Cipher

We didn't dip into it last month and rarely do these days unless we're upgrading hardware or something 🙂

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: March 2024 Income Total: $6,093.36 Amount Source $6,092.58 Donations $0.78 Rebates & Rewards (PayPal) Recurring Expenses Total: $5,248.82 Amount Service / “to” Addt’l Notes $4,954.77 Server Infrastructure (OVH) $228.64 Google Workspace Voice, Business (15 seats) $29.29 Email (AWS EC2 + SES) 2x EC2 micro instances $25.00 GPU Server (Paperspace) Used for tooling $11.12 Admin Software Additional Expenses Total: $843.67 Amount Service / “to” Addt’l Notes $662.83 Server Infrastructure (OVH) (+) SQL host upgrade 2 (paid Feb.) $180.84 Legal counsel + fee Jan. 5 - Jan. 31 2023 This Month: April 2024 The donation target for April 2024 is $5,600.14. Recurring Expenses Total: $5,122.51 Amount Service / “to” Addt’l Notes $4,837.57 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: $499.00 Amount Service / “to” Addt’l Notes $465 Annual tax & filings $34 Domain renewals (IONOS) 2x .com (1 year) 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

Updated to show posts from the last 7 days.

It is working as intended, it only shows posts from staff since your last visit.

Will work on getting this one fixed with the next forum update, thank you.

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: February 2024 We placed the second order for our SQL host hardware upgrades on February 20th, totaling $662.83. We did not include this in the original goal for February, and as such will be including it in the goal for March. Additionally, our AWS expenses for the month increased due to the increase in outbound emails. Income Total: $8,681.60 Amount Source $8,678.20 Donations $3.40 Rebates & Rewards (PayPal) Recurring Expenses Total: $4,645.92 Amount Service / “to” Addt’l Notes $4,422.99 Server Infrastructure (OVH) $206.64 Google Workspace Voice, Business (15 seats) $50.64 Email (AWS EC2 + SES) 2x EC2 micro instances $25.00 GPU Server (Paperspace) Used for tooling $11.12 Admin Software Additional Expenses Most of our expenses for this month were paid in January and will not show on our transaction log from PayPal this month. These are included here as they were a part of the donation goal for the month. Total: $3,934.75 Amount Service / “to” Addt’l Notes $2,780.24 Legal counsel Dec. 5 - Dec. 31 2023 $591.90 Server Infrastructure (OVH) SQL host upgrade $240.99 DocuSign +100 envelopes $240.00 UPS Mailbox 1 year renewal $53.62 January Overage See above $12.00 CleanTalk Anti-Spam (1 year) $10.00 IPSFocus Forum assets (1 year) $6.00 US Copyright Office DMCA Designated Agent Reg. This Month: March 2024 The donation target for March 2024 is $6,076.36. Recurring Expenses Total: $4,701.93 Amount Service / “to” Addt’l Notes $4,416.99 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: $1,404.93 Amount Service / “to” Addt’l Notes $662.83 Server Infrastructure (OVH) (+) SQL host upgrade 2 $567.38 Server Infrastructure (OVH) (+) SQL host upgrade 1 $174.72 Legal counsel Jan. 4 - Jan. 31 2024 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

These databases are on a separate database host and wouldn't be impacted by this upgrade. If/when we upgrade that server, AccountServer (which handles the account-wide inventory and super packs) may see some performance uplift. It's possible we may look at potential improvements on the code side at some point in the near future as well.

The donation goal for this month has been met and donations have been closed. Thank you so much for your support!

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: January 2024 We have had some additional expenses related to restructuring around the City Council, updating our legal documentation, and the SQL host hardware upgrades which were not in the goal for the January donation window. Some of these have been paid already out of the contingency fund, and some will be paid in February. In both cases, these additional expenses will be included in the February donation window and not in the breakdown for January. Additionally, increases in costs for Google Workspace and admin software put us $53.62 over our goal for the month. This difference will also be included in the goal for February. Income Total: $4,940.74 Amount Source $4,941.50 Donations $0.76 Rebates & Rewards (PayPal) Recurring Expenses Total: $4,645.92 Amount Service / “to” Addt’l Notes $4,416.99 Server Infrastructure (OVH) $171.72 Google Workspace Voice, Business (15 seats) $20.81 Email (AWS EC2 + SES) 2x EC2 micro instances $25.00 GPU Server (Paperspace) Used for tooling $11.40 Admin Software Additional Expenses Total: $350.00 Amount Service / “to” Addt’l Notes $350.00 Hiscox GL Insurance (1 year) This Month: February 2024 As mentioned above, all additional expenses for January and February will be included in this donation goal. The donation target for February 2024 is $8,636.68. Recurring Expenses Total: $4,701.93 Amount Service / “to” Addt’l Notes $4,416.99 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: $3,934.75 Amount Service / “to” Addt’l Notes $2,780.24 Legal counsel Dec. 5 - Dec. 31 2023 $591.90 Server Infrastructure (OVH) SQL host upgrade $240.99 DocuSign +100 envelopes $240.00 UPS Mailbox 1 year renewal $53.62 January Overage See above $12.00 CleanTalk Anti-Spam (1 year) $10.00 IPSFocus Forum assets (1 year) $6.00 US Copyright Office DMCA Designated Agent Reg. Our donation system will be open as of the time of this post with a donation target of $8,636.68 and will automatically close once that target is met. - The Homecoming Team

Spam filter caught this for manual approval, sorry about that!

The impending upgrade must have the old server shaking in its rack, we haven't migrated to the new host just yet 🙂

1

Soon™

Please create a support request with as much information as you can provide so our team can help out.

Congrats everyone! There were so many great costumes in this one, and so many unique ideas I've never seen before.

Almost always Super Speed, partially because most characters are already going to be picking up Hasten anyways, and partially because it's just the least annoying to use on mission maps. Bonus points for being able to slot a Celerity: Stealth for a free almost-invis. If I have a spare power slot then I'll grab Super Jump to go with it.

Hey @Parabola, We retired the light theme last week after looking at the usage stats for it and weighing it against the overhead of maintaining it. Rather than bringing the light theme back, we'd like to investigate ways to improve our current theme so that this isn't an issue for you or other users. Do you have any suggestions on changes we can make to help here?

The only one to ask for comment from us directly was MassivelyOP.

The shard balancing incentives will be running "until further notice." The longer answer is that we'll be actively monitoring server stability and shard population over the next week to determine if the incentives are having the desired effect and base our decision on when to end the event on that.

All credit to @Number Six here, he's one of the most talented people I've ever had the pleasure of working with.

Huge thanks to the team and everyone involved throughout this whole process. Looking forward to what the future holds.

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. Holiday Support Closure Homecoming will be suspending all non-critical support from December 23rd to December 27th to give our wonderful volunteers a well-deserved break for the holidays. During this time, response times for support requests will be longer than usual, and we’ll be heavily prioritizing time-sensitive issues. Last Month: December 2023 Last month we accepted $4,662.79 in donations, $2.25 over our target for the month. As always, any additional funding remaining at the end of each month is put towards our operating expenses for the following month or additional expenses for the current month. Here is the breakdown of our expenses in December: $4,416.99 for our hardware infrastructure from OVH $350.00 for GL insurance from Hiscox Included in January’s donation target $120.64 for our Google G-Suite services $105.00 to renew our forum software license $25.00 for our Air instance from Paperspace $19.81 for the AWS EC2 instance serving our email $9.73 for security / administration software (redacted) This Month: January 2024 The donation target for January 2024 is $4,935.74. Here is a breakdown of how the funds are allocated: $4,416.99 for our hardware infrastructure from OVH $350.00 for GL insurance from Hiscox Included here as it was not in the target for December $121.57 for our Google G-Suite services $25.00 for our Air instance from Paperspace $19.25 for the AWS EC2 instance serving our email $9.73 for security / administration software (redacted) Our donation system will be open as of the time of this post with a donation target of $4,935.74 and will automatically close once that target is met. - The Homecoming Team

The winter event should be live with this maintenance.

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. Holiday Support Closure & Donation Window Homecoming will be suspending all non-critical support from December 23rd to December 27th to give our wonderful volunteers a well-deserved break for the holidays. During this time, response times for support requests will be longer than usual, and we’ll be heavily prioritizing time-sensitive issues. Additionally, we will be opening the donation window for January on Saturday, December 16th for the aforementioned reasons. We thank everyone for their patience and wish you a Happy Holidays! Last Month: November 2023 Last month we accepted $7,123.13 in donations, $36.62 over our target for the month. As always, any additional funding remaining at the end of each month is put towards our operating expenses for the following month or additional expenses for the current month. Here is the breakdown of our expenses in November: $4,416.99 for our hardware infrastructure from OVH $120.64 for our Google G-Suite services $137.76 for domain renewals $25.00 for our Air instance from Paperspace $20.48 for the AWS EC2 instance serving our email $9.73 for security / administration software (redacted) This Month: December 2023 The donation target for December 2023 is $4,660.54. Here is a breakdown of how the funds are allocated: $4,416.99 for our hardware infrastructure from OVH $121.57 for our Google G-Suite services $105.00 to renew our forum software $25.00 for our Air instance from Paperspace $19.25 for the AWS EC2 instance serving our email $9.73 for security / administration software (redacted) Our donation system will be open as of the time of this post with a donation target of $4,660.54 and will automatically close once that target is met. - The Homecoming Team