Trench Wars fund WAS in dire straits (THANK YOU, EVERYONE!)

[Roger Rabbit]

It’s a legit question to ask but what are we really saving here and is it even worth it. This game has been circling the drain for too long as is.

I’m not paying freespirit to play this game. Or for a handful of friends to hang out in spec and turn ‘continuum’ into nothing more than a glorified chat room. Hat tip to the 30-40 people in the entire world who clearly have nothing better do to than spend a weekend doing a meaninglesss event.

the writing is on the wall. There is no new growth for this game. People are aging out. Any additional funding only keeps the power on temporarily.

nostalgia is a motherfucker. I’m a 25year vet myself who still logs on for shits and giggles. I have fond memories of subspace back in its heyday. It wasn’t just a fun mind numbing game but a community and the people I would never meet or even know what they look like would end up becoming people I considered great friends. People who I’ve lost contact with, but I’m cool with that. But perhaps we should just let this flatline and move on. Let it end.

[Asteroid]

ignore

[daresound]

Looks like we have the potential here to pool a significant and lasting fund. Who's willing to fund outsourced dev? Or use portions of what you've donated towards the server for this? We can get a quote for service and development, and go in on a bill together.

[Edify]

Sad news. I got on here because I couldn't remember my password in game, and find this.

[habbo hotel]

This post is pathetic. If you can't afford $175 a month then you shouldn't be running the server. The original post reads like a threat to shut the server down. If you can't foot the bill for trench wars in absence of donations then step-aside, the thread reads like you don't care about supporting the server yourself, at all. Maybe allow a server with freedom of speech if you want our money, just a thought.

[Turd Ferguson]

Played this too long for free to let it die. Just registered here and made a monthly donation. Cheers all!

[qan]

Thanks to the person with the additional $20 one-time donation.

Qan why don't you put the server on
ASSS 1.6.1 / Running on Linux 6.2.9-x86_64-linode160, host: sscj, machine: x86_64

We've looked at a move to ASSS many times before, and even came close to switching at one point. Had our bot system ready to at least be able to function on it. The problem is that client-emulator bots like ours are one giant hack designed to work around being unable to function server-side. So we rely on a lot of strange methods. For example, our bots can't just "know" which arena a player is in; it has to literally send ?find like a human player, wait for the response from the server, then capture and parse it, all asynchronously. It's made for a lot of clever coding to overcome these weaknesses. But that means many, many pieces in our systems rely on a particularly formatted response from the server. We could either modify an ASSS server to send the returns like the subgame2 server, or eventually have our bots use ASSS methods rather than these workarounds. But it would mean a lot of stuff breaking, and we'd probably still be fixing bugs related to it years after the switch. Which is why I wish we'd done it many years ago when the dev team momentum was behind it. But I also understand why we didn't: it'd be a real pain in the ass to deal with. (This isn't the only pain point of a switch, either. Keep in mind that we've been running on this codebase for almost a quarter of a century now.)


Regarding selling old unused names, from a technical perspective I guess it's possible. But aside from the ethical issues that come to mind, it seems like there'd be a lot of other things to figure out. Who receives the money -- is it equally shared among SSC zones? In proportion to active player counts? Who holds the funds? How long does a name need to be inactive before it can be sold? What about names that are powered in a zone? (Ops can't just check and would need to contact every zone for every sale.) Do we have a longer reset requirement for "known" names vs "unknown", and how do we determine which names fall into which category? It seems like a lot of pitfalls for what would ultimately not be very much money. It would also require essentially some rebirthed version of Council to agree to it, meaning all zones would need to be on board.

[Falconeer]

is it possible the answer is Yes, will they for the benefit of the game? no

They could lease old names, if they could release the info on who they sold the name too. By lease I mean if the player ever returns and is verified they returned, the name would go back to the original creator. But this seems like a tall task that would only be possible on a new client, there are too many restrictions with the continuum client and biller probably.

[Falconeer]

Qan why don't you put the server on
ASSS 1.6.1 / Running on Linux 6.2.9-x86_64-linode160, host: sscj, machine: x86_64
I'm sure SSCJ would host it for alot less then half of what you're paying now, something to consider dunno why you're paying that absurd rate, devastation is no where near that price SSCJ #1 Praise the Legend JoWie

I gotta agree hereqan, bring the cost down, unless there is an extreme benefit to the price you're paying? If it's just that it's a lot of work to transition everything, then perhaps it can be done slowly or in steps... you could turn that paid for 3 years into 13 years if the costs could be lowered. Plus Jowie is a super nice guy and trustworthy, the only issue is that you're centralizing all hosting to one person again I guess? Like if Jowie ever decides to bow out you're back to problem you had when Priitk bowed out etc. But I guess hosting a community run game in the first place will be a juggling act of going and back and forth between what is best/most manageable.

Not sure if Jowie's hosting could actually support 200 people without lag, that's something he needs to confirm, since devastation at max capacity only has 20-30 people.

[Asteroid]

Is resetting and selling old names even a possibility?

is it possible the answer is Yes, will they for the benefit of the game? no

[Asteroid]

Qan why don't you put the server on
ASSS 1.6.1 / Running on Linux 6.2.9-x86_64-linode160, host: sscj, machine: x86_64
I'm sure SSCJ would host it for alot less then half of what you're paying now, something to consider dunno why you're paying that absurd rate, devastation is no where near that price SSCJ #1 Praise the Legend JoWie

[Airduster]

qan numbah wan, raising money faster than a lady boi on a new arrival bus load full of tw players.

[qan]

Is resetting and selling old names even a possibility?

Names are shared across SSC. Nope.

Now if only we can get a number on how much it would cost to hire outside help to get stuff done. Like the server lag/websites/etc. Then maybe as a group we can reach those goals too!

Probably $1-2K to troubleshoot server net issues which may or may not lead to a solution. If someone wants to spearhead raising the funds I could coordinate it. As for hiring a web or other developer, it's quite costly which is why all of our development is done by volunteers, essentially as an in-kind donation. But could possibly hire a college student for cheap enough that people would want to fund it. Depends on what you're hoping to do.

thanks for the update but wondering why u are ignoring all feedback & requests for fund usage details

Not your personal servant, just a volunteer like everyone else working on TW. Anything I missed that you want covered? Selling TW: no. Just shutting it down: doesn't seem like what people want. Fund usage details: are in post #5, entirely to server costs.

[mystic_pizza]

thanks for the update but wondering why u are ignoring all feedback & requests for fund usage details

[RageRitual]

A BIG donation came in: $630! Absolute legend. Thank you for that.

Potentially even bigger due to the added stability, we had a $50 recurring and $10 recurring added. We're starting to be in pretty good shape here.

That puts us at $126.54 per month! 70% of the way to having the bill covered. Huge.

Assuming the recurring payments continue, with now $1801.78 on hand, we're covered for the foreseeable future (almost 3 years!). I don't expect everyone can continue to do monthlies forever, though, so if more people are willing to put in, that means increased reliability.

I'm sure I'm not the only one who's surprised at how fast we've been able to come together to do this, though. Solid community.



TY!

Now if only we can get a number on how much it would cost to hire outside help to get stuff done. Like the server lag/websites/etc. Then maybe as a group we can reach those goals too!