The World of Layonara
The NWN Persistent World => Layonara Server => Topic started by: orth on October 05, 2008, 05:59:00 PM
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Alright as you may noticed there's a thermometer for donations on the front page and the Donate page now has a report of the last donors. This is all maintained through a site who operates this sort of thing called Donations Tracker.
What I've tried to do is set this system up so I don't have to do anything. Yes, programmers are lazy. As much as I love Chongo, I don't want him nagging me to get some details on things when I'm busy.
Secondly, I don't have access to Leanthar's PayPal account nor do I want it. Never have, hopefully never will. When dealing with private financial affairs the last thing I want is communication of passwords from my system risking others.
What this system does, and it must be used for your donation to be tracked, is collect payment information from PayPal and form it into a report for me. THEY DO NOT COLLECT CREDIT CARD INFORMATION. They basically collect your username (or you can remain anonymous) and then they generate a neat image or report of the campaign's current numbers when PayPal reports back to them whether you did indeed go all the way through with a payment and for how much.
The report you now see on the Donate page will indicate a surplus for the month, so if you exceed the payments I will roll it forward. Please try to keep it to shorter periods for recurring payments. I don't want people paying for 6 months and us not being here in 6 months for whatever reason, try to keep everything to 3 months or less. You will also be able to account for it easily.
I thank you all for your exuberance, and I hope the tracker system will help you determine where you stand. I know its a bit askew for this month, but I expect when it resets next month, things will start getting into a nice system. We will work through any issues as they arise.
Cheers,
orth
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As much as I love Chongo, I don't want him nagging me to get some details on things when I'm busy.
orth
Humbug. ;)
The report you now see on the Donate page will indicate a surplus for the month, so if you exceed the payments I will roll it forward.
This is great bud, I think it's going to really going to help on the donations.
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If we've been donating thru PayPal, is there a place now to put our username? How do you do it?
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All previous donations were aggregated for the month and only new ones will start to be reported on the Donate page. If you have a recurring payment set up, then I don't think this tracker works for such a thing, so if you wish to make sure you are recorded, you would have to cancel your current PayPal recurring transaction and manually use this one once a month. Sorry about that, but hopefully the thermometer will be a reminder to help out that month if you haven't yet.
Does that answer your question?
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Thanks Orth this is great.
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Folks, this is our chance to drive the server forward to the release date of the MMO. It rids us of uncertainty and should be a huge motivation booster to control the server's fate.
Right now we have 386 USD commited for this month.
With advance donations, we should reach 521 USD this month.
Let's show that we can come through so that there's no question that we can drive this server forward.
After this month, we can see where we stand and start talking about donation numbers for folks who are spread a bit thin, or perhaps speak with Orth about the notion of having a quest server again.
If anyone needs to change their monthly commitments and don't want to do it publically, PM me and I'll alter that number in blue above. Additionally, post up if you want to join in on the monthly commitments, or PM me if you want to be anonymous.
The important thing is being reliable and honest about your donations so that we can effectively forecast.
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I just realized I've not come clear nor had it even occured to me about your current situation for costs, Chongo just reminded me of it when he mentioned the luxury of Quest. We are currently only using just the 1 server for the whole setup. This might change and we'll move the db server to one of our linux ones if the community starts reporting large issues during high traffic. Everything to do with the NWN end of the game is only on the one server aside from the forums and LORE which serve Layonara in means beyond the video game entity.
The cost to keep the game world up financially is only $145 ($110 for the server and $35 for the Windows 2k3 license), and since I'm spelling it out completely, that's CDN. With that said it cost me $50 for setup, so if you want to help with that, then we'll call it just about even for the month. If the community seriously wants to consider the added windows server for quest, we would do better to put central on a new (and not as powerful) server and run quest on west. We could probably also get a better deal for less of a machine, but I can't guarantee either the price or my availability to get another machine set up.
It honestly didn't even dawn on me over the past couple days, that I am not using any of the other servers like I thought I might need to, so I apologize for mistakenly setting up the donation amount at that for $245 this month, I hope my adjustment fixed it.
Thank you.
orth
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What's the price estimate on a smaller server for central?
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Not a significant difference, save about $20-30 a month. And since its another Windows license, the price would be about $120ish.
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Could you explain the whole "license" thing? Why would you need "another" license for windows?
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Could you explain the whole "license" thing? Why would you need "another" license for windows?
As I understand it, you have to have a license for each computer you're using commercially.
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Great idea!!!
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Could you explain the whole "license" thing? Why would you need "another" license for windows?
If we were to get another server to run Central it has to be Windows, we can't run the Linux version of the nwn server due to some custom libraries we use that are Windows only. Since its another machine altogether, we have to pay for another license.
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Neat-o! The only thing that strook me from this thread is that the DonationTracker.com -page seems to be down for the current moment.
But in other words... Neat-o! Thank you very much Orth for setting this thing up for us.
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Are existing monthly donation schedules automaticaly captured by this neat tracker?
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Hum.. i dont seem to se the thermometer myself... :(
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Are existing monthly donation schedules automaticaly captured by this neat tracker?
All previous donations were aggregated for the month and only new ones will start to be reported on the Donate page. If you have a recurring payment set up, then I don't think this tracker works for such a thing, so if you wish to make sure you are recorded, you would have to cancel your current PayPal recurring transaction and manually use this one once a month. Sorry about that, but hopefully the thermometer will be a reminder to help out that month if you haven't yet.
Does that answer your question?
:) Well, does it?
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Hum.. i dont seem to se the thermometer myself... :(
Must be because http://www.donationstracker.com is down, so the picture is unavailable.
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:) Well, does it?
Oh right missed that one. That'd mean I need to cancel several...
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(http://www.donationtracker.com)http://www.donationstracker.com is still down, for days on end now... Perhaps it would be suitable to check out some of those other donation tracker sites for paypal that can be googled out with "donation tracker"?
Edit: I sent a message to the service provider via their homepage about the matter. I hope they will fix it soon :)
Edit of an edit: Seems like that site is the only one, at least by the googling I did with the aforementioned prefix.
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Donation Tracker - Campaign Management Software (http://www.donationtracker.com) is still down, for days on end now... Perhaps it would be suitable to check out some of those other donation tracker sites for paypal that can be googled out with "donation tracker"?
Edit: I sent a message to the service provider via their homepage about the matter. I hope they will fix it soon :)
Edit of an edit: Seems like that site is the only one, at least by the googling I did with the aforementioned prefix.
The site is Donations Tracker (note its plural) and is accessible by clicking on the report image on the Donate (http://forums.layonara.com/donate.php) page or the Thermometer on the main forum page (http://forums.layonara.com/) and in other parts. If you don't see images on these pages then it could be your AdBlock.
Have you been trying to go to "Donation Tracker" all this time in the hopes you'd see Layonara listed or something?
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I have tried both really. Neither one is working for me. The later variant "donation tracker .com" is a typo by me.
I don't have Adblock installed.
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Since the site won't let me in, or my browser won't let me there, I am unable to make a donation via the donate button :(
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You don't have to go thru donation tracker - you can do it directly thru Paypal.com
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Then I recommend putting a donate button or donation address visible somewhere. Both the Donate button on the donate page and the link go through donationstracker so they do not work for me, and likely many others.
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Since the site won't let me in, or my browser won't let me there, I am unable to make a donation via the donate button :(
Well it is possible we host their donations tracker software on our site by purchasing it instead of using their service, but that's $90 instead of the $29 I paid for the service on their site plus the time required to get it setup. I'm not sure what the problem is, they probably just haven't expected the traffic they'd be getting.
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Okay then, an update to this matter from Stellar Web Solutions. They said that their hosting company has been experiencing technical difficulties, and that the matter was being looked into. And I got another message from the saying that the matter has been resolved, but at least the dns-address to Donations Tracker: Helping people help each other (http://www.donationstracker.com) is not working yet, let's give it some time so the dns servers around the globe can recache themselves again.
Hoping for the best :)
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Another update to the matter, from my work, the thermometer shows up.
So it might have been a periodical failure, or that my home's ISP has blocked the site.
More info to come to come once I get home.
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Will the thermometer reset each month? or better yet as funds are used can you subtract them from the thermometer so that we know where we are in costs and rollover each month and what more is needed?
So if the monthly cost is 120 and we have a donation base of 200 then at the start of the next month the tracker should read 80 meaning at least 40 more must come in.
thanks
jrizz
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Well I've added my little bit to the kitty, does anyone know if this will go through as a recurring payment monthly? I didn't see anything that would allow me to schedule it that way.. if not no biggie, I'll just keeping popping it each month :)
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Just noticed, that these work at my home now \\o/
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The world needs us again! (Layo does, at least) ;)
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Its time to donate again. I know its just after the holidays but every little bit helps. :)
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Added my little bit to the pot to start off the new year :)
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Woot! I can donate this year! I'll get it sent off as soon as I figure out how to get the durned this to wwork..... O.o
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Looks like we just popped 100%!
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It's dropped the comments from donaters. :(
Where else shall I find outlet for comment on AUD to USD exchange rate vexations?
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I have a feeling that was a decision on or end for our little counter ;)
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Oh I hadn't noticed that, it was just a new configuration option they allowed that needed to be set.
The comments are back.
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Now the goal status got dropped from the bottom of the donation page.
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Oops, thanks for catching that, fixed...
Now the goal status got dropped from the bottom of the donation page.
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New month, time to donate. :)
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Ayep, done and do it, you too! ;)
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Added my little bit to the pot :)
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How's this going? I've been waiting for the donation page to be updated.
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@cb: You should be able to see how donations are going by watching the thermometer on the right-hand side of the forum homepage.
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It's actually a Whole dollar amount! WOOTness
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My point is the dollar amount hasn't changed since the middle of August as far as I can tell. Safe to assume the server is doing that well financially?
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As long as that thermomter is "full," then yes, for the NWN side of things it is..... unless you're suggesting the application that logs the donations and displays the results is not working properly.
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If I'm not mistaken we need to do one manual thing each month, could be it wasn't done yet.
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Something is definitely off on the donation page, It doesn't show my donation and still hasn't changed in weeks.:(:\
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As far as I can tell, it's working fine. We've had four donations since August 11, including one for $40 that came in yesterday, I don't know why yours wasn't reported if you're not seeing it... Maybe something happened with their DB, I'd have to confirm with Leanthar if PayPal got it but the Donation Tracker didn't.
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Was working as far as I can tell... the numbers were short and then over so they were changing to reflect, too...
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No big deal, I'm glad to see the server is supported either way. :)
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$20 added. This place is simply the best gaming experience I've ever had. Day after month after year it just keeps getting better and better! You guys are awesome.