I brought this up in the new GA perk topic but wanted to see what other users thought about it since only GA members can see or post there.

Keith is looking for more perks to add to Gold Account holders and this was one of my ideas. I'd love to get a free referral point for buying a month long or higher GA. That would equal out to be 12 a year if a user remained a consistent holder. People have been asking for years for other ways to get Referral Points but so far every idea has been shot down.

I'm never getting more referral points, I've already referred my friends and family. I know Subeta needs more users but I'm giving you $60 a year for a GA, more then my deadbeat sister ever gave to Subeta when I forced her to join.

If we got one referral point a month it would take 15mths to be able to afford just one of the most expensive items, that's not game breaking but it does help get more of those items out. The shop name can be changed to "Support Shop" or "Promotional Plaza" or something to avoid confusion with referrals if need be.

I don't quite know how best to implement it yet. You either get the lump sum of referral points when you activate the GA (so 12 right then if you do a full year) or maybe at the end of each GA holders 31 days. I would typically suggest the beginning of the holders 31 days, but that would cause issues for when this was initially released.

So what does everyone think?

I do like this idea -- maybe one point every 2-3 months would be better to keep the points more rare? But I completely agree that I give Subeta more money a year than any of my referred friends ever will.

I think that instead GA users should get more referral points per user they refer. Referral points are for getting people to join the site. Plain and simple.

This is an idea I can agree with that doesn't entirely destroy the work from people who referred people so far. I've worked my ass off to refer the 53 that I referred and all idea's so far were basically devaluating everything which was something I wasn't really happy with from my selfish point of view.

But this is a method that slowly inserts points in the system , it's not an effortless way of getting the points and it won't cause mass deflation.

What supports the site more, a user who signs up, does the minimum, and leaves to never come back, or an user who buys a gold account every month?

I rest my case.

Absolute, unconditional support towards this suggestion.

I'm not against the idea of more ways of earning points for the referral shop, but I do agree wholeheartedly that it's illogical to keep it a "referral shop" if you don't earn the points by referring others. You would have to change the currency and shop to something like, idk subeta points or something.

I have only earned 2 referral points and would love more ways to earn it other than referrals, but know that the system would need changing. Because yes, earning "referral points" from buying GA accounts doesn't make a lick of sense because they are in no way related.

I just want to point out that you can refer people who aren't your friends to Subeta. I have 77 referrals, and I think only 4 of them are people I know.

Rather than giving more ways to get the points I'd prefer they make the current system better:

• More banners, with more size options (this could be a mini-contest)

• An easier way to track when someone signs up and when they have been active - I used spreadsheets to try and track people on my pending list, but it got overwhelming. I wish the referrals page would show the date the user signed up and the last active date. Sometimes people who signed up months ago will suddenly come back for awhile.

It'd be super awesome if it was laid out in a way that showed the U/N, date started, last activity date, then icons/options to mail user, comment user, and send item to user.

• A referred bonus - something that is given to a user who is referred.. so we can advertise "click here NOW to join and you'll get a xxxx" to encourage people to sign up at that moment (unless this exists?)

• Have an email reminder get sent out after a week or so of not having logged on

• Maybe split the pending and referred lists into two separate pages

• Do more referral bonus events (I kinda forget about referring people!)

So, I support this idea, but as others have said, calling them referral points still just wouldn't work anymore. What I suggest is calling them something like 'Benefactor Points' since it is kind of like a charity... GA members donate money where as referring members donate time and recruit others. Both support the site, but in different ways.

Since referral points are hard to come by, changing the name and giving them to GA members would be a great way to get more out there! I like the idea of 1 point a month. But, I also think we should give an extra reward for people who have GAs for consecutive months. Something like, an extra point at the 6, 9, and 12 month mark. That way, if you have a GA for a year, you can earn 15 points. Earning 1 a month (and a second point on certain months) won't flood the market. Plus, this is a good incentive for having GAs all the time. I honestly never have a GA, except when I wanted more pets, but this with all the other aspects of a GA would certainly make it more appealing!

I love this idea mainly because I have no one to refer and love some of the shop items.

Lemme just say this: I referred two people. Know how long they stayed? ONE DAY. I buy my GAs with real money. Know how long I stayed? OH LOOK I'M STILL HERE, SPENDING MY MONEY.

Referring people is all well and good, expect it's void when the people don't actually give a fuck and we're just trying to bring randos here to get our points. I'm still spending RL money tho. These people aren't.

And they're clogging up the system. Like get out of here with that.

[edit] Also just saying, if this was implemented, I'd go buy another GA in a heart beat. Because I need all those damn collection items. But as of right now, I'm just "meh" a GA isn't really doing it for me. I have sP so I don't need the extra quests, nor do I have the time to really do them, and lol I'm so lazy about my shop I don't even bother with it half the time. And I'm clearly doing okay without that extra face layer today.

BUT REFERRAL POINTS. I NEED THOSE.

Reffering a person and supporting the site are two different things.

If the site stopped calling it a referral shop, then I would be fine with it.

I agree with some people above. For this change to make sense the name of the shop and the currency would have to be changed, since you're referring nobody by purchasing a GA, or just make it that gold account users have double referral points. Either way is fine with me, I just don't want referral points to be awarded for things other than, well, referrals.

I'm not active on social media and there's lots of people who aren't. I've referred everyone I can to the site and no one has stayed. Subeta needs more members to grow but I cannot help with that. What I can do is give money to support the site. It wouldn't be hard to change the name of the shop to reflect this. Putting more points into the shop wouldn't effect the site too much I wouldn't think but it would drastically help get those items onto the site. I've never even seen some of them for sale.

I think this could be an awesome perk that would actually help drive the GA sales since those items are in such demand.

I support this. Like what others have said, a lot of people get users to refer them that will only do it for them and then don't do anything else. So, bam, we automatically have names unnecessarily taken up and dead accounts /just/ so we can get a referral point. I've referred two people. And both people joined, earned their 20k, made a pet, and were out of there.

I agree that something needs to be done considering you need 50(!) referral points to grab all the stickers in there. When you frame it like that, 1 point a month does not seem excessive.

I think points upon activation is a good idea, because more months should equal bonus points imo. You get a +1 bonus point for 4 months, +2 bonus points for 8 months, +3 bonus points for 12 months, or something.

ALSO can we clear out our pending referrals please? I'm waiting for to come back and finish his. I don't know who he is. He's been awol for almost 4 years. He isn't coming back, yet he taunts me on that page every time.

While I agree the referral shop should have more ways of earning points, I can't support points being a GA perk. If anything, I'd have the points be purchasable with LP points in the Loyalty Shop. Like 5 LPs for one Referral point, or whatever conversion might make the most sense. As then you can't directly buy Referral Points with sP and need to actually support the site.

Not only that, but a great way to combat the rarity of referral shop items, I think, is to make referral points a continuous thing. I know a few other sites that allow you to earn a point for referring a new member, but then you can earn more points depending on how much they participate to the site. So whether this happens by giving the initial user a point for every year their referred person stays online (maybe given for each "Longtime Member" tier that they unlock to make sure they're active.) Or rather than giving the initial user CSC everytime someone they referred buys CSC they could give them a referral point on a fixed ratio. 2K CSC bought = 1 Referral Point. It'll help Subeta from losing money if they are still doing that CSC thing.

So yeah, I agree that referral point distribution is something that needs to be looked at and hopefully something can be incorperated to allow for more access to those items, but I don't think making it a GA perk is the way to go.

I like your idea but it won't help that much to save this shop and those items. It's time to understand that MANY OF US CAN'T REFER NEW PEOPLE ANYMORE!! we did our best and that's it, we can't.

So it's time to close the shop and put those items in a GA-only Millioner Center like shop, those items will be super expensive and then Subeta will get more money, because we will buy more CSC to buy them :D

I support this idea. I've got my referral link on tumblr, but no one's joined from it. That's about the best I can do, social media wise, and I've referred the only friend I have that might actually be willing to sign up (and doesn't already play). But I do have a GA pretty consistently and I would love to get a point every month for it (I would support the 2-3 month idea but I feel like it's harder to track + I tend to only go < a week without a GA in between, would there be a grace period? Would it only be for activating a 2-3 month GA? Because I hardly ever do that)

I love this idea! Fully support renaming the shop and currency while receiving a point for every month of GA membership. I've gotten my one referral that I'm going to get, and I've been trying to get my friends to join for years. If they haven't joined by now, they're not going to ever.