Rpg-D Moving Again

Before I even say anything, I'm sorry. To be honest, I'm not in a great place right now but here's a little story hour to go with our update.

As you guys have noticed many of our more awesome functions have been disabled. Reputation system, status updates, all the cool things that we all love. We've also updated to 3.3.3. All of these measures were put in place in order to cut down on our CPU usage so we wouldn't be kicked off of our VPS and so that we could continue running (albeit slowly) while I figure out our other options.

Those options were, and are, paying for a Dedicated server. An announcement that I'd much rather be a happy cheerful one than the kind I'm giving right now. Dedicated Servers cost hundreds of dollars a month (in order to pay for one to support us, ours would be at least $250/month and up to $400/month) and aren't a very good solution long-term especially considering up until now I've been paying for this place basically out of pocket with the exception of our fabulous donations.

Here is where this announcement turns exceptionally sour, because the above news is bad but not day-ruining. Two days ago I began talking to our host about switching to a Dedicated Server with no response. This morning, a couple hours ago specifically, I got an email saying that RPG-D is being taken off of our VPS some time this evening (I haven't heard back about when exactly 'this evening' is). It effectively will take 48 hours for a dedicated server to be created to host us, and clearly a VPS even a tricked out one like we had briefly, isn't enough to host us even for a few days.

Basically, RPG-D may effectively be shut down by our server some time later today. We may be able to switch to a Dedicated Server still but it may take up to 48 hours for that server to be built and obviously it's a lot of money.

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Now for the good news!

I'm not a quitter, and I don't think you guys are either. This is not going to be an easy fix but it is possible to make this situation okay again. RPG-Directory will have its domain name pointed to the old site (http://z15.invisionfree.com/RPG_Directory/index.php?) which will (when it's not offline) have an area dedicated to giving you guys some space to talk and chill and do whatever you need to do during the next 48 hours to get your RPG-D fix. There is nothing scarier than a whole bunch of RPG-D'ers without their RPG-D fix. >_>

Right now Hattress is working at changing the permissions so that the archives will remain untouched, once the old IF board is turned online again you guys will see everything updated and that category for you to enjoy. The bad news with this is that members who have joined in the past 9 or 10 months will have to re-register. When we officially fix RPG-D this won't be a problem, but I'm so sorry for you guys!

The plan for the future is:
1) Contact IPS, try to fix some of our memory hogs on this site.
2) Contact our host about possibly switching to a dedicated server
3) Upgrade to IPB 3.3.3 to hopefully fix the Reputation system to be less of a drain on our resources
4) Make the announcement, send bulk emails
5) Make the old RPG-Directory accessible at least for the time being
6) Find a new VPS for RPG-D
7) Switch forum software to Xenforo, which would use much less resources than IPB
8) Make the skin and some much needed updates around the board
9) Introduce the New New RPG-Directory

As a quick note, you guys might be wondering what the heck Xenforo is. You can find some information about it right here but we haven't made a final decision on whether we're going to switch to Xenforo or not. Last I heard, Aki was making a copy of our database to see if Xenforo can even handle our site. So far it looks promising, but it's not set in stone yet. At this point it's a choice between somehow coming up with $400 a month or switching to looking at other forum software options. It's probably obvious which one I'm going to pick.

Again, I'm sorry that all this is happening. It's obviously not something I'm particularly happy with. I wanted to keep you guys in the loop on what's going on but honestly I still am getting just vague snippets of information so it's hard to extrapolate what is going wrong. What you just need to take away from this is that we're working on it as fast as possible and that we will make this right somehow. In the meantime, I want to make this transition as painless as possible for you guys so sit tight!

Lint, can you provide some pros and cons of the features of IPB and Xenforo? From the very quick look i had, it looks similar to IPB?

Also, can you make sure that you keep the twitter/facebook updated? If we can't access the site, we have no idea what is going on.. I know that this is the first time since about last night I have been able to make it to the 'D.

Oh and maybe provide a direct link to the cbox on one of these platforms?

I'm sorry to hear you guys are going through so much trouble. :/

May I ask what the average monthly bandwidth usage is, and how much storage the 'D is using?

Thanks Domster. This my like! rofl. :D

Oh, and I have the link to the old D (on the IF server) but for some reason, I cant log in and I can't check for member name because it links to here).

Can someone check the records? (I might have changed names but I can't remember if I did that before the move to IPB or after)

So sorry that you're having problems still. I really hope you're able to get things worked out soon, not only for us but for the Staff here as well. If you do end up with the Dedicated Servers, and since the cost is so much, would you be able to set up a donation "jar" so that members of the 'D could help with the costs?

@Abby: When I looked at the old D's member list, I saw "Abbey" and "Abby Garcia", but that was it. Sorry if that wasn't helpful!

I have one piece of crucial advice that I think might help.

A large part of the traffic load that is dragging down the site's performance is actually the Topsites. The topsites is getting traffic from every single site that is listed on it and recording all that data too, which will eat up a significant portion of your storage space and memory.

I don't know where the topsites was hosted before it was moved to the D's webspace, but I would recommend moving it to a webspace separate from the board.

I ran an Aardvark Topsites before as well, but never did that use up very much CPU. I think I had around 70 registered sites.

iTopsites is a great example of a site that hosts many, many topsites (hundreds upon thousands), and apparently their reported CPU usage is around 4%, last I heard.

*thunks head* I should've had my V8 this morning - see it on the sidebar everyday, too. :Blush:

You guys don't have to apologize for anything. In my opinion, you've all done an amazing job in keeping the 'D afloat amidst the server problems. Thank you!

Thanks! Yeah, I changed my name over there before the move here and I was able to log in!

Honestly I would like to make a few possible suggestions if a Dedicated server is the route to go. Honestly I understand that we are eating up the resources but that means you have a lot of dedicated members that like to be here. You can try (and while it isn't pretty it would certainly help when this site averages about 150 people online at all times) adsense. Throw it in the sidebar. It's advertising yes but it keeps the site free and could make up some of the costs, obviously adsense is not going to pay for the site monthly but it would certainly be a means to getting it done.

Also a percentage donator bar showing how much is needed and how much further we have to go for that month. Honestly if just the people that have been online today (which was about 40) donated 10 bucks a month the dedicated server would be paid for and I know for a fact there are far more people here that are willing to donate to keep the site alive. I know I would.

I have other ideas but that's what I have for now. I know for a fact that I have a problem with XenForo and that it will make me kind of unhappy to be switched to it.

I know they aren't the preference but if it's needed we might want to do it? I just thought I'd throw in my 2 cents.

Just a curious question but what would be so bad about rebuilding the site on Jcink? I'm sure they'd even help you out in transferring database things like posts and members. Since you're talking so much about rebranding, why not just rebuild from the bottom up?

I wasn't suggesting it wouldn't be or that it would be quick and easy. I was suggesting it in the same sense as converting the board to an unknown software that you'd have to learn how to skin and how to mod etc. Something you're not even sure will do what you want it to. Being that there are so many staff, there would be plenty of hands to help. I was only wondering why this option wasn't even considered, being that money is an issue and Jcink is free. And if it was considered, why was it disgarded?

Thanks for all your concerns guys!

To answer your questions:
We actually are not going to switch to a dedicated server. At least we're going to try not to. The only reason why we need a dedicated server at this exact moment is because IPB software by itself takes up a whole TON of CPU. Our VPS right now uses 3GB of RAM, 14.5 cores, and needs 500GB of space and that's with most of our awesome CPU-draining features turned off. IPS is aware of our problem and has told us that they're "fixing" the problem for the next update, but in the mean time we literally cannot afford to go the dedicated route and stay on IPB.

Xenforo was chosen (well for now) because it has almost all the same features IPB has but runs much much more efficiently and when I say efficiently, I mean cheaply. When we switch to Xenforo we'll be able to just stay on a VPS and have plenty of room to breathe and not have to worry about constant stability issues, plus we'll be able to expand without needing to beg you guys to pitch in to a super expensive plan.

The reason we're not just making a new site on Jcink for you guys to play on is really because it seems kind of silly to make a brand new site just for you guys to play on for a week. I'd much rather put the database in software that is really designed for a giant, and growing, community and one which can expand with us. Jcink is great and all but, ultimately, I just feel it isn't the right solution at this time.

Edit: Jcink, although not mentioned in the update, was considered. It just wasn't a solution I particularly liked, just to clear that up Lorr. But thanks for suggesting.