Admit it, your boodyhole puckered a bit reading that title, didn’t it? Allow me to alleviate your anxiety: it’s all good news. We want you to get the most bang for your buck, without falling over the edge into either Pay-to-win or Pay-to-play. So, let’s talk turkey.
New System
We’ve decided to completely change how we hand out rewards. This comes with, we believe, an overall net benefit. This does, however, mean we have to make a hard change to how we handle one tier of the Nitrado donations, all of which will be detailed below.
Tiers
In order to ensure equity across all of the donation methods, we have to implement a static tiered system based on the amount donated. When we first started taking donations, we only accepted Nitrado Boosts, which come in the following amounts:
- Small: $.99
- Medium: $4.99
- Large: $9.99
- XL: $19.99
Once we started to accept other modes of donation, inequity was created. If you dropped a $1 Nitrado Boost, you got the same benefits as someone who, on Patreon or Paypal, dropped $5. While no one has complained, perhaps because most people didn’t realize it, it bugs the crap out of me. So, moving forward, there will be four donation tiers and they will all be for the same amounts across all modes (including Nitro boosters on Discord, because that also benefits the community):
- Small: $5
- Medium: $10
- Large: $15
- XL: $20
If you prefer Nitrado boosts, you can still use them. What we are going to do is track the total dollar amount donated on the backend. So, if you can only donate $1 at a time, those donations will accumulate. Once you hit $5 donated, you’re a Donor and reap all of the benefits associated with being a Donor. We don’t want to exclude anyone from the Donor program, but equity is important here.
Tokens
Currently, you acquire redemptions for recolors and skins in specific amounts and based on the amount you donate toward the clusters. Rather than split them into two distinct categories, we are going to roll them into one category, called Tokens. You will still receive the same amount of tokens as you did recolors and skins, as I will detail below, you will simply be able to spend those tokens as you wish and in connection with what is offered for purchase to donors. See the breakdown below:
$5 Donation
2 Tokens
(Previously 1 Skin and 1 Recolor)
$10 Donation
4 Tokens
(Previously 2 Skin and 2 Recolor)
$15 Donation
6 Tokens
(Previously 3 Skin and 3 Recolor)
$20 Donation
10 Tokens
(Previously 5 Skin and 5 Recolor)
As you can see, it’s a pretty straightforward system. This system comes with the benefit to you of being able to spend your tokens however you’d like. What we’ve seen is that most people don’t actually use their skin redemptions, which makes locking you into that specific reward of little benefit. Your individual donor pages will now (I have to go through and edit them all individually, so it will take some time) display your total tokens instead of Skins/Recolors.
Added Benefits
As I mentioned at the start, we want to ensure that you are getting the most out of the money you are donating to the cluster, but without falling off the cliff of PTW or PTP. So, we’ve come up with some extra benefits that we think will enhance the benefits for Donors without falling over the aforementioned cliff.
Store Discounts
Donors who meet the minimum tier requirement will receive a 10% discount in the cluster store. By minimum, I mean that this is a benefit to all Donors, regardless of the amount donated, who hit the $5 minimum to be considered a Donor. There is nothing complicated about this addition. If you want to buy a Rex, which costs 300 rex arms, you will only be required to pony up 270 Rex arms. Easy peasy.
Imprinting
Part of converting to the token system was to better facilitate the benefit of purchasing imprints. Now, don’t either pee yourself in excitement, nor set yourself on fire in protest, before you’ve seen the breakdown below:
1 Token=10% imprinting on a single dino
You will not be able to imprint a whole ass dino with a single token, as that would put us in a place we don’t want to be in. This should be viewed as a Donor benefit where you may have missed an imprint, or have accumulated sufficient tokens to imprint that wicked, colored Wyver/Whatever you tamed that can be imprinted naturally. We don’t want to disrupt the normal flow of the game here, and we felt this was sufficient to provide a benefit to Donors, but not so much that it broke the game.
City Terminals
We previously added water and oil nodes to the benefits for Donors who donate a cumulative total of $20. The nodes are mainly a convenience thing and free up what are typically scarce nodes for the rest of the cluster. We’re adding City Terminals on Extinction to that list. Unfortunately, we are only able to spawn them in on Extinction, because the game is lame like that. If you’ve already donated $20, this will be added to your list of benefits when I do the conversions to tokens.
Gas Veins
Just like with the other resource nodes, you will now be able to request a Gas Vein once you have reached $20 in total donations. Just like City Terminals, however, the gas veins are only spawnable on Aberration. If you’ve already donated $20, this will be added to your list of benefits when I do the conversions to tokens.
Event Rewards
Donors will receive additional rewards at the conclusion of certain events that reward winners/participants with currencies or resources. Again, no peeing or bursting into flames, until you’ve seen the examples below:
if you win 10,000 metal from an event, you will receive 11,000 metal as a donor
if your win 100 element from an event, you will receive 110 element as a donor
As you can see, it isn’t going to be gobs more, but more nonetheless.
Donor Benefits
So, let’s see what all of this looks like in a nice list:
- Discord Role and Fancy Color
- Donor Specific Discord Channels
- Tokens (based on donation amount)
- Recolors
- Skins
- Imprints
- to be continued
- Store Discount
- Additional Event Rewards
- Oil Node (cumulative benefit)
- Water Node (cumulative benefit)
- Gas Vein (cumulative benefit)
- City Terminal (cumulative benefit)
As time goes by I’m sure we’ll devise additional benefits for Donors, but these are benefits for Donors moving forward. We really appreciate the continued support of our Donors, and hope you find the changes and additional benefits useful.