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The Patreon Petition


Xarkly
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3 minutes ago, KamikazeReaper said:

just ensure it follows the EULA

 

Afaik EULA relates to direct in-game purchased benefits, which Patreon perks don't pertain to, they're strictly out-of-server benefits (except for tags, which are EULA-safe).

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I feel like a Patreon could be a good way for the server to take in more revenue and broaden our horizons for improvement and entertainment.  Most of my experiences with it have been through supporting artists, of course - but it gets your tied in more with a community interested in the same stuff that you are.

 

The only way I would see something like this succeeding, however, if it's with a strong focus of consistency and ensuring supporters that their money isn't being wasted and that promises will be kept.  I think the best way to start a Patreon for the server is just taking in open donations to fund and bring in those rewards and unique opportunities down the line, to then stay consistent on with higher donation tiers being unlocked.

 

Either that, or bring back Gizzy Gaza.

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If I was Tythus/Telanir why would I agree to any of this? Wouldn't I rather handle my company/minecraft roleplaying pet project's own finances?

 

Not trying to be overly negative here, but besides LoTC's current roster of coders and their projects, none of these "professional services" are being rendered - I can't tell if there are plans to actually hire artists/video editors/minecraft skinners (?) in the future. You're proposing that we start raising money for ill-defined projects that might happen contingent on a revenue stream that we have never tried before.

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7 hours ago, monkeypoacher said:

If I was Tythus/Telanir why would I agree to any of this? Wouldn't I rather handle my company/minecraft roleplaying pet project's own finances?

 

Not trying to be overly negative here, but besides LoTC's current roster of coders and their projects, none of these "professional services" are being rendered - I can't tell if there are plans to actually hire artists/video editors/minecraft skinners (?) in the future. You're proposing that we start raising money for ill-defined projects that might happen in the future.

I fully agree.

 

I think if we raise money, it should be for a purpose, aka:
Hey guys we wanna upgrade our server to XYZ and need 8000 Euro for it. Donate here:

Because people won't donate for something they dont know what its for.

But if there's a certain purpose I'd gladly give 100 Euro or more for it.

 

And when it comes to 'professional' services: In my opinion LOTC really shouldnt professionalise. Because that always comes with commercialising. We're a community who wants fun, not a company trying to make money.

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I’d be glad to see this become a thing, yet you could equally argue that things like change logs or including players in decisions about the server they play on should be something that’s done anyway. 
 

The reality you may see is that the admins for all of this would be essentially middle men for coders and the like to actually pay them, maybe @The60thshould just start a patreon himself. What I’d really aim for is this giving players some ability to actually challenge administration decisions by pulling out their patreon support when administration makes questionable policy on their ban and unban policies for instance.

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11 hours ago, monkeypoacher said:

If I was Tythus/Telanir why would I agree to any of this? Wouldn't I rather handle my company/minecraft roleplaying pet project's own finances?

 

Not trying to be overly negative here, but besides LoTC's current roster of coders and their projects, none of these "professional services" are being rendered - I can't tell if there are plans to actually hire artists/video editors/minecraft skinners (?) in the future. You're proposing that we start raising money for ill-defined projects that might happen in the future.


I had a few people mention that this seems like it should be handled 'internally', but a look at Tythus Ltd.'s company filings suggests that the server (in the last two years, at least) doesn't have the resources for that. Now, like I said in the post, we don't have the full story of finances and can just go off what the financial statements tell us, which isn't a lot, but it seems like enough to conclude that - at an initial glance - the server doesn't have a lot of resources to provide monetary incentives to our creators.

 

As for professional services, I don't think we can really brush aside coding and go "well, aside from this" when this is a major point of a Patreon that seek to enable the players of our server to reward people who dedicate their skills that have real-world value to improving the server. Outside of that, though, you're right in that other professional services are inconsistent in frequency and quality, but that's sort of what this hopes to change - a lot of artists, video-makers, etc. could be incentivised to help produce much higher-quality content for the server (see the list in the post).

 

Obviously, you or I aren't in a position to give a mandate of projects we'd like to see funded. We're not Admins, nor any kind of staff. All we can do, at this point, is just spitball and point to the various benefits that could be possible, which is what this thread ultimately aims to do. It's meant to be a discussion, and none of us bar Admins could really ever provide anything beyond "ill-defined" by way of example.

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I have a better idea, Tythus can start an only fans page and give the money to charity.

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Hey, just looking at this quick from my phone, I'd be happy to clarify some details of how finances currently working and my thoughts on a Patreon.

 

The financial returns look the way they do since the server doesn't run a profit, all the revenue generated is invested back in, mainly to hosting costs, hardware upgrades (looking at upgrading the main server right now actually 😊), and other assets such as professional world painters for future maps, our forum software, and other miscellaneous costs. I don't think any of those things should fall under a Patreon. Also, I want to reassure people that we are making enough to pay the bills, but we definitely don't make enough to pay out to staff, it basically balances out at the end of the day as is. 

 

The ranks Telanir and I have mainly are just for extra permissions to our forum software and discord server, equivalent to superadmin type roles, and don't reflect an actual legal association with Tythus LTD, we aren't employees or paid, just passionate volunteers like the rest of our staff.

 

Now, into the main idea. I've had serious discussions about a Patreon in the past for the kind of professional services on staff you discussed, but details like if it has in-game perks, how it's managed/distributed, if the community would even be open to it, or how other staff would feel about it are complicated issues that I'm open to look into, but have definitely been blockers on anything actually materializing. Personally for me, I've always seen the work I do as a hobby and I'm not sure how I'd feel about gettig compensated for it, so I've never really been motivated to spearhead getting such a system started, though I definitely don't speak for everyone on staff in this matter.

 

I appreciate your thoughts and ideas on this kind of stuff and would love to see what the rest of the community thinks as well. At end of the day if people are open to it, it can be run fairly, and benefits the growth and quality of the server then it might be something that can get going. Transparency would have tp be a key aspect of anything that's created. 

 

I'll be keeping an eye on this thread and look forward to seeing what people think. This isn't a discussion I was super comfortable on starting myself but I'm happy to see somebody bringing it up.

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@The60th @Llir

 

Cheers for leaving your thoughts, really appreciate the engagement.

 

The nutshell and main thing I wanted to push for was improvements to our server in a lot of different ways. As I said in the post and Kowa seems to affirm, the server, as is, doesn't seem to make enough money to fund all the improvements that could really push LotC's quality (like lore/history video series, promotional art, etc.), so a Patreon seems like the natural solution. Then, since we have a lot of people on the server capable of producing high-quality content (again, namely art and code), it makes sense that we should invest and utilise our own while also improving the server.

And yeah I get the whole thing of keeping LotC a volunteer passion project. I'm not proposing that we try to become for-profit or anything, but I, like everyone, would love to see our server improve with things like a better media presence. That, however, means acknowledging that pure volunteerism won't always take us the distance. It's great that we do have people who make us free videos and plugins, but there's a reason so much of our content is inconsistent and infrequent.

 

LotC, through it's ten years of history, has so much potential for stuff like art and video series that would undoubtedly promote the server and increase recruitment, but I think some kind of Patreon initiative is necessary to get us there.

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