Trench Wars server fund is in dire straits; donations requested

[Jessup]

Shut your obnoxious dumb ass up Vys. No one wants to follow you anywhere, especially not to fortnite. If you want to post a retirement thread, fine but to come in here and be spouting off encouraging people to leave the game shows exactly who you have always been. You are a TOXIC TROLL.

[1 Hit]

I could've sworn that I was donating every few months... I guess I was wrong about that. I'll donate 10 dollars a month to help out a bit. Good thing I checked the forums today, I didn't know that this was an issue.

[Vys]

Shut your obnoxious dumb ass up Vys. No one wants to follow you anywhere, especially not to fortnite. If you want to post a retirement thread, fine but to come in here and be spouting off encouraging people to leave the game shows exactly who you have always been. You are a TOXIC TROLL.

Let me make this quite clear if it isn't already...you are certainly not on the invite list...and for the record, I'll be playing with peeps every night from trench wars, enjoy your Elim battles with the other delinquents

[Jessup]

Let me make this quite clear if it isn't already...you are certainly not on the invite list...and for the record, I'll be playing with peeps every night from trench wars, enjoy your Elim battles with the other delinquents

kek

[mystic_pizza]

can we get an update?? i cannot play most days, TW is dying...

[Duster8]

It's still a problem only in the evenings for me. During the day it is still working. Any luck contacting PriitK? There's no way we could incentivize him to give up the reins so to speak? (i.e. here's $500?)

[daresound]

Any update on this? Monthly payment processed. Thousands have been collected, hundreds coming in monthly. Can we roll back the update?

[paradise!]

Hey Qan. Thanks for your help in all this! Could we get some more details as to what exactly happened with the updates? And a frank discussion about the possibility of rolling it back?

Also, what exactly is Priitk's role in this? I was under the impression this guy was paying for server costs. Sounds like he is no longer doing this? No joke, I say we pool our money for a lawyer and threaten the shit out of this guy to fork over the source code or go fuck himself. Or if anyone on this game is a lawyer, if they could do this pro bono.

This guy has held this game hostage for too long for code that he ripped from other sources from a copyrighted game anyways. IIRC, he asked for $20,000 for the source code previously. I say we fuck this guy in the earhole.

[Roger Rabbit]

lol at all the dumb asses who fell for this scam. Who knew the carny model they’ve adopted of taking your money and then skipping town before you catch up to them wouldn’t work out. Oh, well most people. Where do you think they went

[WherzWaldo]

Hey Qan. Thanks for your help in all this! Could we get some more details as to what exactly happened with the updates? And a frank discussion about the possibility of rolling it back?

Also, what exactly is Priitk's role in this? I was under the impression this guy was paying for server costs. Sounds like he is no longer doing this? No joke, I say we pool our money for a lawyer and threaten the shit out of this guy to fork over the source code or go fuck himself. Or if anyone on this game is a lawyer, if they could do this pro bono.

This guy has held this game hostage for too long for code that he ripped from other sources from a copyrighted game anyways. IIRC, he asked for $20,000 for the source code previously. I say we fuck this guy in the earhole.

Didn't he co-found/co-develop Skype and sell it for billions of dollars? Dude can probably do a Scrooge McDuck backstroke through all of the money he could throw at any sort of a legal threat from us (which probably wouldn't have much legal standing anyway).

The conclusion I've reached is that this game's status quo is a dead end. The client code and critical TW infrastructure are out of staff's control, we've been told that various fixes to this or that risk breaking other functionality, and now game-breaking server updates are beginning to creep in. As I see it, there are three paths the game can take:

1. Staff could have the audacity to solicit help coming up with a detailed plan, then fire up a Kickstarter and cast a wide net to get some funding. There are people willing to help, and even a modestly successful, decently marketed campaign could raise at least a few thousand dollars.
2. Make the decision to close up shop on our terms. Schedule it for New Year's Eve (just an example), host some events, and then simply turn it off at 11:59:59.
3. Do the minimum to maintain the status quo, offer minimal transparency about the current technical issues, neglect the current social issues in the game, and hope that future server updates don't topple the game's Jenga tower of code.

Staff have apparently chosen door #3 and we see how well that's working out.

[qan]

Server issues update:

• On Oct 10, I sent an elevated-priority email to Priit at every contact I have for him, scheduled to land in his inbox first thing in the working morning, Estonian time (increases read rates). This usually reaches him. There are still further ways to elevate.
• We've found out a bit more about the cause, isolating it down.
• The issue hasn't occurred this weekend so far. This may be unrelated to having re-contacted Priit, but as it's tied to authenticating with the biller, it seems to occur at the highest-population times, and we've had reasonably high pop, including levels that normally induce it. Possibly, Priit noticed something small that was amiss and was able to correct it.
• Regarding an update rollback, it's definitely being considered, but there would need to be a secondary solution alongside it. That would also mean we'd be stuck on updates. Fine unless a serious vulnerability comes along.

I don't blame anyone who wants to cancel their recurring payment because of this. Totally understandable. I do think there's a light at the end of the tunnel, though, and appreciate anyone who soldiers on despite. It's almost comedic how this started just as we were doing the donation drive. If it came down to it that we just had to shutter (pretty inconceivable IMO) we could refund.