The future of PBW - a call to arms

I would say that the single biggest factor behind the existance of a thriving and game-playing SEIV community is the service provided by PBW. The quality of the game itself, and the suppport provided by Shrapnel are of course important. But I'd suggest that if it weren't for PBW, most of us wouldn't be playing Space Empires.

Now I've been away from the game for about a year, and when I came back a few weeks ago I was disconcerted by the number of features that had disappeared from PBW. I was even more disconcerted to read this posted by Geo;

The forum database is messed up and causing the numerous "500 errors" people are seeing when they try to add people to games, etc. We have also been getting reports form people that PBW is "spamming" them, sending new turn files over and over, dozens of times. This is not affecting everyone, and I don't think it's related to the forum problem. This is the reason for the down time this weekend as Georgig was trying to get it working. He ended up taking the server down since he could not get it to stop emailing. I have brought the server back up now after turning the email send functions off.

If you are keeping score, PBW no longer recevieves email, sends email, the forums don't work, the graphic UI is hosed (Because of the forum problem), and you get various errors whenever you try to add players to games(also because of the forum problem). The lack of email is going to make it very difficult for new people to join.

Things are pretty bad. Are we working on it? I wish I could say we are. Mostly what we are doing is poking about becaus enone if us really understands how the code and database functions.

I will be sending the server to Tesco in a few weeks. He's going to take over hosting it, and hopefully he will be abel to get a handle on the numerous problems. If not perhaps he can start from scratch and make a new, better PBW.

Geoschmo

How sad is it going to be if SEV comes out next year full of new and exciting features, but most of us find it too difficult to organise a multi-player game?

The problem has been, I think, that when a service like PBW is working well, it's very easy to assume that the volunteer who runs it has everything under control, and all the time needed to get the job done. We've sat back, enjoyed the service, and kicked in the odd Paypal payment every now and then. Meanwhile, the old group who put together and ran that service have inevitably found other things to do with their time, and not been replaced.

As you tend to find with players of on-line strategy games, there are a large number of us who work with or know a lot about computers, web-servers and programming. We've surely got all the expertise needed to restore or rebuild and administer PBW, without leaving most of the load to the one brave volunteer who physically hosts the thing.

I've no intention of trying to grab a large role for myself by posting this topic. I'm not one of the more long-standing (or reliable) SEIV players. In fact I think the first principle has to be that the PBW host/chief administrator - currently Geo, and soon to be Tesco - takes the lead and is the final decision maker in these matters. I also think that the PBW host should be able to call on a team of technical "consultants" and deputy administrators to whom they can delegate as the much of the work as possible. That team needs to be organised, and I propose this is where we discuss how to do it.

So if you've got skills and time to volunteer, please do so here. If Geo and Tesco have plans, perhaps you could open them up for discussion.

My key questions are;

What needs to be done?

What resources are needed?

How do we organise it?

Over to you.

Mark