Hey hey, Whyville!
For the last few weeks, the folks at City Hall have put their brains on the rack for you -- it is Halloween, after all! -- over this funding question. Some of our family members have accused us of turning into zombies, because we're so focused on thinking about Whyville! Heck, I've turned a ghostly white just considering what might happen if we don't find the perfect solution!
Ah, Halloween!
But seriously, folks, we've gotten a lot of very supportive emails from
you all at ideas\@whyville.net after my article from last week and the week before,
and we're grateful for your suggestions.
With your help, we feel that we've come up with a system that's really incredibly fair, and pretty cool to boot.
The system will be very similar to the bidding system for Akbar's Mall, so it should make sense to those of you who have been using the mall lately. The new system is called the "Why-Pass", and it'll let those of you who buy one go right past that annoying "Sorry, Whyville is too busy" page and head straight into Whyville without a hitch!
Those of you who don't have money to spare, don't worry -- you'll still be able to get in! If you can't afford to buy a Why-Pass right off, you'll get to bid on one, which basically means you get to tell us how much Whyville is worth to you. You bid what you can afford. You bid what you think is fair. It's the Whyville Way!
If you think the bidding plan is too complicated for you, you can always just purchase a guaranteed Why-Pass for one or six months -- it may cost a little more than bidding, but you won't have to wait for the bid results.
Since the point of all this is to generate money to support our town, those citizens who bought Club Why membership with real dollars to support Whyville will get a free 60-day Why-Pass!
Finally, if you simply don't think Whyville is worth a couple bucks out of your pocket, you'll find that there is actually such a thing as a free lunch in our town, unlike in real life. When Whyville isn't too busy, you'll be able to get in. When we're very busy, you'll see the "Sorry, we're too busy now" sign like you do now. Basically, things won't change very much for you.
So, to summarize:
- You can buy a Why-Pass for 30 days (\$4.95) or 6 months (\$24.75) and have priority access to Whyville.
- You can bid on a 30-day Why-Pass for as little as \$2. If you win the auction, you'll get the same priority access as somebody who bought a Pass. If you don't win the
pass, you can still do #1 or #3.
- You can get lucky, or try to, by just logging in normally. However, when Whyville is busy, folks with Why-Passes will have first dibs logging in, so you may get stuck in the Waiting Room for a while.
Now, when is all this going to happen, you ask? We want to have it up before our Halloween Party, because you can be sure Whyville's going to be busy for that. The Whyville Halloween Party will start at 6 pm WST on Tuesday Oct. 30 at the Haunted House. Yes the Haunted House!
So get psyched, get your parents prepped, and watch out for Why Passes!
It may be hard to get used to the idea of spending money on the internet, but the Why-Pass system is worth it: it will improve Whyville and your Whyville experience.
Always haunting -- ahem, hunting -- for more improvements,
Bigfoot Bill
