Donations

What do you guys think about TF2Center accepting money donations?

We received this comment on the Meet the Team page on the blog (blog.tf2center.com):

"You guys should start accepting donations. I know many people, including myself, who would happily pay to get better servers, because when there's 400+ people on the site it sometimes lags alot. We really think that this is site is what the tf2 community needs, so keep up the good work guys."

MasterNoob has been paying the servers out of his own pocket for a long ass time, and perhaps it could be time to accept minor donations to help pay for the server costs? Or perhaps accepting donations so early (We are still in beta) seems too pushy and greedy?

Another idea i have is create a bot (like scrap.tf does) that accepts various TF2/CS:GO/DotA2 Items as donations, and maybe display a fancy donator badge on someones TF2Center profile?

gib thougths plz

I'd happily chip in to help out, I know first hand how expensive server hosting can be. I'd start small and allow donations for a token of appreciation (site medal or similar). Once the service grows in popularity you can offer more perks, but I'd be very careful not to fall into a "Pay-to-Win" scenario.

Well i don't think there are any good perks you can offer people for donating without being unfair about it. We've suggested amongst eachother to be able to take spots from players with low reliability, although i found that suggestion ludicrous, i don't have any better ideas myself.. Flashy text and glittering names would be hella annoying as well

Wouldn't hurt to just put a paypal donate button up, see what you get. Might be something you can announce around the same time you announce the forums officially.

We'd need to check various laws with accepting cash donations - for example, while they are donations I have no idea how much would be donated and whether it would be taxable.

We've historically accepted donations in the form of items for our efforts but not advertised/asked for them. Once the site goes live we may reconsider this position, but one thing I want to ensure is that they are donations, and do not affect you / others gameplay. Offering some perks / donator hall of fame would be cool for example, but better rights / preferential treatment are a no for me.

While it may seem a bit crap, there must be no obligation on our part based on donations.

I know you have to be very careful with the paypal donate option. Paypal is not generally nice to vendors if they even slightly misuse it and it could get your funds seized.

In general though I think having a way to donate would be good, if that's through paypal or another system. I'd also consider looking at adding bitcoin. Possibly ESEA will donate :3

 

consider looking at adding bitcoin. Possibly ESEA will donate :3

haha

I was thinking for the donations, let us have custom profile things like an image background or this http://i.imgur.com/bNquhmM.png

let us have custom profile things like an image background or this http://i.imgur.com/bNquhmM.png

Custom text in the balloon was planned from start http://screencast.com/t/zR7Z1rxgZH5

Regarding custom backgrounds.... I will think. It might be unlockable option for donators only, muhaha

Btw, Chan, your avatar always makes my heart constrict because of pity. I scary to imagine, what are you going to say in this balloon

I was going to link my youtube channel in it

Possibly Donator status on the forums as well as a private forum for themselves. A simple name upgrade that isn't flashy, like bolding their name or something similar? 

I think some people won't need perks to donate, they'll donate anyway because they appreciate the site and realise it's importance. Whether that will be enough for you guys is another matter altogether.

However I will probably donate if this is implemented (provided I can afford it) because this site is the entire reason I got into comp tf2  and being a former server owner and administrator I know how much time and money has to be put into these things for them to be successful.

I can't give much but I can give something at least.

Donations are a good idea, and probably the best way for you to keep the site up without one person having to pay for everything out of pocket.

if you do decide to accept donations in the future it would be great if you accept both paypal and item donations.  Some people don't like to donate actual money but would donate items (keys/buds) that you can sell for money while others (such as myself) would prefer to donate directly with paypal because if we have items we have them for a reason and that reason is probably not to give them away ....

Donations are a good idea, and probably the best way for you to keep the site up without one person having to pay for everything out of pocket.

 

if you do decide to accept donations in the future it would be great if you accept both paypal and item donations.  Some people don't like to donate actual money but would donate items (keys/buds) that you can sell for money while others (such as myself) would prefer to donate directly with paypal because if we have items we have them for a reason and that reason is probably not to give them away ....

My only concern with this is that key and bud prices fluctuate wildly and so determining the value of keys and buds in monetary terms is a tricky thing to do. http://tf2finance.com/

What about a tf2Center server pool that is only available to people who donate? Tf2Center servers could show up at the top of the Lobby list to increase visibility and possibly fill faster. Maybe they could have a special "Tf2Center" badge appear around them so people know the server is quality? "Hosted by tf2Center VIP" or something like that.

People could also "Donate" servers to tf2 center. You could make a section for server admins to add and remove their servers to the pool at will. For example, I rent a 20 slot NFO sever that I only use for lobbies. But I work for most of the day so I could easily add my server to the pool for the 8 hours while I'm at work, and then take it out of the pool when I get home and want to use it for myself.

 

People could also "Donate" servers to tf2 center. You could make a section for server admins to add and remove their servers to the pool at will. For example, I rent a 20 slot NFO sever that I only use for lobbies. But I work for most of the day so I could easily add my server to the pool for the 8 hours while I'm at work, and then take it out of the pool when I get home and want to use it for myself.

I really like this idea.  As it is I just use a private steam Group so I can invite people I know who lobby to it so they have my server info and can use it for lobbying, but even then it doesn't get used a whole lot.  I would certainly be interested in putting my server in a tf2 center server pool especially if I can do so "at will" meaning that I could take it out of the pool when I wanted the server or maybe even have it be available only during certain hours so we could set it for the times when we work/sleep and it is automatically taken out of the pool outside of whatever hours we set.

I would love to donate

Status changed to "In progress"

The steam bot for accepting items is/was/still is a work in progress, but someone is working on it.

Totally agree with donations, but to make people more wanting to donate how about adding some donation perks? Like your name when you write something in the chat will appear green or something like that, but not anything that whould be like unfair against other users

Totally agree with donations, but to make people more wanting to donate how about adding some donation perks? Like your name when you write something in the chat will appear green or something like that, but not anything that whould be like unfair against other users

Shouldn't the fact that people like to use the site be enough to get them to donate?