Yeah... seeing the comments this is a bigger mess up than the subscription thing they did before... I did suggest the implement of another currency that could only be bought to be used to get things like privilege and other premium services, but this coin/pass thing is bulls*th...
Taking out the limited time free reading, reducing rewards and trying so much to make readers pay like this will only force readers to go search for pirated versions. Get real. @WEBNOVEL_OFFICIAL This is not the way you’ll keep your readers here.
Introducing Fast Pass!
- Edited
I noted this in another post. I was trying to get a simple understanding of this Fast Past thing. My simple take on this below. Fast Pass is... I think.
- An item that grants one chapter to be unlocked for free.
- It has a shelf life of 24hrs across 7 days a week. Basically, only valid on the day of receipt within a 24hr period. Use it in 24hrs on the day it's given. Or it will be gone.
- It's earned through missions as exampled in the FAQ.
- You can only use the fast pass for chapters that aren't on privilege or receiving revenue from ads.
It seems to be only available for PC. At this stage at least. I think Tomoyuki had mentioned on this further up the trail.
Pretty simple concept. If that's all it is.
Edit: Forgot to add. Seems to be only available on some version 4.2.0. Whatever that refers to.
What's the problem? Unlock chapter using fast pass before it expire and read later. No need to hoard. You have to login and get your bonuses anyway.
Tomoyuki
I noticed you said we can still get 5 or more coins using phone app, but the app is not giving any coins, just fast pass only. I've checked all rewards and nothing gives coins. Reading time rewards are also just points, which are probably same as EXP but I'm not sure. I don't know if bonus through video gives coins, because that feature only works once a while, at least in my region.
Motup I noticed you said we can still get 5 or more coins using phone app, but the app is not giving any coins, just fast pass only. I've checked all rewards and nothing gives coins.
They changed it recently. From now on you can't get coins for voting or other tasks (not 100% sure about check-in, i did it before updating app to a new version).
Ohhh, I,m late to the party.... shame. I blame forum not being app friendly.
So imma gonna give my opinion.
1. Free pass sound like actually good idea, now I know that I can unlock 3 chpts a day no matter the price. I think I usually made around 40 ss for free a day so if I use it right I can actually profit. Or not really lose much. Although I don't get it why they had to lower free income only for week or two and get angry mob to lash at them.
2. Did someone say Elite Subscription? As professional hater of the topic, please allow me. Although authors got 50% drop in revenue, it was more of long term solution. I want to belive that if they gave it some more time it would actually bring more profits when more and more users started using it. But I guess WN has their people that asses that kind of things and they came to conclusion that it won't happen. If not and they were only after immediate profit, well... I remember being very sour by then because I paid for subscription and went on a rampage with my paid ss that I accumulated and gifted it away to authors, because why not? When they cancelled it I was without subscription or ss, and WN assumed "we don't need to tell you anything" stance.
3. @Tomoyuki I can't completly agree that WN isn't responsible for dropped novels. It is not like they don't profit from it, right? You used fast food reference for something else so let's say it like that: You are hungry and ordered burger in WcDonald, then they give you 1/3 of a burger because cook went and left his/her job in a middle. Now you have to only pay 1/3 of a price for this unfinished product. Will you blame the cook or the restaurant? Probably both. What I mean that WN could ease up a little on introducing new novels and, at least in a case of translation try to contract another person to finish the job. Just like restaurant would hire a new cook. For original authors I don't really have any good solution :(
CKtalon Is this true?
Lin_XiaoLong Contracted author can only make their chapters premium if the word count is 1k words now. If it is less than that, they cannot lock the chapters
Because if not, i can already foresee the problems that will stem from the fast pass system.
As you can also realize, it doesn't take much to guess that the fast pass usage of paying readers(those who actually buy ss) will be concentrated on popular original novels that have the longest chapters. After all, just because they are paying, doesn't mean they are lazy or stupid. Paying readers still used the bonus ss they could get back then, and now they will still use the free passes as they are intended. Just because they are paying, doesn't mean they don't use these resources. But the thing is, fast pass is a strategic resource, while bonus ss wasn't. By that, i mean fast pass can be used on both a high ss cost chapter and low ss cost chapter for same effect. So it is obviously better to use it on a high ss cost chapter(longer chapter). Bonus ss usage of 'paying readers' was completely random and diluted into many novels, but it doesn't take much to guess where the fast pass usage naturally will be concentrated. Which will obviously make the authors of such popular stories cut down the chapter length to not be the first novel 'paying readers' dump their fast passes into. Basically, they will also have to strategize to not be the sacrificial sheep in the system...
I'm a little annoyed as well about the changes made, but I want to ask a question. Some of the commenters here keep mentioning they can go to other websites where they can read these stories for free. You do realize that the translators get no recognition or compensation? Those free chapters probably came from here, didn't they? Am I wrong? (Somebody tell me if I am.) If you despise the translators and writers here so much that you begrudge them even a decent wage, why are you complaining about not being able to read their stories? How spoiled are you? I love free things as much as the next person, but this is their JOB.
I am a fast reader. One chapter, especially a short one, is devoured in a few minutes. If you like a story or are curious where it's going, the urge to keep going is constant. But I don't believe that, just because I want to eat it, someone else should keep on feeding me for free. (Not gonna lie, tho, my brain is screaming "Moar! MOARRRR!!" 
)
At most you can only read one series at a time now with how much free pass you get unless you have a bunch of accounts or you google and don’t waste your time farming free passes
Tomoyuki I totally understand all of your concern about the making money and all things but really think about us free readers I'm in I cant afford to read by money and I really want to read this app but seriously please let us have some of the free SS I used to have so that I do not need to buy all the time or I will so I will be sad that I will be leaving this app
Tomoyuki I totally understand all of your concern about the making money and all things but really think about us free readers I'm in I cant afford to read by money and I really want to read this app but seriously please let us have some of the free SS I used to have so that I do not need to buy all the time or I will so I will be sad that I will be leaving this app
handmadesolace now they have even removed the bonus coins/stones you got when you purchased. 500 stones used to get you the 500 + 100 bonus, that’s completely gone now.
This entire update is one of the most greedy money hungry moves webnovel has ever made. Webnovel is just getting way to greedy for their own good and are starting to alienate there consumer base.
They are just taking every little thing away from us, and to be honest I’m getting tired of it.
I’m not a free reader I’ve paid hundreds of dollars into Webnovel. But Webnovel just has no respect for its consumers, and to be honest I’m not sure I can be bothered with them anymore.
I wonder who will use the farming mode now? There are only discount vouchers left, how we can use it with fast passes?
handmadesolace Yeah right... we all know very well they are using the authors and translators as an excuse since the beginning. From the start of the SS to unlock chapters to privilege and all the steps on the way that is the same reason given.
We are here exactly out of respect to them, but webnovel’s behavior is getting worse and worse readers-wise. This doesn’t chance the fact that it’s very easy to find the pirated versions, that if you don’t know them already. Webnovel itself knows about it and yet it’s money grubbing ways contradicts very much it’s pleas to read those works here.
Also, many of the older novels were already been translated fan for fan before webnovel decided to launch the English versions and bring those works back for themselves. Besides it gets harder to swallow the payment of authors and translators excuse when you see the history of qidian/webnovel and add to it the price of the novels compares to physical books.
No reader hates the authors and translators. But webnovel’s behavior. If they pay them so little that it’s needed to try to charge readers more at least 3x per year than how big is the difference of reading here or going pirate after all?
I started pirate. Came here due to respect for authors and translators jobs. Saw many going back pirate over the years. Will still stay here out of respect for the intelectual property of authors and translators. That is my choice. But will not condemn those who go pirate as I used to due to webnovel’s behavior.
- Edited
handmadesolace I'm also a paying user but there are instances when I looking outside webnovel for their novels.
1) Webnovel or the author deleted/stopped translating the novel and only it's incomplete self/continuation can be found on pirated sites now.
2) Webnovel directly copy and paste complete novels over from other sites (I mean, they at least made attempts to "retranslate" in the beginning and negotiate with the original TL)
And 3) Go directly to the source and straight up machine translate it cus I don't want to wait years to find out what happens next.
I still come back and support my favorite authors and TLs but there are times when I would really, REALLY like a notice before the site changes things and then ghosts us smh
BluebellBerry and they ghosts us so, oh ao many times... even at the start of the year with so many translators going mia and novels going into hiatus and then being picked up by translator groups. And not a peep about it... we only got to know what happened trough some translators discord. They were given an ultimatum. Join a translator group under webnovel or get out of the platform. Some chose to get out... and that doesn’t help not even a little to believe in “webnovel’s respect and support” for authors and translators....
On another note... how the heck 1 free pass equals to the previous 50SS on the weekly reward??? Even the reduced 20SS were better than this. There’s no way to defend Webnovel this way... not with these sh*tty changes... u.u”