Euroskillz

Donations so far

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...... 42 Euro
...... 30 Euro
...... 20 Euro
...... 50 Euro
...... 20 Euro
...... 8 Euro
...... 50 Euro
...... 30 Euro
...... 20 Euro
...... 30 Euro
...... 13 Euro
...... 30 Euro
...... 40 Euro
...... 30 Euro
...... 30 Euro
...... 40 Euro
...... 20 Euro
...... 10 Euro
...... 100 Euro
...... 100 Euro
...... 30 Euro
...... 300 Euro

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SUM 933 Euro

Sorry to bother you all with this but the time has come to think about another year with Euroskillz. To put it straight, I have to ask for help running it one more year, if you want. Euroskillz costs around 936 Euro per year and thats to much for me to handle myself. I can contribute with a substantial part of it, but I am more or less depending on the community to keep this up to June 2010.

For you who have been around for a while you know we have had fund raisings before. And with this help it has been possible to rent this kind of server. So why am I talking about this now, you might ask. Well, the servers have a 3 month cancel period and I have to decide before mid march to the beginning of April to continue or not. Personally I don't mind keeping it up, and see that it works and continue trying to make the best out of Euroskillz. But as I said, I'm afraid the total sum for a year is a bit to much for me to handle.

If you feel you can, and by that i mean you have a steady income, food to eat and a spare euro or 2, then maybe you could help out. I won't accept any donations if I feel you can't afford it. Ofc it is your responsibility, but I do not want people to do something stupid just because of this. If I believe this is the case I will say NO or refund you.

Euroskillz will only continue if there is a serious interest from serious people that want to keep it running and can afford to help.

The fund raising will also stop when I feel sure we can pay our rent. If we reach the dead line and there is not enough funds for a year I will refund every donator and cancel the contract, and thats it. But I hope that wont happen.

Why does it cost so much?

Euroskillz runs on a so called root server. That means we have a 200 GB hard drive, a linux operating system and a 100 mbit Internet connection. On this server we can run all we need and dont need any other service from any other place. It also means we decide how many servers we want to run, when to start them, when to stop them. It includes a web server, ftp server, sql server, php, mail so on so on. Today we run 6 TFC servers and 1 Fortress Forever server which are all included in this. If you would compare that to rent each game server separatelly you would see that this is much cheaper.

Euroskillz runs as a Root Expert server on Webtropia

If the miracle is here and we get enough funds I was thinking about migrating to Hetzner's DS 7000 server. They offer a lot more for 1047 euro/year. 79 euro/month and 99 euro in setup fee. A super server with a lot of space and resources to do a lot more than we do today. But more about that later.

What do donators get for helping?

All donators gets

• Simple admin functions
• Ingame rewards and a connect message showing you have helped
• Forum rank "Server donator"

Donations from 20 € to < 100 €

Your own server space, meaning ftp, web, sql, and maybe running small apps like ventrilo. (any abuse and server will be cancelled). Maybe a mail adress like yournick@euroskillz.eu?


Donations from 100 € and above

Donations from 100 € and above is a matter of negotiation, like running your own TFC server for example. It all depends on what you want.
The purpose of a donation is to help Euroskillz survive mainly, and it is not a way to buy admin Anyone have chance to become admin, when the need is there.

How do I donate?

All donations should be done to Euroskillz PayPal account euroskillz@hotmail.com. You need a PayPal account and/or a credit card or a bank account. The PayPal button on the webby takes you to a login page where you can add the donation, or login to an existing PayPal account.

IMPORTANT FOR INTERNET EXPLORER USERS: The PayPal button needs Session cookies to be allowed to work properly. By default it is not allowed in IE 7. It works for other browsers like Mozilla but if you use IE you should select in IE Tools/Internet Options/Privacy/Advanced/Always allow session cookies. This is a known problem with IE and PayPal. You can always change it back when you are done. Another option is to add http://www.paypal.com as a safe site in the Tools/Internet Options/Privacy/Places box. Then you can keep your current cookie settings.

What about the future of Euroskillz?

I think we can agree that TFC skillz should stay, as long as possible. The question is what to do when we don't conc, rjump, pipe, make conc avis, brag about insane jumps in the forum. I still want people to find out about TFC Skillz. To explore the vast custom content made over the years. But for us who are bored to death and need a break, what about us? CTF, FF, Fun, CSS, WoW, Sleep, Pizza??? A lot of voices have said "Start a ctf server and remove Euroskillz - Fun and Euroskillz - Jumps. That will probably happen or something like it. If I would add any other game it would be NS2 when it is released.

Whatever can be done to make the community stronger and grow is also a goal of course.

Thats the whole story I think. I will update the progress ingame and on the webby and hopefully we can keep on being together on Euroskillz for another year. But even if thats not the case, then maybe it was time to move on? Well, lets see during february and march.

Thanks for reading

// Lt Llama //

An NS fan then? I re-downloaded it a couple of months ago after half a year or so and was shocked to see how few players/servers there are now.

A query about the donation's, how do you know who is donating? I didn't see an "Additional Note Box" or anything like that in the paypal process to put in a steam id/forum name etc. Am I missing something? I don't think my real name/address will help much!

Yea, I loved NS. So many nights I spent in some troup chasing down aliens. Most epic team work fps shooter ever. I cant wait for NS2 to hit us and I am sure it will be huge.
And don't be sad about their community, they are still very strong compared to other games.

I get an e-mail from who donated. If I am not sure who you are I send an e-mail and ask. If you donate through PayPal you can also leave a message.

Ahhh! Jimbooooo . Got it . Sent you an e-mail.

TFC is a huge fave, and could say it's a hobby since I have no other interests. Even though it is the only game I play at the moment because my comp is buggered and can't run a thing. I doubt I'd be playing anything else anyway really.

I like ones on Quake Engine and Source like FF, I don't particularly care for anything else that includes consoles.

The reason why I am very active atm is due to health issues which means I'm out of work and have nothing else to do.

Unless I "grow out" of games altogether or changes in my life leave me no time, in which playing TFC is the last thing on my mind. Since I have been playing TFC since about 2001, I don't think I'll ever tire any time soon.


The whole running this thing to me seems like it's become quite a burden for you Llama. I know it would be too much of one for me. You have and do put a lot into it all. If you really do have high enthusiasm in this and enjoy it then great. I just don't want to feel your keeping it going more so for others rather than yourself.

Well, this post is becoming even more drivel , 10:32am.

i'll have to setup a PayPal account, I'm pretty skint but I'll be happy to chip in €20 if I can.

Well, as I said before the drop of players and some draw backs in the community took some enthusiasm away. At least when they happened. Youre intuition isnt wrong though, if that is what it is, that you feel a lack of Llama ingame and a lack of initiatives.
Maybe you thought "maybe he got tired of it all". Yes, some days I just have felt like sending all passwords to all of you and just hand it over .

But then someone comes along with a new map, a new avi, someone ingame gets hooked.

But after today I'm up and kicking. In 2 days we have reached 250 euro in donations which is far more than I could have expected. And it shows that there are quite a lot of people who value this and want it kept, some people even forever .

Suck on that medicin Paft and I'm sure you get well pretty soon .

No real update from before regarding the renewal. Except the fact that many have helped out a lot, this year to. And it is not just the donations but also everyone who said they would hate Ez to go away. You who done your best to convince me that you want Ez to stay. And those of you who stayed active.

Right now this will be my top priority. I do not expect any more donations. Even though some of you said you will help. But the last part have to be covered so I will do my best to cover it. But that means I will be away for a while trying to get the funding needed. I want it all to be covered for a whole year, and not live on credit. And I want to fix it now.

I have been thinking about moving or not to another server but as it looks we stay.
The work I have done on the system to meet our needs are to much. And it is not just a case of zip and copy. There are tons of tweeks and configs and utils. The servers works for most of us.

Anyway. Until I am sure this is covered I wont be ingame much. But believe me when I say that I will do my best to make it happen .

Cheers and thanks for all the help so far . Youre the best <3

/Lt

I've said it on the servers a couple of times, but i'm not donating this time.

The reason for this is dual

1. these servers rape me, its been getting alot worse lately, pingboosts to 150 and back down, never lower then 70 though wich is plainly not good either.

2. i fail to see the need to pay for this package again. 3 skill servers, 1ctf, 1 fun, 1 guild, 2 ff, and the only servers full or partially full alot are the medium and jump/fun servers, sometimes the hard server.
I suggest 2 or 3 servers: 1 Medium/hard, 1easy, 1jump.

with that packet this stuff would cost alot less i reckon.

Anyway llama, you can still try to convince me

PS: there is allso a third reason, i've inactive a bit lately, but that could allways come back so not a real reason

_________________
[ConC]Renegade-u|c-|Ap|-zG-: brb, need a fag, this jump is gay as medic

Which servers works for you Dia?
You havent changed provider or?

It could be done cheaper but not as a root server.

We wouldnt have the storage capacity for all the content.
We wouldnt have the bandwidth to upload it.
To move it all to one game server and rent a web server on the side. That is ofc doable and cheaper but I'm not sure thats the Euroskillz I wanna be part of. A 16 slot server crammed with elite + nubs + jumpers + specs. A great great nutrition for eternal flaming.

Euroskillz have done a lot for TFC and for FF. And the servers have provided tools for mappers, avi makers, tryouters, coders, forum goers, irc idlers, ventrilo, the guild, side by side with live game servers. This server have made a lot possible and hopefully made the life span of skillz a bit longer.

It is a far from perfect server but in the rear mirror a huge success. I couldnt have dreamt about it 3 years ago. You where one of those that made it possible.

Now I will put a spell on your connection Dia

/me makes Dias lag spikes go away

So, now all is fine again :=).

I hope your spell works

but seriously, i think its time to face the facts: keeping 5 or 6 servers up and running is useless when at any given time none of them are full, and mostly on 2 of them have people playing in it.

On a side note: llama where is your avatar that i spent hours on working (or was it 5 min )

_________________
[ConC]Renegade-u|c-|Ap|-zG-: brb, need a fag, this jump is gay as medic

So what are you suggesting Diablo?
Shut down or continue and, if continue, in what form do you believe it would fill up a server?

like i said: continue with less servers. 1 or 2 should suffice, rather then 8
I'm sure this would be alot cheaper

_________________
[ConC]Renegade-u|c-|Ap|-zG-: brb, need a fag, this jump is gay as medic

wow @ 300 !!!

i'm willing to donate the last 10€ then

_________________
[ConC]Renegade-u|c-|Ap|-zG-: brb, need a fag, this jump is gay as medic

f**k me, 300 i don't usually read the homepage info but that grabbed my attention!!!

whoever you are if you plan to continue this little spending spree my car insurance is about £1800 ...........

_________________
[Ez|hC]Renegade.iC.p|M-eC-[ConC]-u|c-|Ap|-zG-
[Ez|L]diablo`-: 5 can't be done nn
[Ez|L]diablo`-: wtf??
ADMIN [Ez|L]diablo`-: enabled noclip on [Ez|L]diablo`-

Nice one Mr. Millionaire!

But still 3 euros short, what a shame. R.I.P Euroskillz.