Ich\'s Games
 

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 say that the 45 turns of Ascendant that were played were super exciting and interesting, and it's already been almost two weeks since we got shut down.

Is there any way we can transfer these games to other servers? 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!

Re: Ich\'s Games
 

It is quite likely that Ich is in a situation right now where he doesn't know everything about when things will be back up again either.

Since the server has been down for a while, it's actually quite possible that there will be some time lost getting everyone together again (It wouldn't surprise me if after some more time, a lot of the games are dead because half the players are gone), so maybe you should get another game going with a different host in the mean time.

Really, starting a new game is your best bet for getting some Dom3 action anytime soon.

Re: Ich\'s Games
 

I would doubt that lch's games get going again. They were hosted on Gandalf's server, and Gandalf does not seem too interested in the games these days.

I was in a very interesting game myself hosted by lch, but I have given up on it. Even if the server came back up, it would be a monumental task to get everyone back into the game.

I have moved on to other games. This has happened to me so often (through one cause or another), that I don't even worry about it anymore. I just move on.

Re: Ich\'s Games
 

I was not involved in any of Ich's/Gandalfs game but this has happened a couple of times to me.

Just to set the record straight, it is a rare occurance 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.

Re: Ich\'s Games
 

I've also recently had four games that "exploded" and were never finished b/c of one thing or another that happened to the host. The worst case was Fearsome Legions, in which the host Zachariah simply vanished at the most exciting moment in the game.

No offense intended for the possible great hosts out there but I've since learned to trust only llamaserver and Pasha. Mostly b/c my personal experience with some specific other hosts was bad (i.e. exploded games).

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. The hall should be used to help players make an educated decision regarding which host they'll entrust with their valuable time and effort playing a dominions game. The hall should by no means be used to flame or slander hosts. The hosts are volunteering their time for the benefit of players and IMO should be respected for that.

Re: Ich\'s Games
 

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. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: Ich\'s Games
 

Thankyou. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

lch is also a very reliable guy indeed - it's not his fault that Gandalf's computer exploded. I'm sure Gandalf will be trying to fix it, but of course lch can't do anything and probably doesn't know exactly what's going on.

It's frustrating that there is no access to the game files either, otherwise the games could be transferred.

Re: Ich\'s Games
 

No blame to anyone, but 3 of my last six MP games have ended because the host dropped out. I would support some sort of hall of fame/shame for game hosts. And I would nominate Velusion and llamabeast for the hall of fame.

Re: Ich\'s Games
 

Hmmmm. Rather than a hall of fame/shame, why not have a "backup" host who receives copies of the game files throughout the game? You'd have to trust him with copies of the game files, but if he had to take over hosting you'd have to trust him anyway.

-Max

Re: Ich\'s Games
 

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

Re: Ich\'s Games
 

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.

Re: Ich\'s Games
 

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.....

Re: Ich\'s Games
 

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

Re: Ich\'s Games
 

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.

Re: Ich\'s Games
 

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.

Re: Ich\'s Games
 

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?

Re: Ich\'s Games
 

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

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

Re: Ich\'s Games
 

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.

Re: Ich\'s Games
 

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.

Re: Ich\'s Games
 

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.

Re: Ich\'s Games
 

Jum? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...ies/tongue.gif

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

Re: Ich\'s Games
 

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

Re: Ich\'s Games
 

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.

Re: Ich\'s Games
 

I'm betting that words of encouragement would be welcome. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

Gandalf's Servers

Re: Ich\'s Games
 

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.

Re: Ich\'s Games
 

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 http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/laugh.gif)

Seems like someone should hurt that Zach guy though :G

Re: Ich\'s Games
 

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)

Re: Ich\'s Games
 

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:

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.

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.

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.

Re: Ich\'s Games
 

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.

Re: Ich\'s Games
 

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

Re: Ich\'s Games
 

I have detailed the situation in a separate thread in the MP section, here: http://www.shrapnelcommunity.com/thr...?Number=610156

I don't know why another thread was created here again, as I linked to that thread in all of the games that I have been hosting at the time. Also, I haven't given any updates as there was nothing to report - and I got obsessed with RentACoder.com in the meantime. If you'd have checked my profile, you'd have noticed that I was practically offline from the Shrapnel forums for a week. Since I have no interest to start hosting new games unless the old games are back, I've taken a break. If there was any development at all that I could inform you about, then I'd have done so.

Re: Ich\'s Games
 

I didn't take part in any of these games but it doesn't matter actually as I'd just like to say what I think about this.
Generally, I agree with Ich. Hosting is a big responsibility and this responsibility is normally based on pure enthusiasm so it's a bit rude, IMO, to blame someone for not foretelling the disaster and thus not backuping all games on local computer.
I hosted PBEM dom games several times and I may say that it is very unpleasant when someone starts annoyingly blame you if anything accidentally goes a bit wrong. However, I always found the means to deal with such people).
Also I think that you shouldn't mix up disaster with laziness or something. If the host just suddenly disappears with no callback when you know for sure that he is fine and visits forums from time to time than this is irresponsibility and impoliteness. I can say no good about such people (I met such things several times). But this has nothing to do with the case when a host (probably) just made a (not obvious) mistake. This should be understood and forgiven.

Re: Ich\'s Games
 

My original proposition (hosts hall of shame) was flawed. It was pointed out earlier at this thread and I've seen the error in it. I've even stated as much in an earlier post. So Ich, your response on this was not necessary.

Let me say it again clearly, Hall of shame for host is a bad idea.

Now, a sticky thread with the list of active hosts and some statistics (how many games hosted etc) will be quite helpful IMO. This thread can also serve the hosts as well to post messages to their players like "my server caught fire so X, Y, Z games are lost".

Re: Ich\'s Games
 

I didn't read this thread before I started to give replies. I read it from the top down and replied to the posts when I felt like I should comment on them. Since you didn't edit out / delete your proposition, I feel just as eligible to reply to it now as if I'd have done it one week earlier. If you give me input then you should expect feedback on it.

That's not a bad idea, but I think that it would quickly join the ranks of the countless other not-being-updated and obsolete threads around the forums here. Feel free to do it.

Re: Ich\'s Games
 

wouldnt that be the top sticky that is already in the MP forum?

Re: Ich\'s Games
 

Nonsense Gandalf! That uhhh, oh the top sticky? The one about MP hosts? That's silly to think that should be used to keeping track of MP hosts. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...es/redface.gif

Re: Ich\'s Games
 

Ich, That's perfectly cool. And since I'm already in the mood of stating what should be clear - then I want you to know that I appreciate your contribution to this community.

Gandalf, do you mean the sticky thread named "Victorious Nations/Hall of Honor"?- Maybe this could work but the thread name should change to reflect the additional information regarding host. Also, If I were to update it, I don't think I'll be able to edit its first post anyway. In any case I think a new thread would be clearer.

Ich, I'm willing to keep such a thread updated. I suggest the procedure used by the MP hall of honor, meaning, hosts will post what game/s they're hosting (with links) and update whenever one of their games is over. I'll gather that information and post it in the following format:
host, # current games, # completed games
Current games list:
1. link 2 game1
2. link 2 game2
...
Messages from host:
Experiencing technical issues with server. All games are suspended.

Re: Ich\'s Games
 

Uhhhh no.
I mean the top sticky.
The one called "MP Servers list "

Re: Ich\'s Games
 

The top sticky is whichever one was posted to last, at least under my forum settings.

Currently "Server Wishlist (command line options)"

Re: Ich\'s Games
 

I forgot about different view settings. The way I look at them its always at the top. Point taken. Anyway the one called "MP Servers list"