The World of Avlis

Orl and Silk have been the fathers and hosts of Avlis since its inception. Avlis as an MMORPG was their dream come to life in many ways nearly 8 years ago, but as happens, their lives moved on. With the addition of a third child and a significant move Orl found himself with little to no time for Avlis; while Silk was put in the increasingly awkward position of dangerously overloading the electrics at his house to try and keep the servers running.



Some months ago a group of Avlis community members foresaw some of the coming problems and put their heads together about what to do to best save Avlis. Negotiations started then and today we are proud to announce Avlis has officially become the charge of FOIG, Inc., a non-profit corporation run by a Board of Directors consisting of (in alphabetical order):

Alexandru

Belasco

Darkfire

krackq

Plasma John

spool32

Tindertwiggy

TripleAught



FOIG, Inc. will handle the financial and real world aspects of Avlis from here on. FOIG will be responsible for the forums, the servers, donations, Worldforge, and everything else Avlis. We are organized primarily around the idea of transparency and legally incorporated as a non-profit as an initial demonstration to the community that we are not interested in profit or in funding other projects with the generosity demonstrated every month.



I'm sure you've got a lot of questions, not the least of which is wondering what, if anything will change. Honestly, there are only a couple of new things:



Firstly, we have acquired, through a very generous donation, a completely new server environment to run Avlis. It promises to be a significant upgrade, both in terms of raw performance and of features. There may be a few bumps as we get things up and running, but we’ll post about anything we’re able to anticipate so you can schedule around them. Thankfully, we don’t foresee any major down time.



Secondly, to realize our goal of complete financial transparency we will institute a policy change:



From now on, within the first week of every month there will be a post showing how much money has come in through donations (a grand total, it will not be broken down or associated with any names). The expenses to keep Avlis running will be listed, as well. This includes internet access, forum bandwidth charges, license fees for the intellectual property, and electricity usage by kWh. Copies of receipts and bills will be available for anyone who requests the information. A detailed explanation of any and all spending beyond normal monthly expenses will be included. A wish list will be posted as well, so everyone knows what we’re saving up for and why. Transparency FTW!



So, there are probably more than a few of you wondering what this change in management means. In two words: not much.



Aside from the changes mentioned above, Avlis will remain the place we have all come to know and love. We don't want to change things! Alexandru remains the world leader, and NH4 the head DM. We will not be asking for or expecting any changes to the Team's structure - FOIG is focused entirely on the financial and technical aspects of running the game servers, and generating enough donations to do so for as long as possible, as transparently as possible. The people who came together to form FOIG, Inc. are in it for the long haul, and we hope the changes we have decided to implement will help breathe new life into this rich and wonderful community.



We welcome comments and questions from everyone. Thanks for coming along with us on the next phase of Avlis life!



Belasco

For FOIG, Inc.