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D'Lanor · **Posted:** Sat Jul 13, 2013 3:28 pm

Can we get a recurring donation button for PayPal? I don't mind donating more often but having to go through the whole donation process each time just puts me off.

PayPal itself does not seem to offer the option to easily turn a single donation into a recurring one.

Tai'lahr · **Posted:** Sat Jul 13, 2013 3:43 pm

D'Lanor wrote:

Can we get a recurring donation button for PayPal? I don't mind donating more often but having to go through the whole donation process each time just puts me off.

PayPal itself does not seem to offer the option to easily turn a single donation into a recurring one.

+ 1
Yes, this or at least a monthly e-mail reminder. I don't know how those are set up, but I do know I've seen it done before.

adi · **Joined:** Sat Apr 03, 2010 10:37 am **Posts:** 383

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.

So, say it does shut down.

Most of the community has migrated to SL anyway and never came back or hardly ever comes back anymore while still considering themselves as URU members. So no change here really.

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?

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?

Mac_Fife · **Posted:** Sat Jul 13, 2013 7:09 pm

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.

zeke3651 · **Joined:** Sat Dec 31, 2011 1:46 am **Posts:** 411

I just donated and I plan to donate again during the July Cavecon Event but I do have a limited budget to so I can only donate so much. Come on guys and gals donate so we can have MOULa live happy life and so that July events can happen. I don't want this community shut down.

Ehren · **Posted:** Sun Jul 14, 2013 3:21 am

I'm really wondering how much people donate when they do donate, I have no sense of scale for what makes a difference and what doesn't.

I last donated to Cyan sometime in 2010. It was the only time I ever donated to them. But donating more or less often doesn't mean anything without knowing what amounts of money are involved.

Charura · **Joined:** Wed Oct 14, 2009 4:14 pm **Posts:** 1773

Ehren wrote:

But donating more or less often doesn't mean anything without knowing what amounts of money are involved.

Back to square three or a thread that I dare not refer to...thank you for your contribution

HenryMikel · **Posted:** Sun Jul 14, 2013 4:29 am

Ehren wrote:

I'm really wondering how much people donate when they do donate, I have no sense of scale for what makes a difference and what doesn't.]

What difference does the "average" personal donation make... any donation helps with expenses. Obviously some folks can donate more than others. Since all donations go into a pool, if there is extra money not needed to survive the month's expenses it will be used in a future month when donations do not cover the full cost.
The obvious question is How much does O/S MOULa mean to you? and maybe contribute that monthly, yearly, or when you can. And, yes. zero is an option.
Right now we are not making enough to offset the costs - whatever they are. (and that is not the important thing).

Alien · **Posted:** Sun Jul 14, 2013 9:26 am

I've said before, all we need is for everyone to donate just $1 per week.
That is not a huge sum, so everyone should be able to afford it.
If you compare it to other MMO's you have to pay to play, that is also very cheap.

$1 per week, from everyone, and we'd have no more CavCon worries.

Mac_Fife · **Posted:** Sun Jul 14, 2013 6:21 pm

While I generally agree with Alien's view that no donation is too small, there is a practical limit as a result of the fact that PayPal charge a service fee on every donation.

I'll assume that no-one here is flush enough to consider donating more than $3000 dollars

, so I'll only consider the $0-$3000 tariff which is 3.9% of the donation + $0.30, with the total fee rounded down to the whole cent. So a $1.00 donation will actually put $0.67 into the fund, while $10.00 will yield $9.31. In other words, four weekly donations of $1.00 will only give MOULa $2.68 but a monthly drop of $4.00 will give $3.65, and I'm sure most people would rather that the dollar difference went into MOULa rather than PayPal's coffers.

Charura · **Joined:** Wed Oct 14, 2009 4:14 pm **Posts:** 1773

Did not realize that Mac...thank you for the accounting side of that coin

Acorn1 · **Joined:** Sat Jan 12, 2013 8:46 pm **Posts:** 985

hey, we're now on 4.2 - woo-hoo! :mrgreen:

janeerah · **Posted:** Thu Jul 18, 2013 6:56 am

/me is relieved...

Eleri · **Posted:** Thu Jul 18, 2013 9:23 am

That is a pretty awesomely positive jump in numbers, no doubt spurred on by a flurry of somewhat paniced donations

I think *now* is a very good time to firmly request (nag, beg, pester, etc...) that there be a way to subscribe, and have automated payments. I know many people who would happily pitch in on a monthly basis, but remembering to go and hit the donation button isn't on everyone's mental ToDo list.

Interestingly, the jump also suggests that either we have some secretly amazingly generous patrons (not unlikely), or the threshold for cavcon 4 isn't as high as we thought. Or both. Makes you ponder what the threshold for 5 actually is.

Lyrositor · **Joined:** Sun Aug 08, 2010 2:14 pm **Posts:** 808

The jump isn't that amazing when you think about it - remember that we had no CAVCON 2 to go through. So it went from CAVCON 1.2 to 1.9, then directly to 3, and then 4.0 and then 4.2. So, it's a substantial amount, but in the long run, it's not that much (essentially, it amounts to 100% of the monthly costs + 20% of that amount for the reserve fund). The reserve fund is still almost empty, so unless people donate this much every month, we're still facing the same problem.

Also, I think the various events which are planned will now gather less money as a result, since most people have already donated for the month.

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