We are back.
Posted by Scruffydragon on March 17 2013 22:39:20
Yes, we are back, more accurately the site is back, we are on our own business, the site is not at 100% there are some design issues that I want to address but what is important is up, (the download section), all that we had is up.
Well, I guess it requires explanations, and by now because of our time off there are already some with all kind of rumors, and conspiracy theories of why the scruffy server was down and the pages offline, sometimes I forget that some guys have telepathic powers or their other job are P.I. with master degrees on psychology and dig on the complexity of my mind.
The official story is this:
The first week, the server was down by unknown reasons, my best guess is that someone spilled coffee over the server or tripped on the wire and disconnected it, our host master did not took responsibility, I did email them daily for solve the problem and their replies was that everything was fine.
When finally they decided to check the account, they turn the blame on the scruffydragon pages, apparently on their scans, (that we as users of the service can't access to see if they are real) they told me that the site software (invision forum) was using too many resources (ram memory on specific), the uncanny high number of 2.5% (yes, of the whole server), and apparently on a shared environment the minimum for each user is 2.0% ... 6 or more years using the same software and just now they came to this, as a result they disabled the account (week two down) .
For reactivate the account and keep invision forum as main software as a webmaster of Scruffydragon I had these options:
1.- Buy dedicated hosting plan for have unlimited memory usage, analyzing this option, I came to this conclusion, does it worth pay US$165 at month for 0.5% of more of memory?.. I guess not, first I think that is excess to pay more for that small quantity of usage, and seriously the site traffic and the support is not the same than other years, plus the money income for publicity (google ads) is less now that loganir remove his characters and leave the team because I was getting tons of money from the ads taking advantage of his retirement, and I was so greedy for not share the earnings with him and we as scruffy team were so bad for inducted him into the hall of dragons, revive his site and protect his work, man!! we were monsters!! , puff as result since my income from his creations is cut, we won't generate enough money for pay dedicated server :( (this was sarcasm for those that can't understand it, loganir between them :D)
2.- Move to another hosting company, that, I can afford it with the few creations we had, the google ads generate enough to pay yearly, but I encounter another problem apparently put memory limit on basic hosting plans is the new fashion on the "respectable hosting companies" for this there was not warranty of not have the same problems with another company, so, NEXT!.
3.- Change invision board software for something "lighter". And as you can see this was the winner choice, the reasons, as for one, lets be honest, the site is a freaking ghost town, blames for that I think are plenty enough to share between us as a team and you as our public, (leecher public mainly), I won't discuss that, the only thing I can say is that we are aware, we read your topics of " Thank You ScruffyDragon" and " Here lies the Scruffydragon Productions" both topics have some good points and honest opinions, and I personally thank you for that, and as always others that are not even worthy to pay attention at all like the guy complaining for not have his perfect dreamed Batman, bleh!.
So, the new software, honestly I did not made an extensive search, I went to the hosting Cpanel, and I started to look on their "recommended software" there was robust and popular software like Jomla, Drupal, Concrete, etc.. but those site as powerful as they are they also need a lot of time and dedications, thing we don't have and not all the admins have web design experience to manage them, so my choice was this PHP fusion, it is adequate, it already have a download section module (the important thing for the guys that visit us) and a forum and is simple enough to use, it took me less than a hour to get the important functions.
Change good or bad?, honestly I don't care the popular opinion about this, on my opinion I think would be good idea return to our roots, originally scruffydragon forum (originally dcvm forum ) was strictly for development and a place to team members meet on our private forum for discus game dynamics (we do this now over email or msn-skype)and of course for make announcements, we became ambitious and at the same time distracted for the growing community around us. Since we cut contact from you guys, we stop the announcements and worry for anniversaries or 12 days, the core team did some actual work and it goes a bit over the limit that mugen has, some will like it, some will hate it, we don't care, what is important is that we are proud of it, it will be announced when we get close to release, how much time, I dunno, I guess by now you know that this is a hobby and depends fully on our free time.
And finally the rest of the time that the server was down was because it was required build the new download database for this new software, not a simple task we have more that a hundred files, is write info, put images, etc, the download section is fully functional again, I think is enough for re-open the site, the rest of the sections will appear eventually on the days to come.
Do you have to register again?, yes, those who want to register can do it and maybe contribute a bit, this software has some options that allow that random guy contribute with news or even with files, not necessarily requires a full knighthood into our order, for does that do not want, just don't, at this point honestly we don't think that is important if we have 10 or 10000 users.
About the info from the invision forum, is fully backed up but is only accessed by the admins, if you want something on specific back from it, just ask.