"$5000 is a little optimistic... I think people are much more likely to donate their time."

Not at all. Donations of time is far more optimistic. If I spend 100 hours developing something that's roughly worth $5,000 to me, as an individual. 100 players each tossing in $50 is the equivalent of them each giving 1% as much as I'd be giving if I gave 10 hours of my time.

Basically: Lots of people being semi-generous is far more probable than one person being super generous.

^ that's also true. The people whose time isn't worth enough for $5k to be less expensive than donating their time might also not be the best developers.

Think about the amount of coins Chu has won in 5 back to back seasons. 5K USD, I'm pretty sure Chu has won at least 1,000 USD in coins. But then again, thats just a guess.

Des, Teach me your wonders <3

I caNnot play any game for what period I do not now
But fizzer u can take it from me

i suppose they are asking for Money because fizer actually wants to do ti himself, but he is likely to eb at the point at which he expects to be paid for it and i have no idea what the revenue of WL is, but it certainly doesnt go much beyond its running costs

@Chris fizzer said it takes alot of his time to set someone up to help develop warlight. Which when they then bail, means fizzer wasted his time.

I gotcha buns. I guess it depends on the amount of time it takes for him to get someone going. I also don't think all people that offer help should be treated the same. Some are more committed than others to this site I think. Perhaps he should have some sort of small test to gauge their knowledge as well.

I don't have a problem with the donate idea, I actually think it is great. My issue is just that I'd like realistic estimates for each item (if possible) since they are not all the same amount of work.

Perhaps he should have some sort of small test to gauge their knowledge as well.

FizzBuzz? Lol.

Perhaps he can just make the APIs less restrictive (a la reddit). Just a one-time investment on his part.

I think knyte's last suggestion of increasing the power of the APIs has the most potential.

I fully understand the logistics problems of having developers donate time.

Imagine an API that could, say once per turn be invoked to do things like:

* Change ownership and armies of any territory
* Apply diplomacy or income modifiers to players
* Publish a message in public chat (great for diplos, etc.)
* Send a private message to a player
* Award cards to players
* Eliminate a player or declare a winner

For obvious reason any such game would have to be a Practice game but it shouldn't take much imagination to think of some incredibly custom games and scenarios that would be possible.

Even if the games were practice, it wouldn't be too hard to track their results elsewhere. It'd be no different from running a CLOT of only practice games.

Basically, Fizzer can open the door to a flourishing metagame.