Bye bye Wargamez - Hello rented server?

“Vital to the European QuakeWorld community”, “a place where three-quarters of Europe pings decently”, “hosted by an admin that is hard to reach”, “constantly running outdated server versions”, “maybe gone soon” - All of the above describe our beloved Wargamez server. Located in Denmark and thus forming the junction between Scandinavia and the rest of Europe, Wargamez has without a doubt been the most important European QuakeWorld server of the last years.

However, the future of Wargamez is uncertain. That aside, a discussion at the QuakeWorld.nu Forum has extended beyond the fate of the server. Maybe it’s time for something new?

So let me just sum up what’s happened and what’s happening:

* The Wargamez admin is supposedly leaving his current job and will consequently - although this has not been decided or confirmed yet - no longer be able to host the servers.

* The majority of clan-wars, as well as the vast, vast majority of 4on4 mixgames were carried out on Wargamez. The possible consequences of a discontinuation were demonstrated about a week ago when Wargamez was down for a night: There were NO 4on4 mixgames after ~21:00 CET. (Oh my, MGT in danger?)

* Wargamez, down or not, is hosted by someone not active or involved in the QuakeWorld scene. Although it might sound unappreciative (which is definitely not the idea), it’s a fact is that getting a new server version up and running is a lengthy process. Renzo created a sweet mvdsv+ktx package for Wargamez in mid-June. The package merely needed to be executed, requiring no effort or input from the admin. Two months later: Still no update and an unbearable stagnancy.

So the questions are: Is Wargamez going down? What do we do once Wargamez is gone? However, even if Wargamez doesn’t discontinue its hosting of the servers - Would it be a good idea to try and collect some money from the scene via donations, sponsors or ads to actually rent our own server? Obviously nobody likes the idea of having to pay for something that has been free for over 10 years now, but do the benefits not outweigh the small burden of having to throw in a couple of bucks from time to time in order for us to have “our own” server?

Taking a look at the price-range, we’re estimating that it would most likely cost in between 500 and 1000 Euros a year to rent a server. A dedicated server admin could be selected (and there’s no shortage of those) in order to maintain the server with new server versions as well as the ever so sweet EZTV. Depending on the amount of financial contributors and donations, the individual expenses could be held fairly low. It’s also important to point out that donators would receive no proprietary rights over the server. It would be utopian and escapist to believe that giving admin rights to more than a handful of people would go by without problems.

In this very important discussion, we urge you to both take part in the discussion at the QuakeWorld.nu Forum and also submit your ping-times to a QW wiki article specially created for this discussion. The idea behind the latter is to find out and determine whether or not it would be worth it to rent a new server or not. And if so - where would it be hosted?

I’m all for it. Are you?