Blogger Archive: Shadow Kisuragi 
We'll have something proper up later to properly introduce the large number of people visiting and signing up. Thanks everyone, and thanks for the plug MetalJesus AND Kotaku!
However, I just wanted to quickly put up a note here on the front page. We have a limit of 500 emails/hour sent from our server, which includes PMs, notifications, and registration emails in particular. If your registration email is not sent immediately, it may be waiting on the email cap to be reset. Sorry for the inconvenience, but our host has this value capped to prevent spam and it's not something we can raise any higher at this time. Feel free to jump into our Introduction thread after signing up, which can be found here:
http://www.rfgeneration.c...um/index.php?topic=2931.0
Hello all. It's been a while since we've communicated out what we're doing about the server, and people have been asking about it. I thought I'd put up a site post so that everyone's aware of the progress we're making here.
We're staging a brand new, 8GB RAM server that will blow this server out of the water. Unfortunately, the brunt of this work right now is on Bickman, since he's the experienced person in server setup and maintenance on the team.
We ran into a snag with PayPal not being a form of payment for our new provider, but Bickman has ponied up and offered to shoulder the cost for the moment until arrangements are made to make the payments via the site's PayPal account by another method, whether that be a PayPal Debit or another method (he's being reimbursed with funds from the PayPal account, of course).
After clearing that problem, it turns out we can't bulk import the site over like we thought, but Bickman's looking into another method to try in the next couple days. Should that not pan out, we'll be manually moving the site over via FTP. After the site's moved, we still need to optimize the databases and see if the added RAM will be enough to allow us to perform the optimization without crushing the server. That will take a day or two to get the results for. After that, we'll need to lock down the site for a couple days while we move it over to the new server, re-optimize the databases, and verify that nothing's broken.
I feel your pain on the performance issues, believe me. I've been trying to use it at night and dealing with the same problems you're seeing, and it's completely unacceptable. Unfortunately, we just don't have the resources on this server to optimize things away, and I can't stand up a sandbox server to attempt optimizations since it made running the production site even worse.
Thanks for staying with us through all of these problems, which have been going on for 5+ months now. Unfortunately, Bickman and I have been unable to coordinate much of anything on the site the past couple months due to work and personal reasons, but we're now actively standing up the server and addressing the problems. Once we're officially moved over, it will give me the opportunity to investigate and address part of the problem that's leading to our overall performance issues, and I'll actually get to wrap up some of the features that I have planned for the site.
Hello everyone! Since it's been some time, I wanted to update everyone on where we are with all of the server problems that have plagued the site for months.
We've determined that our current server is no longer adequate for our needs. In repeated attempts to fix the site performance, we're maxing out the hardware, leaving us in a position of restarting the server once performance starts to dip. We're currently looking at various different hosting options, and we can definitely get better hardware for the same price that we're currently paying for our dedicated server.
We hope to have the decision made on our eventual host by the end of the month, and for the transition to occur before the end of February. Please note that there will likely be downtime while we transition hosts and ensure that the site is functioning at that time, but we will attempt to communicate out this downtime once we decide on a date.
In the mean time, the first thing to start failing when the site gets into a bad state are database queries to the collection table. This is our biggest table on the site (for obvious reasons - it contains the data for everyone's collections!), and understandably it will strain the server the most. If you notice functions around your collection starting to fail or statistics taking a long time to update, please notify us in the Announcements and Feedback forum and we'll schedule a server restart. For now, our plans are to restart the server on an as-needed basis, though that may move to weekly if we notice issues starting to arise more often.
When I have more information, I'll put up another blog post with the exact details. Thanks .
Sorry for the server outage earlier today folks. In an attempt to fix up our sandbox server to investigate some new feature work (after we made some adjustments to IP whitelist it to prevent the spam attack we had last time), a table repair on the server maxed out the amount of available RAM the server had. After attempting to wait for it to finish (instead of corrupting the table), the process was killed and server restarted. It took the server well over an hour to come back down to normal operating levels again after that, but the good news is that after the restart the server is blazing fast.
We're investigating the on-going server issues and have a couple leads. We'll let you know more as the time comes, but for now we may consider restarting the server if it runs this smoothly after a restart.
Hello again to the latest edition of RFG Thanks! It looks like the September RFG Thanks disappeared somewhere, as I know that singlebanana had it up for review at some point, so I apologize if anyone was missed for September.
Before we get to the stats, I wanted to pause for a moment. At this time in the year, many nations in the world have holidays honoring thanks, and I'd like to take a moment to personally thank our staff for their hard work throughout the year. It's also a good moment to point out that we need to update our Staff page. 
Bildtstar & Sirgin: Thanks for all of your hard work on the PlayStation and GameCube databases, as well as helping to sort out our European submissions and adding a hefty amount of French and Dutch titles. You guys help keep the engine greased for the European side of our database, for which I'm thankful.
blcklblskt/Madir/Paully3433/OatBob/Tynstar/Izret101: Thanks for all of your help in contributing all year and keeping your respective consoles up to date and in order. For the reviewers, a BIG thanks for keeping the review queue low for most of the year. HUGE shoutout to Izret101 for covering for me while I was unexpectedly forced out, and Tynstar for his ENORMOUS contribution to the site this year with images covering the majority of 3 major US consoles.
raffa1985: Thanks for keeping the database up to date with the latest releases.
aeroc: You know why you're awesome. Keep it up.
ApolloBoy: Thanks for the effort throughout the site, and for a lot of the more obscure consoles and games.
bickman2k: Thanks for keeping the site up and running!
NES_Rules: The glue that holds our site together (and pays our bills). Hope you have better luck with the truck at some point.
Blogging/Podcast/Community Staff: Thanks for everything you guys do to keep our community entertained and informed. The site would be quite boring without guys. 
If I've missed anyone else, I apologize, but your contributions have been a great help to the site this year, and every year.
Now for the stats...
Top 5 Total Submissions (Non-Staff):
thegreatska (369)
ericeskapade (144)
Raidou (75)
douglie007 (49)
BJoin79 (44)
Top 3 Total Submissions (Staff)
Shadow Kisuragi (490)
Bildtstar (478)
Tynstar (328)
Top 3 Total Approvals
Shadow Kisuragi (393)
Tynstar (228)
Paully3433 (209)
Other numbers:
Submissions for October 2013 (2778)
Total Image Submissions for 2013 (18865)
Total Game Additions for 2013 (4319)
Total Game Variations for 2013 (4785)
Total Hardware Additions for 2013 (308)
Total Hardware Variations for 2013 (248)
Total Submissions for 2013 (37688)
Let's see if we can push that number past 40,000 in November! Thanks again for all of your submissions and participation on the site, and keep it on Channel 3!
A few months back, a request was made to split out the Virtual Consoles for Wii, Wii U and 3DS. The change was made then, but the database was never filled out and properly split from the eShop.
In the past couple days, I've filled out the Nintendo 3DS Virtual Console (and Nintendo Wii U Virtual Console, I think) for North America. What impact does this have on you? Well, besides suddenly having games moved around in your collection, you may have suddenly lost a few items from your collection due to the entries being ambiguous in the Nintendo eShop - after all, PAC-MAN and Donkey Kong have multiple releases for 3DS alone for Game Boy and Nintendo NES.
Please check and update your collections accordingly. Also, in some of the old entries, there were Part #s filled out for some of the Ambassador titles. If anyone can tell me how these Part #s were obtained, or can fill out the entries, it would be greatly appreciated!
There may still be some shuffling around the eShop entries, but for the most part I believe the moves are done. I'll be entering the rest of the VC entries here within the next week, including Europe, Australia and Japan, so bear with me while this is completed.
Sorry for the outage yesterday folks - we were attempting to optimize some of our databases in an attempt to help with the performance issues and it was a bit overaggressive.
We've restored the databases, and made some changes to help with forum performance by splitting some of our larger threads (very overdue for the Small Scores thread). However, we're still struggling with I/O performance on the server itself, which Bickman has been taking the lead on and discussing with our host provider.
We have a few options available to us depending on the actions we need to take, and it's my hope that this all gets sorted out by the end of the week, in one way or another. In the mean time, feel free to chat with us in our IRC channel until the forums are taken out of Maintenance Mode: #RFGeneration, or use the QuakeNet webclient link: http://webchat.quakenet.org/?channels=RFGeneration
Recently, I've been asked to report the work I've been doing on RFGeneration as a possible Conflict of Interest for the company that I work for. This is mainly a precaution to cover myself and the site from any future interest from the company, and to protect the company's reputation. While this process is going on, I've been asked to cease any work to the site until further notice. I'm clarifying with them now what access (if any) I'll have to the site until the decision is made (possibly mid-July), but in the interest of protecting the site during that time period, I'll be leaving the staff of RFGeneration.
For many of you that were PM'ing me details with your submissions, please feel free to use the appropriate feedback threads on the Announcement and Feedback forum. Izret has volunteered to help out with the reviews and submissions I normally take and he can reach me if there are any questions if I'm forced away entirely from the site, which I don't expect to be the case. I'll continue to ask any questions posted on the forums and still be a presence if possible, but I don't have any staff access.
In all honesty, this is something that should've happened a while ago that is just now coming up. This helps future-proof the site should there be any concerns that come up, and means that my work would truly belong to RFGeneration.
Courtesy of Necrosaro and GamingGuru from the forums, take caution if you own a Sony PlayStation 3. Updating to the latest firmware update (4.45) is causing many PlayStation 3 consoles to brick (become non-functional). This appears to be mostly related to consoles where the hard drive has been upgraded past 500GB, but has been affecting other users.
The official Sony thread can be found here:
http://community.us.plays...ate-to-4-45/td-p/40712247
Microsoft Xbox LIVE Games on Demand has now been added to the database with support added for Australia, Europe, Japan, North American and South America. We'll be moving the few titles that slipped through into the Microsoft Xbox 360 database into that database, and the few titles in the review queue will be switched to the new console. I've already moved one of the more prominent titles, Deathsmiles II (which was only released via Games on Demand in North America).
This database will support only the titles released via Microsoft's Games on Demand service. This does not include DLC or other releases on Xbox LIVE Marketplace. XBLA and XBLIG will still have their own sections.
Feel free to let the flood gates open now on these releases.
Hello again, everyone!
I alluded to some major changes in the RFG Thanks for November 2012, and for the past couple months, there have been a huge chunk of changes from our DB Staff. Many of these changes have been Game Additions from our own Paully, but a large chunk of changes have been a direct result of our new European regional guidelines with the help of Paully, Sirgin, Bildtstar and myself.
Continue reading Regional Database Changes - European Collectors, Please Read!
Welcome to December, everyone. For those that celebrate it (including our Canadian members), I hope your Thanksgiving left you full and happy. Congrats to those that were able to take advantage of Black Friday here in the US, and for the rest of the world, enjoy the upcoming holidays.
It looks like our members were able to feast on things other than turkey this month. We were able to increase over last month's submissions by 1317 submissions, leaving us just under 5000 at 4977. A large number of these were in the Game Addition and Variation categories. Large shoutout to Paully, Sirgin and Bildtstar for their efforts on those fronts!
Way out in front his month is Paully3433 with 1600 submissions! He's been adding large chunks of Game Boy, Game Boy Color, PlayStation Portable and PlayStation games to the database, so let's give him a hand for his hard work.
Further down the list, with 1/3 of Paully's number, is Bildtstar with 547, Shadow Kisuragi with 513, Sirgin with 452, and Izret101 with 317. Looks like the staff has been busy!
Top 5 Submitters - November 2012
Paully3433 - 1600
Bildtstar - 547
Shadow Kisuragi - 513
Sirgin - 452
Izret101 - 317
Top 5 Submitters (Non-staff) - November 2012
techwizard - 303
Sauza12 - 207
singlebanana - 138
ixtaileddemonfox - 88
CoinCollector - 70 (Thanks for the Steam submissions, and the humorous comments!)
Keep up the good work everyone! Many of the staff edits that we're working on are for a very specific reason - I'll reveal this in another announcement later, but the changes mainly affect folks living in Europe and modifications to our region policies for Europe.
I'll be reading the threads this month, eager to see what everyone receives for gifts, especially those involves in the Secret Santa this year. Last year's Secret Santa was amazing, and I hope to see it topped this year! Enjoy your holidays everyone.
Well, it's that time of year where things are starting to wind down here at work, which allows me to devote more time towards RFGeneration. This is my first year as Director here at the site, and I'd like to start digging my claws into things that I've noticed that are broken, need maintenance, or are just plain missing.
However, there are many things that I'm unaware of, and I'd like the community as a whole to let me know what you'd like to see fixed or added in the next couple months here:
http://www.rfgeneration.c...um/index.php?topic=9389.0
I'll keep a running list of things I've fixed, as well as any outstanding items on that thread.
It's been on hiatus for a bit, but welcome back to the RFGeneration Community Viewing of GameCenter CX!
This week's episode will be Arino's hardest challenge yet - Makaimura, also known as Ghosts 'n Goblins outside the US. For those that have played this game, you'll get to relive all of those frustrating moments, including watching Arino's first encounter with Red Arremer, the red flying demon. Will Arino be able to defeat him, and what will Arino's response be when he realizes the true ending of Ghosts 'n Goblins?
Also on tap for this episode will be the second part of the Try Amusement Tower TamaGe, and interview with Sega's Yu Suzuki, and the first Sega SG Series / Mark III collection.
I hope everyone enjoys! I'll get back to posting these on a regular schedule now.
Welcome to April, everyone. It looks like a few of you thought we'd be exclusively moving to Android platforms.
[img width=297 height=296]http://www.rfgeneration.com/images/repository/90401ohnootter2.jpg[/img]
Yes, the otter has made its triumphant return. While Android is taking the mobile market by storm, we'll always make an attempt to provide everyone with ways to access RFGeneration.
Last month saw the European sector flooding the site with submissions. It's always nice to see some of our more neglected pages getting some love, and you guys have certainly been keeping us busy with over 2200+ submissions. The following people gave us over 100 submissions for the month of March:
Members with 100+ Submissions:
Sirgin 673
Duke.Togo 321
africangrey 230
Alabama-Shrimp 113
Staff with 100+ Submissions:
Bildtstar 737
Shadow Kisuragi 505
raffa1985 374
NES_Rules 316
Madir 235
ApolloBoy 179
ga5ket 130
blcklblskt 106
Staff with 100+ Approvals:
Shadow Kisuragi 1080
NES_Rules 772
Madir 129
ApolloBoy 112
Paully3433 110
As a public service announcement, we have been working with our European members to properly update our European database with the correct regions. I would HEAVILY suggest that our European members audit their collections to verify that their collections match the information stated on the Game Info pages. If the information doesn't match, please feel free to submit a Game Variation for the title with the proper information, or contact us in the Announcements and Feedback Forum for any information you may need. If you have not read it yet, this blog announcement contains information on how to sort out region information pertaining to many consoles.
Thanks again for all of your support in making RFGeneration what it is, and keep it on your Android device Channel 3!
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