Due to lack of donations, our Financial Officer (Nightma12) searched for cheaper options to host what we have/need. Originally, we were planning to go for a VPS, but we opted against it for several reasons. Instead, we've opted to mix our services with two providers. Now, this probably makes a little less sense when you think we could host everything we need on a VPS, but we're actually getting more bang for our buck this way. I'll get to that in a moment though. The important thing is that this means our running costs have been cut from $155 if we had kept our dedicated server to just $34.90 (not including PayPal transaction fees which would probably total about $5).
So we've switched from one provider to two completely new providers for our services. This means there WILL be some website downtime while we undergo DNS propagation. This process will commence at around midnight tonight, US Central Time. Downtime can be for anywhere up to 48 hours, but most people will experience outage for around 12 hours.
We have also switched our provider for our TeamSpeak, meaning that in a short while, our current server will no longer work. The IP address for the new server is 8.9.37.236:9254. While the website will be down, we recommend you use this IP address to connect to the TeamSpeak server. After DNS propogation is complete, we will configure it so you can connect by the old method. However, under the new host, we will have to keep the port at the end of the hostname. Bummer. Also, the new TeamSpeak server only has sixteen slots, but we've noticed that activity rarely gets above six users at the moment, so we're okay with that number. We HAVE planned to increase the size of the server when demand sees fit.
And last but not least, we have also acquired a 16-slot Public Game Server in this deal. What game we host will be discussed with the community over the coming days (there's a list, which I will post to the Hangout when the site is fully functional after the scheduled work). Once we decide what to host, we will boot it up and it will be ready to go very quickly.
So that concludes the coming plans. In brief:
- Our running costs have been slashed from $155 to $34.90
- The website will be down for a short time while we undergo DNS propagation
- Our TeamSpeak server has changed provider - find the IP address above
- We have a new 16-slot game server - discussions about it will start when the website is back up again
As always, me and the other Officers will be keeping you updated on our Facebook page, so we recommend you "Like" us on Facebook to keep on track of what's going on during the scheduled downtime and for any future news!
If you do have any questions, don't hesitate to ask me by any means.
Many thanks,
Starlite
Operating Officer
