I agree with @yrod in many things, so let's make this part more transparent.
1. Visibility - some of the staffers has already added the announcement to the community header. Also we'll update the information in-game and on the main page of the project.
2. Transparency - on this moment we need at least 80 euro / month just to pay for the servers. This is the minimum which we have to pay monthly to make project live. Since 2011 and up to 2020 I've been paying these needs mostly by myself, because I like the project and could afford it. Some people supported us time to time and I really appreciate them for it.
Since 2020 the situation has changed, and then I've asked for the help seriously for the first time. Thanks to some of the our members, who supported us last and this year. But on this moment we are almost empty, and have enough money only for ~ 1.5-2 months more. That's the reason why I've updated the topic and asked for a help.
I think the Community has enough of loyal people who could support us.
I think I've answered most of the money-related things above. What else? I've described the basic needs, without them the Community cannot work. But the more support we have, than more things we could make.
And the first thing which we planned long time ago is the forum update. This forum engine is very old and it would be great to update it with its modern version. To do that, we have to buy a new license which costs $350-500 depending on amount of features.
Also we could think about further improvements if had more resources.
3. I've registered a support page on the service "Buy me a coffee":
https://www.buymeacoffee.com/trollgameThis service provides more convenient way for donations, including Visa/Mastercard, and allows subscriptions, which would help us a lot.
There is a goal counter on this page, which is empty now.
4. Benefits for donators:
- Forum status. Yeah, I agree about that. It is already exists and some of our members have it. If you already helped us and wanna the badge, just pm me and tell your acc.
- Vote in-game and unique staff in-game: Requires a lot of programming. Very complex stuff. Also it conflicts with Taleworld policy, which doesn't allow to get money for in-game staff or get some advantages over other players for money. We can only ask for donations of your good will.
- Mugs and T-shirts - I thought about that, but think it makes no sense for us. To make it work we need to make really large amount of pre-orders (e.g. 10-20 thousands). Because the more pre-orders we have, than less the price from the distributor.