Kickstarter The REBUILDING EN WORLD Kickstarter Project

[Morrus]

We're building a new EN World after we were hacked in December. Please help us do that!

As you may know, EN World was hacked in December 2012. The entire site was destroyed, and I'm building it again from scratch. While the basic functionality is there (news and forums), much of the functionality built up over a decade was lost. I need to hire developers to recode all that cool stuff, but that takes time and - more importantly - money. While EN World ain't going anywhere, I'm turning to the community with whose help we can restore much of what was lost within a few months.


Our goal, put simply: EN World will be FAST, it will be RELIABLE, and it will have AWESOME FEATURES. It will also, most importantly, STILL BE AROUND FOR YEARS TO COME! And we all want that, right? Right?

You can find the Kickstarter project here: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/enworld/rebuilding-en-world

Please help me to get this site back on its feet again, and ready to face the next ten years. Thank you.

 

[Thanee]

Well, that was fast. When I hit it earlier, it was below £200 still. Now it's £1,500 already.

Bye
Thanee

 

[CAFRedblade]

And it's now up over 2k (hmm. don't know the pound sign on US keyboard, eh, oh well)
Glad to be supporting this, got in early. Me thinks the thermometer graphic on the kickstarter page will need to be updated soon to show it bursting through the glass. Congrats Morrus.

 

[Matt James]

I'm glad I could contribute. It's a worthy cause. Keep up the great work.

 

[RangerWickett]

So Russ, are you going to add stretch goals, or just ask Kickstarter to end the drive early so you can get the process started now?

 

[GX.Sigma]

It's awesome that the Kickstarter is doing so well so soon.

Can I pledge American money then? How does that work?

Edit: Apparently it works just fine. Glad to help!

 

[Thanee]

Here's a stretch goal proposal.

Stretch Goal: Add a reserve (£500-2,000), that is only used for emergencies, i.e. when the site is running slow or is down.

It could also be split between multiple £500 goals each adding to the reserve.

I think this would be very useful and something most if not all supporters would be quite happy about.

Bye
Thanee

 

[Echohawk]

Stretch Goal: Add a reserve (£500-2,000), that is only used for emergencies, i.e. when the site is running slow or is down.

While it is never a bad plan to have a pile of money in reserve for emergencies¹, I'm not sure that it will necessarily be helpful if the site gets slow or goes down. For those problems, having a retainer agreement already in place with someone capable of fixing server problems in a hurry is substantially more useful than a heap of cash. And a proper retainer agreement is likely to have recurring monthly costs rather than only needing lump sum payments occasionally.

I'm just really glad that Morrus worries about details like that, and all the other business aspects of keeping this site running!

¹ Unless, say, the emergency is that terrorists have coated the world's supply of currency with a deadly nano-toxin, which they can activate remotely at will, in which case it would be a very bad idea to have a pile of money around. So perhaps "almost never" then.

 

[Thanee]

Yeah, but as it stands now, without a recurring maintenance contract or a permanently employed tech admin/programmer, Morrus has to hire someone freelance to deal with any problems that arise.

Having a reserve for such a case seems extremely useful to me.

And apparantly, judging by the necessity to kickstart it, there is no such thing currently.

Bye
Thanee

 

[Echohawk]

So you're suggesting "permanently employed tech admin/programmer" as one of the stretch goals then?

 

[Morrus]

So Russ, are you going to add stretch goals, or just ask Kickstarter to end the drive early so you can get the process started now?

I've already added one stretch goal. Remember Wild Spellcraft from 2001-ish?

 

[Morrus]

Please keep those stretch goal ideas rolling in! I have an idea (man, I didn't think I'd have to worry about stretch goals!) which I'm going to approach a publisher about; I don't know what they'll say, though.

A permanently employed programmer wouldn't work well -- the salary would be too high, and he/she would spend much of the year doing nothing! But some sort of ongoing maintenance contract might be doable - I'll put out some feelers. It's not the sort of thing small sites like this can typically manage (I imagine the FARKS and AICN's and the like have that sort of thing in place though).

 

[Thanee]

So you're suggesting "permanently employed tech admin/programmer" as one of the stretch goals then?

No, I am speaking of a realistic, achievable goal here.

Bye
Thanee

 

[sheadunne]

Just glad I could give something back. And while I like the generic blue/white of the current site, I do find myself missing the black template of yore (even if it did kill my eyes).

Best of luck!

 

[Thanee]

You can change the site template to black background with grey text in your settings.

Bye
Thanee

 

[Kaodi]

Hard to say what EN World could use in terms of site functionality that is really necessary and not more easily accomplished by other means. Do we still have integrated access to the #enworld IRC chat room? Not that we necessarily need it. Maps for PbP are easily done in Paint.

Was the Calendar (which I did not even realize we had until I just went to look for it) integrated with the geography of the Gamers Seeking Gamers system before?

 

[Wednesday Boy]

Is there any chance of you adding more "IMMORTALITY!" pledge backers or are the backer levels set in stone?

 

[Morrus]

Just glad I could give something back. And while I like the generic blue/white of the current site, I do find myself missing the black template of yore (even if it did kill my eyes).

If you go to the bottom left of any page, you'll find a little style selector that you'll love!

 

[Morrus]

Hard to say what EN World could use in terms of site functionality that is really necessary and not more easily accomplished by other means. Do we still have integrated access to the #enworld IRC chat room? Not that we necessarily need it. Maps for PbP are easily done in Paint.

Sure; I recognise we're talking about convenience here.

Was the Calendar (which I did not even realize we had until I just went to look for it) integrated with the geography of the Gamers Seeking Gamers system before?

It was, yep!

Is there any chance of you adding more "IMMORTALITY!" pledge backers or are the backer levels set in stone?

Unfortunately not - 10 NPCs is already a lot! Otherwise the AP will just be overwashed with custom NPCs. However, I'm open to other ideas.

 

[billd91]

Minor Milestone. I believe I am backer #100.