Ich's Games

[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.

[ano]

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.

[WraithLord]

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".

[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.