Damn straight. This thread's for ideas!

I've been batting around the idea of making a promotional video, themed like a movie trailer. The video could be on YouTube and linked from us posting on other forums, spread on twitter, from ads, etc. I've just got bits and pieces in my head, dramatic shots, snippets of the dramatic voiceover, etc.


Evolution's greatest failure or winged pistachio explains that the laws of probability preclude their successful reproduction.
"A new type of reality-warping radiation threatens to poison the whole planet..."

"military efforts to destroy the Improbability Drive were..."
A helicopter dissolves into pudding, as a gunner turns into a duck and flies away.
"unsuccessful."

A blurry upward first-person shot of the watcher looking down as you open your eyes, (can't give the watcher a concrete look, of course) and hear the first distant explosions.
"That leaves you."

A broad-shouldered, mustachioed, stereotypical drill sergeant in a green helmet, shouts at a group of naked recruits about how to destroy the drive.

Our star contestant, a timid young man in frilly pink panties, jingles what little req he has in his hand while eyeing the wall of weapons at Sheila's, pointing at a chainsaw, and is handed a plastic spork.

Same young man is offered a shady deal in the PSK, and gets a titanium spork in return.

An audience in a post-apocalyptic home watches a post-apocalyptic spinning-arm television, as said young man stands frightfully in the jungle, waving his spork, more like a totem than a weapon, in the direction of an approaching rustle... only to see a little old lady, looking for Albert. Relieved, he tries to help her back to town... and she brains him with her walker as the video cameras look on. Black screen!

Walking through a corridor on the FailBoat, panning left and right to contestants fighting in cages, and others huddled on deck, crying. Maybe a glance at Her from behind while she sits at her desk.

Contestant delivers a message to Corporal Punishment, only to see a tear in his eye as his trembling hand reaches for the envelope.

A more-confident contestant, in motorcycle leathers, and wielding a chainsaw, investigates a wave of dark purple energy accompanying metallic clangs in the jungle. As he nears a clearing and sees some giant cylindrical machinery, another wave of dark energy heralds the mysteriously blurred-out object that lands at his feet. He lifts the object to examine it, and when the leaves and twigs fall away, he drops it in revulsion, wiping his hand on the side of his pants. He glances up to see a bunch of little green men with pointy ears manipulating a control panel, and whispers under his breath "typo gremlins...?" before taking another step to bring the stenciling "Large Hardon Collider" into view. He mouths the word "oh" as if he figured it out, then rip-starts his chainsaw.

"A fight for survival against the deadly creations..."
A montage of 1/2 second shots of other improbable monsters, like velociraptors, the Weiner Punk, Hawton's Ivy, ending with an awkward shot of the contestant confusedly standing before the cel-shaded hand-drawn Anthropomorphised Circular Saw Philosopher, unsure of what to do.

A contestant wearing power armor and wielding a sun gun hefts open a heavy metal door in a concrete bunker...
"of a mad scientist's insane machine..."
Then a mind-bending scene of flying lightning, random occurrences, and twisting reality.

I think it would be fun.

Might as well link to the last Fund Raising Ideas Threads: March 2012 and September 2011. Lots of ideas collected in there - a few things have been implemented, but there's plenty that hasn't.

(Custom tattoos, for instance.)

---

Improbable Reference Links - goo.gl/MRBnb -------------- Land Registry (map of Places) ---- goo.gl/bpkRR

I love the journal idea, I would also like active quests to be displayed in it cuz' sometimes your away from it to long and forget what it is your doing.
I also love the all in one item name changer, it would clean up lodge bags and be much simpler.

Also: the pay to win a fight would be useful but it would need to be limited to so many times a game day or that you earned no experience for the fight.

Absolutely love the art show! I was actually considering making Improbable merch and giving it to CMJ (maybe for SP wink wink nudge nudge) so he could sell it on the site, as I'm certain there are all sorts of skill sets with resources available to them that can't contribute in monetary value but wish to give something. I myself would love a hare brained belt buckle!

I believe someone said something about carrying builders supplies, perhaps you could have delivery men take your supplies to a map coordinate? And charge say 500sp?

The name changer for your partner would be nice as well.

I have not progressed far into the game but in the Jill story I wanted to suggest a money earner.
I wanted to suggest that Jill open a shop in improbable central (or a back room in the hunters lodge) since she said she was a blacksmith, she could add buffs or + whatever stats or items that are attached to the weapon you have that are removed when you sell them that way you keep the stat changer but its only active attached to a worn item.
You could charge depending on how high a percentage or amount of stats to the improbability augment.
Anywhere from 75(for one 1% stat change) and up.

Would it be possible to partner with real players to fight monsters? Perhaps charge for a 'buddy band'?
Or to write things for your character to say and set them up as mercenaries? Maybe charge 500+ to do that or charge a monthly amount?

I think it would the preview pass is cool but I agree that you should charge 500 for it. I don't like parting with my cash just as much as the next person but don't under charge yourself! If you feel uncomfortable with a high amount knock it down after, but don't give something great for almost free. If passes could be handed out by a shifty guy in an ally or a greasy teen in a record store that would be awesome! The record store might even be able to sell mp3s?

Hi guys! It's that time again, so I'll pitch in my two cents after reading up on a few things here. If I repost something, apologies, I may have skimmed some posts. If I do, hopefully I add rather than just repeat.

On to business! Ideas to get CMJ some cash:

-- A Hunter's Lodge item that allows you to extend the time that chat survives for in a Place. Note that this would only make posts remain for more time, not extend the total amount of pages that is the norm (100ish). You could even divvy it up into several, accordingly priced, items. Extend for one week, extend for two weeks (or maybe 15 days), extend for a month. I'm horrible at pricing these things, so if someone could come up with a reasonable price I'd appreciate it.

-- Special C&Cs, purchasable at the Hunter's Lodge, that allow you to program the outside of a Place. Mind you this would be limited of course, C&C's to clear chat wouldn't apply out here, but it would be great in order to program the appearance of a Place changing during daytime/nighttime, or opening during certain times of the day and whatnot.

-- An Omnigrid. A special Programming Grid, also purchasable at the Hunter's Lodge, or maybe from the Place menu, that allows you to make a Global Program that applies to the entire Place. You can bring back that "Move to Entrance" link if you want! And many other things!

-- These ideas were discussed between Hawkeye Hanlon and myself, the latter being his entirely. Enhanced versions of grenades, purchasable at the Hunter's Lodge, for those desperate situations against Titans/Drive/Bosses/Mutant/Magpie. Enhanced BANGs would obviously just do a metric butt-ton of damage. Enhanced ZAPs could still work for a random number of rounds, except they completely incapacitate an enemy (paralysis), or provide an even greater debuff to ATK/DEF. WHOOMPHs, instead of being the sad little thing they currently are, could "tick off" a % of an enemy's total HP instead of doing fixed damage per round. The second idea is to have an item similar to cookies, albeit more expensive because of what it'll do, that has contestant's chances of finding cigarettes in the Jungle increase by a set amount.

-- The option to "connect" your Place inventories. If you are the -owner- of more than one Place, this would allow you to stash things in any of your Places and access them from any of the Places. Alternatively, an idea I suggested a while back, is to have a different type of Teleporter Beacon (or just add a SP bought function to existing ones), that allows you to travel between Places, making transferring materials and C&Cs easier for a small price.

-- I'd like to add to Pinrut's (I think it was Pinrut's, apologies if I got mixed up), idea of making Mercenaries permanent with SP. Permanent of course referring to the duration of a NewDay, or until a Drive Kill. It's been so long since I used a mercenary that I've forgotten how they work. THIS is part of my suggestion: Add a SP bought "Super Mercenary". I don't think something like this should simply have massive ATK/DEF stats because they'd make Jungling too easy, but perhaps do something like have a massive HP pool in order to not die during high rank runs. (And by massive, I probably mean in the hundreds of thousands for those doing Bastard ranks). This mercenary won't attack directly, but has a small chance to place a strong debuff on the opponent. Say, a 1/10 chance of tossing a ZAP at a monster. Or a 1/10 chance of doing damage equal to 1/2 the monster's HP. Alternatively, the Mercenary can simply stand back and act as a shield for the player, providing X% of damage reduction.

-- Add C&C packs purchasable at the Hunter's Lodge. I know there's already a Programmer's Box, but a lot of people are in dire need of C&C's alone.

-- A date with CavemanJoe. Purchased at the Hunter's Lodge. You get an hour of CMJ all for yourself in the Outpost's restaurant of your choosing for a romantic candlelit dinner while you watch him hold back puking a Great Comforter. (This may or may not be serious.)

Aaaaand that's it for now. If I think of anything else I'll toss it in here. Sorry for the wall of text!

This. I missed this gem of Iriana's the first time I skimmed read through the latest batch of posts. Was going to suggest it myself. I never ever would have thought, going into it, that having more hitpoints would actually hurt after a certain point (on the higher ranks). But ow. Yeah. It's nice when I'm fighting Titans, but that's about it. And Stonehenge keeps giving me more stop it Stonehenge augh. It would be great to have a way to remove hitpoints permanently for those of us who do regret going a bit too far with the Gauntlet.

---

Witch Doctor Makiwa leans over and taps the duck on the beak, "This round's on you! Should we put it on your bill?"

I just don't fully understand why too much life is bad. I mean, if you have 1000 hitpoints, it seems like everything would be easier. and you could take those hitpoints and turn them into attack at the gym.

This thread is for ideas on how to get donations -- so here, it's enough to note that quite a few people are saying they would really love to have that option and would be willing to pay supporter points to get it.

If you would like to know why they want this, your best bet is to ask them yourself -- either via distraction, or in Location Four, or, well... in some other Enquirer thread about Different Ways To Play, anyway. Let's keep this one on topic.

(...and, um, yes, I admit it. I have totally been guilty of triggering thread drift here, too.)

Yes, you see. Putting it in the gym works only temporarily. The results go away with time, so you'd have to be near Tynan's Gym forever. Moreover, enemies don't lose health when you reduce it at Tynan's gym, and healing costs a lot. Especially on higher ranks.

Moreover, healing as a Robot is nearly impossible when you have a thousand hitpoints. Lightning Suits and Cat Launchers are harder to use when you have high health! Having a thousand hitpoints is good maybe if you only fight Titans or play on low ranks.

---

There are two secrets to success. The second one is to never reveal all your secrets.

This sounds awesome. Not sure I'd actually pay for it unless it was permanent though, in which case the increased probability of finding the thing would have to be small.



Perhaps just something that made your mercenaries re-join you tomorrow. That would be good.



THIS. Thisthisthisthisthis. Pretty please?

So, I dont think this is the best idea, probably... But I figured I'd post it, cause hey, why not?

I was thinking maybe some sort of monthly drive where, say, the whole Island has to band together to do something relatively simple (It's Mr. Stern's birthday and everyone wants to get a present, Kittania needs new kitty scratching posts and mousey toys in the square, So-n-so's zombie donkey got lost in the swamps and needs help to find it). We'd all get a distract at the beginning of the month about whatever it is, and then any donations that month would begin filling up a bar (that's somewhere easy to see) that, when 100% is reached, (that is, when whatever the donation goal is reached) we've done it and something lovely and out of the ordinary happens! Like, I dont know, we all get a big stamina boost, or all go up a level, or some special food item that fills you up completely while also making you svelte and 6x sexier shows up for cheap, or any combination of cool perks. I dont know! But, if by the end of the month 100% `iisnt`i reached, that's cool too. Whatever, try again next month. In either case I think everyone getting a distract that's like "Yay! The present we got Mr. Stern was a success! Who knew that thigh-high, fuzzy, polkadotted, toe-massaging boots were just what he was jhoping for!" if we've done it or "Mr. Stern tries to hide his distaste with the practical leather shoes everyone spent a month's worth of req on to get supplies to make... He was really hoping for a pair of thigh-high, fuzzy, polkadotted, toe-massaging boots.. Oh well. Maybe for his next birthday." if we havent.

People who usually donate here and there will probably keep doing so, and people who dont donate as often might do so more because it'll be getting towards the end of the month and maybe they'd be like, hey! look how close it is! i suppose i could spare a little... I'm not thinking the goal would be like, $750,000 or something ridiculous. I'd suggest it fluctuate, like, say, it goes up a little higher the month after we reach the goal, so we're not winning `ievery`i month, though that'd be cool... And it goes down a little after a month where we dont.

I dunno. I can see a lot of flaws with this, but it might be rather fun, I think... We'd be getting all the same results during the month as when people donate now (crates dropped, more stamina, altruism boosts etc), and then we would get something even better if we reach the goal. So, it benefits everyone.

Plus, it'd give people a little something to RP about every month. You can talk with your friends about how Pleasantville is going through renovations to become more 'Pleasant' to encourage more visitors by everything being painted pink and what a wonderful idea that is... Unless you're a mutant, in which case I suppose you'd be writing morose poetry about how wonderful that is

I actually really like that idea! That is all.

A couple of ideas that a different thread just reminded me I'd like to be able to do with my place, and would pay money for because - well - they're probably be the sort of things you should think hard about before installing...

A Monster Cage, containing a monster visitors could actually fight - probably using a variation of the Cage Fighting code so that they scale ok with level.

A way to Failboat visitors who make incorrect choices or do stupid things like swimming into an entirely submerged geometrically impossible maze. Hell, if I could do this I'd probably be tempted to flesh out the maze more too, and use Memories and stuff.

This could be really fun! For myself, I'm very highly motivated by Achievements or Collections or Things Like That. A visible status bar telling us how close we are as a team to achieving something silly and senseless would, probably, get a bit of money out of me every month just for the sake of achieving. (You know, if I have any money that month.)

This also goes for the idea of limited-edition Collector's Mementos. The collector within would be thrilled beyond measure to purchase Useless Things that I can stuff in my backpack and lovingly caress for years to come.


I think this idea sounds cool at first glance, but wouldn't be the wisest? Surprise Failboating visitors to your Place would be the fastest way to piss people off and make them avoid your Place. Nobody likes being failed by Stonehenge/walking the ledge/taking the ferry/drinking magic water, even though that's an expected outcome of a) being in the Jungle and b) trying the random chance events. I can only imagine people would like it even less from somewhere they don't expect it, like a Place.

I love this too. It's motivating (people love to win!), funny and so very flavourful.

Throwing my hat in for Nonner's idea too! The prizes could be a bit tricky to figure out (in such a way that they do not intrude on the money we want to fling at you in the Hunter's Lodge, Mister CMJ!), BUT, other than that THIS SOUNDS FANTASTIC!

I also must say that Wongo's idea sounds wonderful too! I can see SUCH a flurry of building and programming (a.k.a. Hunter's Lodge sales) beginning again if this is implemented (especially if it's a Hunter's Lodge item, and an expensive one!!! Don't make this stuff cheap, please!!! We already have almost too much that's really cheap!). The only problem I can forsee for this one is: DICKERY. The feature being used for revenge and such. It'd be easy enough to punish and perpetrators (I imagine. Correct me if I'm wrong!), BUT- I wonder if it'd be too hard to detect when it is happening/prove that someone was Failboated through DICKERY.

Still, both are freaking awesome.

---

"Ain't nothin' left to do but smile, smile, smile." -The Grateful Dead

So here's my idea for a limited-run item, like the Emily bundle and all that. It'd be meant to act like a short-term cash flow that would keep on giving later on.

It's a pen. It acts like a quill in that it lets you write out Special Comments. It's one of those fancy ones that need refills (quills, really) but because you have the pen already, it's a bit cheaper to get more Special Comments. It's a fancy pen, the sort that comes in a box, with a ribbon and a little certificate and says they've been making them since before time existed.

I'd use Specials more often with something like this because... hey, Discount! It's like when you have one of those mugs where they give you free coffee for it, and so suddenly you're there at the store every day getting coffee, except now you're also getting a muffin to go with your daily free coffee. Suddenly you are fat and happy and know a lot about muffins.

...actually, can I just have a muffin?

Silly Forumite! No food until you make quota! Now... swimming in this large pool of ideas, I have three major thoughts:

1. Improbable Island is a free game. And some of these suggestions, like the AntiGauntlet and the Journal are great. So great, in fact, that they should be a part of the game, not the metaphorical fuzzy dice which you have to pay to receive.

2. I (and others) would probably pay money for the Stock Hog medal.

3. Heh heh.

I really like Marly's idea, and would probably use special comments a lot more often if they didn't feel like such a Precious Resource.

Should also come with a medal, or something.

Because medals are awesome, and get certain people me to buy things even if they don't need them builder's box.

Heartily disagreed. The Antigauntlet, maybe. Because high HP has an *okay* counterbalance in Tynan's, but the fact that Tynan's doesn't scale down enemy HP *is* a good arguement for being some kind of hard-to-get-but-in-game thing to achieve. However. I think it's still very do-able as a Hunter's Lodge item because we can always us grenades, and more importantly, lower our rank to get some quick Improbability Points. Make it something reasonable like $10, and I think game balance, as well as CMJ's wallet will both be well.

The Journal, though, no. The quests are right there for the reading for free at the time you do them, and to get more out of them (especially since the writing sounds like it's actually *more* difficult to do than the coding), I think it's better that The Man Himself get rewarded for them, since we reaped all the benefits the first time. I mean, wouldn't you spend five bucks on a graphic novel? Novel? Poetry? Even ten dollars?

---

"Ain't nothin' left to do but smile, smile, smile." -The Grateful Dead