The VIP Situation

Hey,

This is a thread for all of you as it concerns all of you, and it could well benefit you. VIP, and all of its features vanished on New Years day, and it's only available to competition winners and MoTM now, thats a fact. Thing is though thats unfair, unfair on the members who have been loyal to HxF through the years and the people who have paid for VIP in the past, since its a great service but sadly got scrapped because of the moneygrabbing overlord Sulake.

Some of the features that you could get from VIP are pretty good, and not everyone gets involved in competitions, and you can only win MoTM once anyway(?) so what happens once you've won, thats your month up and you can no longer be a VIP till youve entered another competition, DESPITE MoTM is a involuntary competition that you win for being good for a month. :S

What I propose is that some of the features that have proven VIP to be a popular service, be given to ONLY high ranked members of the forum as a reward for their loyalty & being active on the forum, making it what it is today. Giving a VIP feature or two to one rank and upgrading it as you go along is fair, right? We're not allowed to buy it, but we're allowed to donate to HabboxForum to keep it going and we get a fancy colored username for that. This is what Im saying:

Sapphire Members recieve...
Exclusive Access to the Arcade

Why?
It helps MODs from closing unneccesary threads, plus it helps prevents large arguments.

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Emerald Members recieve...
Ability to close their own threads
A PM Storage of 500 (originally Platinum)

Why?
It helps MODs from closing unneccesary threads, plus it helps prevents large arguments. The PM storage can be maximized for the hell of it LOL.

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Platinum Members recieve...
Ability to turn themselves invisible (already in Platinum anyway)
Ability to view whose repped them
Custom usertitle
PM Storage of 600 (The VIP rate)

Why?
Platinum members are getting a good deal, and why not? They've posted 20,000 times, they've been part of the forum for ages and there's only... 3 Platinum members on the forum now I think?

A custom usetitle would not be abused as a senior member would naturally not abuse it, plus it can be easily moderated as there is not many of them. The ability to view who repped you was why everyone bought VIP, so if you know youll get it at platinum, surely youll post to get that?

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Donator Members Recieve...
Colored usernames, a choice like the VIP+
A Exclusive Donators Forum
A userbar stating theyre a donator (I've seen the Donator subscription page already, you didnt remove it fast enough. :P)

(The new VIP+ Could well be Donators!)

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The ones I didnt mention were...

Ability to change your forum name:

This should be given to EVERYONE, but at a limit. 3 namechanges per user, and only 3 namechanges (unless theyre staff of course). I've seen this system used before and its very effective, and time saving too!

Post your birthday/events on the Habbox Calender:

Who care? Come on, who cares, nobody paid for a feature like that and I think personally, its really unnecessary.

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What do you guys think about that? I think it'd benefit both management, staff and members. Less to do for staff, more features for members to look forward to by staying on the forum, and for management an active forum where they can do VIP competitions!

That took me a while to write, so I'd appreciate some feedback on the rank choices as well as other features you think would be nice, or even other ideas.

Thanks to ello sailor (Dinasaw) btw, for providing a list of the old VIP features.

Extremely well written thread with good ideas, have some rep :)

I think I might be missing something but how does having access to the arcade make mod's jobs easier for thread closing? Looks like a c+p error :)

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Originally Posted by Professor-Alex

Extremely well written thread with good ideas, have some rep :)

I think I might be missing something but how does having access to the arcade make mod's jobs easier for thread closing? Looks like a c+p error :)

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I thought that, made me read it over and over ha.

It is a copy paste error lol sorry damnit! I thought I had that thing perfectly written.

Thanks Alex. :]

I like the idea, but I think it would be unfair on those that have actually paid for VIP before it was stopped because they paid for the service, and it would be unfair if that service became free.

But its not becoming free, we have to pay for a user color through the 1 pound of supporting the forum and becoming a donator. VIP members wouldn't care if they lost the ability to use the arcade by themselves, since eventually there will be none left. I see where you're coming from on the people who did pay, but they're getting all the features including a larger sig and what have you.

Plus, in a year I bet there will still be more VIP members than platinum members, by a large margin so they're not really losing out on their best feature (looking at who repped you). What about people who win VIP through competitions? Most likely HxF will do a comp to win 6 months VIP, how will the people who paid for it feel? It's the same situation. :P

I think that's pretty good, but the thingies should be lowered cause I won't get 20,000 posts for like years lol

Anyway yh gd idea

AND I GAVE YOU THE OLD VIP FEATURES FIRST ::@:@:@ SOME OF THEM

I also like this idea :) Very good! +REP

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Originally Posted by astonvilla

I think that's pretty good, but the thingies should be lowered cause I won't get 20,000 posts for like years lol

Anyway yh gd idea

AND I GAVE YOU THE OLD VIP FEATURES FIRST ::@:@:@ SOME OF THEM

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Yeah Elliot you did sorry, I love you really. :< The idea is that you dont get 20,000 posts for ages, too many platinum members would ideally spoil the idea, and then they'd move up the limit again. It's like inflation!

If you post alot, its not hard to get 20,000 posts, jesus got his in like a few months...

I also thought about including a reputation system for every member on the forum, yknow +5 rep points when you log into the forum for one month. Monthly rep, alot like the VIP one for 25 points but I thought that'd be hard to implement as Brandon had to add on the rep points himself, and doing a whole forum would take years. :P

Good idea but it will take ages to gather 20,000 posts.

I like these ideas ryan :)

but jesus got 20k by constantly posting in the forum games which I think has lost post counts (well it seems to have to me)... so really it ain't easy xD

Thats the idea though. Its called motivation, nobodys gonna post loads if they dont have something to get at the end of it. More members will stick around to see if they can get the rep feature, making the forum more active and making people post more. Plus they wont want to get banned before they do, would they?

Corr you guys are rubbish at this stuff lol.

Gareth, there are others ways to get posts fast but even then, the idea isn't to spam the forum to death. :P

Nice ideas. +Rep.

But yeah, getting to 20,000 posts IS impossible. Jesus just used hax.

I like this idea it seems the fairest way of going about it

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Originally Posted by Pyroka

It is a copy paste error lol sorry damnit! I thought I had that thing perfectly written.

Thanks Alex. :]

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Ok nice one :)

As a first impression it seems like a pretty sound idea, obviously if it were to be implemented the specifics would probably be tinkered with so I won't comment on those atm. The only major issue I could see is the VIP's might consider it unfair that they paid and now other people are getting them for free. Maybe if we keep name changes exclusive to VIPs and/or find something extra for them it would balance it out?

Tbh I think the best thing to do would be to set up a poll to ask them if they'd mind some features being spread out amongst the ranks because ultimately it's them who'd feel cheated. If they voted no then I'd be against doing it because imo it isn't right to cheat people who paid money like that :) Ideas?

Oh, and for the people who say its impossible to get 20k posts anyway, that's a whole other discussion :P

:@:@:@:@:@:@:@:@:@:@:@:@:@

Well I'd love the rep feature to be included in the Emerald feature. It'd be an awesome idea, but I don't think nvrspk4 would agree to that as it completely wrecks the VIP competitions, nobody will take part in something if theyve already got the feature they wanted.

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Originally Posted by Professor-Alex

Ok nice one :)

As a first impression it seems like a pretty sound idea, obviously if it were to be implemented the specifics would probably be tinkered with so I won't comment on those atm. The only major issue I could see is the VIP's might consider it unfair that they paid and now other people are getting them for free. Maybe if we keep name changes exclusive to VIPs and/or find something extra for them it would balance it out?

Tbh I think the best thing to do would be to set up a poll to ask them if they'd mind some features being spread out amongst the ranks because ultimately it's them who'd feel cheated. If they voted no then I'd be against doing it because imo it isn't right to cheat people who paid money like that :) Ideas?

Oh, and for the people who say its impossible to get 20k posts anyway, that's a whole other discussion :P

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Alex, VIPs are getting unlimited namechanges whereas normal users are getting just 3. You have to think in a business sense here, giving new features to the Donators would make people donate. Why give new features to VIPs? Its like watering a flower which is going to die out no matter what. The service that they would recieve would eventually transfer to either members or the Donators.

VIPs are getting all the features without having to post 20,000 times for the power to see rep, or post 10,000 times to close their own threads, plus they're the last of a dying breed.

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Originally Posted by Pyroka

Alex, VIPs are getting unlimited namechanges whereas normal users are getting just 3. You have to think in a business sense here, giving new features to the Donators would make people donate. Why give new features to VIPs? Its like watering a flower which is going to die out no matter what. The service that they would recieve would eventually transfer to either members or the Donators.

VIPs are getting all the features without having to post 20,000 times for the power to see rep, or post 10,000 times to close their own threads, plus they're the last of a dying breed.

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The VIP concept is going to be far from dead, just from MOTM alone there'll be 6 new VIPs alone (oh, and I forgot to correct you, you can win MOTM as many times as it's felt you deserve to) and with comps there'll probably be a fair few more. But I feel that's all besides the point.

The reason I raise the issue is not because of business or anything like that, its purely a moral stance: if you promise something to someone, you should give it to them. We promise to make people who paid us a "Very Important Person" by giving them features normal members don't have, and in the past if we've given those features to the rest of the members we've done our best to give new features. Similarly, since VIP+ people have paid us more, we promise to make them above VIPs. It simply wouldn't be right to allow them to pay us just to change the promise as soon as the ability to pay us is taken away without asking them first; its their perogative.

Maybe I'm in a minority, idk, but I feel the final say should go to the people who gave us their money in good faith.

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Originally Posted by Professor-Alex

The VIP concept is going to be far from dead, just from MOTM alone there'll be 6 new VIPs alone (oh, and I forgot to correct you, you can win MOTM as many times as it's felt you deserve to) and with comps there'll probably be a fair few more. But I feel that's all besides the point.

The reason I raise the issue is not because of business or anything like that, its purely a moral stance: if you promise something to someone, you should give it to them. We promise to make people who paid us a "Very Important Person" by giving them features normal members don't have, and in the past if we've given those features to the rest of the members we've done our best to give new features. Similarly, since VIP+ people have paid us more, we promise to make them above VIPs. It simply wouldn't be right to allow them to pay us just to change the promise as soon as the ability to pay us is taken away without asking them first; its their perogative.

Maybe I'm in a minority, idk, but I feel the final say should go to the people who gave us their money in good faith.

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No youre not a minority, I fully believe thats the right way to go (after reading what you said. :])

I swear you said you could only win once, *rage!!!!!* :P If its only 6 VIPs in the end, maybe VIPs should have access to the staff forums? :D

Sounds good to me ;)

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Originally Posted by Professor-Alex

The VIP concept is going to be far from dead, just from MOTM alone there'll be 6 new VIPs alone (oh, and I forgot to correct you, you can win MOTM as many times as it's felt you deserve to) and with comps there'll probably be a fair few more. But I feel that's all besides the point.

The reason I raise the issue is not because of business or anything like that, its purely a moral stance: if you promise something to someone, you should give it to them. We promise to make people who paid us a "Very Important Person" by giving them features normal members don't have, and in the past if we've given those features to the rest of the members we've done our best to give new features. Similarly, since VIP+ people have paid us more, we promise to make them above VIPs. It simply wouldn't be right to allow them to pay us just to change the promise as soon as the ability to pay us is taken away without asking them first; its their perogative.

Maybe I'm in a minority, idk, but I feel the final say should go to the people who gave us their money in good faith.

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Do you know when the last VIP membership runs out?

Hmmm, I think a donator forum might be somewhat pointless, but the rest is good :)

MoTM of the month isn't really a huge competition as far as I am aware, and for old members like jrh2002, MissAlice and so on, you may aswell scrap MoTM in favour of the "forum legends." Afterall, satisfying a large group of members than a small group that win a monthly competition seems to make sense. Perhaps think up a new award for being MoTM?

I'm afraid I'm totally against this idea (Sorry Pyroka, I regularly support you in habbox feedback but not this time :P)

This is a teenage forum so we need to be aware of the mentality of some of the members and I'm certain spamming would rise dramatically, it would be absolutely mad. I am a huge fan of quality posting and I'm anti-spam and members would just post loads in a short-space of time to get to the user rank they want, I genuinely do believe that posts would be of such poor quality the forum would be virtually unusable.

When 'Jesus' got to 20,000, it was 2-3 months of absolute madness, he posted in every single thread I looked in and his posts were of no quality at all and I found that irritating enough, especially as he broke no rules as he just scraped past 'pointless posting', if there's going to be 50 odd members doing this, then I weep for the future of HabboxForum :P

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Originally Posted by Pyroka

No youre not a minority, I fully believe thats the right way to go (after reading what you said. :])

I swear you said you could only win once, *rage!!!!!* :P If its only 6 VIPs in the end, maybe VIPs should have access to the staff forums? :D

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Staff forums? Now I'm confused :P

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Originally Posted by Plank

Do you know when the last VIP membership runs out?

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I remember some people posting that they were buying a year's worth and there was a guy giving out 20 years worth of VIP or something massive like that, so I don't think all the paying subscriptions will run out for a while yet.

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Originally Posted by GommeInc

Hmmm, I think a donator forum might be somewhat pointless, but the rest is good :)

MoTM of the month isn't really a huge competition as far as I am aware, and for old members like jrh2002, MissAlice and so on, you may aswell scrap MoTM in favour of the "forum legends." Afterall, satisfying a large group of members than a small group that win a monthly competition seems to make sense. Perhaps think up a new award for being MoTM?

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Meh, if it turns out to be pointless it'll get removed I suppose, not really a big tradgedy :)

I think I've missed something with this forum legends thing! What are you talking about?

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Originally Posted by Jordy

I'm afraid I'm totally against this idea (Sorry Pyroka, I regularly support you in habbox feedback but not this time :P)

This is a teenage forum so we need to be aware of the mentality of some of the members and I'm certain spamming would rise dramatically, it would be absolutely mad. I am a huge fan of quality posting and I'm anti-spam and members would just post loads in a short-space of time to get to the user rank they want, I genuinely do believe that posts would be of such poor quality the forum would be virtually unusable.

When 'Jesus' got to 20,000, it was 2-3 months of absolute madness, he posted in every single thread I looked in and his posts were of no quality at all and I found that irritating enough, especially as he broke no rules as he just scraped past 'pointless posting', if there's going to be 50 odd members doing this, then I weep for the future of HabboxForum :P

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We'd have to tighten up moderation for sure were it to go ahead and maybe the criteria for a "worthwhile post" would have to be changed but I think it's manageable. Its a fair point though.

Of course, this can only be implemented once we're sure sulake won't change their stance on VIP. I didn't think of that :P

Are you going to discuss this with the almighty non-talkative nvrspk? :P

And I meant lets get the VIPs in the staff forum for a laugh LOL.

Ryan, how long does your vip subscription last because it seems to me as if you've done this idea to get some VIP. ;)

In the long run it's going to increase spam posts and members posting for the sakes of posting to get their post count up (and in turn, get their user rank up). I like the idea, the thought behind it - I just don't think it's practical or fair.

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Originally Posted by Pyroka

Are you going to discuss this with the almighty non-talkative nvrspk? :P

And I meant lets get the VIPs in the staff forum for a laugh LOL.

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I'll wager he'll take a look at this thread and say something ;) It'd also be nice to get some more peoples' opinions :)

whoever asked about VIP runs out, i know someone on here, wont mention there name as they might not want it disclosed, who has 4 years payed.

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Originally Posted by Professor-Alex

Meh, if it turns out to be pointless it'll get removed I suppose, not really a big tradgedy :)

I think I've missed something with this forum legends thing! What are you talking about?

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Well, it's not exactly forum legends, but it revolves around the similar ideas:

- High posters
- Popular/famous members
- Old members

It's what I thought when I saw this thread, it sounds quite familiar to it :P

they shuld do tht

I object to this because its based on the premise that we will let VIP die. We will not be letting VIP die and we will be giving out VIP in much more than just MOTM. Now, I don't have a number specifically, I think 50 months given out each month sounds ok to me, up to a maximum of about 100. We'll have to find a happy medium but they will be given out. For that reason, not all features will be distributed.

For example, name changes absolutely will remain a VIP feature. If we're giving out 50 months of VIP a month, its very possible for you to get a name change. End of story :P

Arcade may be given out to higher levels, as otherwise the point of the arcade may be lost. We have been discussing this, and other features among management (sorry to steal your fire) and some of my original proposals are similar to yours, some are different.

For example, I say keep the PM levels at what they are. But I'd personally advocate giving the view who repped you to emerald users as well as platinum users, because I think emerald users certainly earn it.

Closing your own thread is a feature that definitely needs to be thought about, we may give it out, we may not. I guess the argument can be made that those with higher post counts have a lot to lose by closing a thread that was reopened.

I'll have to look at the numbers and possibilities but I'm also considering limited arcade access for ruby members, and maybe tournament-only access for gold members? Or if that's not possible, max play per day.

We may also give emerald users the permissions to create tournaments, which not even VIPs have. Of course, we may have a different idea for tournys in which case that wouldn't happen.

The redistribution of features will be looked into - however we may want to delay it until the majority of the paid VIPs have run out. Or at least some of them. That being said, the change MAY be made this month along with the big changes. Some of the changes are on the list, such as the arcade, but not all of them are. We'll see :P

Well written! I'd give rep, but I already gave it to you 1 minute ago.

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Originally Posted by nvrspk4

I object to this because its based on the premise that we will let VIP die. We will not be letting VIP die and we will be giving out VIP in much more than just MOTM. Now, I don't have a number specifically, I think 50 months given out each month sounds ok to me, up to a maximum of about 100. We'll have to find a happy medium but they will be given out. For that reason, not all features will be distributed.

For example, name changes absolutely will remain a VIP feature. If we're giving out 50 months of VIP a month, its very possible for you to get a name change. End of story :P

Arcade may be given out to higher levels, as otherwise the point of the arcade may be lost. We have been discussing this, and other features among management (sorry to steal your fire) and some of my original proposals are similar to yours, some are different.

For example, I say keep the PM levels at what they are. But I'd personally advocate giving the view who repped you to emerald users as well as platinum users, because I think emerald users certainly earn it.

Closing your own thread is a feature that definitely needs to be thought about, we may give it out, we may not. I guess the argument can be made that those with higher post counts have a lot to lose by closing a thread that was reopened.

I'll have to look at the numbers and possibilities but I'm also considering limited arcade access for ruby members, and maybe tournament-only access for gold members? Or if that's not possible, max play per day.

We may also give emerald users the permissions to create tournaments, which not even VIPs have. Of course, we may have a different idea for tournys in which case that wouldn't happen.

The redistribution of features will be looked into - however we may want to delay it until the majority of the paid VIPs have run out. Or at least some of them. That being said, the change MAY be made this month along with the big changes. Some of the changes are on the list, such as the arcade, but not all of them are. We'll see :P

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Technically VIP is dead. It's just a special user group now awarded to people who've won competitions. It doesn't mean you're important now, just lucky for winning something. :P

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Originally Posted by GommeInc

Technically VIP is dead. It's just a special user group now awarded to people who've won competitions. It doesn't mean you're important now, just lucky for winning something. :P

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The second sentence is right, the third is mostly (because there's SOME skill and level of dedication to Habbox involved), but I don't get how that makes the first true :P

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Originally Posted by GommeInc

- High posters
- Popular/famous members
- Old members

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Ssssssssup

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Originally Posted by nvrspk4

For example, I say keep the PM levels at what they are. But I'd personally advocate giving the view who repped you to emerald users as well as platinum users, because I think emerald users certainly earn it.

Closing your own thread is a feature that definitely needs to be thought about, we may give it out, we may not. I guess the argument can be made that those with higher post counts have a lot to lose by closing a thread that was reopened.

We may also give emerald users the permissions to create tournaments, which not even VIPs have. Of course, we may have a different idea for tournys in which case that wouldn't happen.

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Seeing who's repped you can be useful not just so you can give your thanks to those who +rep, but also to make it easier to tell the difference between genuine -rep and a childish revenge rep from the average Joe. Seeing as how platinum is so difficult to get to (without annoying everyone at least) I'd agree that it might be well suited to emerald.

Users closing threads can be a godsend to mods I'm sure, but more often than not what I see with closed threads is that the thread in question has escalated to an argument, and its closure by the starter rather than by staff strikes a nerve with both/all sides involved, and typically more threads are made with the sole purpose of continuing the fight. I'm not saying it should be discarded or taken away from those who currently have it, but that's an observation to take into consideration.

USER TOURNEYS USER TOURNEYS USER TOURNEYS :D:D:D:D I've hardly used the arcade myself since this stopped, I think I've done three tournaments (won 2 :8) whereas before I'd quite often have small tourneys between a couple of friends or something just for something to do and someone to compete with right at that moment - considering at the moment it can take a couple of weeks for a tournament to finish.

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Originally Posted by GommeInc

Technically VIP is dead. It's just a special user group now awarded to people who've won competitions. It doesn't mean you're important now, just lucky for winning something. :P

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Excuse me young man I am VIP and I am BARE importance I will have you know :'(

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Originally Posted by nvrspk4

The second sentence is right, the third is mostly (because there's SOME skill and level of dedication to Habbox involved), but I don't get how that makes the first true :P

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Doesn't make them important :P It just means they're dedicated, but that's just arguing what the meaning of important is. You can't really rename VIP to anything really to suit it, unless you can think up a name which takes winning competitions into account, but none come to mind which sound any good :P

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Originally Posted by FlyingJesus

Excuse me young man I am VIP and I am BARE importance I will have you know :'(

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/care

:P

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Originally Posted by Judge Judy

I like these ideas ryan :)

but jesus got 20k by constantly posting in the forum games which I think has lost post counts (well it seems to have to me)... so really it ain't easy xD

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Previous posts weren't deducted from the games section, but they just don't add to your post count now.

I think jesus would have like 5,000 posts if his games posts were gone :P

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Originally Posted by GommeInc

Doesn't make them important :P It just means they're dedicated, but that's just arguing what the meaning of important is. You can't really rename VIP to anything really to suit it, unless you can think up a name which takes winning competitions into account, but none come to mind which sound any good :P


/care

:P

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I'll call them whatever I damn please! :P

Please let gold members do tournys....

The only control Sulake have over this issue is not being able to use their images.

So you could just have the VIP Purchasing on another domain, connected to this domains database. I'm sure all the people who purchase VIP will be able to get hold of this link easily without Habbox having to post it anywhere on the site. To this site would have no images created by Sulake :)

Or could simply disallow guests as Sulake staff aren't allowed to register on Habbo Fansites :)

So that way, technically they have no power to stop you :)