Premium FAQ

[Damien 1,512]

What Are Premium Accounts?

A premium account lets you pay a monthly/yearly sum to support Icy Veins, in exchange for which you gain several benefits:

• you will no longer be shown any ads on the site;
• access to exclusive, high-quality Masterclass video content;
• access to a Patron-only Discord channel, where you can interact with our writers, and a Patron-only forum section;
• special forum badge and title;
• access to custom Log Reviews (for World of Wacraft) and character reviews (for Diablo 3), by our expert writers (Epic subscribers only);

Why Support Icy Veins?

• Professionalism. At Icy Veins, every contributor is paid. We have contracts with all of our writers whereby we share earnings with them on their guides or news (with one of the best rates in the industry). Occasional contractors who review some of our guides or provide other consulting are also paid. So, by supporting Icy Veins, you will support a site that cares a great deal about its contributors.
• Guide Quality. We try to keep our writing teams small, because it allows us to maintain a closer relationship with our writers and it also means that the money is split among fewer people, making the job more attractive, financially. This has worked out well for us, and over the years we have consistently been able to update our guides in time for new patches, experiencing very little turnover. By supporting Icy Veins, you will allow us to recruit additional staff without making it financially less attractive for the existing staff. In turn, this will lessen the workload on our authors and allow them to focus their attention on a smaller amount of guides, increasing guide quality.

How Do I Sign Up?

Click Go Premium at the top of the page to start the process of registering your Premium account.

How Much Does It Cost?

Our Premium membership starts at 2 euros (or US dollars) per month. You can also choose to support the website with a more costly membership and get additional perks (5 euros/USD per month, or 10 euros/USD per month).

If you subscribe for 6 months or a year, you get a 10% or 15% discount, respectively.

International Credit Card Fees

Because Icy Veins is based in France, it is possible that your credit card company or your bank decides to apply an international payment fee, even if the transaction is in the currency of your country (we allow USD and EUR). You would need to look into your bank's or credit card's documentation to find out the exact amount, but it usually is a very small percentage of the sum you paid (2% to 3%).

What Happens to the Money?

Part of the money will be redistributed to the writers and the rest will be used to improve the website.

How do I Change, Cancel, or Check the Status of my Premium Membership?

Click your username in the top right corner and then click on Manage subscription in the menu that appears. When cancelling a subscription, you will continue to benefit from it until its renewal date, at which time it will end instead of renewing itself for another month/year. Similarly, when changing the amount of your subscription, this will only affect your future payments.

Refund Policy

If you experience issues with your premium subscription, we will refund your first payment, as a way to apologize and say thank you for helping us improve the premium system.

If you are unhappy with your premium subscription and want a refund, please contact us at [email protected].

Is my Credit Card Information Safe?

Yes, it is. As mentioned on the payment page, we do not store or even see your payment information. Everything is processed directly by Braintree, the payment processor we are using. They are a subsidiary of PayPal. On the payment page, you can inspect the fields and you will see that they are coded as iframes from Braintree, so we cannot access their content.

Help, I Signed Up But I Still See Ads?!

Please make sure to log out of your account and back in in order to activate premium. We are working on making that better.

How To Contact You In Case Of Problems?

[email protected] or the Premium member only forum section or our Premium-only channel on Discord.

[NetMerc 1]

This is a great feature.  You guys have helped my game in so many ways, I look forward to contributing in someway to keep the quality content coming.  How soon do you anticipate the sign-up links for premium accounts will be ready?

- NetMerc 

[Damien 1,512]

Glad you like it! We're waiting for the approval from Paypal and it can take up to 48 hours. Otherwise, all should be ready. So let's say Wednesday at the latest.

[Arielle 3]

Quote

This is pretty rare these days, as most of the other websites in our ecosystem are not, and are instead owned by large international companies. So, by supporting us, you will not be contributing to the annual dividends of investors that care little about the site or the Blizzard community, and the money will go directly towards continuing to improve the website.

Quote

 (with one of the best rates in the industry). Occasional contractors who review some of our guides (WoW class guides for example) are also paid (and they are paid better than the people who actually write guides on other sites). So, by supporting Icy Veins, you will support a site that cares a great deal about its contributors and pays well above the industry's average.

I assume you have proof to support making statements like this?

[Damien 1,512]

On 8/21/2017 at 9:59 PM, Arielle said:

I assume you have proof to support making statements like this?

I see that I should have written "most other large websites" in my FAQ, which should have been corrected by the time you read my reply.

Verifying that Icy Veins is independent is easy. Vlad and I reside in France and run Icy Veins through a French-registered company called VEDATIS (as stated in our about page, in compliance with French laws). One can find more information on our company on infogreffe, a state-sponsored repository that maintains a page about each company registered in France. Of interest is the tab called "Actes déposés" which lists the modifications we did to the company and the last one is from August 2012 when Vlad was made "Directeur Général". Anyone can order every document we ever submitted to the state for VEDATIS. It costs a bit of money, but there lies the proof that Vlad and I are the only owners of Icy Veins and that we each own 50% of it.

The second proposition about the premium money going directly towards the site is impossible to prove because we have not yet received any money from premium.

As for the quote about our pay rates, let's take a simple example to put some perspective. We use reviewers for all our class guides and in average since the Legion's prepatch, we've spent 450 euros per spec, which I know is more than what the average Wowhead class writer has gotten per spec. And that's just review work, we're not even talking of the actual work of writing and editing the guides, which is paid more. I also have a Skype quote from a Curse exec (which I won't produce here because I want us to remain friends) who is half-jokingly asking me at the time not to tell the staff on a Curse website how much we pay our own staff on our corresponding section.

[Arielle 3]

25 minutes ago, Damien said:

Verifying that Icy Veins is independent is easy. Vlad and I reside in France and run Icy Veins through a French-registered company called VEDATIS (as stated in our about page, in compliance with French laws). One can find more information on our company on infogreffe, a state-sponsored repository that maintains a page about each company registered in France. Of interest is the tab called "Actes déposés" which lists the modifications we did to the company and the last one is from August 2012 when Vlad was made "Directeur Général". Anyone can order every document we ever submitted to the state for VEDATIS. It costs a bit of money, but there lies the proof that Vlad and I are the only owners of Icy Veins and that we each own 50% of it.

Of course.  I wasn't questioning the ownership of IV since as you said that's really easy to find out, but rather your implication of the motives of others.  How do you know what the priorities of others are, and therefore make a judgement of yourselves relative to them?

27 minutes ago, Damien said:

As for the quote about our pay rates, let's take a simple example to put some perspective. We use reviewers for all our class guides and in average since the Legion's prepatch, we've spent 450 euros per spec, which I know is more than what the average Wowhead class writer has gotten per spec.

How do you know this?  Without any supporting third party corroboration I'm still just taking your word for it.  If that's all it is then that's fine.

29 minutes ago, Damien said:

I also have a Skype quote from a Curse exec (which I won't produce here because I want us to remain friends) who is half-jokingly asking me at the time not to tell the staff on a Curse website how much we pay our own staff on our corresponding section.

Of course, I wouldn't expect anyone to divulge privileged information they're not supposed to.

[Damien 1,512]

9 minutes ago, Arielle said:

Of course.  I wasn't questioning the ownership of IV since as you said that's really easy to find out, but rather your implication of the motives of others.  How do you know what the priorities of others are, and therefore make a judgement of yourselves relative to them?

How do you know this?  Without any supporting third party corroboration I'm still just taking your word for it.  If that's all it is then that's fine.

Of course, I wouldn't expect anyone to divulge privileged information they're not supposed to.

Hello again Arielle,

I see your point and I think you're right. People would indeed have to take our word for it and that's a problem. I can't really prove my point without asking people I know to come here and testify, which would only create problems for them. We'll be working on modifying the FAQ to make it better.

[Tecmoman 1]

Will there be a yearly rate at a discount?

[Damien 1,512]

53 minutes ago, Tecmoman said:

Will there be a yearly rate at a discount?

This is not planned, but if we see that there is demand (and I imagine your post counts as such), that is definitely something that we can do.

[Tecmoman 1]

On 8/25/2017 at 2:02 PM, Damien said:

This is not planned, but if we see that there is demand (and I imagine your post counts as such), that is definitely something that we can do.

That would be great. I will be watching. I love the site and wowhead is my other main site. I did purchase on wowhead though your price seems steep. There are some users that may use all your guides though for some of us we will not be using it all so think the value is not there yet. A yearly 25% discount would get me over the edge I am sure so implement soon!!

[Damien 1,512]

18 hours ago, Tecmoman said:

That would be great. I will be watching. I love the site and wowhead is my other main site. I did purchase on wowhead though your price seems steep. There are some users that may use all your guides though for some of us we will not be using it all so think the value is not there yet. A yearly 25% discount would get me over the edge I am sure so implement soon!!

There were several comments asking for a yearly sub in another thread, so I will be asking the devs to make it :)

[Tecmoman 1]

On 8/31/2017 at 9:19 AM, Damien said:

There were several comments asking for a yearly sub in another thread, so I will be asking the devs to make it :)

Looking forward to it. Thanks!! When do you think we will see it?

Edited September 3, 2017 by Tecmoman

[Freyja 12]

I definitely want to sign up.  I've been able to take advantage of all the knowledge you guys have, which makes the game much easier to play, so I feel it's right that I give back in at least a small way.

[Damien 1,512]

On 9/3/2017 at 6:16 AM, Tecmoman said:

Looking forward to it. Thanks!! When do you think we will see it?

I'm hoping by the end of September. This isn't much to do, but there are smaller issues that we've detected with Premium that we want to get fixed first.

[Tecmoman 1]

10 hours ago, Damien said:

I'm hoping by the end of September. This isn't much to do, but there are smaller issues that we've detected with Premium that we want to get fixed first.

Awesome! Thanks for getting this done!

[Valks 2,370]

On 9/3/2017 at 9:50 PM, Freyja said:

I definitely want to sign up.  I've been able to take advantage of all the knowledge you guys have, which makes the game much easier to play, so I feel it's right that I give back in at least a small way.

Thanks for doing so! We're glad to have you on board :D

[Freyja 12]

20 hours ago, Blainie said:

Thanks for doing so! We're glad to have you on board :D

Thank you, and it's my pleasure :)

[Damien 1,512]

Edited the post today to mention yearly subscriptions, which went live yesterday.

[Paperkat 1]

This site has always been my go to for all things WoW, I definitely appreciate it! Of course I will support you guys -- I can do $2 a month :) Thank you!

[Valks 2,370]

On 02/11/2017 at 2:59 AM, Paperkat said:

This site has always been my go to for all things WoW, I definitely appreciate it! Of course I will support you guys -- I can do $2 a month :) Thank you!

Thanks for your kind words! We’ll keep doing our best :D

[Bretonas 3]

Decided to go premium as well now. Been using the site for years. Guides and information are always up to date and it's just generally my "go to" website for Warcraft. €2 is a small price to pay to keep this awesome site going. Thanks guys!

[Valks 2,370]

1 hour ago, Bretonas said:

Decided to go premium as well now. Been using the site for years. Guides and information are always up to date and it's just generally my "go to" website for Warcraft. €2 is a small price to pay to keep this awesome site going. Thanks guys!

Thanks so much for signing up to Premium and welcome to the forums, too!

[HightowerTom 2]

Thank you guys for providing this great page. As a software developer, I know how difficult it sometimes is to live from what you are doing and that people too easily take everything for granted and expect it to be free...

Keep up the great work and all the best. :)

[Damien 1,512]

On 1/31/2019 at 11:47 PM, HightowerTom said:

Thank you guys for providing this great page. As a software developer, I know how difficult it sometimes is to live from what you are doing and that people too easily take everything for granted and expect it to be free...

 Keep up the great work and all the best. ?

Many thanks for this nice message! Sorry for being late in answer ?

[Kelewan 1]

I am trying to see if there is a difference between the three levels of support? I am going to start with the basic, but if you can let me know if there is a difference, I will upgrade later.