Dear Metal Stormers,

Welcome to Metal Storm’s shiny new server. If you have made it here, that means the server move has been successfully completed and we couldn’t be more excited!

If you missed our previous announcements, you can read up on them [url=t/events/news_comments.php?news_id=43196]here[/url] and here.


So what now?

That’s entirely up to you

Feel free to poke around and see what’s what but rest assured that the site is still mostly what it was a couple of hours ago.
In the last six months we have fixed countless bugs and changed site functionality where necessary to continue smooth operation. This process is far from done.
We had to refactor quite a bit of the site’s setup and codebase to get it working on modern infrastructure after running on the same server for over a decade. This could very well have introduced new bugs and we’ll happily tend to anything you find and report to us. We have created a thread for you to report, and corrupt will be available for most of this weekend to monitor the setup, fine tune its configuration, and keep an eye on the bug report thread for new problems.


Will you keep the “Metal Storm Next!” moniker and logo?

No.

We called the refactoring project “Metal Storm Next!” internally and want to celebrate its nearing conclusion by rebranding the site for a couple of weeks. But rest assured that in a few weeks, after the dust has settled, you’ll find Metal Storm with its original logo again.


I have ideas for site features or changes, where can I voice them?

You can always go to the Website Forums and create a thread. However, at this time we would ask you not to.
For the next few weeks, we will mainly be concerned with smooth site and server operation. During this time we likely won’t have an open mind for new things and we wouldn’t want to miss a good suggestion.
Once we feel confident we have everything tuned and dialed correctly, we will create a new thread that is exclusively dedicated to community feedback and ideas for site features and then decide on a battle plan for the near future.
There are a couple of features we have on our list already and they take precedence. But we’re committed to looking at every piece of feedback and see what we can do.


Are the old bugs all gone now?

Most certainly not

Many of the annoying things that have long since become memes were due to some extremely narrow hardware restrictions we had.
Up until yesterday the site ran on a server with all of 2 GB of Ram which is about half to a quarter of what most of your phones have today.

As we have already announced, we have created a non-profit entity to finance the site. Right now we are running on a very shallow budget without a revenue stream. So we’re scaling up carefully, trying to find a good middle ground between an abundance of resources and exploding costs.
That means there’s a chance the times of “Unable to connect to the database” aren’t entirely over yet. That’s why we say we need to fine-tune the configuration. That is an incremental process and we need a realistic load on the site for it.

Also, you can expect us having to restart services, or update configurations and database parameters. Keep an eye on the shoutbox whenever something unexpected happens. There may be a shout by corrupt already, announcing what’s happening.


Shut up and take my money!

We will! Take your money rather than shut up, that is. One of the aforementioned items on our list is a funding page that will transparently lay out our budget to you and give you a chance to chip in.
We will also more frequently communicate plans and changes and look for your feedback in the future. There are a few things in the works right now, both technically and community management-wise that we’ll announce once we’re ready.

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We cannot thank you enough for your support, your help maintaining the site and forming its community. Whether you’ve been with us for the whole 20 years or just joined yesterday, we welcome you and hope to be able to enjoy a bright future with you together.

Your Metal Storm staff, elites, and contributors

Source:

metalstorm.net