Aurora 4x

Announcements => Announcements => Topic started by: Erik L on March 10, 2025, 04:26:35 PM

Title: Hosting Donations
Post by: Erik L on March 10, 2025, 04:26:35 PM
I have changed the address from eluken@pentarch to aurora@pentarch. If anyone has a current subscription, please cancel the current subscription and set up a new one.

The hosting costs for this year were $1332 USD. They've been going up around 30-50 a year, so I expect next year's to be around 1360.
Title: Re: Hosting Donations
Post by: Steve Walmsley on March 10, 2025, 07:13:22 PM
Please contribute if you can, even if its only a small amount. I was the one who encouraged Erik to publish the actual cost, as it was far higher than I realised.

I think the absence of the forums in the last few weeks highlighted just how useful they are. You don't really appreciate something until it isn't there any more.
Title: Re: Hosting Donations
Post by: Black on March 11, 2025, 12:26:36 AM
Well, that is certainly more than I expected.

Are the links in paid subscriptions page current or do I have to set it up manually in PayPal? I canceled the old subscription there, but I am not sure about new one.

Anyway, much thanks to Erik for taking care of the forum. Despite using Discord, I still consider forum as the main hub for Aurora and it would definitely be incomplete experience without it.
Title: Re: Hosting Donations
Post by: Erik L on March 11, 2025, 03:27:48 PM
I have changed the address from eluken@pentarch to aurora@pentarch. If anyone has a current subscription, please cancel the current subscription and set up a new one.

The hosting costs for this year were $1332 USD. They've been going up around 30-50 a year, so I expect next year's to be around 1360.

The invoice for next year is 1392. A bit more than I expected. :( But it is not due until 19 Jan 26.
Title: Re: Hosting Donations
Post by: Erik L on March 11, 2025, 04:08:44 PM
Well, that is certainly more than I expected.

Are the links in paid subscriptions page current or do I have to set it up manually in PayPal? I canceled the old subscription there, but I am not sure about new one.

Anyway, much thanks to Erik for taking care of the forum. Despite using Discord, I still consider forum as the main hub for Aurora and it would definitely be incomplete experience without it.

As far as I know it is.
Title: Re: Hosting Donations
Post by: Erik L on March 11, 2025, 04:24:51 PM
When you make a donation, please send me an IM so I can match you to your forum acct. Thank you.
Title: Re: Hosting Donations
Post by: Warer on March 11, 2025, 05:18:17 PM
Holy hell thank you so much Erik I never would have imagined this cost that much. I know I'm not really active but this site and this game have been with me since high school and helped me throughout it all. It's helped build and maintain my passion for sci fi and stoked my creativity in a lot of ways. If I had a job I would donate.
Title: Re: Hosting Donations
Post by: Ragnarsson on March 11, 2025, 05:25:52 PM
Are there any other possible methods of donation besides PayPal? For those of us without a PayPal account, and who do not desire one.
Title: Re: Hosting Donations
Post by: Erik L on March 11, 2025, 06:09:28 PM
Are there any other possible methods of donation besides PayPal? For those of us without a PayPal account, and who do not desire one.

Anything else I have is tied to my own accts and this paypal is strictly for the forums. We could figure something out.
Title: Re: Hosting Donations
Post by: Mark Yanning on March 12, 2025, 06:13:04 AM
Can you confirm your right paypal mail to make donations? Is it the Steve paypal?
Neverming, just found it in the profile. It works!
Title: Re: Hosting Donations
Post by: SpaceMarine on March 12, 2025, 07:37:09 AM
I am having issues actually getting payment to go through on the subscriptions atleast through my profile it wont accept my paypal login/payment.
Title: Re: Hosting Donations
Post by: Mark Yanning on March 12, 2025, 11:18:50 AM
I just managed to make a donation through the profile, via Paypal. It seems working well for me
Title: Re: Hosting Donations
Post by: SpaceMarine on March 12, 2025, 06:53:28 PM
Yea i cant get my paypal to work with the subscription, erik if you send me a dm with the actual paypal account i can send my planned donation directly if that works?
Title: Re: Hosting Donations
Post by: Erik L on March 12, 2025, 10:17:09 PM
The address to make donations is aurora@pentarch.org. If you do this directly, please don't use Friends & Family. I know there is no fee this way, but Paypal is squawking about it. Donations sent to my paypal are not automatically flagged as forum donations. :)
Title: Re: Hosting Donations
Post by: SpaceMarine on March 13, 2025, 06:32:50 AM
Sent
Title: Re: Hosting Donations
Post by: nakorkren on March 16, 2025, 04:12:08 PM
I've donated.
Title: Re: Hosting Donations
Post by: Snoman314 on March 16, 2025, 11:44:38 PM
I've spent a few minutes looking around for a donate link and can't find it. Sorry if it's obvious, but where do I look?
Title: Re: Hosting Donations
Post by: karax268 on March 17, 2025, 02:41:49 AM
go to profile, then under actions there is tab for paid subscriptions
Title: Re: Hosting Donations
Post by: viperfan7 on March 17, 2025, 09:38:15 PM
Are there any other possible methods of donation besides PayPal? For those of us without a PayPal account, and who do not desire one.

Anything else I have is tied to my own accts and this paypal is strictly for the forums. We could figure something out.

Could try something like patreon? Yeah, they take a cut, but, at the same time, they handle the actual transaction
Title: Re: Hosting Donations
Post by: welchbloke on March 18, 2025, 05:00:10 AM
I had the same issue with Paypal preventing donations via the link from my profile. I have sent direct and will IM Erik to link with my profile. Thanks for highlighting how much the hosting costs Erik, I will definitely be supporting from now on!
Title: Re: Hosting Donations
Post by: GodEmperor on March 18, 2025, 03:09:14 PM
Yeah Patreon/KoFI or something else would be cool. I dont want to do business with PayPal for all their smeg.
Title: Re: Hosting Donations
Post by: Erik L on March 18, 2025, 04:11:33 PM
Are there any other possible methods of donation besides PayPal? For those of us without a PayPal account, and who do not desire one.

Anything else I have is tied to my own accts and this paypal is strictly for the forums. We could figure something out.

Could try something like patreon? Yeah, they take a cut, but, at the same time, they handle the actual transaction

Paypal takes a bite too. I will look into Patreon.
Title: Re: Hosting Donations
Post by: Erik L on March 18, 2025, 04:31:04 PM
I pre-emptively canceled all of the subscriptions to the old address. Any funds collected thus far will be transferred to the new account. No action is needed by you. Anyone wishing to subscribe via the new address is more than welcome to do so.
Title: Re: Hosting Donations
Post by: Profugo Barbatus on March 18, 2025, 05:05:22 PM
Had the cancellation notice come though just now, had to go digging to figure out what it even was, been a bit since I played Aurora. Apparently I've been backing since 2021, via the profile subscriptions. Still listing as active in there too. Do I need to do anything for it to redirect?
Title: Re: Hosting Donations
Post by: Erik L on March 18, 2025, 07:49:56 PM
Had the cancellation notice come though just now, had to go digging to figure out what it even was, been a bit since I played Aurora. Apparently I've been backing since 2021, via the profile subscriptions. Still listing as active in there too. Do I need to do anything for it to redirect?

You'd need to set up a new subscription here. It will use the new address. Thank you for your backing though :)
Title: Re: Hosting Donations
Post by: Froggiest1982 on March 18, 2025, 09:11:34 PM
Had the cancellation notice come though just now, had to go digging to figure out what it even was, been a bit since I played Aurora. Apparently I've been backing since 2021, via the profile subscriptions. Still listing as active in there too. Do I need to do anything for it to redirect?

You'd need to set up a new subscription here. It will use the new address. Thank you for your backing though :)

A new subscription will be appreciated, mine expred during the recent down period and need to restart it.
Title: Re: Hosting Donations
Post by: jackbrownii on March 18, 2025, 09:47:04 PM
Odd. PayPal wouldn't let me set up a recurring subscription. Only let me do a one off.
Title: Re: Hosting Donations
Post by: Neophyte on March 19, 2025, 08:18:22 AM
Odd. PayPal wouldn't let me set up a recurring subscription. Only let me do a one off.

Same here, but the CC I use is expiring this year so that might have been the problem for me.  Guess I'd better set a reminder!
Title: Re: Hosting Donations
Post by: GhostIsGone on March 19, 2025, 08:44:34 AM
Why does running a forum cost nearly $1400 per year? We operate a couple of small-scale websites that handle not an insignificant amount of traffic just fine on a $40/month VPS, with plenty of resources to spare. What am I missing here that's causing the cost of a forum to be this exorbitantly high?
Title: Re: Hosting Donations
Post by: Erik L on March 19, 2025, 11:38:44 AM
Why does running a forum cost nearly $1400 per year? We operate a couple of small-scale websites that handle not an insignificant amount of traffic just fine on a $40/month VPS, with plenty of resources to spare. What am I missing here that's causing the cost of a forum to be this exorbitantly high?

Unlimited bandwidth. unlimited database resources, etc. I was having issues with previous providers throttling bandwidth even with "unlimited" and that caused the forums to be non-functional.
Title: Re: Hosting Donations
Post by: alex_brunius on March 20, 2025, 11:58:34 AM
Sorry to sound like a bit of a douche here, but if someone needs/charges over $100 month to Host a 20 year old forum with 1-2k daily visits, and then the site goes down for days or weeks... then they are clearly doing something very very VERY wrong and I have absolutely no interest in giving them money out of principle alone.

What are the needs of the server in terms of Traffic, CPU, Memory and Disc space? I am sure someone here or on discord would love to help out to find a better hosting service for the Forum.
Title: Re: Hosting Donations
Post by: Erik L on March 20, 2025, 07:39:17 PM
The recent issues with the forums were not technical in nature.
Title: Re: Hosting Donations
Post by: GodEmperorHay on March 20, 2025, 08:51:28 PM
Huzzah!