The biggest update since 3.0 (V6.0)

You can find a complete list of changes here.

This is by far, the biggest update post V3.0 for GmodStore. The focus of this update have been the Wallet and the new Download server, but the update brings a plethora of other enhancements, features and bug fixes. The changes made in this version are so big that they deserve an announcement instead of a dev blog.

The release date for version 6.0 is Wednesday 26th of June. We will start the migration at 11:00 UTC.

The wallet

This one is a huge one. Last time we talked about the wallet it was through a dev blog talking about its potential and how it's potentially going to be. Today we will tell you exactly how it will work and what potential we now posses with such a system.

Why?

GmodStore has ever since the commission rates were announced instead of a flat developer fee offered a way to split payments between multiple creators. This is a feature in a now deprecated PayPal API called Adaptive Payments (Split payments). While in PayPal's case it's going to be replaced with PayPal Marketplaces at a later unknown date, other payment gateways either do not have this feature at all, or limit it to certain countries only. Not all our merchants are in countries that support these systems. Nor do all our creators live in countries that accept PayPal.

With the wallet we are able to delegate the funds to merchants after we receive the amount in our own global account. The idea is that we will eventually open for support of more gateways next to just PayPal, and that all funds sent to any gateway can be sent to a universal bank account and paid out with either bank or PayPal (not at the moment, read the FAQ for an explanation of why). The only requirement we are bound to with the wallet is the ability to automatically send money to our bank account as well as storing money in USD.

What's the benefit of this?

Because we are now the only receiver of money we can now apply for lower PayPal fees.

Bank account payouts have a currency conversion rate ELEVEN TIMES lower than PayPal's.

There's now a shopping cart, allowing users to purchase multiple items at once. Resulting in fewer fees.

The shopping cart and payment page. The PayPal button is off center, we know

If multiple items are bought at once there's an additional benefit: Lower chargeback fees. The more creators receive money from a single transaction, the lower a potential $20 chargeback fee from PayPal will be.

We can now theoretically support any payment gateway as long as they meet the requirement I mentioned in the "Why?" section.

Creators from Turkey and Russia can now receive money without illegally making a PayPal account.

We will now be able to hold a payment until a certain clause has happened. An example of this is job middle man payments. We can hold a payment until the received files have been deemed legit.

Any other features that depend on payments will be much easier to finish now: Freelancers/Featured addon tokens.

An image displaying the wallet activity and balance The payout settings page

The new download server

Have you ever tried to download an addon and get an internal server error thrown in your face? Yeah? Okay, you don't have to worry about that anymore!

The new download server is able to make use of a scalable amount of CPU cores meaning it can serve multiple downloads at the same time. In addition to this it is able to serve you downloads 3-4 times faster. (40-80ms instead of 200-300ms)

The download server is now decoupled from GmodStore's database and relies on data it's fed in a HTTP request. This means it no longer has to connect to a database as well.

This of course doesn't mean much to the regular consumer, next to the performance being better and certain zips actually working now.

Other notable changes

Other noticeable features that deserve a mention. This is a mixed list and some of them will impact creators, others will impact customers, and some of them will impact both.

1. New purchases list.

The new purchases list. You can now select three different sizes for the list. You can now list more than 15 and search as well.

1. Addon announcements.

The latest announcement displayed on an addon's page The entire announcement

1. Tickets: Reply and hide until new activity.
2. Tickets: On-hold state, ties into the above.
3. Tickets: Now auto-close when in the "Awaiting user" status based on team settings.
4. Forum: Recent new threads.
5. Forum: Latest posts.
6. Forum: Mark all as read (found in the read threads with new posts area).
7. Featured addons will never be empty, it will grab 6 popular addons if it is.
8. Jobs in progress are now hidden unless you filter to show them.
9. Job categories are now shown on the job card.
10. Minimum job description characters (300 characters).
11. You can now add multiple people to an addon at the same time.
12. Sorting by last downloaded in addon purchases.
13. Gifting an addon now uses a user search bar instead of Steam64 ID input field.

The new checkout page with a user search bar for gifting

Noteworthy bug fixes

There are always noteworthy bug fixes, here are some:

1. "View in PayPal" is actually contextual now
2. Job budget can now be accepted by both job taker and job author
3. User search is more accurate now
4. Knowledge base categories can no longer be "moved" when you're not allowed to move them
5. When uploading a file to addon media, it now is aware of its own file type (it will say video and not image if it's a video)
6. Addons can now be removed from your wishlist even though you have bought them
7. Forum post counts are now correct
8. Certain "blank" event logs now show correctly
9. Threads with new posts now actually sorts correctly
10. Last downloaded now works in an addon's purchases list

FAQ

We have gotten a lot of questions and concerns about the wallet in particular that we wish to answer in a Q&A list:

Why are you holding our money for a month, why can't I pay out more frequently?

This is because we are unable to automatically withdraw money from our PayPal account to our universal bank account until we meet the requirements of 15.000 EUR received each month for three consecutive months. When this happens PayPal will be able to assign us a dedicated customer support representative who will be able to enable this feature for us.

Why can't I pay out on demand?

Same as above.

Why can't I use PayPal to payout?

Same as above.

How will disputes work?

Disputed payments will be pending until the verdict has happened. If we win the dispute you keep the money, if we lose, the money is permanently deducted from your wallet.

How will the PayPal chargeback fee work?

Glad you asked! With the old payment system each creator in the payment split chain would receive a hefty $20.00 fee. This is no longer the case. You will still receive a fee, but the more creators are in a chain the less it will be. The fee will be based on how much each creator earned in a chain. Let's picture the following scenario: There are two creators in the chain. One of them received $10.00 and the other received $5.00;

Imagine this scenario when a user has bought several addons with even more creators using the shopping cart. The fee will be smaller for each creator in the chain.

How do refunds work?

You can only refund someone if you and your co-creators for the addon you are refunding have sufficient funds in their wallet. Everyday's wallet also has to have a sufficient balance for this to work though due to the collected commission plus VAT.