Credits Revamp Idea
 

This is going to be a fairly large article, but I feel like some form of implementation of this could be GIGANTIC in helping Letsbeef.com move forward as a website.

I took a lot of influence from MMATycoon for this. I’ll explain a bit about the site’s system because it will help people to get the magnitude that this can help. It’s a website where the player assumes the role of an MMA Manager. You train for stats, buy clothing to keep moral up, travel to fight locations etc. All of this costs money. You make money from fighting. Once a player has enough money, they can open a gym, clothing store, nutrition store, their own fighting organization etc. This all costs money, but in turn can generate money. Players also pay other players to right previews and reviews of their shows etc. and the site itself has a monthly magazine where every submission gets paid, and ones that make it get double. The site also has a VIP section which almost everyone has adopted. You get your VIP features, but it costs real money. Certain members on the site exchange in-game money for VIP memberships, which only boosts the in-game currency more.
In addition, there is also the “Wheel of Fortune” style game. Each player earns tokens for posting a certain amount on the forums, voting for the website on various top 10 websites and other stuff. You gain in-game prizes, mostly money, for your spins.
Basically, the whole thing puts the game in the player’s hands. The admin doesn’t really need to get too involved in this as the system works itself. Every player puts in their own amount of work into the site to get their own experience out of it, and every player receives boosts for everything they put in.

Now, onto Letsbeef. We already have a potential currency system in place; credits. I know there are behind the scenes talks of making users vote on a certain amount of battles before you can battle. This would render credits useless.
We could essentially use credits for absolutely everything. You receive credits for winning battles, it costs credits to do battles, you receive credits for voting, you receive credits for the amount of posts you have on the forums, we could have a monthly magazine where you receive credits for submitting articles. Then, we could make things like making crews cost credits. Owning a custom avatar costs credits. Usertitles cost credits. Custom sigs cost credits. Participating in the GC costs credits etc. etc.

The entire site could be run on credits. This wouldn’t be that hard to implement, the coding would be fairly minimal and a lot of it could be mod run for the time being. The main work would go into deciding how much things cost, and how much you get for other things.

A HUGE revamp in exclusive would be needed also. The main appeal would be making everything geared towards the member wanting to obtain an exclusive membership to gain access to the main parts of the site. There are so many things we could do with exclusive. The biggest downside to me is tracks. We WANT track makers on LB, why are we forcing them to pay?

LB needs a change. Today I was looking around after Danger reminded us that Lil Flip had a battle scheduled on here, where the winner of a tournament got to battle him and got 2000dollars. The winner also would have got 500dollars and a beat produced from award winning producer Rocwilder. This news was covered on several websites, who billed Letsbeef as “the breeding ground of the future of hip hop”. Can we honestly say LB right now has that kind of momentum? I feel like a big change like this, utilizing tools we already have to the fullest, could be what it takes.

Thoughts?

I like the idea. Especially the forums posts one. We need to figure out a way to get people on site, and to stay on site, though. I think the credit system will be a great improvement to the overall growth of the site, I think our big problem atm is getting dudes to stay, become more involved with the forums, and actually BECOME a part of this site.

No, Dave. Remember - the admins know exactly what they're doing because they have so much experience running a successful (LOL) site

And according to the admins a mobile app is the way to go. This site generates absolute shit for traffic & the people in charge are either dumb or overlooking the fact that a lot of people visit the site through a mobile device... but those people aren't anonymous/new users. Most of those people visiting the site through their mobile are most likely members of the site trying to read the forum or hit up the chatbox

but according to Pugz mobile is the way to go after continuously brushing off the people & listening to us.. & not listening to a community is exactly how it falls apart

but what do I know, I've only made a very solid 5 figures in a year from online marketing

and by 5 figures i mean more money than Letsbeef has generated in the last 4-5 years

solid idea though. i had an idea like this a while back except it'd work with record labels

like someone could make a 'label' on Letsbeef. get X amount of money, use X amount of money to 'sign' people & that money also buys items, clothing, forum features, profile features etc etc

I actually dig that. Replace labels with crews or have them being the same thing. It'll definately decrease the number of members in crews and will allow new ones to emerge hence making the crew section pop

But to answer your suggestions Dave we are talking/working towards having the credit system work as an LB Currency. Credit will have nothing to do with battling and in order to battle you'd be directly linked to a random battle to vote on before you are able to submit your verse.

That's the way we are planning on going. I spoke to Pugz about hip-hop being on an all time high and battle rap gaining more and more fans. I suggested we capitalize on that as more and more ppl are willing to rap and LB is the best,easiest, most user friendly online battling platform created. Also it's very easy to get someone hooked on LB and we all know it's true.

He feels the same way. I think change will happen, hopefully...it better happen soon

I like this idea. It just needs to be implemented which is often the bit that falls down. In terms of capitalizing on live battling there definitely needs to be some kind of sponsorship, association or at least free clothing with some of these live battle leagues.

The last couple days there's been some dope ideas, I think this is very much needed, it motivates people to get more credits = more battles = more activity.

If we go the LB Currency way, then credits and battles will not be related at all.

Instead the way I see it is scratching the Exclusive membership and replacing it with Credits. Credits working as VC works in 2K...let's say you wanna buy MC items or create your own Label as Pulse suggested then you'd have to select and buy a bundle of credits say you have 20,50,100 & 200 (being the most expensive). We are thinking of new features that can work with credits. That'll generate the site some income which in return can be invested towards bettering the site.

Good shit tho eth I'm diggin all the things you mentioned

i actually think eths idea is better then the idea there implementing .. and i told pugz he should do the original.. lol

Make it so u can buy exclusive with credits lol

That just sounds like a good way to lose real money to be honest (as a site owner). Unless you then also sell the credits themselves.

All great ideas

Open a shop and buy Emcee items with Credits. But having different emcee items worth different amounts of credit, make a wider variety of items. Might boost activity.

---------- Post added at 01:05 PM ---------- Previous post was at 01:05 PM ----------

For those interested in their Emcee.

@Dave has caught my attention

Seems like u actually trying to take LB to a "Facebook" "iOS" "Android" system. Like certain games that let you download for free but have in-game purchase options that allow you to upgrade.

This can be done but there would need to be some serious overhaul to the site to accommodate. I'd like to get options to where like on candy crush .. You can make purchases that help you complete a stage .. How about:

A purchase could allow you to hear/see your opponents verse (that's only if LB would go to all battles being blind drops)

A purchase would allow you extra time/lines to your verse

A purchase allows you to add a custom user title

Etc

It's a solid direction .. And workable

Selling Credits Would Actually Be A Good Idea, Anyone Play Those Apps Where You Can Either A) Take A Good While To Get Far In It Or B) Pay $5 Or Less And Advance Right Away.

Also, Good Idea @Dave But I'm Not Sure The Coding Would Be That Easy To Implement An Updated Credit System. I'm Sure The Staff Could Run A Supplemental System In The Mean Time Though.

Lastly, @Pugz @Godbody I Don't Think They Need To Necessarily Make A Mobile App, They Can Just Make The Site Mobile (m.letsbeef.com) like FaceBook and later on make an app but for now just being mobile friendly (ability to battle audio & text comfortably on a smart phone, more towards the audio) would be ideal.

Yeah Pugz uses me as his "If EtH agrees, no on else will be a problem" guy haha.

I don't mean credits being used in order to battle. I suppose I may have said as a requirement but maybe you could even GET credits for battling.

@Subreal, that's something I'd put in there too. @Nicholas, NO ONE pays for exclusive as it is. It would cost A LOT of credits though in this game. Like 1000 votes worth or some shit crazy.

@Student, yeah I wanted to make sure I'm not one of these guys saying "Let's change everything through coding". There COULD be a lot of coding to this, but really if the credits being separated from voting thing goes ahead, which apparently is already in the works, then it could be mod handled for a while. I'm not 100% sure if mods have the privilege to hand out credits, but even at that it'd be fairly easy to give them the ability. It'd also be fairly easy to remove avatar / sig etc. privileges so that they can be bought from an admin or something.

Just me :(

lol sucka :cool:

I run the section and I'm the only guy paying for membership LOL. Irony.

Moderators Can Give Out Credits But I'm Not Sure They Can Take Away Credits (Which For Now They Would Need To Do In Order For Users To "Pay" For Something.) They Would Also Have To Be Able To See How Many Credits A User Has.
An Admin Would Be Needed For The User Titles (Which Is Another Issue If They Should Be Bought With Credits Or Not) But Yes For The Most Part Moderators Should Handle It.

All of those are things that could be given to mods by an admin though.