Hi Grandadfun and FOD Team,
I actually support FOD a lot. Put my $ where my mouth is although money is tight. :-p Not only to get all the extra' s of being a subscriber such as Tournament participation. I found a second othello vacation home and feel you deserve the support. I feel it's a way to show my gratitude for this dynamite site. However, I would think the more paid members you have the more motivated you'd be to make this an even better site without so very many disconnections. Hoping so.
As far as what you said bout competing with another site Grandadfun, there is a gaming site which has always made all other one's pales next to it...Vinco Online Gamesite affectionately known as VOG, since 1997-sh is the most sophisticated site on the planet. It has a Friends List and messaging system with costum colors, fonts etc. Games that can be set for any amount of time you want. Archives, BOT Machine's, Reversed Othello, 10x10 reversi, Private and non-private tables, Icon figures sitting at tables of your choosing and much more. Alexander aka shura from Russia made it perfect.
Not concerned here people will leave FOD & go to VOG. Many people cannot use it with their computers.
At VOG Othello, chess and WordEx are free. One pay's for backgammon and such if needed.
They're boards can be made as large as you want and they look like 3-D.
I doubt we will all flock to it again. VOG Reversi had it's hay day from 1998-2003. It was where I first played othello online...as with FOD many of us were a family. Oh...they had frequent tournaments too. WithAnd, a big thanks to FlyOrDie for giving Othello two monthly tournaments instead of one : ))*
I mention all this in detail partially to remind and/or turn on you guys and The FOD team to these things. Hopefully, one day there may be a day where we have many of them. Who knows? *Shrug* Maybe with more paid subscriber's things like those can be made possible. Don't know.
The downside might be that unlike VOG we would not be able to have as many players as we'd wish to. I think now, we're limited to what?...160-180 players there at once. What a drag it used to be to play othello on game sites that I couldn't get into lot's of times.
To be fair, occasionally VOG could be Buggy too. They had to work on it as it happened.
Anyway, that's more than my 2 cents!~* lol
Be well, safe and happy.
Warm wishes,
Tessa *
PS Posting this again. Didn't see the original. If it was duplicated please delete one. Thanks in advance.