CHANGES! (Rewards, tiers, and more)

This is a bit of a story, so if you just want the details about the change and how it will affect you, jump to the bottom of the post!

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I have a tendency to make things a touch more complicated than they need to be. It's part of my charm, yes, and I think it leads to some pretty interesting results, but a good we'll say 80% of the time, I just end up making more work for myself than I need to.

Many of my projects have fallen victim to this part of me. The TF Patreon is one such unfortunate soul.

If you're a veteran here, you'll remember when we created a whole loyalty rewards system where you'd unlock stuff the longer you were with us. In theory it sounds like a good idea, but we found that it was a ton of work to maintain and... like... no one cared about all those rewards. Merch, custom avatars, adoptable taleoids, all sorts of unlockables—it all sounds cool in concept, but it just didn't turn out to matter much. 

I didn't get it back then. I was honestly indignant. Like, we have all these cool rewards, why aren't you claiming them?? Patrons even agreed at face value that they sounded like great benefits... and then completely forgot about them after a month of supporting the show.

I found it baffling. Isn't the point of this whole exchange that we promise cool stuff connected to the show and people sign up to get ahold of it? That was my assumption. Listening to the direct feedback of the patrons who liked the ideas when I asked about them, it seemed correct.

It was a confusing time.

But eventually I learned to stop relying solely on the explicit feedback and listen to what people were saying with their actions: our patrons didn't seem to care about getting things. They didn't seem to be coming here for the rewards. They seemed to be coming here for the show. To feel like a part of it. To help create it. To feel like some part of their paycheck is converting to art that they care about but wouldn't have the time or the means to make on their own.

Our patrons want to be our collaborators, not our customers.

This was a new philosophy to me about a year ago. By that time we'd long-since done away with the old loyalty rewards program. But I've been a little uneasy with the leftover rewards on the patreon ever since then. For the last few years, we've had adoptable taleoids, letters from talebot, and acknowledgements at the end of videos. Artifacts of a misguided interpretation of what this part of the community is about.

So, in order to make things simpler, bring everything closer together, and give everybody more of what they're actually here for, we've removed some tiers and simplified some things.

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Behold, the new TF patreon:

CHANGES

• The $25, $50, and $100 tiers have been unpublished.

• If you are at one of these tiers and wish continue your pledge there, you'll be able to keep it going and keep your distinctive role on discord, but you won't receive any other additional benefits with them—it will just be your way of supporting us that much more!

• New patrons cannot sign up for any of those tiers.

• Sneak peeks and spoilers are now visible to all patrons, not just those at the $10+ tiers!

• The ability to suggest prompt ideas for the weekly writing group has migrated from the $25 tier down to the $10 tier! More people have access to it now than ever!

• We're now hosting live research sessions in the forge! All patrons are welcome to join in and watch/listen as we gather new material for our videos! We actually get a lot of feedback that directly influences our scripts there.

• Instead of the 4% and 8% discounts $5 and $10 patrons were previously receiving on merch, they'll now receive 10% and 20% discounts, respectively!

WHAT DOES THIS MEAN FOR ME?

• If you're at the $50 tier, you will receive all the benefits from the lower tiers as well, but you will no longer have your name read aloud at the end of every video.

• If you want to pledge more than $10 but want to receive all the tier benefits, just pledge at the $10-tier, then when it asks you to confirm your pledge, edit the price up to whatever amount you want! DO NOT USE CUSTOM PLEDGES, though. You won't receive any tier rewards if you do. Just the way Patreon works.