TW Now Accepting Donations!

[Pressure Drop]

This is actually a very important point – I dont pretend it's easy but it's scandalous whats gone on.

I'm not neutral on this as i've said it many times and will whine about it more in the future but I quit the game due to the changes and whoring itself out for money donations selling pubbucks rather than just asking the community

it's pretty galling not to play a game for a few years due to that reason and stand by and see the money sit idle. If your trying to reinvigorate a game money sitting idle for years isn't the way to do it – before raising the money have set goals deadlines etc like kickstarter and have a plan. Getting 10k and going ooh thats a lot lets stick a thump up my arse for 3 years isn't going to inspire much confidence.

If I had of donated i'd be furious – as it was I was willing to give money but had no faith in the direction it was going.

[qan]

FUNDS OVERVIEW

Just wanted to remind everyone to bother your local upperstaff & sysops to spend more of this money. We now have $6.2K unspent -- quite a war chest. Let's start thinking of some creative uses for it, especially to generate a buzz for Steam.

See where your money is spent (or not spent) -- it's yours after all: http://trenchwars.org/donationdetails/

Staff is holding a meeting this Sat regarding marketing. We have $2.1K that can only be spent on marketing! We've spent around $500 so far. The 420chan campaign was quite inexpensive and gave us quite an influx. Steam is now giving us a greater influx. Let's capitalize on it.

OK, time for a quick rundown of the funds (F-U-N-D-S, F-U-N-D-S, F-U-N-D-- god damnit, 3rd earthquake in a week!).


CASH EVENTS - $148
So we've spent a lot on cash events. Players like these. However, IMO we do it too infrequently. We also tend to only do it for "pro" events, or in other words ones I can't win unless it's 13 years ago. In the interest of making me money, I recommend we start:

• Adding more small cash prizes to regular, newbie-friendly events, especially weekend events. Massive game of multi-tiered zombies? (Speaking of, when was the last time someone hosted a good game of zombies? Used to be the lifeblood of the zone. Now it's all javufc, go base and 2hardc0r4u)
• Adding gift prizes for TW merch, with a choice of options. Hat with SS logo, hoodie w/ one of the ship logos/icons, or some design on a t-shirt. (Need designers; yes, we pay.)

ADVERTISING - $2125
We've had some small campaigns in the past, and now we need to change it up, especially with Steam. A lot of people have ideas about where to do this and what places to advertise, and it's really helpful to hear roughly 400 different options, especially if you talk about why they'd be such a good place to advertise, or you even figure out their rates. Other ideas that haven't been talked about a lot:

• Do tabling events at conventions & schools. I'll man a table, gladly, if you pay my hotel fee and it's nearby! Any attractive female players want to table? :P Seriously, nerds love attractive women, and also old video games. If they see attractive women play a video games they'll be much more likely to play that game. And you can table anywhere really. Even at Fred Meyer if you tell them you're a nonprofit org! Schools might be best, though... start a Continuum club at your school, get your friends to sign on, then get a budget and start the drive.
• Pay designers small fees to create professional-looking logos to support the Steam launch. Any designers? Ask for specs after this weekend.

CHARITY - $706
This is an odd category. A lot of people gave for this category, perhaps imagining they were saying, "Yes, this donation is charity to TW." We have a lot of people whose first language is not English too (not that there's anything wrong with that). Basically the category is for us to give money to charitable video-game-related causes:

• Child's Play, giving kids with cancer, AIDS and SuperAIDS video games before they die alone in the hospital Good cause! Except we should request the money goes toward internet-connected laptops with SS installed.
• Extra Life 2013 (Nov 5), where you play video games for 24 hours and get people to sponsor you. TW could sponsor TW players in this endeavor.
• Ablegamers Foundation, a charity helping the disabled, handicapped and other ne'er-do-wells have access to videogames.
• GamesAid, a UK gaming foundation for kids.

DEVELOPMENT- $146
My favorite category. $0 spent in the history of Trench Wars! Here are a few ideas:

• Bounties for difficult bugs: we pay coders bounties for bugs that have plagued us for years now, such as the bot disconnection bug. Also bounties for cleaning up the database and so forth. All the tough jobs that nobody ever does because their time and skills are worth way too much money to bother doing anything but what they'd like, rather than what the zone needs! At least that's how I've seen dev work over the years.
• Prizes for map refurbishments & new high-quality events: when it's done well that is. People don't put the time or effort they could into maps. I don't see excellent but tactful LVZ work much anymore. New maps + the event code to go with are rare. Why not give the map designer and coder $10 for a brand new event? Something to show it's appreciated, the enormous amount of time, effort and creativity put into it. People have no idea how long dev takes; it's... a lot of time. And it's not easy.
• Advertising for new developers: We need devs badly. We need good devs. We don't need them to have played SS if they're good. Video game devs get a great education via TW. It's a great learning environment and you can even put it on a resume... we just have to find the right people with the right skills who are willing to work for free for what ordinarily they would get paid around $40-120/hr for. In other words, we need very intelligent idiots, or just very nice people.
• Fixing this forum so when you use bold/italics/underline it doesn't jump back when you press Home, End or Ctrl to jump over words and then hit backspace. God that shit's annoying.
• Just give it all to me. For nachos. All the nachos.

STAFF CHOICE - $3111
Here's the big daddy! The open fund. Spend it on whatever we want. So any and all of the above, of course. My personal picks:

• Merch designer/manager: Hire someone on to design all the TW/SS merch, give them a small bonus after a significant body of work is produced (maybe $100-200) and then a percentage on the back end (% of all profits). Good motivator to create high quality stuff, no? Then we can sell it, which puts MORE money in the fund, AND we can give away the merch at-cost.
• Hookers 'n' blow (all the fund)
• Advertising, advertising, advertising. Every dollar spent is a dollar well-spent. Especially if we use a lot of variety and target the right populations. It's also cheaper than you think. In particular I think we've underutilized both the teenage angsty market, and the old man living in his mother's basement and still playing old computer games market. Both are ripe for plunder.

Please add any ideas you have for how to spend this money, so we can finally make better use of it!

[Burnt]

sticky this please

[Sube]

Instead of crying over everything we do, you should appreciate the effort some people are putting into keeping this game alive. And if you think you can do better, your help is more than welcome.

spot on

I probably shouldn't even respond to your troll bait, but sure why not....

If you donated anonymously, naturally your name would not appear on the list. If you used your TWD name and password to donate, your name appears instantaneously on the master list. There is absolutely zero chance of donating with your TWD name and not getting recognition through that list.

[Dutch Baser]

2 weeks ago I donated $500 but my name isn't on the list, who stole it?

[Dealt]

lol war

[Twenty Four]

All money spent is public knowledge. No money has been spent yet, but it will be soon for the specific categories that you've chosen. Keep track here:

www.trenchwars.org/donationdetails


Thanks,

-24

[Mobey]

Read the truth about TW donations.

http://forums.trenchwars.org/showthr...-NOT-DONATE%29

WAR posting the truth? I almost don't believe it! <_<

[War]

Read the truth about TW donations.

http://forums.trenchwars.org/showthread.php?40352-24-Scammer-%28DO-NOT-DONATE%29

[Twenty Four]

maybe i'm the only one, but i would like to see some statistics on zone population. hard to tell whether there has been any increase, but i am interested in seeing what this wave of advertisement has done

Alright rainbow, but Phase II hasn't started yet (mass advertising). I'll see what numbers I can get up. FYI, Any $ spent via donations will be public knowledge.

-24

[vaped]

maybe i'm the only one, but i would like to see some statistics on zone population. hard to tell whether there has been any increase, but i am interested in seeing what this wave of advertisement has done

I demand accountability as well since I specified my $ to go to advertising...

[Crescent Seal]

LOL guy posted just to see his new forum sig

U DONE?

[rAiNbOw SeEkEr]

maybe i'm the only one, but i would like to see some statistics on zone population. hard to tell whether there has been any increase, but i am interested in seeing what this wave of advertisement has done

[Twenty Four]

I was promised a rough hand job for my donation, where 2 go for that?

Please forward all Hand-Job request to Goddess.

Thank you,

-24