We've had some recent developments that I thought warranted a "State of the Community" address, to get all the new info in one place and state some plans for the future.

Out With the Old

The old Tempest, generously rented by bragr, supported by donations, and kept working by bragr and drakhen, is gone. The recent lack of interest and donations in it lead to bragr rightfully not renewing it. I've seen to it that bragr has been reimbursed for the costs of the last rental period, so all the loose ends have been tied. And no, bragr, I need not a nude photo nor a trip to your dungeon. I insist not, in fact. There would be too many things I wouldn't be able to un-see.

Also, don't spend all that money on one dealer.

In With the Little New

To ensure we have a TF2 server and to capitalize as much as possible on the influx of new TF2 players, I've put up a 16 slot, official maps TF2 server and called it The Tempest. Add "junior" on the end if you want to be specific.

I know 16 slots aren't a lot and even with that there's occasional (but rare) lag, but it's the best my little old server can handle. Any more than 16 and I suspect we'll see a significant drop in performance. It's done remarkably well over the past 2 days getting and staying populated without any of us having to seed it and, even better, I've seen some folks come back a few times, so it's gaining a following for us.

At the moment only Muff, Rumour, Drakhen, and I are admins/gods on it. In the near future I'll start a thread to see if anyone else would like to be one on it. And probably some threads to discuss map rotation and plugins (though know now I intend to keep it light-weight).

And Out With a Little Bit More

To ensure the Tempest Junior runs as smoothly as possible, I've taken down the Prophunt, Trade, and L4D2 servers. Prophunt seemed to be a fad that died off fast. The Trade server never really got to working right. And the L4D2 servers, while regularly used, weren't used much by any of us and didn't seem to bring any interest to WDFNews.com. That and I failed at keeping them all updated. So no real losses there.

The Road Ahead

I still intend to buy a new server, focused for game hosting, that we'll be able to run a few game servers off of. That should hopefully get us back to the old days of having multiple TF2 (or whatever) servers of various modes. But saving is a slow process. I get $100/month to put towards personal pursuits like this, but that also goes towards gifts and shit.

That said, the donation link on the left now points to my Paypal account dedicated towards WDFNews.com.

When I get a chance to figure it out, I'll be sure that donations of a certain amount gives first-rights access to the TF2 server, and I'll see if there are other kinds of rewards I can offer. Raffles for giftable games, maybe? We'll see!

And of course... the new site. With the focus of my attention coming back towards the community here, I'm hoping to plunge myself back into that code. I actually got a decent amount of the code rewritten during my last round, but crashed into a wall of disinterest when it came time to begin working on the forums code (it's a general CMS, so not just forums).

I think that's it for now. I'm sure I'm forgetting something so expect some edits.
As always, hit me up if there are questions, problems, or an interest in helping.

I have not renewed The Tempest and it is no longer online. There seems to be a declining interest in TF2 and the server has seen barely any action in the last couple of months. Also donations have been almost nonexistent for the last couple of months. I can't see any reason to shell out another $300 for a server no one plays on, with little hope of getting my money back. It was good while it lasted, and we had some great times on it, but I think its time to end it rather than try to drag it through another 6 months.

If anyone else wants to take up the Tempest banner, they are more than welcome to.

There is now a pDs minecraft server, and a forum dedicated it. More info about it can be found there.

Currently the server is pDs (and friends) only, and to get the IP, you need to ask Rikaelus.

We are still working on rules, but for now: Don't be a dick (or don't touch what isn't yours).

...twenty years of age. Send server donations in lieu of birthday gifts. Carry on.

Since The Grinder hasn't been generating a natural population, I've retired it and replace it with our new dedicated trading server, The Merchant. I'll be tweaking its mods as time goes on, but for all intents and purposes it's up and running and has already hit capacity on its own.

I'm not sure if it's something any of us will use all that much but it's free and a good way to get the WDFNews.com name out.

The Merchant

Mode: trade_center - 69.28.133.243:27050 - PLAY NOW! (requires Steam)

...read all of your pm's now that I have access to the database. Some of you people talk about weird shit behind closed doors. Also some of the pictures that some of our female members have exchanged with other people are particularly choice. Also the pictures cantrip sends are pretty good too ( call me ).

Also merry christmas and crap.