update [11-10-16] Update - Unexpected?!

[Roy 10,832 / 0]

Hello everybody, I am here today with another update for GFL. As many of you know, I’ve officially resigned from the BoD position. I said this in my last update post and I mentioned that I wouldn’t be able to dedicate much time into GFL. While this is still true and my current work schedule will become very heavy in the next few weeks, I feel I need to make another update post to lead GFL in the right direction. So, let’s get started!

Update Posts
I wanted to first start with future update posts. When I initially started making update posts in GFL, I thought it wasn’t a big deal and that most of them would be ignored (which could still be true). However, after more than a year of doing them, I feel they are very beneficial along with unique. I believe other gaming communities don’t have weekly update posts that explain how the community will move forward. Since I am becoming busy, I feel I won’t have time to make these update posts in the future. However, I do NOT want update posts becoming extinct in GFL. I want the Board of Directors to work together and aim to release at least one update post a week (in a similar format as mine, but perhaps better). 

This is more directed towards @Dano and @Shuruia since they are both English experts who I think would enjoy doing this.

To conclude, I want update posts being made in the future and not just by me. The more quality update posts, the better.

Donations, Income, Etc
This subject has been discussed many times in the past but I just want to finalize it and set things in the right direction. GFL as a whole needs to start focusing on gaining more income. This includes:

• Ensuring we have many attractive Supporter/VIP perks.
• MOTD Ads are setup on all of our servers.
• [GMod] Possibly implementing ads into the loading screen without violating any of the rules with MOTDGD.

This must be GFL’s highest priority due to our current financial state and why money will highly benefit us in the future. If you’re wondering what money will do for us in the near future, let’s go through a list:

• We will be able to purchase plugins and scripts that improve our servers (e.g. an unique CS:GO Bunny Hop timer).
• Purchase an OVH machine without a high risk. This could also be a turning point in GFL as discussed in other updates.
• GFL’s lifetime will likely be increased.

I also feel implementing the following suggestions to the donation system will help us get Supporters and VIPs:

• Allow Supporters and VIPs to see how many days they have left of their Supporter/VIP package in-game.
• Allow Supporters and VIPs to type !donate in-game to bring them to a Supporter/VIP package selection with their Steam ID automatically filled.
• The player with the most donations per month receives an award and is announced (with their permission of course).

Overall, donations and income need to be GFL’s main priority and there are many things we can do to help get more donations & income. The BoD team needs to ensure the Division Leaders and Server Managers know this. A goal we should start at is having $1500.00 or over as our PayPal balance consistently (at all times).

GFL Is Officially/Legally A Business
For a long time, GFL was not registered as a business. This has been holding us back from a lot of things such as changing our IP’s geo-location. I am very happy to say that GFL is officially a business. This means that we are paying taxes yearly to the US Government.

While there are many other things this will open us up to, I am not ready to announce them. All I can say at the moment is this will allow GFL to move forward without hitting obstacles as we have hit in the past.

IP’s Geo-Location Update
I’ve been wanting to successfully change an IP’s geo-location for a long time now. This would allow us to purchase an OVH machine with a better chance of gaining population. For the past few months, I haven’t been able to proceed further until I got GFL registered as a legal business. But now that GFL is registered as a legal business, I’ve been able to proceed forward.

Unfortunately, I ran into another obstacle. The company OVH wanted me to sign up for isn’t enough to change the IP’s geo-location. Therefore, they told me I will have to find a geo-location company that provides this type of service. 

The next step is finding the right company to provide the service of changing an IP’s geo-location. I will keep GFL updated with any new information I learn about this.

CS:GO Bunny Hop Timer
After days of playing on CS:GO Bunny Hop and speaking to @Syrus and @HackingPotato (who spoke to regulars on the server), we’ve decided we need a new unique timer. After testing most of the popular free timers, none of them really suited our needs (e.g. Shavit’s ranks are broken, ckSurf is outdated and not unique, etc). The only option we had left was private plugins. After testing out two private plugins, we decided to go with a $70.00 plugin. We haven’t bought this plugin yet, however, we are planning on doing so. @Cypher has offered to donate $20.00 towards the plugin so GFL will only need to pay $50.00. Obviously, the main concern while buying this plugin was whether the plugin will make the money back. In our opinions, it will. Our CS:GO BHop servers have been dying because we have nothing special to offer. This is truly our chance to offer something unique.

With that said, in the past, I believe most private plugins were never paid from GFL directly. I want that to change. The scare I’ve had about this in the past is if we ever got scammed. However, since GFL is a business and we will only use PayPal as a payment source (very secure), I believe we have very little to worry about.

This also will encourage GFL to focus on income and donations. If we receive enough income and donations, we will be able to purchase unique addons, plugins, and scripts for our servers. I am also planning out a system that will perhaps make this more organized. For example, the players and/or the Trusted will vote on whether we buy a plugin. The CS:GO Bunny Hop Timer will be exempted from this system though.

Overall, I believe this will benefit our BHop servers a lot. This will also tell us how private plugins will affect our servers and lead to a system being made that will allow us to buy unique addons and such to improve our servers.

P.S. These private plugins will need to offer source code that we will compile from to ensure there are no exploits found. We have already confirmed this with the BHop plugin.

NFO Machine Overloaded
Ever since we removed one of our NFO machines with a replacement of an NFO VPS, one of our NFO machines have been seeing major overloading. 

 

On Monday, this machine hit 85% CPU usage as a peak, which is very, very high. I will look into moving servers from this machine to the VPS. However, the big problem is our CS:S ZM and CS:S Dust2 servers are already on the VPS meaning if they got popular, we would run into a lot of issues. As far as I am aware, I haven’t heard any major complaints about lag, but the truth is, our machine is overloaded. Hopefully once we purchase an OVH machine, we will be able to off-load some servers. Servers on this machine include the following:

 

 

I will give more information about this in the future when I look into it (very soon).

GFL As A Whole
GFL as a whole needs to start improving. This includes all ranks. The Board of Directors team needs to step up and ensure the Division Leaders are doing their jobs and knowing what the main priorities are. With that said, inactive Server Admins need to be demoted from the forums and servers. If an admin is not active on a server they are admin on, they should be demoted. And no, using the “But the server is dead” excuse is invalid. If you don’t play on the server, you shouldn’t be admin on it (plain and simple). Server Managers need to listen to their players and admins to ensure the server is getting the updates it needs. There are many other things in GFL that need to be improved on. However, it cannot be up to me to fix them.

I cannot completely leave GFL because if I did, GFL would likely die (since I own the back-end stuff). However, that does not mean GFL needs me to take steps forward. GFL should succeed without me actively doing stuff. I believe it’s time for GFL to make a huge comeback. We have many new servers coming out such as CS:S ZM/Dust2, TF2 FF/DR, and GMod DR. It’s time to step up and truly make GFL great again. We definitely have the people to do so, but the only thing we haven’t seen yet is true dedication.

Conclusion
This will likely be my last update post for a while, but you never know. The main point of this update post is to address the main priorities in GFL while also setting things in the right direction. While I’ve seen many great discussions going on recently about improving GFL, I still haven’t seen enough done to notice a change from a player’s perspective.

I’ve seen players also have great ideas for GFL. I will mention @Major_Push in this case because he has a pretty great idea involving a GFL Radio plugin. Things like this should be listened to by the higher-ups and considered. It’s the only way GFL will take steps in the right direction. 

Google Doc

Thanks for reading.

[syrus 1,000 / 15,155]

I wouldn't mind donating another $10 to help @Cypher!

[Darkling 2,041 / 23,470]

$20 coming from me 

Edited November 10, 2016 by Darkling

[Addy 1,648 / 18,732]

4 hours ago, Roy said:

make GFL great again.

we did it bois. he said it 

[Alucard33rd 1,175 / 15,145]

I should be getting more money to donate soon, I am very tight on money when I have to pay for my fees for the Drum Cores I am apart of, (WGI Impact and DCI Columbians) [$350 and $1275]

 

Other then that I am willing to learn and help out more on the background stuff if you or someone needs any help.

[Cypher 1,187 / 11,383]

I did quite a bit of research alongside roy in order to make sure legally we are set up to succeed. The business aspect of GFL is one that was understated in its importance, and now that we have a business mode set up, we can do things like generate and spend money without worrying about taxes. 

 

 

[myPHART 281 / 5,459]

Well, I have no idea whether this is going to contribute or not, but I started advertising the GFL community on all the MMORPGs I've been playing. Hope it helps and brings more donations in.

[Darkling 2,041 / 23,470]

I do have to mention that most of today i have been seeing server lag (not my ping) affecting multiple CSGO servers

 

To name a few servers:

CSGO Jailbreak

CSGO 1v1 US 

CSGO surf timer (1-2 / 1-3)

CSGO RPG surf 

 

I have seen both the SV and the VAR raise and cause everyone to freeze momentarily. This lead to the 1v1 server losing most of its population at the time and the surf RPG server suffered 

 

The lag does not hang for too long but is frequent!

Edited November 12, 2016 by Darkling

[Roy 10,832 / 0]

1 hour ago, Darkling said:

I do have to mention that most of today i have been seeing server lag (not my ping) affecting multiple CSGO servers

 

To name a few servers:

CSGO Jailbreak

CSGO 1v1 US 

CSGO surf timer (1-2 / 1-3)

CSGO RPG surf 

 

I have seen both the SV and the VAR raise and cause everyone to freeze momentarily. This lead to the 1v1 server losing most of its population at the time and the surf RPG server suffered 

 

The lag does not hang for too long but is frequent!

Yes, all those servers are on the overloaded machine. In fact, today, the machine got to 90% CPU!

 

Garry's Mod Purge is now on the other machine so hopefully it won't be as bad. I also plan on moving a couple servers to the VPS!

 

I apologize for this. Performance is something important to GFL and obviously having our machine at 90% CPU is beyond crazy (still is not as bad as having our EU machine at 100% a couple years ago!). Once we get this OVH situation handled, I feel things will be much better.

 

Thanks.

[Addy 1,648 / 18,732]

12 minutes ago, Roy said:

I also plan on moving a couple servers to the VPS!

 

Thanks.

Which servers would you plan on moving? Because as you said, the two upcoming CS:S servers (and I believe a few others, but don't quote me on that; I'm not at home so I can't check what bhop is on, though I believe it's on the VPS as well) are both on the VPS and both have the potential to become really popular servers. I can't speak for ZM, but currently the player limit for Dust 2 is 64 and if I can, I'd like to keep it at that to compete with the other popular servers. 

 

It'd be something you probably want to keep your eye on if you do end up going through with it. 

Edited November 12, 2016 by Addy

[Roy 10,832 / 0]

Just now, Addy said:

Which servers would you plan on moving? Because as you said, the two upcoming CS:S servers (and I believe a few others, but don't quote me on that; I'm not at home so I can't check what bhop is on, though I believe it's on the VPS as well) are both on the VPS and both have the potential to become really popular servers. I can't speak for ZM, but currently the player limit for Dust 2 is 64 and if I can, I'd like to keep it at that to compete with the other popular servers. 

 

It'd be something you probably want to keep your eye on if you do end up going through with it. 

I am definitely aware of this and to be honest, Dust2 and Zombie Mod will not operate well on the VPS. If it does come down to it, we can move it to one of the machines.

 

I don't expect these servers to become populated suddenly and I'm hoping this OVH move can be done soon.

 

To be honest, I feel it might be worth just waiting until we get an OVH machine to release CS:S Zombie Mod and Dust2. The only problem is, I don't know how long that'll take. I plan on figuring everything out tomorrow after work.

 

Thanks.

[Leks 2,304 / 26,632]

On 11/10/2016 at 7:45 AM, Roy said:

 It’s time to step up and truly make GFL great again.

 

Is that...

 

[Roy 10,832 / 0]

Update

We have purchased the Bunny Hop timer yesterday. We have set the timer up on our Bunny Hop test server and we are experimenting with things.

 

Price: $70.00

Thanks.

[Roy 10,832 / 0]

Another Update

It seems MOTDGD Ads were put on most GMod servers. There has been a huge spike in Ad revenue with this change.

 

I hope we continue populating our CS:S, GMod, and CS:GO servers so we can get more ad revenue.

 

Thanks.

[BunnyFox 318 / 8,341]

1 minute ago, Roy said:

Another Update

It seems MOTDGD Ads were put on most GMod servers. There has been a huge spike in Ad revenue with this change.

 

I hope we continue populating our CS:S, GMod, and CS:GO servers so we can get more ad revenue.

 

Thanks.

 

Wow, that is a pretty significant spike in cash!

 

Hopefully this helps.

[Leks 2,304 / 26,632]

1 minute ago, Roy said:

Another Update

It seems MOTDGD Ads were put on most GMod servers. There has been a huge spike in Ad revenue with this change.

 

I hope we continue populating our CS:S, GMod, and CS:GO servers so we can get more ad revenue.

 

Thanks.

It is amazing to see GFL slowly getting back to where it was.

Although there is a lot to change, I highly believe we can make it if we ALL work together! Good job everyone!

[Roy 10,832 / 0]

One Last Update

Our Garry's Mod servers are generating us a lot of ad revenue. Here's a list:

 

Surprisingly, Hide and Seek is leading our list with $19.54 so far this month followed by TTT ($19.37) and CS:GO Zombie Escape ($18.65).

 

Here's another shocking list of ad revenue daily this month:

 

We've been receiving a lot of money the past few days!

 

I hope this can keep up! We currently have $154.00 of ad revenue this month and just recently added MOTD Ads to our GMod servers!

 

Thanks.

[Chormee 2,973 / 29,227]

On 11/22/2016 at 2:12 AM, Roy said:

Surprisingly, Hide and Seek is leading our list with $19.54 so far this month followed by TTT ($19.37)

 

Let's go boys HnS for the win.

 

(I love you @Violator you're doing good with TTT)

[Roy 10,832 / 0]

One "Last" Last Update

I wasn't going to add a sub-update post again, but I just felt this was very impressive. In the past few days, we've received a lot of ad money. Here's the last few days:

 

 

At one point, we received ~$27.00 a day and if you do the math (27 * 30), if we made $27.00 each day, we would receive $810.00/m in ad revenue (this would basically pay for our expenses). 

 

Keep up the great work! The more population we get, the more money we're going to receive! We currently have $296.77 in ad revenue!

 

Thanks.

[Violator 2,242 / 20,845]

2 hours ago, Mistletoe said:

Let's go boys HnS for the win.

 

(I love you @Violator you're doing good with TTT)

lol I can easily get TTT past hide and seek if I changed the time limit of the map.