joann the elite subscription was best for binge readers. I hope they bring it back
Privileged chapters
Lizabelle88 lol we all understand the rationality of your words, and trust that many of us will never touch the privelage system. What it is really about is voicing again the horrid manner in which webnovel has shafted and ignored readers
I have no issues with the system itself, only that the ones hosting it are not credible. How am I to trust a company that has many books never on schedule? You can't expect people to buy a privilege, when your normal service is crap. Would I buy a first class ticket to an airplane where 80% of the flights are a few days late without warning? I don't think so.
Lizabelle88 the privilege subscription information was vague. A lot of readers were click baited. When I read the perks of signing I was not prompted that unlocking of chapters would be exclusive from the subscribed privilege plan. Also, there was no mention that it would only be privileges for that novel you've applied for. I thought it would be across the board advance reading of all novels you'd like to read. Usually authors and translators posts 2 to 3 chapters daily, that 2 - 3 chapters should have been exclusive of the advance reading chapters (ie 2-3 plus 20...50, etc chapters)
CKtalon You're right. It is for those who want it. That doesn't mean people won't point out how unethical it is to try and lie to people through fine print.
Had it plainly said, "You will still need to unlock chapters with SS after purchasing privileges for a book"
People would have rolled their eyes at the price and only complained about that. What cracks me up is how you can defend this feature when you know full good and well the majority are not 100% English proficient. Hell the translators can't even get it right.
But boy the way that privilege page is worded and how Webnovel had to sneak some fine print rules in via the nearly hidden question mark. That's straight up greaseball mechanics right there. Webnovel must be hard up for some cash to not only try and squeeze the whales but the minnows who don't even understand.
If that had happened to me, I'd be taking screen shots and filing a report for a refund. Since Webnovel seems to be adamant about not giving refunds. If all the threads, discord and Facebook posts are anything to go by.
- Edited
Gamblejay I've already given feedback to them about the point. It was never their intention to hide it behind fineprint. There's also a problem with space. It's hard to make it clear with an 'advertisement' for Privilege to mention all the details, especially on a phone screen (you can only do so on the app after all)
I'm sure they are open to suggestions on how to make it clearer to the interested reader what the system actually is.
CKtalon You say they never intended to hide stuff behind fine print, but they do it all. the. time.
if they actually cared about not accidentally deceiving their customers, they would have paid more attention to that kind of stuff a really long time ago. so is it just absolute ineptitude or...the alternative.
The app does not work, it has many errors.
The desktop page is not updated, what web page today can not be seen on a smartphone? Only the web novel that is in prehistory when the pages were static.
All systems that implement to improve the user experience what they do is confused with their hidden rules and do not explain the functions of these systems that is why readers, users who visit this platform constantly complain about the lack of professionalism and the lack of listening to their customers.
All web novel platforms have systems implemented without concluding them working halfway and instead of solving those they add more to make things worse, even when users and readers even authors expect to see the functioning of a system that should be working ...
And now to top off, they add this dead cow to sell their customers a supposedly clean product but deep down it is dirtier than the sewers with their green waters and full of algae.
- Edited
CKtalon Then your translators who translated this concept are really bad ones. I'm a translator in training myself and the first thing my teachers had hammered into my head was that the reader of the translation has to understand ALL the information and it's the translators job to make sure that the reader does. Never expect too much from your readers, be safe and better expect too little from them. Means, it's better to explain unnecessary things for the reader twice than to leave it out once and thus causing the reader not to understand important information because he's lacking knowledge about this certain topic. This is especially true for informative texts, which the fine print (aka help center text) clearly is ... Really, if I made such a mistake as a professional later on in my job, I would be fired. But well, lucky them. I wouldn't be so lucky to be able to keep my job after not fulfilling my profession's core task and not translating the concept for the reader of the translation to understand it, especially in this case as the reader is akin to your customer.
On another note, one suggestion for another time you intend to introduce a new system: If important information don't fit onto the ad, then make at least space for the sentence "More important information in the help center" or, even better, "Read the help center for more important information." It goes without saying that this sentence then should be clearly visible. Because I noticed that most unhappy comments were that the ad suggested the privilege is that you pay x SS and then get to read x chapters in advance, not pay x SS and get the ability to unlock x chapters in advance. The sentence before + a clear wording of the help center text wouldn't give you such a bad backlash because everyone who bought the privilege would have been aware of what he gets for his money and they wouldn't have the feeling of having been scammed.
Aron Walter, VP of Design Education at Invision, tells us "if you do not have time to talk to your clients, you do not have time for success. If you do not know your customers, you can not solve your problem in any way. "
CKtalon not their intention?
How hard is it to do scrolling text to fit all rules and clauses in the visible field instead of having a redirect to secondary rules?
Webnovel has ALWAYS added these types of secondary clauses in and never actually makes an effort to present everything up front or to notify of the secondary clauses to direct people to read further.
It stands at this: "here is our feature, here are the "rules and perks", add a redirect button to secondary terms and hope not many read them before spending big money"
whe hahaha always the alternative. Like in my other reply, is it so hard to do a scroll down like the actual novels have so ALL the stipulations are in 1 place? Nah we are not idiots...
- Edited
CKtalon Then here's a suggestion: REWORD the misleading sentences in the Privilege Rules.
Rule #1:
"Readers can become loyal readers of our authors and receive advance chapters by purchasing Privileges"
Reword it to:
"Readers can become loyal readers of our authors and receive early access to unlock advance chapters by purchasing Privileges"
Rule #4:
"After purchasing Privileges, readers can unlock stockpiled chapters"
Reword it to:
"After purchasing Privileges, readers will still need to pay the regular chapter costs to unlock stockpiled chapters"
That's the LEAST that you can do to make it clearer to your readers. And as @Miharu suggested in one of the previous posts, if space is the thing that you lack in order to provide a clearer explanation, then provide your users with a link that will direct them to a separate page with more elaborate explanations. If you guys can't even do that, hire a better UX designer and/or developer.
Oh and rule #6 just cracked me up:
"Webnovel reserves the right of all final interpretations". Hahaha that's what a typical scammer would say after providing their victims with some ambiguous explanations of how things work.
It's honestly the poor UX choices made by the developers and not making it blatantly clear on the terms of this new feature (I'm sure most companies do it so it prompts them first on their first actual purchase of said feature, so that help page with the fine print y'all keep pointing at should be popped up as a modal/pop-up that's intrusive and requires user-action to proceed further to purchase said feature). I'm pretty sure it was the decision of the devs to make it so it's a fast-transaction that's smooth/convenient, and leaving a small (?) at the top (because even a small bubble popping up from that (?) showing "more info here" could've helped lol.
I stand by my stance which is: Let people know of the entirety of the new 'feature', including any shady practices they've done in the past to show the possibility of dire repercussions in the future by accepting said practice with the simple "let people who want it pay for it" and encouraging WebNovel to innovate more ideas. Share our thoughts/feedback (i.e. don't get it unless you're crazy (fan) or lack foresight), and be transparent to those who are wondering how this works (or are not aware of it) so they can avoid accidentally purchasing this feature because they weren't given enough information.
Consider the entrapment that it inherently endorses.
Ex:
July 31st - Because I'm a huge fan of a work and paid for 50 advanced chapters, I am ahead by chapters 100-150.
August 1st - Oh no, I didn't pay. Now I am back to reading at public release rate (while I have my chapters 100-150 unlocked, 151 won't be visible until public release rate catches up to it).
Maybe it's not their intentions (lol), but it sure seems like they're exploiting those impulsive and obsessed readers who pay for that privilege (to pay again to unlock chapters after they unlocked the privilege to see the titles of the hidden chapters), because knowing how their shopping practices are, chances are they will be heavily influenced to pay that same tier or higher to keep up at the pace they were reading (because if they were patient, why would they even bother with this silly feature).
If you want to justify saying this is exactly like Patreon-- At least Patreon gave you the chapters as soon as you pledged the amount, not asking you to pay again to unlock them. On top of that, they had milestones for communities to reach, so when certain tiers were reached, it'd help the entire community collectively (increased release rates, monthly mass release increased rates, etc). Furthermore, the content creators in charge of said Patreon actually communicated with their readers more actively and was more inclusive.
What's WebNovel offering anything of benefit outside of it giving more money percentage to WebNovel instead of Patreon and their 'almighty' authors/translators/editors, and omitting many features Patreon offered. Oh right, a shiny new badge online that no one will see because your forums is only meant for people to either complain about your shady practices ("Premium Beta Program", remember your promises/claims then?), your buggy (web) apps, or Original authors circle jerking each other for reviews because they can't get any real 'support' they were promised from WebNovel on advertisement/promotions/etc.
- Edited
How come after one day the price drop from 400 SS to 250 SS, what happened to the poor fools (me in this case) that bought that "privilege" thinking that we could read more chapters just to discover that we only unlock "the privilege" to buy more chapters. I know that there is no refund of 400 SS but now the price changed from 400 SS to 250 SS, do we recover those 150 SS (I doubt, this is not the first time webnovel rob us from SS) or they will change our "privilege" to the one matching our expend in SS?
@CKtalon hi, I just want to have a clarification, it seem that I need to buy the privilege first before I can see how many stockpiled chapter the novel has. Let's say if I used 2500ss to buy 50 privileged chapters, but the novel only have 10 chapters stockpiled, did that means I had wasted 2000ss for nothing?
According to rule #5 or #6 (I don't remember) if I spent ss to buy 20 privileged chapters but the author only have 18 chapters stockpiled it effectively means I only got 18 chapters for the price of 20 privileged chapters and that there won't be any refund.