[Donations] Support HoN via Donation Goals!

[Manu311 111]

36 minutes ago, Tchado said:

// it's getting long, so I cut this quote

Sadly I'm not a layer and I have no clue about American laws. I don't even know too much about German laws  - all I know is that there is definitely some legal reason as to why certain areas are blocked from buying GC. That reason might be obsolete or can be circumvented by knowing "law-stuff" but I don't know of any FB-employee that is actually a lawyer. So if some person would want to change this, they probably have to be a person that Garena believes is capable of the right judgment - I assume that person has to be a payed and contracted one (because they would want to be able to sue someone if they gave wrong advice that caused harm).
So once again, I have no information about lawyers, but I assume they would probably cost around 300 US$ each hour. Figuring all that out, presenting it to Garena and whatever else they would have to do, is probably at least a week of work. So 300 US$/h × 40h --> 12 000 US$.
So the "risk" for Garena here is that they have to invest 12k and it might not result in them actually being convinced enough. Let alone any additional cost which might be a consequence like reconfiguring paypal or creating a legal company outside of US (which Amazon and Blizzard definitely have).
And the potential benefit for Garena is "people of a couple of countries in near-east can buy GC".
Even if they would know that all those people combined would buy GC for 12k - it's still not a good risk to take.

I mean I guess some FB-staff could volunteer to figure out how much money it would actually take to investigate and convince Garena from changing that system and they could add an additional goal for it. Since you guys can donate, that could work - but I kinda doubt that there's enough money in that market - sadly.

Btw Indie games are usually sold through Steam, the Epic Game Store or some Appstore, so basically you're never buying anything from those few Indie developers but always from steam.

Anyways I'm sorry if I was a little bit rude - I try to not be and just take the side of people I want to rather invest their time into HoN  - occasionally I assume wrong things, after all I don't have any insights into this.
But since you kinda remind me of one of our programmers, I want to give you an advice: Try to calm yourself down before you speak/write. You have valid arguments and I totally understand your point - but if you sound as aggressive as you do, very few people will read your arguments or listen to you. And people that don't have to listen to you (like bosses or staff) will probably just stop reading early and just ignore you. (Or in games just mute you)
So since you're writing, it's easier - you can give yourself as much time before posting as you want, just read through your post 3 times before you actually send it and imagine if anyone could take that as offensive. It should be helpful basically everywhere

 

//EDIT: Since you edited your post while I was writing that wall of text:
As for that giveaway - that's probably similar to the donations: It's not selling, it's "gifting".

Edited August 6, 2020 by Manu311

[Tchado 3]

23 minutes ago, Manu311 said:

Sadly I'm not a layer and I have no clue about American laws. I don't even know too much about German laws  - all I know is that there is definitely some legal reason as to why certain areas are blocked from buying GC. That reason might be obsolete or can be circumvented by knowing "law-stuff" but I don't know of any FB-employee that is actually a lawyer. So if some person would want to change this, they probably have to be a person that Garena believes is capable of the right judgment - I assume that person has to be a payed and contracted one (because they would want to be able to sue someone if they gave wrong advice that caused harm).
So once again, I have no information about lawyers, but I assume they would probably cost around 300 US$ each hour. Figuring all that out, presenting it to Garena and whatever else they would have to do, is probably at least a week of work. So 300 US$/h × 40h --> 12 000 US$.
So the "risk" for Garena here is that they have to invest 12k and it might not result in them actually being convinced enough. Let alone any additional cost which might be a consequence like reconfiguring paypal or creating a legal company outside of US (which Amazon and Blizzard definitely have).
And the potential benefit for Garena is "people of a couple of countries in near-east can buy GC".
Even if they would know that all those people combined would buy GC for 12k - it's still not a good risk to take.

I mean I guess some FB-staff could volunteer to figure out how much money it would actually take to investigate and convince Garena from changing that system and they could add an additional goal for it. Since you guys can donate, that could work - but I kinda doubt that there's enough money in that market - sadly.

Btw Indie games are usually sold through Steam, the Epic Game Store or some Appstore, so basically you're never buying anything from those few Indie developers but always from steam.

Anyways I'm sorry if I was a little bit rude - I try to not be and just take the side of people I want to rather invest their time into HoN  - occasionally I assume wrong things, after all I don't have any insights into this.
But since you kinda remind me of one of our programmers, I want to give you an advice: Try to calm yourself down before you speak/write. You have valid arguments and I totally understand your point - but if you sound as aggressive as you do, very few people will read your arguments or listen to you. And people that don't have to listen to you (like bosses or staff) will probably just stop reading early and just ignore you. (Or in games just mute you)
So since you're writing, it's easier - you can give yourself as much time before posting as you want, just read through your post 3 times before you actually send it and imagine if anyone could take that as offensive. It should be helpful basically everywhere

 

//EDIT: Since you edited your post while I was writing that wall of text:
As for that giveaway - that's probably similar to the donations: It's not selling, it's "gifting".

Well I appreciate it , but I actually wrote it that way for a reason , I love this game and I would love to support it , but I wish I wasn't treated like a 2nd class customer  because of where I live and I wish this grievance is taken seriously by an honest response (even privately) , but I know I wont get it.   Anyway until I can buy gold coins like I used to many years ago , I have no reason to change my stance.

One last argument to consider: Your entire calculation is based on risk , what is the risk of working a market the whole world works in ? selling your goods to one of USA's top allies in the region as an american company ? I would say 0% , therefore.....I have to make other assumptions

Edited August 6, 2020 by Tchado

[Acnowlogia 5]

== PROBLEM == 

How I look at this is it is not a very promising strategy to get community contribution.

Most of our community players are not donating out of sheer goodwill, most of us expected something in return. And human nature dictates that we prefer things that are beneficial to us, concise and immediate - we prefer to know exactly what we are going to get, then if we like it, the sooner we get it the better. Also, we players care about the future of HoN, we would love to help in ways we could, but we are not the ones responsible for improving the future community, it is the sole responsibility of Frostburn and should be done in the backstage (I am mentioning this because it is how human behave in general, we care about our own benefit first, above all else).

Some of the goals that you have may be very beneficial if they are to be realized, however, from a player's perspective, they are not much beneficial. Examples of these are:

- Acquiring new servers (for obvious reason)

- Server upgrade (less lag is good, but current quality isn't so bad)

- Christmas theme (really, I think nobody ever cared about those maps, what we all waiting for are Frostburn's presents)

Some other goals are vague, we do not know WHEN it is going to be realized, and IF AT ALL:

- The lack of apparent account value

This kind of donation approach generally brings a free-rider problems. First is risk, people might not want to donate to a goal if they are not certain that it will be realized. "What if I donate $50 toward the goal of improving account value, but in the end the goal was not achieved and my donation is moved to something of no benefit to me, like a new AI system?". So they might be hesitant in donating, especially in the early stage where the donation bar is almost empty. Eventually this risk could make a beneficial goal for many unrealized. Second, most people want improvements in HoN, but they are at least okay with how it is right now. They could still play HoN daily and satisfy partially their happiness with the game. This group of people expect changes, but rely on goodwill ambassadors (a.k.a people with money to spare on a dead game) to do it. Also, this approach currently directly competes with buying gold coins from the shop. As said above, people strictly prefer benefits than none, and sooner than later. It is preferable for most people to buy a $50 gold coin package knowing that a part of it will be directed for development, instead of donating $50 and get some public benefits in an unknown future.

So from my point of view, asking for community donation could have been done more genuinely.

== SOLUTION == 

Perhaps you could ask the community directly, what changes they would want the most. As a veteran HoN player, I have already had some of those answers.

1. We love presents. These presents come in the form of in-game miscellaneous that you have done such a great job at, including new avatars, symbols, account icons, name color, announcer... and stuffs like that. If I remember right, new, glaromous HoN avatars are still introduced in SEA client, but for over a year now all those new avatars never make it into NAEU client.

2. We love events. In-game events in simple forms do not need much effort to implement, but they keep people motivated. Things such as daily reward, goals and achievements with real rewards... if done genuinely could encourage people to spend more time in HoN.

3. Many of us love MMR. We like competitiveness, we enjoy dominating good players, there are peaks we want to climb and people who we want to show off to. Nothing beats a good rush of HoN adrenalin.

I know you have wrote something about these in your thread. However, remember that people prefer things that are beneficial, concise, and immediate. If people feel like it is too uncertain, or not beneficial to them, or there are better alternatives, the chance of donating is low. 

Let me give you an example of what could really make me donate (and so do the many mmr-whores, smurfs, and high-rated players out there). A donation goal that, once achieved, would enable the facilitation of Heroes of Newerth Season 12, with new rewards, avatars, and most importantly, new stats. Many players over 1800+ MMR have used up all their sub-accounts and they are either unhappy with the stats or the MMR became too high that finding games take too much time. Meanwhile, the penalty for stat reset is set too high, so very few people would actually want to afford, and it lasts only a short while. Even if you set a goal for the realization of this event at $2000, I am sure many people would be willing to chip-in $10-50 to realize it. Because it is more beneficial for them to do so instead of buying a new stat reset. You could then redistribute this amount to other goals that are beneficial for the general public and future community, such as marketing, new AI, and so on, things that are not the first best options of the players.

Another approach would be to employ voluntary work from the public. Instead of paying $200 for a professional mapmaker, you could organize a map-making event for the general public, with the best maps getting recognition and gold coins reward. I am pretty sure there are splendid mapmakers in the community who would work for gold coins, because goblins love Merrick. How about exclusive community avatars?

This is what I would like to contribute. I love the game, I would be willing to donate, but I am not a goodwill ambassador. 

 

Edited August 6, 2020 by Acnowlogia

[ElementUser 618]

11 hours ago, ScrubFactory said:

How did Garena react to this...basically splitting the revenue O.o

Is there a way for community to keep track how well you this is going?

Donors are not receiving something explicit in exchange for the donation. In other words, donations are not transactions & it's perfectly acceptable & legal. We've stated what the donations will be used for in the Donation Goals. If players want Gold Coins, they can buy Gold Coins using one of the official methods to do so.

 

The community can go to the Donations page and check how much money has actually been raised so far for each donation goal at any time: https://forums.heroesofnewerth.com/index.php?/clients/donations/

Edited August 6, 2020 by ElementUser

[idan223 1]

Honestly, never cared about alt avatars, and I've been having so much fun getting back to the game, I like knowing that 100% of it goes back to the game.

Shut up and take my money

[Sorais 11]

Are any of these things going to happen on the Garena client?

What about things like banning the DDOS hackers (I notice they still haven't been banned yet in spite of complaints on the Garena subforum) or griefers, fixing the login bug, etc?

[lve2raft 0]

Catch more flies with honey...let me pick an avatar I want or a few spins of plinko, something to show i am a donator. Just like in other games.

[ScrubFactory 5]

Just now, lve2raft said:

Catch more flies with honey...let me pick an avatar I want or a few spins of plinko, something to show i am a donator. Just like in other games.

Its not a donation if you want something in return. Oddly though, you would be getting something in return by having more developed game.

Edited August 8, 2020 by ScrubFactory

[lve2raft 0]

bad logic - go look up any other game that asks for development money - they all give you something. You guys are behind the times and flat out wrong.

[Mosher 2]

I think Element User was pretty clear between the lines that he cant give anything in return, if they want to use alle the money for game development...

[idan223 1]

You can always buy gold coins if you want something in return, still helps development, just not a donation

[Manu311 111]

On 8/6/2020 at 9:01 PM, Acnowlogia said:

Another approach would be to employ voluntary work from the public. Instead of paying $200 for a professional mapmaker, you could organize a map-making event for the general public, with the best maps getting recognition and gold coins reward. I am pretty sure there are splendid mapmakers in the community who would work for gold coins, because goblins love Merrick. How about exclusive community avatars?

This is what I would like to contribute. I love the game, I would be willing to donate, but I am not a goodwill ambassador. 

So which volunteer positions have you applied for?
I mean there have been a lot of those for years - I don't recall seeing you in any of them. Surely you're capable of doing at least one of those things.

 

Also, guys imagine a similar situation at your workplace (if you have one). Your boss is only making you do the very smallest amount of work necessary, basically making everyone unhappy - you as well as the customers. Of course you're already working overtime to improve the customers experience because you care for them more than being payed well - but there's only so much that you can improve by simply working more since you also need some better equipment. If you work as a hairdresser and only got dull scissors, it will hurt people.
So you need money you don't have and have to ask customers. Now your boss will probably be happy if you just take additional money from customers without giving them anything in return. But what if your boss notices that you give some customers special treatment? Surely you're using company money for that, which he did not approve. Since he likes your doing overtime, he won't kick you, but he'll probably deduct all the stuff you give back to customers from your salary.
So basically you're limited to giving staff back, that doesn't belong to the company (like avatars or GC do) - I guess we could get certain staff members to send you a personalized thank you message or some personal talking time if you're donating above a certain amount of money. But people that are willing to donate that much money, will probably not care for it and rather just want HoN to survive.

Edited August 8, 2020 by Manu311

[Acnowlogia 5]

1 hour ago, Manu311 said:

So which volunteer positions have you applied for?
I mean there have been a lot of those for years - I don't recall seeing you in any of them. Surely you're capable of doing at least one of those things.

 

Also, guys imagine a similar situation at your workplace (if you have one). Your boss is only making you do the very smallest amount of work necessary, basically making everyone unhappy - you as well as the customers. Of course you're already working overtime to improve the customers experience because you care for them more than being payed well - but there's only so much that you can improve by simply working more since you also need some better equipment. If you work as a hairdresser and only got dull scissors, it will hurt people.
So you need money you don't have and have to ask customers. Now your boss will probably be happy if you just take additional money from customers without giving them anything in return. But what if your boss notices that you give some customers special treatment? Surely you're using company money for that, which he did not approve. Since he likes your doing overtime, he won't kick you, but he'll probably deduct all the stuff you give back to customers from your salary.
So basically you're limited to giving staff back, that doesn't belong to the company (like avatars or GC do) - I guess we could get certain staff members to send you a personalized thank you message or some personal talking time if you're donating above a certain amount of money. But people that are willing to donate that much money, will probably not care for it and rather just want HoN to survive.

Well I used to be a CBT tester once many years ago. I am not a tech-savvy person so I could not do things like creating new avatars or maps, but in the past there have been several people posting those in the form of Modifications. What if you could implement community-donated contents and use them as rewards? It does not affect Garena's profit because the asset were donated from the community, and then rewarded for the donation from the community, they never belonged to the bosses in the first place. Isn't that the same as bringing some Chinese HoN avatars into this game? Also, if you could bring the Garena-exclusive avatars over to NAEU, won't people be willing to pay for that in general, in gold coins?

I understand the concern from the staff's side clearly. I know what kind of boss you have and how hard you are working. I'm just saying that the donation could have worked much better in your favor if customers' needs are genuinely catered. Perhaps if you show the community that HoN is expected to die in the next 4 months without community support, people will start to donate more because they see the apparent risk, and thus the direct effect to their enjoyment. If one assumes that HoN could last for the next 2 years as it is going currently, then it is okay for the many of us to believe that the game would have lived its life naturally, there is nothing we can do and perhaps it is a good time to move on because all good things must come to an end. It is just the economics intuition (a.k.a rational thinking).

9 hours ago, Sorais said:

Are any of these things going to happen on the Garena client?

What about things like banning the DDOS hackers (I notice they still haven't been banned yet in spite of complaints on the Garena subforum) or griefers, fixing the login bug, etc?

I think the Garena client and NAEU client are considered two different games. Since Garena abandoned HoN development, I doubt if there will be any performance improvement in Garena, likewise any user experience improvement in NAEU apart from the stuffs that the staffs are working on.

[Dzili 13]

8 hours ago, lve2raft said:

Catch more flies with honey...let me pick an avatar I want or a few spins of plinko, something to show i am a donator. Just like in other games.

Well you are getting in return if you donate. You are getting better FPS in game, you are getting new map etc... you will use all of this staff, aren't you?

[Ondis 25]

Three questions, my apologies if it has been answered before, just point me there and I'll read that instead.

 

1. Why can't the war systembe re-introduced immediately since the code is there I assume?

2. Donation goals are always a bit messy. First of all it only offsets other costs. Like one problem in international relations is that  food aid to certain dictatorships offsets those costs that means they can buy more weapons. Its a bad example and nothing to do with this game more so than process-wise. I mean maybe I'm overdoing my concerns here a bit but does for example donating for a certain goal mean that G-Arena doesn't get a cut of that money as they would with gold coins? 

What stops them from getting a bigger cut from gold coins ^^ ? I guess one thing is that the donation goals wouldn't be worked on at all due to the state of the game otherwise. 

But then questions 3:

Remaking HoN into a 64 bit process was something thought of as too expensive and time consuming even pre-Garena times. Are we sure that isn't a bit too lofty of a goal?

The others seem fine tho. 

[Manu311 111]

6 hours ago, Ondis said:

1. Why can't the war systembe re-introduced immediately since the code is there I assume?

It has been said by ElementUser in the past, that the code from back then can't be just re-enabled since a lot of the code it depends on has changed. So re-introducing War Effort is a slighly bigger endevour.

[Swaze 0]

A 64 bit for Mac and updated gameplay would be amazing. 

[Cederic 1]

Jesus you people like to whine and are greedy af. You have option of buying gc or donating. No one forces you to do either but at least with a donation you can see where your money is going and how its used.

[ensid 6]

few of the examples look like suggestions from my 5.0 thread.

[R4DAMANTIS 0]

Hola a todos, de regreso después de más de 10 años a los foros, me considero un veterano de Hon desde que estuvo en beta el 2009 y a la fecha sigue siendo uno mis juegos favoritos, independientemente por todos los problemas que  pasó Hon, quiero hacer mi donativo, la consulta es: puedo hacer la donación con tarjetas de crédito o débito como visa, mastercard etc...

[RUS_AGENT007 19]

What are the payment methods? I have wrong email added on My acc and when trying to proceed it Said confirmation going there. Which would be fine, but i wasnt allowed to choose payment method? 

[Manu311 111]

1 hour ago, R4DAMANTIS said:

Hola a todos, de regreso después de más de 10 años a los foros, me considero un veterano de Hon desde que estuvo en beta el 2009 y a la fecha sigue siendo uno mis juegos favoritos, independientemente por todos los problemas que  pasó Hon, quiero hacer mi donativo, la consulta es: puedo hacer la donación con tarjetas de crédito o débito como visa, mastercard etc...

English only please.

[facedown 3]

Wow. Elementuser still here after all this time? Impressed and very happy to donate today. 

[ElementUser 618]

Update for Payment Methods:

To more easily track donations, we have moved from Paypal to Stripe.

[Dzili 13]

10 minutes ago, ElementUser said:

Update for Payment Methods:

To more easily track donations, we have moved from Paypal to Stripe.

Do we need to have Stripe in order to donate? If yes, they do not support my country...