Here's a few ideas of potential benefits for Patreon donators beyond the special badge. I'm only brainstorming here so please don't take any of my ideas as a criticism. - A Forum area exclusive to patreon donors and developers - Exclusive polls that could be used to guide certain projects. For example a poll could list several ideas for a special feature article. The idea with the most votes wins and is written. - Developers could donate a few promo codes which could be used for a lottery to patrean donators only.
We can totally do a Patreon forum, we still are working on setting up all the forum stuff. Could do polls too. Not sure about the promo code thing as that's always dependent on developer support.
I just noticed that my RSS reader now only shows the first snippet of stories, not the full story with photos as before. Even when enabling Readability, pictures and embedded videos don't show. Not sure if this change was on purpose or not, but if it was, could Patreon backers have a link for a full RSS feed like before? RSS is the main way that I follow the site, would be happy to maintain or increase my meager Patreon pledge to keep it that way.
It's working fine for me, can you refresh the feed or whatever? We were having some weirdness with our website earlier today, wonder if something is caching crazy. Either way it's not intentional.
Hey thanks for looking into it! There were a few stories today that did that, but the most recent one or two seem to be back to normal. I'll keep an eye out and post if there are more issues with it. Thank you!
I don't want to throw a spanner in the works but I've seen something like that happen on another site I frequent and it ended up turning in into a two tiered forum. The haves and the have-nots. Which isn't nice to behold and it ended up hurting the forum in the long run. I have nothing against Patreon but some people especially in these tough times, cannot afford to donate even though they would like to. It would be harsh indeed if like that other site they ended up being treated like second class citizens. On a totally different note, how about adding something like "donate $5 or more per month and the adverts are removed from the site"?
Have to agree - I've donated but wouldn't like to see any special forums for donors (or otherwise). Cliqueness is not nice on any level but it's worse when bought.
Patreon backer forum might work ok, depending on how many users are on the forum. If 500 people are patrons, 200 of them are active forum users, and there are 10000+ active forum members, it would actually be an exclusive (probably quiet, honestly) place rather than a 50-50 split. But I can also see how it might not work as well, I'm on another forum for a Kickstarter-backed game where it's more like 50-50 and then it ends up being like posts outside the "wall" are not in on the latest info, redundant, etc. Still, I like that people are brainstorming ideas! Virtual stuff that's fun and doesn't cost TA anything (like highlighted forum badges or whatever) are probably the best route to explore.
Basically an exclusive membership club to get the latest info quicker and miss out on exclusive experiences that others don't get?
Another idea regarding the Patreon... This isn't a bonus, but an alternative supporting option. I've been a member of the site for quite awhile, though I haven't posted recently. I would have supported the site for awhile now, but there hasn't been an option to do so. Unfortunately, for me, paying monthly is less than ideal. I would gladly make an annual donation if you gave the option, though. Is there any way to do that, or to add a one time donation option to the Patreon? Another site that I support, BoardgameGeek.com does annual donations and are successful with that. I would think that having both options available would actually be even better. Is there any possibility of this? If there isn't a way to add this option, then I will probably just start a donation at something like $60/month and then cancel after the first month. That will skew your numbers when you look at how much you have coming in, so it would be better if you have a way to allow straight donations also.
Unfortunately Patreon is structured to be monthly, if you're cool with $60 a year you could just do $5 a month, it accomplishes the same thing. Or, yeah, just cancel it after a month. Either way is fine.
Sorry I couldn't do better than $5/mo but I am kicking in. I could not imagine how crappy my gaming experience on my iPad mini would be without you guys.
How about just a forum badge or a larger max size for avatars or a customized title under your name. That's usually what I see done elsewhere.
I see that you followed through and created a patreon only forum. The only problem is that my measly 2 bucks a month contribution doesn't qualify me for it.
Maybe bigger discounts/exclusive deals in the 'deals' section for Patreon users. Right now I'm unsure if it would trump buying using Amazon Prime (currently doing). I'm in agreement with an earlier post in that I wouldn't really want an exclusive section for Patreons...but now I read the post above that it was just created lol.
