Spartan Games seems to be down this morning

[Pendrake]

SG announced they would have a 24 hour outage. The stated date was for the 26th [?] but the outage seems to be in effect today [29th]. 

Should I have posted this in the news section?

[MadDrB]

Well, we can always post here when the Spartan forum is down.  Fortunately it's back up and running.  I remember when it went down last time and was gone for what seemed like a very long time.  In fact, the loss of the old Spartan forum was what got us talking about starting this forum.

[Ruckdog]

Well, we can always post here when the Spartan forum is down.  Fortunately it's back up and running.  I remember when it went down last time and was gone for what seemed like a very long time.  In fact, the loss of the old Spartan forum was what got us talking about starting this forum.

Hee hee, yeah. Of course, not more than a day or two after we finally decided to start this forum, Spartan announced their new one  .

[Pendrake]

Spartan has mysteriously and suddenly (I saw no announcement?) gone offline ... again.

About 24 hours ago, the website, the blog, and forum were down. (I didn't check the store.) Presently the forum is more-or-less claiming to be in dry-dock.

[Landlubber]

Well, hopefully it won't be an entirely new forum whenever they come back online...

[Pendrake]

The shop is working. I checked that.

Spartan Games Community is currently unavailable
SPARTAN GAMES COMMUNITY OFFLINE

We are currently performing some necessary improvements and upgrades.

We thank you for your patience, and will aim to have the Community back online as soon as possible.

This is really similar to what they said the last time their forum went ++POOF++ without warning. 

[Landlubber]

Sure hope they can recover it.  A lot of people put a lot of pics and explanations on the forum, and it's a good resource for obscure rules questions.  Wonder if people will want to recreate all that.

[MajorMcNicol]

I think it's because I posted the topic about my wargamers survey in every major subforum there, whoops!   


Ok, not really, but there were a lot of good discussions going on when it went down - hope they get it up without losing the topics or pictures, as Landlubber mentioned!

[Pendrake]

Sure hope they can recover it.  A lot of people put a lot of pics and explanations on the forum, and it's a good resource for obscure rules questions.  Wonder if people will want to recreate all that.

There were major contributors to that first forum that didn't bother to return.

I think it's because I posted the topic about my wargamers survey in every major subforum there, whoops!   

Ok, not really, but there were a lot of good discussions going on when it went down - hope they get it up without losing the topics or pictures, as Landlubber mentioned!

Most of my pictures and whatnot were just linked from photobucket or somewhere, so not lost, but it was nice to have DW related material from other people all in one place.

It is almost like they hit a certain amount of server space and --- crunch it all falls apart. And there is no backup[??]

Or, they just have the worst, and I mean world-class worst, IT department that ever cobbled a forum together.

Or, is it when the amount of postings that request rule clarifications or critique their products in some way rises to some ill-defined but  unacceptable volume that somebody at Spartan just pulls the plug[??] ++REALLY HOPE THAT IS UNFOUNDED++

A related thought: on the second iteration of their forum I had to wonder if there were some shills in the crowd ... "VonKlinkerhoffen" comes to mind.

[Landlubber]

I never thought about that, but I do remember the member with that name.  I just remember thinking that some people on that forum--him included--had a lot of time and money on their hands to have that many models and have them painted so well.

[MadDrB]

It is almost like they hit a certain amount of server space and --- crunch it all falls apart. And there is no backup[??]

Or, they just have the worst, and I mean world-class worst, IT department that ever cobbled a forum together.

I believe it's a matter of a company which has outgrown certain resources.  Looking at the credits in the DW rulebook, it looks like maybe two dozen people work for Spartan Games, and that includes the guys on the production line.  I really don't think they have an "IT department" just one or two responsible for the forum and website along with marketing, customer service, etc.  I imagine something along the lines of a big warehouse with moulding machines, storage, a shipping department, and a little break room and office area where everyone can meet in the conference room for company meetings.  Everyone on the Spartan forum complains about the lack of responses or posts from official Spartan members, but I think they only have maybe 2 guys on the payroll for that sort of thing... and they are also responsible for other business matters.  Take, for example, that they don't have any credits for copy editors--there are reasons the rule books are not easy to follow!

Anyway, it seems that when the Spartan forum goes down for a few days our traffic here on ManBattlestations.com increases significantly.

Edit:  There is no indication on the main Spartan site that the community is down or expected to be back.  No blog post, no nothing.  Maybe it crashed once again....

[MadDrB]

Or, is it when the amount of postings that request rule clarifications or critique their products in some way rises to some ill-defined but  unacceptable volume that somebody at Spartan just pulls the plug[??] ++REALLY HOPE THAT IS UNFOUNDED++

I've seen posts and topics deleted on the Spartan forum, and I've received a direct message about a particular post I made at one point, but I don't think they were so overwhelmed with rule questions and criticisms that they just decided to pull the plug.

I've said for some time, and I stand by my position, that Spartan Games produces a range of good models for affordable prices.  I even use their models with other game systems.  Good models for good prices.  Some players want more precise rule systems or more online support, but I'm happy with what they provide for the prices they ask (and when their forum is down, I'm happy to hang out on ManBattlestations.com).

[Pendrake]

... but I don't think they were so overwhelmed with rule questions and criticisms that they just decided to pull the plug.

I like your happier explanations. [...thinking happy thoughts, thinking happy thoughts...] Maybe Black Friday orders and restock requests slammed them so hard they needed more server space to keep product moving and something had to be off-loaded to backup for awhile ... let's hope it was that.

I believe it's a matter of a company which has outgrown certain resources.
...
Anyway, it seems that when the Spartan forum goes down for a few days our traffic here on ManBattlestations.com increases significantly.

[Looks around for someone to blame...] 

Meanwhile: I have dredged up some threads out of Google Cached copies. Got the Island Maps thread and the Timeline thread.

[MadDrB]

Meanwhile: I have dredged up some threads out of Google Cached copies. Got the Island Maps thread and the Timeline thread.

Yes, you had a lot of good material posted on the forum....

[Pendrake]

Meanwhile: I have dredged up some threads out of Google Cached copies. Got the Island Maps thread and the Timeline thread.

Yes, you had a lot of good material posted on the forum....

I have been saving stuff from others as well, I went after some ship naming threads today. If you have suggestions for items to send the dredge and salvage divers after I'm all ears.