Downtime

Chime · Mar 6, 2015, 4:04 AM

I think it was some lingering sense of basic decency. My bad. When he started posting all over unrelated G+ posts (okay, not important stuff, but pictures of cats and things for family that I had semi-public), I think I can safely say that he's not worried about these sorts of boundaries anymore.

I've given him a URI for downloading the tarball. What he does with it is anyone's guess.

This was willm (redacted again at the request of forum staff), owner of a starwars game, gundam seed, and zero. I suspect people could do business with him just fine as long as clear contracts, expectations, and boundaries are set and never crossed. I sure as hell don't want him on any of my systems though.

Again, for those who are vaguely worried about all this: his data is fine and safe, and he has full access to it. He's just been an utter jackass.

http://mudstats.com/World/StarWarsNewJediOrder
http://mudstats.com/World/StarWarsLegacy(NewJediOrder) (same game, duplicate entry)
http://mudstats.com/World/TITAN2100
http://mudstats.com/World/GundamMUSH

edit: removed name at request of staff

Chime · Mar 6, 2015, 12:39 AM

@Misadventure: I could use one. And we should totally hang out when you get back down here!

Coin · Mar 6, 2015, 1:12 PM

Anyone who comes down here is entitled to several pints on me. Unless I hate you, in which case, why would you come down here? I own this land. THIS IS MY LAND.

I mean, my company is totally worth that airplane ticket, right? Right.

Miss Demeanor · Mar 6, 2015, 9:49 PM

AND WE SHALL IT... THIS LAND.

I think we should call it your GRAVE!

Gah, curse your sudden but inevitable betrayal!

Chime · Mar 7, 2015, 1:20 AM

@Miss-Demeanor said:

AND WE SHALL IT... THIS LAND.

You accidentally the verb.

Miss Demeanor · Mar 7, 2015, 5:16 AM

I did. I'm severely disappointed with myself.

Alzie · Mar 27, 2015, 6:22 PM

@Chime said:

I think it was some lingering sense of basic decency. My bad. When he started posting all over unrelated G+ posts (okay, not important stuff, but pictures of cats and things for family that I had semi-public), I think I can safely say that he's not worried about these sorts of boundaries anymore.

I've given him a URI for downloading the tarball. What he does with it is anyone's guess.

This was willm (redacted again at the request of forum staff), owner of a starwars game, gundam seed, and zero. I suspect people could do business with him just fine as long as clear contracts, expectations, and boundaries are set and never crossed. I sure as hell don't want him on any of my systems though.

Again, for those who are vaguely worried about all this: his data is fine and safe, and he has full access to it. He's just been an utter jackass.

http://mudstats.com/World/StarWarsNewJediOrder
http://mudstats.com/World/StarWarsLegacy(NewJediOrder) (same game, duplicate entry)
http://mudstats.com/World/TITAN2100
http://mudstats.com/World/GundamMUSH

edit: removed name at request of staff

Oh, so that's why he sent out the giant email to everyone telling us his host had screwed him and the games were down. There were like 7 emails from him that day.

@GundamAdmin

I really enjoyed our time together and I hope you will all keep in touch. However, the server has been closed down for good. I apologize for the lack of warning, our host pulled a very shady move. After this happened, I realized I had no desire to put the game back up just to flounder.

Nikodin · Mar 27, 2015, 7:36 PM

@Chime I don't think the game owner's behavior is acceptable. It's incredibly nice of you to provide hosting for free. Before I hosted my game through a professional host, I also used a free service. That gentleman was very nice and sweet, however because it was free, there was often a downtime, more than promised. While it was free I also donated $15, and wanted to continue donating, but the service turned out unreliable. I had mentioned that, and finding out that it was out of his control as the servers were only checked every Monday, I simply decided to move. If there was anything I was entitled to, I would never go about being rude about it, especially for a free service and choosing to donate. I still think he is a nice guy and provides great service for just-starting games, but if anyone has a problem with anyone else's hosting, they need but to move on rather than being sore losers about it. Don't let him bring you down Thanks for the free services you offer.

Chime · Mar 28, 2015, 2:42 AM

@Alzie said:

Oh, so that's why he sent out the giant email to everyone telling us his host had screwed him and the games were down. There were like 7 emails from him that day.

He's very excitable. His data is still safe, though he proved unable to download a file successfully. He tried a few times, then apparently gave up. Not my problem. If he sends me an address I'll mail him a dvd-r or something. Mostly I'm happy he's gone away. Yay for lower stress levels.

@Orange:
Thanks. I wish I could be more patient and helpful but I'm pretty burned out on everything. It hurts seeing people hit the same problems over and over again trying to launch a new game. I wanted that to be something easy to do-- and promote the whole hobby as a modern literary tradition. I ran out of energy, though. It's been very hard just trying to get back into the habit of RP, let alone staffing or managing a hosting quasi-business. Good luck, though. And thanks. Nice people make everything better.

Luna · Mar 28, 2015, 5:52 AM

I'm very confused by all of this. Hosting is like $5 a month shared? Something like that? It's stupid cheap. I have a virtual server, I think it's maybe $50 a month? I only have that because I have client files I have to be responsible for and hosted QuickBooks. I also have a reseller account for whatever's that's half that. Wtf. Host. Your. Shit. If anything around $10 a month breaks you, quit fucking mushing and fix your life.

Sponge · Mar 28, 2015, 6:09 AM

Part of my automated backup process involves encrypting them with gnupg. Since they're encrypted and the key is managed sanely for CoH I just make them publicly visible on the website: http://www.cityofhopemush.com/backups/

In theory that means that if someone wants to ensure that their character is recoverable at a specific time they can grab a copy of the backup and I can recover it later. In practice it means the person running the game can operate independently of the person hosting the game (the backups are encrypted to each of us).

In @Chime's case this probably wouldn't help since the "customer" was expecting everything to be done for him.

Chime · Mar 28, 2015, 7:06 AM

@Sponge: right. The data is still available, but the user pitched a tantrum and won't click the link in the email to actually download it.

For a hypothetical future game with joint/distributed ownership, I suppose the 'committee' or whatever could have backups encrypted with asymmetric keys (standard PKI like x.509 or GPG) so that anyone possessing the private side of the pair could decrypt later. And then splitting THAT private key definition with a redunancy-recovery program so that given X pieces of the secret, Y pieces are able to read it.

This way even years after the fact, if "everyone" had the encrypted backup, it could be opened if some percentage of the trusted parties agreed that it should be done.

In practice, well. Most people are still using bare telnet with no ssl/tls, so good luck.

purldator · Mar 28, 2015, 7:53 AM

You could also possibly forward any backups automatically to a dropbox. That way you don't have to manually go in for someone.

As for the situation with the self-entitled jackanape taking advantage of free hosting AND support, well, it was a lesson to be learned for you, @Chime. And I'm not saying that in a rude way. I learned it as well on my own circumstances.

Don't let this make you bitter. However, let it make you aware that your time is valuable and not to be wasted on every breathing body that can slam fingers to keys and somehow form words. Because that's the only reason I guess I can come up with if he can't google a tutorial on how to SSH into his account and grab a flatfile or any kind of backup.

Coin · Mar 28, 2015, 4:03 PM

@purldator said:

You could also possibly forward any backups automatically to a dropbox. That way you don't have to manually go in for someone.

This is essentially what we are doing for Eldritch, IIRC (@Thenomain can correct me) except we're using Google Drive for it.

purldator · Mar 28, 2015, 6:25 PM

@Coin Glad I'm not the only one who thought of it. Especially if it's daily or weekly backups. The client can keep whatever they choose. Sure, bandwidth charges apply but the stress mitigated is worth it. Moreso if you do charge a little extra for the service to counterbalance the added data going out.

Lithium · Dec 23, 2015, 12:52 AM

Completely unrelated to the events of the past but, how would one go about setting up backups going to dropbox? I would love to set that up for a game I am working on.

EDIT: Sorry about the necro

Thenomain · Dec 23, 2015, 4:36 AM

@Chime said:

pony

FOR PONY!

Er, I have a dropbox solution, but it requires a script. Hold on...

https://www.dropbox.com/install?os=lnx

You will want to explicitly ask @Chime for permission. I've never used it, although I've installed it.

Cirno · Dec 23, 2015, 12:29 PM

@Thenomain

When are you gonna do that MLP/WOD crossover game, T?

When?!