About this project

To my fellow Warcraft lovers, role-players, and the realm of Earthen Ring:

Last month, April 2010, marked my five year anniversary playing World of Warcraft. Of the nearly 250 realms available, I have only ever played on one of them – Earthen Ring. In my time role-playing and storytelling on Earthen Ring, I have experienced firsthand and observed others often expressing frustration from being unable to find others to RP with, missing an in-game event, or feeling like they’d never find others that were a good fit for their guild. This was the simple reality of the game for years. Every so often, we would hear our fellow role-players mourning the state of stagnant role-play. Individually, there was some truth to this, but from a more objective perspective, the issue was more circumstantial. There was no one place that the community could go that had the tools to solve these problems.

Five seasons have passed since I realized both that the Earthen Ring community had this great need, and also that I had the skills and means to fill that need. At the time, I was newly unemployed and doing freelance web site design. After having the inspiration to build this site, I let my subscription to the game run out and then spent the next few weeks building what we now know as the Earthen Ring RP Network.

I had high hopes, but did not know then by so effectively addressing these problems that this site would make the realm of Earthen Ring itself completely unique among all other Role-Playing servers. We now have one of the greatest tools a community of creative individuals could ask for, be they writers, role-players, or artists. You will not find another site like ours on any of the nearly 250 Warcraft realms.

However, a recent announcement has put the entire community at risk of losing this great website. The RP Network is hosted by and built upon the Ning platform, which is now putting an end to its free service. Whether the network stays where it is or moves to a better, cheaper, and faster home, it will involve spending money that I cannot afford to spend on my own. And so I appeal to you, not as the Administrator of the Earthen Ring RP Network, but as a fellow role-player in your community who wants to see this website not only endure, but flourish!
To do this, I need your help. The Earthen Ring RP Network is at stake.

I am asking for donations so that we can keep the Network free for you to use as it always has been. The goal of this fundraiser is $2,500. I will do all I can to make your contributions worthwhile, not only with the rewards outlined below, but by continuously conjuring ways to enhance and complement your role-playing experience. An epic amount of thought has been put in to this plan, so thank you in advance for taking the time to read through it.

It has been a privilege and an honor to serve the role-players of Earthen Ring by running this network, and I look forward doing this as we march onward toward Cataclysm and beyond.

With love and gratitude,

Jaero the Grim

The Heart of the Matter

Ning has cut 40% of its staff and announced the end of its Free service. In the Earthen Ring Roleplaying Network’s 16 months online, Ning’s customer support has been non-existent, the prices for their "premium" services are wildly over-priced, and their platform itself has a very low glass ceiling for developing new features and nurturing the community beyond just giving you a sandbox to play in. We need a new home.

With every crisis comes opportunity. We have been seeking out and testing potential new homes for our community - faster web hosts, better software platforms, and far more potential to not just recreate a web site with the same features, but to greatly improve upon every one of them as well as implementing exciting new ones. We will have full control over content instead of it being hosted and retained by a third party.

To do all of this, we are asking that you make a donation. No contribution is too small, be it $5 or $50. We aim to make this project worth your time and money, so everyone who donates to this project will be given exciting rewards. By doing so, you will be ensuring that for years to come, you will have a powerful site that offers tools to complement your RP experience (in-character and otherwise), the ability to quickly and easily find others to RP with, and for them to be able to find you.

The Upgrade Campaign

Our goal with this fundraiser is to raise $2,500. This surely seems like a lot of money, but there are significant costs to building (or rebuilding) an interactive social network. Commercially, such projects are often priced starting at $30,000. The Earthen Ring RP Network can be rebuilt better, stronger, and faster for one tenth the price – and every cent raised for this project will be going back into the new website - no one is profiting from this.

The money will go primarily technological overhead: a fast and very reliable web hosting plan, licensing of professional software platforms for a social network, custom development and third party programs. A small portion will become the equivalent of a retainer fee to ensure that the site’s development isn’t a side project, but a high priority and kept to a reliable schedule. We have also taken into account costs for several years of web hosting as well as some likely development and maintenance costs that may occur once the new site is live.

We aim to leverage your contributions through the next year or two, meaning that your donations will go a very long way, and that we will not need to ask any more of you for the foreseeable future. Know that this is intended to be a one-time fundraiser. Again, the Earthen Ring RP Network will remain FREE for all to use, just as it always has been. There will be no obtrusive advertisements, and we will not be moving to a paid membership model.

For a more an in-depth breakdown of the project budget regarding technological solutions, hosting, and the development schedule, read the Upgrade Campaign FAQ.

What will the new Network look like?

While we may be moving to a new home, the mission of the RP Network will not change. We aim to create a hub that can cater to all of your Earthen Ring-related needs. We will strive to ensure that every feature currently available will be found on the new network and that many of them greatly improved-upon. Here are some of the new features you can look forward to:

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• Bleeding-Edge Design – As we migrate to new technological solutions, we will also be giving the network a complete face-lift. The aesthetics and user experience of the network will be enhanced and perfected, with faster load times and a sexy Cataclysm-themed design.
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• Alliance & Horde Networks – Perhaps you role-play primarily in one faction and don’t care much about the other side, or maybe your Orc self wants an area free of pretty Alliance pigs. The new network will house two areas that focus on RP in each faction. This will make it easier to (for example) read news related only the Horde, find Alliance characters and stories more easily, and so on.
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• Enhanced Guild Profiles and Publicity – We aim to expand the services available to guilds to help not only with recruitment and publicity, but with enough versatility, beautiful designs, and interactive features that Earthen Ring guilds would be provided with a solid and local alternative to ad-filled guild hosting services. Each guild will have their own forum on the network and image galleries (for group shots of guild members, guild events, and so on).
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• Cataclysm Character Planner – Many of you plan to create Goblin or Worgen characters when the new expansion hits. We will open up the network’s character profiles so that you can start publishing your new Cataclysm characters’ stories and profiles ahead of time.
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• New Galleries – We are planning several additions to the current Fan Art Gallery, namely a section specifically for uploaded Screenshots. We will also be adding a ‘Costume Showcase’ area for you to upload screenshots of your character’s RP gear or other awesome sets you’ve put together with the model viewer.
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• In-Character Classifieds – An in-character board for your characters to post notices and ads. Instead of recruitment and event notices, it will serve as a place for your character to find a good home for that new mace he just found, for your spry young Gnome to make it known that he is looking for love, or to find a mercenary for that dangerous mission.
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• Storylines – The Journals feature has been a huge hit with our writing community. However, it isn’t the best tool for showcasing more narrative storylines. There will be a new section specifically dedicated to prose with more intuitive organization and navigation than a simple blog.
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• UPDATED! Integrated Server Wiki – This is one of the more exciting aspects of the new site. The Earthen Ring Wiki is looking for a new home with the RP Network! This will involve a migration of all ER Wiki content to the new Network, and will integrate with the new Storyline features.
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Some of the platforms we are evaluating for the new network are Social Engine, BuddyPress, and Elgg. Once the network is rebuilt using an open-source platform on our own servers, we will be able to develop some exciting new things. These will not likely be available at launch, so think of this as a feature list for upcoming patches:

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• Earthen Ring Q&A – A tool players can use to ask questions for fellow players to answer relating to lore, role-playing advice, etiquette, community-related questions, and so on. It will be an excellent tool for players to help and inform one another.
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• Alternate Profile Support – The ability to log in to one user account and select one of several different profiles (your main or any number of your alternate characters) is one of the more technologically challenging features that we would like to implement in the future. Blizzard has done this with the Armory, and it would save you the trouble of having to remember a number of different sign-in credentials.
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• Recurring Events – There are many weekly RP events on Earthen Ring, from story nights to pub crawls. We aim to add support for these events so that each occasion doesn’t need to be posted manually.
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What do I get out of this?

The following is a list of awesome rewards that will be granted to every single person that donates to this project. If our donation goal is reached, some of the rewards (nameplates, achievements) will be bestowed to donors on the current Network while you wait for the new one to be completed. Members of guilds will be allowed to contribute their personal donations toward their Guild being granted one of the higher reward Tiers.

Please bear in mind that many of these rewards involve custom design work which is a time-consuming process. This custom work will begin after the new site is live, and those who make larger contributions will receive higher priority.

How Do I Contribute?

By donating to this project, you are ensuring the continued existence and long life of a resource for the Earthen Ring community. Your money will NOT be transferred until we have reached our goal of $2,500. You heard that right, there is no risk here. Donors commit to paying their preferred amount, and if we meet our goal on or before the target date, only then will your money be transferred.

If we raise less than $2,500, it will mean that your money will stay in your bank account and that no rewards will be given. If we are unable to meet our goal, the Earthen Ring RP Network will close. Staying with Ning is not an acceptable option. We have but one course that will require the help of our entire community to not only save this network, but to revitalize it and guarantee its longevity for years to come. As role-players, creative writers, and fans of Warcraft, this community has a great need that transcends cliques, class, and faction – it is in all of our best interests.

We need your help, Earthen Ringers! We will do all we can to make it worth your while.

About the Earthen Ring RP Network

The site was quietly launched in January 2009, and in just over a year it has become an invaluable resource for its community of Warcraft role-players, writers, and artists. It is home to over 500 profiles of characters role-played by the members of the Earthen Ring community. Each of these characters is granted a blog-like Journal for players to publish their characters’ stories – over 750 of these entries have been published to date! The RP Network showcases the artistic talents of the Earthen Ring community in a fan art gallery, of which some pieces have been featured in Blizzard Entertainment’s own Fan Art Gallery. The ability to track and RSVP to upcoming in-game Events in real time has greatly relieved any feelings of isolation and stagnation by individual players.

More and more frequently, the Earthen Ring RP Network is one of the first sites visited by players curious about our server, whether they are looking to move from another or start fresh completely. This makes it a fantastic tool for promoting Guilds and Events. Unlike the official server discussion forums, there are hundreds of ongoing thought provoking and constructive conversations to further entice new and existing RPers to become more involved in the community.

Disclaimer

This campaign is run with Kickstarter, and payment is facilitated by Amazon (so no hassles with Paypal).

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