Imps Village Forums: Imps Village

Howdy Imps!

No doubt, you're probably wondering WTF after seeing the forum ;-). We've moved to a new server and have taken a huge upgrade in forum software, and are still working on getting everything back in place. If you're looking for details of the move, look no further than this thread.

As I've said, this is still a work in progress. Upcoming things:

• A non-default forum theme
  
• Faster, unrestricted searching (hopefully allowing 3-char words!)
  
• Access to the old old archives
  
• General cleanup work for old/defunct groups and forums
  
• Speed tweaks
  
• Fixing a whole lot of broken images

So we still have a ways to go, but I wanted to get this open to the public ASAP. Just be warned, more rapid changes are expected

Welcome to the new server!

Howdy Imps!

We've been talking about how to do this for the past couple weeks, and I'm ready to pull the trigger. We now have a brand spankin' new server in Ireland that is about 4 times more awesome than the one we're currently on, and I'm ready to move us over. Here's what you can look forward to!

• Faster/more stable site without the intermittent downtime
  
• No more lost E-mails due to E-mail caps
  
• Upgrading from IPB2 to IPB3! This brings more features than I can possibly name, but a few:
  • Get notified when somebody quotes a post you make -- through E-mail, lightbox, sidebar notification, whatever
    
  • "Watch" certain topics or forums, and be notified however you like when someone posts in them.
    
  • See a list of all your favorite/watched topics, jump right to them
    
  • A +1 button to thank/agree with a poster publicly, without needing to post
    
  • Faster and more accurate forum searching, with a huge reduction in wait time between searches
    
  • Much more kickass spam protection
    
  • More ajaxy goodness
    
  • Other stuff!
  
  
• Upgrading to a more modern IRC server and IRC services

There's been some questions about how I'm going to handle archives and starting a new forum fresh and all that jazz. Here's how the changeover is going to go down:

• Imps WILL BE CLOSED during the transfer process. This may take 4-8 hours because of how much work is involved in doing this cleanly. For updates, watch @TomFrost. I'll post if my progress and any unexpected delays.
  
• When Imps comes up on IPB3, we'll have all stickied threads, all threads that have had a post within the past two weeks, and a few select older threads that the mods have deemed important.
  
• We'll have two archives linked at the bottom of the forum instead of just one: The old phpBB forum archive that we have now, and the current contents of our forum, how it is right this second. So even though our active, new IPB3 forum will only have threads active in the past two weeks (and stickies), you'll still have access to almost every thread on the forum right now. We'll likely clear out some of the really old marketplace threads and such to save space. This archive WILL BE SEARCHABLE unlike the old phpBB archive.
  
• Guild forums, as we discussed here, will sadly be eliminated in the new forum as this add-on is no longer available. All old guild forums and threads will still be available in the archive (still private, so you'll need to log in to read your guild forum's threads) so nothing will be lost, but new posts will not be able to be made and we won't be able to support adding new guild members to see their guild's archive. I hate the fact that the only way for us to upgrade is to get rid of this, but we haven't given up looking for solutions for the future.
  
• Depending on my schedule and how easily this move goes, IRC may disappear for a couple days during the move. I'll do everything I can to keep the outage minimal, but other priorities are definitely higher. Either way, when we move over to the new server, any names or channels you had registered will need to be re-registered, as IRC is starting 100% fresh. It will also be shared with members of my other big forum, webdevRefinery.

I'll do everything I can to make Imps' downtime as minimal as I possibly can, but I'm unable to say for certain exactly what days and times the outage(s) will occur. But this process will happen between Thursday, May 26 - Monday, May 30. Imps will NOT be down that entire time, but fitting this in with a bit of a wicked work schedule has proven challenging enough that I have to give myself a wider time frame ;-). Outages can happen any time in that range of days, but as I've mentioned, I expect them to only total to about 4-8 hours of inaccessibility.

Anyway! I'm pretty friggin' excited about getting us moved over, and I hope you like all the upgrades . Thanks in advanced for bearing with the changes and the rocky server move process, and I'll see you all on the other side ;-)

--Your friendly neighborhood blue-testicled Sadida.

Howdy Imps!

Thanks for bearing with us through the downtime in the past few hours. We're back up and running, and we have a brand new backup drive in our RAID array. So, should Imps ever die an ugly horrible death again, we'll be able to come back from the grave just like before ;-).

No more long bursts of downtime are expected in the immediate future. I'm still looking into new server and upgrade options for Imps, but as long as we're on the server we have now, we should be online ;-). Thanks again for putting up with the rollercoaster ride!

Kyek

So in the midst of all the recent server issues and such, it appears that Imps has gotten popular enough that we're hitting our provider's E-mails-per-day cap before the day is through! An annoying problem, but a good one to have . I'm working with GoDaddy to raise that cap (for now -- as we've been talking about here, there's a good chance we'll be moving and upgrading soon), but until then, if you get private messages and somehow weren't notified about it, or if someone tells you you're a little girl with ribbons in your hair in a profile comment and you don't find out about it, don't panic It'll all be taken care of soon.

And since I'm posting, I've been talking to the techs at GoDaddy about when they're going to get around to putting another backup drive in our server, and tentatively it will happen either Monday, Tuesday, or Wednesday of this coming week, between the hours of 1AM-8AM EDT. For approximately 4-6 hours in one of those time slots, Imps will be fully offline. When it comes back up, the forum will be here in exactly the state it was when it went down, but I will have a little bit of work to do with IRC, so IRC won't be up immediately. I'll do my best to get it all hooked up and running as soon as I can after the downtime .

Cheers!
Ky

Howdy Imps!

So if you tried to get your fill of Impsy goodness at all today, you probably noticed that the server was down. A lot. All day long, for those of you in my hemisphere.

It turns out that our server actually caught fire. Our primary hard drive burst into flames and MELTED all through the system. ...or.. you know... it might have just quietly stopped working and didn't catch fire at all, but what's the fun in that? I prefer to think there was a very dramatic explosion, and some dude was walking away from it in slow motion.

All kidding aside, though, the hard drive DID fail, resulting in today's downtime. But not to fear, because way back when Imps started, I set us up with a RAID array, meaning we had a backup hard drive hanging out this whole time, copying the main hard drive exactly, ready to jump in and save our forum just in a case like this. All the posts the forum went offline with should be here now. Unfortunately, this means that the server will need to be taken down for 4-6 hours in the future to add a fresh backup drive to keep us safe, but that should be the last major downtime. Unless something else in the server catches on fire and MELTS. ...it could happen.

I can't guarantee when the repair downtime will happen for sure, but I'll do my best to make sure it happens in the off-peak (around 1am-7am EDT, 5am-11am GMT), and that it doesn't happen Friday or Saturday night.

Thanks for bearing with me, guys! As soon as I post this, I'm going to bring IRC back online and set up my own paranoid backup system just in case this hard drive fails while there's no new backup drive attached.

Cheers!
Your friendly neighborhood frazzled blue Sadida

After a very close run polling session, and then an even tougher decision amongst the mods, we're finally ready to announce the winners of our Demotivational Poster Contest!

In First (1st) Place, with 44 votes; NICHON




In Second (2rd) Place, with 43 votes; SLJM




In Third (3rd) Place, with 20 votes; MOONEY (Previously rosscodoll)




And the winner of the Mod's Choice Award goes to; SPRYTE! (Because that's probably what the Private Server looks like. Which we totally aren't playing)




All of our four wonderful winners will soon be receiving their very special user tags as they become a member of a brand new user group! Enjoy!

Hey everyone Long time no see!

So if you visit the site regularly at all, you'll have noticed that pesky "IPS Driver Error" screen claiming that there's a communication issue with the database. This problem has been increasingly annoying over the past few days, and I've taken some steps to fix it. Unfortunately, they were all just band-aids and the problem came back. Again and again and again. And also possibly again.

I have a handful of options to get us running a bit more permanently, but they're all more noticeable to you guys than what I've been doing so far.

The underlying problem is that the database powering this forum is huge. It's not been pruned (meaning, deleting all items older than a certain date) ever since launch. Every single post ever made here is still here -- even the deleted ones. Because of that, our database is over a gig. That puts a lot of strain on the server even when you view a thread, but it just sits back and laughs at you if you try a search.

Obviously we don't want to lose all the awesome history here, but there are pieces that are pretty safe to lose. The first step will be deleting all marketplace posts that have gone longer than 60 days without a new post. Because seriously, who needs those? Also, there's a bunch of guild forums that haven't been used in practically ever, and we can safely kill those off too.

Before I prune anything else, though, I'm going to make some server upgrades that will require me to pull Imps offline for a few minutes at a time. So if you can't connect in the near future, just try in 5-10 minutes and we should be back .

That's not the biggest thing I want to do, however. What will make the biggest difference is getting this forum updated to Invision Power Board 3. Right now we're on 2.2.2. IPB3 has a few features that make it far (far) less taxing on the server, and treats the database much more nicely to boot. But other than the cost, there's a pretty big catch.

There's no guild forums system for IPB3. Oh crap.

I've spoken to a bunch of you about this and there's mixed feelings across the board. No one wants to see guild forums go away, obviously, but the IPS Database Driver errors have gotten so crazy that the general verdict is that losing guild forums sucks, but dealing with IPS errors sucks more.

But let me make something super clear. In the rare and LAST RESORT case that I have to upgrade to IPB3 at the expense of guild forums, the posts in the current forums will not be lost. Worst-case scenario, we'll have another "Archive" (like for the old phpbb forum that we switched from years ago) for just guild forums, and those with accounts there will always be able to get in and retrieve posts.

Finally, there's one more step I can take to improve things after we switch to IPB3 (if it comes to that). I have another dedicated server that's more customizable, more powerful, and better equipped to handle our site. I'm running another forum there so I can't move Imps there until it's on IPB3 and plays nicer with the server, but it's a good option once we're to that point. In the interest of full disclosure, however, this server is in France. I know, I know, kicking and screaming, etc etc. It has nothing to do with Ankama or that old April Fools' joke coming true ;-). It's just that servers there are oh so much cheaper than the servers here. In fact, about a third of the cost of what we're on right now, for a more powerful machine.

So that's that! I don't want to delay the process too much, but it wouldn't be fair to start deleting posts with next to no warning, either. So if there's anything you want in the marketplace or an inactive guild forum, grab a copy of it before... let's say 9PM tonight, EDT (1AM tomorrow GMT), and I'll make sure not to kill things until then. Cool? Cool.

That's that . If I have to deviate from this at all or delete more stuff or sell the site to Ankama (just kidding) or anything, I'll post again . Until then, hopefully this gets the place all fixed up!

--Kyek

Hey there Impsians. We fancied having something fun to beckon in the summer months so ironically we chose something to DESTROY YOUR SPIRITS.

Because sometimes life is just too good.

We would like you guys to create the best ever demotivational posters.

For those of you who have never seen a demotivational poster, these are demotivational posters and here is a generator to make them. Because we like to make life easy for you.

Here is an example I made a looonnggg time ago regarding our beloved Kyekipookins:



Naturally you wont be quite so amazing but I BELIEVE IN YOU.

There is a catch, though: We want it to be a Dofus or Impsvillage related demotivational poster! Now, you don't have to make it Dofus or Imps artwork or screenshots specifically, but we would like for the theme to be one of those two.

However:

• Don't be outright offensive. If you are unable to judge what is and isn't offensive then we'll have to bust a cap in your ass and that would ruin the fun. Aza does have a very big gun. I have a big concealed weapon, too. Maybe that can be for some other badly behaved people.
  
• The entry limit is 1 per person! You can submit multiple entries but you must specify which of these entries will be submitted for short-listing.
  
• Competition will close a week from today. That means we stop accepting entries at the end of the 6th.
  
• When competition ends, the mods will short-list it to the best, we will then put them up for community review in the form of a poll. It is then up to YOU to choose the best 3. These will be awarded 1st, 2nd (2rd) and 3rd places. Out of the remaining entries the mods will then choose one special Mod's Choice poster.
  
• Post them in this thread!

The special superawesome amazing wonderful prize given by the baby Jesus will be special new Forum Tags! They're beautiful, I should know because I have fabulous taste.

Get demotivating!

:D Amakna Games is not buying Imps Village

Let me tell you a story
I've been so crazy with work lately that it wasn't until about a month ago that I made to back to Imps with a slightly more regular visitation schedule. The mods knew I was around, but I wanted to get settled into things before I started digging into all the forum stuff again. But then Aza made a post about April Fools with a bunch of suggestions, and one of them was "pretend to be bought by Ankama."

Comedy. Effing. Gold.

So we ran with it, launched the master plan today, and oh god it was so much fun xD. We're locking all of the associated threads for it so everyone's posts are immortalized. No, we will not delete your posts to save you the embarrassment

But this is what's really going on:
My workload has eased up considerably, and I decided to wait until now to jump back into the forum because, seriously, that just made the joke 30 times more believable But I'm here, I'm definitely not selling, and Ankama wasn't even involved. And you all should be seeing more of me! Nothing says "Hey I'm back!" like giving a couple thousand people heart attacks

Credits to Garne for the images used (everything but the RIDICULOUSLY ANNOYING background tile xD), Tweak, Biku, Robbeh, and me for the crux of the dialog from the Ankama® Games account, and all the mods for refining the idea and having some seriously epic online acting skills to pull it off . Special thanks to RollTheDice for allowing us to ban him (he was in on it the whole time, even though his posts are full of rage ) and Youb, also known as Taré, for playing the role of a French forum mod.

Also, credits to everyone who figured out the joke and joined in to play along instead of feeling the unexplainable need to ruin the joke for everyone else. That's what made this REALLY rewarding. Way to be awesome

Did you miss it?
Here's a handy guide to go back over all the festivities:

The main thread:
http://www.impsvilla...showtopic=80585

The NUMEROUS airport threads:
http://www.impsvilla...showtopic=80884
http://www.impsvilla...showtopic=80876
http://www.impsvilla...showtopic=80764
http://www.impsvilla...showtopic=80600
http://www.impsvilla...showtopic=80673
http://www.impsvilla...showtopic=80797
http://www.impsvilla...showtopic=80611
http://www.impsvilla...showtopic=80700
http://www.impsvilla...showtopic=80831
http://www.impsvilla...showtopic=80780
http://www.impsvilla...showtopic=80791
http://www.impsvilla...showtopic=80675
http://www.impsvilla...showtopic=80643

Other supporting threads:
http://www.impsvilla...showtopic=80743
http://www.impsvilla...showtopic=80783
http://www.impsvilla...showtopic=80707
http://www.impsvilla...showtopic=80837

And to get a taste of what the webpage looked like, select "Ankama Village" from the drop-down at the bottom-left corner of every page.


One more thanks for the mods and everyone who played along, everyone who let us ban them, quiv for impersonating CatO (as "Lockuar"!), Inoku for making himself everyone's favorite traitor (xD), Aza (Reine) for being a mod machine, and anyone I forgot . The precious few who never caught on will forever live in infamy ;-)

--Ky

(today's a bit of a busy day-- if you see some out-of-place images from the joke, they'll be cleared up soon )

Howdy Imps,

As many of you are aware, I've been taking an extended leave from my Admin duties here at Imps. The reasons for this include changing interests, an increased focus on real-life work, and many time constraints. I apologize for my absence from the community.

Recently I was approached by Ankama Games about the possibility of them purchasing Imps Village. This was a very obvious solution to all the problems I was having. Ankama Games' purchase of the site would allow me to leave it in good hands, while getting out from under the monthly bills. Naturally, I agreed, and I truly hope their vision for Imps Village allows this place to improve and flourish.

I'll be staying on in an admin capacity just long enough to become acquainted with their new staff and get them used to the systems here. They have some very exciting upgrades in mind, so it shouldn't be long until you start seeing new graphics and forum-hosted events! I'm very pleased with their plans and hope you like them as much as I do.

Following this post will be a statement from Ankama Games. As for my part, I'd like to thank everyone for a truly fantastic two and a half years. I couldn't have asked for a better time here

Kyek