I was mulling over the funding problem today and was attempting to put together an adequate plan to solve this dilemma for the foreseeable future, when I noticed on Ar Chat that significant portion of the people chatting were ready and willing to donate funds to keep Ar running. This reminded me quite a bit of the public broadcasting pledge drives and that sort of set the wheels in motion.
I believe it would be in the best interest of AR to do bi-annual pledge drives of a sort. Every six months lets get big banners going on the the AR forum and let regular users know its time to pony up. Now we can have set goals that are updated as new totals come in and we could stop at those set amounts, however I think the best idea would be to let the 'specified' donation period have an alloted amount of time and any overage be used for the betterment of AR. This could include banners/ad campaigns, better or more server space or really anything that AR needs or could use.
As an avid National Public Radio listener, I am well aware of just how irritating it is to have people begging you for money. However, I am also aware of how necessary it is and how useful it could be to solve our current funding issues.
It could be interesting, as well, to offer up In Game gifts (Nothing major) to those who pledge set amounts. It could be a one character thing, that auto poofs on death. That may not be the best idea, but some sort of recognition could help people into donating.
P.S. I listen to nothing but public radio on my daily commute
That said I dont think anyone should get anything for doing so. We should be willing to pay (if someone wants to) just to have our fav past time (aside from sex-masterbation for erlwith) back.
That is incorrect. Wow, Everquest, and every other pay to play are not democracies.
I do like how quite a few of the responses automatically focused on the recognition part. That was an after thought that isn't even a piece with the original idea.
Blarg, can you elaborate a bit?
https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_s-xclick&hosted_button_id=10297874
We're talking about pay operational (sever) costs only. It's all just to keep the game running, not to encourage, or facilitate development.
I think if we started paying for development then that would be a really big problem. Then we could have Dav (and I'm not saying that he would, in fact I'm quite sure he wouldn't) saying, "Oh, you want combat module C, and magic module A? That'll be $34.23 please." That would be a very bad thing and I'm happy that we have people of some morals in IMM positions so that it won't.
However, players volunteering to pay for operational costs is not a bad thing at all. Especially since it's entirely optional. And I see no problem with that.
If someone donates, then people are dicks on forums and whatnot, that person can still play, and just stop donating, thus putting more of the monetary requirements on the aforementioned dicks.
"wanna be a dick? Ok, then you're going to pay for my game time, instead of us sharing payment".
Thats what it means to have the players paying for it.
By not paying, it may require more money from others and if that were to come to a head those people may stop paying. Because of that the game may shut ..... down..... boy, doesnt that sound familiar.
The point is, it is time for the player base to help out a bit. Donating will NOT give you control. Obviously a single person paying has ceased to work and it may be time for a change to the system. I for one am more than willing to offer up 50 bones every 6 months to make sure the game stays operational and I have had 1 character over the last 3 months. I know I am not alone in the willingness to donate and I don't expect one damn thing for paying, other than the privelage of playing AR.
https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_s-xclick&hosted_button_id=10297874
If you don't want to donate, cool. Donating to get things done your way just isn't happening, so there really isn't any reason to add a comment like that except to flamebait. The game isn't a democracy, never has been, and never will be. And I actually agree with stiehl. With the $500 example, you aren't donating to support something you enjoy (IE: NPR, which you all should support btw), you're trying to use money to have your own way built, which since you know what the game is all about, is kinda pathetic. On the other hand, if you paid for developer salaries and imm staff salaries, you might have a case in getting monks implemented, but until then.. everyone just volunteers and the game is free (as in beer, not as in speech).
This thread gives me a good idea though, maybe I should make this board pay to access. Hmmm...
If 10 people pay 10 each, each person is putting in 1/10th.
if 1 person gets annoyed at some douche and stops paying due to it, now 9 people will be paying more.
Its like the saying "people in glass houses shouldn't throw rocks". it means that each person who donates has power over the game (whether it stays up or goes down) equal to their fractional value.
It means that they will stop helping shoulder the donation load if people don't shape up. Thus it is like a democracy, since people have equal weight. Don't want it to be that way? Pay the whole thing yourself and not have to rely on the donations of others, which they could stop doing if displeased.
I'm amused at people that don rose colored glasses when faced with hard to swallow truths.
$5 for a six pack Pip. Nice! Where I live a six pack is $12-$15. I quit smoking around the time I started playing AR and I was spending over $10 a day on a pack of 20 cigarettes. So to me $5/mo is perfectly fine so I can continue playing this game that I enjoy so much and spend so many hours. But I also agree that contributing is voluntary and everyone's circumstances are different. Also some people get dinged more than others due to exchange rates since
the contributions are in US dollars.
Your posts come across, to me anyway, as unnecessarily agumentative Grimmy. I think the cost to keep the game and website going is around $35/mo. so that's more like 10 players paying $5/mo. or 5 players paying $10/mo. It is riskier having multiple people play because you never know when one or two of them will suddenly stop paying but what other options are you proposing?
I just calculated I was spending over $70/wk on cigarettes, $3640/yr...and AR is so much healthier! So like what's $5/mo? It's all relative.
I'm amused by people (you) who are complete fucking idiots but think they're smart so they post dumb shit and look like bigger re-res. Just so I don't have to clarify later, your whole premise is wrong, so your entire post is flawed, and so you're just a waste of space.
The bandwidth and web space and domain name is and has been donated by a former AR player.
A good night at the bar is $100-200 easy. $5 a month should be pocket change.
In your example you state that if someone doesn't like something they'll stop paying and eventually shut down the game.
If you don't like how shit works now, you can leave. Eventually the game shuts down from lack of players.
So its already that way, the only difference is how fast its going to happen.
For monthly billing cycles, recurring payments are collected on the same day of the month. If
the initial recurring payment falls on the 31st, PayPal eventually adjusts the billing cycle to the
1st of the month. If the initial recurring payment falls on the 29th or 30th, PayPal adjusts the
billing cycle to the 1st of the month on the following February.
lmauge, Please, just don't even contribute, because you'll be the one in fourty people who ever even mentions they are doing it again after it gets back up.
Honestly, if you don't think that you aren't at least partially by the nature of it indebted to AR for the good times you've had already, then you shouldn't even continue playing, let alone paying.
This place has been like a home to me for years. As much as I move and as many people as I go through, it's always there. I would be lost without it, even when I take huge hiatus.
And as much as I hate most of you, it's still like almost all of you are family. Even the players that all our characters butt heads.
This place has been amazing for most of us... and I count myself lucky that we have been able to have so much fun for so long without paying.
My plan is to let the contributing players decide if they want any excess to go toward continued advertising or a rainy day fund to keep the bills paid if they ever increase or we lose supporters.
I would suggest that the excess money be put towards 1 if not 2 advanced month payments then the rest can go to advertisement. I do think that the person in charge should have a couple of more people backing him so that when things get heated about the distribution of the money that not only is that person getting reemed but not having to make all the decisions alone.
So is it a funding issue? Does anyone know for sure or has Dav simply went on vacation or something and the person left to be in charge isnt paying attention... cause unless I just dont recognize their user name I dont see any Imms posting above.
If it is a funding issues then I would gladly donate some money, not much but at least some.
The only thing I have gotten from here and the other post is that AR is slipping down the "ranks" of muds and it is down and has been for several days.
I'm an Imm (Olyn) and have been in contact with Davairus about the situation. Here's what we have: An old implementor was footing the bill for the server even though he hasn't been around or in contact with any of us. A few days ago when the server went down we learned from wolfpaw that we haven't paid in a couple of months. Unfortunately, none of the staff, to my knowledge, is rich or can promise to pay the entirety of the server fees ourselves. A few players have begun to chip in and with some more people throwing in $5 a month, we won't have to find more exotic ways to pay wolfpaw. Donating to help out gets you no recognition or benefit, aside from the satisfaction of helping your favorite past-time survive. Here's the links again in case anybody is interested. Thanks to everyone who helped so far.
One time donation of any amount:
https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_s-xclick&hosted_button_id=6456531
$5 monthly donation:
https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_s-xclick&hosted_button_id=10297874
This is a non-issue now, clearly. yet if it came to player donation, I'd gladly not donate at all because of douches like clifton that weren't aborted in the womb like they should've been.