Cipher

Unfortunately Bing is still blocking our main website from appearing in search results per the screenshot below. Their tooling is unable to identify any issues when testing against the live site and states that it is able to be indexed again, so we've requested it to be indexed. Given that their support team was unable to disclose the reasons we were pulled out of search results in the first place though, and that we could not identify any violations of their webmaster guidelines at the time, I'm not holding my breath. Index result: Live result:

Hello everyone! As always with these posts, I’d like to drop a quick reminder that there are more ways to support Homecoming than just through donations. For a general overview of the different ways you can help Homecoming, check out this thread. Homecoming operates in a non-profit capacity* and accepts donations from the community each month to cover its operating expenses. These donation windows typically open on the last Saturday of each month, around 13:00 EST, and are automatically closed once the goal for the month has been reached. Any funds remaining at the end of each month are put towards our expenses for the following month. In the event that our expenses exceed our estimated costs for the month, the difference will be included in the donation goal for the following month. If you wish to donate, you may do so here. The donation window for next month is open as of the time of this post and will automatically close once the goal is met. Thank you for your continued support! * Homecoming is a Delaware registered Limited Liability Company, not a non-profit organization, and donations made to Homecoming are not tax deductible. Last Month: October 2024 Income Total: $5120.45 Amount Source $5,119.73 Donations $0.72 Rebates & Rewards (PayPal) Recurring Expenses Total: $5,122.18 Amount Service / “to” Addt’l Notes $4,853.37 Server Infrastructure (OVH) $228.66 Google Workspace Voice (x1), Business (15 seats) $28.29 Email (AWS EC2 + SES) 2x EC2 micro instances $11.12 Admin Software Additional Expenses Total: $3.00 We had $137.76 in domain renewals bill in October which were not included in the donation goal for the month. As such, they will be included in November’s donation target instead. Amount Service / “to” Addt’l Notes $3.00 Paperspace (Digitalocean) Static IP assignment (1 mo) This Month: November 2024 The donation target for November 2024 is $5,906.76. Recurring Expenses Total: $5,113.31 Amount Service / “to” Addt’l Notes $4,853.37 Server Infrastructure (OVH) $229.57 Google Workspace Voice, Business (15 seats) $19.25 Email (AWS EC2 + SES) 2x EC2 micro instances $11.12 Admin Software Additional Expenses Total: $527.76 As mentioned in the breakdown for October, we had a set of domain renewals which were not originally included in the October goal but were billed in October. As such, they are included in this month’s donation target instead. Amount Service / “to” Addt’l Notes $390.00 GlobalSign Code Signing Certificate Renewal $137.76 NameCheap Domain renewals Donations will be open at https://cohhc.gg/donate as of the time of this post and will automatically close once the goal has been met. As always, thank you for your continued support. - The Homecoming Team

Badge collecting speedrun category when?

I'm going to have to go with this one:

We've just updated the wording in the CoC to make this a little clearer, but the intent of this addition is to allow GMs to use their judgement and take action if necessary on a case-by-case basis. To put it simply, you're probably fine as long as you're not causing some sort of disruption or using the functionality for some kind of exploitative gain.

It should be assumed that is the case for any offences or repeated disregard for a GM's instruction.

Your forum account and game account are linked, but separate. Make sure you've created a game account here or via Game Account in the navbar.

If you have access to the forum account but not the game account, then LKN-351's instructions will help you to resolve this. If you've lost access to one of your root/forum accounts then please create a support request here so that we can look into this for you. Thanks!

This is usually due to typos in the registered email address. Could you create a support ticket here with your original account name and email address included so that we can investigate this? Thanks!

These are search engine crawlers indexing the site, only a fraction of those are real users.

Please excuse the weird formatting on this one. A word update broke the formatting and added a bunch of weird margins and colors all over the place. 🙂

Hello everyone! As always with these posts, I’d like to drop a quick reminder that there are more ways to support Homecoming than just through donations. For a general overview of the different ways you can help Homecoming, check out this thread. Homecoming operates in a non-profit capacity* and accepts donations from the community each month to cover its operating expenses. These donation windows typically open on the last Saturday of each month, around 13:00 EST, and are automatically closed once the goal for the month has been reached. Any funds remaining at the end of each month are put towards our expenses for the following month. In the event that our expenses exceed our estimated costs for the month, the difference will be included in the donation goal for the following month. If you wish to donate, you may do so here. The donation window for next month is open as of the time of this post and will automatically close once the goal is met. Thank you for your continued support! * Homecoming is a Delaware registered Limited Liability Company, not a non-profit organization, and donations made to Homecoming are not tax deductible. Last Month: August 2024 Income Total: $5,134.34 Amount Source $5,133.78 Donations $0.56 Rebates & Rewards (PayPal) Recurring Expenses Total: $5,122.18 Amount Service / “to” Addt’l Notes $4,853.37 Server Infrastructure (OVH) $228.66 Google Workspace Voice (x1), Business (15 seats) $29.03 Email (AWS EC2 + SES) 2x EC2 micro instances $11.12 Admin Software Additional Expenses Total: $13.00 Amount Service / “to” Addt’l Notes $10.00 IPSFocus Website assets renewal $3.00 DigitalOcean (Paperspace) Rendering node final payment This Month: September 2024 The donation target for August 2024 is $5,128.02. Recurring Expenses Total: $5,096.31 Amount Service / “to” Addt’l Notes $4,836.37 Server Infrastructure (OVH) $229.57 Google Workspace Voice, Business (15 seats) $19.25 Email (AWS EC2 + SES) 2x EC2 micro instances $11.12 Admin Software Additional Expenses Total: $17.00 Amount Service / “to” Addt’l Notes $17.00 IONOS 1-year domain renewal Donations will be open at https://cohhc.gg/donate as of the time of this post and will automatically close once the goal has been met. As always, thank you for your continued support. - The Homecoming Team

This one is out of our hands unfortunately. Bing Webmaster support gave us the typical "Thank you for your patience during our investigation. After further review, it appears that your site had issues with meeting the standards set by Bing to remain indexed the last time it was crawled. To ensure that this was not a false flag, I also escalated the issue to the next level, and they manually reviewed your site and confirmed that it is in violation of our webmaster guidelines detailed here: Bing Webmaster Guidelines. We are not able to provide specifics for these types of issues because the relevant teams do not share reports with us. We recommend that you review our Webmaster Guidelines, especially the section Things to Avoid, and thoroughly check your site for any deliberately or accidentally employed SEO techniques that may have adversely affected your standing in Bing and Bing-powered search results. We will not be able to add your site to the index while Bingbot is finding it in violation of Webmaster Guidelines. We have no control over this process, and you will need to make quality changes to your site and wait for the Bingbot's automated crawling process to agree that the site passes the webmaster standards before it can be served." When looking over the site in the webmaster tools, it shows that our sites are indexed and that there are no errors detected by Bingbot which would prevent indexing and appearing in search results. Unfortunately that means that the cause of this "ban" is likely external to our sites - things like having backlinks from sketchy websites, a surge in social media presence, etc. can all cause these sorts of bans. The only theory I have at the moment is that there is an AI assistant website showing with over 10,000 backlinks to our website in the webmaster tools which far exceeds anything else, and that may be tripping some flag.

Hey, Thanks for bringing this up for us. I've confirmed that Bing still has our websites indexed, but they are no longer showing in search results. I've reached out to Bing Webmaster Support to look into this issue and will provide an update when one is available.

Hello everyone! As always with these posts, I’d like to drop a quick reminder that there are more ways to support Homecoming than just through donations. For a general overview of the different ways you can help Homecoming, check out this thread. Homecoming operates in a non-profit capacity* and accepts donations from the community each month to cover its operating expenses. These donation windows typically open on the last Saturday of each month, around 13:00 EST, and are automatically closed once the goal for the month has been reached. Any funds remaining at the end of each month are put towards our expenses for the following month. In the event that our expenses exceed our estimated costs for the month, the difference will be included in the donation goal for the following month. If you wish to donate, you may do so here. The donation window for next month is open as of the time of this post and will automatically close once the goal is met. Thank you for your continued support! * Homecoming is a Delaware registered Limited Liability Company, not a non-profit organization, and donations made to Homecoming are not tax deductible. Last Month: July 2024 Income Total: $5,245.62 Amount Source $5,244.85 Donations $0.77 Rebates & Rewards (PayPal) Recurring Expenses Total: $5,145.99 Amount Service / “to” Addt’l Notes $4,853.37 Server Infrastructure (OVH) $228.58 Google Workspace Voice (x1), Business (15 seats) $27.92 Email (AWS EC2 + SES) 2x EC2 micro instances $25.00 GPU Server (Paperspace) Used for tooling $11.12 Admin Software Additional Expenses Total: $0.00 We went ahead and paid our upcoming Namecheap invoice (due in August) today, but the balance for that will be included in the donation target for August. Amount Service / “to” Addt’l Notes - - - This Month: August 2024 The donation target for August 2024 is $5,120.18. Recurring Expenses Total: $5,096.31 Amount Service / “to” Addt’l Notes $4,836.37 Server Infrastructure (OVH) $229.57 Google Workspace Voice, Business (15 seats) $19.25 Email (AWS EC2 + SES) 2x EC2 micro instances $11.12 Admin Software Additional Expenses Total: $111.00 Amount Service / “to” Addt’l Notes $101.00 Namecheap, Inc. 3x 1-year domain renewals $10.00 IPSFocus Website assets renewal Donations will be open at https://cohhc.gg/donate as of the time of this post and will automatically close once the goal has been met. As always, thank you for your continued support. - The Homecoming Team

Hey all, Without getting into too much detail, the Events feature in the forum software, which includes the calendars, were a consistent issue for us with regards to website performance. The implementation for the calendars in particular is quite poor and the feature lacks sufficient controls for us to get it under control. We're currently evaluating what we want to do with it going forward, but at minimum it is likely that the calendars will only host staff-lead events and things like the WST schedule going forward. Apologies for the inconvenience this causes for those of you who used the feature. We're open to suggestions on how we can help promote player-led events in another way.

Hello everyone! As always with these posts, I’d like to drop a quick reminder that there are more ways to support Homecoming than just through donations. For a general overview of the different ways you can help Homecoming, check out this thread. Homecoming operates in a non-profit capacity* and accepts donations from the community each month to cover its operating expenses. These donation windows typically open on the last Saturday of each month, around 13:00 EST, and are automatically closed once the goal for the month has been reached. Any funds remaining at the end of each month are put towards our expenses for the following month. In the event that our expenses exceed our estimated costs for the month, the difference will be included in the donation goal for the following month. If you wish to donate, you may do so here. The donation window for next month is open as of the time of this post and will automatically close once the goal is met. Thank you for your continued support! * Homecoming is a Delaware registered Limited Liability Company, not a non-profit organization, and donations made to Homecoming are not tax deductible. Last Month: June 2024 Income Total: $5,301.32 Amount Source $5,300.37 Donations $0.95 Rebates & Rewards (PayPal) Recurring Expenses Total: $5,147.29 Amount Service / “to” Addt’l Notes $4,853.37 Server Infrastructure (OVH) $228.58 Google Workspace Voice (x1), Business (15 seats) $29.22 Email (AWS EC2 + SES) 2x EC2 micro instances $25.00 GPU Server (Paperspace) Used for tooling $11.12 Admin Software Additional Expenses Total: $105.00 Amount Service / “to” Addt’l Notes $105.00 Invision Power Services 6 month forum renewal This Month: July 2024 The donation target for July 2024 is $5,133.81. Recurring Expenses Total: $5,121.31 Amount Service / “to” Addt’l Notes $4,836.37 Server Infrastructure (OVH) $229.57 Google Workspace Voice, Business (15 seats) $19.25 Email (AWS EC2 + SES) 2x EC2 micro instances $25.00 GPU Server (Paperspace) Used for tooling $11.12 Admin Software Additional Expenses Total: $0.00 Amount Service / “to” Addt’l Notes Donations will be open at https://cohhc.gg/donate as of the time of this post and will automatically close once the goal has been met. As always, thank you for your continued support. - The Homecoming Team

Yes, we currently hold ~$4,600 in our accounts month to month for contingency. We'll likely be adjusting this again soon, though, as our recurring expenses have changed.

Hello everyone! As always with these posts, I’d like to drop a quick reminder that there are more ways to support Homecoming than just through donations. For a general overview of the different ways you can help Homecoming, check out this thread. Homecoming operates in a non-profit capacity* and accepts donations from the community each month to cover its operating expenses. These donation windows typically open on the last Saturday of each month, around 13:00 EST, and are automatically closed once the goal for the month has been reached. Any funds remaining at the end of each month are put towards our expenses for the following month. In the event that our expenses exceed our estimated costs for the month, the difference will be included in the donation goal for the following month. If you wish to donate, you may do so here. The donation window for next month is open as of the time of this post and will automatically close once the goal is met. Thank you for your continued support! * Homecoming is a Delaware registered Limited Liability Company, not a non-profit organization, and donations made to Homecoming are not tax deductible. Last Month: May 2024 Income Total: $6,186.06 Amount Source $6,184.94 Donations $1.12 Rebates & Rewards (PayPal) Recurring Expenses Total: $5,146.86 Amount Service / “to” Addt’l Notes $4,853.30 Server Infrastructure (OVH) $228.58 Google Workspace Voice (x1), Business (15 seats) $28.86 Email (AWS EC2 + SES) 2x EC2 micro instances $25.00 GPU Server (Paperspace) Used for tooling $11.12 Admin Software Additional Expenses Total: $694.27 Amount Service / “to” Addt’l Notes $640.27 Legal Counsel Mar. 15 - Mar. 28 incl. wire fee $34.00 Domain renewals 2x .com (1-year) $20.00 Twilio Programmable SMS This Month: June 2024 The donation target for June 2024 is $5,270.84. Recurring Expenses Total: $5,121.31 Amount Service / “to” Addt’l Notes $4,836.37 Server Infrastructure (OVH) $229.57 Google Workspace Voice, Business (15 seats) $19.25 Email (AWS EC2 + SES) 2x EC2 micro instances $25.00 GPU Server (Paperspace) Used for tooling $11.12 Admin Software Additional Expenses Total: $105.00 Amount Service / “to” Addt’l Notes $105.00 Invision Power Services 6 month forum renewal Donations will be open at https://cohhc.gg/donate as of the time of this post and will automatically close once the goal has been met. As always, thank you for your continued support. - The Homecoming Team

It sounds like there may be an issue at OVH's edge or along some route to the datacenter we use. Unfortunately this is outside of our control, but if the issue persists then we will raise it with OVH.

Submissions are now closed for the 20th Anniversary Q&A, thank you so much for submitting all of your awesome questions! We'll post back later this month with the team's responses.

The patch manifest that unofficial launchers use lags behind our official launcher by a bit, you'll have to either switch to the official launcher or give it a bit of time to update.

Hello everyone! As always with these posts, I’d like to drop a quick reminder that there are more ways to support Homecoming than just through donations. For a general overview of the different ways you can help Homecoming, check out this thread. Homecoming operates in a non-profit capacity* and accepts donations from the community each month to cover its operating expenses. These donation windows typically open on the last Saturday of each month, around 13:00 EST, and are automatically closed once the goal for the month has been reached. Any funds remaining at the end of each month are put towards our expenses for the following month. In the event that our expenses exceed our estimated costs for the month, the difference will be included in the donation goal for the following month. If you wish to donate, you may do so here. The donation window for next month is open as of the time of this post and will automatically close once the goal is met. Thank you for your continued support! * Homecoming is a Delaware registered Limited Liability Company, not a non-profit organization, and donations made to Homecoming are not tax deductible. Last Month: April 2024 Income Total: $6,099.26 Amount Source $6,092.58 Donations $6.68 Rebates & Rewards (PayPal) Recurring Expenses Total: $5,248.82 Amount Service / “to” Addt’l Notes $5,003.37 Server Infrastructure (OVH) $228.64 Google Workspace Voice, Business (15 seats) $29.73 Email (AWS EC2 + SES) 2x EC2 micro instances $25.00 GPU Server (Paperspace) Used for tooling $11.12 Admin Software Additional Expenses Total: $875.06 The total cost for our annual taxes and filings ended up being higher than estimated and the final amount is reflected here. Additionally, we renewed our registered agent a month early to keep everything together. Both additional costs will be included in the target for the next donation window. Amount Service / “to” Addt’l Notes $716.06 Annual taxes & filings $125.00 Registered Agent Annual renewal $34.00 Domain renewals 2x .com (1-year), billing early May This Month: May 2024 The donation target for May 2024 is $6,151.54. Recurring Expenses Total: $5,121.31 Amount Service / “to” Addt’l Notes $4,836.37 Server Infrastructure (OVH) $229.57 Google Workspace Voice, Business (15 seats) $19.25 Email (AWS EC2 + SES) 2x EC2 micro instances $25.00 GPU Server (Paperspace) Used for tooling $11.12 Admin Software Additional Expenses Total: $649.91 Amount Service / “to” Addt’l Notes $629.91 Legal counsel Mar. 15 - Mar. 28 $20.00 Twilio Programmable SMS Donations will be open at https://cohhc.gg/donate as of the time of this post and will automatically close once the goal has been met. As always, thank you for your continued support. - The Homecoming Team

I'd like to do a refresh of this post sometime in the near future, but it has not been a priority 🙂 Edit: For clarity - what we pulled for MOP was basically just a few quick SQL queries to run, took just a few minutes to put together. It takes hours to pull and organize all of the data for a post like this; just waiting for the queries to run actually takes significantly more time than it took to pull and organize the information that MOP requested. Unfortunately, it hasn't been a priority and it isn't going to be for some time.

Sorry you've been banned from the subreddit 😞 Unfortunately this isn't the first time we've heard of this happening, and the hostility is one of the reasons we've chosen not to engage with the subreddit in any official capacity for years now. For others, while we do appreciate that the community wants to come to our defense when these sorts of things happen, sometimes it's best not to engage and just focus on the positive discussion on the subreddit.