Getting creative rewards in the game

Started by Tynan, October 07, 2013, 02:15:53 PM

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Tynan

Hey everyone. This is a request for help from the community.

What's the best way to collect people's creative rewards and get them in the game?

We've currently got the Pirate tier, which lets you put your name in the game. We've also got the Mercenary tier, which lets you put your name, a custom-written character background, and stats into the game. Finally, there is Pirate King, which is like Mercenary but your character gets a special role.

People have purchased these things through Kickstarter and SendOwl, and will probably do so in future through other systems (hopefully including Steam).

This system would have to fulfill these requirements:
• People can enter their data and update it later.
• Created/updated data is in an unconsidered queue until we look at it (through some interface) and approve or disapprove it.
• Disapproving data means the sender gets an email with the reason for disapproval and an invitation to try again.
• System is extensible to handle automatic integration with SendOwl/Paypal/Steam in future.
• System is secure so people can't make or access accounts unless they have bought the right tier.
• Allows relatively easy extraction of the data into XML format so I can put it in the game.

Suggested solutions have been:
• Hire someone to create a custom solution that uses keys given to each purchaser to create new accounts and allows people to update their database entries online. It would also have to support us reviewing the data, possibly disapproving it, and giving reasons why.
• Use BackerKit and munge it to fill our needs.

Anyone have any thoughts on products to use or ways to approach this problem? Thank you!

For reference, here's Prison Architect's solution.
Tynan Sylvester - @TynanSylvester - Tynan's Blog

Hypolite

I'm personally capable of doing the first solution, so I would support that, no need to try to twist existing software to fit this special need.

British

I've had rather good experience with BackerKit, but I've no idea if that's adapted (or adaptable) to your needs.

SpaceEatingTrex

#3
Quote from: Hypolite on October 07, 2013, 02:53:30 PM
I'm personally capable of doing the first solution, so I would support that, no need to try to twist existing software to fit this special need.

Like Hypolite said, it seems like this should be simple to implement. It could be a basic web app. Using a system like this the backers would access a website and fill out a form, and the form would get submitted into a queue for review. An admin could review the queue and approve or deny entries, at which point the backer would automatically be emailed.

In fact, the Three-State workflow in SharePoint was made for exactly this kind of thing. I believe you'd have to pay for SharePoint, but I'm sure the same functionality could be implemented using free tools.

Kaiju Combat has used Google Forms for communicating with its backers. I'm not sure what the limitations there are, but it might be worth looking at as a possibility as well.

Hypolite

Google Forms lacks the automated ability to mail people that their submission needs more work, but it's all about volume : 50 people are perfectly manageable by Google Forms. 500, not so much. 5000, not at all.

Kalesin

Quote from: Hypolite on October 07, 2013, 02:53:30 PM
I'm personally capable of doing the first solution, so I would support that, no need to try to twist existing software to fit this special need.

I agree with Hypolite, the best option would be, if you can, customize the data collection.