From A Different World - Forums

Advertisments on the server will help me pay bills. Donators will not see the ads.

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To sum this up for players:

A 30second or less ad will play when you join game and when you die (It can be changed so it doesnt play when you die) If thats the case it will only play when you join, and when the map changes.

You can mute this ad. You can pause this ad.

Ads will generate revenue for the server.

Donators will not see any ads.

I would love adds anything that will support the Server
and its great idea
donaters will be add-less while if not u can support it with adds
but also expect something
And lastly we better keep our word of family friendly?
and so the add must be family friendly
like review before putting it on?

Is it possible to reduce the expense of the server instead, say by making the server slots smaller?

TTT cannot be played without massive Rdm anywhere above 20 players, unless half of those 20 players are regulars/admins that will deeply respect the rules.

Every time the server gets past 17ish players it turns to chaos, so why do we have a 32 slot cap?
why not reduce it to 20 and maybe save a few bucks? Or am I totally off as to how server hosting works?

The way I have it hosted costs the same no matter how many slots i have.

We normally get the RDMing under control, that's why I have so many slots.

Personally, I'm fine with ads. So I don't care.

I know a lot of others have problems with ads, and it really pushes people away. Plus, we're already getting donations from players, so I don't see the need.

We've gotten a total of around 30-40 dollars this month out of a goal of 100/month

Our population seems to be mainly people who won't aren't old enough to have a job and christmas was the time that they would've donated, but we still gotten our goal.

I was told a while ago that the server was being hosted for free by a friend. Not to mention that 100$ a month seems a bit much if you ask me, so I don't think that's really a good point to bring up.

If you want people to donate you have to offer something of significance. When I worked on a dark-rp server this conclusion was plain as day. The fact is you have to dangle something shiny in front of people in order to get them to pledge money. Especially youth. It's the whole reason FTP games are thriving so much right now.


I love this server and I love the people who have flocked to it (most of them).
I have seen servers and communities grow and die and sometimes reform.
I'm not just pulling things out of my heindquarters (well some of it).

Let me pitch a couple ideas from a business standpoint:

We are already pretty aware of Death's conclusion, that the majority of the server's occupants are
not of a working age. Given that assumption It's important to find a system that targets the said majority audience.
From my experience, people of the age group in question are more likely to create a loyalty, or dependency to a server based on what they will loose if they stop playing there. As it stands, a good chunk of the servers population would probably not be all that bothered transferring to another TTT server, most players aren't. If you want to create a hook for the average player, you have to do something unique, something they won't find easily on another server. More importantly if you want to establish financial loyalty, you have to offer something unique in return, something a player won't want to walk away from.

Some solutions:

Vary obvious benefits for donating. Using the MOTD especially to outline these in a section, or at lest showing it somewhere players will see.


Examples:

- Donators vote counts more during map voting

- Donators are given slightly longer mic-bars

- Donators can carry slightly more ammo (not clip side obviously)

- an extra starting credit when detective/traitor




A more complex system might include A coded in-server monetary system.

Where normal players gain say 5 currency per round played, and donators gain 15.

The best kind of system is one where anyone can get things, but you have to pay to get them more quickly.

Donators are also given currency based on the amount of money donated. EG. 10$ =10k of said currency.

In game currency would add up to rewards from some form of in-server shop system.

I have seen this done with hats, but in my opinion it didn't work out very well and it didn't fit TTT very well.
Instead if you could create it so say, You spend 20k of your accumulated in-game currency on a weapon, and then you spawn with said weapon in your inventory slot, or at your feet when a round starts. Players could buy multiple weapons and decide which one to spawn with from the shop menu. Weapons would have varying prices, but all of them high, to encourage people to donate and be able to buy them much much quicker.

A system like this would likely create the question from new users " how did he start with said weapon, when I have to go find one? ". An admin would then answer " because he's a donator ", or " because he bought it from the shop ". Not only implanting the idea of progression in the mind of a common server-goer, but also establishing that the server has a unique system where you can in fact gain from being a part of said server. It creates a dependency that can lock in more players, the same way a DarkRP player would not want to change servers after accumulating a large amount of currency. Systems like these promote Donation from people who otherwise wouldn't even think of donating. It's complex and I'm sure it would take a good deal of effort but I have seen it work before.


I also liked the idea sniper posed about adding a gambling system where you can bet on the outcome of a match.