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Minor Complaint: Skull Re Server Visibility


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I hope i'm using this forum correctly, skull is a great guy, nothing against him.


Past couple days, it seems like aurora has gone visible again, we're getting a whole lot of greytide and new faces, higher populations than i'm used to seeing. Some new people are nice, but the escape shuttle gets a bit chaotic, and there's lots of SSD everywhere. There are obviously issues.


A couple of weeks ago, i was one of the new players who came aboard during one of these visible periods, and i'm still here. Because Aurora is awesome. But also because there was a big announcement that the server would be going invisible, which included instructions on how to connect after that happened. Without those instructions, i'd never have figured it out, i'd have been stuck playing on murderhobo servers and probably gotten bored of the game, and quit. Aurora is really the only place i play now.


So what's my problem? Today the server was set invisible again. No advance notice, not even any instructions to the people who were currently in it. Just an announcement by skull that said something like "aaand we are now invisible". Granted there were quite a few troublemakers in there. At one point a player named www.nakedchildren.ru joined the game. Seriously


But it really upset me to not at least see instructions for joining the server while it was invisible. I don't know if it went visible again after that, or is still invisible now. Among those troublemakers, there must have been at least a couple decent people who'd like to join the community, and they might not come back now.


Basically what i'm saying is, i'm not comfortable with the server being set invisible without some advance notice, and REALLY not comfortable with people not being given instructions on how to connect before it happens. Sure those instructions are on the wiki, but i was playing for over a week before i knew we even had a wiki.

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You can, at any time, connect to any server not listed on the Hub if you know the address. Our is http://byond://server.aurorastation.org:1234.

This is not a particularly obscure part feature of byond.

You can access this at any time via the server status thread: http://aurorastation.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=64&p=54122#p54122

 

Correction:

You can connect at any time that Tenenza doesn't crash the server.

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i'm not comfortable with the server being set invisible without some advance notice, and REALLY not comfortable with people not being given instructions on how to connect before it happens. Sure those instructions are on the wiki, but i was playing for over a week before i knew we even had a wiki.

 

Yeah. There's always been a join link on the forums which is pretty visible. It's literally right at the top, you have to scroll right past it to get to anything

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You can, at any time, connect to any server not listed on the Hub if you know the address. Our is http://byond://server.aurorastation.org:1234.

This is not a particularly obscure part feature of byond.

You can access this at any time via the server status thread: http://aurorastation.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=64&p=54122#p54122

 

I'm aware of this, but it took me a while to figure out. The Byond interface is frankly, not very good.

Connecting to aurora without that URL is impossible, though, that's what i'm upset about. It wasn't announced to new players in the server when it was set invisible.


Also, please fix the server, it's been inaccessible since you called that vote :(

 

Yeah. There's always been a join link on the forums which is pretty visible. It's literally right at the top, you have to scroll right past it to get to anything

Only active players are going to visit this forum, it's unlikely a first-timer is going to come here to find out what's wrong if they can't find the server, because the most likely case is that they've forgotten the server's name and won't be able to google it


People generally only remember things either through repetition, or by being told "This is important so write it down somewhere". The latter is what i'm asking for

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I actually did leave instructions v.v

 

Skull132 - Last Saturday at 11:07 PM

!announceserver And we're hidden. This mostly means that you need to join the server via IP address, and that it won't be accessible on the hub. (Provided I did my thing correctly.) Enjoy the rest of your day/evening/night/whatever!

The command sent to BOREALIS. People are not stupid, and can figure out the IP as they need to. Either by searching the forums, or asking.


As for advanced notice, it used to be done automatically with no notice at all, until the automated system borked. It's effectively SOP to go hidden on weekends, and because it's SOP, it's not something we always tell people about. We usually just mention it in passing and people track it relatively quickly.


http://aurorastation.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=17&t=480


Here's the reasoning and the whys and the hows. This is a global sticky, visible on all forums.

There's also a link on the forums, towards the top, titled "Server Status Link".

There's also a link on the main website, aurorastation.net, to "Board the Aurora".

There's also a sticky in the announcements regarding server status, that has the IP and server status displayed. This is echoed every time I take the server down for updates.

Seriously. If you use the forums, passively even, there are so many places to find this information. The only place it's lacking in is the server MOTD, but that's negligible, considering the slew of information I listed off above.



As for the first timers. If you enjoyed your time on Aurora, chances are, you'll notice it back up after however many days it has been hidden for. Then you'll sign on, and ask wtf's going on. And then you'll receive an answer. I'll probably write it into the MOTD again, where it used to be, but that's about it. (Notice given to the fact that most people disregard the MOTD anyways as visual noise.)

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