Some tweaks to the Patreon page (Patreon)

Hey everyone! Oscar Payn here, just informing everyone of some tweaks I'm making to the Patreon page atm. Just updating/refreshing things to be more accurate to our current plans and goals for the project.

Here's a quick summary of the changes!

Team name: We're moving away from strictly using the Gilded Games name and leaning more on the Aether Team name we used to use for the project for several reasons. And I felt it best to update it here now as well. We're still the same team working on the same projects but the name is now more in line with what our active goals are as a development group! 

I'll likely make a Patron exclusive post in the future going into the mod's development and team history which may highlight why exactly this change feels necessary to me, so stay tuned for that in the near future!

Funding publicity and goals: For a long while our specific monthly income via Patreon was hidden from the public due to a few reasons, the main one being some toxicity around our "monetisation" of the project and comparisons to other smaller teams' funding.

This I feel was a mistake and something we could have easily handled by being MORE up front with our funding and expenses, not LESS. So I've reverted that change and now any user is able to see our Patreon funding. On top of that I have changed our funding goals from Patron based to Funding based, as well as shifted around what the goals are. Before they were pretty arbitrary goals with strange rewards like extra services or social media events which I feel didn't suit the reason people support this project. So I've now shifted them to focus more on getting our development staff paid, which in turn allows them to work on the project more consistently. 

Some of the goals may seem astronomically high but they are based on what it would take for the team to be funded properly to work on the project as their job. I do not expect these higher goals to be met at this time but they give a clearer indication of what sort of revenue we would need to transition from a hobby team into a professional one. 

I would LOVE to hear from you guys what ideas you'd have for goals and rewards in the future! I want to involve you all in that decision making process more going forward.

Patron Tiers: I have adjusted the Patron Tiers to expand on and clarify rewards and their release timings. 

As you're all probably aware we've been promising in-game cosmetics for some years now and I will be perfectly honest with you all our team has absolutely failed to produce that content for you. It's something our former engineers had very little interest in getting produced in a timely manner and it was deeply frustrating to see a feature we gained funding for be pushed to the wayside during the majority of the mod's development. That stops now. In-Game Cosmetics for Patrons and users who have previously helped fund development will be fast tracked into the next update for Aether 1, which is set to release on 1.19+ in the near future. And we will also be implementing a new set of cosmetics for Aether II once we resume development on it after the release of the new Aether 1 update. 

I'm working to ensure no public Curseforge release we make after this point goes without Patreon perks going forward.

Additionally I have tweaked the Arkenzus Tier to include early access to new Book of Lore posts as well as access to their artwork PSDs, as I will be starting to produce new posts in the coming weeks, as well as reworking older ones, which you'll see here first before they're uploaded anywhere else!More Activity! I'm also looking to begin managing this Patreon page much closer and more actively going forward. I want this to be a hub for developer insight and feedback for Aether II, so once we resume development of that project after this latest Aether 1 update is released, I'm looking to post much much more of our internal discussions, design ideas and insights into our process here. In the mean time I'm looking at making some posts that go into the mod's development history for you all to read through as well as early access to drafts of Aermail videos we make in the future as well!

Again if any of you have ideas for what you'd like to see from this page in the future I would love to hear from you! Anything is on the table right now so I'm very receptive to ideas.

Thankyou guys for continuing to support the development of this passion project, I hope this year will continue to be productive and engaging as we move closer to a new Aether 1 version and a refreshed future for Aether II's development!

Thanks for your time! Make sure to comment on this post with feedback, ideas or if you just want to chat with me!

See you guys soon,

~ Oscar Payn, Project Lead and Community Manager for the Aether Project