First, I want to say thanks to Fillip and Iain at www.dragonbyte-tech.com for hosting the JFF servers all these years. They've been great and have hosted JFF/DHV for free for... 10 years? Always keeping our server up to date and hack free, dealing with my random questions and helping to support JFF in many ways (website mods, hosting, etc).
Unfortunately, as all things do, this hosting is coming to an end.
I'm not writing this message looking for free hosting anywhere else, etc.
I'm writing it as I'm trying to decide the path going forward. Over the last 2 years or so, most of the interactions between JFF members have switched from this website to Discord. This isn't a bad thing, but it does make the website fairly dead and limit its usefulness.
While we've held out hope for the next great MMO that gets us all playing together again, which would necessitate using this website and forums, no such game has presented itself. Not to say it can't happen again, but right now, things aren't looking good in the MMO world (near term).
I also use this website for my personal projects such as my RAT 7D2D Server manager, etc.
So there ARE uses for it and reasons to keep this website going.
All of that to say... I'm not sure what direction to go at this point. These are the options as I see them.
1) Take down the website completely, keeping our Discord server as the only means of communication.
2) Remove this website, get a small hosting package somewhere and try to make due with doing things the old fashioned way (writing the HTML myself, while I CAN do this, I'm not all that looking forward to it)
3) Get new hosting elsewhere, upgrade the website to the latest software, get all the security patches, import the old (this one) website data, rebuild the website theme, etc. (Fun, but somewhat costly and time consuming)
Anyway, if you have any suggestions, comments, etc... I'd love to hear them and maybe they can help me make a decision. =)
Unfortunately, as all things do, this hosting is coming to an end.
I'm not writing this message looking for free hosting anywhere else, etc.
I'm writing it as I'm trying to decide the path going forward. Over the last 2 years or so, most of the interactions between JFF members have switched from this website to Discord. This isn't a bad thing, but it does make the website fairly dead and limit its usefulness. While we've held out hope for the next great MMO that gets us all playing together again, which would necessitate using this website and forums, no such game has presented itself. Not to say it can't happen again, but right now, things aren't looking good in the MMO world (near term).
I also use this website for my personal projects such as my RAT 7D2D Server manager, etc.
So there ARE uses for it and reasons to keep this website going.
All of that to say... I'm not sure what direction to go at this point. These are the options as I see them.
1) Take down the website completely, keeping our Discord server as the only means of communication.
2) Remove this website, get a small hosting package somewhere and try to make due with doing things the old fashioned way (writing the HTML myself, while I CAN do this, I'm not all that looking forward to it)
3) Get new hosting elsewhere, upgrade the website to the latest software, get all the security patches, import the old (this one) website data, rebuild the website theme, etc. (Fun, but somewhat costly and time consuming)
Anyway, if you have any suggestions, comments, etc... I'd love to hear them and maybe they can help me make a decision. =)