[AC] Donation Drive - 2015

[Mrloud15]

Hello everyone, 

 

We need to have a donation drive sometime soon, so I figured I would start a thread about planning it.  The goal of the drive will be to provide funding for the servers for another year, and according to Deaygo we would need $4500 to do that.

 

Here are a few things that we need to discuss before moving forward. 

• What type of event should we have?
• When should we have the drive?
• How can we get the word out about the drive?

I would like to ask everyone to comment asap so we can get this thing moving. 

 

[redwall_hp]

What type of event should we have?

 

CTF, obviously. We've got a winning formula there.

[Sapphric]

CTF, obviously. We've got a winning formula there.

 

Indeed. And as long as we keep it rare, no more than maybe once a year, people shouldn't grow too tired of it. It's always fun.

[TheRandomnatrix]

I think CTF is pretty universally agreed on as a great event for the donation drive, and I don't see much reason to change that.

 

The goal of the drive will be to provide funding for the servers for another year, and according to Deaygo we would need $4500 to do that.

I'm worried about our ability to reach that goal. I don't have the exact numbers, but don't we usually run on average of 2-3k per drive?

 

When should we have the drive?

I'm thinking some time in spring. Maybe March or April. That should give us a good amount of time to get prepared.

 

I'm willing to help with getting the map set up(as I've done for the last couple of drives). I agree that getting this thing going ASAP is a good idea.

[schererererer]

To break down Deaygo's quote on the cost of running the server, currently the main server running C, S, P, and E costs $238 per month and the secondary server running the website et al. costs $70 per month. That's approximately $3700 for one year of current operation, or $1850 for 6 months. Adding on an additional server which would be necessary if we were to support other non-minecraft games (and perhaps a minigames server?) would cost an addition $70 per month ($420 for 6 months or $840 for a year; in total $2268 for 6 months or $4536 for a year). In addition, any advertising we budget would have to be on top of the current fundraising needs.

 

I think we should publicize these values notably in the ultimate announcement for the donation drive, laying out the ladder of financial tiers for all to see, and to encourage donations to 'reach the next tier'. I think our "hidden target" should be for 6 months of operation plus some for advertising, i.e. $2500-3000.

[slide]

To break down Deaygo's quote on the cost of running the server, currently the main server running C, S, P, and E costs $238 per month and the secondary server running the website et al. costs $70 per month. That's approximately $3700 for one year of current operation, or $1850 for 6 months. Adding on an additional server which would be necessary if we were to support other non-minecraft games (and perhaps a minigames server?) would cost an addition $70 per month ($420 for 6 months or $840 for a year; in total $2268 for 6 months or $4536 for a year). In addition, any advertising we budget would have to be on top of the current fundraising needs.

 

I think we should publicize these values notably in the ultimate announcement for the donation drive, laying out the ladder of financial tiers for all to see, and to encourage donations to 'reach the next tier'. I think our "hidden target" should be for 6 months of operation plus some for advertising, i.e. $2500-3000.

 

This sounds good to me. I think having clearly defined goals will encourage more people to donate.

[Deaygo]

If I am reading the sheets right, we have about $1000 left at the moment, so we will need to do something within 4 months.  I have been covering the costs of our secondary server and will continue to do so until the time that a donation drive has been done with the understanding that the funds will eventually be paid back to me.  To date that is about $280.

[BeastBruiser]

What happened to Buch's space event?

[LadyRavenOwl]

Hello everyone, 

 

We need to have a donation drive sometime soon, so I figured I would start a thread about planning it.  The goal of the drive will be to provide funding for the servers for another year, and according to Deaygo we would need $4500 to do that.

 

Here are a few things that we need to discuss before moving forward. 

• What type of event should we have?
• When should we have the drive?
• How can we get the word out about the drive?

I would like to ask everyone to comment asap so we can get this thing moving. 

 

While I've never done CTF and have heard great things about it, since we are trying to raise more money than usual on this donation drive shouldn't we have something new and original?  Would it be too hard to put something together if we all came up with ideas?  For example:

 

What happened to Buch's space event?

 

I think that there were issues coming up with plug ins for it but something like this would give us an edge on events.

 

As for when to run the event, any time past February 28th works for me as long as I can start it by the end of the month with people.  If we don't get started until February then it would only be practical to have it mid April or later.  The team I worked with for the Winter Event was able to pound out the Winter Maze and everything in about a month with me cracking the whip but I'd prefer not to put anyone through that again.  One thing that will help this event run more smoothly is if the people that sign up follow through with their commitment.  Last time we had people sign up to help but they ended up not following through and this really set the progress back and made it more stressful for everyone involved.

 

I think we have a few different avenues besides the forums and our typical subreddit to advertise this.  We should be taking advantage of twitter, YouTube, r/minecraft, and r/mcservers.  I might also have some people who can announce us on their Twitch channels and such but I will need to talk to them about that first.  For the other subreddits, sneak peaks are extremely useful to pique people's interests and the YouTube channel should definitely have a female and male voice in it to narrate as well as little sneak peaks of walking the event.

[slide]

Personally I would say we stick with CTF and possibly use Buch's space event as one of the minigames, possibly providing a buff for the current team (I don't know really how his event works so we would have to see). This would allow us to use a well tested event that we know is fun and capable of lasting the entire time, as well as adding something new to it freshen up.

 

In regards to r/Minecraft, we should definitely prepare a gallery of the event and post it the day of and have people watching the thread that can quickly respond to people asking for IPs. I know last PvE launch we saw a very large boost in new players because of this.

[LadyRavenOwl]

I've talked to a moderator over at r/mcservers and they said that we could advertise our event as the Event Server, we just have to be super careful about it.  So I think coming up with a draft of the post before hand and testing it would be wise before we get there that way we don't get murderated by their bot on the day we want to advertise the most.

[schererererer]

I was talking with LRO about the donation drive event, and brought up the idea of making the CTF space themed - using a large spaceship for each team with asteroids and debris bridging between them, and having easysign-based boons for players who complete side challenges (perhaps with jump boost constantly on for everyone for the novelty). It wouldn't require much in the way of new plugins, we already have a couple of large spaceships in the community to serve as a starting point for a map if needed (and some Unity/Vengeance lore for a storyline as an optional bonus), and I think it could be a fun change of atmosphere from the typical minecraft terrain from past CTFs.

[buzzie71]

So my (mostly unfiltered) thoughts about lore in CTF:

 

Honestly, assuming that whatever happens in this story is considered canon, I'm not sure how to both keep the story where I intend it to go as well as make the story as compelling and personal as it was in rev 11.  The way the story has been left off at the moment, Unity is (implied to be) somewhere in deep space after making the jump back from a parallel universe and it's implied they have been captured (or are about to be) by aliens who seek to reverse-engineer its technology.  Vengeance is constructed after said aliens attack the homeworld for the sole purpose of finding Unity and bringing it and its crew home.

 

To me it seems the next encounter would lend itself more to a PvE scenario (the good human guys on Vengeance + the captured Unity crew vs. the evil aliens sort of thing) for a continuation, unless aliens have been able to use or reverse-engineer the human spawners on Unity and generate soldiers from the Cryo Bay to fight for them?  (Vengeance may have to have one too.)  That could work maybe...hmmmm, would need to maybe work on making players comfortable with playing on the antagonist side.

 

Also not entirely sure how to continue the story from the end of CTF - what context does capturing the other team's flag hold?  If they're something like reactor core pieces (or maybe even REGE fuel :O) one neutral ending would be that the skirmish was unsuccessful and the aliens temporarily disable Vengeance while moving Unity away instead of draining their resources on an endless fight.  It'd also imply that no one wins, which is historically probably not going to be true, but would avoid paths that would end the story at CTF (eg. Vengeance is depowered and aliens keep control of Unity...could have homeworld send another dreadnought to retrieve both of them but in terms of story it would seem silly for so much effort to be put into Vengeance only to have the ship ended when it reached its destination, or Unity is depowered and Vengeance fights off aliens before retaking the ship and both fly home).  Actually that last possibility would work too, but in order to guarantee the story moves forward we'd either have to disregard the scores entirely or stack the teams so Vengeance team always wins, both not very desirable I think.

 

Casting the CTF as a war game or a battle simulation (maybe for Vengeance crew?  The best enemies they can train against are humans who can actually formulate tactics, over, say zombies), or throwing canon out the window, is always an option, but I'm worried the story will then lose some of its personal nature because the events that happen in the game don't actually happen in the story, something that was not entirely true for Unity rev 11.

 

EDIT: Potential solution: 

- Vengeance catches up to Unity in an asteroid field.  Shots are exchanged; both ship's defenses and weapons are knocked out.

- Vengeance prepares its human spawner to generate boarding parties and sends them to steal Unity's fuel - the crew believe that cutting off its power will make it less interesting for the aliens who will give up and leave.  (Spoiler: They wouldn't - they really want Unity's technology and they will do their best to maintain control of the ship, even if it's without power.  Probably the only thing that would get them to leave is if Vengeance breaks into Unity and destroys the vessel, say by disabling safety mechanisms and creating a dimensional gate at Unity itself, maybe tearing the ship apart - but that is not very conducive to a CTF event, not to mention I don't want Unity to be destroyed yet :O)

- Depowering Unity will also stop the aliens from using the ship's human spawner to send troops after it, making the ship easier to retake.

- Aliens tweak the input soul matrices and reverse-engineer the human spawner to spawn in humans loyal to them, and send them to defend the vessel and steal Vengeance's fuel - if Vengeance suffers a power drop, the dreadnought's threat to Unity and the aliens is effectively nullified, not to mention that more advanced technology can be reaped from its hull.  (John Smith, the AI on Unity, will probably be shut off and so won't be able to call out to the player to resist the programmed loyalty to aliens.)

- The pretense of there being an infinite number of flags (fuel) to steal is that both ships are programmed to attempt to recreate stolen fuel at the cost of both the victim ship's power to other subsystems and the recreated fuel's power efficiency.  Due to the immense power reserves in both vessels, It is not easy to depower either ship to the point of not being able to recreate fuel (and Unity for example is designed to be guaranteed limited power through its dual redstone power cores if the main REGE is knocked out), but minimum power (for perhaps both vessels?) only really guarantees enough power to life support and none to everything else (eg. weapons, defenses, labs, deployment mechanisms, propulsion, dimensional gate formation for Unity) and is a very undesirable state for operation.

- The Storm (the aliens) are using this conflict to buy themselves some time while they examine Unity's tech, especially the beacon cannon.

- Vengeance's scientists (do they have scientists?) or Unity's scientists that escape (they definitely have scientists...maybe escape pods on magenta deck?) will be working onboard Vengeance (does the ship have a lab?) on some sort of biologically engineered virus transmittable through skin(?) contact to block the pre-programmed loyalty that the aliens have coded into Unity team's soul matrices.

- At the conclusion of the event (maybe not shown in-game), the biometric data in the virus is written into newly spawned Vengeance troops, who then use bows and arrows to shoot and infect the Unity troops to convert them to the Vengeance side.

- If both teams have made little progress against each other or if Vengeance is losing, the aliens will either get bored or have finished enough of their examination work.  They stop generating more loyal humans, EMP the Vengeance (fry their weapons, sensors, propulsion...somehow, maybe they reverse-engineer something on Unity to produce that pulse), and fly the Unity away.

- If Vengeance is winning, the aliens will cut their losses and use the remaining power in the ship to EMP the Vengeance and fly Unity away.

Edited January 24, 2015 by buzzie71

[LadyRavenOwl]

Just an update.  The theme for the donation drive will be very very similar to this.  It will in fact be so similar that we will be giving buchanman credit for his idea.  We are considering a map of approximately 1,000 blocks wide or so.  The idea we were discussing entailed end islands spliced together to create planets with bits of smaller rock between them  A jump boost would be in effect for most of the server.  We were thinking about having two larger "planets" or "asteroids" for the spaceships to be docked to in order serve as a home base.

We were also thinking about having something like buff blocks instituted.  For example, mining a certain ore would give them a buff.  Or having little ore islands for mining.

 

Mini Games that were being considered were:

-Mini Maze Races

-Connect 4

-Parkour

-Spleef

[TheRandomnatrix]

BUMP. What is the current status regarding the progress of the donation drive? LRO was supposed to be doing it but she's no longer EAdmin. We need to hammer this thing out ASAP

[Mrloud15]

BUMP. What is the current status regarding the progress of the donation drive? LRO was supposed to be doing it but she's no longer EAdmin. We need to hammer this thing out ASAP

I'm working on putting together a todo list of what needs to be done, and I will try to get the list up tonight. 

[Mrloud15]

Hello everyone, 

 

Here's a quick update on what we are doing and what needs to be done. We think it would be better to go with a more simple type of event this time around and run something similar to the past CTF events. Here's a quick list of what needs to be done right now, and it will expand more with stuff like setting up regions, smoothing out the world, pasting building, etc. once we move closer to the date of the event.

• Set date for event
• Generate map
• Create lobby
• Create mini-games
• Create map structures
  • Buff points​
  • Team bases
    • Main building
    • Walls
    • Flag stands
  • Any other buildings we want to have

[Mrloud15]

Time for more updates!

 

• We need to finalize a theme so people can start building stuff.
• We were talking about it a little bit and would like to try to get the event up in 2-3 weeks, April 18th or 25th, after the new survival rev launches. What does everyone think of that?
• We need to get a map built. It would be great if someone who knows how to use world painter, or something like it, well could do it, but if not I will build it.
• We also need to double and triple check the CTF plugin to make sure everything is working.
• Does anyone have any suggestions on how we can set this CTF donation drive apart from the others?  

[Mrloud15]

Thought it would be easier to have my opinions in another comment, so here they are.

 

We need to finalize a theme so people can start building stuff.

I like the space theme, but I think it would be better to save that for when we can do the asteroid field type map or something like that. My idea for another theme would be a tropical/jungle temple theme and have the map be an island. Something like one of the Hawaiian Islands or any other tropical island of volcanic origins. 

 

Does anyone have any suggestions on how we can set this CTF donation drive apart from the others?  

One idea I had was to remove sheep, or reduce the amount of wool they drop, and use TC to spawn wool under ground like ores. 

[redwall_hp]

Hm. If we did that we could have some Mayan/Aztec/Hawaiian inspired buildings. Various jungle and volcanic region things. Step pyramids, etc. 

 

I like the idea of removing sheep, but we still want wool to be plentiful. Just not Inifinite.

 

Remember the CTF where we had trade signs? Maybe handle it like that in addition to TC? So you can trade a stack of farmed food or iron or whatever for 10 wool or something like that.

[schererererer]

I like the tropic theme - maybe some narrowly spaced islands for each team plus some neutral ones? Mining wool would get annoying imo - I'm fine sticking with vanilla sheep, which would be an important resource to protect. +1 for mayan/aztec/polynesian archetecture - we can have some premade as bases and ruins, but also give out flair/prizes for best playermade theme archtecture. I'll try my hand at worldpainting something up, but would also like to use voxelsniper to do some more interesting fine details like overhangs and natural bridges/arches. It's also better to do a volcano ingame as well, which would be a nice touch.

What size map do we think is appropriate? 1000x1000?

[redwall_hp]

Could be a fresh mechanic. You have to use boats or build bridges to get to the enemy island and surrounding neutral territories

[Mrloud15]

What size map do we think is appropriate? 1000x1000?

I think anything from 1k to 1.5k would work well.

[schererererer]

Bumping with update and a plea for help. The worldpainter map I made is up on event - it needs some judicious fixwatering where cave generation cut through the ocean (about half done) and the building of spawns (one for each team), buff temples (one on center volcano island, one on mushroom island, and one on nether island), and misc ruins.

 

Development on this seems to have stagnated - I'm thinking of opening it up to the mods out of necessity at this point.

[SwitchViewz]

Bumping with update and a plea for help. The worldpainter map I made is up on event - it needs some judicious fixwatering where cave generation cut through the ocean (about half done) and the building of spawns (one for each team), buff temples (one on center volcano island, one on mushroom island, and one on nether island), and misc ruins.

 

Development on this seems to have stagnated - I'm thinking of opening it up to the mods out of necessity at this point.

I'll take blame here - I was trying to lead building and organizing but due to several personal and family issues this week real life stole me away. I hope to be back in full steam again on Monday and I will be pestering people to build. Time to crack the ol' whip!