Ich's Games

[JimMorrison]

Tyrant said:
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?

Jum?

Anyway, I'm sorry, I see a lot of people online act toward and speak of others as if they weren't real people, and that their lives revolve around whatever service they are providing for just the satisfaction of providing the service. Maybe I'm just still a little raw after seeing the whole thing with Edi last week.

Anyway, as far as Zach goes, I was extrapolating from the information presented. It was stated that he had hosted a number of games reliably, before he "fell off the face of the earth". I think looked up his user name on these forums, and saw that he was averaging 1-2 posts a day for the week or so prior to the last of his posts. This seemed to illustrate to me someone who wanted and enjoyed their involvement here. I reasoned if he would be so active (and some spoke well of him, only people were mad because he was gone), and quit rather abruptly without any notice, that it might have been out of his control, and thus -potentially- a more than valid reason for nonexistence (death is pretty valid >.>).

Anyway, I feel my point is rather valid, but I apologize, as it seems that it didn't need to be made. <3

[SsSam]

No response from either Gandalf or Ich.
I'm guessing these are dead but would like some word.

[Endoperez]

Gandalf posted about his situation on Shrapnel General, but not here in the Dom3 forum. If you haven't checked out the thread there, I suggest doing so.

[Ballbarian]

I'm betting that words of encouragement would be welcome.

Gandalf's Servers

[WraithLord]

I agree hall of shame for hosts is too negative.

Maybe a list of active hosts with the number of games they hosted to the end and then number of stopped games instead. This kind of list would help players decide with which host they want to play.

WRT zach discussion, just one last statement if I may, when his server went down and he sort of disappeared my first reaction (and I think of most players) was concern. But then as supposed "digital" footprints of his suggested he's well and just ignoring us I had implored him to give me the game files so that I could host it (PBEM) to the end. Sadly, I never got a response. But anyway, this is a rare scenario, the more likely scenarios (that I've unfortunately encountered) are host server was stolen, burnt down etc.

[Aezeal]

Since llama is nearly always up maybe the other servers could send him a copy of each turn ? (as suggested before) (of course I have no idea how difficult this would be, and how much of a hassle it would be for llama... but I'm volunteering him anyway )

Seems like someone should hurt that Zach guy though :G

[Gandalf Parker]

WraithLord said:
I agree hall of shame for hosts is too negative.

Let me chime in totally agreeing on this. That would be like a hall of shame for people who almost climbed Mt Everest. Or people who almost achieved world peace. Im sorry but I do not recommend shaming people who almost hosted a game perfectly. It might work better to thank them, mention the things they did right, and then mention somewhere that they might want to ask the other hosts for a hint on.

I will also mention that its not the hardware, or the software, that tends to kill most hosts. Managing the game is nothing compared to managing the users. So if a host dies the players might want to look there for the problems first, and take their own steps to not let it happen to their next host.

(ok, old grumpy server rant mode /off)

[lch]

Hi, I made a thread on my server situation in the MP forums, and I think that this already covered everything that I can give out. But I'll repeat it here again so that the questions get answered and things cleared up, maybe:

Renojustin said:
Ich buddy, can we get some kind of ETA on when your games might be working again? There are a lot of new players involved with them and for a lot of us, this is our first MP experience. You hold our Dominions 3 in the palm of your servers!

I can't give you any ETA, as it's not up to me, I can't do anything to get the games back. I'm as helpless here now as you are. If I'd have any possible way of getting the games back then trust me, I'd be working hard on it. The players in my games always came first for me, as you should know, I've always tried to make sure that they can enjoy the game.

When I started hosting games, it was a server on a subdomain of another forum which I visit frequently. When they decided to move to Windows-based hosting, I asked here if somebody else could provide Linux-based hosting for Dom3 games for me, and Gandalf generously stepped up and offered hosting on his home servers for me. Now that PC went defunct after a year or so, and has become as unavailable to me like to everybody else. Even though I made very extensive backups of every single turn for all the games that I hosted, all of them were local, I didn't make remote backups. So I can't bring back the games from the dead unless I get the data back. As always, you don't consider to make more extensive backups until it is too late.

Renojustin said:
Is there any way we can transfer these games to other servers?

Sure, if the data is recovered and I get the game files back, then the game can be hosted again, anywhere. All the backups were on the same partition as my home dir with the Dom3 installation, though. The only game which was able to restart right away after the server went down is the Glory game. That's because they only played their first turn and thus I just turned over the pretenders to somebody else who provided hosting, and they started over from scratch. I don't suppose that you others want to do that, too.

Renojustin said:Is there anything at all to be done? Can we at least have the home address of your server guy so we can send threats and such? It's getting a little bit out of hand now. Thanks!

I'm being hosted by Gandalf Parker. I don't know his home address, but he's on this forum, you should know him. Some financial support in form of donations might help to get a new server back online. I've always wanted to start a donation thread, but I'm a little bit spiritless when it comes to formulating something like that. I think that somebody else already created a thread for this in the meantime. If not, I'll try to come up with something myself.

[lch]

WraithLord said:
I think the MP community needs to have a hosts hall of fame (and shame) where hosts are measured by the number of games they actually hosted to the end.

I won't go into more graphic vocabulary like I'd want to, but let me just say that I think that this is a bad idea. Not just because it would affect me, but in general, it's just as bad an idea as a "Hall of Shame" about players is a bad idea. Why do people try to bring this up again and again? Is it you specifically, WraithLord? Just drop it.

That the server went down was a disaster which wasn't foreseen and which shouldn't have happened. But as much as natural catastrophes are an "act of god" which you can't do anything about, the same is true for what happened here. The other servers that you mentioned did not experience a blackout like that. How do you know if the situation would look any different, what gives you the right to say that they're "better" in any sense? If the llamaserver suddenly burst into flames or if Pashadawg suddenly tripped in front of a train, those games would be lost, too. I think that I always went to great lengths for the players in my games. What I learned was that I should do even more extensive backups than I did. That's a lesson learned. I wouldn't understand or accept any judgmental behavior on this, though.

[lch]

Lingchih said:
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.

Gandalf wrote about his situation and the resources thing in the Shrapnel General forums, here: http://www.shrapnelcommunity.com/thr...?Number=610225