tbh, i dont think the server counts single IPs, i think that count to the right is active characters, which means, people who run 6, but are just 1 human being, still counts as 6 on the server, so, just because that number is big doesnt mean that there really are that many "people" on the server. Likewise, if you lose someone, you might be losing 6+.

Quick summary:
PEQ is Free.
PEQ is test bed for new Emu server code thus daily reboots and sometimes the server doesn't come up correctly.
PEQ is test bed for new quests/scripts thus daily reboots. All NPCs scripts get reloaded on reboots.
PEQ server is WAY beyond Cavedudes direct control by about 2000 miles. New Jersey to Colorado I believe.
PEQ is being hosted for free and sometimes you get what you pay for, but over all, it's been a sweet deal. If someone wants to cough up $100-$150/mo to pay for hosting, send me the money(1 year in advance please) I'll set up hosting here.
PEQs hardware is maintained by FNW who has a life and a real job which often means he has no way to get to the hardware immediately.
PEQ is FREE.

Did I leave anything out?

um i think you left out that the server is still down. Here it is so you can just edit your post and add it to your list.

PEQ is still down.

copy paste FTW!

@Crion: Also, you may be surprised, but PEQ has no incentive to keep you there. They're not making money of your, or anyone elses, presence. The server could have only 20 people playing 3-4 characters each, and it would plug on, developing content and testing it. So while you may be concerned about people leaving (why? Do you have trouble finding groups?), I'm not, and TGC isn't going to cease to be if for some reason the EZ server ends up with a higher population.

1. If people don't like the downtime and want there to be less downtime and still want to play on the server, they should donate.

2. Coming here and complaining / making a big deal about the downtime isn't productive. Donating would be infinitely more productive.

3. Without downtime people wouldn't get to discover totally awesome stuff:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CsGYh8AacgY
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QFCSXr6qnv4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eaCCkfjPm0o
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R5Nz8p3EP7A

And:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uzKtPezPsqE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hMtZfW2z9dw

The hosting is being provided for free by the hosting company that FNW used to work for. He no longer works there and his new job requires him to travel frequently so cavedude is not always able to contact him immediately when there is a need.

In this case, cavedude did contact FNW and FNW put in a reboot request with the hosting company. But since they are providing the service for free, clearly this is not going to be a priority for them.

The current machine is adequate for our needs. However, it does not have much available headroom so if there is a bug in the server code that causes heavier load than normal, we will experience problems. Even more than that, with the current set up, we do not have remote management capabilities so we are completely at the mercy of FNW and the hosting company when we do have problems that cause the server to be unreachable.

To resolve all of the above problems, we would like to purchase two new systems that will exceed our needs by a wide enough margin we should not see performance problems from a player perspective even if there are issues with the server code. These systems will include full remote management capabilities allowing us to deal with nearly all problems remotely. And the fact that there will be two will allow us to have a failover in the event of one system failing completely. This should all add up to no downtime or miniscule downtime.

Some people ask about upgrading the existing system to accommodate these features. The problem with that is how long do you think it would take them to upgrade our system when it takes them days to simply reboot it? And that is assuming they would even be willing to do the upgrade for us, which they may very well not be willing to do.

Next we get asked about moving the hosting to a different location. Again it comes down to how long it would take the hosting guys to pack up and ship the system, which isn't very likely to happen in a timely manner either. And again, that assumes they are even willing to do so. They might require it to be picked up, which would require FNW to do so, which he may not have the time for.

So the solution is new servers with remote management at a hosting location that multiple people can contact. The remote management will be available to KLS, cavedude and myself. The hosting location could be called directly by the same 3 people. If physical access is required, it is a 25 minute drive for me. But it is not very likely physical access will be needed with the remote management capabilities.

But all of this costs money. We are doing what we can with the resources we have. We will improve things as we have the resources to do so. Until then, be patient and donate if you are so inclined.

You're too nice. I was gonna go out into the woods and make a club to beat donations out of people.

how much money do we have for new servers?

Whether it is free or not it sort of defeats the purpose of even having a server in the first place if it is going to go down for 5 days at a time very often.

And you can count me as a player that PEQ just lost to p1999

I'd say very often is a bit of an exaggeration.

Hopefully I can get in touch with fnw soon. Cavedude is out till tuesday and fnw still is out on a trip of some sort.

Also I think Rogean was interested in offering something temporary till we could get where we wanted to go but Cavedude has been too busy to really talk to him about it.

lol its ok, have fun getting trained and being on a lame server.


and i always wonder why someone like gaeorn or even you KLS cant send in for a manual reboot. If everyone is out playing in the world and cant fix the faucet, then its going to keep dripping. But if you designate a plumber, it might get fixed.

Please don't lower yourself to his level.

If someone else wants to go play on another server that's their choice, but with an attitude like that I can't say I'll really miss him. Also it's not like p1999 hasn't had week long down times in the past either =p

lol he'll come crawling back.

will be interesting to see what happens when they release Kunark.

This is what I do.
I rolled a mage and made it to 60 in one afternoon. 75 the next day. with the pet DW'ing the free-from-vendor Fiery Defender and Ragebringer, I can easily solo most of the PEQ content. With insta ports to any zone, and no death penalty (inc. no CR) I scout out the dungeons and mobs that I wanna killl on PEQ to get a feel for them.

My biggest concern about PEQ is that since this is the second time the server has gone down in the last month there may be some code currently on the server that is giving it problems. Which is going to cause this up/down cycle of calling FNW and waiting days between playing... until the code is fixed.

Just thinking out loud here...

I know I'm not wasting my time until Kunark is out. How people can waddle around in only original EQ is beyond me...BORING!

Yeah, I'm a noob, I didn't start EQ Live until Luclin came out. I got burned on UO when it was released by some asshats corpse camping, and said F-it to online pay to play. But a friend got me to give EQ a try when Luclin came out and we all know how that crack habit went.

I wandered in to P1999 for a bit to see how old world worked. No thanks, I prefer to PLAY during my online time. Not sit and med for more than half the time. I don't have the RL time to spend doing that like I did in 2001. If they were going to take the server past Velious, I might go back during the Velious and level up to be ready for Luclin, but stopping at Velious is a no thanks for me also.

Final straw, no boxing. I understand if they don't want unlimited connections allowing one person to have an army. But after the first 6 months on live, I bought a second copy of the game and ever since ran 2 boxes. That was how I enjoyed the game. I do not enjoy sitting bored with one toon for the majority of each hour.

Everyone likes different things. just my take on it.

For those out there griping about the server & hesitating about donating.

I've not had a full-time job in nearly 2 years after working for the same company for 14 years after they got bought out & new owners decided to move plant across country. Doing part time work where I can get it & living off my savings. I had only been playing here for about a month & enjoyed myself so much I decided to donate. I dug into what i had set aside for a little fun & sent CD $200.00, I'm not saying for everybody to do that{it would help though}, I'm just saying send a little IF you are enjoying yourself. If you're NOT enjoying yourself then why are you here? If there are 300 players here & they could average $10 each it would be DONE.

Anybody unhappy with my statement, type it out double-spaced in large type, fold it until it is all sharp corners, & I think you know the rest.

Original EQ doesn't really flesh out until the mid/late 30s, until then it is hideously boring. The only thing expansions did was ease the 1-30 part into something more bearable because you could twink.

Of course, there's also LGuk and Dragon raids which many people missed out on.

It's not really EQ if you haven't been through all of LGuk :-D

Though it's been said eleventy billion times, it bears repeating. The glory of EQ, specifically EQ pre-PoP, is that it was vastly different than anything else. We loved it simply because we didn't know any different.
I spun up EQemu intending to revel in my P99 glory days and realized very quickly I was spoiled by newer MMO's. I hate WoW for all that the community is, and has made it. It's childish and petty. It's greedy and elitist. But it flat destroys EQ classic, and frankly all of EQ that isn't LDoN sheerly by instancing. Guk was certainly a vivid memory,a fond one too. But everyone remembers the epic Frenzy group they had, not the 3 hours waiting, killing light blue/green entrance mobs whittling down the list of 6 tanks that arrived before you. You aren't leaving unless your guildie/best friend has a reserved spot for you DEEP in SolB, cuz at 48+, guk is the only game in town. This doesn't change until the world is SO HUGE that there are simply too many dungeons to camp. And then the population teeters on the brink of what PEQ is. Unless you have a pre-formed group formed in a city, multibox, or badly outlevel the content and can solo it, it's empty.
Because of this, I now LOATHE camping. Hell, I don't even like re-running the same instance twice in a row.
EDIT: This is why I 2 (or more) box. usually a mage and a shaman. I can count on one hand the number of parties I've been in including when it was for the random grp buff.
I feel like PEQ is essentially Diablo 2 all over again. Everyone knows, you get to act V and then join an 8 player game, but dont group and farm an act for good exp and drops. Socialization without the interaction of grouping.

Been trying to get cavedude to talk to me to discuss a better solution, even if its temporary (It could be permanent) and he hasn't gotten back to me.

I hate seeing PEQ Down. P1999's stability and the servers and network it runs on are proven now that we moved since the last ddos attacks and thwarted them, I see no reason we can't share it.

Someone post FNW's number on 4chan so we can get this thing up.

I have been playing on peq server for over a month now and am having a blast. I will be making a donation for sure. Is there any information on how much more is needed to get the ball rolling on the new setup?

There was mention of it in the last thread; IIRC we were halfway at the goal, and the goal was posted?

Gaeorn said it was $4500, according to this post

Last I knew, we were nowhere near halfway to the goal. However, recent donations may have changed that if you include the $1,000 I plan to put into this. Unfortunately, cavedude is unavailable until Tuesday and he is the only one who knows the exact donation total.

see, theres another thread where everyone has already stressed things about the server being down... i think now most of us are just stirring up shit because its fun, and the only thing to do right now.

Fatboy5706, please remove the disgusting image from your signature. This is not the place for it.

im sure we will all be up and running again in the next few days but its good to see alot of people concerned. its good for our community within a server. project eq has been an escape for me as my financial troubles wane as of today I will be earning 17 dollars an hour (in florida thats alot of money) And as long as I feel that the money would be put to the use intended I will make periodic donations.. I feed a family of 5 so its nothing extravagant 20 bucks here and there you know? PeQ has a strong community for how small we are and to be honest we need to actually get more people involved because although I do like classic eq ie: 1999 With the expansions it is easier to get into the game and solo if you like.. hell my ranger fealdwyn has been campin crystaline shardwurms for the last week so that I could finally purchase the nightmarewood compound bow. Started my epic got all my foraged parts ect. I loved the original eq over eq2 but after sony destroyed SWG i swore i would never play another sony mmo and I havent broken that oath..

all in all folks this will happen alot unless we as a community say "ok this is a cool place to hang out.. whats 20 bucks here and there.." it adds up then one day we will be kicked offline and a few days later we wont have to ever worry about this again. Cavedude is awesome.. period

i know im bouncin off walls and im happy horse-shit sad my server is down but its ok...

this too shall pass

its not like we all havnt seen that episode, and strive to be the gamer cartman is.

He's from Kentucky, they crap on the floor there.

and youre from the doghouse... gratz

actually you are prolly from somewhere worse than kentucky, like texas.

Whats so bad about Texas? we are doing much better than any other state at this time. Colorado second

you gave us george bush

http://img251.imageshack.us/img251/8...impaddress.jpg

http://img830.imageshack.us/img830/305/change2.jpg

http://img26.imageshack.us/img26/452/obamapicture.jpg

http://img507.imageshack.us/img507/9897/jetfuel.jpg

Thank you.
 

Thank you for your extremly detailed post, I have a much clearer understanding now.

To others that read my post, sorry you couldn't read it correctly and felt more of a need to flame than answer it. I by NO means meant for people to second guess donating, I just wanted clarity. Thanks again, you'll be getting my donate after my 2300 mile trek. ;) -See you in game.

it would be nice to have a donation tracker such as http://www.devfuse.com/products/53-donation-tracker/ I think that will help us try to achieve our goal rather than taking a guess.