Smolderforge is Going Dedicated.

[Henhouse]

Greetings all members of Smolderforge,

The staff and I are very pleased to announce that we will be making the big step over to a dedicated server sometime in the next two weeks. We've put very much thought and consideration into this action and we're willing to go through with it. Primez is working hard with the C++ files trying to fix the bugs in the core so that we may have a bug-free server. Wish him best of luck there! The server is going to be a bit pricy. It'll be around $200 USD a month so we're going to need good support from our players in getting the word out about donating, and the cause it'll go to!

FAQ:

When exactly will the conversion take place?
- That time is unknown, we haven't ordered the server yet, only made plans to in the very soon future.
Will there be downtime?
- YES. There will be possibly several days of downtime, but I'm going to be trying to keep that as low as possible! We'll announce the days before we turn off the server for a while. So you won't be stranded.
Will I lose my characters?
- No. Unless there's a problem, but I will do everything I can do transfer the characters. That will be the majority of the downtime.
How will you bring in lots of new traffic?
- That's what we thought about when we upgraded the Internet from 40 people to 80. We thought it was going to take a while, but really the process happened over night. Almost all players that log out are because of the lag. Therefore, the player amount should build up. In addition to this response, WoWStatus.net is actually broken. It's not listing us as a server anymore like it should. Several of their tools have been breaking and now the whole thing is just a pile of junk. The stupid person running it is to lazy to do anything about it.
Have you ever bought a dedicated server, do you know what to expect?
- No I have not. But I assume it'll work the same way as in me connecting with remote desktop. I have friends that have shared that experience that have told me. I'm quite good with knowing how this stuff works, no worries.
What really is a dedicated server?
- Many people are getting this confused. Dedicated is not another word for "good WoW". A dedicated server is a server you personally own or rent that is in a data center, hence the "dedicated". The whole server rack is yours to basically do as you please. This is why they are expensive.
Is it written in stone that we are going dedicated?
- No. Something can always happen.
What happens when the mall gets too crowded?
- Hopefully, when that happens. We'll be ready to split it up.
How many people "should" this server hold.
- 1,000. Though I want to limit to 800 players probably. If it's a 100MBPS speed, then it should hold that many.
Is this the "unannounced endeavor"?
- Yes.
What can I do to help?!
- Donate. Tell people to donate.

[Altaiir]

This is awesome and everything, but half of the people that play on SF are european, and/or don't know how to donate T_T so it's a low chance you'll get many donations, but what we CAN do is get people to donate on the rest of their chars.

[Deems]

Increase donation price. Even to 7 or 8 dollars. Every dollar counts.

And tell primez to work hard on second wind. :-)

[Altaiir]

Increase donation price. Even to 7 or 8 dollars. Every dollar counts.

And tell primez to work hard on second wind. :-)

/AGREE

[Yuffie]

Increase donation price. Even to 7 or 8 dollars.

That's actually a decent idea.

[Henhouse]

Yeah, that's why transfer prices were increased. We'll consider raising the donor price, but we do like to cheep stuff low.

Yeah Primez has been working hard. Probably 3 hours last night were spent getting him a test server set up, lol. But he's trying to fix not only the disspell problem on Wound Poison, but I think Deadly Poison as well.

[Fraternity]

Gl primes with rogue regen rate ,u the best

[Imperium]

Hey, I'm more than willing to donate on more toons. So long as you keep fishing scripted :D

Edit: Since we're going dedicated, will this post-pone WotLK update? Will we stay at 2.4.3, and be able to host more players and such, or will we upgrade to 3.0.9 and become dedicated?

[Roadtodawn3]

3.0 = different server all together

[Imperium]

Oh, okay. Just wondering.