Migration!

Mart

Mart

Executive Janitor
Staff
28 February 2002
NYC
Darlington FC
Preview images from @evo_web:

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It is time for a change and hopefully you'll all be with me once it's done!

This is the first phase to get us on a more secure and updated platform. There will be more tweaks that I already have planned plus anything we can do following your feedback after migration.
 
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Better desktop preview attached.
 

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Hey, that domain is available... Why don't you start it up, Placebo?

Might (might!) make sense to have PES and FIFA sister-sites...
 
As a budding webmaster I have a general question for the site admin. As this is Evo Web's second-busiest time of the year, I have a long-standing question that I hope you can help with.

I've noticed that almost all the forums I visit regularly schedule maintenance involving downtime for their busiest time(s) of the year. In Pro Evo's case, all three of the 'Big 3' - EvoWeb, WENB, and PESfan -- have had downtime in August-September or around the time of the key event of the year, the game's release. I recall WENB disappearing for 3 days from the day after the release of PES2013. Wasn't it last year that EvoWeb was missing for a few days too?

Is that a deliberate policy? Why do this now instead of March? What is the reasoning behind it? Thanks.

The way I look at it, either there's a conscious reason or there isn't. If there is one, I'm curious. If there isn't one, and it's just 'one of those things', it's a peculiar thing...

It's not just Pro Evo. I've been a member of two other game franchise forums that went down for 'scheduled maintenance' just before their respective games' release days, and didn't come back up until days later. My best guess is it's a staffing problem that the site admin is getting ahead of by the convenient method of 'scheduled maintenance', but it can't be that, can it?
 
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Keith Houchen said:
My best guess is it's a staffing problem that the site admin is getting ahead of by the convenient method of 'scheduled maintenance', but it can't be that, can it?
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It's not that, no. Planning for big changes occurs way before the game comes out, and it's not timed to conflict with the release.

What tends to happen is that the first news leaks for the new game, which drums up more visitors / conversation, which then begins a review of whether the forum software is using the latest security patches etc., which can be rolled together with a redesign if necessary, and all of the work that goes into that takes about the same time that it does for a demo to get released. (In my experience.)

Getting all those changes in place before the game's release is imperative, though, for security reasons (no good getting lots of new users sign up and then getting hacked) and design/content reasons (once people visit, you want the place looking new and shiny so that they REvisit). Which is why the downtime tends to happen before release, and hopefully not after it.
 
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Keith Houchen said:
Is that a deliberate policy? Why do this now instead of March? What is the reasoning behind it? Thanks.
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In our case it just happens to be how it worked out. I've been working on and off on this for the last couple of years at various points. I have to fit it in around actual work and real life unfortunately. :) I had to relocate the hosting around the start of July, which is what has prompted this work again as we're now 100% independent. (i.e. I'm in charge of the server too now)

I decided that I'd rather do it now ahead of the game's full release rather than put it off to next year.

In previous years any downtime around this time of year is not likely to have been scheduled. The only thing I routinely do that involves closing the forums is updating the forum software but that's normally 1-2 hours maximum and I'm at the mercy of when vBulletin release their updates especially for security related issues.

As far as other sites go if they are heading into busy season it could be a case of making sure everything is running well and they are ready for the increased load that they're expecting.

All going well we'll only be down for a few hours maximum and at a quiet time of the day.
 
Oh and all accounts will be (have been) migrated. You'll probably need to log in again but that should be it.

I think we talked about FIFA-web a while back to split the forums a bit. Might be a fun side project (I'm a geek) but would it benefit anything?
 
Mart said:
I think we talked about FIFA-web a while back to split the forums a bit. Might be a fun side project (I'm a geek) but would it benefit anything?
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TBH I was only mentioning it to wind up PES fans ;) I'm happy with things as they are TBH, don't see a need to split things out :)
 
I'll be testing on Monday night/Tuesday morning so the migration might happen then assuming it all goes OK.
 
Mart said:
I think we talked about FIFA-web a while back to split the forums a bit. Might be a fun side project (I'm a geek) but would it benefit anything?
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My primary motivation was the side-project/geek thing too.

On the one hand, it could become as mature and constructively-critical as this place is, and provide a place to talk about FIFA for someone other than the Ultimate Team kiddies who plague every other site.

If it could attract a big enough audience - and having the reputation of being Evo-Web's spin-off site - it could work.

It would also make it easier to stop crosstalk (FIFA posts in the PES thread etc.) which is the number one reason for trolling and/or arguments that spiral out of control.

But on the other hand, I think there needs to be a comparison - they're both football games, they're both aiming to recreate football, they're both £50 and the majority will only have time to play one all year round, so comparisons are unavoidable.
 
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