Trench Wars Holiday Donation Drive

[Materix]

June 31st..a non-existent day....makes sense

He obviously meant end of the month.

[qan]

Anyway, donated $25 just now. Took 25 seconds. Then I logged in and collected my 600k pub bux. Shit felt good man. Merry Christmas. I once spent new year's eve with people on here way back when my life was completely shitty. But that night wasn't shitty. This game is the shit. There's still some good times to be had. Now that we're all adults, how about you spend some of the christmas money you've saved up and donate.

T W D T 2 0 1 9 SIGN THE FUCK UP WE GOTTA GET PODCASTS GOING. I'LL CAP THIS SHIT AGAIN IF I NEED TO I LOVE SUBSPACE!!!!!!!

Merry Xmas Myth! Great to see you around. Let's dooo itttttt!!

(Spittle-infused posts requesting details)

We run a single Linode server, which runs our array of sites, various secondary services, plus the bots and database. Wirah also runs a supplementary server out of his pocket. I run the dev server out of my pocket.

The Linode VPS is $80 for hosting plus $20 for a regular backup service. If forced, we can trim the backup to squeak out a little extra time, though it's saved us once in the past and would not be a smart move.

We've done a price comparison many times over the years, and haven't found anything remotely compelling enough to suggest migration would be worth it.

June 31st..a non-existent day....makes sense

Curses! As a sworn member of the Subspace Illuminati, I am required to always reveal the ruse in some subtle clue. You've caught me out!

Thanks ... for some reason, ran the "30 days past September" rhyme through my head and must only have gotten to April... Pro!

[Falconeer]

Merry Xmas Myth! Great to see you around. Let's dooo itttttt!!



We run a single Linode server, which runs our array of sites, various secondary services, plus the bots and database. Wirah also runs a supplementary server out of his pocket. I run the dev server out of my pocket.

The Linode VPS is $80 for hosting plus $20 for a regular backup service. If forced, we can trim the backup to squeak out a little extra time, though it's saved us once in the past and would not be a smart move.

We've done a price comparison many times over the years, and haven't found anything remotely compelling enough to suggest migration would be worth it.



Curses! As a sworn member of the Subspace Illuminati, I am required to always reveal the ruse in some subtle clue. You've caught me out!

Thanks ... for some reason, ran the "30 days past September" rhyme through my head and must only have gotten to April... Pro!

That tells us nothing. What are your space requirements. Currently how much data is being stored? 1 Gigabyte? 10 Gigabytes? Evidence? Screenshot of the total amount of files and the gigabytes taken up? A link to the website host? with their price tables?

Where is the $600 figure coming from, with a $100 price tag? Is that $100 a month?

Where is the list of websites? And what currently takes up the most space in gigabytes? Is it the sites? 5 megabyte bots? what?

I have nothing against donations, but 1. You'd get more donors if you were open about this 2. Only an idiot would choose to throw their money at you without facts or critical thinking, but it's their money so their choice. 3. It's how you go about it which I think is wrong. You are even entitled to donations for development work you do if that's what you want... but then you should specifically say the donations are to help enable you to still have some time devving on subspace. etc... like be up front about it imo.

Also wtf is this? does it come with CPANEL or it's just cloud space?

Here is cloud space at roughly $280 a year for 20 gigs. What are you paying so much for? https://www.rackspace.com/cloud/servers/pricing

General1-1 1GB 1 20GB SSD ? 200Mb/s $0.032/hr + $0.005/hr

And there is no way in hell tw website should be taking up more than 10 gigs.. even the zone. MY WHOLE subspace development folder which is packed with images, graphics, LVZ files, and 100 zone folders with arenas and maps comes to 3 gigs. The fuck are you paying for. I don't get it. MATCH data is literally text files, there is no heavy data in it, it's text information...

this other site has even better pricing? at $5 a month with 1TB transfer, you don't need high end stuff to run a website: https://www.linode.com/pricing

[qan]

Also, want to apologize for coming off as a bit alarmist. We hadn't reviewed the account in a few months, so I was pretty shocked to see we only had $600 left, and that's reflected in the tone of this drive. The last few years we've hovered around $1000, which is a comfortable enough cushion, with people donating here and there, always keeping it relatively level. We haven't done enough in the way of normal fundraising, letting people know, hey, we do still need money to keep things going. So we've seen donations fall off. And as this is completely a volunteer operation, we do tend to just put out fires, running from one to the next.

The game server itself is about $300 a month, covered by PriitK. This hosts Trench Wars, Extreme Games, Chaos, and the billing server.

The TW bot/web/database server costs $100 a month, and this is paid out of the donations account. We basically put a freeze on using donations for anything else but the server expenses a few years back. Donations began to trickle off as population declined, so this became a necessity. And we're really lucky to have had so many people who care enough about the game to donate in order to see it continue.

Yes, it's true that if nobody donates, we'll basically revert to pre-Robo Ref days. I seriously doubt that we'll ever get to that point, though. I'm betting there are many of us, myself included, who if we're at the very end of the line, will be willing to step up and pay for a month, if it means the difference between TW staying up or shutting down. We're not there yet.

This push for donations is about not getting to that point, living month to month. Unfortunately we're far too close to the edge to mean this is just a normal donation drive, though. It's gotten to the place where it's not just it "would be nice" for people to donate. It's become serious. If you choose to donate, you'll know that you're doing something that's actually quite urgently needed.

[qan]

...

If you actually use CPanel, it would take a very long time to explain the details behind migrating a very old server. Many people with far more expertise than you (and than me) have already considered many options, and come to the conclusion that we receive sufficient value from Linode. I apologize if that's not sufficiently transparent, but them's the breaks, kid.

[Falconeer]

If you actually use CPanel, it would take a very long time to explain the details behind migrating a very old server. Many people with far more expertise than you (and than me) have already considered many options, and come to the conclusion that we receive sufficient value from Linode. I apologize if that's not sufficiently transparent, but them's the breaks, kid.

In other words you're not willing to share the actual details of the costs, and requirements. You decided you know what's best, or that these other people know what's best. The actual donor has no say or input into what's really going on.

Yeah I get people are lazy asses. But you're essentially a sysop to dev, not to play moderator and police and judge people. When was the last time you deved anything? Beginning of this year? If moving the website/bot hosting brings the cost to half price you're already making big improvements. As well as getting rid of redundant websites...

Bottom line is some jack ass probably bought the best hosting package because while subspace takes 2% of the space on it, they can use the other 95% for their personal use..

In that case go make a Counter Strike Global Server and rake in donations that way.

There's no reason for the secrecy.

[SpaceHiker]

We've done a price comparison many times over the years, and haven't found anything remotely compelling enough to suggest migration would be worth it.

Just FYI, An AWS spot instance would likely cost a small fraction. You know how much data you use in a month so it would be easy to calculate the cost. People are afraid of spot instances shutting down without warning, but if you set your max bid to the normal cost of an instance, it won't shut down. I've run them for many months at a time. I've had high traffic spot instances that cost $3 a month. AWS has proven reasonably adept at blocking ddos and other bad traffic. It's worth checking into, if you provide me your monthly transfer I can run the cost on my aws control panel.

[Falconeer]

What I'm getting at is why not just lay out the costs, and link the prices and host?

The public/donors should want to know
1. The websites being supported: so they can decide if ALL these websites are necessary and if they can be centralized on 1 site.
2. The minimum amount of space required to support everything: 2 gigs? 5 gigs? 10 gigs? (remember this is a game from 1996, why would you need 100 gigs?)
3. If any type of server speed is required/desirable... and then for what? It's not zone hosting...

You SHOULD also when you have time, take the time to write up or explain the work involved in *high* detail to move everything to a new host. What type of features are being used? How was the website made? In a text editor? using Cpanel? Using a website building program? Using an offline program? Would a transfer be done through FTP work only? Do we really want antiquated/complex systems for running sites... why? to keep the high end programmers as the people we have to rely on? Isn't it just way easier and more versatile to use cpanel? Yes or No and why? Like come on... so many years, and zero transparency.

Stop treating people like children, idiots, or criminals. People are capable of seeing logical well thought out points, and then possibly agreeing with you and accepting that it is tough to move everything and maybe the costs are worth it... but with zero information i'm not just going to take your word for it.

imo this info should have been written up long ago and left as a link on the donation page

[Rough]

Without your support, Trench Wars as we know it will be shutting down June 30st, 2019.

Trench Wars bots, websites and forums are 100% volunteer-funded and supported. Server costs are only $100 per month. Yet the most recent accounting puts us at just $600, leaving just 6 more months of funding. At the end of these 6 months, all bots, websites, forums and files hosted by and associated with Trench Wars will go offline. (However, the game server itself, which is provided by PriitK, will continue to run.)

Generous donors have kept this ship afloat for decades now. Without them, TW would be long gone. A huge THANK YOU to everyone who has donated in the past -- and another thank you for everyone who has donated their time and effort as part of staff, as a league organizer, as a squad captain, as a community content contributor, or as a die-hard player that keeps the game going.

In normal circumstances, these few humble financial donors have been enough to ensure the longevity of TW. However, in recent years, server costs have begun to outstrap donations. I've been holding off making this plea for a long time, but I knew this day would come. Well ... here we are.

Have you enjoyed TW over the years? Has it been part of your life for a long time now? This is your chance to give a little something back in tribute to those great memories. Remember all of the people you've met (and destroyed), the leagues, the events, the rivalries, and the friendships that continue to this day. Think about what that's been worth to you. Can you give $20, $10, or even just $5 to make sure TW keeps going strong? For every $100 donated, TW can survive for 1 more month! Click the link below to give any amount:

Yes, I want to see TW continue for years to come!

During this special promotion (running through the New Year):

• All donations will receive DOUBLE the amount of complimentary PubBux. A great chance to increase your fat space stacks AND do something good for the zone.
• Donate more than $10 and you can choose one of the weekend events. (Post in this thread, DM me, or ?message me in-game after donating.)
• Donate more than $50 and your name and donation amount will appear on the public map for a limited time! (Please notify me if you do NOT want your name to appear, or select "Anonymous" when making your donation.)
• The top 3 donors during the promotion will receive a special gift! (Details TBA)

Thank you for considering a donation. We accept all major credit cards via PayPal (no account required). Everything helps!

Donate here: http://www.trenchwars.org/donations


Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, and a Happy New Year to all! And don't forget: have guns and travel Subspace.

Lol Zidane Ease Claushouse just had a heart attack reading this 100%

[kthx]

What I'm getting at is why not just lay out the costs, and link the prices and host?

The public/donors should want to know
1. The websites being supported: so they can decide if ALL these websites are necessary and if they can be centralized on 1 site.
2. The minimum amount of space required to support everything: 2 gigs? 5 gigs? 10 gigs? (remember this is a game from 1996, why would you need 100 gigs?)
3. If any type of server speed is required/desirable... and then for what? It's not zone hosting...

You SHOULD also when you have time, take the time to write up or explain the work involved in *high* detail to move everything to a new host. What type of features are being used? How was the website made? In a text editor? using Cpanel? Using a website building program? Using an offline program? Would a transfer be done through FTP work only? Do we really want antiquated/complex systems for running sites... why? to keep the high end programmers as the people we have to rely on? Isn't it just way easier and more versatile to use cpanel? Yes or No and why? Like come on... so many years, and zero transparency.

Stop treating people like children, idiots, or criminals. People are capable of seeing logical well thought out points, and then possibly agreeing with you and accepting that it is tough to move everything and maybe the costs are worth it... but with zero information i'm not just going to take your word for it.

imo this info should have been written up long ago and left as a link on the donation page

Shutup faggot

[Grasps]

I'll pay 20 bucks a month for a year if you can ban Falconeer, Wiibimbo and Jessup from forums. 30 a month for a year if you netban them from game. I am sure others would be down to join me in this endeavor as well. You'll never get a penny from any one of them and they are only good for keeping people from playing this game or engaging on the forums.

Merry Christmas Qan, thanks for letting us know about the state this game is in before it became a serious issue. Well.. more serious issue. Also, have dead zones been cutoff? EG for instance? Or are they using basic functionality already (ie. pre-robobot)? Cheers.

-grasps aka ixa

PS: I'll donate regardless after the rest of my holiday expenses have been accounted for later this month, I'd love to drop at least 100 but more is my goal. Oh and who is in charge of taking care of donations? I don't want 24 near my money! lol

[Jessup]

ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL

Thanks for the laugh....

[Falconeer]

Shutup faggot

Come suck my dick please?

I'll pay 20 bucks a month for a year if you can ban Falconeer, Wiibimbo and Jessup from forums. 30 a month for a year if you netban them from game. I am sure others would be down to join me in this endeavor as well. You'll never get a penny from any one of them and they are only good for keeping people from playing this game or engaging on the forums.

You realize on forums it's actually trolling/being an asshole to insult people instead of talk about ideas. I'm the troll god and I'm bringing up issues/ideas. You are the asshole attacking people. In a forum with rules you would be banned, and I would just reword my ideas without swear words. Keep that in mind dick face who throws stones but does the same if not worse shit than me.

Fucking tyrant.

Also I was netbanned for text before. Look what that achieved. Nothing. I unbanned three times, and then polix gave up and shut down subspace forums and retired.

P.S. You assume a lot and know nothing about what i've done for the game. The only way you could know me slightly is if you're a smurf from devastation/DSB in which case you have some retarded personal vendetta like all tyrants would. Keep hiding. Scum.

Also hypothetically if you never get a penny from us, that doesn't mean my ideas on being transparent with donations are wrong. My willingness to donate has very little to do with it. However if i knew exactly where my money was going and there was great NEED then i would probably donate. You realize I bought $70 website hosting so I can rebuild DSB website? What a dumb fucker, judging others with no facts. Assumption is the mother of all fuck ups.

P.S.S i hope staff adopts a policy of pay monthly to keep someone off the forums. Someone is always richer than you, and the same shit will happen to you. You'll pay $20 to keep me off, and someone will pay $50 monthly to keep you off. If they'd pay $10 then the admin would say no dice because grasps currently donates $20 so we'd be losing $10.. if you can't top $50 you'd stay banned. Let capitalism decide who stays. I want to enjoy the show and see how long grasps lasts.

Grasps is a squad captain? you have two types of squad captains, the good ones, and then the entitled pieces of shits who think they did so much for the game it needs to be remade in their image, and they start treating zones like their squads, and threaten people with quitting leagues if someone they don't like isn't banned. A lot of asshole captains exist like that in Pro League... aka "AML League" zone. SVS noob settings, saiyan is a dsber and he went there and became top player in 1 week. That's how noob that zone is.

[Mythril]

Grasps is a squad captain? you have two types of squad captains, the good ones, and then the entitled pieces of shits who think they did so much for the game it needs to be remade in their image, and they start treating zones like their squads, and threaten people with quitting leagues if someone they don't like isn't banned. A lot of asshole captains exist like that in Pro League... aka "AML League" zone. SVS noob settings, saiyan is a dsber and he went there and became top player in 1 week. That's how noob that zone is.

This is why I don't bother engaging you and why kthx only needs to call you a faggot when you spam your embarrassing rambling. Look at how disorganized and incoherent your mind is. Read this paragraph you posted.

What the fuck are you talking about? There is no logic in this whatsoever. I'm literally just examining one paragraph out of the 4,000 you've written. They all impressively fail the test of reason and objectivity that you claim you love so much. Let's follow the sacred text written by the logic god himself:

Grasps is a squad captain?

I believe this is a yes or no question, and I'm not entirely sure where you're gonna go with this. An interesting opening setup for sure. I honestly don't know the answer to the question though. I know he has been a squad cap in the past.. not so sure now man, I haven't been too active.

you have two types of squad captains

Really? There's only two kinds of squad captains? But can't anyone literally just sign up and become a squad captain? Out of the 200 captains I've had, their complex personalities, gaps in skill level, knowledge, experience, social understanding, different ages... there were really only two kinds of them? Seems slightly simplistic but you're the logic god so I'll give you the benefit of the doubt. Wait, did we figure out if grasps was a squad captain or not? Fuck it, never mind. Keep going.

the good ones, and then the entitled pieces of shits who think they did so much for the game it needs to be remade in their image, and they start treating zones like their squads, and threaten people with quitting leagues if someone they don't like isn't banned.

Whoa man slow the fuck down here. Take it easy for a sec while this next level logic detonates in my fucking brain.... Fuck ok you lost me. Aren't we doing just a little bit of mind reading with this equation? I'm on board if you wanna tell me some narcissists have been squad caps, that's a certainty. But what does this have to do with grasps being a squad captain? If we answered the question, would we even know which one of the two squad captains he is? Wait this is only the 2nd sentence of the paragaph? I have to get back to work soon..

A lot of asshole captains exist like that in Pro League... aka "AML League" zone.

Ok I checked the website. Grasps is not a squad captain.

SVS noob settings, saiyan is a dsber and he went there and became top player in 1 week.

Dude, seriously, where the fuck are we right now? I tried to follow the line of logic beginning at A2 in trench wars and I'm now at Z46 in a completely different zone. Only the logic god could have accomplished this in a single paragraph. Ok, you've been building up this argument. I'm kinda lost to be honest but you're the logic god. I can't wait for the conclusion. Bring it home and blow my fucking mind. Grasps is about to get obliterated by a logic bomb and I can't wait to see it for myself.

That's how noob that zone is.

?????????????????????????????????????????????????? ?????????????????????????????????????????????????? ?????????????????????????????????????????????????? ?????????????????????????????????????????????????? ?????????????????????????????????????????????????? ?????????????????????????????????????????????????? ?????????????????????????????????????????????????? ?????????????????????????????????????????????????? ????????????????

[kthx]

What's up mythril, why is that guy such a faggot?