VIP Membership (New Extra's)

[The Professor]

I did think of this initially but wasn't too sure. That'd be dirty tactics by Sulake, really dirty. Oh well, shutting down fansites for a product just because they want to profit of £1 per user, god help us all. Thats proper tight by them really. >.>

So did I but it really isn't worth their time. There are hundreds of sites out there that use habbo's name, images, trademarks etc and sulake simple isn't bothered about them. And IF the worst came to the worst and sulake actually did put some resources towards taking habbox offline for using their images, we simply remove them and make some of our own. They really only have the argument that it's their images for the people and the specific furniture/pictures they created. We could make our own images in the style of habbo (alts) which they have no claim to.

A lot of habbox is just the joomla site anyway, we could easily replace all the habbo specific images with generic things (the little heads on the nav with bullet points for example) or other images we make ourselves. It isn't illegal in any way shape or form to say "habbo, sulake" or anything like that on the site, if it was the BBC and channel 4 news and everyone else who's reported on habbo would be in trouble.

We don't need sulake and sulake can do nothing but cry if we separate from them.

[Pyroka]

Yeah, being the biggest fansite in the world does have its pros I guess.

I was just thinking, if they wanted VIP back why not just NOT advertise the features or announce them? :S I mean thats not gaining anything which is advertised, and I'm sure it said you're not allowed to advertise the features. If you simply sneaked them in, didn't make anybody aware of them and let them discover for themselves, wouldn't that be more logical?

I mean what can Sulake do, say you put them there on purpose? Could easily cover it as an accident. *whistles* Hell I don't see why you CANT do that?! LOL

[The Professor]

I think Sulake have created a mess by allowing donator with features anyway. Having just the coloured name was pushing it, but a changeable usertitle and other bits and pieces just makes it too VIP-esque for Sulake to defend it with a straight face. Considering we advertise those features, I don't see the harm in adding a couple of others, advertised or otherwise

[Japan]

Yeah, being the biggest fansite in the world does have its pros I guess.

I was just thinking, if they wanted VIP back why not just NOT advertise the features or announce them? :S I mean thats not gaining anything which is advertised, and I'm sure it said you're not allowed to advertise the features. If you simply sneaked them in, didn't make anybody aware of them and let them discover for themselves, wouldn't that be more logical?

I mean what can Sulake do, say you put them there on purpose? Could easily cover it as an accident. *whistles* Hell I don't see why you CANT do that?! LOL

I think they said something about paying for premium features on a whole, not just about advertising.

[The Professor]

I think they said something about paying for premium features on a whole, not just about advertising.

In which case they've given us permission to break their rule, thus making their rule moot and allowing us to run amok

[GommeInc]

They really only have the argument that it's their images for the people and the specific furniture/pictures they created. We could make our own images in the style of habbo (alts) which they have no claim to.

How do you propose to make Habbo images without making them look like Habbo images? Reporting Habbo News on Habbox news would require Habbo News Team members to create, or request, non-Habbo news images that represent news from Habbo. It's too much hassle.

We don't need sulake and sulake can do nothing but cry if we separate from them.

It's not really that simple. Habbox get alot of its site views from Habbo, that's why we are all here afterall. If Habbox removed Habbo and Sulake material, then Habbox is no longer worth anything, members will die out and there would be little interest other than for the remaining members who may eventually die out too. Especially when the Radio, News, Trade and other main, Habbox factors would be cut out.

Their anti-fansite ways is the main reason I dislike Sulake and Habbo as a company. Their PR is terrible, their reasoning is terrible and they're incredibly anti-social for a site that revolves around being social and communities. Seriously, what went wrong with the company? Did someone raise up through the ranks, and was that someone a person hating sociopath who is missing half a brain, and that half of the brain being the half with all the common sense and rational thinking functionality? It makes no sense :S It gives them a bad name, and my God they've truely earnt that bad name

[Immenseman]

I don't think it's all that practical going down the route of "SCREW SULAKE" because Sulake can screw Habbox twice as hard in reality. You can site here and complain about Sulake all night (glares at Ryan) but it isn't going to change anything - they have implemented such regulations for whatever reason - why I'm not sure. You'd have to ask nvrspk4 if they ever released an official reason.

Habbox can't really try and avoid thing because it's the worlds biggest fansite - it's not some unknown site - it's a well known fact that staff use this site. Not only visit but from what I gather some actively browse the forum and people have been landed in trouble for what they've said on here and it had to be me to find out the hard way.

If Habbox wanted to try and avoid such things Sulake would come down hard and they have a team of people who know what they're doing, it's easiest keeping them happy and I think management know this hence why they're doing as Sulake desire at the present time. They could become very irate if Habbox was to start going against the fansite way and request all images to be removed, think of all the rare value images and remember that rare values are the fundamental reason why Habbox is so popular.

Hope that makes sense, just got in from a night out, I tried my best :8

[Black_Apalachi]

I didn't bother quoting everything, but Sulake can't disallow the use of the letters 'H', 'A', 'B', 'B', and 'O' in that order within a word :rolleyes:. Besides, as you know this site is called Habbox pronounced; 'Hab-box'. If they tried to say that was disallowed, then you would need to ask why they allow people to use the word 'lake'. (I know Sulake is pronounced 'Su-lah-kee' but it's a two-way street).

Also habbox.com and habboxforum.com are seperate domains so are they not therefore seperate websites? If so, it wouldn't be hard to remove all the millions of Habbo images off the forum. There's vertually none anyway; the skin banners is basically all of them? :S (idc what Sulake say, avatars, signatures and post content don't count as users on any forum on the internet could post those anywhere anyway).

Furthermore, if Habbox.com is separate to HabboxForum.com - it's not official anyway?! Isn't Habbox.com the official fansite? If they are connected, just do something to make then not connected!

As a side note, I'd love to know what constitutes as "an image owned by Sulake". I know they say anything alterated from a Habbo image, but how far does that go? I mean Habbo images aren't very complex, any isometric doodle on Paint could resemble a part of something on Habbo. If you wanted to, it wouldn't be hard to make images like Sulake's but different. Like Habbos with different proportions to their bodily features etc. As far as I'm concerned, if they haven't got a patent on "isometric images" they can do one.

At the end of the day though, Sulake are bang out of order. I'd love to know how many Habbos were registered because some Runescape fan or anyone just browsing discussion forums came across HabboxForum and thought Habbo sounded cool. Yeah I bet there's a hell of a lot tbh. Put it like this, I reckon more people found out about Habbo through HabboxForum than those who found HabboxForum through Habbo directly - basically the Official Fansites page (which doesn't have the forum on anyway).

Then I'd like to see how much Habbox's combined members and staff have all spent on Habbo. I bet that is a hell of a lot as well.

It's not like Habbox is a big corporate company storming in to take Sulake's profitz and Fronz :rolleyes:. It's a FANSITE basically held together by kids who are making virtually nothing out of it but are dedicated to SULAKE'S users. They should feel privileged that HabboxForum chooses to keep Habbo as its main focus. I doubt any website has become so big with such a young team of people behind it. It could easily become a mainly Runescape forum or just a generic teen forum tbh. All Habbox does is help Sulake get more kids hooked on Habbo fgs. Habbo would have been so much ****ter if there had been no fansites and I'd have left PROPERLY ages ago.

[Pyroka]

I think they said something about paying for premium features on a whole, not just about advertising.

How can you pay for the premium features when they're not advertised? It's like buying a box of cereal, then finding a toy inside. You only bought it for the cereal, it's all the same price and the customer was not aware of what they were buying.

Surely thats a loophole that needs to be tested. I mean you're not paying for the premium features, you're paying to be a donator just to find out you have premium features also. Oh snap.

Right Im off, see ya. Oh and btw... *glares at jake*

[Black_Apalachi]

That's a fair idea for most of us, but it won't draw in any new users to buy rep.