Ich's Games

[WraithLord]

Meglobob said:
Wraithlord, to be fair to Zachariah before Fearsome Legions he must have hosted 6 - 10+ server games which were all completed.

llamserver and Pasha are indeed both excellent, gold star+++, hosts.

I didn't know that, and its good that you've mentioned this.

My point about worst, was that this was my worst personal experience of this kind. I have no idea what happened there. I recall that the players, including myself, have PMed and emailed him but never got a response. The worst thing about this is the abruptness in which the game stopped and the complete lack of information (up to this day) what has happened there.

[JimMorrison]

If his server just went down out of the blue, and he stopped responding to any communication..... You might consider being more worried than angry.....

[DonCorazon]

If you read the original thread I think the players were more worried than angry.

[Tyrant]

Meglobob said:

Just to set the record straight, it is a rare occurrence that Dom3 MP games do not get completed. I would say about 1 in 10 games are effected this way. Its just bad luck really in the real world effecting the host.

It ain't that rare, you've either been careful about your choice of hosts or lucky. It puts players in a bad spot- on the one hand it sucks to get really into a game and then have it poof on you, on the other hand , a host is always doing you a favor ( a pretty big one IMO) and it's just not right to give them [censored] about it under just about any circumstances. That said, i'll go ahead and speak ill of the departed 'cause i don't think we will be seeing Zachariah anymore- all three of his game i was in collapsed and he never once responded to my messages. I was annoyed. In contrast Ich/GP are long time pillars of our community, they have done me many favors, i am grateful , and i will not blame or rebuke them if they are unable or unwilling to continue doing me favors.

I would not want to be associated with any negative method of dealing with this("Hall of Shame"), but an update of the host sticky in the MP section that listed the currently active proven hosts might be a good way of letting newbies know who's likely to be a solid host might be helpful. Given the difficulty of getting into this game it's important to do what we can to make sure we don't scare off fresh blood. Having your first MP game collapse could very easily turn you off permanently.

[JimMorrison]

Tyrant said:
...That said, i'll go ahead and speak ill of the departed 'cause i don't think we will be seeing Zachariah anymore- all three of his game i was in collapsed and he never once responded to my messages...

This is what I'm talking about. The guy is a member of the community for over 4 years, is an active game host, and until the day of his disappearance, a rather active forum member. The guy could be dead or in a coma right now, and because of whatever personal catastrophe ended his long-standing record of reliability, people seem pretty eager to stomp on his integrity.

I've been here 3 weeks or so, if I was hosting a game and bailed, all I could expect is "wow, what a flake". After 4 years, I would hope for better.

[Tyrant]

Now wait a minute here Jum, first and foremost, i did not "stomp on his integrity", I said i was annoyed. Second, Zach's games did not all disappear at once due to some sort of emergency, they withered away one by one 'cause he pretty much abandoned them and started new ones. Third, Zach is not dead and if he was ever in a coma it did not last long and he recovered. (http://www.evilzombies.com) Since you have only been here three weeks, may i ask how you have determined that he was "a rather active forum member" or evaluated his record of reliability?

[Sombre]

Why are you linking to the 'evil zombies' website?

Also, are they related to 'bomb the bass' who worked with the Bitmap Bros?

[Tyrant]

That is Zach's fine website which has been in operation all along, from which i deduce that he has neither died nor fallen into a coma.

I have no idea what your second question means.

[Lingchih]

I have seen Zachariah on these forums since the demise of his games. I don't want to beat a dead horse, those games are long dead now. But still, if we had a Hall of Shame for hosts, Zach would be on it. He could have at least transferred his games to another host.

I don't know what is up with Gandalf's game server. Perhaps he just does not have the resources to get it going again. I definitely do not blame him, because he at least sent message that his server was down, and would be indefintely.

[Lingchih]

llamabeast said:
Sounds like you've been spectacularly unlucky Lingchih. Such things are generally very rare, as Meglobob says.

I guess it has been a fault of only playing server games, and never PBEM. The PBEM hosts (llamaserver, pashadawg) seem very reliable. I would note, though, that Velusion's server has also always been reliable, although he has dropped out of the games for a bit. He still hosts Fallacy though, for which I am grateful.

I have to say, that if I was hosting games, I might find it tiresome at some point. But I would definitely try to get those games sent over to someone else who could host, rather than just going AWOL.