Introducing MFN: Prime & Commendation System!

[quote=Vengenator][quote=Joxuu] I don't think you have noticed a single commendated guide on the site which brings me to my point - it's not really a effective way of promoting a guide as you only get a icon next to your guide. Most of the traffic for guides come from google searches like "Amumu guide" or simply from the "top rated" list in Mobafire guide search. Pretty sure people who have put effort in their guides will still get most of the views.[/quote] [color=#E8570C]There hasn't been a single commended guide because it's overpriced af [/color][/quote]

[quote=jhoijhoi]My Making a Guide Guide was commended by Mowen :D[/quote]

[quote=Re4XN][quote=Vengenator][quote=Joxuu] I don't think you have noticed a single commendated guide on the site which brings me to my point - it's not really a effective way of promoting a guide as you only get a icon next to your guide. Most of the traffic for guides come from google searches like "Amumu guide" or simply from the "top rated" list in Mobafire guide search. Pretty sure people who have put effort in their guides will still get most of the views.[/quote] [color=#E8570C]There hasn't been a single commended guide because it's overpriced af [/color][/quote] Aren't commendations free?[/quote]

[quote=The_Nameless_Bard]lolno [img=http://i.imgur.com/xDRhx7B.png?1][/quote]

[quote=utopus][quote=utopus]The fact that people are spending their own money to support the website is a statement in it of itself[/quote] [quote=psiguard]Could you expand on this point a bit, particularly the italicized part? Are you saying that the Prime subscription is enough to ask and commendations should be given out for free or for much cheaper or something? Sorry if I missed an earlier comment explaining this part (I checked the Prime forums and your comment didn't seem related).[/quote] Commendations should be sold for MUCH lower. I think that the unit price of a commendation is too expensive now. Something getting commended doesn't tell much about what was commended, nothing except the absolute best content will end up getting commended. For example, if a new user wrote a spectacular guide (e.g. alphaproxiii) with the current commendation system, there would be a [u]0%[/u] chance I would commend the guide, because there are about 10 things other things that I could immediately name off the top of my head that would deserve a commendation more than alphaproxii's guides (to name a few - guide to making guides, hax's tier list, vynnie's support ama, faces2names, foxy's tables guides). I'm sure some of the other members share the same sentiment. What I foresee with commendations is that the very best of the best threads and guides will get commended, and all other guides will be greatly shadowed, with maybe like 1 commendations on some guides. Commendations in such small volume will add little intrinsic value to the actual content. What I think you should instead do is greatly devalue commendations. Have commendations be available for 1$ per unit, and have 2 commendations give a user one month of free MF: Prime. Doing this will make it less burdensome for people to commend a guide, and will also make it more common for users to commend things. I would be more compelled to read a post/guide if it has been commended 8 times (with commendations at 1$ per) than I would if it has been commended twice (with two 4$ commendations)[/quote]

[quote=Mowen][quote=xeresace][spoiler] It's not just me though. It genuinely looks like you're a robot being paid to promote this system on the forum which just makes it seem like that much more of a cash cow than anything. Thanks for this reply though, actually showed me that you guys are still there and care for the community and I even detected some passive aggression :^ ) tl;dr mowie we miss the REAL you ;_; pls more personal-ish replies like this, I mean, in the end, this is not supposed to be just a business :< [/spoiler][/quote] Haha, sorry if I come off that way to you. I'm only trying to be as clear as possible and show people what I see as the good side. I think it's good to be professional, when talking about community feedback, that's all. :) I miss you guys too, wish there was more time in the day to post in Off Topic etc. I don't mind giving longer answers, just most of the time I try to be shorter cuz people are like "TL;DR" :D [quote=jhoijhoi][spoiler] So who was involved? Obviously Matt, Flash and Mowen, but were there any actual MobaFire users who were involved in the design process of this feature? In terms of more suggestions, I think you should be able to sort members by prime membership. Also, prime members should be acknowledged for supporting MobaFire via a portal on the front page or wherever that cycles through the members - so extra exposure for those people and their content. [/spoiler][/quote] Practically the entire staff was involved at some point or another. Psiguard and Wayne were there for the community perspective, and I like to think that they're actual MOBAFire users haha. We are definitely going to look into ways to make it easier to find Prime members / Commended content. While we do want to recognize Prime members / commended content, we don't want it to feel like you have to be Prime / commended to get noticed on the site, so we will have to find a good balance. [quote=Joxuu][spoiler] To me Mobafire Prime looks like a donation button at the bottom of a Twitch stream or I guess it's more like a Twitch subscription, it's voluntary. I don't think anyone should be upset about it existing as one doesn't lose anything if it exists. It's just a way to support the site. The presentation of MFN Prime looks sloppy however. Prime is supposed to be for the community so I think the community should have been part of the creation progress (test group/asking for opinions on features etc...) like Prime is being promoted out of the bushes as a unfinished product which seems kinda strange to me but in the other hand it's still mostly a way to show appreciation/support for the site so it shouldn't matter too much. I don't really have a opinion on MFN Prime yet, partly because it's still in creation progress but it's not harming the casual user's experience so I'd say it's a good feature on first sight, especially for those who have wanted to support the site more than just being part of the community or just creating content. [/spoiler][/quote] Thanks Joxuu! :D I'm glad you seem to be getting the vibe we are going for at least. It was meant to be a surprise, but there seems to have been a fair amount of confusion about how the features worked and the intention so that didn't help it come across as a pleasant surprise. :P I do wish we had done better to make it more clear, then I think it wouldn't have been as startling. [quote=Thalia Kael][spoiler] Seriously the commend button needs to be not in the post, it looks as if everyone put a "paypal donate button" in their posts and it should be as discrete as +rep, especially since it's going to be much more rare to commend a post anyway. [/spoiler][/quote] fix'd [quote=jhoijhoi][spoiler] ^Possible alternatives? [img]http://i.imgur.com/83HqjPk.png[/img] [img]http://i.imgur.com/lFA2M2I.png[/img] [/spoiler][/quote] Great minds think alike :D (also this is updated now) [quote=Vengenator][spoiler] So this is basically pay for advertising/attention for guides and streams. Because who cares about skill or dedication, just pay to become prominent. [/spoiler][/quote] Psiguard and Joxuu have already answered this pretty well, but I'd like to answer it a bit more. This is definitely NOT the goal here. All that is changed when a guide is commended is flair for the guide listing / guide page. It is not moved on the list or its score altered. This is very much meant to be a fun way to support MOBAFire and give content creators a super "thank you" by giving their stuff some swag and gifting them a month of Prime. I more see the Stream stuff as a way to let your readers know that your stream exists. I mean most people aren't going to check for that if they're looking up a guide, but if they see it they might decide to tune in or subscribe to watch later. [quote=jhoijhoi][spoiler] Joev, I doubt you guys intended to release Prime "unfinished". That's the most ridiculous, cost inefficient, bumbling idea I've ever heard. No one releases a payment/subscription service and then tacks on, "By the way, this isn't done! We're going to change it up soon. Don't worry about that though. Still buy it. It's fine." While accepting feedback from the community is great, my point was that it would have been a tonne more productive if the devs weren't backpedaling to change things they wouldn't have done in the first place had the actual community beta tested it. I feel like this is a thing MobaFire does more often nowadays. I remember when ideas were floated in the vet forum first, which gave being a vet meaning - we saw things before they were implemented and our ideas helped shape the final product, if only by a tiny bit. [/spoiler][/quote] Actually that's what we're doing. Prime's not going anywhere, and if people don't think it's currently worth it that's fine. We've basically given you what you've asked for: a chance for Veterans to test Prime, give feedback, and improve it as a community. As Commendations go out or people become Prime members, more people will be able to test and give feedback than just Veterans. I don't think it's a bad thing to say that we don't consider Prime done and done and are going to put it on a shelf. I think it's nice that we have a starting point, but the road is open before us. Now is your chance to give the feedback that you're saying you want to give (and you are, and that's great). [quote=jhoijhoi][spoiler] I think there needs to be a video of the things Prime gives, and also a video of how Commend works. To be very honest, the threads with the pictures are a little confusing and not really easy to follow. I can't get a feel of what is supposed to be happening, I have to concentrate to read. I feel as if a video that walks you through the motions would be better at conveying the systems. Edit: Another visual suggestion... the gold border around our avatars. As this is a League site first and foremost, the gold border just makes me think that every Prime member is gold elo. Which I'm sure wasn't the intent. On guide previews, the gold border = gold elo, so I can see people confusing Prime with being gold elo. I think it'd make more sense for the border to be flame colours, like a gradient from red to yellow. [/spoiler][/quote] A video would certainly be cool but I'm not sure if any of the staff actually have the expertise to make it look exciting / cool. :D I would certainly be interested in hearing what particular bits you find confusing in the explanations and see if I can clarify them. Perhaps some gifs would do the job if we can't do a full blown video? Very good point about the gold border confusion, will look into clearing that up. [quote=utopus][spoiler] Psi, I'm not upset at you or wayne, since afterall, if you two were given permission to disclose this kind of thing on the vet forums, you would have done so and we wouldn't be having the conversation that we're having now. I appreciate what the devs are doing, but if they're saying that they're developing some service [b]for[/b] the community, then it's probably best to check with the vets and long time members. Afterall, only the community knows what the community values. I've already expressed my feedback on the MF:Prime subforum and earlier in this thread: The fact that people are spending their own money to support the website is a statement in it of itself. It'll be hard to get people to [s]buy commendations[/s] support MOBAfire easily when all they can think of is that they could spend their money for [u]one[/u] lousy commendation, or buy a breakfast burrito from their favorite diner [/spoiler][/quote] Good to know who you're upset at :D (jk) I pretty much touch on this with my response to jhoi above. We see this as the Vets opportunity to give feedback and test, just not completely limited to Vets. I admit we could have made the launch message more clear though. Thanks so much for taking the time to give feedback and suggestions utopus, we really appreciate it, and we actually have already implemented your suggestion to see more comments per forum thread :) just need to write up some change notes (along with the non-prime updates that went out) - - - Alright that's all I have time to respond to for now, since Patch has quite the feedback to tackle. :D I have actually already read everything before now / jotted down notes, but I still wanted to take the time to respond to you guys. Also @ the general "commendations are too expensive", it was a little hard to price these since they give a month of Prime with them. We also want them to be special. They shouldn't be flying left and right, but they also shouldn't be super duper rare. So basically, there is a hard to strike balance and we will keep looking into it. :)[/quote]

[quote=jhoijhoi][quote=mowen]Practically the entire staff was involved at some point or another. Psiguard and Wayne were there for the community perspective, and I like to think that they're actual MOBAFire users haha.[/quote] Of course admin are part of MobaFire. But they see things differently from regular users. There were probably quite a few points that Joev and Wayne rose about the system that caused it to change. But here you see that two people in admin roles does not an entire community make. Edited: Just to be clear, I may seem ungrateful, but in fact I am just passionate. And I love the fact that MobaFire is being looked at - to see what can be improved or how the community can be rewarded or how it can gain some extra revenue from dedicated users in order to pay the MobaFire staff. I just wish other things had been dealt with instead. A new flashy banner is great. But the newer Fire sites are so much more advanced in graphics and design. A wikibase at MobaFire is needed. Blogs need to be highlighted. New guides need exposure. Scouting needs to die or be re-calibrated. I think the time, effort and money spent on Prime/Commendations would have been better spent on functionality issues, like making a responsive website for tablets/phones, instead.[/quote]