Premium Services Brochure
There have always been demands for extra features at wotmania that are more complicated and cause more work for the server. I decided an excellent way to meet these demands was to put together a set of premium services that a wotmaniac can pay extra for - the money raised through these premium services will help pay for continued upgrades to the server. So what are these premium services? To quote Jordan, "read and find out..."
No Banner Advertisements!
This might not be the most ground-breaking of the premium features, but I think it might be one of the most popular. Everyone hates banner ads, including myself, but it's the way I have funded wotmania for the past year or two. Since premium users are spending money on a premium account, I see no reason they should see banner ads. Sound like a good deal? Of course it does!  Just check out that nifty shot of wotmania at right, minus the banner ads. Originally I didn't think of making this a premium feature, then I thought of it and decided it just made sense.
Personal Smiley Faces
A lot of people on the message board have asked why myself and a few of the other admins have smiley faces in our user signatures that aren't actually on the site. Well, that's another feature included with a premium account. Premium account users can upload a personal smiley face that can be used in their personal signature. You can upload whenever or however often you want, so long as your personal smiley face fits within the requirements I set:
- gif image
- no more than 50 pixels wide
- no more than 50 pixels tall
- no more than 5,000 bytes in size
Size requirements are in place to make sure no single person uploads a smiley face that detracts from everyone's overall enjoyment of wotmania. And yes, your personal smiley face can be animated! Check out the example at right to see a snapshot of Vercingetorix's bouncing personal smiley face.
Personalized Chat Login, Logout, Idle, and Netfailure Messages (Added 6/10/03)
This is likely to be one of the most popular premium features, I suspect... This feature was actually added to the chat room by Paul, who took advantage of the fact that wotmania's chat room is now an open source project on SourceForge. Anywho, you can have your very own personalized login, logout, idle, and netfailure messages in the chat room. It's a good fun way to personalize wotmania and set yourself above the unwashed masses...
Message Board Buddies
This might be the most useful of the services for users of premium accounts. After using it for a while I can't imagine reading the message board without it! You can select up to five people (using a form in your premium account preferences) that are your message board buddies. When you look at the main page of the message board, it flags any topic that any of those people posted in and tells you who posted in it. Sound confusing? It's kinda difficult to explain. Check out the screenshot at right, it'll clear things up, I think!
Message Board Favorite Threads
For premium users, every post on the message board will have an "Add to Favorites" link. Clicking on this link will add that thread to your list of favorite threads. A new link appears at the top of the board which leads to a page where all your favorite threads are shown. Very handy for keeping track of the message board threads you enjoyed the most! It's just too bad this wasn't around when the "Hot Trolloc Sex" thread was around, would have been easy to look back and get a laugh from one of wotmania's most memorable threads... 
Personal Picture
Yes another premium feature lets you upload a picture of yourself to wotmania. This picture will appear in your profile, which is something I imagine at least some premium account users would be interested in. Like the personal smiley face, there are some image requirements that must be met...
- jpg image
- no more than 300 pixels wide
- no more than 300 pixels tall
- no more than 100,000 bytes in size
I know that adding pictures to the wotmaniacs gallery has been popular, and it wasn't too difficult to add something to let premium users upload a personal picture right to wotmania - so I just went ahead and did it. Now your profile can feature a picture of your beautiful self! 
Favorite Message Board Categories (Added 10/23/01)
This is a feature I added a few months after the initial debut of the premium services at wotmania. It was requested by a number of different premium users, so I took the time to put it together. Using a special form premium users can specify one or two categories on the message boards of wotmania that they would like highlighted. With as many posts as some of the message boards at wotmania get, this could be a rather handy feature for some of you. With these highlighted categories it's easy to pick out the topics that interest you most. Just another benefit of being a premium user at wotmania. I was excited to add this premium feature, because it helped to prove that I am interested in continuing to expand the features available for premium users.
Profile Links, User Signature Link (Added 2005-ish)
For all the premies out there that wish they had an easy way to provide links to people at wotmania, it's now possible to toss up to three links in your profile and a single link in your user signature.
Your Buddies Page (Added 12/13/01)
A number of premium users expressed an interest in having a page that would only includes message board threads that their buddies have participated in. Kind of like "Your Threads" but it would include only threads that a premium user's buddies posted in. It struck me as a rather good idea, so I sat down and put it together. Another useful and fun feature for wotmania's premium services!
Increased wSE Login Points (Added 3/4/02)
The wotmania Stock Exchange is one of the most popular community features of wotmania, and the simplest way to earn points is simply by logging in. Premium users have the potential to earn more points every day they login (up to 3 points more each day). Just another benefit of being a premium subscriber.
Message Board Ignore (Added 6/11/02)
When the chat room introduced a new option that let people ignore chatters that they didn't want to pay attention to it seemed likely that something similar for the message board would be in order. This feature lets a premium user filter the main message board page to ignore threads started by usernames that they choose to ignore. A rather handy feature if there is someone that you prefer to ignore if possible... All it takes is pushing the little gray person icon next to a certain username and you will never see a thread started by that person again.
Message Board Category Filtering (Added 6/13/02)
If there is one thing that the message board ignore feature taught me, it's that this kind of thing is very popular with the premium users. This is a similar concept. Premium users can choose to have certain categories filtered off the message boards and never see them. This is handy if you want to just ignore a certain category (like Humor, for example) or if you want to make sure you don't read any spoilers for a new book (like filtering the CoT category). Another handy, dandy message board feature for premium users to enjoy.
Buddy List (Added 12/24/02)
This premium feature lets you select different buddies, people that you like to chat with when you are bumming around wotmania. wotmania will keep track of your buddies and when they are online, a handy little counter updates itself when your buddies either arrive at wotmania or leave for a while. Makes it easier to get in touch with your favorite wotmaniacs, wihtout a doubt! Also, clicking on the Buddy List link displays a table that shows all your buddies, and information about the last time they visited the site.
Unlimited Journal Entries (Added 5/15/03)
To the people who don't use the Journal at wotmania this isn't likely to be a big deal... But to those who do, this should be popular... Regular wotmaniacs are allowed only one entry per day in their Journal, premium users can have as many Journal entries as they like.
Theory Post Favorites
The last premium feature is for those who spend a lot of time on the Theory Post. Much like the message board favorites, you can mark your favorite theories using the handy little link shown at right. A new link will appear on the main Theory Post page with a link to your favorite theories. Good stuff, I tell ya!
$15, Your Price Never Goes Up!
After a lot of thought, I decided, that a one-year subscription to wotmania's premium services will have a price of $15 per username. I feel that $15 is a very reasonable price, and it will help me raise money to make sure wotmania is always fast and has a home on the Internet. I know some people are hesitant to sign up for things like this sometimes - after all, what happens if I raise the price after you sign up? Well, I'll guarantee right now that the price you sign up at is the price you will pay to renew your subscription. So if you sign up for $15, you'll never have to pay more than that to renew your subscription. I'm a cool and reasonable guy like that!
So You're Sold, Right?
Of course you are! Who wouldn't be? Just head to the premium services sign up page - you'll be glad you did.
Questions?
As always, if you have any questions about the premium services or anything else at wotmania, please drop me a note at webmaster@wotmania.com.
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