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Web-Comic

Mod Orphranage (aka updating abandoned/outdated mods)

Minor Mods (aka plugins you can drag&drop into vanilla/starter pack)

Major Mods (aka Total Conversions or new mods written by me... Starcraft, Shadowrun, Warhammer)

MasterworkDF (aka go back to work Meph, we are waiting for updates)

[Meph]

Hey Bay12 community. All of you. I've came here to play this ridiculously hard indie game with no graphics, stayed because of you. That was 4 years ago.

In that time I've started and participated in lots of community forts, written a couple of mods and created the MasterworkDF mod. I'm the reason there are sub-boards in the modding section, and I did fundraisers with fans of my mods to allow me to work full-time on them; collecting donations to work 2 months only on DF modding.

Recently I've been less active, because I have a lot more projects in RL that keep me away from my computer, the internet or electricity. A few words about my RL: I'm a cyclist slash adventurer slash digital nomad slash gamer. I never had a normal job, I'm constantly travelling (see link in my sig, visited 122 countries so far) and just in general I do what I like to do; planning a year or two in advance.

I'm currently cycling the silkroad till the end of this year, but for 2016 I wanted to stick to one place, get a good laptop and spend more time being creative and productive in the literal sense of the word. I want to produce something. Four items are on my list: A blog, a book, a web-comic and (a) DF mod(s). This combines writing, storytelling, photography, photoshop, programming and more...

I want to invest 6-12 months to setting that up, see how it goes, how I like it, how the people like it. I'll probably live somewhere in India or the Phillipines in the meantime with rather low daily spendings.

Now why am I posting this here?

Because two of the projects, the webcomic and the mods, are DF related. And because I want to create a Patreon for this. (Patreon.com is a website that allows fans of artists etc to donate monthly.) Tarn Adams started his Patreon recently, and while I had the idea for a while now, this is a good timing to pursue it further. I talked to him and he supports the idea.

It sounds like an adventure! 

It's fine with us [Tarn&Zach], provided the game itself isn't sold, and we aren't involved in any "official" capacity.

My two projects would be this:

THE LEGEND OF URIST! - A DF-inspired web-comic in ingame graphic style. Part long-running webcomic, part cross-overs, part Fortress/Adv-mode stories. Updated 3 times a week on it's own website. Classic comic pannels, 3-6 in each update. The catch is that readers can select a tileset and view it in their prefered way, just like they can select tilesets in mods or the starter pack. And gifs.

(This is just a quick mock-up)

MEPHS MODDING MADNESS! - Running and maintaining the MasterworkDF mod, Accelerated DF, and more upon request, as well as updating and maintaining otherwise abandoned mods. There are many outdated mods that are worth playing, but the authors have stopped supporting them. I would update and overhaul them for the newest DF versions.

I estimate 4h per day, 6 days per week; alternating between working on the web-comic and the modding. The goal of the Patreon is to cover my living expenses, which in the countries I picked is easily done with ~$500/month. I'd start with the projects before I do the Patreon and set everything up, look at the feedback and interest and adjust accordingly. The rest of the time I'd be working on my own blog and book, same rythm, 4h per day, 6 days per week, alternating between the two.

Everything I'd create would be available for free. Patreon.com is only a page for donations and all content would be open-source and redistributable. There will be more say for the backers, for example mod requests etc, but I promise that everyone can play/download/view everything I'll be making.

Starting date would be the 01.01.2016. I'm looking forward to this idea, because it's a nice experiment and change of pace for me. If everything works out, I can work on things I love without losing money. (PS: I spend ~3000h so far on DF modding, wrote ~15k forum posts and while I got donations, it's less than $1 per hour)

But what does the community think? _{aka: You!}

[Putnam]

Yeah, I'm fine with that. and if I'm fine with it i'd hope most people are too, but money's weird

[Urist McTeellox]

The short opinion: Do it. Please.

The long opinion:

Do it. You have a dream. You have an excellent track record of getting things done. You should absolutely be pursuing that dream, and you should absolutely be letting the community support you in doing so.

The really successful campaigns on Patreon are all established creators. They're comics, games, artists and musicians that all have a strong track record and a strong following already. You have that with Masterwork. If nothing else, enable crowdfunding for MWDF; that will let you leverage the most interest, that will get you the most word of mouth, that will get everything going with a bang. Put a link in your signature. Make a big post on reddit. Find reasons to toot the hype train horn. I'm pretty confident that you'll be successful. Make sure Masterwork appears front-and-centre in the campaign materials; it's what people recognise, and it's what people love. It's a *very* good vehicle to get existing supporters to discover The Legend of Urist.

All the regular advice regarding Patreon applies. Give people reward tiers (especially at the $1, $3 and $5 mark), but don't be surprised when people don't want rewards. Set funding milestones, they give people something to work before, and "we're 93% to our goal" calls strongly to a lot of people. Make your your patrons get updates on what's happening, and what their money is going towards. I struggle with all of these for my own campaign for the Comprehensive Kerbal Archive Network (CKAN), which is still young but proving to be quite successful.

In many ways, I started my own campaign to keep myself honest, because I noticed that I had started to slow down. My milestones come with clear deliverables in terms of work and reports; whether you do this is up to you, but they do make good milestones, and it provides backers with assurances that you're not just around for now, but really around for the long-term. As we all know, there are plenty of abandoned mods and creations out there because the folks who made them have moved on to other things.

Finally, $500/month is too low as a final goal. Yes, it'll cover your living expenses in lower-cost countries, but your backers (of which I will be one) also want to see you put checkmarks in the countries you haven't cycled through. We want to see you with enough funds to get to DF conventions. We love your work, and would like to see you earning more than just the minimum to get by. So consider having a higher "final goal", and at least have in the back of your mind goals *beyond* that.

So yes, please do this. While my current commitments have had me away from DF for much too long, I really want to see you still around when I come back. <3

[Urist Arrhenius]

Your life and work are both remarkable, and I have no problems with supporting both of them. And Patreon seems to be a good way to do that.

[Putnam]

Toady's making $2,671.44 a month. I'm not entirely sure that Meph could make even $500/month from this, considering that. I've made 0 despite mild nagging (a big donate button on an intermediary download link for my actively developed mods, with a tongue-in-cheek note that the page is so I don't have to edit a crapload of forum posts but also BECAUSE DONATION LINK SHHHH), but on the other hand, Meph is so incredibly more popular than me and every other modder combined that everyone's heard me complain about it.

[Meph]

Urist McTeellox: Thanks for the kind words. There is a long-term plan behind it of course, I just want to work "guilt-free" on DF without saying to myself that I'm wasting my time instead of working on something that generates income/furthers my RL goals. I do have other forms of income too and will put money aside for my RL projects (climbing all 4000 of the alps in one go sounds good for 2017), but I really want to try out settling down for ~1 year. One way or another, it will give me enough time to write my blog and a smallish book too. It's the same line of work after all, sitting behind a laptop.

Urist Arrhenius: Thank you.

Putnam: Toady is making more than that, because of his normal donations on Paypal. The $2671 is just his very new and rather unpolished Patreon. I'm sure it will rise a lot, especially after his next release. Besides, I'm not only modding but would do a web-comic too, which generally do well on Patreon. If my girlfriend jumps on board, we might even be getting proper art. ^^ Even if it does not work out, I'll notice after 6-12 months and no harm done. I can do other things.

PS: PeridexisErrant posted on Reddit, essentially saying: Go for it.

[Deon]

One word: yes.

[Orange Wizard]

Yeah, this sounds fantastic.

[PeridexisErrant]

PS: PeridexisErrant posted on Reddit, essentially saying: Go for it.

(cross-posting so it lasts)

Sounds fine to me - Toady has one, I have one, why not? Keep everything free, and the community will be glad to support you. (I may be biased, but that's a genuine opinion). I make a lot more at my part-time job than DF even before considering hourly rates, but you can probably raise $500/month with that much time to make awesome stuff to justify it.

Here is a project to make a multi-graphics-pack preview thing. Maybe you could use that, or something similar or compatible?

If you (learn to) program in Python we can all standardise on PyLNP, which I've been trying to make it universally useful - every platform, every use case, no more duplication. There's also standard mod distribution formats and manifests you could use to make things work on any install with DFHack (and declare requirements). Seriously, the current state of DFHack and PyLNP raws manipulation makes stuff crazily portable.

[Cruxador]

I'm not going to give you many money, but one thing about Patreon is that unlike Kickstarter, you get your cash no matter how much or how little it is, and the amount just goes up. Sure, asking for money to subsidize your lifestyle might make some people think you're conceited or whatever (especially since you're talking like you're doing this more because you can than because you need to), but is there any reason that should matter to you? If someone thinks your output is worth paying for then they can pay, and if not then not. And you do make stuff that some folks like, (even if it's also criticized for being too big and bloated or just too unlike vanilla) so it's reasonable that some folks would like it enough to front a bit of cash to facilitate it.

And since Toady allows it and PeridexisErrant already does it, worst anyone can say about you for it is that you saw a good wagon to jump on, which isn't really going to upset anyone too much.

[Meph]

I'm not going to give you many money, but one thing about Patreon is that unlike Kickstarter, you get your cash no matter how much or how little it is, and the amount just goes up. Sure, asking for money to subsidize your lifestyle might make some people think you're conceited or whatever (especially since you're talking like you're doing this more because you can than because you need to), but is there any reason that should matter to you? If someone thinks your output is worth paying for then they can pay, and if not then not. And you do make stuff that some folks like, (even if it's also criticized for being too big and bloated or just too unlike vanilla) so it's reasonable that some folks would like it enough to front a bit of cash to facilitate it.

And since Toady allows it and PeridexisErrant already does it, worst anyone can say about you for it is that you saw a good wagon to jump on, which isn't really going to upset anyone too much.

Yes, I'm doing this because I can and want to, not because I have to. Working 96h per month for ~$500 is far below minimum wage, if I'd do this for the money, I'd do something else. I want to do this, because I love modding and the DF community, but feel guilty for not being more... productive.

Yeah, this sounds fantastic.

One word: yes.

[MLP]

I'll definitely support this. Your mods are what keep me coming back to DF year after year.

[Undeadlord]

I would definitely sign up to support this. As others have said, Masterwork is DF for me, so supporting you seems to be in my best interest

[Sozzals]

I think you're awesome and you write awesome mods.  I'm more than happy to support any future work.

Also - LOVE the webcomic idea.  I've seen so many comics that I thought - man, would totally appreciate a tileset here!!!

[Emperor]

You have my blessing.