News:
We have a new Vanilla TTT server!
Host change information
Counter Strike Global Offensive store updates!
Forum Badges!
New VIPs!
Server Upgrade/Change of Host:
As you all know we were the target of fairly regular DDoS attacks as well as a growing population that was pushing our servers to their limit. We looked at changing hosts primarily for additional server resources but also to try and prevent the frequency of DDoS attacks. We tried OVH for a period and had a terrible experience that resulted in a full refund of our money, but a loss of approximately 300 man hours of work. After some negotiating we selected End of Reality as our new host. Due to our data center selection, some of the promised options were unfulfilled resulting in a steep discount for breach of contract. We have the exact same specs as our previous box but we are now running things under VMWare ESXi which has given us a lot of flexibility as well as the ability to logically separate game servers. This means resources are dedicated per game so if JB hogs all the cpu, this doesn't impact other games. We also have DDoS protection and aside from 1 DDoS which has been the largest we've ever taken, no attacks have actually made it to us. For this reason alone, the host change was worth it. We are still working with the host for additional possibilities but are limited by engineer time. All in all, we've seen a significant increase in responsiveness of the site, fastdl (prior to the file-size limiting steam update) was working much faster, we have doubled our WAN pipe allowing us to provide higher speeds on downloads, and other things are running smoother behind the scenes to make your sG experience better. Finally, the DC move resulted in better pings for approximately 80% of the community, remained the same for 9% and got worse for 11%.
Forum Badge System
Thanks to Josh and camelFun for finally implementing our new Badge system. With our new Event Advisors came a few more events, and with our server population downtime we decided to implement badge awards a little earlier than planned originally, which assisted in motivating more players to participate. There are more badges than the few we have released, so keep a look out.
Note that if you were once a member of Staff or on the Server Officer team, you can have your badge added to your account by going to this thread and requesting it along with your proof of your service.
Staff Changes:
Unfortunately, with good news usually comes bad news. This time around, Marvin will be leaving us. Marvin has been a long time member of staff and we greatly appreciate the time and effort he put forward toward bettering the community overall. Please wish him the best of luck in his future endeavors. In addition to the loss of Marvin, unfortunately we will also be saying goodbye to Minidude, and we would like to also wish him the best of luck in the future.
With the loss of Marvin, Klark has taken the responsibilities that Marvin had held in the community until a later date. In addition, Drunkula will be continue to be Staff Manager, and Eddy will take responsibility managing Event Advisors as well as Server Officers in the future.
Ranks & Recruitment:
VIP:
The newest members to join the VIP team:
-Darkpredator
-JFK
-Moose
-Rayne
-Sakata
-Xmen
these promotions also come with some demotions, we're sad to announce that these VIPs will be leaving the team:
-BeauutifulChaos
-Dyscivist
-Tristan
Current VIP list:
Aero
BLiNDBoi
Dailey
Darkpredator
Ivanns
JFK
Moose
n2fwa
Papa
Rayne
Reaper
Sakata
Tortoise
Xmen
We would like to congratulate all of our new members:
January
- Chewy
- Sureno
- Acebats
- Fuzzwuzz
February
- Robby
- phD_Web2k13
- Dr. Khan MD
- Vertas
- Firstadam
- Rune
- Kareem Kotb
- Blublub
March
- JeeCe
- Popsicle_ninja
- Faptastic
April
- Cumtastic
- Goldy. Elsa
- Kung
- Brick
- Papaya
- Chet
- Piplub
- DMatakami
- Azure
- ATG_AGENT
May
- Clarkus
- Lv. 100 Crobat
- Okami
June
-Tonee Chickwan
-Edge
-Prysm
-Kim Jong-un
-OrdinaryGamer
-BluePromethean
Also Congratulations to our promoted members!
Level 2
- Demon
- ROFL
- Azzkicker
- Necrophenia
- Daft2thePunk
- The Dark Knight Rises
- Ryziou
- Coldfuse
- Waffles
- Seabagz
- Infested marine
- Ghost
- Lv. 100 Garchomp
- Professional Velo
-Moflstomp
Level 3
- Flt.Lt. Space Bugs
New Veteran Members!
- Prosak
- Rayne
- Ika
- Taboo
- MindSpring
- iAlwaysFail
- Wind.exe
- Moose
-Firefighter
Academic Corner:
Since ChosenOne2000 is currently deployed to Afghanistan, he's had a lot of time to work on academic projects. Two years ago, Junzou, Mitch, and Chosenone2000 collaborated on a survey of sG's demographics. Without the distractions of quality online games and high speed internet (first world problems), C12K had the opportunity to generate a study based on the survey. The journal submission titled "Online Video Gamer’s Desire for Military Service With and Without Exposure to America’s Army" has made it through the second stage of the peer review process of the journal of Games and Culture. Hopefully, we will know the results in the coming months.
The second sG oriented study titled "The Hierarchy of an Online Gaming Community: A Study of the Managerial Structure of Syndicate Gamers", was submitted to International Journal of Virtual Communities and Social Networking (IJVCSN). This manuscript has also made it to the second stage of the peer review process. fps_trucka was a big help in the creation of the manuscript to meet the journal's deadline for consideration for their Fall edition.
In the coming months, C12K will be writing additional articles based on sG, for publication in peer reviewed journals (great for getting into college OR beefing up your CV). If you're interested, PM ChosenOne2000. sG is already known in the gaming circles as a fun place to be; We'd like sG to be known in the academic circles as well.
Server Officers:
A thank you goes out to all the Server Officers, whether you're currently an SO right now or if you used to be, Server Officers are a big part of what keeps the servers running and we appreciate all the help you have given us.
Server Officer Roster:
Jailbeak
Hardboiled Hobo - Bob Ross's Zombie - King clamps - Piero - Moist - BullDog - popsicle - Demonoid - piplup - hotsauce - nugget
Trouble Terrorist Town
Stabbity - Jeff the Flying shark - Peter Pepperoni - Ghost - Gonepostal - Mufasa
Vanilla Trouble Terrorist Town
Acebats - Kano Donn - Kung - Matthew - Dark Knight - Ruffles
Zombie Escape
FireFighter - Chewy - Veritas - Dilly - Jayy
Surf
Ichalvl -Faptastic
Minigames
~null~
Warcraft 3:GO
MisterTurkes - Xmen - Infested marine - ATG_Agent
Bunny Hop
Tobi - Agrippa
General CSGO SO's
Fab - Gary
If you're willing to help the servers out and think you'd make a great Server Officer, please submit the below application in a private message to Eddy and TurtleFrenzy. We might not have room for you in your desired server at the time of applying, but submitting an application makes us aware that you want to help.
Server Officer Application Form:
SteamID:
Link to Game.Me profile:
What server are you interested in becoming a SO for?
Do you have admin privileges on any of our servers?
Why do you think you'd make a great admin?
Poker:
Winners
1) Thorn - Borderlands 2 Pass
2) Clamps - Rising Storm
3) Sportsteen - Just Cause 2
4) Coldfuse - Bastion
5) Oreo - Surgeon Simulator 2013
6) SP Point - Gmod
The next Poker Tournament is Here! The tournament will be on July 12th. Roll call will begin at 8:00 PM CST and the event will start at 9 PM CST. Everyone that wishes to play in the tournament MUST show up for roll call, if you are not present during roll call you will be removed from the tournament. More information available here
Cinema
Cinema has been updated to the latest version with a variety of fixes and improvements. The map has also been recompiled to an optimized version so that the entire thing does not all render at once. Look out for more events for cinema in the future.
Jailbreak
Most recent Jailbreak event was held May 9th through May 17th, 2014. It did really well and helped to keep the Jailbreak server populated even afterward. Exciting stuff, really, considering Jailbreak's recent repose. Thanks, Wave and Cows for setting up and running the event!
Congratulations to the event's winners:
BananaPeelz - Lightning Bolt AWP skin
doc.mad - Mirrors Edge
The Dark Knight Rises - MasterBowlcut Title in Jailbreak
Piero - Forum Badge, Also won Credit Trivia Prize [JB WHIZ Title in Jailbreak]
Popsicle_Ninja - Battlefield 3
With the recent store updates we have introduced T skins for purchase in the store shop. The testing was a success and T skins have been implemented. More skins will be added when VIP store is released.
Jailbreak has had a steady population of being near full almost everyday. Jailbreak has been in the top 100 servers for CSGO, and for the last month, has been in the 100th percentile. Thank you for making the server fun for everyone!
Warcraft 3
Thank you to Rootbeer Koolaid for organizing and running the recent War3 event which ran on May 22nd through May 30th this year. Despite our technical difficulties on the War3 server, our regulars always come back to play, so this event's success is no surprise. Many thanks to all of you who stick around!
Congratulations to our three event winners:
Edge
repeet
marzu
Zombie Escape
Unfortunately, Zombie Escape has been hit pretty hard these last couple of months and not with DDOS. It has been declining in player count due to a cs:go update a couple months ago. With the recent steam updates restricting map sizes we have had to remove many maps from our server. We are currently looking into ways of readding these maps. To help combat this update we are hosting a week long zombie escape event! It will be from the 5th of July to the 13th! If you want to learn more of this event we will be posting the official details soon! If we find a way to fix the map size so one can download maps >150mb we will let you all know, but for the moment we are unable to combat that issue.
Mini Games
Our last MG event ran from 3/18 to 3/23 and was very successful! Winners of the some of the prizes for partaking in the event were Ciro, Coldfuse, Waffles, and Burger! The server has been doing very well since the event moving to the 97th percentile. Thanks velo for porting the map mg_3k_smash_lego_copter for the server. If there are any maps you would like to see on the server please make a thread in the map suggestions forum.
Surf
Recently store has been added to surf and has seen a population increase. We are currently working to fix some issues with surf and we ask you to please use the new bug tracker on the forum to report any bugs, so we can keep track of them. A surf event will be announced sometime in the next few weeks!
Trouble in Terrorist Town
The Trouble in Terrorist Town server has had a host of large updates that have been recommended by the SO's for addition. In April we added a pointshop to the server along with a crate drop system which allows you to find anything from hats and skins as well as custom jihad sounds and weapons for your loadout.
We have also re-balanced the weapons, adding a few new weapons, a new chatbox system, and a spectator deathmatch to the server which allowed you to keep shooting even when the round is over.
An event has started for the first two weeks of this month some come on by and try out the new additions with us.
Vanilla Trouble in Terrorist Town
This summer we are also trying out a new server in gmod. Vanilla TTT runs the standard version of Trouble in Terrorist Town with no modifications running only minecraft maps 24/7. The first week of this server being up has shown great interest and the population has been extremely strong so far. Currently it is ranked as the 259th highest server in gmod after only a week.
For more information about this server please read the topic here.
Bunny Hop
Auto-bhop plugin added. !auto or sm_auto toggles on or off. This allows players to hold spacebar and it will jump for you. You still have to strafe on your own.
Timer updated. Comes with a couple of style changes. Half-Sideways and EZ-Mode. Half-Sideways you bhop normally but hold W as well. EZ-Mode is a mode that most servers have on every mode by default. It's the same as bunnyhopping normally, it just removes stamina. Only one mode is going to be EZ-Mode since we've always been a non-ez server.
Strafehacking is now disallowed on the server. An anti-cheat has been added for this which automatically logs every detection. It also prints into the console when someone gets detected. Every level of admin should be able to see this. If an admin sees someone get detected, please send Blublub a message about how to read the values it prints out before doing anything.
To go with the adding of auto, style changes, and disallowing of strafehacks, the times and ranks have been reset. There were far too many strafehacked times on the server and there were regulars of the server who refused to come back to the server unless this change was made.
CS:GO Comp Tournament
With all the complications prior to and during the Counter-Strike: Global Offensive tournament this June, we'd like to say it went quite smoothly. Gotta give a big thanks to sG's Eddy, Shadow, Knox, camelFun, and Waffles for getting this tournament moving—and we gotta give a huge thanks to gS's Travesty and Splewis for making sure everything went smoothly and on schedule!
The final bracket can be found here:
http://www.joinsg.net/topic/61363-official-match-and-schedule-bracket/
http://challonge.com/sgcsgosummer2014
Congratulations to Team Murs for coming out on top!
Team Murs:
MursGlacius
Sketchmaticx
Tristan.
Knox
Papaya
CS:GO Store
Store has seen massive updates with more to come. VIP store is being worked on and should be finished within the month. More news about the CSGO store here.
New Forum Theme: Syndicate Splash
camelFun's worked pretty hard to work on a new, more polished skin than even the last: Syndicate Splash. It will be ready very soon, so keep an eye out. Here's a preview for those interested: http://i.imgur.com/LDIhYLy.png
Donations
Prosak-$320.00
JWB10-$70.00
wind.exe-$33.37
Clamps-$25.00
Lv. 100 Latias-$20.00
Renegade-$20.00
Mikasa-$15.30
Kordless-$10.00
Name-$10.00
DrKhanMD-$8.40
ROFL-$8.02
Falco-$5.00
Tonee Chickwan-$5.00
Faptastic-$4.20
Piero-$4.20
PhD_Web2k13-$4.00
A big Thank you goes out to all of our donors, donations are a big part of what keeps sG alive and we appreciate all donations, no matter the amount.
-sG Staff