Member Benefits
http://warlight.net/Membership

1. Ad-Free Play - Members never have to see an advertisement. After purchasing your membership, visit the Settings tab to turn off ads.
2. Full Ladder Access - Members have full access to all ladders, which are competitive arenas where players compete to see who is the best.
3. Control Luck - When creating games, members can set the luck modifier and rounding mode which allow them to control the amount that luck affects their games.
4. Create 20 player games - Members can create games with up to 20 players. This can be any mix of AIs, open seats, or other players (they don't have to be members.)
5. Extra Vacations Members - can take up to 7 vacations per year.
6. Open Games - Members can advertise up to four games on the Open Games tab at once, whereas a non-member can only advertise two.

Level Up
http://wiki.warlight.net/index.php/Levels

1. Ad-Free Play - level 5 3 days
2. Full Ladder Access - level 52
3. Control Luck - level 42
4. 20 player games - level 32...level 51 40 players
5. Vacations - level 47 5 vacations
6. Open Games - always 2

Q1: Is no ads, +2 vacations, +2 open games worth $29.99?
Q2: Do you wish you don't buy a membership and just level up?
Q3: Was membership's value always like this?
Q4: How much would you pay for no ads, +2 vacations, +2 open games?
Q5: Does membership offer anything else?

Edited 8/25/2014 06:58:13

1) No ads alone is worth it in my book.
2) Nope, would still do it.
3) It's value has decreased over the years, before 2.0 there used to be a ton of features a non-member could never get.
4) Not much over the current price.
5) Not that I know.

Q1: Is no ads, +2 vacations, +2 open games worth $29.99?

NO

Q2: Do you wish you didn't buy a membership and just level up?

YES (this one was donated by ps, but i bought another one. I would definitely not have done this after 2.0)

Q3: Was membership's value always like this?

NO

Q4: How much would you pay for no ads, +2 vacations, +2 open games?

$5

Q5: Does membership offer anything else?

fancy M icon. Somalian pirates rape every hostage who does not have the M amulet.

$5 for a membership? Don't be such a cheap ass Fridge :P

Well, when I was 20, I've got all my games pirated. But then, I've got a job, and suddenly $30 for a game stopped being such a huge amount of money. Because
1) if I can afford to buy a game, why not to do it?
2) in this way you're also showing your appreciation to games creators and well, this is money they fairly earned, since I enjoy playing certain game

Maybe at this point $30 is a little too much for playing add-free, but remember about instant access not only to ladders, but to all settings as well.
So I think ~$10 is a fair price, that could actually make more people buy a membership.

Q5: you can't use warlight API without membership

Membership isn't what it was. That's true. But it was at least (and still is to a lesser extent) a way to support the game creator. The ladder being opened to all and the 'exclude warlight members from games' options are the ones that struck me as the worst thing about 2.0 (though the excluding option came before 2.0 I couldn't understand it, as it seemed to punish members for supporting the site)

You forgot one thing: if you buy a membership, you keep this site one step further from bankruptcy. And Fizzer will send you an e-mail saying "You rock!" In my opinion that's worth it.

I'm not going to whine about the membership, but I don't use vacations (I have used 1 since I started here). So I don't really have much benefit beyond levels (if any). Would be nice to have additional perks, but Moros is correct I am happy the site is just running. Hopefully Fizzer has time to throw us some additional perks (some built in CLOT code maybe?) at some point though.

1) No.
2) Yes (sort of - my membership wasn't wasted but it's been devalued).
3) No.
4) £10 (dunno in dollars).
5) Just what's written, API access and the fancy badge.

One thing that I do like to point out when it comes to the "worth" of buying a membership is treating it almost as a donation.

When I bought my membership, I had already been playing for a year and a half and, while the additional membership privileges were a nice perc, it also served to say thanks to Fizzer for running the servers (which aren't free to run anyway) and not making any sort of profit off of WarLight. I know it may sound a bit mushy and all, but it made a lot of sense to pay just a bit of money to WarLight as a player who spends much more time on WarLight than a lot of people.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that, while the percs of membership alone don't make it worth it, buying a membership is the ethical thing to so, just as you might buy your friend some gas without being asked if he's driving you around a lot.