New Feature Suggestion: Pay-to-Accept Private Shows Service

This stems from the July feedback item addressing how I accept my private shows via the database, and how it's not fair.

What I am proposing

I propose that I offer this service to the rest of the game as well, in order to make things more equitable. Players will have the option of paying to have their private shows accepted for them through me via the database each week. 

How I propose it works

Twice weekly, on set days/general times, I would do what I already do for myself in the database and accept all of the animals requested for specific private shows, for any player that chooses to opt in and pay for that service for the week. 

The Rules

If we went ahead and implemented this, these would be the (strict) rules around this:

1) You can only pay for your own shows to be accepted, not someone else's.

2) The two days/times would be set in stone, with no exceptions made if you miss them both. If one week something hindered my ability to offer the service, or had to adjust the time/date due to something in my life offline, I would make it known ahead of time to the site as a whole.

3) Payment required before accepting. I would confirm that payment had been sent for that week before I did my accepting thing. No payment, no service.

4) The show IDs would have to be sent in a specific format. See the FAQ for more info about this.

5) Players who want to pay for this service are responsible for their own show entrants. See the FAQ for more on this.

If at any point a player is found to be abusing this feature, breaking any of the above rules, etc., they would be banned from using it. On that note, I'd also propose to add an official rule to the game rules regarding people who abuse this feature by using it to sneak into other people's shows and entering them without a prior spot-buying agreement in place, essentially stealing a spot.

(Example: Koni keeps sneaking a dog into a few of my private shows without paying or me noticing or her and I having a show-buying agreement and enters the shows.) 

FAQ

What would the fee be?

$500k/private show

Which days/times would you do the accepting thing?

I could do any day Monday-Friday between 9-10pm, whatever the majority of players want for days, the times are more set-in-stone. Either way, it would be twice a week. Time is game time obviously. Maybe Monday and Thursday? Let me know your thoughts. I can also add it to the event calendar once the dates are decided if people think that would be helpful?

What's this show ID format you speak of?

The way I do this, is by copying and pasting lists into a specific area of the database and running a query. In order for this service I am offering (which I will be doing manually, btw...) to not take a hundred years to do, the IDs sent in messages would have to be in a stacked column list, not a row list. 

Example:
this
this
this
this

NOT this, this, this, this.

I would also need the IDs to be sent without the name(s) of the shows, or (), or #. Why? Because if I'm doing my 98, Jaya's 100 , and Myst's 100 all in one go, I'm not going to also take the time to delete all the extra stuff that will make the query not work if they're not removed.

What's this about responsibility?

When I say this, I mean players who own the shows are responsible for making sure everyone who has requested their shows I'm accepting have paid for their spots, that only the people who should be requesting have been requesting and not some random, etc. Doing this type of accepting is an "all or nothing" sort of deal. Either all animals requested for that show are accepted, or none are. There's no picking or choosing who in a show. It would be the show owner's responsibility to keep track of their own shows and entrants.

Where would the money go?

All payments from this service would go to Sam's account, not to me the person doing the service. Think of this like a manual version of a cash shop item. Or buying a bingo card. Payment doesn't go to the person who's running the bingo game to pad their HP bank account, it goes to the HA/Sam.

What about you, Blitz?

Yes, I would pay for the service as well, if I want to continue to do this for myself. 

I'm confused. What would this look like for me, a player who wants their shows accepted?

Here's a scenario of what this would look like.....

Jaya wants Blitz to accept her shows for the week because she has over 100 and hates doing it.
She creates all of her shows on Sunday and messages the people who buy show spots from her letting them know they're there, and that she's paying for this service, so be in by Tuesday night at 9pm for the first accept option.
Jaya then sends the fee to account #1.
She then sends account #1 a message with a column list of all of the show IDs she wants accepted that week.
Blitz, Tuesday at 9pm, sees Jaya's message, checks and confirms Jaya did pay, then Blitz adds Jaya's show IDs to her list.
Blitz runs the query and Jaya's shows get accepted.

If some of my people don't request in time for the first date, will you still accept the same shows on the second day of the week?

Sure, if specified in the message that week that the player would like me to do this.

Do I or my show spot buyers get any sort of notification once this is done?

The beauty of this way of accepting is that there are no "Private Show Accepted" messages flooding your inbox ever week. So no, your show spot buyers will not receive any sort of notification from me that this is done. I can reply to any messages sent with IDs, however, letting you the show owner know it has been done, and you can choose to let your people know. 

When would this start?

In order to iron out any kinks, and allow time for any feedback on this in the replies to this forum thread, this would start as of the week of Sunday, August 13th.

Thoughts? Comments? Questions?

-bump-

I'd also put all the rules/how it works somewhere on the site once it is implemented...not sure where though! If you have an idea on that, let me know!

I'm not really sure if I'm keen on this idea tbh... like for some people selling public shows are how they make their income and if we were to implement this idea then it would take away the opportunity for players because what if they don't offer any other services and selling shows was their only way of income.. 

im not saying no to this idea completely.. but I am not 100% sure on the idea. Although, I'm sure that I will probably be the only one that isn't keen on this idea. 

Oak, it won't be for everyone, but I think it could be very helpful for the players with the bulk accounts.  

@Oak: What Amber said. It wouldn't be a mandatory thing...if you wanted to take advantage of it, you'd pay to use the service weekly. If you didn't, it wouldn't cost you a thing.

So we'd be able to just opt in when we wanted to, it wouldn't have to be a weekly thing? So if I knew I'd be super busy one week, I could use it just then (as long as I sent payment and show IDs and whatnot, of course)?

I mean it does sound interesting.. I don't have as many accounts like some people, I only have 14 accounts that are upgraded so that's not too bad. But I mean, it would be awesome to not have to go through the show accepted messages all the time. :D 

So then, does that mean we wouldn't be making anything from the shows if we have to send all the money to account #1 or would we get to keep some of the funds? I'm just curious because sometimes private shows are my only income, especially if I don't have my graphic services opened up. Sorry, I am just trying to understand it all.

I love this idea, but I think the cost should be a different amount per show type. 500k for a horse show means you only lose one spot in profits, but you're losing two spots in profits by utilizing this for dog shows. Otherwise, this sounds great!

Oak, you wouldn't be sending all the money you receive for shows to #1, only the cost for Blitz to accept them via the database, which is 500k per show.

@Jaya: You'd "opt in" on a weekly basis when you messaged/sent money. I'd look at who messaged, and those would be the ones I accept. It wouldn't be like a check box opt in thing. So yes, if you were away one week, you could use the service one week...you wouldn't have to always do it or always not.

@Oak: I'm proposing $500k/show. So if you had a private horse show with 10 players that aren't you paying you $500k/week/horse for the show (which is the current/usual going rate), it would only end up costing you the entry of one of those 10. Any other money you're making selling spots would stay with you. You'd literally just pay $500k/show you want accepted. Not all of the money from you selling all of the spots. Does that make more sense?

@Jade: What amount do you think would be better? Honestly, originally when I spitballed this with admins I said $1 mill per show, then in the middle of typing the main post on this thread realized that per account that was A LOT, so I halfed it. Part of the cost amount is like cash shop items...they're more expensive because you don't need them to play, but they're additional perks, so they're not intended to be dirt cheap.

okay, yes now this is all making sense and now I actually think that I support the idea now that I understand it better. Thank you Blitz for explaining that more clearly to me! :D 

I could've used this service this week; with starting my new job, and having being exhausted every evening and not logging on.. I missed accepting the shows this week... opps. *facepalm*. I will definitely keep this in mind, because sometimes I may need a hand.

If you choose to keep it at a base cost across the board to make it smoother to keep track of for both you and the players vs split cost per type, that's fine. You are correct that it isn't intended to be too cheap, and that is a fair cost for what it is. After some further thought, I think it's ok to keep it as you laid out here.

@Oak: You're welcome!

@Jade: Yeah I'm attempting to make it simple math for everyone, including myself (lol). Like buying tickets from the store. Even though horse tix generally go for more than dog tix, they both cost the same to buy from the store in the first place, it's not type-dependant. 

While I don't have enough accts to make this worth while for me, I know I would LOVE for all of the people I buy shows from to do this xD I enter almost 600 private shows spots a week and the thought of having them mass accepted without 600 messages a week makes me want to cry tears of joy LOL

I would be against this for a couple of reasons. Firstly, I think it takes even more away from the actual game play. Why even log on more than once a week when you can literally play HP on a Sunday afternoon and not miss a thing? Secondly, I don't think any feature that has to be manually completely via the database is going to be good for the staff. This is taking too much reasonsibility from the players and putting it on the shoulders of one person (and could turn into a point of tension that is unnecessary even with the best of prep in place before it rolls out). Sure it may not take blitz long and I know there are tons of things that have to be manually managed by the staff but if this can't be programmed into the game to then I don't think it should be implimented. Just my quick two cents.

"When I say this, I mean players who own the shows are responsible for making sure everyone who has requested their shows I'm accepting have paid for their spots, that only the people who should be requesting have been requesting and not some random, etc. Doing this type of accepting is an "all or nothing" sort of deal. Either all animals requested for that show are accepted, or none are. There's no picking or choosing who in a show. It would be the show owner's responsibility to keep track of their own shows and entrants."

Can you restate this, Ive read it ten times and it doesnt make sense to me, sorry.

What if someone who hasnt paid requests against our wishes, or someone who has paid tries to enter extra horses?

@Manitou - I believe what they mean is that if someone has requested a spot in your show and either wasn't supposed to be in it or hasn't paid then you are responsible for rejecting the entry prior to blitz accepting. So if she's scheduled to accept shows at noon on Mondays, then you better be checking your show entries before then to make sure no one has snuck in.

@Manitou: Basically what trig said. You would be responsible for making sure that people are actually paying you for your shows spots before I go an accept their animals, if you paid for the service. Same thing with making sure that trig doesn't sneak a horse into one of your shows I'm accepting to "steal" a spot without your permission and/or without paying for it.

Kind of like it's your responsibility when accepting horse tix to make sure you're accepting the right horse for the right player who's paying you for them, vs. a new player doing a random one-off horse ticket request.

Hopefully that makes better sense?

@trig: Few things, so I'm going to make it a point-form response...

- I'm honestly not sure something like this COULD be programmed into the site. Definitely not something I could do (lol).

- Part of the reason I listed out strict rules with this service is so that I don't get resentful of it if people try to get me to do it not at a scheduled time, I have to chase people to pay, etc. I also purposely chose days/times to suggest when I know 99 % of the time I will be home and around my computer. That 0.01% of the time will be when I make it known to the site that the accepting date/time has to change.

- Players can choose to use this, or not. Some could even choose to use it only if they're going to be away, find someone who will create their hundred shows but don't want them to then have to go through again and accept them all. Hell, I could be the only one who ends up using my own service and paying for it some weeks lol. It's honestly the best solution I could come up with where I could continue to do what I already to, while making it fair to the general HP population. 

Yes thank you!

I like it!

Honestly, this seems like a great option on multiple fronts: message flooding and subsequent database lag, and also taking money out of the economy to help with inflation. The people I see using this service the most are bulk show providers, who also happen to be the players with the most cash packed away (myself included!), so I think it's a fantastic thing to try.

And if it doesn't work out for one reason or another, it won't be a permanent fixture. The service can be terminated with a simple announcement. I see no reason not to at least give it a trial period ^^

^^ Exactly this. Thank you, mango! ♥