New Hosting, Atlantica-db.com on the road
Posted 08/27/2009 - 10:19 by Admin Muwing
After a very active summer on AOP, time is come to put together my last announcements, and to give a report the situation.
1) New Hosting
First of all, AOP will move to a new hosting, for two reasons:
- My hoster drops the kind of hosting I'm using (Real Private Server), which has now some annoying limitations.
- Sad personnal reason: no job => no money => I can't pay a quality server.
This new (shared) hosting will be -globally- less performant, but should be more stable. By the way, AOP uses 1.3 To traffic / month ; the new server is limited to 1 To.
So I have to deal with these new constraints (= additionnal and unexpected work), and some features on AOP could be disabled. Most of them should be (progressively) converted to an "optimized" version on the new website.
2) New website: Atlantica-db.com
The successor of AOP, Atlantica-db.com, is on the road.
My plans was to provide more info, more features and a better usability: it remains true for the info (thanks to someone who shared some knowledge with me), but false regarding the features.
The German version is still possible if I find a serious collaborator.
My main motivation is to find a job - or to start my own activity.
That's why I'd lie if I told the usual marketing speech:
I'm working hard so as to release the best site around Atlantica Online for you, lovely players
The truth is:
I'm working hard so as to improve my skills related to web programming, and to build a kind of showcase.
I spent a lot of time and energy on AOP, but that doesn't put food on the table, and I can't continue anymore.
3) What now?
AOP itself won't evolve at the moment, what means no new feature. But reported bugs will continue to be fixed.
However, it may involve, depending on the parts I may need to disable (maybe none!).
I don't know when the new site is done, maybe next month, maybe later. I'm currently losing some time to adapt my work to this new hosting. And other problems to manage.
However, the new forums will be online sooner, as Guides (and their translations) will be located there in the future.
Well, sorry to be a bother with my wretched life, but I wanted to inform you -honestly- about the situation.
PS: the new hosting is rented for 2 years (interesting promotion), paid with my social securities. So AOP won't disappear tomorrow.
Update 08/29:
A ChipIn donation button has been added, for people who would feel the desire to support AOP and its successor.
If the fund raising is a success, it would pay a better hosting for a year.
That would entirely solve the traffic problem, and a large part of the problems related to heavy features.
This better hosting would make my work on the next Atlantica website easier too (present and future).
Update 09/09:
Migration to the new hosting is completed.
The next days will show how stable the site is.
Update 09/07:
Thanks to the kindness of Dodecahedron (Sikyon server), bandwidth isn't a problem anymore (some external files will be stored on its own server).
Update 10/02:
No miracle, the fund raising has failed: 50$ was collected (13 contributions).
It could be used for situational needs, no more.
Good luck on finding a job Muwing, and thanks for all the good work on this site and the next one !
Perhaps you ought to consider putting up an option for people (who feel the desire) to donate to the site so that you can spend some more time on it. i know for a fact that i would contribute. this site saves me much time and money and makes my life better and easier. surely that is worth some money!
Indeed I had considered this possibility for donations, but didn't feel confortable with that for somes reasons, including:
- AOP is a collective work, even if I've been assuming the largest part since its creation. Why should I be the only guy who receive the "honors"?
- Donations & F2P games are pretty incompatible. 90% of the players are not ready to give a buck to the game editor itself (Item Mall), even if they love the game and play intensively.
- I use to assume what I do.
Now, in my situation today, I -and AOP- having nothing to lose by asking for help.
That's why I added a ChipIn widget so as to collect the required money for a decent hosting.
If each individual using regularly AOP could donate 1$ per year, the hosting wouldn't be a problem anymore *and* I could work on it at full time (it's not an exaggeration, the traffic on AOP is enough important).
Nevertheless, I remain pessimistic but this fundraising: the two messages above are the only nice/encouraging ones I received for 2 days.
By the way, thank you very much!
I'm new here but i sure do understand money can be a big problem which would induce a great amount of stress.
But all i can do now is to wish best of luck to you, and AOP too.
Good Luck with your personal stuff too... no reason t give up yet theres still lots of ppl in AOP who might be able to help...
:( you need more encouraging messages:
gl finding a job i really do hope you do. I luv ur site and hope it will make it
Aww, sorry I didn't post. Good luck, Muwing - you know I love the site and enjoy helping out on it. And I know how much job hunting sucks - I've been job hunting (in the States) for over 8 months now. :(
I'm looking for job too, that's why I haven't been playing and contributing to the site. Not that I contributed a lot to begin with anyway, just some mob infos.
Anyway, I think you have a pretty good portfolio (this site) to show if you're looking for web related job, I think it's well coded.
All the best!
Muwing...
I love this site soooooooo much!
You Make a wonderful job here. Im logged in all the time. This site is so important for me!
I'll try to donate to and I'll talk with my friends in the game to came here to make a donation so maybe you can still here with us for more and more time.
I desire all the good things to you... cause all your dedication for us Atlantica players was incredible.
For this site be even better more players should know more about AOP... I'll put the adreress of AOP site in my Greetings in the game, so more visits, more people in love with this site and maybe more donations!
Bye!
1.3 TB/month, wow. If the 80/20 rule applies, there should be a relatively small amount of features that account for the bulk of that traffic. Would you mind sharing where it's all going? I'm curious to see what happens to a popular website, what causes traffic to go through the roof like that. I'm thinking "graphics" or "avatars" maybe, but then again, I may be off by a mile. Or a few kilometers :).
Thank you for your messages (and thank you to the 4 contributors!).
I have near 0% chance to find a job where I'm living (it's dead, especially in the IT sector). And mentalities are long to chance here: many people (including recruitors) don't take it seriously if you do a fansite related to an online game. They often see you as a kind a lazzy geek which is more interesting in playing, and not working (it's sometimes true, but rare with serious fansites maintened for a long time).
That's why I'm -seriously- thinking about creating my own activity, as building F2P webgames (some of them make money by proposing to grow up virtual pigs...).
I'm the kind of simple guy with simple needs, but even a simple life requires a minimum of money.
Many F2P players are in the same situation, and I wish you the best too. Good luck to all of us!
@Yorick: unfortunately I just have the "raw" data provided by my hoster, no details. The actual server has no limit about monthly traffic, so it wasn't a problem before. The next server is cheap (6€/month or 8.5$) and cheap servers have this kind of limitations (at least quality AND cheap servers, not the "illimited" ones who accumulates problem).
Using anywhere near a TB sounds VERY unlikely. AOW which while it has less users it is filled with alot more images (Which accounts for about 82.6% of AOW's BW) only uses about 25GB per month (There is 1024 GB in a TB). Text doesn't take alot of BW and AOP doesn't have any large downloads (Large as in 5MB or more) that i can see. Actual dedicated servers(Which cost about $99 per month) can come with about 700GB as standard so there is no way you would use anywhere near that amount.
P.S Why don't you put some google ad's up. AOW's hosting is covered by the ad's on it.
Migration is done.
If you see any problem, please report it (Priv.Msg. or Forum).
PS: obviously, the site is slower...
hmm i cant seem to access atlantica-db.com
can you put up a link or something?
[Muwing: I didn't announce anything about Atlantica-db yet. The migration (to the new hosting) done yesterday concerned AOP.muwing.com only.]
There shouldn't be more disabled features on AOP.
The server works fine most of the time, even though it's always near its limits. Fortunately, the traffic decreases a bit since (some) players are at school.
However, the site can be very slow during peak hours, sometimes down a short time (I got myself several "the MySQL server has given up" error messages on Saturday).
I think it will be OK until the Atlantica-db release.
The bandwidth problem is solved.
Thanks to the kindness of Dodecahedron (Sikyon server), who share his own hosting ("unlimited" bandwidth) with me, for both AOP and Atlantica-db.
Concretly, a large part of the pictures (including the +13,000 images created with the formation builder) and some other files will be stored there, saving a lot of bandwidth.
It will also speed up the website a little bit!
As a consequence, I modified the ChipIn donation widget, which represents the cost for a performant SQL server (12€/month).
It would avoid the slowdowns and cuts during peak hours ; and would allow useful additionnal features to the new site (other versions/languages for Atlantica, more info displayed, powerful searches with auto-completion, plugin for your browser, etc).
Sincere thanks to Dodecahedron & the 12 contributos to Fund raising (21% done!).
Well, first of all, good luck on everything. Hope everything turns out good for you.
Second, I have something to point out. This is actualy the best AO database outhere, no wiki has the ammount of intel that we can get here. However when you google stuff like this, this website is nowhere to be found. The point is, that this website could be even greater then it already is, its just being pushed down because: 1. the web search issues, 2. the name doesnt help at all ( I was trying to find my way here a couple of days ago and I just couldnt remember the AOP part, so I just gave up)
This new website is a wonderful opurtunity to change that. Get a name that people can easily relate to in a hoster that can be easily found on search webs like google. I would also suggest a graphic layout with a bit more 'eyecandy'. Wether we want it or not, this type of webs when having a bit more "flashiness" tend to bring more people in.
And btw, I have offered my assistance many, many months ago and I shall offer again. If you need a hand with the graphic design let me know.
Big up and wish you all the best. ^^
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