State of the Server (2016-2017)

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Endelyon
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Re: State of the Server (2016-2017)

Unread post by Endelyon »

So, I'm sure many of you were aware we had some forum issues today. We lost a little over 24 hours worth of posts and private messages in the end. Of course, this is a geat deal better than the 3 years worth we had appeared to lose earlier. Everything seems to be running smoothly, but if you had any moderation work done for you (or did any yourself) you'll have to do it again.

Apologies for the hiccup, but we're back in action, and much sooner than originally expected. I never hoped from such a quick response from the host (especially after they originally told us 7-10 days), but they sent us the backup about two hours after I contacted them and I've been running queries to repair the database ever since.

Perhaps a day without the forums did us all a little good, though. :D
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Maecius
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Re: State of the Server (2016-2017)

Unread post by Maecius »

29 September 2016

The "Collective Issues, Suggestions, Bug Reports" subforum under "Community Technical" has now been split into two separate forums:

- Bug Reports and Mechanical Issues, and
- Suggestions and Discussion

This is being done to make life easier on the developers. It allows them to quickly ascertain what is a problem with existing content, and what is a suggestion from the community.

The first forum is where they can go to fix existing problems.

The second forum is where they can go for inspiration on what sort of project they should take on next.

Endelyon's new rules apply to both of the new forums, as it's up to the developers to determine whether or not they want to lend their skill to a particular suggestion. And nobody should be made to feel bad for simply suggesting something they'd like to see in game.

Thanks everyone! Hopefully this will help our dev team be that much more efficient -- to the benefit of all of us!
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Maecius
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Re: State of the Server (2016-2017)

Unread post by Maecius »

11 November 2016

The extraneous "Rules for Suggestion Threads" rules have been relaxed. Now only the overarching forum rules will apply.

If the suggestion forums become hostile again, or the developers don't find them useful moving forward, we may reinstate stricter additions to the above rules.

For now, though, they've been relaxed.

The old (and no longer active) rules, for reference:
Hidden: show
Endelyon wrote:The following rules are in addition to the existing forum rules, but only impact the "Suggestions and Discussion" subforum. Their intent is to keep this area of the forums useful to the developers:
Rule #1 wrote:Do not post personal attacks, sarcastic or denigrating shut downs, or straw man or slippery slope-style arguments in reaction to any of the suggestions here. If your post is felt to be hostile or inflammatory, it will be removed. Everyone is welcome to share their ideas here, and should not be made to feel that they are not.
Rule #2 wrote:Limit reactions to suggestions to a single post, unless you're only asking for additional details. State your opinion clearly and politely, and leave it at that. Don't let yourself get involved in a prolonged argument with other players. These back-and-forth forum fights make it difficult for the developers to understand who wants to see a suggestion implemented--and who does not want to see a suggestion implemented. Do not clutter the threads trying to debate one another. Remember: You're trying to convince the developers that the suggestion is desirable or undesirable, not each other.
Rule #3 wrote:Do not post community-wide polls in an effort to strong-arm the developers with a "popular opinion" or bandwagon argument. QC, the DMs, the developers themselves, or the admins will post polls when they seek community feedback on an idea that they are actively considering implementing.
It is our hope that these add-ons to the existing rules will make these forums more productive for and more useful to the server. Thank you.
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Maecius
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Re: State of the Server (2016-2017)

Unread post by Maecius »

6 January 2017

Dear BG:TSCC,

We'll be spending the month of January transitioning things over to a new year, both in and out of character. For instance, I'll be retiring this thread and starting a new one.

But before that, a short address about the "state of the server" ...

(It's actually a really long address, I'm sorry. :( I am who I am, you guys!)

***
In academic circles, there is some debate over who or what the month of January is "really" named for, but the conventional myth is that it is named for the Roman god of transitions, Janus: A god with two faces, one looking forward and the other looking backward. With the new year starting, it's a good opportunity for us to look in both directions just the same.

In looking backward, we can take an account of all that has happened in 2016. And what a lot has happened!

We had an enormous amount of content released (some smoothly, some not-so-smoothly), to include new spells, skills, and abilities; persistent storage; disguise and appearance changer systems; costumes and jewelry and character faces; shops and treasure systems; classes and prestige classes; new area maps (to include whole new area groups, like the Upperdark) and revamped area maps; and so much more. It's almost certain that 2016 was the year we saw more content change than we'd ever seen before on BG:TSCC.

We also had quite a lot of staff changes. Our admin of many years, Luna, disappeared on us at the end of March, and I was brought back out of semi-retirement to take over. With the help of Endelyon and many others, we were able to transition the server. We saved the forums literally in the nick of time (we moved everything on a weekend, and the very next Monday the old forums just stopped working for people -- as a result, it turns out, of the outdated platform that it was using, which the old host was suddenly no longer supporting!).

We had the entire Head DM team transition over into new hands in 2016, and many new DMs have come and gone -- with a few returning DMs as well. Indeed, none of the current ADMs were DMs at all this time last year! (Although a few of them had previously served.) We also had several new staff groups created, to include the forum moderators and art team. The dev team more than tripled in size, with the addition of 8 new developers (one of whom's since left) and the return of 3 others (one of whom's also retiring).

2016 was a year of increased server transparency, as well, with the introduction of "state of the server" updates, a developer pipeline thread (that really had no chance to keep up with all the changes happening in 2016), the rebirth of the server update thread/new content log under Duster47 and Endelyon, a DM campaign thread (to help players better engage and track the official DM campaigns), a sorely needed update to staff and credits threads, the release of our accountancy books with the creation of the server treasury thread, and the publication of the staff's codes of conduct, so that players could better know the standards that we hold our volunteer staff members to.

2016 saw a lot of forum changes, from the entire transition of the server's forums from bgtscc1.com to bgtscc.net, and the splitting of the suggestions and bug reporting threads, the creation of new roleplay organization/ooc threads, redescribed and reordered subforums, new forum features and updates, the restoration of the forum server player counter, and so on. Much left to do here, to be sure.

At a more "community-wide" angle, 2016 saw the creation of a NWN2 server admin roundtable, where BG and other servers (once maybe "competitors" of one another) finally came together in a real way to share ideas, content, tips, and news.

2016 was not all rainbows and sunshine, of course. Losing our previous admin threw the server into chaos. As part of that chaos, a huge update got released in March without proper bug testing or oversight -- and we probably won't have all of the bugs from that release fully ironed out until this March (fingers crossed). The server transition itself caused hiccups, once with the entire forum database corrupting, erasing tens of thousands of posts and PMs (and costing us an arm and a leg to get it fixed -- it did teach us to start paying for backup insurance, though, which we've been doing ever since!). We had two prolonged DDOS attacks, the first right as Luna was disappearing, and the second last fall. We finally seemed to come up with a way to mitigate them.

Many people, mostly staff and former staff, have chafed some under the new admins and their ways of doing things (which could probably be described as a little more hands-on than was Luna's standard). The moderator group's very establishment has not been without controversy. DM and player dramas have also generated the usual controversies, scandals, and rumors they are wont to generate every year.

But perhaps it's the eternal optimist in me that thinks "what's a challenge if not an opportunity to overcome?"

And this community has, for yet another year, overcome all of the challenges that have been thrown its way. The bad and the good have strengthened the core, and a game that's almost as old as some of our players (and probably older than some of our players's children) has continued to live on against all odds.

Indeed, our server population has grown in 2016. Even as I type this update, we sit with over 70 players online. And we see the server capping out multiple times each weekend.

The future looks bright. At least, the future seems liable to be more stable and less chaotic than the year now past us. But any and all of the successes we enjoy in the year to come, as in every year before, rests squarely on the cohesiveness of this community, the strength and skill of its volunteers, the storytelling and flexibility of its players and DMs, and the friendships that keep us all together here.

Thank you for yet another wonderful year BG.
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Maecius
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Re: State of the Server (2016-2017)

Unread post by Maecius »

18 January 2017

Well, I wanted to replace this thread with an updated one! -- Soon!

In the meantime, I needed to note that we are aware of the server's recent stability problems and are working on a fix. Actually, we are pursuing several different fixes simultaneously.

For those of you who are unaware, the reason the server has been crashing -- sometimes for long stretches of time -- is due to the fact that we are being targeted by Distributed Denial of Service Attacks (DDoS). These are attacks where lots of false traffic is directed at our server to overwhelm it with data and bring it offline. They're the sort of attacks that can bring down companies like Sony, or knock corporate websites offline. And while our version of this attack method is smaller than what is needed to take down titans of industry, it's still serious enough to create a headache for our community.

Fortunately, we've beat this several times before. And will continue to fight it. We've had reports that the attacks are effecting several servers, so whoever is behind it (and it is not clear who that is) appears to be an enemy to the NWN2 community writ large.

Please try to use this downtime to work on other things, check out other games, focus on forum work, and otherwise make the best use of your time. We'll be back up and running, 24/7, again as soon as we have our protections back in place. We had brought them down after the attacks ended last time because our last protection service nearly drained our funds dry. But we're pursuing a couple of cheaper avenues of protection this time -- though we'll return to the previous protection, as it seemed to work, if all else fails.
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Maecius
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Re: State of the Server (2016-2017)

Unread post by Maecius »

19 January 2017

Today we took some withering DDOS attacks -- but, as most of you have noticed, we've been able to keep the server running in spite of them. This is largely thanks to Aspect of Sorrow, who's managed to effectively defend the server from the attacks.

We've updated our banner to reflect the new connection information. If you're unable to connect, please click the white link there to identify yourself to the server and try again in a few minutes. We don't anticipate this being a long-term solution, but for the here and now it does allow us all to play again.

:) So big thanks to Aspect of Sorrow.

Big thanks also to Zanniej (for being the one who did the updating of our forum banner to communicate to everyone how they can connect -- even though he's currently on vacation and had to do it from his phone!).

We have some smart people on the BG:TSCC team -- and we're lucky to have 'em! We'll provide updates as they become available.
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Maecius
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Re: State of the Server (2016-2017)

Unread post by Maecius »

29 January 2017

As a heads-up to the community: I will be moving to a new city this week, and I will have limited Internet and phone service for the next ten-to-fourteen days. There may be some delay in my responding to PMs and requests for assistance during this time. If immediate assistance is required with anything, please include Endelyon and the Head DMs in the PMs you send me.

After the move, I will be starting a new job, and I will be less available while learning my new responsibilities and job functions. I will continue to check the forums daily once my Internet is back online, of course; but it may be six-to-eight weeks or more before I'm comfortable enough to give the server the amount of time I've been giving it in recent months.

I just wanted everyone to be aware of this, so that you all know why I may be slow to respond to you for the next couple of months, and why it might be a good idea to hit up some of the other staff members for help if I'm not quickly replying to your PMs.

Short version: I'll be super busy the next couple of months, so please treat me as a "back up," not a "first stop" for any issues you might have with the server!

Thank you for your understanding!
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