Trollmegle Updates

Trollplay Closing - June 15th 2013

Thu, 16 May 2013 22:07:26 -0400

Trollplay and the Trollplay Forums are both closing.
This is a difficult thing for me to write, and it might be a difficult thing for some of you to read. I’m sorry.

Trollplay will close on June 15th. The Trollplay Forums will close on July 1st.

Trollplay has been a major part of my life for the past two years, and it’s been so touching and fun to read peoples’ logs and see friendships form on the site and on the forums. Owning the site has taught me so much about programming, web site administration, community relations, and responsibility. It’s been a formative experience, and I’ll certainly never forget it.

But keeping the site up isn’t cheap. On top of that, my interest in Homestuck roleplaying has waned, and I don’t feel like Trollplay is really necessary anymore.
Back when Robert and I started Trollplay, most Homestuck roleplayers used Zingled, a sleepy, Omegle-like chat site. In early 2011, there just wasn’t a very good alternative out there.*

But now MSPARP is widely-used and fully-featured, Omegle has a chat tagging system that allows people to find other Homestuck roleplayers easily, and Pesterchum’s latest version includes a random roleplayer matchup system.
Trollplay isn’t identical to these other sites, but now there are so many ways to roleplay Homestuck with strangers that we don’t really need it.

Since the comic will be on hiatus for a while, I think that this is a good time to bring the site to a close.

I want to thank everyone who’s used the site in the past, everyone who’s posted on the forums, all of the #trollmegle IRC regulars, everyone who’s donated to help cover server costs, and everyone who’s reading this now.

I also want to thank a few people by name!

Robert, thank you for helping me start the site! I don’t know if I would have finished my version if you hadn’t let me build on your foundation. Thank you, Robert. I feel like we made it to the finish line.
Timeroot, your revamp of the site was amazing. I’m sure you’re going to have a great career. You’re an excellent programmer. Thank you so much for taking the time to make this site as good as it is.
Tezukarin, thanks for being on server-reboot duty the past several months, and for letting me run all of my server management questions by you, and just for being you! I feel like this project is one of the things that brought us together. Thank you for being so generous with your time and talents.
Rory, Whatwith, JackNoir, flippingallmyshit, shitletsbeTherapist, MelodiousJustice, MusclebeastDad, KhorneBerzerker, Hear-The-Voices, Bl1ndX3no, AllwaysHallways, Runesby, Kerbilgunnerz, Yolomid, and everyone else from the T1S chat who helped support this project from the beginning: thank you so much. Trollplay really was T1S’s baby. Thank you guys for being there for the birth.
Bri, Liz, Izaak, Tezukarin again, and Russ: thank you for being there for me when I was awake for 36 hours straight trying to keep the site running in its early days, for supporting me when I whined about coding, and for making me excited about roleplaying. Thank you guys for just being there for me the whole time.

As stated above, the main site will stay up until June 15th. The forums will stay up until July 1st. Thank you all so much.

—-

* I recall hearing that MSPARP went online some time before this, but it was mostly inactive before 2012.

Sorry to ask, but how do we download the PMs?

Mon, 25 Mar 2013 03:36:16 -0400

There isn’t really a “download PMs” option. You just have to log in here, view the private messages panel, and copy your PMs manually.

I don’t know of a plugin for MyBB that allows you to press a button and save all of your PMs to one file, so everyone has to do it by hand. I’m sorry. This is the best solution that I could come up with.

Trollplay forums are back

Mon, 25 Mar 2013 00:43:49 -0400

Hey! The forums are back up. Thanks for your patience.

http://cel3stial.com/forums

Have fun!

The Trollplay Forums

Sun, 24 Mar 2013 00:19:33 -0400

The forums are down! Sorry. We moved from one host to another in an effort to escape some weird issues with CPU and bandwidth drain, and the issues followed us!

I’m waiting to hear back from the host providers to re-enable the forums’ account, and then I’m going to try a few solutions (blocking IPs that look like they’re trying to DDOS us, and then failing that, switching from MyBB to SMF). I’ll do my best to keep you all up to date with posts here.

Here’s a piece of good news: you can recover your old PMs now. Visit http://whoops.undo.it/forums and log in with your username and password as they were as of February 1, 2013. Your PMs should be available under “private messages” as usual.

Thanks for your patience, and sorry about the trouble!

Trollplay/Forums maintenance successful!

Tue, 12 Feb 2013 22:53:15 -0500

Hey, guys! It looks like the DNS servers resolved while I was going about my school day, so the Trollplay Forums have been back up since earlier this morning! Furthermore, the maintenance on the main Trollplay site was successful, and log saving is 100% functional once more.

It looks like the forums’ server move was generally a success. However, there was one issue: private messages were unable to be transferred to the new server!

Your PMs aren’t gone forever. You’ll be able to recover them and back them up at the beginning of March. I apologize for the issue, but I could not find a way around this. Sorry, guys.

I hope everyone reading this has a lovely day! Thanks!

Maintenance Complete

Mon, 11 Feb 2013 07:12:23 -0500

Maintenance is done. The older logs have been cleared away, and new logs are saving again properly.

The forums will be back tomorrow.

Tomorrow, I’ll also link the archives of the cleared logs, just in case you want to go through them. Thanks. Have a good day!

Hey, everyone! The reason the logs haven’t been saving for the past few months is because the...

Sun, 03 Feb 2013 22:14:59 -0500

Hey, everyone!

The reason the logs haven’t been saving for the past few months is because the old logs were taking up too much space on the server.

We looked into a few solutions, but the most practical way to handle it at this point would be for us to clear the old logs in order to make room for the new ones.

Please save any logs that are on the server that you want to keep! We’ll be deleting them on Saturday, February 9th, at around 2AM Eastern. The site will go down for a couple of hours at this time.

I’m going to try to save the old logs and put them in a series of TAR archives on mediafire. Still, as noted above, please back up any logs that you want to keep: I can’t guarantee that this effort to preserve the logs will be successful.

Thanks for your time, and thanks for using the site!

Logs

Tue, 02 Oct 2012 19:50:45 -0400

Hey! We’re having some issues with log saving over on the Trollplay server. What a bummer! It’s like some kind of spooky Halloween nightmare! Aiieee!

So, bad news and good news with logs.

First, the bad news: We’re going to have to temporarily delete some of the older logs. But, preserving logs is very important to us. We have them backed up off-site, and we intend to have them back online by this weekend.

Then, the good news: these log blackouts should be eliminated after we make these changes, and the deleted logs will be restored again! How nice.

The logs to be deleted are logs 100 through 40,000. If you want or need a log in that range before they’re put back up this weekend, please send an ask to tezukarin. He has copies of the backups, and he’s offered to upload logs for anyone who wants them.

If you have a log that is outside of the range 100 through 40,000, you don’t have anything to worry about! These logs are pretty old, so any logs from April on to today should remain intact.

We’ll keep you posted on the details here! Thanks, guys!

What's Haps?

Tue, 14 Aug 2012 03:54:00 -0400

We’ve still been plugging away at keeping Trollplay up and running, but there hasn’t been much to report: hopefully, thus explaining the total silence around here since the end of March.

About a month ago, we enlisted two more people to help reboot the server when it crashes. Those two individuals are Tezukarin and shitsletsbeTherapist. Tezukarin often posts updates when he reboots the server, so if you’re looking for dashboard alerts regarding Trollplay’s up/downtime, you should give him a follow! (Heck, follow shitletsbeTherapist, too, if you want to follow a dude with good taste in films.)

Timeroot recently wrote a script that should automatically reboot the most simple crash, when it occurs. We’re going to be testing that out shortly. (That was so nice of him! What a guy.)

We’re working on resolving the issues with the logs not saving, but it’s a long, slow, tedious fix (filesystem issues! woe!). But, you know: it’s coming along!

I think that’s about it! Except to, again, point out this fantroll. And don’t forget to follow MSPARP’s tumblr if you’re interested in Homestuck RPing! It’s a wonderful program run by some really nice people.

Have fun out there!

uragani: Anonymous asked: Since you made Ms. Parp, I was...

Tue, 14 Aug 2012 03:40:10 -0400

uragani:

Anonymous asked: Since you made Ms. Parp, I was wondering if you could make a Trollplay Troll for the Trollplay website? Pleaaase? Oh! Also we decided he’s kind of skittish, and is prone to fainting and freezing like those goats that fall over.

WHY THE HELL NOT? ENJOY.

Your name is TRROLL PLAYYE and you enjoy ROLEPLAYING as well as INTENSE SHIPPING. You spend hours online SAVING LOGS and occasionally RUINING LIVES. Since you play so many FAKEY FAKE PERSONAS no one has realized you’re a MUTANT BLOOD. You have trouble with REAL PEOPLE due to CRIPPLING SOCIAL ANXIETY, and have never actually left your LAWNRING. In fact, what is OUTSIDE?

Your trolltag is fandomParody and ▲▼ You type with varying degress of accurafs??! DEPENDING ON how EXCITED YOU ARE?… Sometimes it might even be considered normal.

What do you do?

Marvel at a work of beauty.

Things are up

Thu, 29 Mar 2012 23:57:00 -0400

I’m really exhausted, so I’m not going through the numerous asks until tomorrow. I’ll try to answer the most common, most obvious question to the best of my ability.

The site and/or forums are down?:

Both of them are up now.

I think maybe the site has been crashing because I failed to correctly configure Apache when I switched it to run on port 8080. I changed that setting. We’ll have to see if it takes.

I think maybe the forum has been crashing because it needed to be upgraded to the newer version of MyBb. I upgraded it. We’ll have to see if it takes.

I’ve been taking away from my sleep and schoolwork and family time to work on this site, and it’s unfeasible for me to keep up for any length of time.
I hope you can all be patient with me as I maintain Trollplay in a manner that allows me to maintain my personal life, as well. Goodnight!

I say, hey. What's going on?

Thu, 29 Mar 2012 00:21:00 -0400

Hey, guys! The server went down after I went to bed this afternoon. The issue was one that was very difficult to resolve without being able to access the root account, so I wasn’t able to put it back up until I got back from class this evening. Trollplay is back up, and has been for the last couple hours!

The forums are down, and I’m working on putting them back up. It shouldn’t be too long- I’ll edit this post once I have it fixed. Edit: they’re up!

Several people have had some issues with the new version: it’s the same one that was up at http://trollmegle.net:8080 and we felt it has been sufficiently tried and tested. Unfortunately, it has limited compatibility with Internet Explorer. If you can’t use another browser, be sure to check the box under “start chat” that says “use XHR”- this will solve some of the most common problems!

I’ll have more on this tomorrow- I have to study for a midterm exam, so I can’t elaborate tonight. But I hope everyone’s enjoying Trollplay for the time being!

what will happen to logs we may have had bookmarked? because I had a few and I really don't want to lose them.

Thu, 29 Mar 2012 00:12:40 -0400

They’re still available. For the old logs (logs.php?userid [ … etc]) change the part of the link that says trollmegle.net to trollplay.net:8080. For the newer logs (trollmegle.net:8080/logs/[numbers].html), change trollmegle.net:8080 to trollplay.net.

I’ll be putting up proper redirects over the weekend so you won’t have to input this manually.

Here's what I still have to do

Wed, 28 Mar 2012 06:13:14 -0400

Yeah, I’m not totally done!

Here’s what’s left:

First (and most obviously), I have to finish the new layout
Reformat about 70-80% of the old logs.
Put the link back up to the old PHP + SQL based Trollplay ( it’s up at http://trollplay.net:8080 )
Redirect the old log URLs to the new ones.

That’s all I can remember through my sleepy haze. Have fun, y’all. It’s still up.

Trollplay Is Up!

Wed, 28 Mar 2012 06:04:59 -0400

Trollplay Is Up!

I'm guessing that you've had your fair share of RP's. Are there any that particularly stand out, really memorable ones, etc?

Wed, 28 Mar 2012 05:38:01 -0400

Yes! Unfortunately, Homestuck-RP-wise, they were a very long time ago: I haven’t RPed Homestuck in a while.

But I had an interesting rap battle against Dave as Crabdad once, a great time playing as Gamzee talking to another Gamzee, and also a pretty great time playing as a ~*sugoi kawaii gamzee*~ teaching John how to commune with the manga messiahs.

Also the time I played as Bro pretending to be a duckling.

Those were good times.

Is there anything any of us could do to help out? Like any skills you need more of or anything?

Wed, 28 Mar 2012 05:21:26 -0400

If someone was especially good with Java, then that would probably be helpful!

That’s all that comes to mind immediately, but I’ll ask Timeroot and Robert if there’s anything else that they can think of particularly.

Trollmegle seems to have always had a habit of semi-frequent downtimes which last a day or so. Any chance the update to Trollplay will change that? And if not, is there a likelihood of it getting fixed in the future? It's a server issue, it's pretty understandable, servers cost a damn lot.

Wed, 28 Mar 2012 05:19:37 -0400

It’s not a server issue. There’s some bug in Timeroot’s program that causes it to crash periodically, at which point someone has to manually reboot it.

He’s spent a lot of time and energy trying to figure out what’s wrong- he’s gone above and beyond the call of duty, really!- but neither of us have been able to figure out why.

However, the downtimes will be shorter: before, I was the only one who had the ability to restart the server, but I’ve given that ability to three very trustworthy people (Robert, Timeroot, and Rory), so in the future there will be a higher chance of someone being around and able to notice that the site is down in the first place (because a lot of the time I just wasn’t there to do anything about it).

I think that the speed of Timeroot’s program makes up for the occasional crashes, and it’s a lovely program altogether. He did a great job with it and I’m proud to associate with him!

I know you have probably gotten heaps of these, but I was wondering, when do you think trollmegle will be back?

Wed, 28 Mar 2012 05:00:09 -0400

My last 3 asks have been this question, no joke.

It will be up soon. I don’t trust myself to give a solid ETA anymore, but I’m probably not going to sleep until it’s back up, so make of that what you will!

Dearest comrade, next time you have to do something like this, instead of putting down a concrete time just give something vague (like say, when Duke Nukem Forever comes out ohwait) and while I'm able to ask for unreasonable things go and beat the crap out of the code until it stops being prone to crashing and rendering OUR NEW FAVORITE THING, TROLLPLAY, THAT TOTALLY ISN'T A RENAMED OLD THING unusable. And stop playing fair, get as many people as you can into this and really beat it. Good luck!

Wed, 28 Mar 2012 04:58:45 -0400

Yeah, that’s an important lesson I’ve learned from this: I am so bad at estimating how long it will take me to carry out a task.

I’m beating the hell out of this server, though. And I have gotten help: Timeroot helped by modifying the log generation and presentation, and he worked hella hard onthat- as well as to write the current software that Trollplay runs on, so always props to him. Then Tezukarin helped me set up part of the server that was giving me a lot of trouble, so he gets props too! People, man! People.