Better supporter badges

What about these?

Yeah, the grid does make the text hard to read... I am not sure what to do for decoration or shininess though.

I like the positioning and general idea. Could look shinier. Also the units start off too large. Detriment would be for some ridiculous donation.

Licho , like a stylized border/frame for the forums? I think it would be rather difficult to make something that looks nice, but doesn't stick out badly from the forum's theme.

GoogleFrog , any suggestions for making them shinier and still fit the forum theme? Also, the current theme is easy enough to replicate with lower units; however, I did not want to go so small that it would be insulting.

Anarchid , the issue is creating an icon that small that clearly signifies that the person has donated to ZK. I have no ideas on how to do this as all my ideas require text.

Anarchid you are missing the big picture!

It has to be displayed ingame AND in lobby AND on website.

With this order of priority.
So it has to fit into main avatar, because that's usually the only thing you see ingame. Thats why border is ideal.

Small icon is needed for lobby and various user lists in many places.
"Big signature" like proposed by Zag is only good in this forum which is a niche place. Most donators - most players that is, never post on forums.

Border restricts you to about 2 px i think. If you allow it to go into corners, that's already changing background... wait a minute! Let me toss another one then:

How about changing background? Basically compose all those avatars from unit-buildpic; and replace buildpic background with awsum gold for sufficieng amount of shiny.

If user gets a custom avatar, they can either override completely, or leave some transparency to show off their cash bg.

How about using real unit costs? Give players a list and let them pick. 1€ equals 100 metal.

Then 1€ would be enough for some very basic units like Dart, Puppy, Glaive, Storage (zomg!), etc.; 10€ (1k) would be most units up to Penetrator, but not heavies; 100€ or 4BTC (10k) would be enough for anything other than superweapons like Bantha, DRP, etc. Starlight would be the boss with 350€.

I'd have to donate 5.50€,

All non-donating members then get a jimi-hendrix-colored avatar, right? :P

Also, all chicken units have 1m cost. You can get those for one eurocent i guess? :D

A problem might be that this forum already gives many titles and graphics to players.
Next to name are already four graphics, the font colors are different too, if there is a fith icon how much would it stand out?

You notice it now on the example because it is new and unusual but for casual forum reader it would not be like this.
If you mouse-over the icons you see people are Lord Treasuer of Dynasty, Leader of Free Machines etc. It would be hard to tell that Detriment supporter really is something "of value" and not roleplay or random clans.

Custom avatar:
How many people would actually be willing to make one?
If you are not good with graphics it is not attractive to replace your nice supermech avatar with some crude doodle.

Ingame avatars might not even be visible or too small, depending on UI.

Special graphics / effects:
To notice that a golden beamlaser is unique to supporters, a player must know the game quite well, most would not notice.
If commander has a golden crown (like santa hat) it is a bit more obvious.

Instead of instant spawn, always have the "orbital drop" animation at gamestart.
Normal players coms just fall down.
Supporters com get a fancier entrance animation: by spaceship or teleport.