READ ME Premium FAQ

Status
Not open for further replies.
Gatherix

Gatherix

Death by Darkly
What is Premium?
Premium is a new system that provides perks for donating to Darkly. It provides donators with perks, effects, and abilities that they can use in-game on our TF2 servers. Premium has several 'packages' available; the higher-level the package selected, the more perks that are given to the player, and the more a player is required to donate to receive the Premium package. Each package lasts 30 days; once a player has had a package for 30 days, it expires and the player loses access to the Premium package and perks.
How do credits work?
Whenever you donate an accepted item (typically keys or metal), you receive credits. These credits are used to purchase Premium packages in-game. Thus, they act as an intermediary currency between donations and Premium. This allows you to select which Premium package you want based on how many credits each package costs. Each player has their own credits; they cannot be transferred or removed, and the only way of gaining more is to donate. You cannot exchange credits for keys/metal. Credits never expire. You can check your credit count and exchange them for Premium by typing !credits in-game.
Does Premium give some players advantages over others?
The perks and abilities that Premium provides to Premium players are designed to be limited and not provide an unbalanced advantage. Most effects Premium players have access to are limited and do not affect gameplay at all - those that do are very mild and do not unbalance gameplay.
I'm not getting credits for each kill!
The points you earn for kills are not credits and are entirely separate from your credits; they are not added to your credit count. For the sake of distinguishing them from credits, we refer to them as 'killpoints'.

You also don't earn killpoints if you already have Premium. This is to prevent farming and 'unlimited' Premium.
My Premium isn't working and/or I donated and didn't get my credits.
Make post in this thread, send me a PM, or type !submit in-game and select the appropriate category. State what level Premium you had, how many credits you had, and when they went missing. We'll get it fixed as soon as we can, reimburse you for any lost time, credit you extra if we're at fault, and start working on whatever caused the problem.
I already have Premium and want to upgrade to a higher level. Do I have to pay the full upgrade price?
If you already have Premium and want to upgrade, you pay the cost of the level you want to upgrade to minus half of what your current Premium cost. Ex. You have level 1 Premium and want to upgrade to level 3 Premium. Level 3 Premium costs 3000 credits, and level 1 costs 1000 credits. You get a discount equal to half of level 1's price. Half of level 1000 credits is 500 credits, so you pay 2500 credits to upgrade to level 3.
I found a bug. What happens if I do or do not report it?
If you found a bug, please report it! Once we're aware of a problem we can work on fixing it in a timely manner. We'll award you for reporting significant bugs with credits!

If you find a bug and choose to not report it, nothing will likely happen until someone else reports it or we find it ourselves. However, if you're found to be exploiting a severe bug, some repercussions may follow.
I think Premium should/shouldn't have ____
Make post in this thread, send me a PM, or type !submit in-game and select the appropriate category. We'd love to hear any suggestions or concerns you have and are happy to tweak the existing system.
 
Gatherix

Gatherix

Death by Darkly
How does Premium affect Store?
The new Premium system completely replaces Store; Store has been removed from the servers entirely, and likely will not be enabled in the future. All donations and perks now utilize the Premium system.
Why did you get rid of Store?
Store was notorious for causing technical issues and being incredibly unreliable, resulting in frequent outages, bugs, and other issues that would affect its users and take time to fix. This was irritating for both the players and the server administration.
How is Premium different from Store?
Premium is different in both how it functions and how it's setup.

Premium, and the new donation bot, have been written from scratch for the sole purpose of being used on Darkly servers. This means it that, unlike Store, it is not reliant upon a third-party plugin development team; Darkly administration are the sole developers. Thus, making modifications, improvements, and fixes to the Premium system is considerably easier and faster than the Store system. If you have a bug to report or an idea for a feature, we'd love to hear it.

Premium is also entirely contained. Unlike Store, it's designed to house all Premium features and functions within one plugin, rather than rely upon other extra plugins or external databases. This dramatically improves stability/efficiency, and makes troubleshooting problems much easier. Premium relies little upon external databases; should a database go down, players will only not be able to donate for credits. All existing Premium players will still be able to fully use their abilities.

Premium is divided into packages. Players can exchange their credits from donating for any of the available packages. This means you cannot purchase individual perks, like in Store. Additionally, all Premium packages last 1 month rather than the previous 5 days. Any single-use items that are part of Premium instead are unlimited use and have a short cooldown between uses.
I donated to Store recently - what happens to my donation?
Any donations received from March 1st or later will be converted to Premium credits, based on the algorithm below. Any donations from before March 1st will not be reimbursed.

At the time of this writing, each Premium package costs 1000, 2000, and 3000 credits for each level (level 1, level 2, and level 3). 1 key is also equivalent to 1000 credits, and 1 ref 126 credits. Players who donated will receive triple the credit equivalent of their donation (ex. a donation of 1 key results in being awarded 3000 credits, instead of the normal 1000). Any amount after 3000 credits worth (after the tripling) is awarded the normal credit equivalent (ex. 2 keys results in 4000 credits; the first key gets tripled to 3000, and then the rest, 1 key, get awarded the normal amount). However, if after the tripling you receive under 1000 credits, you will automatically receive 1000. This means that anyone who donated after March 1st is guaranteed to receive at least Level 1 Premium.
Do my credits from Store transfer to Premium?
No. Donations from March 1st and after will receive Premium credits, but previous credit counts do not transfer. See above for details.
Can I still earn credits for free from kills?
Sort of. Each kill earns you 1 kill/point - earning enough of these grants you Level 1 Premium for 1 week for free. You can check your current progress by typing !kills in-game. These kills/points are separate from credits, and cannot be exchanged. If you already have Premium upon reaching the threshold, no further Premium is awarded - your point count will remain the same until your existing premium expires.
Is the donation bot any different?
The bot has been ported to an entirely new platform; combined with its auto-restart feature whenever it crashes, it should be online most of the time. It also uses an isolated queue system to handle donation requests, so it should add you immediately upon using the /buy command in-game.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Top