Doomworld is dead, long live Doomworld

Hello all,

For over 17 years, Doomworld has been hosted at the same place by the same people: a company originally called Telefragged, later rebranded as AtomicGamer. That's quite impressive, and we give them all the credit in the world for keeping this place going so long essentially out of their own goodwill, and with so few issues. Unfortunately all good things must come to an end, and we've been informed that AtomicGamer is going to discontinue services in the near future.

Q: What is going to happen to Doomworld? Is it going away?
A: We hope not. Our plan is for Doomworld to continue uninterrupted, or as close thereto as we can manage.

Q: So where are you going to be moving to?
A: Our plan is to go independent and just have our own (virtual) private server. Luckily this sort of thing is somewhat simpler than it was in 1998.

Q: What about the "doomworld.com" part of Doomworld?
A: We actually don't know what's going to happen with the domain. It's possible we might be able to take it over, but nothing is clear at this point. We already have a contingency plan in the works in case we can't get the domain name, and we hope to be able to put an auto-forward in place for the last few days at least.

Q: Do I need to do anything?
A: Besides maybe remembering a slightly different domain name - which, honestly, is a bigger deal than you would think - probably not. We're taking pains to make the transition as seamless as possible.

Q: What about the forums? What about the /idgames database?! All my terrywad reviews...
A: We've begun the process of backing everything up so it can be restored / mirrored / whatever. Already we have backups of pretty much all the "important" stuff. The one thing that might disappear are the Doomworld-related files on 3DDownloads, since those aren't as easily mirrorable by us since they're on different servers.

Q: How are you planning on paying for this?
A: We... don't exactly know yet. To start out, it seems likely that it's just going to be out of our (the administrators') pockets. Doomworld is small enough that this isn't an outrageous expense, although with Doom 4 approaching I don't know how the traffic is going to grow. Let's call this an open question.

Q: So when you have your own server, will you be implementing any new and exciting features?
A: Let's put that as a strong maybe for now.

*passes dutchie to the left*

The King is dead, LONG LIVE THE KING!

I'm think the powers at be are capable of quick backup plans. Especially a DOOM site of this magnitude.

....I think.

Good night in peace sweet prince

When I was doing the logistics yesterday for if I was going to do a Doomworld/idgames wad backup how much would it cost. The answer was $150 for 3 years I think. Like hosting the price has changed a lot since 1998. Things are even "unlimited" space "unlimited" bandwidth. I have a feeling unlimited means you'll get bottle necked after X number.

As long as you guys have a plan, I trust that Doomworld isn't going anywhere (well other than to a different server farm).

ALL HAIL THE HIVE MIND!

Oh no I'm falling into a trap door!

Oh dear.

It would be terrible to lose this place, given all of its history. I know I'd be pretty displaced :(. Hopefully everything will go ok though.

If you guys ever decide to accept donations for the new host, I would try to chip in a few bucks to help out.

Woah. This is pretty big.

I'm glad to hear that measures are being taken to ensure the site continues, even if not on the same domain. I've been expecting something like this for a long time but my fear has always been that it would be a more abrupt plug pulling. So at least it's happening in a more orderly manner.

Let me know if there's anything I can do to help out.

lol sgt_mark_iv will finally be permabanned on every extant semi-important doom forum

Crap man. Bad timing too...

double crap, it's starting too sink in...
fnord it all...

I assume you've weighed the Kickstarter/Patreon options already...

If it is faintly possible to get stuff backed up from 3DDownloads that'd be sweet, it does have files that, from prior searching experience, cannot be found elsewhere on the net.

Anyways: LONG LIVE DOOMWORLD, OORAH!

-

seriously, get a paypal up. alot of us would contribute, no doubt there :)

If I'm concerned with / have issue with anything, it's the phrasing of the answer to the first question. Dunno why there's uncertainty in the air -- there's far too many die-hards around here for us to not make it happen.

Domain might be out of our control, but Doomworld's gonna live, dammit.

can someone explain exactly why domain name is out of admin/owner control? Does the hosting service technically own that?

I sincerely hope the domain can be secured. I echo the sentiments of getting a paypal open.

I just got here and now it is deadening.

I can only echo others before me and hope there can be pulled a Sanic Retro and revive this place in a new and fancy Doomworld2.com through donations from nice people with money.

Unfortunately, I am neither very nice nor full of money. So I will give you all encouraging words like a cheap git. Wooo...

Linguica said:

Q: What about the "doomworld.com" part of Doomworld?
A: We actually don't know what's going to happen with the domain. It's possible we might be able to take it over, but nothing is clear at this point. We already have a contingency plan in the works in case we can't get the domain name, and we hope to be able to put an auto-forward in place for the last few days at least.

I registered "doomworld.net" some time back when the server was going down more often than usual. If that fits in with your contingency plans, you're welcome to it.

Q: What about the forums? What about the /idgames database?! All my terrywad reviews...
A: The one thing that might disappear are the Doomworld-related files on 3DDownloads, since those aren't as easily mirrorable by us since they're on different servers.

I have 1.48Gig of ex-3DDownloads files sitting on my hard drive.

What about approaching gamers.org and reviving DoomGate as the new home for Doomworld?

Anyone who wants to give this company a call to check the price? http://www.buydomains.com/lander/domworld.com

Heh ironically this coincides with #ThisIsACoup. Maybe the fate/downsizing of Doomworld is part of Greece's bailout plans, as well?

I've been expecting this to happen ever since Telefragged went AtomicGamer. With all the fanatics, loonies, and string-pullers around here though, I doubt this is the end of Doomworld. Also, I have two good kidneys and I hear they're going for about $5000 a pop.

Buckshot said:

seriously, get a paypal up. alot of us would contribute, no doubt there :)

I would drop some ££££ in a heartbeat if it would help keep this place going.

Dave

Same here.

mdmenzel said:

What about approaching gamers.org and reviving DoomGate as the new home for Doomworld?

While "doomgate.net" is available, "doomgate.com" would need to be begged/borrowed/bought from the current registrant.

An alternative domain name is not a problem

$ HEAD -S doomworld.org
HEAD http://doomworld.org
302 Found
HEAD http://www.doomworld.com/
200 OK

EarthQuake said:

Also, I have two good kidneys and I hear they're going for about $5000 a pop.

Depends on how much beer they have filtered.

Oh boy, please don't let vanish Doomworld!