I have good news for the enthusiasts that have been wanting Age of Empires 3 for our gaming server. The developers have decided to add Age of Empires 3 to the server on a condition (there is always a catch). I discussed this with one player, and I feel that it should be shared with everyone.

As some players may imagine, Voobly pays for a dedicated server to be able to support our current gaming system. To maintain this gaming server, is not cheap. Also for our developers, who have regular jobs in addition to their services to Voobly, it takes a lot out of their free time to help Voobly by developing new features that we ask for. In order to help satisfy both parts of our Voobly gaming server, we are asking for donations. The money will be used to help expand Voobly, pay for the server, make the developer's feel like they are using their time for something worthwhile, and much more.

Now, I know what some of you are thinking already, but hear me through. Voobly was made about 1 year and 10 months ago, but it started out as IGZones about 4 years ago. Now IGZones/Voobly has made a lot of progress through the years, and we have been through some pretty rough times. We hope never to go back to those dark ages (haha). We want to continue to have Voobly expand, and of course, just like anything in the world, we need money to do that.

So before you flame against the idea of us asking for donations, take a moment to think about what you are doing. What is a dollar to a person? A dollar is saying no to the extra hamburger, saying no to the extra ice cream cone, its saying no to the expense on clothing, its saying no to buying a bottle of water. Saving one dollar is very easy. Now imagine what happens when many single dollars are added up? They accumulate and add up very fast. Voobly is in need of that 1 dollar. If everyone who wants AoE3 would be able to donate even 1 dollar, it would add up very fast and would reach our goal really fast. If you donate even more, the faster we reach the goal. The faster we reach the goal, the faster AOE3 players are rushing to Voobly to play.

For those players who feel that they have enough to donate even more than a few dollars, then please do so. You are helping for a good cause and by doing so, you are helping Voobly to expand and grow. There are special features for players who donate certain amounts of money. We have Silver, and Gold memberships that give additional goodies for players to use. I am sure we will have additional goodies for AOE3 soon as well. The prices for premium memberships and their benefits can be found in the Help Center in the top right corner of the website. If you decided to donate enough for a premium membership, please make sure you use the link below to donate the money to the AoE3 fund directly. This way you will get Gold Membership and be donating to AoE3 fund. By donating enough money, you may be able to gain a premium membership, and support the cause for AOE3.

So we ask that you take that extra dollar in your wallet, or maybe even 5 dollars, or possible more and donate it to a better and brighter Voobly. A friendly reminder that those who give higher donations will be able to gain a gold membership in the process (check link above) of donating to help AoE3 support. We all want the same thing To help Voobly expand and gain new players. Thank you for your time.

Please check out how to donate here. You may also see other donations that we are taking as well for different new features for Voobly.

Our Goal is to reach $120. The current amount donated is $40. The amount remaining to reach our goal is $80.

EDIT: It has come to my attention that those who want to donate say they will buy a gold membership. Make sure that you use the link above to the donations page so that you get gold membership AND the money goes to the AoE3 fund. If you buy gold membership alone, it will not go to the AoE3 fund.

A list of the people who donated will be made below, no matter how much is donated.

Donators:

1. Donnie

I'm going to buy a gold membership for this.

Glad to hear it If we pass the $120 mark we can add new features for AoE3 or even new features for the whole client

there is a spot which isnt coverd, how do we donate the money.

Check the link near the bottom of the post. It will bring u to a new page where u can go through our paypal system and donate via your username and the cause.

it goes to the age 3 thread

Sorry, fixed it Pasted the wrong link in there.

i thought its was a free server.

It is a free server, it is ur individual choice whether u want to donate, any negative feedback will be removed. This server isn't free for us to pay for costs us money.

_Kinto_SoL nothing in this life is free, imagine the cost of the bandwidth, server 247 running, development time, the zone closed cuz they didnt wanted to pay the costs and its the richest company in the world!

told, we r a very cheap company, so us asking for a little donations while providing benefits still if u do donate, isn't for much.

I think it's a step in the right direction in terms of Voobly, expanding it's profile towards potential new users. This sort of work can also help out the other games that Voobly support.

I think if the Voobly staff could specify what sort of features and introductions $120 would bring for AoE3, you might give users a bigger incentive to donate.

If you expect people to give out money, a certain level of professionalism is required. You say anything in the world requires money to work, then the people need to understand what the money is going to provide. Voobly doesn't have a big enough reputation to expect people's charity without question.

If you expect people to stay interested in these games, you need to provide more community events as well. AOC RM still provides multiple clan based and individual community events, which is a major contributor to it's thriving success for so many years now.

Does all of that speech mean u want to donate?

I donate to a cause if I'm persuaded to do so. This isn't persuading yet.