Plans for Patreon!

Kira · 2018-07-28 12:08:27

azurepudding wrote:

tbh, I think if I found a patreon donation page with a 250 dollar per month tier, with nothing to show for the game's progress, I would think: scam. This is a total scam, no one would ever make that pricey of a tier and mean it. And.. I guess I'd be wrong there. I have enough trust in management to believe this is not a scam however, BUT it does matter what others outside of the community think. If others stumble upon this and think scam, well, they're gonna pass on by without a single cent given this way. So, I think having this 250 dollar per month option may hurt the game's funding more than it'd benefit from it. As said before, it's not even expected than anyone would donate that much, so it doesn't really need to be there.
100 a month also sounds kinda scammy too, for those unfamiliar to the game. I've seen a few small indie games with tiers that usually don't go above 20 as highest tier. I mean, remember this is per month, so 250 dollars isn't 250 dollars, it's potentially 3,000 dollars if it takes a year to make.
Also I think it'd be easier to get bigger donations if the tiers weren't spread out so much. 2, 5, 10 are fine, but then 20 is asking for double, and 50 is more than double that. I think you could get a lot on board with 10, but most won't consider the leap to 20. If the 20 tier was instead 12, you'd have a lot more people willing to spend 10 consider bumping up to 12, for example. By asking too much, you end up missing on smaller, but greater in number, donations. I propose a 2, 5, 7, 10, and maybe 12 dollar tiers. Could even put in a 1 dollar tier, because why not? I think it's far more likely to get 250 $1 donators, or 125 $2 donators, or 50 $5 donators, or 36 $7 donators, or 25 $10 donators, or 21 $12 donators, than having a single $250 donator. Simply put, less can be more.

It's not scam since you do get something back, also you're not forced to pay for it.

MWstudios · 2018-07-28 12:23:53

Kira wrote:

azurepudding wrote:
tbh, I think if I found a patreon donation page with a 250 dollar per month tier, with nothing to show for the game's progress, I would think: scam. This is a total scam, no one would ever make that pricey of a tier and mean it. And.. I guess I'd be wrong there. I have enough trust in management to believe this is not a scam however, BUT it does matter what others outside of the community think. If others stumble upon this and think scam, well, they're gonna pass on by without a single cent given this way. So, I think having this 250 dollar per month option may hurt the game's funding more than it'd benefit from it. As said before, it's not even expected than anyone would donate that much, so it doesn't really need to be there.
100 a month also sounds kinda scammy too, for those unfamiliar to the game. I've seen a few small indie games with tiers that usually don't go above 20 as highest tier. I mean, remember this is per month, so 250 dollars isn't 250 dollars, it's potentially 3,000 dollars if it takes a year to make.
Also I think it'd be easier to get bigger donations if the tiers weren't spread out so much. 2, 5, 10 are fine, but then 20 is asking for double, and 50 is more than double that. I think you could get a lot on board with 10, but most won't consider the leap to 20. If the 20 tier was instead 12, you'd have a lot more people willing to spend 10 consider bumping up to 12, for example. By asking too much, you end up missing on smaller, but greater in number, donations. I propose a 2, 5, 7, 10, and maybe 12 dollar tiers. Could even put in a 1 dollar tier, because why not? I think it's far more likely to get 250 $1 donators, or 125 $2 donators, or 50 $5 donators, or 36 $7 donators, or 25 $10 donators, or 21 $12 donators, than having a single $250 donator. Simply put, less can be more.
It's not scam since you do get something back, also you're not forced to pay for it.

yet

Yonanoke

azurepudding · 2018-07-28 12:50:14

Kira wrote:

azurepudding wrote:
tbh, I think if I found a patreon donation page with a 250 dollar per month tier, with nothing to show for the game's progress, I would think: scam. This is a total scam, no one would ever make that pricey of a tier and mean it. And.. I guess I'd be wrong there. I have enough trust in management to believe this is not a scam however, BUT it does matter what others outside of the community think. If others stumble upon this and think scam, well, they're gonna pass on by without a single cent given this way. So, I think having this 250 dollar per month option may hurt the game's funding more than it'd benefit from it. As said before, it's not even expected than anyone would donate that much, so it doesn't really need to be there.
100 a month also sounds kinda scammy too, for those unfamiliar to the game. I've seen a few small indie games with tiers that usually don't go above 20 as highest tier. I mean, remember this is per month, so 250 dollars isn't 250 dollars, it's potentially 3,000 dollars if it takes a year to make.
Also I think it'd be easier to get bigger donations if the tiers weren't spread out so much. 2, 5, 10 are fine, but then 20 is asking for double, and 50 is more than double that. I think you could get a lot on board with 10, but most won't consider the leap to 20. If the 20 tier was instead 12, you'd have a lot more people willing to spend 10 consider bumping up to 12, for example. By asking too much, you end up missing on smaller, but greater in number, donations. I propose a 2, 5, 7, 10, and maybe 12 dollar tiers. Could even put in a 1 dollar tier, because why not? I think it's far more likely to get 250 $1 donators, or 125 $2 donators, or 50 $5 donators, or 36 $7 donators, or 25 $10 donators, or 21 $12 donators, than having a single $250 donator. Simply put, less can be more.
It's not scam since you do get something back, also you're not forced to pay for it.

did you even reeeeead gah

Cyral, Minimania, Yonanoke

Luka504 · 2018-07-28 14:43:46

Kira wrote:

It's not scam since you do get something back, also you're not forced to pay for it.

I'm very positive that what azure meant was that, to most outsiders, seeing a Patreon reward tier for 250$ for a game that has doesn't really have much to show for it might make people believe that it is a scam, despite the fact that it isn't.

Yonanoke, azurepudding, Xfrogman43

Kira · 2018-07-28 16:16:42

They could even do a $1,000 reward for all I care. It's the same deal.

"If you wish to donate that much, then yes. We will provide you the best possible reward in return for your generosity"

Stop making a big deal out of it.

ILikeTofuuJoe · 2018-07-28 16:34:58

Someone do a Price-Demand chart

peace · 2018-07-28 17:18:28

i thin kbefore even doing his patreon the staff should rlease some sort of video to shwow why they need the money and explain things to outsiders

Guest. · 2018-07-28 21:32:12

peace wrote:

i thin kbefore even doing his patreon the staff should rlease some sort of video to shwow why they need the money and explain things to outsiders

thats supposed to come at a patreons launch

peace · 2018-07-28 21:41:22

Jet wrote:

peace wrote:
i thin kbefore even doing his patreon the staff should rlease some sort of video to shwow why they need the money and explain things to outsiders
thats supposed to come at a patreons launch

yeah but he have plans for it but pepoele may read this and think wtf they want a patreon for hwat?

azurepudding · 2018-07-28 23:51:34

Kira wrote:

They could even do a $1,000 reward for all I care. It's the same deal.
"If you wish to donate that much, then yes. We will provide you the best possible reward in return for your generosity"
Stop making a big deal out of it.

????

it's a big deal if it may turn away some potential donators. I have never seen a game with a donation tier that absurdly high. It comes off looking scammy and a cash grab with nothing to show for. doesn't mean it is a scam, but it comes off looking like one. you seem to only have read the first sentence of my post back there, if you could please refer to all my other points you glanced over, you would see some suggestions on how to gather more by asking less.

Xfrogman43 · 2018-07-29 03:16:40

if this were a bigger game im sure they would do like 20$ max because if a lot of people invest then they will gain more money but since this is a smaller game i guess they need larger prices

ILikeTofuuJoe · 2018-07-29 04:00:23

Ive heard xenonetix said that the Patreon will start on August 1 or a few days later hopefuly

Joeyc · 2018-07-29 04:06:18

ILikeTofuuJoe, rat

some woman · 2018-07-29 05:28:30

There's something here I've been misreading that might be crucial:

The Patreon would not be going exclusively towards rEEboot development. This money would also be used to keep the servers for Flash EE up and running, and pay the staff for working on it.

So even if we did have sufficient evidence that rEEboot actually exists and isn't just a coverup to buy everyone some shiny new computers (or just make off with the money, or...), rEEboot wouldn't be the first priority here. Worst-case scenario, they might even be advertising the current version to get a larger playerbase beforehand.

What I'm saying is they should try putting more focus into a rewrite of the game where they understand the code enough to add more than just... fancy decorations, level sets, and simple action blocks.

Zumza

ILikeTofuuJoe · 2018-07-29 05:35:29

I m going to use google to see if flash is actually dying
EDIT: It is

peace · 2018-07-29 10:28:07

Xfrogman43 wrote:

if this were a bigger game im sure they would do like 20$ max because if a lot of people invest then they will gain more money but since this is a smaller game i guess they need larger prices

so a smaller game can ask $250/mmonth where only a smaal comunity knows the game but a big game can ask $20 i think poeple want to investthe $25 0in bigger game smore often then here

Joeyc · 2018-07-29 19:19:57

problem is, every single thing listed makes it look like a giant money hungry post. I don't think we'd want to pay $20 to talk a 40 year old about exclusive content which people will proably end up leaking.
Witholding content from others isn't good, cause you're showing how desperate you are. 100 to join a stupid alpha literally looks like you're milking the community for every penny they've got.

which makes the staff look bad tbh
it's almost like you're hinting at it more than once...

ILikeTofuuJoe, Luka504, XxAtillaxX, Cyral, Raanie

LukeM · 2018-07-29 19:35:50

Joeyc wrote:

problem is, every single thing listed makes it look like a giant money hungry post. I don't think we'd want to pay $20 to talk a 40 year old about exclusive content which people will proably end up leaking.
Witholding content from others isn't good, cause you're showing how desperate you are. 100 to join a stupid alpha literally looks like you're milking the community for every penny they've got.
which makes the staff look bad tbh
it's almost like you're hinting at it more than once...

Just repeating this as some people still seem to be thinking about this in the wrong way

LukeM wrote:

I was originally against the idea too, but it makes a lot more sense if you think of it as a way to donate money towards the development and running costs of a new game, with the rewards as side effects to show our gratitude, (similar to a charity giving out wristbands when people donate, nobody is paying for the wristband, it would be an extortionate price )

LukeM wrote:

I think closed alpha is planned to be more of an internal testing phase, its just that if someone gives that much money then they'll probably want some assurance that we are actually making significant progress with the rEEboot, and that its not just going to fail like the previous attempts.

(Same goes for the discussion with Xenonetix, its more that anyone donating that much would want to know what their money is going towards (and maybe influence it too), rather than it being something you'd specifically pay for)

Joeyc · 2018-07-29 19:42:39

yeah thx, but WE HAVE NO CLUE where any of our money is going towards. as for all we know it might not even go towards the game. but your own expenses

Luka504, some woman, peace

Luka504 · 2018-07-29 19:43:13

But then the question rises, what's the point of withholding certain information and access to the alpha if this is supposed to be treated as just "donating" money to the development of the game? If people want to donate to the game, then just let them donate - No need to have certain things reserved for those who can shill out 20 dollars every month.

LukeM · 2018-07-29 20:10:46

Joeyc wrote:

yeah thx, but WE HAVE NO CLUE where any of our money is going towards. as for all we know it might not even go towards the game. but your own expenses

Ok... so currently EE only just covers its own costs, so we don't have any money to pay for anything other than PlayerIO. This means that for anything else we need to raise money through other means (e.g. Patreon)

The main we need money for is the rEEboot, as there are added server costs, domain costs, and I think Xenonetix mentioned PayPal Pro (as we are no longer using PlayerIO's payment system). This is probably what the majority of the money will be going towards at least until after the rEEboot is fully up and running and we no longer need to pay for the current PlayerIO servers

Anything past that I don't think is as certain, I guess thats when being EE staff becomes an actual job rather than a hobby or maybe when we start to look at advertising to bring in more players. Although I don't think this is going to happen in the near future.

Luka504 wrote:

But then the question rises, what's the point of withholding certain information and access to the alpha if this is supposed to be treated as just "donating" money to the development of the game? If people want to donate to the game, then just let them donate - No need to have certain things reserved for those who can shill out 20 dollars every month.

I guess it mostly comes down to limiting the number of people that get each reward. In the case of big spenders and username colours this is so that they remain special things to have. As for the rest its to make sure that we can manage to give them as rewards, imagine a voice chat between Xenonetix and 100 other people XD. In the case of the alpha access, all the information will be confidential so we don't disappoint the community if popular features have to be removed before the game is released, and to make sure its kept confidential the people taking part in alpha will need to sign non disclosure agreements, which would be difficult to do with lots of people.

Xenonetix

2018-07-29 23:32:31

I love this idea and hope is succeeds in helping fund the reboot, I'll personally try and donate myself, however I do have a few concerns.

1.) The current color you have for the $10 pledge (#ffffe0) is way too similar to the standard username color, and especially for someone, like me, who has an older monitor/laptop with faded color. I tested the difference with Discord roles and it's near impossible for me to tell the difference on my laptop. I know you don't want to change the color from the original much, but if you're going to go down that route please make it a more noticeable color. Better yet, you could give the people who've pledge $10 or more a badge next to their name, similar to the badge that appears next to a Gold Membership owner's name. It could be the Patreon logo, a gem, a dollar bill, a dollar sign, ect. However, one concern I do have with using a badge is new users being confused as to why it's only for a $10+ pledge.

2.) I genuinely see no reason to pledge only $2 to get in the Patreon Discord. If the only reason you have for pledging $2 is to gain access to the Discord to get teasers, then you're better off waiting for a leaker, or have a friend that has already pledged $2+ give the information to you through DMs. I also don't really see the server staying alive for long.

3.) I also see no reason to pledge $20 for a monthly group VC. Sure it'll probably work for the first few months, but if development slows down for any reason then what'll there be to talk about? All I can see happening is it eventually reverting to a casual, normal conversation that could have just happened in a normal VC that you didn't spend $20 on. Like in the normal EE Discord server.

I hope these issues, and more, will be addressed or at least prove to work in the future.

Latif

Luka504 · 2018-07-30 00:21:18

LukeM wrote:

I guess it mostly comes down to limiting the number of people that get each reward. In the case of big spenders and username colours this is so that they remain special things to have. As for the rest its to make sure that we can manage to give them as rewards, imagine a voice chat between Xenonetix and 100 other people XD. In the case of the alpha access, all the information will be confidential so we don't disappoint the community if popular features have to be removed before the game is released, and to make sure its kept confidential the people taking part in alpha will need to sign non disclosure agreements, which would be difficult to do with lots of people.

That's um.. Eh?? The big spender and name colors are fine, but the rest seems like it would be easier and better to do if all of this was just public.

In the case of the voice chat, discord gives you a feature that limits how many people can participate in the voice chat. That way Xeno can just limit it to the amount of people he feels most comftorable speaking to. In fact, let's hypothetically say that you have 100 people who pledged 20$ or more, and they all participate in the voice chat. So then what? Are you going to limit how many patrons, who paid to talk to you, are even allowed to talk to you? Or would you deal with the astronomical amount of people in the voice chat just so you wouldn't have to skimp out on your promise? I think it's better to simply make the VC public, that way you don't pay money for a promise that might not even happen.

And the alpha should still be public. I'm sorry but the "The fans will be disappointed if ____ is removed" point holds no water. Sure, the fans might not like seeing a feature they like removed, but this isn't a good reason to not make the alpha public. And for the non-disclosure agreements, I'm concerned for three reasons:
1) People could still accidentally or purposefully talk about something from the alpha to someone they shouldn't talk to, thus breaking the agreement.
2) If someone breaks an NDA they're also breaking the law, and as such you have the right to take them to court for it. And if you don't enforce your rules you're just negating the purpose of having an NDA to begin with. And are you seriously going to sue a fan, potentially an underage one, just because he can't keep a secret well?
3) If you just made the alpha public, then no one needs to sign an NDA, because there's nothing secret to disclose anymore. Doesn't that sound way easier and less time consuming?

azurepudding

LukeM · 2018-07-30 01:35:45

Luka504 wrote:

In the case of the voice chat, discord gives you a feature that limits how many people can participate in the voice chat. That way Xeno can just limit it to the amount of people he feels most comftorable speaking to. In fact, let's hypothetically say that you have 100 people who pledged 20$ or more, and they all participate in the voice chat. So then what? Are you going to limit how many patrons, who paid to talk to you, are even allowed to talk to you? Or would you deal with the astronomical amount of people in the voice chat just so you wouldn't have to skimp out on your promise? I think it's better to simply make the VC public, that way you don't pay money for a promise that might not even happen.

The point of the voice chat is that it is a discussion rather than just a one way Xenonetix taking to you thing, so it really couldn't be public. And as for the too many people joining it thing, that's the reason it's at the $20 tier, there isn't going to be that many people donating that much.

Luka504 wrote:

And the alpha should still be public. I'm sorry but the "The fans will be disappointed if ____ is removed" point holds no water. Sure, the fans might not like seeing a feature they like removed, but this isn't a good reason to not make the alpha public. And for the non-disclosure agreements, I'm concerned for three reasons:
1) People could still accidentally or purposefully talk about something from the alpha to someone they shouldn't talk to, thus breaking the agreement.
2) If someone breaks an NDA they're also breaking the law, and as such you have the right to take them to court for it. And if you don't enforce your rules you're just negating the purpose of having an NDA to begin with. And are you seriously going to sue a fan, potentially an underage one, just because he can't keep a secret well?
3) If you just made the alpha public, then no one needs to sign an NDA, because there's nothing secret to disclose anymore. Doesn't that sound way easier and less time consuming?

Ok yes, I guess I didn't really explain that one that well (the disappointed thing and NDAs are part of it, but there are several other reasons too)

So first, why alpha isn't public:
No matter what you name it, there needs to be some sort of internal testing, to make sure that the game is at least playable before we release it to the public. If this wasn't the case then as soon as we released it we would get huge numbers of complaints about it not working. Alpha is just the formal name for this testing phase.

Why we will also release it to Patreon supporters:
We want to give Patreon supporters as much assurance that their money isn't going to waste as possible, so we will let them have access to the incredibly early releases just so they can see that we are at least most of the way to a working game.

Why the NDA?
This information is really just supposed to be to assure them that it's going well, so we still want to control the release of information to the public to make sure that there isn't any drama about the rEEboot and that we release it in the best way. An NDA is how you solve this, it means that we don't need to keep information secret from the people who are risking the most on the success of the rEEboot, but can still release it as normal to the general public.
And I'm guessing that we probably won't take action if something is an obvious mistake, but if someone is doing it maliciously then we will probably have to (just my opinion, not necessarily the rest of the staff's)

Why not all Patreon supporters?
There are a few reasons for this, firstly it reduces the chance of leaks, accidental (as fewer people), and intentional (as you are more likely to take it seriously as you have donated a large amount of money, and are more easily identifiable as there are fewer other people so could have leaked things)
Secondly it makes it more obvious that this isn't a finished version of the game, so makes it less likely that people are going to complain about thugs that are broken (which will happen as its alpha)
Lastly it just reduces the number of people in the alpha, which makes it much easier to manage, as we can personally help people set it up, and will have time to address all the problems people are having.

PTU, Xenonetix

Xenonetix · 2018-07-30 15:36:57

Just to add on to what Luke's said, there will most likely still be public images, and possibly videos, from the Alpha period, so the community won't be completely in the dark! It just means people won't be able to play it until the Closed Beta stage.

Think of it like the Unity development before it was scrapped. The staff and a very select few community members were invited to take part in Unity Alpha testing, but basically, no big deal was made about it. I'm guessing most of you didn't even know there was an Alpha testing phase for Unity, because it was mostly kept a secret.

I understand the logic of "Well, now we've heard about this happening, we want to be able to play it!", but in reality, the Alpha testing stage is unlikely to be much 'fun' to play. It's one of the earliest stages of development, and we may not have announced it was happening at all (or at least until we were actually in it) if we didn't plan to include the select few high-tier Patrons.

In my mind, the first properly "playable" version will be the Closed Beta. If everyone had access to the Alpha, I feel like the majority of the community would just be really disappointed with how buggy and glitchy it is, expecting it to be a true example of how the reboot will be, when that's exactly the stage when there'd probably be huge numbers of physics adjustments and stuff. The more people that are playing that version, the harder it is to make 'big' changes to it, such as the physics. I'm really hoping that we won't have to change the physics much at all by the Closed Beta stage, and it'll be more that we'll be making changes to functionality and interface more, as the game will be playable to the extent that people can build decent worlds in short amounts of time, instead of spend weeks on a single world that might have to be scrapped because it's during the Alpha stage.

We greatly appreciate if you choose to go for the higher tier option just for access to the Alpha, but that's not really the intention of it as a tier. As Luke mentioned, it's more to make sure we can properly demonstrate the progress we're making and show the returns on your investments into making this game great and popular again.

That said, based on the feedback we've received, we are now planning on reducing the $100/month tier to a lower amount, but it's likely to still be higher than $50/month.

LukeM, hummerz5, PTU, Jersa, xJeex

Official Everybody Edits Forums

#101 2018-07-28 12:08:27

Re: Plans for Patreon!

#102 2018-07-28 12:23:53

Re: Plans for Patreon!

#103 2018-07-28 12:50:14

Re: Plans for Patreon!

#104 2018-07-28 14:43:46

Re: Plans for Patreon!

#105 2018-07-28 16:16:42

Re: Plans for Patreon!

#106 2018-07-28 16:34:58

Re: Plans for Patreon!

#107 2018-07-28 17:18:28

Re: Plans for Patreon!

#108 2018-07-28 21:32:12

Re: Plans for Patreon!

#109 2018-07-28 21:41:22

Re: Plans for Patreon!

#110 2018-07-28 23:51:34, last edited by azurepudding (2018-07-28 23:54:10)

Re: Plans for Patreon!

#111 2018-07-29 03:16:40

Re: Plans for Patreon!

#112 2018-07-29 04:00:23

Re: Plans for Patreon!

#113 2018-07-29 04:06:18

Re: Plans for Patreon!

#114 2018-07-29 05:28:30, last edited by some woman (2018-07-29 05:29:27)

Re: Plans for Patreon!

#115 2018-07-29 05:35:29, last edited by ILikeTofuuJoe (2018-07-29 05:36:59)

Re: Plans for Patreon!

#116 2018-07-29 10:28:07

Re: Plans for Patreon!

#117 2018-07-29 19:19:57, last edited by Joeyc (2018-07-29 19:23:35)

Re: Plans for Patreon!

#118 2018-07-29 19:35:50, last edited by LukeM (2018-07-29 19:37:32)

Re: Plans for Patreon!

#119 2018-07-29 19:42:39

Re: Plans for Patreon!

#120 2018-07-29 19:43:13

Re: Plans for Patreon!

#121 2018-07-29 20:10:46, last edited by LukeM (2018-07-29 23:36:56)

Re: Plans for Patreon!

#122 2018-07-29 23:32:31

Re: Plans for Patreon!

#123 2018-07-30 00:21:18

Re: Plans for Patreon!

#124 2018-07-30 01:35:45, last edited by LukeM (2018-07-30 01:38:23)

Re: Plans for Patreon!

#125 2018-07-30 15:36:57

Re: Plans for Patreon!

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