|
|
|
|
 |
|
| RE: Extended Server Downtime... |
|
For anyone that may happen along and read this, here
is what has been going on... Well, for all of you computer geeks like myself out there, due to price pressures of paying for the server co-location, I had the server converted from a physical box (a PC for example) to a virtual machine (running as software on someone else's hardware) back in November 2007. As it turned out, the place where I was hosting it shut down operations and it took me awhile to get the "files" that was the NetherRealm server back from them. Once I did get these back, they were not usable and I tried on and off for two months to bring the server back up. I tried several methods to do this to no avail. I do not know what went wrong but there's no point in "pointing fingers" so I finally resorted to plan B. I dug the old NR server out of the garage and after a bunch of cleaning, tweaking, and hardware swapping... this is what we have. This is the physical server that was the NetherRealm before the conversion to virtual. I am still going to work with VMWare to get the data off the dead files or completely restore the new server. That is why everything is dated back to November 2007. I am sorry that I could not do more and sooner but it is what it is. Sorry for the lack of updates and it was a good run while it lasted.
Thanks to all who made this a special place for so many over the last decade! |
 |
|
|
|
Here is a copy of the announcement made in #NetherRealm on IRC.ENTERTHEGAME.COM.
The NLAN announcement tonight will be brief, explaining details and news that was not covered previously, including the following topics: 1. There has been a change to the official time of the LAN. Unfortunately, we cannot run 24x2 as originally anticipated. The cost of campus police would be more then the costs of the LAN itself and I do not have the thousands of dollars needed to make it happen overnight. It is a possibility for future events there and this I will work out with the Administration of Farmingdale State University of N.Y. over the next few months. The new times will be Saturday 10AM-2AM and Sunday 9AM-9PM. Things might change again where the 24x2 could become a reality but it looks highly unlikely for this summer's event. 2. Costs: The cost for this year's event will be $30 for the weekend pre-registered. At the door it will be $40. For current students of Farmingdale State University of N.Y. the cost will be free if you are pre-registered. The cost to the spectators of the event is still free. The cost is only for the BYOC. We are still short the number of people we needed to throw the LAN, but we are going ahead with it regardless. NetherLAN is a GO Houston, NetherLAN is a go! 3. The Room The LAN party will be held in the Roosevelt Hall multi-purpose room on the Farmingdale campus. It is a huge circular room that has a capacity of roughly 800. Seating arrangements will not be assigned. Clans attending NLAN may ask to have group seating reserved for them. Please note that there is no climate control in the building other then fans and exhaust blowers. It is supposed to be a cool weekend but if the weather changes on us, tank tops and shorts are in order! 4. Tournaments and signups: The official tournaments for this year's event will be the Q3 1v1 and Q3 4v4 CTF. I would also like to organize a RA3 or CA tourney if we get enough interested. If anyone would like to see additional game tourney's run, PM or email me. Sign ups for the CTF and 1v1 tourneys will be available early next week as soon as I get more feedback from ATI and CaseAce about what the prizes will be this year. 5. Tournament times: Tournaments will be starting at 2:00pm and will be going on into the evening. Please make sure you are present during this time or you will forfeit your slot. 6. NLAN Servers: There will be 9 servers on hand running Quake III, Battlefield 1942, Counter Strike, Neverwinter Nights, RTCW, and other games. If there are other games that you would like to see on the list, please feel free to ask and I will add them. If anyone can volunteer any time to assist with game server setup and config writing, it would be most appreciated as I am overburdened with it at the moment. The network will be 100% switched and the main backbone will be gigabit speeds so there will be no shortage of bandwidth and pings will stay at a minimum. Farmingdale State University of N.Y. has multiple T-1's in the building so there will be Internet access. Anyone is allowed to bring a server to the event to host a game. The only stipulation is that no other services such as DHCP, ICS, etc be running to avoid network disruptions. Please inform Loki beforehand if possible if planning on doing so. 7. Official sponsors and event prizes ATI and CaseAce will be providing prizes for the events. The prizes and the tourneys they are associated with will be posted on the forums as soon as I receive word from our sponsors. There will also be other prizes given away at a random draw at various times during the day like last year if our sponsors treat us well. More on this to follow! 8. Directions to NLAN site are posted here: http://www.netherrealm.com/NetherLAN/location.cfm 9. Please see the NetherLAN forums for additional info: http://www.netherrealm.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?category=3 10. An online disclaimer will be available for those under the age of 18 attending NLAN. The file will can be downloaded from http://www.netherrealm.com/netherlan/disclaimer.doc. The disclaimer must be printed and signed by a parent or legal guardian for admittance into NLAN. 11. There will be a final announcement a little over a week from today. This will be posted on the forums and sent out over email. 12. All details of this announcement are subject to change. 13. I would like to take this time to thank everyone who has sacrificed his or her time and effort to make the LAN a possibility this summer. It was almost a dead issue after my car accident in May and thanks to the support of many, it is still a reality. |
|
|
|
There has been a few updates to the forums as everyone has seen. They are now located in their "easier to type" place of www.NetherRealm.com rather then www.NetherRealmForums.com. www.NetherRealmForums.com will point to the main site for the time being untill the domain name expires or Subzero and myself devise some other clever use for it. Expect allot of other changes over the summer as we try to improve all aspects of the NetherRealm site and add what will be many new features.
On the NetherLAN end of things, we are working out the final details of the event with Farmingdale State University of N.Y.. There are a few changes to the original agenda tho. The good news is that they are allowing us in there Friday night to set up the table arrangements and cabling, so there will be little delay on Saturday morning and the event will start at 10AM sharp! The bad news is that because of the costs of campus police and the terms of the sponsorship, the room must be vacated between the hours of 2AM and 10AM Sunday morning. I know everyone wanted to do an all nighter and it is the best way to go, but unfortunatly unless things change in the next 2 weeks, the new times will stand. All this will be announced tomorrow. (See below) There will be an announcement on IRC.ENTERTHEGAME.COM in #NetherRealm about the event so everyone please drop by! It will be posted on the forums afterward and here on the site if you miss it. |
|
|
|
It is the one month mark today and I am proud to announce that some of the planning that has gone into this year's event has reached fruition. SUNY Farmingdale has decided to sponsor us for this year's event and we are working with them very closely to keep NetherLAN on track for July 12th-13th. The event will take place in the Roosevelt Hall which fits 800 people. The only thing I am trying to iron out is the amount of power available which may limit us to somewhere in the 100-150 range. I will have more details about this by Friday the 20th when we are planning to make an announcement on IRC.ENTERTHEGAME.COM in #NetherRealm about the event. The Roosevelt hall is a HUGE circular room with skylights at its fifty foot apex. The only potential issue with the room is there is no climate control (Air Conditioning) in that building so wear your shorts and tanktops. It will not be a LAN "on ice" as it was at Hofstra or Sports plus where it was too cold at points. The room has an exhaust fan in the ceiling to keep it cool for summer operation and if the weather stays the way its been lately, it will be quite comfortable.
I want to take this time to thank Confused, KillerTomato, Mummmbles|rsx, Pharaoh, Viper|rsx, WhiteKnight, and anyone who I have missed (smack me with the trout later) for their help and effort in planning this years event! I am going to be spending alot of time this week talking with sponsors and hopefully I will have more info on prizes by the announcement this Friday. Sorry I didn't have more of this sooner for everyone but my job and a car accident a few weeks ago have slowed things down as of late. From here on in though, it is full steam ahead and "we are a go Houston! NetherLAN is a GO!" I'm looking forward to what will be the best NetherLAN yet and unlike last year, we will have the Roosevelt Hall for THE WHOLE WEEKEND 24/7! It's gonna be a rockin time and I look forward to fraggin and cappin some flags with everyone! |
|
|
|
We are under the 3 month mark from the planned date so I am shifting it into overdrive and getting a move on with planning. The Dates we are looking at are July 12th-13th at Farmingdale State University of New York. I am awaiting to meet with them and discuss the event and if the computer club decides to sponsor NetherLAN, it will cut costs greatly over what it has been in the past. The room will be the Roosevelt Hall and it can support well over 400 people. I currently have enough switching for 150 and I am looking to buy more switches to raise that capacity to 250+. I have already been busy at work purchasing servers and network equipment for this year's event and that is going very well. Current inventory is 12 3com 12 and 24 port switches and 4 HP Kayak professional workstations which will be running linux and doing game server duty for the LAN event. I have sent emails to ATI and HP so hopefully they will sponsor us again this year. I will also be contacting Alienware, Bawlz, Geargrip, Cedex, and others from last year. Hopefully they will be as supportive and generous as in years past for they have greatly contributed to make NetherLAN a fun event for all.
There has been alot of buzz on the Q3 CTF side of things for this years event and it looks like there will be alot more CTF clans attending as a result. Competition will be fierce for the top CTF prize and I am looking forward to the outcome of that event. (Being a CTF'er at heart.) The "gi" Gibbering Idiot's (Sweaty, Picklehead, CeeBee, and iniK) walked away with the CTF prizes in a win over 9L in the final round and because of the scheduling issues, KI (Respect, Ten, Jester, and D2k/Front242 ringing.) couldn`t finish the competition. If it was GI vs KI, who knows what would have happened. Hopefully there will be a "grudge match" between the two this year. My biggest question is will Geoff be able to win the 1v1 tourney this year? He is the current champ 2 years running and he walked away with the top prize ATI card last year. Can he do it again? Time will tell... The main event will be Q3 but there will be many other games played again this year. Either Subzero or Vycor will be supplying the CS server and there should be a bit of Warcraft III action. A complete list of games will be listed soon and a poll will be put on the forums for which games will be played. |
|
|