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Hi all,

It has been decided, on balance, that it does not make sense for development to continue on Evolution.

We are however having one last big bug-fixing session before calling it a day. We'd like you to make known to us any small problems with the game that can be resolved without too much effort. Details here.

To the three people who donated towards a new version of Evolution totalling £89: Thank you for your support, but of course if you would like your donations returned as agreed then do PM me over at (1,1,2:a) and i'll sort it out for you.

We *will* keep Evolution online, for as long as people want to play it. This does, as always, require that the server that runs the game is paid for. To that end, we will possibly place a donation-o-meter on the Overview page so that it is clear to everyone when the game is about to fall off the face of the earth. A higher population in the game would mean higher advertising revenue and more donations -- but this is all entirely up to the players. There is no advertising happening for Evolution or any other 'official' efforts to bring in more players.

Thanks,
neonDragon

Hi all,

As you no doubt noticed the last 24 hours have been a bit topsy turvy for Evolution. In summary the most recent server invoice has now been paid (for which many thanks go out to those that have been donating) and as such Evo will remain online for the moment.

The round will continue where it left off as if no ticks have passed at 00:00 GMT 02/03/2010.

As an aside, for those that are doing so, we ask that you please turn off any adblockers you may be using and remind those that have donated, if you wish to turn off ads you can do so in your profile settings.

Remember, if you want Evolution to stay online, we need your support!.

-The Admins.

Hi all,

As many of you know, I've been making Evolution in my spare time since around 2002, when I was 15 years old. In 2004, I went to university. I am now in 2010 nearing the end of university.

It has always been a hobby, one which I put most of the work into before attending university. There have been few significant changes since then. There has been no advertising, and so the only ways that people have found the game have been via word of mouth. Consequently, there has never been a huge number of players.

When Evolution was linked to in the forums of sundayleague.com, and hit the front page on digg.com, there was an influx of new players. Along with this came an increase in the hosting requirements of the game. I was fortunate enough for some players to suggest that I accept donations for Evolution, and to help me find the right equipment to run the game properly from a datacentre instead of the previous location of under my desk. We have been running from a single server ever since.

Recently, the game's population has fallen to pre-sundayleague/digg levels. We're about back to where we were before that publicity happened. Unfortunately, along with this, advertising revenue on the site has fallen to practically zero, and to put it bluntly, no-one has made a donation for months. Evolution is now not paying for itself, and the current server has only been able to stay online for these past few months due to proceeds from the gaming servers I run at games.neondragon.net.

This means that a choice has to be made. There are two options:

1. To switch Evolution off. It doesn't make sense for me to pay for something myself that I am not developing.
2. To resume development of Evolution and to transform it into a product capable of earning profit.

Option 1 is fairly self-explanatory, and I would prefer not to take that option given the choice. Option 2 means that after university I would be able to work as a developer as my full-time job, rather than as just a hobby.

I already have a plan for Evolution that I am yet to implement. The first thing I want to do is to 'finish' Evolution 5. I want to re-launch it as a more complete game, along with advertising on other sites to get players in and ways for the game to earn enough money to keep it running.

Providing that works, I then want to work on a new, more modern version. There are many new possibilities for Evolution now, in 2010, than there were when I first started work on the game, and it would be great to be able to take advantage of them.

If I am to launch a finished Evolution 5, I need new computer equipment to do so. I've sold all old equipment that is no longer of use, however, ~£10,000 is still required to purchase appropriate server equipment and to have it put in a datacentre for a few months -- hopefully long enough for things to take off to a level where those servers continue being paid for. The current game has very few players, and at its peak had only about 2000 daily players. I am expecting to be able to populate a new version with an order of magnitude more players than that -- and this is why far more computer equipment is required than for the existing game. It would be disastrous to launch a new game on hardware that fell over as soon as things started to become popular -- it has to be the bare minimum that allows rapid expansion in future.

Without the equipment I won't realistically be able to go ahead with taking Evolution forward as a professional game. Here's how you can help:

• If you have or are able to get me server equipment for free or a discount, please PM me at (1,1,2:a) so that we can discuss it. I'm looking for 1 or 2 unit rackmount systems.
• If you are able to make a donation towards new equipment and other costs, no matter how small, please either use the Donate button at the top of the page, or PM me at (1,1,2:a) to discuss alternative methods of donating. If I do not use these donations to buy equipment and release a new game, I will refund them -- so nothing you give will go to waste. Every little helps.

If anyone wishes to ask me further questions before making any kind of donation, please PM me at (1,1,2:a) or send an email to . I think that'd it'd be fun to keep working on games... and I think that everyone here would enjoy being part of it too. Lets make it happen. :)

Thanks,

neonDragon

As some of you have already heard, we found out yesterday that Ngidi (2,1,1:b) died on Friday of last week.

For those that didn't know him on evo, Ngidi had been a member of the community for a number of years, and was well liked and respected by many.  He will be missed by a lot of players.

Our thoughts are with Ngidi's family, and the Admins ask that if you have Ngidi's contact details, that you respect the families privacy during what will be a very difficult time for them.

If we receive any information regarding the funeral, such as a book of condolence or a preferred charity for donations, The Admins will post it here.

Due to a minor hitch when upgrading the server's OS, evo was down for a little over an hour.

The ticker will be restarted shortly, and the round will continue as normal.  Missed ticks will not be caught up.

If something is currently broken that was not broken before the downtime, please contact the admin continent so we can get it looked at.

--TMX