Cipher

All shards are now operational again. Thank you for your continued patience.

Status update

Hello everyone! Over the past few weeks, we were able to configure, test, and put into production the hardware infrastructure changes outlined in last month’s finances post (and further detailed in this breakdown from Telephone). As a result, our monthly operating costs will be reduced by roughly $138.95 starting next month. June 2020 Breakdown Last month we accepted $6,692.37 in donations - $178.50 over our target for the month. The PayPal account statement for June (below) lists a number of $3.00 and $12.00 charges from OVH - these were small orders placed for additional IP addresses for the new hardware infrastructure and will be included with our invoices from OVH going forward. Additionally, we set up a Twilio account and purchased one programmable number to receive and route SMS messages for Homecoming accounts to the administration team to streamline usage of certain accounts. The cost to set up the account with an initial balance was $20.00 (as this is the minimum charge amount), from which the service will charge us based on usage. The cost for this will be $1.00 per month plus $0.0075 per message received, and the balance will automatically be recharged in $20.00 intervals each time it falls below $5.00. Finally, there is a $1.00 hold from Amazon Web Services. We are exploring alternatives (including AWS) for outbound emails as the forums have been having issues with the service that we currently use. Overall, here is the breakdown of what June’s funds went towards: $4,820.39 to OVH for our hosting + $1,364.94 in one-off expenses for the hardware infrastructure changes $131.59 to our primary law firm for services rendered $137.00 in total transferred to our Transferwise account to cover wiring fees $120.75 for our Google G-Suite Business account $40.00 for our 1&1 IONOS domain & outbound email service The $10.00 domain renewal got added to June’s invoice. This was charged to our bank account (rather than our PayPal account) in June and is shown in our PayPal history as the most recent withdrawal to the bank account. $25.00 for the Paperspace Air instance $20.00 to set up our Twilio account with an initial balance $10.00 for our Atlassian Jira Cloud instance (10-user) $9.73 for the security / administration software $5.00 for the DigitalOcean droplet we used to test experimental network changes July 2020 The expenses for July may be up to $485 lower than expected. This is due to the way that OVH bills new services in the month after they are added; and unfortunately, we aren’t informed of exactly where the cost will land until each invoice is produced. Any amount left over at the end of July will be put towards the donation target for August. We do not foresee any additional expenses in July and we still have $91.87 from June’s donation target which will be put towards the expenses for July. In total, the donation target for July 2020 is $4,803.05. Here is a breakdown of how the funds are allocated: $4,693.44 for our hardware infrastructure from OVH $120.75 for our Google G-Suite services $30.00 for outbound email and domain servers from 1&1 IONOS $25.00 for our Air instance from Paperspace $10.00 for our Atlassian Jira (Cloud) service $9.73 for security / administration software $5.00 for the minimal DigitalOcean droplet (to be removed in July) $1.00 for our Twilio programmable number Our donation goal has been met and donations have been closed. Thank you for your support! Our donation system will be open as of the time of this post with a donation target of $4,803.05 and will automatically close once that target is met. As always, thank you for all of the support! - The Homecoming Team

We're aware of the outage affecting our manifest and our hosting provider (OVH) is currently working on the problem. Unfortunately, we do not have an ETA for resolution just yet but we'll let you all know when it's back online. Thank you for your patience 🙂

Hello everyone! In the upcoming month, we will be making some changes to our hardware infrastructure in order to reduce our long-term operating costs, help us utilize our existing hardware more efficiently, and aid with future development. The up-front cost for these changes will be $1,316.94 broken up as: $971.97/month - purchase of 3x Advance-4 servers configured with: 256GB of memory 2x1920GB NVMe SSDs 1Gbps Private (vRack) bandwidth $344.97 one time setup fee These changes will allow us to remove the following hardware from our current infrastructure: 5x Advance-1 servers ($102.99 each) 2x Advance-2 servers ($108.99 each) 1x Advance-4 server ($377.99) Once the changes have been made and we have removed the older hardware from our infrastructure, the reduction to monthly operating costs will be $138.95. May 2020 Breakdown Last month we accepted $5,297.72 in donations - $123.40 over our target for the month. Here is the breakdown of what May’s funds went towards: $4,820.39 to OVH for our hosting $199.99 to GoDaddy for the 1-year renewal of the code signing certificate This is the $199.99 withdraw to bank account - this was not charged directly from our PayPal $132.00 for our UPS business address (6-month renewal) $120.69 for our Google G-Suite Business account $75.00 for our 6-month Invision Community software renewal $25.00 for the Paperspace Air instance $10.00 for our Atlassian Jira Cloud instance (10-user) $9.73 for the security / administration software $5.52 for a droplet on DigitalOcean which was used for testing network changes June 2020 We were left with a $49.53 deficit at the end of May due to changing invoice amounts; this amount will be included in the donation target for June to ensure that we maintain our $1,250 contingency fund. Additionally, we have received the latest invoice from our primary law firm totaling $131.59. In total, the donation target for June 2020 is $6,513.87. Here is a breakdown of how the funds are allocated: $4,820.39 to OVH for our hosting + $1,316.94 to make the aforementioned changes to our infrastructure $131.59 to our primary law firm for services rendered $120.69 for our Google G-Suite Business account $49.53 to recoup the deficit from May $30.00 for our 1&1 IONOS domain & outbound email service $25.00 for the Paperspace Air instance $10.00 for our Atlassian Jira Cloud instance (10-user) $9.73 for the security / administration software The donation target has been met and donations have been closed. Thank you for the support! Our donation system will be open as of the time of this post with a donation target of $6,513.87 and will automatically close once that target is met. As always, thank you for all of the support! - The Homecoming Team

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Hello everyone! Homecoming is now officially 1 year old, and in 3 days City of Heroes will be 16 years old! In celebration of the anniversaries, @GM Miss is hosting two contests - a screenshot contest which is running until May 1st, and a costume contest on May 2nd. Additionally, players who log into the game during the month of May will receive the Resurgent badge, so don’t forget to log in on any characters that you want the badge on! For more information about the anniversaries and festivities, please see our latest Homecoming Server Update. April 2020 Breakdown Last month we accepted $6,583.43 in donations - $39.94 over our target for the month. Here is the breakdown of what the April funds went towards: $4,820.39 to OVH for our hosting $1,108.30 to our lawyers for their services through February 29th $300.00 for our Delaware LLC franchise tax “DELAWARE CORP &” in our PayPal history $125.00 for our Registered Agent service as required by Delaware state law “CORPORATE FILINGS LLC” in our PayPal history $101.79 for our Google G-Suite Business account + $12.59 for Google Voice $30.00 for our 1&1 IONOS domain & outbound email service $25.00 to Paperspace for an Air instance with a static IP address $10.00 for our Atlassian Jira Cloud instance (10-user) $9.73 for security / administration software $9.10 to Transferwise This is the wiring fee to pay our lawyers $5.00 for a license for the Plateia Bold font Used for some art assets “Payment to Steve Gardner” in our PayPal history - this is the author of the font May 2020 In April we received an unexpected $199.99 charge from GoDaddy for a 1-year renewal on a code signing certificate which was the result of an issue on GoDaddy’s side. If we are able to receive a refund for this charge then this amount will be put towards June’s operating expenses. Otherwise, our only additional expense for the month of May is $10.00 for our primary domain renewal. In total, the donation target for May 2020 is $5,174.32. Here is a breakdown of how the funds are allocated: $4,820.39 to OVH for our hosting $199.99 to GoDaddy for the 1-year renewal of the code signing certificate $114.38 for our Google G-Suite Business account This includes the $12.83 Google Voice line $30.00 to 1&1 IONOS for domain services & outgoing email $25.00 for the Paperspace Air instance $10.00 for our Atlassian Jira Cloud instance (10-user) $10.00 for our primary domain renewal $9.73 for the security / administration software Our donation goal has been met and donations are now closed. Thank you for your support! Our donation system will be open as of the time of this post with a donation target of $5,174.32 and will automatically close once that target is met. As always, thank you for the incredible support! We can’t wait to see everyone’s screenshots and costumes in the anniversary contests! - The Homecoming Team

The issue started around 1200 UTC on April 12th but seems to have resolved itself now.

Hey everyone! We’ve recently pushed the release candidate for Issue 26 Page 5 to our Staging shards. If you have some time this weekend, please hop on over to the Staging shards and test it; the more testing that we can get done, the faster we can push it live! For more information on how to access the Staging shards and copy your characters check out the Beta FAQ. As I’m sure most people are already well aware, it’s tax season! As such, this month we will be including our registered agent fee ($125) and LLC franchise tax ($300) in our donation target so that we can pay this at the start of April. March 2020 Breakdown Last month we accepted $5,380.78 in donations - $4.57 over our target for the month. Here is the breakdown of what the January funds went towards: $4,823.39 to OVH for our hosting Another $15 will be charged in a few days as part of our March billing. $375.30 to our lawyers for their services rendered through January 31st $96.00 for our Google G-Suite Business account + $12.83 for Google Voice $30.00 for our 1&1 IONOS domain & outbound email service $21.20 to Paperspace for an Air instance with a dedicated/static IP address $10.00 for our Atlassian Jira Cloud instance (10-user) $10.00 to Fontspring for a font desktop license This is being used for some art assets $9.73 for security / administration software $3.03 to Transferwise We are now being billed for wire transfers made through Transferwise. We currently use this service to wire transfer to our lawyers as it’s much cheaper than our bank! April 2020 As previously stated, we will be including our annual LLC fees which consists of our registered agent’s fee (required in Delaware) and our LLC franchise tax. Additionally, we have received a new invoice from our primary law firm for their services rendered in February (plus some in January that weren’t in the previous invoice). In total, the donation target for April 2020 is $6,543.49. Here is a breakdown of how the funds are allocated: $4,838.39 to OVH for our hosting $1,108.30 to our lawyers for their services through February 31st 29th $425 for our annual LLC fees and tax $300 is our Delaware LLC franchise tax $125 for our registered agent fee $108.83 for our Google G-Suite Business account This includes the $12.83 Google Voice line $30.00 to 1&1 IONOS for domain services & outgoing email $25.00 for the Paperspace Air instance $10.00 for our Atlassian Jira Cloud instance (10-user) $9.73 for the security / administration software Our donation goal has been met and donations have been closed. Thank you for the awesome support! Our donation system will be open as of the time of this post with a donation target of $6,543.49 and will automatically close once that target is met. As always, thank you for the incredible support! - The Homecoming Team

It seems that the official stats site is operating off a database snapshot and therefore isn't updating. In the mean time, I have created a Discord bot to keep a leaderboard updated in the #folding-leaderboard channel of our Discord server. This is the timeout for the work unit - you have that amount of time remaining to complete the work unit before it is marked as failed and reassigned.

🙂

I quite like the Dark Astoria caves and Praetorian Tunnels, excluding the Praetorian Tunnel maze in the DA arcs.. that place is just terrible. The blue Tsoo/Carnie caves are and forever will be the worst.

This is really odd - I've tested it on Chrome versions dating back about two years. What version of Chrome are you using?

What browser are you using? I've tested the forums on most modern browsers and haven't found any issues. Edit: I see that Edge does not render the background (and it's possible it didn't render the borders < 100% alpha either). Unfortunately, edge's support of various modern web features is really spotty 😞

Welcome! If you need anything please don't hesitate to reach out to your fellow players or our awesome GMs 🙂

The changes made have been very minor and should not have much impact on non-staff using the forums; this is why we did not feel that patch notes were necessary. For transparency though: The border around staff posts is now very slightly brighter. Lead GMs now use Orange as their group and highlight colour. Permissions for hiding / deleting were tweaked. Allowing thread owners to delete entire topics (there's no separate permission for topic vs post right now) can be problematic for moderation. Users can now instead hide their posts from the public while keeping them visible to staff for the purposes of moderation.

Our manifest / primary patch server had a temporary outage and is now online again. Thank you for the patience 🙂

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Tanker

Stalker

Sentinel

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Mastermind

Dominator