ut2k4 master server petition

[borgqueenx]

For how long is the ut stats page not working correctly for showing players?
I have the feeling they simply abandoned ut2004. It costs money to pay for a repair.

[Pancake]

Hi. I made this petition. Thanks for spreading the word.

It's kind of a long shot considering their recent news posts inactivity, but I went ahead and shot an email to PlanetUnreal about this as well. Here's what all I posted:

Subj: Cross-community petition to Epic to keep UT2004 alive online.

Hello, PlanetUnreal, and happy New Year! I go by the nick Pegasus and I'm part of a european UT2004 server and a member of the UT online community in general. I know this site's news posters may seem to have been inactive or otherwise preoccupied lately, but we could definitely use all the help we can get on an increasingly troubling issue so I'm appealing to you as well. Please consider hearing our plea and helping us spread this message to concerned fans everywhere as far and wide as possible by posting it in your main page's News section. Thank you for your time and generosity in advance! Allow me to describe our concern below:

UNREAL TOURNAMENT 2004 IS IN TROUBLE:

Although it may be getting a bit long in the tooth these days - the game was released nearly 8 years ago after all - for many UT2004 represents Epic's finest installment in the Unreal series, a fact perhaps best demonstrated during the year following UT3's release and the subsequent mass migration back to UT2004's servers after seeing what all the most recent edition had made its priorities.
With its fast and finely tuned gameplay mechanics, multitude of gametypes, variety of aesthetics and visual themes and, perhaps best of all, an open and enduring creative online community which to this day has delivered dozens of great total conversions and hundreds of quality mods and other custom content, it's easy to understand UT2004's lasting appeal to both pros and amateur seasoned PC gamers alike.
UT2004 has silently existed online for all these years requiring nothing of Epic but a sole Master Server machine somewhere to maintain the list of registered online servers available and the various whitelisted mutators those servers are allowed to run. Over the last year, however, this lifeline resource has become significantly unstable, returning incomplete server lists occasionally several whole minutes after being queried by people seeking servers to play on and, oftentimes, unavailable altogether. This removes any and all possibility for new server discovery through the game's own means (happening upon a new, worthwhile server during surfing isn't very likely nowadays either) and limits players' choices to whatever servers they happen to've added to their favourites' lists only. Considering the steady decline of new players after so many years, many worry that this problem could become the coup de grace for UT2004 that pushes Epic to scrap its online functions entirely if it were to persist for much longer.
People have been appealing to Epic for months on their official msg board (at http://forums.epicgames.com/threads/815 ... rver-query) trying to get a speck of attention to this issue, but aside from a single empty promise to "check into it" a month ago, nothing has changed. Because of this, a petition has been started to help illustrate to the cold-shouldered developer just how many players still exist that care to see UT2004 live on and are concerned with these latest developments. We would like to ask every UT2004 fan to visit the petition's page at http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/KEEP-UT2004-ALIVE/ and aid us with their participation. Please help keep this great game alive! Thank you all for your attention and have a Happy New Year!

Other UT2004 servers/communities already in support of this effort:
CEONSS: http://www.ceonss.net/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=131
Omnip)o(tents: http://forum.omnipotents.com/showthread.php?t=13908
Death Warrant: http://www.clandw.org/forums/7/3984

I know it's a bit long at 4 paragraphs, but I thought it was important to get all the major points across as best I could, so yeah. PlanetUnreal may not be what it used to in terms of popularity (then again, what UT-centric place is these days?), but it's still a well known hub of UT news/info for many (esp. non-regulars), so it doesn't hurt to try. Let's see if they run it...

Its worded very well. One reason I registered here was to ask if you could make a better wording for this petition? I can edit it, right now it doesn't look too professional.
Another thing I've noticed is that there's might be too many issues mentioned? Do you guys think they're important or should be left out?

Thanks.

By the way, here's a list of sites I've found or posted already the petition on, just saying so you know where you don't need to spread the word already:
http://forum.omnipotents.com/showthread.php?t=13908
http://forums.beyondunreal.com/showthread.php?p=2547091
http://forum.unreal.pl/showthread.php?p=748416
http://www.unitedkommandos.net/index.php?topic=13486.0
http://forums.multiplay.co.uk/unreal-se ... r-petition
http://www.ut99.org/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=3692
http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/s ... p=28275251
http://forums.beyondunreal.com/showthread.php?p=2547091
http://www.its-hq.com/forums/viewtopic. ... 83&p=17475
http://www.xfire.com/communities/ut2oo4 ... c/3659352/
http://www.utzone.de/forum/showthread.php?t=2532
http://www.unrealadmin.org/forums/showt ... p?p=164066
http://slackersmotivated.net/modules.ph ... ic&p=42497
http://www.unrealnorth.com/forum.php?ac ... c&id=77820
http://www.moddb.com/forum/thread/ut200 ... r-petition

If anyone wants to spread the word, just google for UT2004 communities and make a post on one: http://www.google.com/search?q=ut2004+community
It would be like spam, if only one person posts.

Pegasus, can we post your wording when advertising this petition?

[Pegasus]

Go right ahead.

[laboRHEinz]

Hi. I made this petition. Thanks for spreading the word.

[...]

Its worded very well. One reason I registered here was to ask if you could make a better wording for this petition? I can edit it, right now it doesn't look too professional.
Another thing I've noticed is that there's might be too many issues mentioned? Do you guys think they're important or should be left out?

Thanks.

Hi! Thanks for registering & welcome.

And thank you for starting this petition. This slow master server issue annoyed some of us to the bones ever since it appeared, so approximately since August '11. Just as a proof for being the reason for the decreasing player amount, take a look at these stats from TheCLQ:

UT2004_Av_Players.jpg (75.36 KiB) Viewed 12950 times

That's why I already tried to register at Epics forums and let them know my opinion. Unfortunately, the registration did not work at all - the confirmation email has not been delivered to me WTF!?! Hence I tried to contact the board admins - no reply!. Hmm, strange...

Thus again, thank you for starting this petition; at least we were able to help out on this a bit ;-)

Regarding the petitions content: Yes, I think it's over the top. In my opinion, most people signed only for three points:
1) "Don't shut down the master server" (Obviously, those did not get the petition right, so we can ignore these remarks).
2) "Fix the master server".
3) "Fix the stats server".

My impression is, that almost nobody signed the other points. Especially on the "Keeping around the demo servers" topic, there are quite different points of view. Now, I don't want to pick up a topic that has been discussed excessively already here http://forums.epicgames.com/threads/683 ... ter-Server... .
So I'd suggest to not combining too many different things and just stay at the master & stats server topic.

Today, Fl4k seemed to have rebooted the master server, but it didn't do the trick :-(

[Pancake]

Yes, it looks like Flak is finally looking into it, even replied my e-mails. Petition successful?

[borgqueenx]

who's flak? someone who works at epic games?

[laboRHEinz]

Yes, it looks like Flak is finally looking into it, even replied my e-mails. Petition successful?

LOL not yet. We may consider it as successful as soon as we have a fixed master server again.

I was just wondering why this issue appeared at all! What's the culprit? I'd never suspect Epic doing this by intention. Maybe because they were moving the most likely very old original master / stats servers to another host? Maybe they virtualised and put them an a slow or overloaded host?

Another reason could be that there got up several super-hacked servers recently. Those servers show up within the UT server browser at several gametypes. E.g. being an AS-server but showing as ONS, vCTF and INV server. Maybe the g'old master server just can't handle this?

[Pegasus]

who's flak? someone who works at epic games?

Flak is Epic's UT2004 community manager. She's the one that's supposed to be listening to what we need.

Yes, it looks like Flak is finally looking into it, even replied my e-mails. Petition successful?

The petition's objectives are threefold.
We're asking of Epic to continue keeping the Master Server operating to a serviceable degree. Just because it got rebooted after however many months that should not be interpreted as a return to smooth operation. The verdict is still out on the quality of services it can deliver in its current state. If that ability once more proves to be deficient, Epic needs to know we'll be there to take 'em to task about its replacement/upgrade.
Secondly, there's the matter of the broken ties as regards the mutators white list. The server admins community - and the whole playerbase beside them - should no longer accept this stagnating state of affairs, but insist that at least once per year Epic offers to update the white list with whatever tried and tested new content the community has agreed should be considered legitimate and worthy of being "instituted" and set in stone, so to speak.
Lastly, Epic should no longer be allowed to get away with the indifference they've shown toward their tardy and withered UT2004 stats database server. If they purport to value their player community at all, this disrepair needs to be tended to.

Until all 3 goals are achieved, I see absolutely no reason to call the petition a success and consider shutting it down or even easing pressure off Epic. Stand fast and united, folks, we're just getting started.

[lilalurl]

I was just wondering why this issue appeared at all! What's the culprit? I'd never suspect Epic doing this by intention. Maybe because they were moving the most likely very old original master / stats servers to another host? Maybe they virtualised and put them an a slow or overloaded host?

Better let Flak investigate. For instance, if you like back in 2010:
http://forums.epicgames.com/threads/742 ... st27627690

some issues came from Gamespy and others were because of a connection issue.

[Pancake]

Anyone else care about the stats site?

I've just never understood the point of it.
- the server ranking is unequal. How can you rank a server by how long it has had a static IP? The only servers ranking high are those who have the least changes of IP address.
- the highest ranked players have abused the system.
- last time I checked my rank, I had like 10 profiles in there.

I just edited the petition so it would be only about master server. Should there be more demands?