Yeah, gold/vip time would be the best use, because it also gives them a sapmple of it ;)

I know it is getting 12 subscriptions, re-read my posts for the response to that.

Ya know, what if we got a Bonus for not quitting?

Yeah, like if you subscrive to vip/gold 2 years in a row, the third year is half off! :D

But that's perfect! If at the end of the year you don't like it enough to keep paying, but they'll give you another month if you can get a referral - sure, it's not the most enthusiastic campaign ever, but it didn't cost our nearly-gone friend anything, and Graal's up 11 paid months (1 year-1 month).

Which is the problem I keep coming to: we're effectively asking Unixmad to lower the price of upgrading to Gold by 1/12th, and give that 1/12th to the referrer...so if you had two brothers who upgraded at the same time and constantly insist it's the other that encouraged them to reupgrade, they both get a discount every year. So do you make it so only new upgrades get to benefit a referrer? Only new accounts outright? Maybe the referrer is set when they sign up for Lifetime Classic (assuming that survives) and they reap the benefits every time that account upgrades, for bringing in such a generous player in the first place? You can only refer a specific account once? Then the brothers can upgrade for each other one year, upgrade for a couple neighbors the next year (who upgrade for them)...

Maybe something coudl be player suggested for every world like.... Im not sure..... Zone player gets 10k money. GK they get a significantly good weapon. Other worlds they get a .....?

Or whoever gets the most referrals gets invited to a special meeting with the superadmins, wherein he (or she) can suggest courses of action to those who run the game? No guarantee they'll follow it, but they gotta at least listen.

I support a delayed referral system, like the one ING Direct uses (a bank).

At ING if you refer somebody and they open an account with a $xx initial deposit and keep it for 60 days, you get $25 added into your savings.

So why not if you refer a friend, and they buy a year subscription, and don't cancel the order or back-charge through their credit card company for 60 days, you receive a month gold for free?

Worst case scenario, your referral figures out how to get a 10 month refund after the 60 days, but Graal is still having 2 paid months, and only giving 1 month access away. It's still a net profit. Also, assuming there is any profit in the subscription price, it is cheaper for them to give 1 month access than it is to pay 1 month worth of subscription back to the player as a referral bonus.

Best case scenario, the players are thinking 3 months down the road and bringing in new people all the time to keep their own subscription rolling.

I personally think this is a good idea, but I'm not in charge of the business model. However, what bad could possibly come from offering it?

It was suppost to be for playerworlds, so that every 5-10% off from the sale comes off your next PW pay or something.

Pff.. if that was true, I'd have enough graal accounts for 5-10 years =p!

I don't think Graal really gets/does 'refunds' or reverse charges. But naturally, some delay would be needed incase charges are reversed.

In 2001 there were tons, honestly, the big thing was scamming people by upgrading their accts to get their gralat on 2k1 and then reversing the charge on the cc.

Not so much now that the gold servers dont impress. Goes to show you what kind of a hold 2k1 really had on a lot of people.

Like I said, that is worst case scenario, and still good for the company.

One week of free gold time isn't much.
If players get one month free they might actually try to start playing GK or Zone and get some stuff on those servers.
After they've been playing there for one month the chances of them upgrading their own account again so that they can keep playing there and keep their stuff will increase dramatically.
It'll also help to keep those servers hustling-and-bustling. At the moment GK is pretty dead, if 20 players start playing there on their free month then even more people are going to start playing there (it's a pretty acknowledged fact that servers with the most players attract more players, while servers with almost no players generally stay that way).

Maybe if they were updated on days that are not holidays =!

Yes, yes, updates are important, content is important, but that's not the topic; referrals is the topic, and how well it'd drive traffic. Better than ads, I'd say, but ads are important too.

I agree with the delayed referrals system, that patches things nicely. Still have to keep people from referring each other in a loop, but...
Hey, actually, a discount on ReUpgrading would cover that. And keep people playing longer.