Excess Donation Funds?

[CriscoCube]

I am curious what the excess donation funds goes towards? By the servers costs just under $300 a month and banzore receives over $600 per month in donations.

It would be cool if there were maybe tournaments or other events with prizes using the excess funds. I used to run some competitions for HC rush in the EU rush community (no prizes as we didnt have excess funds) and they were really great community building events, we turned server into zombie mode after the competitive matches, it was amazing fun, some of the most BF4 I've had, would be awesome if we could do something like that, esp. since there is plenty of money over the last months (nearly $2000 surplus in donations) to fund various things like that.

 

[Mobius.jpeg]

C o f f e e c r e a m e r

 

[-bZ-AngrySalsa]

Thank you for your input

 

[CriscoCube]

Sorry Salsa, that doesn't really explain anything. Can you please elaborate on what you mean by that response?

 

[-bZ-AngrySalsa]

Because you dont pay the bill? Again, thank you for your input.

 

[RogaineFoam]

Sorry Salsa, that doesn't really explain anything. Can you please elaborate on what you mean by that response?

They fund all of the Onlyfans subscriptions that -bZ- members have access to.

 

[CriscoCube]

Correct I am not the one paying for the server, that has nothing to do with my question. Let me re-iterate more briefly so you can understand better: I'm curioous where the extra $300 a month goes and if we could do something to support the BF4 community with this extra money?

 

[Mobius.jpeg]

Its my Onlyfans btw

 

[M870goblam]

I call being on Criscos' team

 

[FisH00k3rs]

I am curious what the excess donation funds goes towards? By my calculations the servers costs just under $300 a month and banzore receives over $600 per month in donations.

It would be cool if there were maybe tournaments or other events with prizes using the excess funds. I used to run some competitions for HC rush in the EU rush community (no prizes as we didnt have excess funds) and they were really great community building events, we turned server into zombie mode after the competitive matches, it was amazing fun, some of the most BF4 I've had, would be awesome if we could do something like that, esp. since there is plenty of money over the last months (nearly $2000 surplus in donations) to fund various things like that.

By my calculation. there may be one member of this clan who may like you. It's just that your daddy hasn't joined the clan yet.

 

[RogaineFoam]

I feel the same way about this.

 

[CriscoCube]

Lol, why is it every time I ask a basic question half of the banzore community reveals itself to be trolls?

 

[Mobius.jpeg]

h

 

[M870goblam]

Lol, why is it every time I ask a basic question half of the banzore community reveals itself to be trolls?

Boomer humor

 

[CR8Z]

I'll give an honest answer.

Mind you, I'm not an admin (anymore) and don't pay the bills and don't collect the money. That said, there are other costs associated with running this place beyond just the BF4 servers. This website for instance, the various plugins and conveniences that we've all come to know and love, and often take for granted.

The same can be said for many of the admin tools that cost dollars to run the BF4 servers. We also host other game servers, which change from time to time, but it's great when there are funds available to support the members and our various gaming habits.

We have, in the past, given out prizes and giveaways, but they have usually been deemed "donations" as a member donates them.

What's more, we have been gaming together long before BF4 was a thing. Many of us have been playing together since BFV, over 16 years. We have run top servers in several different games and donations come and go. It's great when there's money in the kitty, but it isn't always so.

I personally used to donate $50 a month just to keep shit going. Lots of other guys did as well, not to mention all the time and energy we put into it. We've run in the black. We've run in the red, but we always made sure to keep the lights on.

In all of these years, to my knowledge anyway, the money has never been misspent or misappropriated. I used to have access to the paypal account and can vouch for that.

These are good times for banzore, especially considering what's going on right now, but it's cyclical. It's nice to have money on account to help when times get lean, and they will again. Just like they have on so many occasions, and I'll have to bust out my wallet again even though I don't play BF4 anymore.

If you have an idea for an event, you should put something together and consider funding it yourself, just like many of us have done in the past. If it warrants merit and the club agrees, perhaps some club funds could be used for that. There just isn't as much money as you might think there is. It goes fast.

As for people trolling and whatnot... I don't know you, but I know I've seen this before a thousand times in these forums. If you have to ask why people are trolling you and/or you're bothered by it, it might be that maybe you aren't a good fit for this community. We're friendly enough, but we give each other some shit and we like it like that. If you don't... well, maybe it's you.

 

[CriscoCube]

Hi CR8Z, web-hosting costs about $5 per month, so still a cool $300+ excess each month.

Since you seem unfamiliar with the math of the costs let me break it down for you: BF4 licensing costs $0.36 per slot and the NFO server banzore is renting is their top-of-the line dedicate which costs $129.99 a month. Banzore has 416 slots so thats $149.76 in licensing for a total of $279.75 per month, plus $5 for webhosting (if for some reason the dedicated server doesnt have a simple SQL and Apache or whatever running on it?). Not even $300 a month, but with over $600 a month in donations (usually well over that).

So now that the math is clear....

The admin tools are all free, procon is free, procon plugins are free - I've been an admin of many servers in the past and run many servers with no additional cost outside the server cost itself. Neo of course codes some of his own plugins and other things as well on his own time, technically no cost there unless were paying him? Are there other hidden costs we don't know about? If so I would love to hear more about this.

I understand some contingency as donations fluctuate, but $300 a month with at least $2000 banked over this year is a huge fund, enough to run the servers for at least half a year with only half the donations (or if donations get cut in half for a full year!) and lets be honest theres a few bZ servers with almosno regulars/donators that would getcut to reduce costs right away if that happened, so EASILY more than a year worth of funding even with the most minimal donations. I'm not sure its necessary to have an entire years worth of funds saved, but thats fine, so keep that, but then all the additional excess coming in after that as is coming in now... lots of ways to grow and improve the community....

It would be cool if we could say have a 10-slot defuse server, or run some tournaments or otherwise. I'm not suggesting the money is being siphoned off or anything, just curious where that big chunk of money is going (or if its just being saved to spend in case donations get low in the future? but even so seems like way more than is needed for thatat this point) and if it wouldn't be possible to do something to build the community more with it.

 

[CR8Z]

$5 per month? I run a separate website for my business and pay more than that, especially with plugins, ssl certs, etc.

Honestly, $2000 isn't a lot of money. That's less than 6 months worth of operating costs.

It's great that you have lots of ideas on spending other people's money. I'm not even saying that they're bad ideas. But like I said, we've been at this a long time. We've done giveaways, we've done contests. Just this year in fact. But we don't use club money for that. The community is the draw. Not the freebies. I don't want to grow a community full of people looking for a handout. Thanks anyway.

I have personally come up with incentives for participation in various events, and I have personally funded them in each instance. So have many others. I don't regret it one bit.

Like I said, if you have an idea that you want to see happen, make it happen. Don't ask others to do it for you. You should do it because you believe in it and want it to happen. That is your contribution to the club. That's how you gain credibility and respect. Generally speaking, people hate other people telling them what they "should" do.

 

[CriscoCube]

Ah yes, why would I expect the community leaders, the ones with access to the servers to do anything with, and access to community fund to actually do anything with? Silly me.

Also, for a website like this with minimal traffic $5 is on the HIGH end for cost of hosting. I've hosted plenty of websites and its cheap for low traffic sites like this. But lets say its $25 for some fucking reason (which there is zero chance it is, and if it is your being ripped off) thats still at least $300 a month extra to do something to build the community... that same community that is donating that money.

Also, I've been around most of the year and saw no event/tourny/give away, I'm curious to what event I missed?

Finally your flippant comment about "other peoples money" is a bit silly, considering I am a donator and asking where my donated money is being spent, its a pretty simple question, and its a bit telling that there is no simple response but tons of bullshitting and trolling instead of a simple response to a simple question.

P.S. example hosting cost in below link is just $18 a year (which since you seem bad at math I'll do that for you, comes out to $1.50 a month), for a game-community website you don't need to be paying for certificates and all this other crap, php forums like this are free, i've run many, heres the link, you can also search google for a shit ton of other similarly cheap webhosting thaincludes sql databases: https://buyshared.net/shared-cpanel-hosting/ it includes SQL hosting which of course you would need for a forum and server states. If for some reaosn this site costs more, maybe there is some room for saving donation funds since it really doesn't need to cost more than $5 a month maximum. If for some reason you think it needs to cost more than that, I'd be happy to help you and show you how to set it up properly for much cheaper, I've done it MANY times over the last ~15 years for various communities i've run.

 

[-bZ-AngrySalsa]

This all still seems to stem back to the fact that there is unhappiness with the amount of admins currently running. Let me address that:
Since the reboot of the servers, we have banned more hackers than we ever have back in our hay day. We have a vpn blocking plug in to help prevent those people from coming back on another account to cause problems.
We have aligned ourselves to the banning agencies that continue to keep this game running. We rely on our community to assist us in policing our servers.
You, the community have the right and the obligation to keep this old girl that is bf4 running. Steam sales will only last so long.

I will heavily emphasize, we are not a personal army. Teamkilling happens every hour of every day. I receive a notification almost every 3 minutes of an event of teamkilling. I sometimes get 8-9 in a minute. God forbid I go to bed and dont turn my speakers down for the night. You nailed it right on the head Crisco, you don't know how we are running things.



The reason that both you and Danboom are not admins is because you are not cut out for what we want in an admin. If we were to give you guys those rights it would cause more harm than good, you spend more time creating team-killing reports than actually playing the game.
You have lost your credibility over time, and I do absolutely agree that there have been morons out there to ruin your day. But I've acted on dozens of your forums posts, you do start it as much as they do.
You have zero obligation to donate, and I am sorry that the community in large trolls you, but you are not fit to be an admin. Your 5 dollars a month (starting July - ending december) 30.00 total to date is not going to hurt me personally and certainly is not going to change the way that we would like to run things. We have our reasons for doing things the way that we do because we have been doing this for 9 years; of which I have been around for 6 of.

You wanted honesty, you got honesty.

 

[CR8Z]

Ah yes, why would I expect the community leaders, the ones with access to the servers to do anything with, and access to community fund to actually do anything with? Silly me.

Also, for a website like this with minimal traffic $5 is on the HIGH end for cost of hosting. I've hosted plenty of websites and its cheap for low traffic sites like this. But lets say its $25 for some fucking reason (which there is zero chance it is, and if it is your being ripped off) thats still at least $300 a month extra to do something to build the community... that same community that is donating that money.

Also, I've been around most of the year and saw no event/tourny/give away, I'm curious to what event I missed?

Finally your flippant comment about "other peoples money" is a bit silly, considering I am a donator and asking where my donated money is being spent, its a pretty simple question, and its a bit telling that there is no simple response but tons of bullshitting and trolling instead of a simple response to a simple question.

P.S. example hosting cost in below link is just $18 a year (which since you seem bad at math I'll do that for you, comes out to $1.50 a month), for a game-community website you don't need to be paying for certificates and all this other crap, php forums like this are free, i've run many, heres the link, you can also search google for a shit ton of other similarly cheap webhosting thaincludes sql databases: https://buyshared.net/shared-cpanel-hosting/ it includes SQL hosting which of course you would need for a forum and server states. If for some reaosn this site costs more, maybe there is some room for saving donation funds since it really doesn't need to cost more than $5 a month maximum. If for some reason you think it needs to cost more than that, I'd be happy to help you and show you how to set it up properly for much cheaper, I've done it MANY times over the last ~15 years for various communities i've run.

It sounds like you have lots of experience. You should build on that and start your own club. Don't waste your time here.

I will personally refund the $30 you spent here if you promise not to come back. Let me know if you want to take me up on that.

Good luck!