Donate to the game to help — Crystaria Online
Crystaria Online is made by one person, in their spare time, because they wanted this game to exist. It is not a business and it is not trying to become one. There is no company behind it, no investor waiting on a return, and nobody drawing a wage from it.
It does, however, run on a rented server, and that costs real money every month. The game is free, with no shop, no subscription and no advertising, so that bill comes out of one person's own pocket.
If you have enjoyed your time in Crystaria and you happen to have something spare, you can put it toward the server bill. You get nothing in return. That is deliberate, and it is set out in full below.
This will never be asked for in game. There will be no pop-up, no reminder, no banner, no timed appeal and no message in chat — this page is somewhere you can find if you go looking, and that is the whole of it.
Every penny goes to keeping the realm online. There is no team and no salary — Crystaria is made by one person in their own time.
| Cost | What it is |
|---|---|
| Server hosting | The machine that runs the world, the database and the chat. The largest cost by far, billed monthly. |
| Domain name | crystaria-online.com, renewed yearly. |
| Backups | Off-server copies of the database, so a bad day never costs you your character. |
| Headroom | When more players arrive, the server needs to grow. Anything left over goes here first. |
This is the important part, so it is spelled out in full. A donation buys you no advantage of any kind:
- No items, gold, essences or materials.
- No stats, levels, experience or rebirths.
- No titles, cosmetics, nameplates or chat colours.
- No early access to patches, zones or classes.
- No priority on support tickets, bug reports or suggestions.
- No badge, no supporter list, no public thank-you. Your account is not marked in any way, and nobody else can tell.
Crystaria is a game where the only things that separate two players are the hours they have put in and the choices they have made. Selling a shortcut past that — even a small one — would break the thing the game is for. So there is nothing to sell.
- You need the money. Genuinely — play the game instead, it is free and it always will be.
- You are under 18 and it is not your money to give. Ask whoever pays the card first.
- You are expecting something back. There is nothing, and it will not be added later.
- You want to influence what gets built. Suggestions are welcome from everyone, through the in-game report form, and they are weighed the same whoever sends them.
Only if you want to, and only if it costs you nothing you will miss. Any amount is genuinely appreciated, however small, and a one-off is perfectly fine — there is no recurring option, no suggested amount and no upsell waiting on the other side.
Money is the least interesting way to support a small game, and it is genuinely not the most useful. These matter more:
- Report bugs. The in-game report form reaches the person who can fix it, usually the same day.
- Send suggestions. A great many of the systems in the game started as a player's message.
- Help new players. Answering a question in chat is worth more than a donation.
- Write for the Wiki. It is player-editable, and it is how most people learn the game.
- Tell someone. A recommendation to one friend does more than any advert.
If anything on this page is unclear, or you want to check something before giving anything, please ask first:
Email: admin@crystaria-online.com
And thank you for playing — that part was never conditional on anything. Players turning up and enjoying the place is the reason it gets built.