Stayin' busy

Celebrating my graduation, enjoying the good weather, drinking beers with people I haven't spoken in a while... Yeah, I've been enjoying myself since I graduated! But in the meantime I'm working quite hard to earn some money, to try and contact DC, and to 'repair' my version of TMN for possible future usage.

With small steps I'm getting the game ready, but since I don't have any recent database backup (I was busy with the graduation project and never thought of making one), it's a time-consuming and difficult job. Because I do have the entire source code it isn't an impossible job (I wouldn't have started doing it in that case), but it still takes a lot of time.

I started off with a database from 2008, which is one major version and hundreds of minor versions previous to the "TMNClassic" we used last round (October 2009 - March 2010). I couldn't login, register, or even attempt anything. I'm now at a stage in which I'm able to "fake" an account, login, and view my mailbox without getting any errors (see screenshot below).



What most of you will want to know, is whether or not I'll be bringing TMN back online. I can't really answer that question, but if there were no hope at all I wouldn't be repairing it. I've done everything I can to contact DC, so I'm not waiting for him. There are however a few things I will need to do before I can bring it back online, here's a quick list:
- Repair the database and test the game
- Port database to mySQL to save about $50 a month
- Research possibilities to run TMN on a cheap (virtual) Linux server
- Beg for money to cover at least 3 months of server fees
- Request support from players willing to help moderate the game (and forums)

Marc

ps. Besides e-mails, text messages, voice-mail messages and messages in paypal money transfers could you think of any way to contact DC? let me know if you do, I'm out of ideas!

Offline.....

Wow, and this had to be the title of the next post!

I assume everyone who reads this already knows TMN is off-line, but the bad news is that I don't know why and for how long (though I could guess, I won't). After numerous e-mails and text messages, and even some messages on facebook, I still haven't heard from DC.

So, what's next? That's my question really... If DC's had enough of TMN, I'll buy the domains and cut him a deal as I'm sure players are willing to help and revive the TMN community. I'll be busy as always (although the 55-hour weeks of graduation are over), but with some help from people who actually communicate it might work.

For now all we can do is wait, sadly.

If you would like to stay updated, you could either join the Facebook group ("TheMafiaNetwork") or keep watching the TMN domains (themafianetwork.net, tmnx.net) and this blog.

Marc

Ps. The message below was posted on Facebook earlier this week:

Since TMN has been offline, I've been trying to contact DC to figure out why... I assume he just 'let it die'. Especially since he has ignored text messages as well as e-mails on all e-mail addresses I know, I'm afraid I'm right.

Anyway, if he responds, we'll see what we can do. The least we could do is get a website o...nline to explain things. As for now: the future is unknown.