The State of SiX
Hola!

I really try and avoid the "Cigarjohn/BR" formal addresses to everyone because I find them to be cheeky and pompous and on the whole: incredibly unnecessary. We exist because we have a common interest, and that is in online video games. There's no need to over-complicate anything that's so simple. This is one of those times where it IS necessary.

Skip to the bottom for a TL;DR.

So here's the gist: Office has been suffering for the last two months or so for two real reasons: Lag and lack of population methods that we used to employ. The lag has pretty much been ironed out by Bob, however it didn't help the stability of the server for the long haul. The lack of a populating method has also been rather shitty for those of us who spent the last 5 years with constantly full servers due to the programming and coding done by Lisa and Bob. We've been spoiled.

We're giving Office till the end of June to see how it performs. If it continues to do poorly, we're pulling the plug. Not just on Office, but on all CS servers. Whether or not this comes to pass, we WILL be running a BC2 server in the near future for an absolute certainty. If Office fails, that will only expedite the purchase of a BC2 server.

Now for some Q and A.

Q: "Livid, what about member donations? Can we consider those again in some capacity? If I gave a chunk of change, can we keep them around?"

A: People need to understand that these servers cost 540 bucks a month. Office brings in almost all of the donations. Without office, there's no other servers. CS will live and die by the success of Office. We're definitely never going back to mandatory donations, and we're also not going to ask members to donate. It can be like pulling teeth and there's zero stability in it. I'd almost prefer that members NOT donate.

Q: "Wait wait wait, so are we turning into a BC2 clan or some shit?"

A: No. Fans of BC2 have patiently waited for a server for quite some time. The cost of a server for BC2 is a small fraction of what we currently pay out for CS so this is almost a completely side bar issue.

Q: "Whats the story behind these populating methods and why can't we run them again?"

A: The older guys were a bit more in on how they used to work, but the problem is, only Bob and mostly Lisa have the knowledge in order to run them. Unfortunately though, every single time a patch is released for the SRCDS back-end, Lisa ends up having to spend time to figure out what part got broken, to then fix them. Also, every time we get DDOS'd and have to mitigate the attack, we end up having to adjust how the code gets around the limitations that are put in place. Long story short, it takes constant maintenance and Lisa is the only one who completely understands it and is simply unwilling to put that much time into keeping it afloat which Lisa is already trying to completely distance themselves from us. Theyr'e simply not an option anymore. At least for CS....

Q: "Wait, what was the '....' at the end of that last answer"?

A: It means we may have populating methods for BC2, but don't hold me to that.

Q: "So if Office goes tits up, what happens next"?

A: It's up to you. One of my favorite times in the last 7 years of doing this shit, was the 9 month stretch where we didn't have any servers at all. We just had ventrilo and forums. Some were skeptical that people would stick around, and some did in fact fall off the face of the earth, only to return again. For the most part though, people still joined vent to play other games, and get others in on it. The forums were still a fun place to post and hang around as well. People that were still hardcore CS fans and weren't willing to move on would join up on V4 or Ego or whatever and the rest of the guys would just join off them and hang in our vent. I was stoked to see almost everyone stick around and just play other games for a change. Also, not having to deal with the drama of bans, unbans, managing servers, donations etc? It's a real load off of everyones back.

The newer guys also need to understand that most of us having been playing games with one another for as many as 7 years, as is my case and a couple of others. We've always prided ourselves on having a solid group of guys that don't only like playing video games, but are (for the most part) mature.

Q: "Okay then, last question. How will you measure if Office succeeds? What do we need to do if we care about it and want to continue on"?

A: After Lisa left, and before the DDoSing started happening, we were in the black quite comfortably and were getting donations with zero populating methods. However, once the DDoSing started and we had some bouts with server side lag, donations dropped off and we're barely holding on month to month again unfortunately. If we can get back into the same position we were a few months ago where we were more than okay, we'll be just fine. Keep in mind that population is a positive feedback loop. Population in the server brings more population. More population in the server more consistently brings more population to the server consistently. It can be done.

TL:DR: If Office continues to fail in terms of population and donations, all CS will be removed by the end of June. A BC2 server is still definitely on deck.

For the guys who still play office and CS, I want this to succeed for you, but ultimately if it doesn't work out, it doesn't work out. I'm not worried because we've been there before and if we run without servers, it's not a big deal. I'm sure not everyone feels the same way about the "group" as I do, but I honestly couldn't care less if we ran servers anymore. Not because I don't want to run them, but because I don't feel they're necessary for us to have fun. I just like gaming with you fellas regardless of whether it's Sins of a Solar Empire, BC2, TF2, DoD's, CS, Supreme Commander, Terraria, Minecraft, Civilization, Company of Heroes, Shogun, L4D, EVE, Rift, the list goes on and on.

Feel free to flame and make fun of my sentimental shit but it's all pretty much the truth.

Cheers.