I'd like to buy rather than rent.

HOPELESS OPTIMISM! CREDIT RATING IN AMERICA NON-EXISTENT! CREDIT RATING IN ENGLAND JUST A POUND SIGN WITH A BIG RED CROSS THROUGH IT! But we can dream, oh yes, we can dream...

Secondly, and more concretely and less yeah-right-pie-in-the-sky-ie, I've been doing a lot of... well, the last few things I've been working on - Onslaught, the co-op building functionality in Dwellings, multiplayer combat in Titans, Natter feeds - they've all been very sort of "together"-oriented things. I've sort of had this image of what Season Three should be like, and I've been letting it influence Season Two's development quite a bit. Because I want S3 to be a very "all players together versus the Island" sort of game (rather than a race to the top of the HOF like Season One, the beta, and LotGD), and also because if I make things in a certain way, according to certain gameplay philosophies and technical standards, then I'll have less stuff to rewrite when it comes time to start thinking about S3. I wanted to do something "together-ey" for the donations system, and how that worked - in one small aspect, anyway. We'll see whether or not it was a good idea.

Also I'm gonna start renaming "Donator Points" to "Supporter Points," seeing as they're not really just for donators, and were never meant to be. Gonna see if I can think of more ways for players to get points other than giving money.

So, um, yeah. One part "Let's get everyone together and do stuff towards a common goal and give out bonuses even for the meanies who donated a dollar in 2008 'cause even that's more than most folks do, it'll be awesome and together-ey and all fluffy" to one part "GIMME ALL YOUR MONEY." I'm going to bed.

Aaand...my insomnia pays off! Woo!




Thanks Joe.

I like extended play, and I really like how we now get a status bar for it. I missed the old status bar! (How much does it start at? ie, how much needs to be donated for extended play to happen? and how long does it last?)

I really, really don't like the "last donation by..." part, though. It is, for me, a complete turnoff from donating. And because the status bar tells us how much money is left until the next round of extended play, if you were to check frequently, you could even total up exactly how much someone just donated. No thanks!

Is it at all possible for it to be set to be an anonymous donation by default, with some option somewhere for you to add your name to it? I say anonymous by default because I don't think that sort of information should be shared by default. The current turn-off-showing-your-info menu is not obvious. You have to dig through the preferences menu. There is nothing very obvious under the donation thing saying "hey, you can turn this thing off! Click here!"

Hidden enough that I had lots of time to think "yikes, I guess I'm not donating anymore" before being able to find a thing that turned it off. (And judging by the number of people in Loc Four who haven't read the FAQ...)

I really like this new system!

For one, it provides a carrot (good!), and it's cooperative (even better!).

I also have gotten a much clearer idea now about how much this game costs. This makes me feel like donating more.

At first I thought the stamina rewards sounded too generous, but now that I see that they will be infrequent occurrences I think they seem appropriate, and they are good incentives.

I agree with Ada that anonymous by default would be preferable.

Wait... status bar, wha? There's a new feature? Where do I go to check it out, and what is it?

If you scroll down past your buffs on the right side of the screen, you'll see an icon of a coinslot. Click on that, like you would to donate. There's a status bar, showing how close we are to extended play - basically, whenever we donate enough, well get a stam boost. Which is awesome, much as Beeker said.

There's a longer, and better, explanation if you click on "extended play" by the status bar.

Danke schoen Tyr, off to see for myself.

Um, on a related note I have no coin slot. Nothing below the buffs. I wanted to check out this new status bar thingummy!

Edit because I am very unhelpful: I've only noticed it today; it occurs on every screen that I've seen; I wanna play with the new feature!

What Browser and version are you Using?

"Credit rating"? By the hand of Zeus,what manner of deviltry is this? CMJ, you should try making your money the old-fashioned way: on a printing press in your basement.

FF on XP (yes, yes, I know, but I can't get Opera or Chrome to run on the thing)

I've never had any trouble donating before, and have only noticed the option disappearing in the last couple of days. Maybe I should check my Adblocker... It can get a bit creative sometimes.

Silly question, perhaps , but I went into my preferences to set myself as Anonymous for donations. And found this:

So, if I select Yes does that mean:

"Yes, my name will be shown"
-or-
"Yes, I'd like to remain anonymous"

???

Based purely on the facts that "no" was the default and the question mark was at the end of the second sentence, I assumed a "yes" blocks one's name from appearing. I agree that it's a tad unclear.

Aye, "yes" blocks your name from appearing. I'll make that clearer.

Right, if the overall reception to this is positive, why are donations down since it went live?

That's a very good question. My thought... Though this new method is much more interesting and informative and the rewards are far higher, the goal is being re-set every few hours. This goes against telethon-simplicity.

Even for those who are excited by a good invigorating game of Calvinball here's what's likely happening: The stars align just right in their game and financial universe, they feel an impulse to donate, they check the drop-down display... and they go, "Oh wait, the timing isn't right. I should come back later when my five bucks will be more effective."

Then -- they don't. When "later" comes, their own stars are no longer in alignment. They're about to DK and can't use any crates, they opened their bills and realized the electricity company is demanding that five bucks, they have to go to class or eat or sleep... something. Donation lost.

And those who aren't in the mood to bother with working out an optimum strategy to win extended play... aren't being rewarded with any sense of progress. At all. New Day comes, the bar resets, and then it looks like their donation didn't do much good. Next donation -- less likely.

I don't know how to fix this. Maybe if you added back in the monthly bar, so that people could see again how their donation was contributing to paying your monthly bills?

I think the monthly bar would help! Especially if there were some sort of incentive for it as well. Some bonus for getting it halfway, 3/4 of the way, etc. Or even a weekly bar? That way people can see that their donation is still going towards something exciting, even if it won't get them extended play immediately.

Just seeing how far along we are with sustaining our favourite Caveman would probably be something a lot of people would like. I second (third?) the motion.

---

"Censure acquits the Raven, but pursues the Dove." "So, that means i'm -always- innocent, right?"

I think it also depends upon what you're comparing it to. If it's dropped from the donations of, oh, three weeks ago then I'm not surprised. Plus, folks might have donated a lot when dwellings came out, and are feeling a bit tapped at the moment.

Agree with a weekly/monthly bar. People like seeing progress, and a constantly dropping meter doesn't work so well for that. Also agree with Sessine's assessment - donating when there's $120 to go is less tempting than donating when we're $10 away.

When I first logged it, it was $16 something to extended play, and now a few minutes later, its at $18.00

So, the bar goes down over time if people *don't* donate? That seems like more stick and less carrot to me. I would think that when people donate a certain amount *that* amount should just stay on the tally until the total gets to whatever milestone you have set for extended play- (even if that milestone is higher than the $150 or whatever you have as a 4 hour goal.)