As you may or may not have noticed, RF Generation over the last month has had its ups and downs regarding whether or not the site was actually up. This rollercoaster ride started when our shared host realized that we are not some small site and decided that we needed to castrate the site. Well, we’re not a big fan of removing features on the site, so we looked for a new host, one where we could stay in the long run. Fortunately, we found that host, and he is one heck of a host. Now, we at RF Generation run a site that is 90% custom (the other 10% is the forum), and when we went to the new host we thought that our site would be okay on something that emulates a dedicated server, or so we thought. It turns out that an emulated dedicated server, commonly referred to as a VPS, does have issues that can affect the entire server. Turns out that we affected the server, three times, and for that reason we had make some changes.

Unfortunately, no single script can be singled out as the prime offender of our problems. If you want to get rid of the prime offenders, you’d be saying goodbye to the forum and collection tools. We’re not in the business of removing features from the site, so we decided to follow the dedicated route. What does that mean? Well, aside from the six fold increase in server costs, we’re now on our own server. That means that we have full access to the resources of the server, and when something goes horribly wrong, we’re not adversely affecting other users of the server. Of course, we hope that now that we’re on the dedicated host nothing terrible will happen, but we’ll prepare for anything.

Some of you offered alternatives to moving to a dedicated server, and we considered them greatly. Unfortunately, our site is a monster, and moving any part of the operation to a shared host would be a risky venture. RF Generation has already been on two oversellers, and we’re done with that, we felt that we needed a solution that wouldn’t lead us to worry about whether or not the site would be up the next day. Certainly, however, we appreciate the kind gestures offered by those individuals.

It might take a week or two to get things running up to speed. If the site crashes, it will be down for a few hours, rather than several days. We don’t anticipate the site crashing, but then we didn’t anticipate us crashing over the last month a total of three times. You might notice that certain things are not quite back. I can confirm that the site statistics page is currently being reworked, as it makes servers cry. Luckily, I don’t think many of you were aware of the site statistics page, so I don’t imagine many tears will be shed regarding that. The main site right bar is also slightly castrated, but then I hate the right bar with an utmost passion. I’m in the process of figuring out what to do with that to make life better. So, most things are back, while other things may be gone for a while, but all the features you know and love are still here. Who knows, there might even be new features in the future.

The future… what does that hold for RF Generation? Well, now that we’re on the new server you might see us add some new features. A game progress tracker is pretty high on my list of things to add. Eddie has his own list of things work on, but then, I must be frank about this. We’ve added lots of new features to the site. Some, like the blog, might cater to a small group of people, while others like database improvements, might be a bit more general. It’s frustrating when these new features are added after lots of requests and then they are not used. How I long for a fleshed out Euro games database. The infrastructure is there, now let’s make that happen. Using the features that we provide is a great way to encourage the programmers to add more and more features. Things like a game progress tracker don’t get coded in a day, and take a lot of planning to do. Give us some encouragement by using the features that we have coded under your request.

As you may have noted, the costs of the server have increased six-fold. You might be wondering if you can help out with the server costs. The short answer is yes, please do. $1080 a year shouldered by a few people is a lot of money to be spending, especially when two of the people are college students. We have a donation page, and we certainly hope that you’ll visit it. We’ll keep you all posted on fund raising efforts. Any money donated to RF Generation will be used solely for the continued operation and betterment of the site. If you donate, there will be placed in the donor category, and there might be some perks associated with that. We’re trying to figure that out still, but we’re trying to make it worthwhile. Because of circumstances, we are going to redefine what being a donor means. Previously, donors sort of stayed in the member group forever. Now, donors will be designated donors for a period of one year from the time of their donation. After that time, they will still be recognized as a previous donor in some form, but any extra perks of being a donor will no longer be available. Donating so much money in a calendar year might result in some RF Generation branded gear. Specifics of that to be worked out later.

RF Generation is the product of the blood, sweat and tears of the entire community. It truly is the community’s website. Look at what we’ve as a community has done. Think about what we can do into the future. Bright times lie ahead, and together, we will all make RF Generation THE classic and modern video games database.

Sincerely,

David Murnan
Site Director, RF Generation

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