Four years ago, I wrote a post about why we don’t accept donations from our player base. At the time it made sense, and it was important for me to know that our players understood that this wasn’t merely some cash grab, or that we expected something in return other than an adherence to our rules. That’s still true today of course, but looking back on that post, I also feel like maybe I was a little shortsighted with some of my justifications. I could elaborate but honestly that’s all in the past now. After this long I feel like my point has been made.
With the launch of SomeAwesome.com and our desire to expand upon the basic foundations we’ve built with the Minecraft group, it’s pretty clear to me that if we want to grow this venture into something that will last, it will have to be with the backing of friends, family, and fellow gamers. For many of you, especially those who have been with us for the entirety of these 5 long years, your loyalty and emotional support cannot be understated, and again I want everyone to understand that launching this Patreon does not put ANY player into a bucket of better or worse. You are under no obligation to put money up if you choose not to or can’t afford to, so please do not feel like that is the case.
I’ve truly wracked my brain to try and make these tiers as fair as possible with respect to affordability vs benefits. I’ve worked on ideas for several months, and edited these a dozen times. If anyone feels alienated by my setup here, then believe me it was not for lack of trying.
So What’s Included?
Some of the rewards you see on the Patreon page will be unfamiliar, so I’m using this article as a medium to explain what they mean. Also worth noting that all patrons will receive rewards for both the Minecraft server AND SomeAwesome.com so if you want to get the most bang for your buck out of this, it’s in your best interest to sign up for an account over on the main site. 😉
So without further ado, here is a more detailed rundown of the Patreon reward tiers:
Tier 1: Standard Level – $1
A whole buck! We figured there needed to be a clear baseline that we are trying to emphasize affordability over exclusivity here so we made our initial tier the lowest price it could be. The monthly newsletter will have a lot of insight over upcoming events, our favorite tips and tricks, featured builds and much more. We’ll also place your player head in our new player starting area near the command tower so that other players can bask in your creepy stare.
The really exciting part of all this, is that all players, be they patrons or not, will gain access to our brand new MineConnect feature. This allows players to convert their points on SomeAwesome.com to the new in-game currency that can be spent at the “Serverus Shack” located across from the command tower on healing yourself, repairing your items and enchanting your tools, plus more! At this tier you get an extra 300 points on SomeAwesome.com every month.
Tier 2: Silver Level – $5
The next tier up offers a few more perks as well as all the perks from the first tier. First and foremost is what every player has been waiting for: backpacks! More specifically, this tier will give you all 6 available rows of backpack. At the same time we’ll be activating a single row of backpack for ALL players regardless of whether you’re a patron or not, and you can still use birthday books to get additional rows. Also, you’ll get access to the new, patron-exclusive channel on our Discord.
Finally, an additional 1500 points (for a total of 1800 points) per month on SomeAwesome.com that you can spend on redeeming games or convert to the in-game currency.
Tier 3: Gold Level – $10
This tier only has 20 spots available so get ’em while they’re hot! This level probably offers the best value, with an additional 2500 points to spend on SomeAwesome.com (for a total of 4300 points), plus a command block on the ground floor of the command tower. Also….permanent /repair! Who doesn’t love that?
To make things even better, this tier offers access to the Command Zone section of our MineConnect integration where, instead of converting your points for in-game currency, you can spend those points on selecting your own Command of the Week. Point costs will vary depending on the command, and you’ll only be able to select one at a time, but after you pay your points you’ll have that command available for a whole week. Example commands will be /back, /home, /feed, /enderchest, night vision and many more!
Tier 4: Awesome Level – $20
Only 4 spots available for this level, with a few extra perks on top of the others you get from the previous three tiers, including guaranteed game night entry, advance access to scheduled Steam keys for release, a special in-game loot box of goodies, and one token to redeem for picking your choice of ride-able mob for a one month duration. To top it all off you also get an additional 5000 points on SomeAwesome.com, for a total of 9300 points per month.
You can sign up for the Patreon now or you can wait until October 1st if you want to get a full month out of your benefits, since the subscription re-occurs on the first of the month. We’ll be working diligently over the course of the next week to make sure that your first month is a great one!
With your donation, we’ll be able to get advance payments on reserved instances for AWS, which will bring down the overall cost of the server for us, and any additional funds we collect that are over and above the operating costs will go towards giveaways, additional events, and new tools to help players.
If you have any questions or suggestions, we’d love to hear from you! Feel free to message us directly and let us know what you think. And as always, thanks for everything you’ve done and continue to do to make this server an amazing place to play. Here’s looking at another successful 5 years and more!
~Serverus