Well met, and Happy 2008!
It's time for a couple announcements, so without further adieu, let's proceed!
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#1 BIG ANNOUNCEMENT:We're pleased to announce that the Dynaverse Gaming Association has FINALLY been accepted in the State of Texas as a filed and offical non-profit corporation. To that extent, we've launched the official DGA website - you can access it here:
http://sfcdga.org or
http://dynaversegamingassociation.org.
(big thanks to SFHQ_XC who did the site!)
You can view the legal paperwork, and we'll be listing the donations and who donated on this site as well. We're working on getting the financials available now that we're a legal non-profit, and we've started working on the 501.c with the Internal Revenue service.
Why all the hubbub? Well, the original concept of forming the DGA was simply to protect the SFC assets I currently hold - the SFC EAW / OP / SFC3 directory services, and now the SFC EAW Source code. Since these items are listed as assets of the DGA, it's now impossible for any other agency or individual to :
A.) Use these assets to run their own directory services
B.) Use these assets to charge for access to the directory services.
C.) Use these assets to create a new / updated version of EAW and charge you for it.
As you all know, we've been working steadily on getting the EAW Source set up for our development team. I'm pleased to announce that several of the most notable SFC community sites have all announced their support of our project, as well as offered resources. Now, as you know, Dynaverse.Net has always been about the community - and we see this collectively as a chance to work on something we've always wanted - the best of SFC rolled into one - and bring our community together in a way that's not been done before.
We've secured the brightest talent in regards to models and textures, names you likely know and respect, and plan on coming up with updated graphics as well as some other goodies... so stick around and just watch as we go.
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#2 BIG ANNOUNCEMENT:It's that time again! Dynaverse.Net's yearly fund raiser! As you all know, Dynaverse.Net is operated by the Dynaverse Gaming Association, which is a non-profit corporation. This year, our goal is to raise enough cash to build a new server for D.Net. We're expecting the cost to be around $1500 total, but this includes a new chassis, dual opteron's, a nice 4 GB for memory, and several SATA drives in a RAID to ensure no data loss. We can then transition the original D.Net server over to a more suitable role, as it's certainly starting to show signs of it's age.
Want a faster, zippier D.Net? Then dig in deep, and donate. You can go
HERE to donate. And remember, donate more than $25 dollars and you become a voting member of the DGA! This entitles you to become an even more active member of the SFC community, as you'll get to participate in DGA voting events!
Remember, it's *YOU* who help keep Dynaverse.Net, the teamspeak server, the IRC servers, and most importantly the Directory servers running. We cannot stress how important it is to be able to plan and implement some of these upgrades. Consider:
The Gaming server upgrade: THOR was rebuilt into a pretty robust server (Athlon XP 64 2.1Ghz, 1 GB DDR 2, SATA, etc) and as such the community benefits - (now Campaign servers can run full throttle without worries) all in all this cost me about $500 on just parts to get everything where it needed to be...and that was just a couple hard drives and two sticks of memory. This doesn't include the monthly bills to provide:
1.) Shelter
2.) Power
3.) Maintenance
4.) Backup components for critical failures.
You may think that we've just got a couple servers sitting in a office somewhere, but it's much more than that. Each server is backed up fully once a week, with alternating incrementals each day. We've got a tape drive that we could drop secondary backups onto - if we had some tapes. There's a LOT of stuff going on in the background that we here at Dynaverse.Net do for infrastructure that doesn't come cheap - but I'll have nothing less. In the almost 10 years of my history hosting sites and services online, I've had no more than 2 days of continual service interruption - meaning the servers / sites have been offline for no more than 2 days.
So we really try to utilize a very professional attitude towards the infrastructure we utilize to provide you with these services for free! All we ask is that during our fund raiser, you see if you can donate whatever you can IF you can. As we always state, donations are *NOT* a requirement to use the services... but the more donations we have, the better we'll be able to provide those services and much more.
Bottom line - the more you contribute, the easier I can make it for our developers. The more you donate, the easier I can deal with the likes of Paramount in regards to licensing of the ST francise. The more you donate, the longer we're going to be around!
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That's pretty much it! Check out the DGA site, and please think about donating. If just 100 people donated $10, that's $1000 and we're 2/3rds of the way towards that new server! If you have server hardware you'd like to donate, by all means simply contact me via PM and we can set something up!
Of course, the last thing we want to say to you all is
If it were not for your continuing generosity, and support, we'd likely not be here today, atleast in the shape we're in! The SFC community is quickly becoming one of the longest running communities online, and considering the first SFC game came out in July of 1999 and it's now 2007 and we're still going strong that's quite a feat.
It couldn't have happened with out you, my friends.
We look forward to another 8 years of companionship, fun and gaming with you all!
Regards,
Frey & the D.Net Admin team
Topic: 2008 Fundraiser is launched !!! Important information you should read! (Read 15479 times)