Vent server outage - ongoing issues

[apollor]

Hi guys,

Some of you will have noticed the Vent server is not working last night and this morning. There appears to be a fairly significant issue with DarkStar and Ubiquity services going on.

Some forum posts you might like to read on the matter:

Post on Vent Forums
Some more details

Looks to me like they've been the target of an interesting services attack, and they are going through the motions of checking what's happened before they open things up again. Understandable approach to ensuring they know what's been compromised if anything.

So apologies for Vent being down guys, not a lot I can do about it - Ubiquity is a provider for quite a few of the authorized Vent companies, and I'm faithful DarkStar will get their stuff sorted ASAP - they've always been great to deal with.

That said, we might be without Vent for another day or two. I'd suggest just firing up the in-game voice chat system for now. And if it proves impossible to use, I'll organize something else for us to use.

Cheers all, Apo

Edit at 10am: They posted a message on their main site

Update 3/30/2009 @ 8:00 PM CST

Good evening,

We hope your day has gone better than ours. We realize there are major problems at the moment with a handful of Ventrilo systems, as well as the obvious absence of our main website and systems. We are resolving them as quickly as we possibly can, and have all of our staff working overtime until that happens. We are still here. We are not going out of business. We did not all move to Sealand. If you require assistance, your best bet will be #DarkStarLLC on the gamesurge.net IRC network until our systems are restored. Please understand that our staff are extremely overwhelmed right now as a result of today's problems and may be very slow to respond - we are still here and we definitely care about getting your service restored.

Thank you for your patience.
Also, for those of you browsing the World of Warcraft forums, please recognize that zomghealz is indeed a staff member of ours. We're doing our best to get you guys back online ASAP!

[gbsilk]

Lets start a phone tree...

You can reach me on 1902Jailbait

[castus]

Good idea GB...

Here's mine: 1900tbagins

[apollor]

Mar 31, 2009 10:00:53 GMT 10 @apollor said:

Hi guys,

Some of you will have noticed the Vent server is not working last night and this morning. There appears to be a fairly significant issue with DarkStar and Ubiquity services going on.

And it's still ongoing, more than 24hrs later - they appear to be no closer to really solving this issue and I'm loosing faith fast in their abilities. This stuff should be so hard to get back on line. Especially the web/management side of their services.

Suffice to say - I'll be canceling my subscription with DarkStarLLC as soon as they are back up and running.

To that end - Official New War Machine Vent Server is:

Host: 203.46.105.45
Port: 20430
Password : (same as what is is now)

I'll set the Guild Info page details and a MOTD in game when I get home.. But for anyone that reads this - Start setting up your vent details and changing your spam-macros.

Also, I've upgraded to a 40 slot service, simply because these guys offer round 10's of numbers and 30 doesn't let us have a 25 and a 10 man running.

I've bumped the codec up a notch which should result in slightly clearer sounding voices also.

Cheers all, happy venting!

-Apo

[Rhodam]

I've bumped the codec up a notch which should result in slightly clearer sounding voices also.

...so that I can hear the hatred in your voice better when you talk to me?

[apollor]

indeed!

It now has the clarity capable of conveying the piercing sounds of ice cold water crashing over crystal shards.

Or of the splashing of blood onto cold stone, of a hunters body in sacrificial offering to the gods of war!

*smacks lips* mmmm hunter sacrifice ;-)

-Apo

[seveneves]

I do have to say, what small number of people I have heard so far on the new server do sound a lot better.

[gbsilk]

How about the splash of bitter bitter tears? Just for Kurima...

[seveneves]

Apr 2, 2009 14:31:19 GMT 10 @gbsilk said:

How about the splash of bitter bitter tears? Just for Kurima...

I'm not even gonna touch that one...

[braver]

If you need an alternate vent server to use ever, please give me a shout when I log on.. I have a 50 person one that I pay for as the guild vent for my US server guild, which is always completely empty at normal korea/aussie times.

[kurima]

Apr 2, 2009 14:31:19 GMT 10 @gbsilk said:

How about the splash of bitter bitter tears? Just for Kurima...

WTF is that supposed to mean?

Tell me that my generosity by putting out for a vent server when the other one was down and not coming back up somehow got twisted into me being bitter about something.

GB, clearly I had you pegged all wrong after reading this comment.

[gbsilk]

Hey mate - I thought that this might be what you were worried about.

Just want to make two things clear. First, the whole tears thing was a little mage vs warlock joshing. It DEFINITELY wasn't meant to be a personal attack bro. I don't think I even knew about your vent server when I made it. I appreciate now that, given the timing, you might be upset about that. I want to assure you that it was not EVER intended like that.

Just some background - google the words mage keyboard and have a look at the enormous quantity of mage based QQ (much of which is directed at warlocks). However, this expansion, mages have finally caught up again and there are now some warlock QQ threads about mages popping up.

I do apologise Kurima if I was out of line - I would hope that you know I personally value your contribution (both financial and otherwise). I do sometimes give people a bit of stick about beating them on the meters and otherwise (Kurima may be one of those), I hope that people realise that I don't seriously believe that stuff though. A lot of people make a fantastic contribution to our raiding team and environment (Kurima is definitely one of those) which probably doesn't get the public recognition it deserves.

On a second note, I think that anyone who has donated time and money to stuff for our guild deserves a big thank you (and not to have crap hung on them). I know that I appreciate those efforts (vent, raid videos, fish feasts).

Anyway, just to re-iterate - Kurima mate I am sorry if it came off like I was having a go at your generousity. I honestly and sincerely did not intend to imply anything about your contribution to the guild (both by the vent server and otherwise). It was just a stupid little joke - one which in retrospect I wish I had not made.

I would be happy to discuss it further if you have any concerns mate.

[castus]

The following is just a cut and paste from my post in the dual speccing thread, but I feel it necessary to post here as well:

It is very hard, even near impossible, to infer intent, tone, emotion, meaning, etc in this medium of communication. Please keep that in mind when posting and replying to posts. If you are unsure where someone is coming from, what they meant in a particular post, or what their personal philosophy is on a particular matter, please ask for clarification. Please refrain as best you can from assuming anything and including those assumptions in your posts. Let's all remember treat everyone with respect, exibit restraint when necessary, error on the side of caution and give people the benefit of the doubt.

Thanks,
James