Solo Server New Reset - Apr 16, 2013

[Laanders]

Solo Server will restart at Tue Apr 16 06:00:00 2013.
Armageddon is scheduled to begin at Sat Jun 8 15:00:00 2013.

Changes from previous set

Changes:

• Gravity Pull casting cost lowered to 30k (base)
• Flame Blade AP boost for Eradication raised by 37.844%, no boost for other colors
• Scry unit information now updates properly
• Scry now displays hero count and hero name/profession
• Choosing Select All on the attacking page will only check the top 10 stacks
• Checkboxes added to sell all items of one type, and to sell all items
• Sell Item page shows estimates of total and selected items worth
• Total sum of preorders shown on preorder screen
• Swords and Spawning areas of the Black Market now list stack upkeeps
• Battle simulator added for supporting mages under the War page (war.cgi)
• Stack calculator added for supporting mages under the War page
• New mail link on main menu changes colour based on most important unread message
• Messages from GOD (#0) always appear at the top of the inbox
• Default IRC nick/ident is now portal name
• Can pull IRC settings from portal IRC settings
• Lady Luck expiry notice added
• AttDef ability renamed to Racial Enemy
• Additional hero names added
• Chron links added on tombstones
• Chronicle icons added

[Laanders]

As keen observers will have noted, the announced return of solo server earlier today did not happen. The reason is straightforward: with a lot of effort going into recovering the situation caused by hardware failure on the physical server hosting blitz, guild and archwar, I quite simply forgot to reset solo.

It turns out however, that this may have been a blessing in disguise. Some background: While most TR servers are hosted at a German data center, solo and arch are on a separate server in Sweden that we have been allowed to operate for free during quite many years, courtesy of Cyrus' contacts. Unfortunately we only learned today that that arrangement will expire, and rather than begin paying for antiquated hardware on a separate location, the decision has been made to move the two game servers in question to the same German data center as all our other systems are currently located in. This will allow us to consolidate costs as well as improve management efficiency.

Which leads up to today. Rather than start a new solo set now, and have to either stick with the old server for another two months - or face a mid-set downtime while we migrate - we will simply migrate solo immediately. It also makes sense from an efficiency point of view: we will in any case be installing three game servers over the next few days, so doing an extra one will be little extra bother.

Unfortunately this means that solo will not return for another few days. We are currently waiting for the hardware we'll be installing on to become ready. Once that's done, we will be able to begin installation in order to bring the game servers back. We expect that should happen at some point during next week, and hope that our players will be able to cope with this additional absence of their favourite stimulant.

As before, arch, beta and lightning servers remain in normal operation.

[Laanders]

Solo server has been successfully migrated to new hardware. The new set will start on Tuesday 06:00. Since it's the first set to be played after migration, we appreciate extra vigilance with any observed anomalies and as usual encourage players to report any bugs they encounter in the General Bugs forum.

EDIT: The portal page may temporarily show an incorrect starting time for the solo set. It will start on Tuesday 06:00 and not before.

[Laanders]

Just as a heads up: continuing on the general wave of productivity that has resulted from bringing multiple game servers back from hardware failure, we are also attempting to bring solo some much delayed updates. If we manage to complete in time to launch the server in a stable manner, that means there will be some changes implemented after all. If we run out of time, the old code will be used with no changes, and the updates delayed for next reset. As part of this testing, solo may go up and down today. However, the real reset will only begin tomorrow at 06:00 as previously announced.

[Laanders]

The changelist has been updated, with a fairly large amount of mostly minor changes that had accumulated over time. This brings solo server effectively up to speed with the other servers, while retaining its distinctions.

The server was play tested by volunteers during the day, and a few bugs were seen to after which things appear to work fine. As usual, any remaining bugs should be reported in the General Bugs forum on these boards. This includes any behaviour that differs from the ordinary, that is not documented above. Thanks in advance.