Gaming Madness Community Forum

Hello Everyone,

I unfortunately have to report that the server in Michigan has finally died. It is massively antiquated and has been running for 8 years solid, it is time to upgrade. Joey and I are looking at a new server with a budget of $2000. We hope to have the new server up and running by Mid-December. I know this amount of downtime will upset some of you, and to that I want to offer some perspective from joeyz point of view:

The server costs $100 a month to host - For the past 8 years that amounts to $9600
The physical server machine cost joey $1500

So we are looking at a total cost of over $11,000 to provide the UT2004 server to you guys. That is not counting all of the thousands of hours we have spent away from our families to develop for the game.

So where do we go from here? Since the server will cost $2000 and since joey is going through some financial hardship with his job right now we would appreciate it if anyone is able to donate some money to offset the cost of purchasing a new server. The server is a lot of money, however it will enable us to host an invasion server for the new Unreal Tournament 4 when it comes out in a year or two. The current server has 2GB of ram and a processor that benchmarks at 1346. For comparison the CPU in my COMPUTER benchmarks at 10,256! So yeah, it's FAR past due for an upgrade, and I'm sure we'll see better performance as well for UT2k4.

To donate please go HERE

Now, I know some of you may be wary about donating money since we haven't exactly been keeping up with the server and releasing the patch, but I have GREAT news!

I talked with joeyz tonight and he is entrusting me with a sort of "Vice-President" position. Joey and I will share the same full access to the server so that I can develop the game and release new patches for it while he is away. So here's the plan:

When the server is purchased and back online we will be bringing up the 179 server and the 180 development server. By the time this happens I will have 1 month off from college. During this month I plan on working on patch 180 and getting it stable and balanced so we can release it. But to do this I really need your help, especially Amy's because I adore her and the dedication to detail she brings to the server. When the 180 development server comes back online I need as many people as possible playing it and making bug reports for the remaining bugs. Once that is done I will go through one by one and take care of these bugs, or disable the features until things are solid and we can release the patch. Since I will share the same server powers as joey I will be able to single-handedly launch Patch 180 in the event joey is still away. So essentially, you all should look forward to things returning back to the way they were.

Please bear with us as we go through this transition and if you can, please consider donating some money to offset the financial cost of this new server. With joeyz financial stability and the amount of time I can put towards the server, and together with your help, we will be able to get the server back on track and better than ever.

Sincerely,
Paintball + joeyz

Is there not a more cost-effective way of having the server hosted or rented?

How does the "host game" provision work in the regular version that I am running on my own computer? Could that not just be run on a server out of someones home?

I don't know about these things.

I would be willing to throw a few sheckels towards getting the game to play again, but I would feel more confident if there was an actual plan that did not cost so much.

I would also feel better money-wise if I knew more people were more-aware of the issue and also willing to contribute....Which means having the the games address redirected to a screen that says something to the effect of "We Need Input and Donations on the Situation", so go to gamingmadness...

count me in rump. cant do a whole lot on disability but can send 50 to 100 bucks that way. that would equate to about about third of a cent for every game I"ve played. maybe we will get the new version sooner too.

weetodd wrote:count me in rump. cant do a whole lot on disability but can send 50 to 100 bucks that way. that would equate to about about third of a cent for every game I"ve played. maybe we will get the new version sooner too.

I'm on disability as well.

Yeah, Im a bit ashamed of playing for so long and not really contributing much....But I will forego a few pizzas to get back to playing UT the way it is meant to be played. Ive spent more time at my old haunt lately (DW) and it's just so anemic.

where do we send the money to:::??????

there is a paypal button in the board index or you can send it directly to joey's emai address.

Congrats on the promotion Paint..
Please check out the PM i sent you and Joeyz
I am sure if you setup a Donation site like the one for Archangel, We would have a Sizable amount in no time at all.

Rumple wrote:Is there not a more cost-effective way of having the server hosted or rented?

How does the "host game" provision work in the regular version that I am running on my own computer? Could that not just be run on a server out of someones home?

I don't know about these things.

I would be willing to throw a few sheckels towards getting the game to play again, but I would feel more confident if there was an actual plan that did not cost so much.

I would also feel better money-wise if I knew more people were more-aware of the issue and also willing to contribute....Which means having the the games address redirected to a screen that says something to the effect of "We Need Input and Donations on the Situation", so go to gamingmadness...

We are looking into a more cost effective way of hosting but we are also looking towards the future where we want to host a Unreal Tournament 4 server. That will require A LOT more processing than the UT2004 server and we wan't to be prepared for it and do it right the first time. Putting a "We Need Donations" message is a good idea and I'll mention it to joeyz but word of mouth will help too. The donation link at the bottom of the Invasion Forum is active by the way, it goes straight to joeyz paypal account. Also as far as hosting a server out of ones home, its not a good idea. It is unreliable and just wouldn't work, it would be nice if that was an option though.

I just got a message a little while ago from joey telling me that he has "good news". I'll keep you guys posted.

oh my.....

..thats what i meant with what i cant understand. it really seems having a gameserver is totally different
between usa and germany...

my question is the definition of "having".. renting it at low cost or really buying it...

atm it doesnt matter i have another, in my oppinion more important question, pointing at all players
who never ever visited forum or still dont know there exist one even when playing since 3 years.

so, is there a way to set up or rent something like a dummy-server, that tells anyone who tries to
connect that server is temporary down for upgrading or maybe a small 2-4 slot gameserver
(some gameservers have 1month trials for free...) that only runs spectator-mode with these
white server-messages that real server will be back soon?


or maybe some hacks that leads everyone who tries to connect directly into this forum...

ats