Marzec on 13/11/2019 at 21:30
Hi folks!
Last month I launched the possibility to fund the Thief Guild project in an official way: (
https://liberapay.com/ThiefGuild.com/)
Since server expenses are not something that can be circumvented, I've set up the means to accept donations. Donations will also contribute to the development of new functionality, as well as the improvement of existing features. I am interested in hearing from the Thief community regarding ways that ThiefGuild can be made into a useful, and often used resource.
EDIT: Based on @A.Stahl questions, I want to make sure the announcement is clear here: This is not a crowdfunding project launch...The
second part of this post is - I am planning to figure out whether Thief Guild portal could be formally converted to an official Thief fan club. I would like to use the Thief brand and universe elements having a legal basis, and promote the game as well as the copyright holder at the same time, e.g. by the portal itself and by selling some SWAGs. I would like to contact the right persons. Did anyone of you tried or planned to do something like that in the past already?
If you prefer e-mail: konrad (at) thiefguild.com
Cheers
A.Stahl on 14/11/2019 at 10:02
So you want money to make business on this game? What is in it for us, players? What is the reason to fund you?
Marzec on 14/11/2019 at 11:16
Hi A.Stahl. The donation statement is available at Liberapay:
Quote:
ThiefGuild.com is a Thief Series and Related Games Fan Mission Database.
By donating, you say "Thank you" to the project creator
Additionally, your donations go to:
Domain and server expenses
Disk storage and backup expenses
Maintenance
Administration
Moderation
Improving existing features, fixing bugs
Adding new features
New features are agreed by team members. If you donate, you are in a VIP group that helps us in choosing the next features.
NOTE: Donations must not be linked to a contract nor a promise of recompense, which means we cannot give you any warranty for above statement.
To make business - let's say so. Since web development is already a business I run for a few years now, I constantly keep thinking how I could monetize this side project, so that it could be developed further into something much better. Selling some SWAGs to a few interested fans wont be a big business for me. But I thought it is worth trying - maybe a revenue share with the copyright holder would be something they will be insterested in supporting my initiative (saying yes to intellectual property usage).
I don't know if I naswered your question precisely, so to clarify: I don't want money to make business on this game. The intellectual property usage and an online shop depends on the copyright holders completely - not you and me. That's why I try to speak to them. The donations, on the other hand, contribute to the website development, which I hope can be cleary read from my post and donation page statement.
Psych0sis on 14/11/2019 at 13:34
I'd sooner donate to TTLG or southquarter because of their reach/prominence in the community as well as the actual hosting of FM downloads, neither of which your site seems to do at the current moment. I mean, half your missions don't even have download links and those that do just link to the downloads hosted on the other already mentioned sites.
You have something neat with the FM rating/review system but it seems either so few people know about it or don't want to participate in it because, well, they can just do it in the mission threads here.
You should try to just build the foundation of your site a little bit more, get a solid base, and work with the admins here to have it be a part of the FM playing process (just be a host site ffs). Asking for money so soon in the site's life cycle and with a kinda muddy focus on what exactly you want it to be (I'd forget the forums and other nonsense and just be a download site with reviews built in) comes off as just trying to make a quick buck off the community, which isn't inherently wrong, I'm sure it's a lot of work and it's fine to want compensation, but it could leave a sour taste in the mouths of most people.
Marzec on 14/11/2019 at 14:22
Thank you for your comment, Psych0sis. It's natural you're trying to compare ThiefGuild to TTLG or Southquarter. Both of them serve as a fan mission database of some kind. I'm surprised you describe my focus as "kinda muddy", but you have right to do so. I agree my focus on the portal is mainly programming and web development. Thus, the content itself still lacks a lot. Being a software engineer, I know how to automate some repetitive tasks and how to replace other tasks with user input. As an example, (
https://www.thiefguild.com/robot/2/lord-lockpick) my robot updated 113 mission download links up to now, while we have 1300+ missions in total. That is not much (still while other missions download links are updated manually), but it's already something. I often face a bug in processing of the hosting websites' content, which slowes down the whole long term process. That's completely fine, since all hosting websites from our community are not any kind of professional hosting website with an API or something. That's why it's OK to have these problems, just let's make the fact clear that working on it is time consuming and I never have as much time as I want to focus on so many aspects of ThiefGuild portal and the software behind it.
I don't know what you mean by "quick buck off the community", I am not a native english speaker - maybe you could rephrase that? By consulting it with the dictionary, it doesn't sound as a positive connotation. If you mean my intention is to split or mess with the community, you are totally wrong and, being surprised, I have no idea what makes you think this way. "Forums" section on ThiefGuild portal is designed to provide a standard way of communication between website users - it's totally wrong to assume that it tries to compete with TTLG. It doesn't even use any kind of mature BBS or other forum-based CMS.
Quote:
You should try to just build the foundation of your site a little bit more, get a solid base
It will be never enough to stop and say "now done, I have a solid base" :) By working on a project like this by myself, I am happy with every small and medium sized accomplishment. It's totally clear for me why users' would like to see more content and better content. Unfortunately nobody has the time to provide it (exept a few wonderful volunteers I need to say thank you to :) ).
Thank you guys for your contributions into the database descriptions:
1. Garrett TMT (340 submitted changes!)
2. DrKubiac
3. PinkDot
4. Hadrian
5. DirkBogan
6. tolsen64
7. leconbras
8. NitramAkloh
9. Yandros
With your help, the directory is getting closer to its main objective.
@Psych0sis, other way of fixing the content problem is providing the descriptions to the missions you are author of.
Quote:
and work with the admins here to have it be a part of the FM playing process (just be a host site ffs).
I can not make money on something that has questionable copyright use. Most of the FMs are copyright-fine, meaning they do not use any intellectual property of another person, without a proper approval. But some of them (even the most popular ones) include graphics or sounds with questionable approval from its (commercial) owner. This makes me unable to host the files myself. However I am planning to allow FM authors to upload files to my website themselves. Then, I (or other website admins) will make their best to verify if the content is legal, and eventually remove it - if you know what I mean ;)
