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Donation Changes and New Perks!


jcsnider

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Donation Changes and New Perks:

 

 

Introduction

When we started AGD we never expected the amount of support from the community we have received, especially when it comes to donations. Thanks to you all AGD has recovered all of the initial startup costs that Joe and I fronted and the site has accumulated savings to run itself for ~5 years if all donations were to stop coming in today. Without donations from you all the road to where we are now would have been a lot more challenging. If we didn't have donations I don't think we would own freemmorpgmaker.com, I don't think Intersect would be this close to release, we wouldn't be planning to Greenlight on Steam, and we wouldn't be working on commissioning new graphics to distribute with our engine. Donations go a long way and we are extremely grateful to all of those who've helped out.

 

That said there are a lot of expenses on the horizon and we want to make sure we are covered. Below are a few ideas of expected expenses:

  • Greenlight Intersect ($100)
  • Commission Our New Graphics ($600 estimate)
  • Host a UI Design Contest ($100)
  • Host some site-wide contest every other month (Programming, Mapping, Graphic Design, etc)  ($100 prize each contest)
  • New Site Features/Upgrades (~$100)  (For example, an awards system would be nice to have for site contests)
  • New Site Theme Maybe? (God only knows how much that'd cost)

 

Starting soon, we are going to start posting new donation goals for our community. These goals will be more specific and often have larger targets than we've seen in the past. With that being said we are going to make a few changes to our donation system. It is our hope that these changes will provide incentive for more members to donate to our site. (As long as they can do so responsibly.) These changes consist of us being more transparent about where your donations go and providing cosmetic perks on the site for those who continuously donate over time.

 

Donation Transparency

The first set of changes we are considering is being more transparent about donation goals. Instead of setting a generic $50 goal each month we would setup goals and swap them out as they are met.

 

In theory, monthly goals would show up in this order and as each goal is met the next one would be revealed:

  1. Site Costs ($30/month)
  2. Contest Savings ($50/month) -- new contest with $100 prize would be ran every other month
  3. Random Goal If Needed (We would have a topic explaining what this goal is actually for like commissioning graphics, or some upgrade to the site -- we are really hoping to be very transparent here)
  4. General Donations (See Below)

 

If and when each of the monthly goals are met we would open up a final donation goal. The final goal would be more general. A portion would go into site savings to ensure site longevity and Joe and I would share the rest. (So far we have never taken a cut out of site donations)

 

Donation Perks

Users who contribute significantly to our site are thanked with colorful user names, the tiers are as follows and are based on the sum of all your donations:

  • Contributor ($5+)
  • Ascending Contributor ($60+) 
  • Super Contributor ($150+)
  • Elite Contributor ($250+)

 

Every time you donation you will receive an icon next to your name for 30 days.  (Like:  ccccb2a1928affdf50fd5cc8b076db56.png)

 

 

Implementation Plan

We are almost ready for all of this to go live. Over the next few days I will be upgrading user groups and you all will start seeing some of these colors on the site. Monthly perks will also be activated for anyone who donated in January. Within the next week or so the donation system should be back online. We are going to trial these changes through Marsh and then Joe and I will meet with the mods to see if this is a step in the right direction.

 

 

As always feel free to comment or post questions below. We're looking forward to bringing this all online :D

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Great idea. Like you said, this form will be more transparent about where donations will go and will allow to see in a more tangible way the objectives of AGD.
And well, the most important thing (I think) It's that this motivates you even more to complete the Intersect software.

 

I recently donated, but I have doubts about the titles, how do they detect which user donated? Through the mail associated with paypal and the forum? Because mine is different in each platform :ph34r:

Regards

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3 hours ago, Refur said:

Great idea. Like you said, this form will be more transparent about where donations will go and will allow to see in a more tangible way the objectives of AGD.
And well, the most important thing (I think) It's that this motivates you even more to complete the Intersect software.

 

I recently donated, but I have doubts about the titles, how do they detect which user donated? Through the mail associated with paypal and the forum? Because mine is different in each platform :ph34r:

Regards

 

It detects via email and I think the username of who's logged into AGD when the donation is sent. It should be an automatic process but nothing is perfect. If you PM me with the PayPal transaction id I can enter it into the system :)

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34 minutes ago, jcsnider said:

 

It detects via email and I think the username of who's logged into AGD when the donation is sent. It should be an automatic process but nothing is perfect. If you PM me with the PayPal transaction id I can enter it into the system :)


Oh, maybe I'll try to fix my account setting :P

PM sended!

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I am sad to see that no monetary perks include any kind of streaming :(

I like to donate when I can regardless, but It'd be cool if there was anything feeding into more visual communication. Or some cooler more responsive notifier on when people are streaming, other than just the side bar.

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  • 4 months later...
6 minutes ago, jcsnider said:

I outta PM it to you.

 

I'd actually be ashamed to put that one in my google drive.

 

You should im legit curious, could find all kind of weird Eclipse artifacts on there. I would make sure there isnt any uhh illegal pictures on there if your holding onto it for awhile. Who knows what kind of crap people could have uploaded. 

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2 minutes ago, Marsh said:

 

You should im legit curious, could find all kind of weird Eclipse artifacts on there. I would make sure there isnt any uhh illegal pictures on there if your holding onto it for awhile. Who knows what kind of crap people could have uploaded. 

At least one photo of literal crap probably.

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