Hi guys,
Just a quick update to let everyone know just what's going on with the
Mass Effect Forum. The reason I am posting this is because I've received a number of PMs from members eagerly awaiting the launch of the forum and I thought this might be one of the better ways to address the questions.
You may remember that I created a thread concerning
who might be interested in the Mass Effect Forum sometime ago to try and determine just how many of you would be interested in signing up.
This is the current situation: I'm not entirely confident that a Mass Effect Forum would be a great idea from a
financial point of view. Nowadays I invest my cash into website opportunities that I believe will pay for themselves after time; And while I'm currently making around very, very little profit from my network and I simply do not have the capital to throw around to cover the expenses of another forum and support my family. I don't mind taking a loss for a while, but I really need to be 110% comfortable with something before I invest in it.
I've wanted to create a Mass Effect forum for the longest time, not just because I love the look of the game but well, I love designing websites; it's a passion of mine. Please don't think that because the forum isn't up yet that I don't want it as much as you do.
Another alternative would be for me to request donations to be put towards the Mass Effect Forum. It will cost me approximately $300 to purchase a fourth vBulletin forum script ($160), a base template from eXtreme pixels ($30) with which to design the template off and a new PhotoPost vBGallery gallery license ($99). Not cheap, is it?
I've decided that if I can receive even 25% ($75) of the amount needed through donations, then I would happily put the remaining $225 forwards. If you're interested in putting forth a donation towards the Mass Effect Forum, please feel free to send me a PM and we can discuss it from there. It would potentially take a single donation of $25 from three members to cover the $75.
As a thank you to any and all members who donate, I would add your name to a 'credits' page on the
Mass Effect site with full details of how you generously contributed to the site. I would also provide you with a life-time gold membership subscription. That's pretty much the only things I can think of at the moment.
I'd just like to point out however before anyone insinuates anything negative about me requesting donations that I'm also the person who is giving away a free copy of Fable 2 upon launch - potentially two copies, in fact. So believe me when I say that I'm not a big fan of asking for donations and this is indeed a last resort.
Please bear in mind though that no-one is compelled to donate and I advise you be absolutely certain you want to before you do. Every little helps however and I only hope I can reward those of you who do donate, one way or another. If you have any questions at all please go ahead and post in this thread or send me a PM if it's concerning payment worries.
I'll also be making a news post about this on Mass Effect X shortly.
Thank you for reading and goodnight!
Edit: By the way, I cut off huge chunks of texts here and there in order to shorten this post so that is my excuse for why certain bits might not quite connect or make sense.
