Morning all! Once again, the bill for the COH Rebirth servers are now due. There are a couple of line items that are different this time and one new charge. First here's a break down of the line items being charged:
Planned Bills (for six months)
- 2x $456.00 : These are rented baremetal servers that hold the Main Live server and the public PTS server. (as well as some web components)
- $240.00 : This is the staff's internal PTS server (Alpha). This server pretty much lets the staff make changes to the code and test internally before we push it to the public PTS. We tried to run two servers on one box by toggling which one you log in to but that caused issues when people consistently tried to log in on the PTS server outside of the test times. So this server was bought last time to accommodate that change.
- $15.00 : This is a VPS server currently hosting the Discord PPD Drone and log viewer. Late this year, we'll be moving away from this to another ticketing solution while trying to get the in-game petition system to push to the Discord. (We had this working at some point but it broke when the Docker config we previously used broke down.)
- $30.00 : This is currently being used to host the web forums, wiki, and the beta ground for the new web page.
- A credit of $342.58 was applied because we shut down an extra server that was no longer in use (our old Git server which we migrated over to the new Beta box flawlessly).
The new item that hasn't been billed is a $99.00 flat charge for our webmail server. We're going with MXRoute for our webhosting. This will allow us to get all of the email functionality (Wiki activation and Forum activation emails and possibly even game world password reset emails) off of the boxes (which are being blocked somehow) and moved over to a separate web instance. Once this is paid for, we'll swap our DNS configuration to THAT particular email service and drop the Postfix and other failed SMTP configs from the VPS systems.
Poll Question:Many will notice that there is a poll question attached to this thread. The question is asking should we keep the donations open year round or keep it to being open during the two week(-ish) billing period. Some may find it a bit of a squeeze to donate with such little time. If you feel that the option to keep it open for longer might help things, this would be the option for you. Nothing would change as far as access to the server. There will be NO microtransactions or benefits received in-game or on Discord for donating to the server. (Edit: This was brought up on the Discord but I wanted to clarify, even if we switch to the open donation pool, the bills and payment receipts of the same will still be posted up here and to the Discord as well. Nothing will change about that.)
How to Donate:Currently PayPal is being used to collect donations via "PayPal Fundraisers". PayPal is no longer fronting the cost of credit card fees, however and any incoming donations sent in will have their processing fee removed automatically. (PayPal removed the pools functionality which allowed free "donations".) Additionally, a few people have reached out to donate via Wise (f/k/a TransferWise) and while that is possible, will need to be handled privately. If you are an international player and wish to donate in Euro or GBP, you can reach out to me (retched) via Discord and I'll show provide details on how you can help.
DONATION POOL CLOSED - GOAL REACHED!!
I also, cannot stress this enough:
!!!PLEASE DONATE ONLY IF YOU ARE FISCALLY ABLE TO!!!
Most times we always end up with a bit of overflow. If you miss the cut, do not stress it. We still enjoy you and thank you for your time that you spend playing on COH: Rebirth!
The bill is due on September 1st, 2023. And any extra funds will be used to prepay the next six months in March 2024. Any questions, feel free to reach out on the Discord in DM or Forums in DM.
Please remember that donating does NOT grant any additional benefits or rewards in game and any donations received are final, not subject to a refund.
As always thank you for your consideration and donations!
- retched
