Still looking for a beta key??

yes but:

1) It's been good to attract new members here

2) some were (like myself) readers but not registered members - they now want to register

Joneagle_X ought to be congratulated for making the process fair and interesting...

 

Apparently you weren't a reader for too long, you're not supposed to quote post right above yours

 

Yeah that's why all beta key comps should have a rule. You must have 50+ or 100+ posts here to enter them. That would weed out all the spamers from other forums just here for beta keys.

 

Re-reading the rules now and yes, you are correct. I remember the general rule was not to have a quote longer the the amount typed. And yes, not quoting the post above is mentioned there too - I apologize.

 

I already got my key but I disagree to this. Because that limit will only force people to spam useless messages to get to a certain amount of posts. It will make the quality of the posts very low.

 

I agree with Deman and let me add that adding a post qty restriction would only defeat the purpose of making the keys distribution a competition or will undoubtedly result in posts spamming (more work for your forum admins/mods). Assuming that part of the purpose is to increase the forum userbase. An increased userbase will mean you'll have a more active forum in the end. If the incentive into registering wasn't there you could as well just have made a random raffle and get done distributing all the keys at once. You'll want to distribute the keys slowly over time, the longer it takes to distribute all the keys, the more people will get to hear about it and come join the forum.

It may sound unfair to long timers of the forum but long timers have the *huge* advantage of being able to find answers quickly or already have their own keys anyway.

Besides, they also need noob testers (like me ) to be rolled over and also to try illogical things (possibly finding bugs) that seasoned players would not try during regular play.

 

Well the mods would weed out the post spammers and ban them so that would not be an issue.
And to me even 50 semi-intelligent posts is good enough. My whole point is help the forum regulars first and the rest of the world later. Loyalty to this forum should mean something.

 

It's actually a pretty tough situation.

'Cause on one hand I can see where you're coming from, people with 500+ posts not getting a key while people with 1 post do, that is frustrating, and it kind of feels like like you say, does your loyalty not count for anything?

But on the other hand it IS a great way to get people to join the forum, and forums thrive on numbers; quite simply the more the better. And we have to assume that most of the people who join in the hopes of finding a key will stay and become part of the community.

Also I'm not quite sure where I fit into all this I joined this forum a fair while before (a couple of months perhaps) any mention of free beta keys, and have been a fairly active member since then. But I still have less than a 100 posts, does that make me undeserving? I'm not really sure.

But if I had 500+ posts and was losing out on a beta key to people with 1, I know I would be frustrated. It's a difficult situation.

 

Hmmmmm, it is a dilema of sorts but I guess you wouldnt want people to spam the forums to death. As imagine 50 people spamming 50 posts that would be a lot of work for mods.

 

Let's make an huge discussion out of this XD This is my 2nd argument.
When you make a post limit it will discourage people to register to get a key.
If people register to get a key, they may get one or not. And they will eventually start browsing around the forums because of 2 reasons. 1. they camp for keys. 2. they got a key and browse for help for ingame.

So if you increase the post quality by putting up guides, strategy's and stuff like that new comers will stick around to read them.
And when they get a bit pro they might even make guides themselves.

 

The whole thing's pretty simple actually. Contests with no post limits bring in more new people, which means more revenue from ads. Since old members mostly don't pay to keep the site up, loyatlty does not, in fact, matter at all.

(Debatable in case of members who got shirts at some point)