AQ Completes Hostile Takeover of LbNA
Yes, that’s right—it’s finally happened! LbNA is mine! All mine! Muhahaha! I’m kidding, of course. Well, not about the takeover. Just the “Muhahaha” part. =)
For the most part, this won’t really affect most of you here on AQ. It’ll definitely affect some of those LbNA fans, however.
Now that I have a solid lock on letterboxing, I’ll eventually be updating both sites to a pay-per-clue or all-access pass model. Premium members, of course, will have the all-access pass. It’s about time these websites started earning enough money for me to buy a little bling.
One feature I’ve always wanted to implement but always hesitated about following through with is a loyalty test. I’m tired of LbNA fans always trying to stab me in the back, but I figured creating a loyalty test might make some people uncomfortable and perhaps defect to LbNA. Now that I have both websites under my control and don’t have to worry about that, it’s finally happening.
So the first change you’ll notice are two new icons: the crown and the dagger. AQ now tracks a “loyalty score” for each person. Everyone’s score starts out at zero, then it can go up or down from there depending on a variety of factors such as whether or not you are a premium member, how many clues you host on AQ vs. LbNA, and whether or not you’ve taken a loyalty oath to AQ. The exact calculation is subject to change as I fiddle with the numbers to get an optimal result.
But I digress.... If your score grows high enough and you’ve proved yourself loyal, you’ll now find a crown by your name.
But if your loyalty score drops too much, you’ll now find a dagger by your name—marking you as a backstabbing unloyal letterboxer.
If you fall somewhere in the middle and AQ cannot determine one way or another how you fall, it won’t add any icons by your name. You’ll have to do some actions to prove your loyalty first: become a premium member, list boxes exclusively on AQ, take the loyalty oath, etc.
You will also see a new link under the Toolbox menubar option that allows you crash LbNA at the press of a button. Well, okay, technically, it won't crash LbNA, but it will cause LbNA to display a “too many connections” error for anyone who visits the site for the following 10 minutes. So whenever you feel like messing with those guys, you can. =)