Why do I come to ZAM?Follow

No freaking idea.

Back in the day, 10 years ago or more, when this was just Allakhazam's site and whatnot it was a great place for information on these games. Now most information is aged and not updated. While some still viable, it's clear this site in particular is for a forum community, and with my post count over 10 plus years I just don't post enough to care to join a online forum community.

I have nothing to add to feedback that would back my stay here any more enjoyable. I just don't feel like posting here, or anywhere anymore. Forums are, in my opinion, just a place for people to come and complain about what they are discussing.

Anyways, it was enjoyable to be here years ago, and I use to love pointing fellow MMO gamers to this site when they needed information.

Signing off, never coming back. Sub default me, insult me, ban me. Don't care, not coming back.

...OK?

I come here for the free PC Gamer magazine.

Your premium gives you access to all the actual gaming site search functions this place is theoretically built around. You know, the weird stuff that isn't forums.

Premium also makes all the ads go away.

If there is a specific section of the site you feel is out of date, please bring it to our attention in the feedback forum. a "hey, X game has Y now, but your database doesn't" is typically enough to get the ball rolling. Newer games with more staff assigned to them typically recieve more content manager time. We also recently cut staffing hours in several areas due to several reasons, so some older games and forum query response times may be longer than they have been historically.

The decision was made from a management perspective to shift many of the traditional forum premium features to non premium in an effort to increase forum readership and induce ad revenues.

Premium membership also funds the salaries of the content managers, forum administrators, server hardware, bandwidth, etc. Admittedly that is somewhat of an intenagible benifit at times, however I like to think it is a significant one.

We're open to ideas if anyone has specifics they would like to see for premium membership. We've kicked around ideas such as turning the image upload function into a generic file hosting solution, a "pay per karma reset to 3.00" button, etc.

We should have some sort of contest. Best new idea for a premium thingy gets at least 2 days worth of free premium (since thats all I can apply at a time personally) or somethign like that.

To the OP who left forever. On the off chance you read this, PM me what needs looked at and I'll find out a status on it for you.

Right, here's some things off the top of my head. I'm basically just throwing **** at the wall and seeing what sticks, and I'm high as ****. Don't be surprised if they're not quite brilliant.

New, restricted forums: In the vein of what somethingawful has. Special content only available to those who pay.

New thread aesthetic features: Give the premium users the ability to modify their threads in a way which makes them stand out. Flashing or moving text, different colored backgrounds, etc.

Spoilt ballot: The ability for premium users to post in a thread without bumping it. It would appeal to those who want to express their hate for the OP without bringing more attention to the thread.

Insider access to certain news, gaming and site related. Also hooking them up with beta invites to games, somehow. Maybe work with an affiliate to prioritize them.

E-mail accounts: You may already have this, IDK. Obv @zam.com type.

The ability to have all their posts and account deleted, if they request it

Actually send them their ******* magazines that you promise

Give the karma ratings a bit more weight than others, or give them the ability to disable karma and lock their accounts at default.

And, you know, gaming is something of a small niche. Tits never decrease traffic. The point is that you should consider expanding somehow.

I only use the WoW part of the site and the database there was moved off-site.

Guess I don't have any suggestions for premium content. Having to invent stuff to make premium worth it just seems pointless.

As it is now, we're paying to remove the ads instead of activating that magical browser plugin most people are using anyway. It seems slightly unfair that those who pay to remove the ads are having perks "removed" so that those who block ads for free an get them as well.

As a premium user, I'd like the ability to meta-moderate posts, like Slashdot.

So if an OP posts something awesome, I can mark it as Interesting or Insightful.

Or if an OP posts something obnoxious, I can mark it as Troll or Attention *****.

I never paid premium because of the services the site provided. I paid premium because I loved the community. The new "Zam" corporation slowly shaved all that community away, at least in the OOT/Asylum. So meh, I don't pay anymore.

There's that, too. Not that Alla was going hungry but I felt more inclined to give my money to him than to Goldman Sachs & Oak Investment Partners.

I come for all the interesting personalities and the threads they make in the Out of Topic and Asylum. I've been posting here since 2004 and I'd like to think of most of the regulars as friends. I also still play FFXI on and off so forum =10 is my primary source of news and information regarding that.

If I got back to sage organically at 7k, you can easily hit guru. If they ever give that karma boost based on how long you have been a member, guru will be easy.

If this level of condescension is going to be the new tone for ZAM, I'm inclined to agree ... things are going downhill. If I want my intelligence to be insulted, I'll agree with Varus.