Major Additions - Point Market System 3.1x

Hack Summary
The Point Market System 3.1 is a stand alone "store" or "shop" hack for vBulletin 4x series. This hack is considered a major addition that allows for you to install one or multiple point systems, activity systems, or currency systems to use points for forum related item enhancements or a virtual/physical store system for your vBulletin forum.

The Point Market is actually four major hacks combined into one. Those five major hacks are a Forum Enhancement Store, A Virtual & Physical Store, a detailed Banking/Payment System, Currency to Point Converter, and a Lottery/Gambling Center. Below is a little bit more about each section.

Forum Item Enhancement Store
The Point Market Forum Item section is what is considered a traditional forum store. You can use a very comprehensive Admin background to be able to sell a variety of forum items that can help enhance a user's enjoyability on the forums. In addition, there are many forum items that a user can purchase for other users. I should also note that a point donation is possible in this section since many point systems do not offer the ability to donate. Below is a listing of the market items & categories:

Forum Items User can Purchase
Market Features (Additional Market Access Features Users Can Purchased)
- Steal Protection
- Gift Market Access
- Stolen Point History
- Donation History
- Gambling Access
- Coupon Access
User Title
- Custom User Title
- User Title Glow
- User Title Color
- Usertitle Strikethrough
Gifts / Awards / Ribbons
- Purchase a Gift
- Create a Gift
User Permissions
- Primary Usergroup Change
- Secondary Usergroup Change
Username Permissions
- Change Username
- Username Color
- Username Glow
- Username Strikethrough
Forum Permissions
- Special Forum Access
- Forum Password Access
- Moderate a Forum
- Change Forum Description
- Create a Forum
Images
- Create Smiley Category
- Upload Smiley
- Upload Avatar
Other Users
- Change Custom User Title
- Gift a Gift
- Donate to Another User
- Steal From a User
- Fire a Moderator
- Change Avatar
Posts
- Post Font Bold
- Post Font Color
- Post Font Face
- Post Font Italics
Threads
- Sticky a Thread
- Delete a Thread
- Color a Thread
- Thread Strikethrough
- Ban a User From a Thread

In addition to these powerful Forum Items, the Point Market has revolutionized the way shop systems can handle charging items. The Point Market allows for all market items above to be charged in two different currencies. That means you could use a combination of any of the supporting point mods to charge for each forum item. Additional features that have been recently been introduced involves the ability to set when these market items expire, allowing for only tempory or permanent purchases. Furthermore, Administrators can choose whether to enable/disable the refund capabilities of these market items as well as individual usergroup permissions that can set individual access, coupon capabilities, and an individual maximum purchase.

Other powerful enhancements to our forum item store system allows for Administrators to set the ability of charging for category access in order to access these market items. This will give the user's one more way to stay active and motivated on accumulating points in order to use them for store purchases. A recently introduced user requested feature also allows for subcategories and the ability to create an unlimited amount of duplicate forum items by using the above market items as a template for a new item. This means you can choose to set different quotos for each market item and can truly personalize your forum item store section.

Bank & Paycheck Center
The Point Market version 3.1x series has done some extreme enhancements to how point banking is now handled. Users have the classic ability to be able to use a bank to store two different point system currencies of the Administrators choosing. These currencies are stored and can accumulate primary usergroup interest that is set during a specified time period by the Administrator. Below is an exact list of Banking features.

Bank Features
- Store Two Currencies that are protected from all steal protection
- Allow for interest to be earned controlled by Administrators on a payout period
- Set minimum/maximum fees (usergroup controlled)
- Set minimum/maximum withdraw and deposit amounts (usergroup controlled)

A main change in the Point Market that makes it so different is the concept of receiving paychecks. Many forums that use point systems want the ability to pay their staff or special usergroups with a paycheck to say thanks as a form of payment. The Point Market gives you the ability to pay users on a specified period by the Administrator. There best part about this paycheck feature is the Admin can choose two different amounts that a user can earn. Admins can choose a set amount that is guarenteed during each pay period OR Administrators can choose for the user to earn a percentage of Point Market Forum Item Sales during a specified period that is defined by their primary usergroup. This allows for staff to become almost salesman like within the Market and can also guarentee a fluxuating paycheck based off of activiity.

Virtual & Physical Online Store
Based off of user demands, the Point Market has created a store system that users can create virtual and physical items and sell it on the website with users using points to purchase these items. Administrators can create an unlimited amount of store items. These items have the ability to:

Store Features
- Purchase an unlimited products by the Admin
- Multiple shipping methods (Email, Mail, Downloadable, No Shipping)
- Control shipping costs if by Mail based off a user's Country
- Up to 5 screenshots uploaded by the Administrator that can be viewed
- Give detailed reviews of products purchased
- Rate products 1 to 5
- Control Quantity of available products
- Coupons Enabled

A designated Administrator will immediately be notified via Private Message of a purchase. From there an Admin can enter the Admin Control Panel and choose to ship the product in whatever method the user chose. A log of this purchase is also available for the user who can view it in their User Purchase history as well as the shipping status of the item.

Point Currency Converter
Sometimes you need to generate actual cash revenue. Many users are willing to purchase points for money. So what better way then to introduce a cash transaction center that will allow for the Administrator to set an amount to charge for a set amount of points? This feature is supported via Paypal and allows for a great income method.

Furthermore, some sites like to use more then two currency systems and the Point Market is designed to meet those needs. Users can be able to select from a specified currency list by the Admin and change points from one system to the next at a fee chosen by the Administrator. This is a pretty convinient method to use every point system possible and allow for user's main goal to be as active as possible so that they can adjust their points to their liking.


Lottery & Gambling
Gambling these days are in high demand and the Point Market has set to address it. The Point Market has created 3 seperate games to allow user's to gamble their points on multiplying their points. Those 3 games are:

- Match The Card
- Higher Card
- Lottery

The Lottery has a built in expiration set by the Administrators and can also be used with coupons for discounts. Massive jackpots can be set at a starting amount or at 0 and an adjustable charge price as well. Administrators can also control the odds of the other two games. Finally a powerful Administrative backend will allow for Admins to see information and statistics related to the lottery.


Other Administrative Features
The Point Market has a series of features in addition to the main 5 hacks that creates the Point Market. The author truly believes the reason the Point Market is truly the best shop system is the easy Admin system combined with the powerful feature capabilities. Below are some of the main Administrative features:

- Advanced individual Administrative Access features (controlled by superadmin)
- Detailed Moderator/Supermoderator Control Panel (features controlled by superadmin)
- Informative statistics related to purchases & activity within the market
- History & Transaction log of all Forum Market Items
- Controllable Coupon creation with pages of advanced controls
- Maintenance section used for debugging purposes and serious updates
- Detailed Gift/Ribbon/Award section
- Banking paycheck creation & transaction history


vBulletin.org Mods This Works With
1) vBExperience (Point Market v3.0+)
2) uCash
3) vBookie
4) Kbank
5) vBCredits Deluxe II
6) vBActivity

Integration With Other Mods
This hack has been intended to be integrated with a 3rd party point system. You can choose to either use a hack added on vBulletin.org or write your own point system. The hack is dependent on the user table having a point/credit/cash field within the user control panel. Please note that vBExperience will only work with the Point Market version 3x series.

In addition, if you do not want to integrate this hack directly with another point system. You can still install this hack and use the reputation field, which will allow user's to purchase items based off of their reputation. I suggest if you choose this option that you set all prices to not include any decimals, as it will be useless and cause unwanted errors.

As of the 3.1x series, the Point Market has begun to create individual forum items related to other modifications offered on vBulletin.org. If you would like your hack to have a special feature &/or capability that can be purchased within the Point Market, just let the developer of this modification know. I will gladly work with any developer to create purchaseable forum items within the Point Market that enhances your modification.


Support Policy
The only available modification that can be downloaded now is the 3.1x alpha/beta series. The reason why I have it marked in such titles is because the bugs that are remaining seem to be very minimal and the product is pretty stable. That being said their are still a few features that have not been scripted and are marked in a lime green color above in my post. Those features still might not correctly function once they are introduced into the beta series of the 3.1x series and users should use some caution. That being said, I will do my best to offer support in this thread. In order to gain support, you must have downloaded the Point Market product and be listed as installed with the latest available version. PLEASE NOTE: if you are having an issue, please provide the following information
- URL to the page you are experiencing problems or a database error
- Primary Point Field name (What point system are you using)
- Secondary Point Field name (What point system are you using
I need to know these in order to fix the majority of problems I need to know this information as there are so many combinations and point systems that can cause different problems, this is the only way I can help replicate an error in order to fix it


IMPORTANT UPGRADE INFORMATION: After you have upgraded from version 1.0.4 to version 2x, please visit the Maintenance section of the Admin CP. Please update the transaction counter and refund counter so that user's information is displayed accurately. Do not use the User Title updater unless you have recently run vBulletin's User Title and Rank Updater in the maintenance section of vBulletin's Admin CP. Please note that only purchases after 2.0.1 is installed can be fixed on the User Title Updater within the Market Admin CP. If you are upgrading to the 3.1x series for the first time, please run the update Maintenance scrippted called Forum Expirations to deal with expired forum items.

Screenshot and release information: To view specific information about the historical releases of the Point Market, please visit this post:
https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showpost....14&postcount=2
This includes a changelog summary and screenshots of the latest version of the Point Market.

Lastly, I ask all users who install it to kindly click the install button and please rate my product as it is my motivation for future versions of this product.

3.1.0 Gold Release Information
Visit https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showpost....postcount=1861 for 3.1.0 Gold Release. This Upgrade IS REQUIRED!

The following directories must be chmodded to 777
/customavatars/
/images/smilies/
/images/pointmarket/store/
/pointmarket/downloads/

[04wayne]

Originally Posted by 04wayne

Hey, I use the lottery every week as a game. And posters buy their tickets, but look at this:

Week 1 - Spawner $760,000
Week 2 - HeatSeeker $228,000
Week 3 - HeatSeeker $250,000
Week 4 - HeatSeeker $110,000
Week 5 - HeatSeeker $130,000
Week 6 - HeatSeeker $350,000
Week 7 - James $250,000
Week 8 - Heatseeker
Week 9 - Heatseeker

During week 7, he didn't win because he didn't buy any tickets lol. Is there any reason he's winning week after week, is there a bug?! How does the system select the winner of the lottery?

Could you answer my question please themayhem? Heatseeker has just won another lottery, after purchasing just one ticket, compared to everybody else purchasing at least 10 each.

[TheMayhem]

Originally Posted by 04wayne

Could you answer my question please themayhem? Heatseeker has just won another lottery, after purchasing just one ticket, compared to everybody else purchasing at least 10 each.

I honestly have not gotten to look at it yet to see if it is working correctly. Lottery winner is just determined by a random selection of the lottery ticket purchasers. I've spent the last 48 hours working on the 3.1x new features on the user side since I finished up the Admin side. I will check to make sure it's not a bug before I release the product.

[Skyline_GT]

Can you tell me what do I do if I am using vbplaza on vb3.8.4 and want to upgrade to 4.1 and use this instead?

Thanks

[TheMayhem]

There is no converter simply because I haven't used vbplaza in about 5 years. You'll find many of the forum items that are available in vbplaza are available in the Point Market and the market has many new ideas added to the whole point store concept. All you need to do is these steps if you want to come to 4.1x series of vBulletin and use the PM instead.

Step 1) Disable vBPlaza
Step 2) Upgrade forum to 4.1x
Step 3) Install a Point Modification (vBCredits, vBExperience, uCash, vBActivity, etc.) You can use 2 modifications if you want
Step 4) Install Point Market
Step 5) Setup all settings the way you like

[jeremyricci]

Question: Does this new update (well, new to me) fix the PM issues with usernames? When I reply to PM's, users that have glow or other purchased username mods from the market place have code embedded, which needs to be deleted prior to responding.

Edit: Just did some research and found the answer. My second question is, how in the heck can I change my username back? I can't mod it from the user panel, as I'm the admin and protected...so what gives? I'd really like to remove my glow / color so people can reply to my PM's with ease. Thanks for any help, really appreciated!

[smirkley]

Originally Posted by jeremyricci

Question: Does this new update (well, new to me) fix the PM issues with usernames? When I reply to PM's, users that have glow or other purchased username mods from the market place have code embedded, which needs to be deleted prior to responding.

Edit: Just did some research and found the answer. My second question is, how in the heck can I change my username back? I can't mod it from the user panel, as I'm the admin and protected...so what gives? I'd really like to remove my glow / color so people can reply to my PM's with ease. Thanks for any help, really appreciated!

I love this mod,....but,...

It really badly needs to un-do thread/username changes automatically when refunded from store (or expires), when certain related store items are disabled, or the whole product is uninstalled or disabled.

This is very important to say the least.

For this reason many of my store items are disabled, and I am stuck with discolored thread titles in thread lists, that will not revert at all.

[NovoCiv]

Originally Posted by jeremyricci

Question: Does this new update (well, new to me) fix the PM issues with usernames? When I reply to PM's, users that have glow or other purchased username mods from the market place have code embedded, which needs to be deleted prior to responding.

Edit: Just did some research and found the answer. My second question is, how in the heck can I change my username back? I can't mod it from the user panel, as I'm the admin and protected...so what gives? I'd really like to remove my glow / color so people can reply to my PM's with ease. Thanks for any help, really appreciated!

If you have access to your database you an delete the Market transaction and then try editing yourself. It's the only way I can change a usertitle once a member has purchased one on the market.

[TheMayhem]

Originally Posted by smirkley

I love this mod,....but,...

It really badly needs to un-do thread/username changes automatically when refunded from store (or expires), when certain related store items are disabled, or the whole product is uninstalled or disabled.

This is very important to say the least.

For this reason many of my store items are disabled, and I am stuck with discolored thread titles in thread lists, that will not revert at all.

In the new release their is a timeout option which has been requested since version 1.0, it will undo about 80% of the purchases after a set period of time. That will help with the colored thread settings which is one of them or user titles or pretty much anything that is changed to the user database.

One of the very few things that the timeout option does not fix is a changed username. Here's the reason why, when a user changes their username, they use the new username to login. If that times out or you uninstall the product or whatever the reason, they'll still be using the new username to login and not the old one yet it will have reverted back to the old one. That will create instances where the user can't login because they didn't know or forgot about the revert of it. I just forsee too many issues regarding that therefore I'm leaving it so that if you change a username, it is a permanent option. I will say this is one of the few things in 3.1 that cannot be reverted by a timeout option. Maybe I'll add it as a refund option so that users who are not happy with their username change can change it back; however, hopefully you see my reasoning on why.

As for the PM glitch, yes it will be fixed. That is the most serious bug right now in the Point Market that is known and fortunately it's still not that serious.

04wayne I'll be looking into your lottery issues on Saturday as that's the day I'm planning on spending some time improving the lottery.

As for the reported user title change, this is what I am planning on doing (haven't done it yet). If a user goes to their usercp and changes their user title, I am going to add a plugin that will update all market purchases and by default mark them as expired so they do not change again. This will stop the reported bug that users change their user title and it reverts back to their market purchase. As for the admin cp... I'm still trying to come up with ideas on that to fix that part.

The Point Market is currently on track for a 3.1.0 Christmas Day release for you guys

[smirkley]

Sounds good, and thank you. Still one of the best mods out here. Your support of it is supurb to say the least.

I do understand about the username changes that makes sense.

But the thread/username color glow not resetting is a problem sometimes, and I sincerely appreciate your efforts.

Thanks again TM.

[TheMayhem]

Originally Posted by smirkley

Sounds good, and thank you. Still one of the best mods out here. Your support of it is supurb to say the least.

I do understand about the username changes that makes sense.

But the thread/username color glow not resetting is a problem sometimes, and I sincerely appreciate your efforts.


Thanks again TM.

No problem, like I said the thread and username glow will BOTH be able to expire in the next release so if your trying to get rid of any current ones, simply set a short expiration time period and it'll automatically go back to default. Plus the next release you can control what colors appear on user titles/usernames as well as glows