I dont really suffer from lag so i wouldnt really pay for premium but its peoples choice and as mike said if you suffer from lag and want more table space and less lagging and you have money then you can choose to pay for this but im not that fussed either to be honest.

I can see where most people are coming from but from nicks point of view, he needs to create revenue from company add's to help the site stay alive so he is able to remove the website add's for a fee of £10 for 6 month becuase he will be creating revenue from this way.

Websites are not cheap to run after you have brought your domain names and paid for your server space, and its silly things like scripts that will take hours upon hours of coding, if you are somebody that thinks if you can come on once a week to your website and then just leave it you are sadly wrong you need to be around the majority of the time to make sure nuthing has gone wrong and to create any vital updates for example: 15 red arcade, new rank changes etc and with all of this comes dedication and from all of this he deserves to have created an idea to charge people £10 for 6 month even if I only do get an add free site, how I see it everytime I make a payment thats abit of help for nick and funkysnooker, also I think anybody who gives money wether its donation or purchasing something from a website they should be recognised so I think the 'premium account' should stay

I think it's a great Idea Ryan and fortunately I have no problem paying, I think it's a very reasonable price, but as Mike said my issue is with the "Premimum Member" tag. To me Premimum means "Better" or "Higher" which is where I have the problem, because someone has paid it dosen't make them "Better" but it could be seen as such, which is something I wouldn't want to see.

I hope I've made myself a bit clearer now, sorry for any misunderstandings

I understand where you're coming from with the 'Premium' bit Grae, but in my opinion the people who are paying do need some sort of acknowledgment for it to be known that they are contributing to the website.

Just maybe something other than 'Premium Member' could be used, because as Grae says, it does give an impression of that type of member being 'better'.

Nice one Nick, although i never suffer from lag the extra table space would come in handy.

I'll register once I've come back from getting my tattoo, (nervous as hell ha!)

How much table space do you get Si? Big difference?

Save the tenner Ste, you don't need it.

I personally have not seen a difference apart fromm the fact you get no adds, but eventually there are going to be different things for premium account users, so honestly if it does not look like alot now give it a month or so and I'm sure there will be alot to go for if you buy a premium account

I'm not that sure Nick is planning on adding anything extra at all, people are alread giving negative receptions and there is not that much difference, if new felts etc were added it would eventially get peoples backs up.

I spoke to him and he said new things would come but its the same as everything it takes time I guess

No point in buying it for me then...

Well Nick says there is an increase in table size, and I can't see why he was indulge into false advertising.

The space used in advertising is used for table size in the 'premium game window', so I guess it would be more effective on a more of a widescreen monitor.

Been getting more lag than usaul since Premium came out. Dunno why but seems awfully wierd.

This will have nothing to do with the premium service being released. It's purely optional. (Just to clarify).

I know some people who suffer from lag would gladly pay a tenner to get rid of it.

One thing that everybody seems to have overlooked is the this money goes towards ensuring the future of funkysnooker. So although there may be personal incentives to donate money, there is also the fact that you would be helping with the running of this great site.

I didn't for one minute think it would but i did think it seemed a bit odd. (we need a confused smiley though)

It could just seem a coinsidence, hopefully it'll settle down and i'll go back to having lag rarely.

Edited at 16:58 Sat 3/01/09 (GMT)

Ray, Great point. Since getting the new laptop hardly ever get lag (maybe it's because of the dual core thingy, not technically minded so don't know)
I have said for ages that I would support FS by paying and not just to avoid ads. I'm afraid the "Premium" tag still bothers me. Sorry I realise I'm in the minority but that's life

Edit for bad spelling

Edited at 17:21 Sat 3/01/09 (GMT)

Personally, I would prefer to not have the premium tag because of the perception that it produces a two tier system. Perhaps in the next upgrade Nick could make it an option in the profile to 'Remove Premium Tag' so that those of us who wish to effectively make anonymous donations in order to support the site can do so.

OK, a few good points here.

a) I don't want to create a 2-tier structure on the site. I have am not planning to create extra games or extra features for premium users. However, there may be some aesthetic changes available.

b) Yes, removing adverts and the advert bar *may* give an advantage (it all depends on your screen size). Obviously I'd like to remove the need from adverts completely to make it a completely level playing but this isn't viable.

c) Adverts causing significant number of users lag will be removed, in exactly the same way as before. It's certainly not a sensible policy for me to try and force members into upgrading by making the game unplayable!

d) Premium tag, I did consider changing it to "Contributor" or "Subscriber" or some variant of "Ad-free member", but premium tag is simple and common on websites. Apart from Grae, would anyone be interested in removing this?

EDIT: Seen your post, buddytobud, so I will look into optionally removing the premium tag.

Edited at 18:00 Sat 3/01/09 (GMT)

I dont see what all the fuss is about? As si said before it's the same with runescape. The members can play for free and do what they please, but the one's that pay have more options available to them (in snooker's instance it's the lag free option).

And as for the tag, is'nt it a bit OTT moaning about the "premium" part? I mean come on! As Nick say's above he considered changing it to "contributor" or "subscriber" and as he say's "premium" is common on other websites.

I can live with premium but I can see why others can't so how about having like a gold name? Or something along those lines italic name or something.