First, the Breakfast servers are speed servers. Not crazy turbo, heh. But fast enough that lag is a really big problem. After many discussions, I've determined that to get the Breakfast servers running better I need to get mine close to the backbone and on better hardware. This is theoretically possible, depending on how much money is available.
Second, as you all know, I'm questing for money for school. So yeah, this is an extension of that quest.
Third, I have no money to start any of this. I'll be depending on free services to start basic shit, if I pursue this. I also haven't talked to Decompyler and eggcozy about it, and I'm not willing to commit to any plans until I do.
So here are the questions.
To raise money, I was thinking of merchandise. T-shirts, bibs, coffee cups, mousepads, hats, posters, etc. I don't think the community is large enough to depend on merchandise as a regular revenue stream, but a drive with the right merchandise could raise enough money to start a regular service. So the question: How much money would you be willing to spend on Breakfasty merchandise?
Corollaries:
1. How much would you spend on generic ArmageTron merchandise?
2. Break it down by month/quarter/year, if you don't mind.
Please just assume there will be a design you'll like. If we do this, I have no intention of throwing designs out that nobody likes and expecting them to buy them. I'll post pictures and take submissions and so forth until there's a line of merchandise that looks good and people want.
Next, the service.
People have been asking about tournaments and the fact is none of us have time to host them. I don't know the legality of charging for a tournament specifically, but I'm thinking of a service paid quarterly anyway. Assume there's money to start, and we can get close to the backbone.
The service looks like this:
1. Three free servers. More than likely the free servers would be the same three servers we have now. May or may not actually be closer to the backbone.
2. Some arbitrary number of members-only servers that *are* close to the backbone, have high availability, and so forth.
3. Regular events of any of these types:
a. Tournaments (teams and single player)
b. Olympic-style events testing different skill areas.
c. Gladiatorial-style fights (subtly different than tournaments, may not actually be different, but I'm thinking people against AI's)
d. Anything else that comes up.
e. Some tournaments would be regularly available to free folks, but most would only be available to subscribers.
4. A mailing list (already exists, just made it yesterday).
5. A nice community website (hopefully one that interoperates with this one to provide forums) with regular articles about things that may be interesting to members.
6. Two ladders: a combined free ladder, a combined subscriber ladder. Possibly a combined master ladder. Access to each server's individual ladder. Separate from the GLL
7. Maybe GLL finally comes to Breakfast. Not sure about that, seeing as how I made an intentional decision not to try to join my server to it.
If a service looked like that, how much would you be willing to pay for it?
Would you be willing to pay:
a. $10/month
b. $30/quarter
c. $80/year
d. Make up your own amount/interval and tell me.
Next:
What other features do you think belongs in such a service? Why?
The last question:
How strong is your commitment to your answers? As in, if you say you'd be willing to pay some money for this stuff, and I go and set it up, what are the chances you will actually sign up?
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