GoFundMe to help over-worked and underpaid devs

Discussion in 'Time Locked Progression Servers' started by Brontus, Oct 4, 2021.

  1. Brontus EQ Player Activist

    We often hear the rationale that are not enough resources to provide customer service and even fix basic things in EverQuest that could help greatly improve the play experience for thousands of EQ players. I thought of an idea:

    How about we start a GoFundMe page for over-worked and under paid DarkPaw developers?

    Southern California has some of the highest cost of living prices in the USA. I'm sure some of the EQ developers could use some extra money during these hard economic times. We could send a poll to all EQ devs and see which ones would like to participate in this GoFundMe project as recipients. Those that express interest would benefit based on how many hours they work in their own time to fix bugs, add quality of life improvements, and so on.

    Those who send funds in would be able to vote on the dev tasks. Each month we would selected tasks for the devs based on direction from players who contribute to the fund. We would establish a council of interested people to chair the player committee.

    At the end of each month, each EQ dev could submit a timesheet of hours worked and the task they completed and the GoFundMe funds would be dispersed according to hours worked. Of course this would only apply to the tasks that devs do on their own time.

    This may seem like a troll post but I am very serious. It's a win-win situation. We get a chance to show our love and appreciation for our struggling developers and in return we get fixes and enhancements for the MMO that we love and EQ devs get a chance to earn some extra money and feel good that they are helping players. Thanks for listening.
  2. bardybard Augur

    Let's presume we take your post at face value ...

    So your solution to over-worked devs is to ... have them work more on their free time?
    andross77, Yinla and Karreck like this.
  3. Karreck Somebody

    Because it is.
    Case solved! Good work team!
  4. oldkracow 9999 Is the Krono Account Limit

    Just what we need businesses asking for charity to underpaid workers.
    I don't think this is 503(c) on a real mission.
  5. Duder Augur

    Are you okay? Check your carbon monoxide detectors, please.
    Smokezz and Zanarnar like this.
  6. Gheed Is not reading your response

    h e r e

    h e a r

    thats where I stopped reading
    Duder likes this.
  7. Brontus EQ Player Activist

    Any dev that wishes to participate in the program would do so voluntarily. They would be compensated by the disbursement of funds made by the EQ players that set up GoFundMe. I worked in the video games industry and did years of crunch. Many young people can easily work 16 hours a day with Redbull and coffee. Older devs, not so much.

    Bottom line: no dev is forced to work extra hours in this proposal

    Here's the deal: we can keep complaining about Daybreak Games lack of attention to EQ on these forums or we can come up with solutions that help the devs. Money talks, you know what walks. Living in greater San Diego is not cheap. Trust me, game devs can always use the extra cash.

    We could raise a lot of money from EQ veterans to pay devs off the books to help fix some problems and resolve outstanding quality of life issues. If someone has a better idea, I'm all ears.
  8. Waring_McMarrin Augur

    This doesn't sound something that would be allowed under California labor laws.
  9. Mr Blue Sky Elder

    How about NO.

    It's no one but the employers/employees jobs to be managing on what they do and get paid for.
  10. CatsPaws No response to your post cause your on ignore

    Do you really think that someone in say, Absor's position, is under paid? Yes he loves the game and that is a big reason he is still here but you don't work for a company for that many years if your "underpaid":confused:

    I would rather have a go fund me for the PLAYERS and give away a paid account once a month. Just think it would only take $1 from 15 of us to give one player a full month of all access!!

    That would support the game and the players.

    Not sure why this is in TLP forums. It seems more and more often people have no idea what sub forum to post in.
    MasterMagnus likes this.
  11. Jumbur Improved Familiar

    Won't it end up like tipping for restaurant waiters, where the devs will end up getting paid less with "tipping" as a justification?

    You are not helping the devs by doing this, you are helping the CEO deciding to lower the wages... DBG is doing fine financially.
  12. Iyacc Augur

    Metanis likes this.
  13. kenmei Augur

    I see an answer here. Pay them in krono.
    in fact , make their entire income krono.
    they might fix the game.
    add a caveat if they really end krono and truly fix the game, we will pay them in dollars again.
    sounds fair.
  14. Tweakfour17 Augur

    Beyond what everyone else has already contributed to this thread, don't you think there is a rough roadmap and likely processes in place for what can and cannot be done? I'm sure even if the Devs wanted to work extra there would still be approvals required and prioritization in place before they would be allowed to willy nilly alter the code on the whims of a fistful of players who want to throw money at them.
  15. Kaylandra Some Dumb Druid

    Great idea! How much would I have to "donate" for a dev to give druids Death Touch on a 3 second cool down? I am tired of waiting for rares to spawn, so what kind of "donation" would allow me to spawn my own rares whenever I want? Hell, can I just skip the "donate" middle man and just directly bribe devs to make my class the most overpowered in Everquest history?
    Aenvar likes this.
  16. Gnothappening Augur

    To the original poster, are you insane? I want you to really think for a minute about what you just wrote. Then apply it to ANY business.

    You are offering up a slush fund where someone outside of a company would pay the employees of the company to make changes to the product of that company. Now, apply this to any other company. Next we pay Google employees to change how search works. We pay Apple employees to change how the app store works.

    I can't say for certain but I'm not even sure what you are suggesting is legal.
  17. TheTone Elder

    Oooof - allowing randos to essentially lobby for new content is a pretty bad business practice.

    I'd rather they raise the sub cost, hire a few new developers, and create some new TLP content. The Live game is so rinse and repeat at this point, I'm surprised anyone even really plays it - but yet much of the company's resources are spent to create new Live content. Let's get some nerds working on modifying Classic thru SoV to add lower level AAs, create new content, and make rogues worth playing for once.

    Oh, and maybe add some new raid bosses that aren't just tank and spank. Maybe an AoW that cycles thru cool special abilities? Rad.
  18. Kahna Augur

    It is laughable that you think that DPG would ever allow a random group of players to dictate what did or did not get put in their games. Or even what gets fixed in what priority. This idea is so completely over the top presumptuous and entitled it is breathtaking. Any dev who went to their producer and said. Hey I am adding this idea to the game because the players paid me to do it would be summarily fired.
    Stymie and CatsPaws like this.
  19. Tweakfour17 Augur

    Off topic but I got a chuckle out of this considering how many people TLP hop every year to run through actually identical content again. :p
    Stymie likes this.
  20. tzeriel Lorekeeper

    This design works for EQ. Difference with TLPs is it’s fun, good content. Live not so much.