State of the World Address

[terryrayc]

Arkaz, State of the World Address.

It's been a while so I thought we'd bring everyone up to date of the goings on here at Arkaz. It's been a very busy few months. We've seen lots of new players, we've completed some major events and the world has grown in size a bit. New systems have been put into place and the website has been made over. All and all things continue to move forward at a fast pace.

Lets get started

1) The platform:

Most of the server farm has been upgraded. The Nuvar server moved up from a Athlon 1700 to a Athlon 2200. Lag was never a big issue and now it's really not a big issue. The DB/internal web server, was upgraded from a single P3 1ghz system to a 2 processor system, still a P3 1ghz but there are 2 of them. Also the memory was upgraded from 512 to 1.5g. We have a backup server that is always hot and ready to go live now...just in case. The Server vault is backed up 4 times a day (Every 6 hours) and the DB is backed up twice a day. Those backups are moved to tape once a week and burned to DVD once a month. So we should be able to recover from a major failure very quickly.

The first Arkaz2 server is in...though not built yet. It's a Athlon 3200 based system with 2gb of ram and mirrored 160gb sata drives. It should handle the nwn2 server very well.

Also we've upgraded to a business class internet service. Our speeds are currently 15/2 and we have a static IP which makes things a lot easier.

2) Arkaz 2:

We have a builder working on content for us and I've been working on scripts. With nwnx4 moving along nicely it looks like things will work out great in that front. We are in talks with other CoPaP worlds regarding a CoPaP2..though we are sure we'll change the name. As details roll in I'll keep everyone in to loop.

3) The Website:

The website went through a redesign to better make things fit and flow. We also upgraded to the latest nuke version. This has caused some issues with firefox users but we are working on correcting those as we have time. Amazon ads were put in to help cover the cost of the website and yahoo ads will be going in shortly.

4) The Module:

Has grown. It's now at 46mb in size. And has grown by around 30 areas since the last state of the world. Areas are going in at a slower pace but the updating and improving of current areas is moving along fast. We've seen the rebuild of the Hamlet and Heroes Walk. And with player housing going in shortly things are looking good. The current pace seems to be 3 new scripted quests a month, which is fine I think. Bugs aer getting reported and fixed as quickly as they can be.

5) The World:

With the portals open and in full swing and Avlis rejoining CoPaP after a very long break we've seen a major increase in traffic. Cross World plots are being planned and we think it will bring a lot of enjoyment to our players.

I'll finish up by letting everyone know how happy I am with the state of things. When I started Arkaz a very long time ago, I never expected things to grow like they did. All and all I would not do anything different if I could start over. I look forward to seeing everyone IG. Now I'll turn it over to Al, who'll talk about the DM stuff!!

[Alphonse]

From a DM perspective Arkaz is going great.

You'll all know that we've just finished a plot that ran for the more than six months, and the number of players I've seen on in that time seems to have grown steadily.

Its great to get home in the evening and see a group of players on having fun without DM attention. It makes jumping on and DMing something on the fly really easy.

Its great to see players arriving from other worlds, and deciiding to stay, and fitting in so well. One of my favourite things as a DM is to hear stories of my events retold ICly to new arrivals.

From a DM point of view expect to continue to see regular DM love, and plots that will require the skills of all who take part.

Personally I'm really enjoying DMing and while Arkaz 2 will bring all new possibilities, Arkaz 1 still has a hell of a lot of life left in it

Al