SWGEmu Finance Update June 2023

[Lolindir]

Other services also take relative large fees of every $ donated. Paypal is our bank and they have reasonable fees, just like an actual bank, but on the contrary of a bank, especially when you get money from multinational sources, Paypal is by far easier for both us and the donators. Paypal can also, as LK has said, be used without and account.

I personally like Paypal. I don't get my credit card info all over, all subscribsons are gathered in one place, so that it makes it easier for me to actually cancel them. All I need to do is log into Paypal and to the sub page and cancel the ones I don't wish to continue. I don't need to go to each page and do it there. Some have made it really difficult to cancel the sub also. Then Paypal makes it easy for me. Paypal also makes it easy to show me how much I have used total on each sub.

I despise PayPal because I’ve had my card and bank information stolen through them. Large amounts of money were transferred from my accounts during my house purchasing process. Big pain in the ***. Would never have used them again, but the donation here was PayPal only. I felt dirty afterwards. Now I’m watching my account like a hawk for who knows how long.

Sorry to hear that. The solution would be to donate outside of an account or to have the donation not been recurring and then have to do it manually each time you wish to donate.

[vasilij]

Im sure theres plenty of personal stories, good and bad, but this wasn't intended to be a platform for that, or a pro/against Paypal.
Just poking possibilities for some more donations and looking into ways that could gauge if it was worthwhile with some alternative payment service/option.

[Bazari]

Could development of new updated be voted on by donations. Let the the amount donated toward an improvement choose which update gets done? It would give people a chance to feel more involved in the direction of the game.

[Lolindir]

Could development of new updated be voted on by donations. Let the the amount donated toward an improvement choose which update gets done? It would give people a chance to feel more involved in the direction of the game.

That is something we could take into consideration.

[tazman1701]

I've had some people contact me and try to make the case it's this feature or that feature etc.

First, the project, in general, still moves towards a pre-CU server. This is the 1.0 milestone for the project.

Second, yes, we test other ideas on Finalizer, but the pure pre-CU code is still in our repo and is being worked on regularly.

Third, we had an influx of players when Finalizer launched (new server smell). At the time, I predicted it would fall off in 90 days, and sadly it did. We didn't do anything in those 90 days; the new server smell wore off. The reality is this game died because there is no end-game, and shock, surprise, we experienced it again with the launch of Finalizer. About 10% of the population sticks around, and the rest go back to Wow or Minecraft.

If that is the case there may be a solution. The quest system from when SOE revamped the game. If only the questline thing was brought in I think it would of been fine it was everything else they added.
I know its an unpopular opinion and I am not saying revamp the entire game like they did but maybe add Mustafar and Kashyyyk and the storyline those planets had when you landed on them.

I know its alot of work but if we are talking about people leaving because the game is too open world maybe adding a few more linear elements to certain areas might be the solution.

[Bostwain]

Could development of new updated be voted on by donations. Let the the amount donated toward an improvement choose which update gets done? It would give people a chance to feel more involved in the direction of the game.

This seems exploitable.

What if someone donates to win the poll, then contests the charges and takes back the donation after the changes are made?

[Lolindir]

If that is the case there may be a solution. The quest system from when SOE revamped the game. If only the questline thing was brought in I think it would of been fine it was everything else they added.
I know its an unpopular opinion and I am not saying revamp the entire game like they did but maybe add Mustafar and Kashyyyk and the storyline those planets had when you landed on them.

I know its alot of work but if we are talking about people leaving because the game is too open world maybe adding a few more linear elements to certain areas might be the solution.

We truly have to keep to our goal, or it will never be reached. Let us first meet the 1.0 milestone then we can look into what comes after.

[Ebak Zarr]

Someone on either this thread or a related thread mentioned purchasing a server rather than renting. I don’t know the whole cost related to running/maintaining a server that we purchase, but is that a possibility? Have the numbers been run? I would be more interested in supporting a higher upfront cost if the long term costs are drastically reduced.

[Lolindir]

Problem is that we have hardwear that fail all the time. a disk that crash or ram that fail. Upgrades needed to be done. When rented, we don't notice that much. If we own, we have to deal with that and one of us has to have the server physically in reach at any time. It will have to be more than one. We are spread all over the world. The project can't expect one person to be here 24/7, 365 days out of the year. It's just not possible. No one would even want that. Our lives is more than SWGEmu.

[Rippster]

We truly have to keep to our goal, or it will never be reached. Let us first meet the 1.0 milestone then we can look into what comes after.

Is there an actual ETA date for 1.0 release? I've been here for around 15 years now and my main issue is that I don't see any conclusion to this project. The project status hasn't been updated in over a year and so I've long been leery about this project ever coming to a conclusion. I see the updates and it seems to be advancing but I haven't seen any kind of finish line presented. I doubt I'm the only one who feels this way but perhaps I've missed the ETA thread and someone can point me there.

I'm also in the no PayPal group so alternatives might help.

/shrug

[nazoreen]

About this table, could you tell us specificaly why you use services for ?
For example, Google LLC or Wasabi, you are using these services for what exactly ?
1password, you could use Keepass or Bitwarden instead.
If you could find inexpensive alternative for every line, we could reduce costs. Yesterday, I told about europeans servers, but you could see in Quebec Canada (PlanetHoster or OVH for example). Google Cloud is more expensive than Google or Microsoft cloud, may be it could be interesting to calculate costs.
I think we will find less expensive solutions if web work all together.

[nazoreen]

What do you think about a subscription of 6$ per year for every users ?

[Misk Brebran]

Just an idea, but would it be possible to create a sub-forum in the “Project Updates” forum and move all the annual finance updates there so the past info is easier for people to find if they have questions about them?

[Bostwain]

What do you think about a subscription of 6$ per year for every users ?

Walt and Mickey would not like that

[shilo]

P.S. this place does have a Discord server, and I'm vastly more active there than I am on these forums. I even get to talk to some of the staff there once in a while. I understand you may presume we don't, but the invite is somewhere in this forum...you just need to know where to look (or how to search for it)...

Thank you, yes I have joined the emu discord. The discord I am referring to is much more engaging.