adi wrote:
There used to be a note about some sort of potential future reward in-game, if we added our user info. I remember I thought "how many of these little somethings one can receive" so I didn't think there was a point of adding it every time, and there isn't anymore anyway since things have changed and the note is gone.
There's no longer a note on the Play page, but the link to add your details is still on the PayPal donation form. It would likely only have ever amounted to a new T-shirt design anyway, so maybe not such a big deal. It was an aspiration that never came to fruition.
adi wrote:
What about the shards and Open URU and all that? Will they continue to exist or do they need an "official" shard to offer content and manpower to or to be some sort of alternative branches of?
As it stands, the shards need MOULa as the game data server. Without it there could never (legally) be any new players using the Cyan ages (or derivates of those), since there is no legal way to distribute the game files (i.e. you're breaking the EULA if you pass on your copy of the game files to any other person).
adi wrote:
Another question: people talk about making it a monthly fee a lot again these days. Regardless on whether it's doable or not, does it match with the whole open source idea?
There's nothing in GPL that says that an Open Source project can't be a commercial project (in fact the GPL descriptions expressly allow it), but it goes against the principle that Cyan had in mind when MOULa was set up - that people should only donate what they feel able to afford.
I've no idea how easy or hard it is to modify the donation form to allow recurring donations: PayPal seems to make a distinction between "Donations" and "Payments" (a distinction that creates problems for our Japanese members) so it may be that it can't be done for donations. But a monthly email reminder (for those that want it) is a real possibility now that the emailer issues have been resolved.