The Day of Thunder

[Kaijarisuigyo]

As you might know, Orokos is currently in disarray, with no news about when it will come back to full capacity or even if Dan is aware of the issue and planning to work on it.

This is the path Sakkaku is doomed to follow in turn if the current situation persists, as the situation is pretty much identical: A single maintainer, growing more and more distant from the community using their tool, no update except the bare minimum to keep it afloat until it devolves into no update at all.

Thus I'm looking for someone to step up and take up that mantle. Ideal profile would be someone actively involved with all aspects of the community (playing, GMing, drama handling, etc.) as well as proactive. Most current issues with Sakkaku's design stem from that I actually have little understanding of the actual ("If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses.") needs of the people using it regularly, hence the carbon copy of Orokos with little improvement over that decade-old model.

Knowing anything about the inner working of websites is not required as long as you have someone at hand with those skills you can rope into fixing things. These people usually aren't hard to find in "geek" community.

Hosting is, as of now, about $25 a month after taxes (~$20 before), with enough money left in the tank for... I need to check that actually. Could be moved to another hosting service if need be of course (current one is standard AWS; might also be possible to squeeze an extra few bucks by changing a few options).

As I feel I need to set a deadline otherwise the issue will just be left to rot... 2024/06/30. Past that, I'm just pulling the plug if nobody has step up, and I will not be giving a hand with the transition anymore (so don't wait until the 29th if you want for it to be smooth).

[Canary]

I've actually been thinking that switching hosting over to Fallenash might be a good solution for a while now.

[Kaijarisuigyo]

Sure.

Site currently runs on PHP8.0 (and should very much be updated to 8.2), with a PostgreSQL database. Can be configured with either environment variables (ex) or a .env file (ex). In other words, the standard stuff, hosting service shouldn't be lost.

[Canary]

Mmkay. I'll have to update Fallenash if we do that. Otherwise, I can just add the cost on. $150 extra a year isn't a huge ask.

[Doji Hikaru]

I'll cheerfully kick in a bit more for that!

[Canary]

Having an in-house roller has been a huge boon, so if no one else steps up, I definitely don't mind handling that, as well. I mean, I took on Fallenash years ago to keep these games going.

[Ryoshun Nao]

I'll cheerfully kick in a bit more for that!

Me too.

[Ryoshun Huan]

Already putting in a good amount, but also, if given access I can provide technical support if there are future issues with the roller. I'm a career programmer currently getting a B.S. in Cybersecurity with a history as a web & database developer. As long as I'm hanging around I'm up for providing support.

[Canary]

Already putting in a good amount, but also, if given access I can provide technical support if there are future issues with the roller. I'm a career programmer currently getting a B.S. in Cybersecurity with a history as a web & database developer. As long as I'm hanging around I'm up for providing support.

That would be a huge help! I don't know this stuff as much.

[Otaku]

I'd also be willing to put on a dice admin hat if it's useful to have a separate person onboard as a contact/responsible party. Not a programmer but I've messed with web design and am happy to troubleshoot and ask questions of people who know more.

[Kaijarisuigyo]

Good, good. Seems I can hope to give away the keys of the server by early December, just after this game is done, then? On the administrative side, I just need one email address, for the person who will receive the server bills, that will be in turn be able to configure rights for other persons, like the right to deploy code to the server or the ability to receive alerts if the server stops responding.

First task for whoever takes the mantle will be to change the contact address at the bottom (I think I've received like three mails in three years, not a big responsibility).

[Ryoshun Huan]

Already putting in a good amount, but also, if given access I can provide technical support if there are future issues with the roller. I'm a career programmer currently getting a B.S. in Cybersecurity with a history as a web & database developer. As long as I'm hanging around I'm up for providing support.

That would be a huge help! I don't know this stuff as much.

Once we get it settled in it's location if Karijarisuigyo can put up a blurb or something on an admin/developer only page or external document, that would probably help to make sure myself or other programmers can get in to make fixes and updates with approval/access granted by the admin.

[Hisomu Reo]

I think it's important to note that Fallenash has a Patreon, which I have no problem increasing my donation of.

I get enough enjoyment out of it that throwing a few extra dollars is worth it.

[Kaijarisuigyo]

Attempting the migration to PHP8.2 at the moment. Service may be unavailable for a (hopefully short) period of time.

EDIT: Well, we'll do it later actually. Because the PSQL engine also needs to be updated and I don't know yet out to do that...
EDIT2: Okay, I think I've got it... Except it takes forever because the upgrade is asynchronous and in several steps (push a button, come back half a hour a later, push the button again, repeat a few times more). Thus will do it like not in the middle of a fight scene.

[Kaijarisuigyo]

Here we go again, this time hopefully for real.

[Kaijarisuigyo]

Update appears to be done. If you encounter strange issues, it's that that statement wasn't factually true.

[Kaijarisuigyo]

Continuing updates, but on the front side this time.

This means less risks of the site actually exploding but more risks of weird stuff like a button suddenly having decided to half hide under the border of the page. As usual, report issues if you encounter them.

[Kaijarisuigyo]

I was getting increasingly worried that this would die on us like Orokos (site hasn't been updated in over ten years), so I quickly ripped their calculator (it's literally a copy-paste) to integrate it directly within Sakkaku:

[Kaijarisuigyo]

Supposedly the last technical update. This one was of the graphical library, so there are for real a few minor visual changes of (hopefully) no real importance this time.

[Togashi Satsuki]

We appreciate all your efforts!