Cipher

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

Brainstorm and Aeon are online again now.

Two of our physical hosts went offline and required intervention by OVH (our hosting provider). All servers should be accessible again now. Thanks for your patience.

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. Important Update Beginning this month, we’re going to be increasing our contingency fund to cover a full month of our average operating expenses, or around $4,600. This number may change with our monthly expenses as we’re looking into consolidating some of our physical hosts to reduce our infrastructure costs, but for now this will cover our average/scheduled expenses +/- $10. For those unaware, Homecoming has held $2,250 in a contingency fund month to month in order to cover unexpected expenses or overages. We have dipped into this fund a number of times over the past few years, and when this happens we usually just include the overage in the upcoming donation window to cover the difference and bring our balance back up to $2,250. This worked well when we were reaching our donation target within one or two days, but has started to become an issue as our donation windows go on longer. Using October as an example, we opened the donation window on Saturday, September 30th, then Google, Paperspace, AWS, and OVH billed us on Monday, October 2nd, before the donation target had been met. Fortunately in this case, our contingency fund did cover the difference until the donation window closed, but it’s clear that we need to make a change now and ensure that we’re covered for at least a full month going forward. On a final note, it is worth mentioning that Homecoming’s accounts are set up to fall back to my personal account as a safety net. While this isn’t great for a number of reasons, it does ensure that we always have a fallback for disaster recovery and continuity. Last Month: October 2023 Last month we accepted $4,984.78 in donations, $11.95 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 October: $4,416.99 for our hardware infrastructure from OVH $300.00 for our annual DocuSign renewal The invoice for this will bill on November 1st $121.18 for our Google G-Suite services $87.26 to pay our legal counsel for work completed up to August 31st Shown as Wise on our invoice, this is the service we used to facilitate the wire transfer $25.00 for our Air instance from Paperspace $19.78 for the AWS EC2 instance serving our email $9.73 for security / administration software (redacted) This Month: November 2023 The donation target for November 2023 is $7,086.51. Here is a breakdown of how the funds are allocated: $2,350.00 towards the contingency fund (see above) $4,416.99 for our hardware infrastructure from OVH $137.76 for two domain renewals from NameCheap $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 $7,086.51 and will automatically close once that target is met. - The Homecoming Team

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. Last Month: September 2023 Last month we accepted $5,070.07 in donations, $6.12 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. Update: OVH has increased prices on our additional IP addresses by approx. $0.60 per address. They invoiced us for an additional $18 this month, and the change will be included in our main invoice from them going forward. Here is the breakdown of our expenses in September: $4,398.99 for our hardware infrastructure from OVH + $18 due to price increases for our additional IP addresses $473.59 to our legal counsel for work completed up to July 31st Shows as transfer to bank account for wire transfer $121.19 for our Google G-Suite services $25.00 for our Air instance from Paperspace $20.82 for the AWS EC2 instance serving our email $17.00 for one 1-year domain renewal IONOS has renewed the domain but has not generated an invoice for this yet, I’ll update the post when we’ve received an invoice from them $9.73 for security / administration software (redacted) This Month: October 2023 The donation target for October 2023 is $4,972.83. Here is a breakdown of how the funds are allocated: $4,416.99 for our hardware infrastructure from OVH $300.00 for our annual DocuSign renewal $121.57 for our Google G-Suite services $85.37 to our legal counsel for work completed up to August 31st $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 $4,972.83 and will automatically close once that target is met. - The Homecoming Team

Hey all, We've identified an issue causing the copy tool to read old data from the servers when building your character list. We're planning to fix the underlying issue with the next maintenance on Tuesday, and until then you will be unable to copy new characters to the test servers. Apologies for the inconvenience here, and thank you for your patience.

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. Last Month: August 2023 Last month we accepted $4,646.02 in donations, $27.69 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. Update: OVH has increased the price of one of our Advance-4 servers by $26.56/mo without notifying us. Here is the breakdown of our expenses in August: $4,398.99 for our hardware infrastructure from OVH $121.16 for our Google G-Suite services $98.40 for 3 1-year domain renewals $25.00 for our Air instance from Paperspace $19.83 for the AWS EC2 instance serving our email $10.00 to renew some of our website assets $9.73 for security / administration software (redacted) This Month: September 2023 The donation target for September 2023 is $5,063.95. Here is a breakdown of how the funds are allocated: $4,398.99 for our hardware infrastructure from OVH $474.05 to our legal counsel for work completed up to July 31st $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 $17.00 for one 1-year domain renewal $9.73 for security / administration software Our donation system will be open as of the time of this post with a donation target of $5,063.95 and will automatically close once that target is met. - The Homecoming Team

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. Beginning next month, Amazon Web Services (AWS) will be updating their pricing and limitations for SES which we are currently using for outgoing email. We suspect that this will increase our AWS bill by around $3.00 - $5.00 per month, but the exact amount will vary depending on usage. Last Month: July 2023 Last month we accepted $4,521.75 in donations, $37.07 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 July: $4,372.43 for our hardware infrastructure from OVH $121.26 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) This Month: August 2023 The donation target for August 2023 is $4,618.33. Here is a breakdown of how the funds are allocated: $4,372.43 for our hardware infrastructure from OVH $121.57 for our Google G-Suite services $98.40 for three 1-year domain renewals $25.00 for our Air instance from Paperspace $19.25 for the AWS EC2 instance serving our email $10.00 to renew some of our website assets $9.73 for security / administration software Our donation system will be open as of the time of this post with a donation target of $4,618.33 and will automatically close once that target is met. - The Homecoming Team