This article was originally written on the Evolved Patron. Find that here.
Hey there you incredible people! Long time no write. I know things have been a little stagnant here for the past few months, but rest-assured, there are some huge changes coming very soon that I think people will really enjoy. I wanted to take a few minutes to let everyone know what we have planned, and to give everyone some time to provide feedback before we go live with the changes in January.
On our Patreon, we are revamping our tiers and benefits to provide all of you with better content, better rewards, and a better experience overall. This includes the following:
1. Moving our merch rewards from Spreadshirt into Patreon. Some of you already have received Patreon merch depending on your tier, but we will be expanding these to more tiers and more rewards for everyone. For all tiers $5 and above, you will receive 4 Patreon-exclusive items throughout your first year of support, with items' value growing along with the tiers. This also means a removal of the annual Evolved store credit for tiers $10+. This is an unfortunate change, but between the lacklusker quality we have seen from Spreadshirt products and the difficulty in ensuring rewards were tracked and disbursed appropriately, we decided to hand off this benefit completely to Patreon. Since many of you are currently in a tier that provides a dollar-amount credit per year, anyone who has a credit that is either already due or coming due will receive one last credit to be used at the store on whatever Evolved merchandise you like. Any new patrons after the transition point will only receive the Patreon merch rewards.
2. Adding a Patreon-exclusive new Evolved podcast, IWHBYP (I Would Have Been Your Podcast). If you didn't notice already, we like to talk, and while we love talking Halo, we also have other interests. This podcast will be exclusive to Evolved patrons only, and will feature us chatting about life, our interests, answer listener questions, interviewing guests, or just whatever you want and we like. This is going to be pretty freeform, so expect the topics to be varied and the format to be pretty loose until we get into the flow of things. We are definitely up for suggestions about topics, guests, or whatever, so if any of you have thoughts on what you would like to see out of this, let us know! All tiers at $5 Lifeworker and above will have access to IWHBYP as soon as it goes live.
3. Changing our tier structure. Starting in 2023, our tiers will be updated to reflect what we think is a better array of support amounts. The current Manipular and Miner tiers will be combined into a single $2 Manipular tier, and the $75 Theoretical tier will become $80 to match tier progression and benefits. The current $55 Juridical tier is being retired, and in its place will be a special limited tier as described below. All current Manipulars at the $1 tier will be grandfathered in to their current pledge level and benefits.
4. Special Limited Tiers. In addition to the new tier structure, there will be 5 single-patron tiers available that provide some unique benefits. These will be the Linda-058, Kelly-087, Fred-104, John-117, and 343 Guilty Spark tiers, with support levels commensurate with their numbers. These special tiers come with the same benefits as the Theoretical tier, with the addition of a one-time store credit amount matching the tier level, an entry into the Evolved Patreon hall of fame on our website, and a extra special secret private discord channel just for Evolved Patreon hall of famers.
5. Retiring and retooling some less used benefits. Due to their limited use, we are retiring some of our less-used benefits, and retooling some others to make them more beneficial to you. Holiday and anniversary digital/physical postcards will be retired. In its place will be an annual end of the year thank you video or audio clip put together by the team. Podcast guest opportunities will be extended to all tiers Promethean and above. Co-op gaming with hosts will remain largely the same, provided to all tiers at Linda-058 and above. Vinyl copies of the Evolved album are being retired as well, as there was little demand and they were exceedingly difficult to get good quality copies. Evolved Cameo videos will be retired as well due to low demand.
6. Changes to the Evolved Store and credits. As mentioned above, the Spreadshirt store is going to be retired alongside these Patreon changes. In its place will be a new store built right into our website so you can make purchases of Evolved merch directly from us. Along with that, Patreon tiers Linda-058 and above will receive one-time credits for the store. The limited tiers will receive a one-time credit matching their support level, and the Theoretical tier will receive a $50 one-time credit. In addition, we are working to provide discount coupons or codes to all patrons to receive an extra percentage off, though this is still being worked on in the backend.
7. Evolved-commissioned artwork. To simplify the distribution of any commissioned artwork going forward, commissioned art will be provided in its max resolution to all tiers $10 and above, once we actually find an artist who is talented and available to create new pieces for us. This is expected to resume alongside the Patreon changes in January 2023.
If anyone has questions or comments about this upcoming change, be sure to let us know in the comments below or via any of our social media or email. Thanks for a great year, and we look forward to what 2023 has to offer for the Patreon, Evolved, and the Halo community as a whole!
