Alright, I read as much as I could about this... and here's a way to deal with the people under the age of 18! Benefit them on their grades.
Seriously, though, I do not really like this idea. As far as I know, my rank hasn't been affected by this yet and I'll be rather disappointed when I click to post this and if it is affected the moment I do that. There are some people out there that do agree with this, but for the most part, I've seen people here that were disagreeing with it....
I am trying to look at both sides of the table.
The things that have been brought up that would be for this subscription thing is that the website is expensive. It is optional. It has been noted that it is going to be hard to make any real decisions unless we know some pricing, because if we're talking maybe $5 for a Silver membership... go out and mow some lawns, children, Xiled Gaming has some bills to pay! However, if you're talking anymore than $15, and it depends on for how long - example, Xbox Live costs you $50 for an entire year. World of Warcraft costs you $15 for a month. So if you go by monthly fees, you're taking a portion of my money to play World of Warcraft, and I frown upon that. I really do. If you're talking yearly subscriptions, then big whoop. $50 for a year is well worth it on Xbox Live, but I won't be paying the same price for an internet website that I would for Xbox Live.
Then we look at the things that go against it.
You're telling us that we have to pay for what we've already had? It is going to be an impact on recruits, like it or not. It is something that we can start bringing up while we're attemping to recruit someone, but there are people out there that will misunderstand and might be under the belief that they
have to donate to join into the community. We could explain it out to them a hundred times, and some people just won't get it. Some of the minors do not have a part-time job, some do not have rich parents - Hell, there are adults out there who don't even have a job! Back to the kids - some are too busy with school to be able to get that part-time job, or even mow a lawn, shovel a driveway, or however we all used to make money as children back in the day. We put our time in here through using up our own time, and sometimes, it feels like an actual job that makes us have to get on... other times, we come on to actually play a game. Most times, in fact, but then there's issues that always come up that we always have to deal with. I've stressed this before, and I will stress it again: Drama does not go away by ignoring it, it goes away by dealing with it. And with this being a huge community, over 25,000 members, and it is impossible for every single one of them to not have some drama. The drama will affect their life, entirely, thus, it will be coming onto the game here and there... and if it's something based on the community, it should be dealt with.
Back to the point... there are so many things in life that will say we cannot afford to pay for this. And you took away some things that were already a privilege, but what did we do that made us deserve that loss? Nothing. But now you want more out of us to have that privilege, and I think it is wrong. You could do this subscription thing, but I would suggest you come up with better benefits instead of removing some that we had. Maybe after they subscribe for so long, they get free Microsoft points. Let's say they don't have an Xbox 360... and I don't have a Playstation 3, so I can't tell you what benefits could go for that... maybe a free game of their choosing? There will be a lot of extra cash, so I'm sure you could afford it. Maybe everyone who subscribes has a chance to get a bonus $1000 once every 6-12 months. I don't know. There are so many things you guys could've thought of.
To the side of them, our signature are not really required to be on the board. They were a nice addition, but we don't have to have them... although it makes us all look like robots, and completely boring individuals. You hear me, Jangles? You're boring! And if there was someone in this world that was more boring than you... well, they'd be pretty damn boring! (j/k)
There is another note that I nearly forgot... leaders need a larger inbox than others, moderators, and super moderators. They all need this stuff. And I will include Generals in this topic as leaders - because Generals get messages from their clans once in a while, believe it or not, but they are also part of those mass messages that you all send out at least once a week. So if it is going to be your messages filling my inbox, I should get a larger inbox because there are some things noted in there that I just like to keep, so I can go back to it later if I need.
I can only imagine how a Section Leaders inbox would be, and it would only fill up more as we go up the ranks.
In conclusion, I do think that our privileges should be granted back, and you should think of some new benefits for those that subscribe. It is our duty when we recruit people to make sure they understand that they do not have to subscribe to the site to gain ranks or anything... some people will be hard to convince when they see it, others will say "okay, sweet".
PS: If I lose my Kamelot signature, I will be angry, and heads will roll.
