Pitwall 2.0 updates

Forum moved, 25/2/2012, 15:12
The new forum has been finished (on the beta site). Because of this, I've moved the forum from this site to the beta site. Almost all basic features are done, only Search and Help to go. Once those are finished, work on the game can commence.

Keeping busy..., 11/1/2012, 23:27
First of all, happy new year to everyone! I hope that we'll have an amazing game to play again this year, and I'll do everything that I can so that you can beta test it all as soon as possible. Right now I have exams, so I can't work on Pitwall too much, but once they're over (beginning of February), I'll have much more time again to work on Pitwall. Expect much more updates then!

Layout work nearly complete, 6/10/2011, 15:26
I accidently removed the last news entry, so I'll recap quickly what's been going on. I've been on a holiday, so that delayed work a little bit, even though I was able to work on the layout on my holiday as well. The layout is nearly finished. It will of course be improved all the time over time, but this is the general thought. Then I've also been working on the technical system on which the new site will support. This system requires me to invest a lot of time in it to build, but also to test and to test for all future possible cases. This requires a lot of time, but once I start coding it will save me a whole lot of time, and it will also enable me to introduce certain features, which weren't possible before. This system is about complete as well now, and the opening page already uses the system for 100%, so it works as planned. What I've been working on today is doing some debugging of various things, and I'm also working on the feedback system which will inform you if something went wrong when submitting something. I hope to finish the language implementation as well today, so that all text on the homepage comes from the translation text. That way everyone will be able to translate everything already. Once that is complete (which I hope is tonight), I'll be able to start working on the new pages!

Still going..., 12/8/2011, 17:36
It's been a while since the last update, so I thought I would let you all know that development is still going on. First I'm investing some time in the new technical structure so that in the long run it will save me a lot of coding time, and it will mean that new features for the game are possible (and much easier to implement). Once that is finished, the re-building of the game can begin. All this is going a little slower right now, as I'm in my exams in 2 weeks again. Beginning September those will be finished, and I'll have a lot of time to work on Pitwall!

Registration open, 18/7/2011, 11:00
If you want to be sure of your place in Pitwall 2.0, you can now sign up on the right hand side. These registrations will count as the registration for Pitwall 2.0 when it's started.

Pitwall downtime

As you all noticed, Pitwall has been down for quite some time the last few days. I will do my best to explain everything as much as possible.

What has happened?

The game was running on a dedicated server based in Frankfurt, Germany. In that server there were 2 500GB hard disks. One hard disk had the operating system (Fedora, a linux operating system), and the other disk was a backup hard disk.
Two weeks ago there were problems with the site as well. The operating hard disk had crashed, and after doing some technical stuff the hard disk was deemed repaired. Combined with that, I activated the second hard disk in the server, so that I could start using that as a backup disk. Something which I didn't see necessary before, which, I agree, was a little dangerous.

Now, in the beginning of this week it became clear that the first hard disk (containing the operating system) was failing again. So I tried to repair the disk the same way as before, and I quickly started preparing for an operating system install, as I realised that these problems were just the top of the iceberg. In the meanwhile I was also trying to restore the database in good order, as some tables had become damaged as well. Just as I managed to repair the diffuser and race highlights table, I was working on the server and I lost all connection with the server. I rebooted it, I went into a rescue mode (which always loads) and noticed that the hard drive wasn't responding to anything. After a day of trying I realised that nothing was going to work after I received very few answers from the linux community, and the few answers I got were "the hard drive is broken".

The technical staff in the datacenter replaced the operating system hard drive, and I re-installed the system. The system was installed and working, and this was when the explaining page appeared on the Pitwall site. The time had come to start restoring the database. I had a backup from Tuesday morning which should've still been okay. Halfway through the backup, the entire system crashed again. The exact same issue was found with the backup hard disk. After having done a lot (and then you have to take my word for it, I've really tried everything) I came to the conclusion that the hard disk containing all the backups had the exact same problem as the corrupt hard disk with the operating system. I personally don't have a backup of the database on my personal computer as the backups were 10GB each, and only since last week I have an internet connection capable of downloading such a large file (the database was bigger than 10 GB).

What does this mean?

That the database is gone. All the data that was ever recorded in Pitwall is gone. Everything that was stored in the database is gone and I have no possibility to get it back. There is only one chance of getting it back, but it's a very slim chance. I have requested the datacenter to send the backup hard drive to my home, and I will try to get some stuff of it. But the chance of that happening is very very slim. It sounds very painful, and take my word for it, it hasn't been the best week of my life either. I started working on this game in 2004, and everything that was recorded from back then is gone.

So, now what?

The database is gone. This means that the state of the game is gone. I still have the game mechanisms (the game files, the stuff that changes the tables in the database), which is the most important thing. The data is missing, but also the structure of the database. The game files manipulate the data in the database, based on that structure. Therefore I just can't say, let's just start over from scratch.

This means that the game will be closed for some time. I had planned a long time ago to re-write the site from scratch (of course, borrowing a lot of stuff from the "old" site, not doing that would just be re-inventing the wheel), and I already had a technical structure worked out. My attention will shift to that for 100%, and I will try to get a new registration section up and running as fast as possible. That way the community can still be connected, and see progress as I work on, what you may call, Pitwall 2.0.

You don't sound too down about it?

I was very down when I realised that everything is gone. A lot of my friends and my parents were as shocked as me when they heard about it, as they know how dedicated I am to Pitwall. But I'm an optimist, and I believe that this will only make the game stronger in the end. I get a chance to try and correct all mistakes from the past. And I can assure you one thing, a total loss like the one we have now will never, ever happen again. Next time my internet plan will be strong enough to download backups that can be over 10GB so that I can keep a copy of my own on my personal computer.

Last week I was finalizing my plans for the new development system, and I was ready to implement it into the game. Now I'll just combine a lot of ideas I had into the new site, and copy the old stuff that I found very good as well. That way in the end we should get a better game, that is open to much more people.

I was a supporter, what do I do?

If you want to receive a partial refund (subtracting the time elapsed), then you can always contact me at <myfullnamewithoutdotsoranything>@gmail.com. We will take care about the rest there.

When can we expect this Pitwall 2.0?

I can't tell yet of course. First things first, and the first thing I'm going to do is take care of the server business. After that I'll start to create a basic site, and add registration and forum features to it. Then I'll start working on the new version on the beta site (a link will appear), and once the game is "playable" but not yet finished, a beta will be opened. Once the game is deemed playable as a full game, the beta site will be reset and the game will start at the normal server. At that point everyone who is registered at the basic site will be informed.

Conclusion

That's all there is to say for now. If you want to keep updated about the new site, just register at the basic site which should appear within a few days, or just keep track of the Pitwall fan page on Facebook, or follow the Twitter account Pitwallorg.

I wish it didn't have to go this way, but it is the way it is, and there's no way to turn back time. I understand that a lot of are going to be disappointed and might leave the game. But there's nothing that I could have done more, it was out of my hands. The chances of 2 hard disks failing is very small. What has caused this is probably a broken disk controller, but we'll never know for certain. In the future I'll have more resources to make sure that I always have the backups, but I couldn't take care of this before due to various reasons. This will never happen again, that I'm sure of.

For now, thank you all already for playing the game, and I hope to see you all very soon again on the forum.

~ Frank Van Laere, 17/07/2011 01h02