Site Downtime (July 2016)

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Post Post #100 (ISO) » Thu Jul 07, 2016 5:48 am

Post by zakk »

My experience with being part of "free communities" where someone with a bit of money tries to buy the community/property/game from the developer/admin/etc. (who has spent the best part of their twenties running a forum or old game and now wants to move on to Living Real Life™) usually ends up in the new owners dredging the community for ideas on how to create what end up being poorly contrived ways to attempt to marginally monetize the system in manners that don't cramp upon the current users style TOO unreasonably, but which also make the site literally ZERO percent attractive to outside users if they have to pay-to-play in ANY way, and the community thinks that everything's been "saved" for a while, but then it just goes back to how it was after a while, since:

a. the place is still a money hole in terms of hosting costs
b. the development of new features is still a huge time sink, and
c. the community continues to dwindle (at the same rate, or an increased one)

The key to "new management" is
not trying to monetize
. That'd be like electing a new president of a country, and then having him raise taxes and/or create new taxes that never existed before, just to pay off the government's bills. The citizens would be like "the fuck bro" and those that could move, would. And since it's an internet time waster instead of an actual place where we live and work and stuff, it's simple to just choose to leave entirely, OR just choose not to use the paid features (not a single one of you fuckers has paid actual real money for WinZip, don't lie to me).

That's not to say that transferring ownership might not be a good idea. If a price is agreed on and someone steps up, the key to "new management" is trying to provide users familiarity, first and foremost. A more convenient, more accessible, enhanced experience, sure, that's on the horizon. And maybe monetization of some things is in the future, sure, maybe. As long as it's in ways that will never affect the vast majority of users, and wouldn't affect balance in any way... perhaps it even catches on and becomes a fad, like ... I can't believe I'm saying this... but... look at the ridiculous market for hats in Team Fortress 2. Valve used to charge for the game itself. Then they introduced hats. Soon they made so much money selling hats in TF2 that they made the game free to play (so they could attract MORE users to buy hats!).

But if the user base is dwindling already without monetization schemes, what do you think adding them in will do to the basic user experience? lol

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Post Post #101 (ISO) » Thu Jul 07, 2016 6:05 am

Post by mith »

To clarify:

I am not looking to sell the site. My family and I are doing just fine, and mafiascum is worth more to me than any reasonable person would offer for it.

That said, if we have any reclusive billionaires who for some reason want to throw a large amount of money my way, I'm not going to say no.

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Post Post #102 (ISO) » Thu Jul 07, 2016 6:18 am

Post by MagnaofIllusion »

Man I wish I was a reclusive billionaire ...
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Post Post #103 (ISO) » Thu Jul 07, 2016 6:30 am

Post by Cromulent Simpsons Quote »

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Post Post #104 (ISO) » Thu Jul 07, 2016 8:24 am

Post by Sméagol »

So what was the downtime in hours? It felt like a day to me, so I extended the dayphase with a day. I hear it was more like 2 days.
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Post Post #105 (ISO) » Thu Jul 07, 2016 8:39 am

Post by Plotinus »

it was about 28 hours. I extended by 2 days because it can take people a while to realise that the site is back up, but some mods extended by 1 day.
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Post Post #106 (ISO) » Thu Jul 07, 2016 8:41 am

Post by animorpherv1 »

That face when running a mish mash game (technically) offsite and don't need to extend the deadline.
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Post Post #107 (ISO) » Thu Jul 07, 2016 9:16 am

Post by AniX »

TFW stands for "that feel when" you casual. MFW is "my face when"
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Post Post #108 (ISO) » Thu Jul 07, 2016 9:20 am

Post by inte »

In post 107, AniX wrote:TFW stands for "that feel when" you casual. MFW is "my face when"
fuken normies
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Post Post #109 (ISO) » Thu Jul 07, 2016 9:25 am

Post by Nahdia »

i just want to be able to pay to use comic sans in site chat.
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Post Post #110 (ISO) » Thu Jul 07, 2016 9:59 am

Post by Haschel Cedricson »

In post 109, Nahdia wrote:i just want to be able to pay to use comic sans in site chat.
That's a good idea for a revenue stream because I would pay to have people not use Comic Sans in site chat.
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Post Post #111 (ISO) » Thu Jul 07, 2016 10:17 am

Post by GreyICE »

$0.99 to switch site chat between Comic Sans and not Comic Sans.

Mith could retire in a month.
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Post Post #112 (ISO) » Thu Jul 07, 2016 11:28 am

Post by BBmolla »

In post 100, zakk wrote:I can't believe I'm saying this... but... look at the ridiculous market for hats in Team Fortress 2. Valve used to charge for the game itself. Then they introduced hats. Soon they made so much money selling hats in TF2 that they made the game free to play (so they could attract MORE users to buy hats!).
Dota 2 makes a shit ton of money as well (the prize pool for major tournament last year was raised from 1.6 million to 18 million just by selling a "book of items" for 10 dollars that included quests and the like. The same thing is happening this year and it's at 16 million with a month or so left)

I would never want pay 2 win or even pay 2 play. I'd want "pay for some cool hats that literally do fuck all."

Edit: of that 10 dollars only $2.50 went to the prizepool. Let that sink in and make you realize just how much they made.
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Post Post #113 (ISO) » Thu Jul 07, 2016 11:46 am

Post by GreyICE »

So what, sell book of items for Team Mafiascum?
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Post Post #114 (ISO) » Thu Jul 07, 2016 12:13 pm

Post by mith »

I am sad to report that so far no reclusive billionaires have donated truckloads of money.
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Post Post #115 (ISO) » Thu Jul 07, 2016 12:15 pm

Post by GreyICE »

Make Mafiascum Great Again?
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Post Post #116 (ISO) » Thu Jul 07, 2016 12:18 pm

Post by MURDERCAT »

In post 113, GreyICE wrote:So what, sell book of items for Team Mafiascum?
Maybe they should sell cards or something
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Post Post #117 (ISO) » Thu Jul 07, 2016 12:38 pm

Post by hitogoroshi »

Another fun idea: get a bunch of big ms personalities in a game together and folks can donate to the site to join a spectator thread. Maybe one thread with role/setup reveals and one without.
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Post Post #118 (ISO) » Thu Jul 07, 2016 12:40 pm

Post by GreyICE »

Hmmm, we could do a kickstarter for live action and film it. For bonus incentives you can vote on the costume each player wears. So guys part 2 can get together and get Shea that Borat speedo.
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Post Post #119 (ISO) » Thu Jul 07, 2016 12:48 pm

Post by Thestatusquo »

I think I was basically going to say what mith just said but it's good that he was the one that said it.

Every time we have any sort of downtime, people act like there is an imminent chance of the site dying from lack of funds and that there is some desperate need to fundraise right now including all sorts of awful things like banner ads and subscription content.

The thing is, I'm pretty sure we're pretty stable right now in terms of funding and these drastic measures are pretty much not necessary at all. This isn't to say that people can't donate money to mith to help defray the costs of the site, and in fact I'd encourage them to do it, but neither of these crashes had anything to do with lack of hosting funds as far as I understand them.
Last edited by Thestatusquo on Thu Jul 07, 2016 12:50 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Post Post #120 (ISO) » Thu Jul 07, 2016 12:50 pm

Post by GreyICE »

You're just dodging the banana thong swimsuit.
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Post Post #121 (ISO) » Thu Jul 07, 2016 12:51 pm

Post by Thestatusquo »

I'd do it for a moderator position.
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Post Post #122 (ISO) » Thu Jul 07, 2016 12:52 pm

Post by GreyICE »

Quick, Mith, you can make this happen.
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Post Post #123 (ISO) » Thu Jul 07, 2016 12:55 pm

Post by kuribo »

What about a series of MMA fights on Internet pay per view where scummers step into the octagon against one another to settle their forums grudges

I'm sure someone would pay to watch users whoop one another
We could call it Scumfights


Now I kinda wanna do it for free regardless
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Post Post #124 (ISO) » Thu Jul 07, 2016 1:11 pm

Post by Equinox »

In post 118, GreyICE wrote:Hmmm, we could do a kickstarter for live action and film it. For bonus incentives you can vote on the costume each player wears. So guys part 2 can get together and get Shea that Borat speedo.
We have all of the elements for reality television right here. Use Kickstarter to get funds for camera equipment and an Airbnb, and then charge spectators for each vote.

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