NOTE: I deleted many of the posts in this thread as they were just starting a flame war and were being anti-productive. I don't like deleting posts, but it was getting out of hand and unneeded now.
Guys,
Please stop arguing in this thread. KLS is taking on alot of responsibility in taking over the Login Server and making sure it will have as much uptime as possible. It doesn't help to have people arguing about who should contribute or not, and why. She isn't normally a person of few words, but I am the exact opposite lol. I will try to keep you all informed with as much info as I know about the situation.
A little history (may not be exact) on KLS and the emulator:
About 2 years ago, EQEmu moved from some good solid hosting where it was up 99%+ of the time to some new hosting on a very week host server service. The new hosting immediately started causing extended downtime for days every month. Eventually, it started getting worse and worse until it go to the point it is at today where it is more like 90% downtime. The Login Server software is just fine, it is the hardware and the other stuff running on that server (these forums/website) that cause the problem with the current Login Server. Doodman, the current owner of the host had stopped developing for the project long ago, but had always planned to return to the project and fix the issues with the current Login Server and start coding for it again. Doodman stated that those plans aren't going to happen anymore, so he decided to pass the ownership of the Login Server to someone and he picked one of the most respected and trusted members of the currently active EQEmu team, KLS.
KLS has been developing for eqemu for a few years now. After some of the core developers like Fathernitwit, WildcardX and others left the project, KLS took over and almost single-handedly kept the updates coming to improve eqemu for about a year by herself. Since then, a few new members of the dev team have been added (myself included), and have started to help her out. It helps alot that we moved the updates to the new google SVN so we can add as many members as we want to the team, since the old system was very limited and had no room to add new developers. KLS remains what I would call the lead developer of the project and has done much to ensure that things keep rolling and getting better daily. She is also one of the few admins of these forums. She has put endless hours into this project and has been consistent about it. Since, she doesn't voice herself much or in-depth on these forums, many people here may not know who she is. While I don't want to speak too much for her, from what I have seen, she tends to just do her work and make her updates and not really do much discussing about them. She just gets her work done, which IMO is perfectly acceptable.
The Plans for new hosting for the Login Server:
I don't have specific stats on the new hosting that is being looked at, but I am confident that whatever it is will be more than what is required to handle the Login Server with the highest possible stability. If it gets moved to new hosting and there are still some issues, we will have active team members working to ensure that the problem gets resolved and they will keep working until we have something that is as stable as can be expected. So, while it wouldn't hurt to know the stats of the new hosting, the details don't really matter that much. What matters is that it will be corrected, and soon. I am sure once the new hosting is finalized, we will be able to get the new hosting stats. I also imagine that if the new hosting isn't sufficient, there will always be the option to move it again until they find one that is. That is the benefit of having active and competent team members who are responsible for the Login Server.
What I do know is that the Login Server will definitely not be staying on the hosting it is currently on. It will be moving to a new host with considerably better stats. The current one only has something like 512MBs of RAM, and other comparable stats which are just not enough to handle both the Login Server and the Forums. I am not exactly sure what is going to happen to the forums, but I am sure they will be moving as well. I don't know yet if they will be moving to the same server that the Login Server will be on, or if they will be moved to their own separate Web-Hosting service. Either way, the ownership of the forums basically comes with the ownership of the Login Server, so KLS will most likely be responsible for them as well. I also do not yet know for sure if the domain name will be moving, but I would almost certainly assume it will.
Whenever I find out more information, I will give updates as I hear them. Alot of this stuff is still being worked out to give the best possible solution to our problem. I think one of the reasons that the specifics hasn't been stated yet is because KLS is trying to gauge how much to expect the community to be helping out in this matter. If we all show a good response and she gets good funding for it, I imagine that it will open up better hosting options to her. Also, since this will be long-term hosting, we don't want to have to be asking for contributions every single month, so the more we can get contributed up-front, the better. It would be great to have a year's worth of hosting costs saved up to start off with. That will take a tremendous pressure off of KLS as she does not want to pay the bill out of her own pocket and I do not blame her in the least for that!
About Donating:
As for the donations discussion, either do it, or don't. There is no need to try to make people feel ashamed for not donating. Yes, it would help out greatly if people do, but this is considered a free project. If you feel that the project has given you enough enjoyment that it deserves some of your money and you have the money to help it out, then please feel free to do so. If you don't have the money, or don't trust the team enough to send a contribution, or just don't want to donate for any reason, then please do not don't. There is no reason to feel bad about not contributing. We will never pressure people into it. Heck, I don't have the money myself to really donate right now, and I don't plan to do so, lol. Though, I will likely send some of the money I get for my own personal Server's contributions towards it as long as my players are OK with that.
For people who do donate, we don't have any type of rewards planned out for them just yet, but that doesn't mean it isn't a possibility in the future. I think it would be great if we had some way to say thanks to the people who help keep this project running from day-to-day. Also, we aren't expecting people to donate every month. A one-time thing is just fine, but people can do whatever they like.
Feel free to ask any questions related to this new change. Myself or other people in-the-know will try to answer them as best as we can. I try to stay current with what is going on, but there is alot going on atm, so it hasn't been easy to keep up with everything. As I said, I will give updates as I hear them.
Please be nice to KLS. She is under alot of pressure right now I am sure. I only hope she knows that there are many people out there that have faith in her. She has alot to keep her busy for a while, but I think the smoke will clear pretty soon.
Thanks
