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Messages - OneST8

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Astronomers estimate that there are 200 to 400 billion stars in our galactic neighborhood, the Milky Way. I guess that someone tried to count them in this fully-zoomable, ultra-high-definition 800,000-image mosaic and got tired around 296,351,284,702. (Gizmodo)


WOW!

The mosaic is simply brilliant.
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Important Layonara Announcements / Server Maintenance!
« on: May 18, 2010, 07:42:57 pm »
Please note that the forums will be shutdown sometime late tonight (EST).

We don't know when exactly or for how long but we will communicate via IRC, Twitter and our Facebook page as necessary during the downtime.

Please also note that the following shouldn't experience any disruptions of service: IRC, NwN Server(s) and Email (for those with Layonara accounts).

There will be another announcement a few minutes before we take the forums down so as to give at least a little warning.

We do apologize for the inconvenience this downtime may be causing.

Respectfully,
The Management
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3
Important Layonara Announcements / All Servers Back Online
« on: December 03, 2009, 08:47:52 am »
Greetings everyone!

After a bit of a struggle and a bad power supply, everything is back up and running across the entire Layonara domain. This includes LORE (which is doing a character update as I type this).

So, thank you to everyone for your patience and understanding during this time. It's sincerely appreciated.

-- The Management

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Important Layonara Announcements / Immediate Maintenance
« on: November 28, 2009, 01:25:38 am »
Greetings everyone,

There is a hardware issue with one of the Layonara servers and at this time. In order to mitigate the random downtime of the forums; we're disabling the LORE character updates for a few days.

As well, at some time during the next two/three days the entire layonara.com domain will be taken offline for general maintenance reasons. This downtime will last anywhere from a few hours to possibly more and there's no way to forecast this accurately.

These things have nothing to do with the MMO development and there are no hidden announcements here. About the only thing that's related to the MMO with all of this is that we've been so busy working on the MMO that we haven't had the time to do the needed housecleaning that's now in a state we cannot ignore.

Nothing "bad", just need to make things "right" again.

So, just to clarify, the following services will be completely offline at some point in the next few days and you should all rest assured we're going to try and minimize the downtime as best we can.

  • The World of Layonara
  • forums.layonara.com
  • irc.layonara.com
  • devlog.layonara.com
  • lore.layonara.com
  • NwN Server (xora.layonara.com)
  • and any other service layonara.com provides that I've failed to mention in the above...


Currently the only planned means of official communication regarding status updates during the outage is via twitter.

Please stay tuned.
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Important Layonara Announcements / Forum Outages
« on: November 27, 2009, 09:28:37 am »
Hello everyone!

Over the past few days the forums have been seeing a little more stress than normal and as such there have been intermittent issues and outages. This is not necessarily due to anything we can or can't talk about publicly at this time.

We do sincerely apologize for any inconvenience these problems may be causing and we would like to reassure you all that we're doing our best to balance the workloads and keep things running at status quo.

Layonara is going through some rather interesting growth over the next few months and so we can only ask for everyone to please bear with us as we all traverse these new waters.

Thank you for your patience and understanding.

-- The Management.
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6
General Discussion / A Note Regarding Development
« on: April 21, 2009, 01:19:38 pm »
Hello everyone,

I just wanted to speak my mind a little regarding the recent volume of NwN updates.

Everyone gets excited with new features, bugfixes and enhancements however this is because it's publicly broadcasted and readily playable. Of course, this is in the case of Layonara's NwN development.

With respect to the MMO, the dev team cranks out just as much work as what we've publicly done with NwN however the intimate details are not shared and as such, it's hard for the public to get as excited.

Basically, I just want to let everyone know that while the MMO's development may seem mysterious and vague on it's public face; please rest assured that significant progress is being made and I want you all to know that the level of work you've seen from the NwN side of things is exactly the level of work you don't see on the MMO side of things.

At some point in the future Layonara will get much more relaxed and transparent with the MMO's development but until that time comes everyone will have to trust that the lack of attention to NwN is being translated directly to progress made on the MMO.

Whether publicly or behind the scenes; Layonara dev's are working just as hard with every opportunity we have to spare.

Cheers & Enjoy the recent NwN updates!
-OneST8
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7
General Discussion / Insanity or Dedication?
« on: February 16, 2009, 12:45:11 am »
Insanity or dedication?

You tell me.




I got this tattoo yesterday (Valentine's Day) at the same time as my fiancée got the following one:



Sharing the experience of getting tattoos; how's that for a Valentine's gift?

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Layonara Server / IRC Problems
« on: February 04, 2009, 03:45:06 pm »
Just a quick FYI, the machine that the IRC service is currently being hosted on is having a slew of issues. We are working on the problem. For now, the #nwn channel is the only one that's functional. We're looking at migrating the service to a different machine to help reduce the load.

I'll post updates on this thread as things change.

Sorry for the inconvenience.
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Layonara Server / LORE Email Functionality
« on: January 29, 2009, 06:12:18 am »
LORE will finally send out registration emails and password requests.

Yay that I finally got this stuff working.

Sorry for things like this lagging for so long in a non-functional state.
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Layonara Server / LORE Character Updates
« on: January 29, 2009, 04:23:16 am »
While working on some web server backup maintenance, with the help of orth we made some changes to LORE. The two most notable differences are:

  • Character pages are now updating again
  • The antiquated header logo has been changed


Enjoy!

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General Discussion / Canadian National Do-Not-Call List
« on: October 01, 2008, 07:53:29 am »
It's official folks! Canada's national do-not-call list has been setup and is now accepting registrations for the list!

The easiest way to sign up is to go to their website and register online:

https://www.lnnte-dncl.gc.ca/insnum-regnum-eng

Here's a decent article on the matter:

Canadians clog no-telemarketing lines - Nova Scotia News - TheChronicleHerald.ca

Enjoy!
:)
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12
Just for Fun / Glubble
« on: May 06, 2008, 06:00:53 pm »
My fiancee was browsing Firefox add-ons today and she discovered this very cool parental controls add-on for Firefox called Glubble. For anyone with a family-shared computer who uses Firefox (on any platform), Glubble will make browsing the net for the yungsters safe and sane. Seriously, this is an awesome thing for any family computing environment.

So, without further delay... check out GLUBBLE!

Cheers!
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13
Just for Fun / D&D 4th Edition Game System License Announced
« on: April 18, 2008, 12:42:36 pm »
Quote from: Slashdot Article
Wizards of the Coast has announced plans for a brand-new system license for the fourth edition of Dungeons and Dragons. As with the d20 STL for Third Edition, this is a royalty-free license that will allow third parties to publish products using the rules developed by WotC. The new system reference document will be made available early in June (just after the release of the new edition). That license only covers fantasy gaming, but a second license (the d20 GSL) will be released allowing for any type of gaming product to be developed. For analysis and follow-up on the announcement, the ENWorld boards have full details.


-- Entire quote taken straight from the Slashdot article.
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14
General Discussion / A Slice of Life
« on: February 26, 2008, 12:12:09 pm »
I've always thought of Layonara as a never ending movie where we the players get to puppeteer the stars, but what does puppeteer really mean? Well, I believe that when one plays a character, regardless of how much effort is put in, we are exhibiting characteristics of our own mind, personality and soul. There is so much depth to every single one of us that is often left completely undiscovered. Some people prefer to not explore themselves and so we only get to witness a sliver of their true self but the ones that do explore are often the ones that pour themselves into their RP and do so over the course of more than one character.

While we all tend to act differently in RL than our characters IG, even in RL we are playing the role of our real lives with real stakes at hand. This is why RL Always Comes First.

While Layonara is Just a Game there is none-the-less a bond that's seeded, nurtured and grown through the life we breathe into our characters. I like to think of this bond being represented by the 10 Soul Strands. When a character is first created, the bond is fresh, new and full. As we explore the world through the shoes of the character we're able to learn about ourselves in ways not available to RL. We are given the opportunity to explore the truth and consequences of our actions in a setting where when it really boils down to it, there's absolutely nothing to loose and everything to gain because it really is Just a Game.

As the strands wilt over time [be it short or long] we are all hit personally with that pang in the chest and burning of the heart. We are tangibly loosing a slice of that bond between our heart and our alternate self; the character. Having that bond broken by a permanent death will inevitably impact the RL self to some degree. Sometimes the break can be so extreme as to bring one to the point of rejecting the mere thought of allowing one's self to grow another bond. This is natural, we are only human and our hearts can bleed in more ways than one.

However, we must always remember that with each and every permanent death; a void is born in the world and a new chapter in the history of Layonara is waiting to be opened. Regardless of how big or small the chapter is, there is a new slice of your self just waiting to be given the chance to see the first light of a new Layonaran day. Rejoice in the accomplishments of the past slices, learn from their mistakes... where there was an avenue blocked from your exploration due to alignment or other RP restrictions, perhaps now that avenue can be explored through a new slice of life in Layonara.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with maintaining the characteristics of a past slice in the new personality. In fact, I'd highly encourage it. Take the best aspects of every character you've ever played and imbue them into a new one. Inevitably this will cause a new mix of experiences which bring out new traits you'd never even thought of before.

Now, don't get me wrong, I'm speaking for myself and I'm not trying to hype Layonara up or push anyone to continue playing when they in fact do not wish to do so. All that I want to do with this posting is to share with you all how I feel about the inherent impermanence within the realm of Layonara. It forces us to come to terms with emotional transitions in-game that mimic similar emotional cycles and transitions found in real life but in such a way that allows us to adapt [and / or harden] ourselves to the realities of real life in a positive and relatively risk-free environment. I've always loved D&D of old for this and in our modern day D&D has given way to learning opportunities on a massive scale with the advent of multiplayer RP games.

Hoping this made sense to someone out there,
OneST8

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Just for Fun / The D&D Designers Answer Your Questions
« on: February 19, 2008, 12:15:09 pm »
Check out this Slashdot article for the questions [submitted by slashdot readers] and the answers [from the D&D designers].
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16
Just for Fun / NASA - Total Lunar Eclipse
« on: February 16, 2008, 10:59:24 pm »
Quote
"On Wednesday evening, February 20th, the full Moon over the Americas will turn a delightful shade of red and possibly turquoise, too. It's a total lunar eclipse—the last one until Dec. 2010."

Read the full NASA - Total Lunar Eclipse article for more info.

To everyone who has the time and a camera, let's try and take pictures to post in our gallery for the non-Americas people to see as they're sort-of left out of the full experience.

:)

Edit: minor corrections to last paragraph.
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General Discussion / Strike Text Out!
« on: December 30, 2007, 10:40:09 pm »
This isn't anything special, just a quick fix for a missing BB Code tag. As you can plainly see, [strike]this text[/strike] has been crossed-out. To start crossing out your own text, see our forum's vB code page.

Enjoy!

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Layonara Server / IMPORTANT: Forums/LORE/IRC/E-Mail Server Migration
« on: March 27, 2007, 09:59:39 am »
I'm pleased to announce that our new hardware will arrive sometime today and be installed at the Montreal data center (along with OS, KVM extension, reboot ports and etc) within 24hrs.

The new hardware consists of three new high-end machines for the explicit and dedicated purpose of handling the next three years of the Layonara Studios web presence. Even with the recent RAM upgrade to the current server, the overall load is rather intense and the hardware is constantly under moderate to heavy load due to the sheer amount of services being run on the single box.

One of these new machines will be dedicated as a webserver for both LORE and the Forums, another will be fore the databases and the third will be for IRC, E-Mail and such.

The migration process to this new setup will not be a short one and will most likely take about 2-3 weeks to fully implement, test and roll-out to the general public / Layonara community. During that time, the current site will continue to run as-is and no actual downtime is forseen though we must always keep in mind that Murphy's Law has a tendancy to interject some commentary on that topic.

For the curious, the machine specs are all roughly as follows:

CPU|P4 3.4 Ghz (Dual Core)
RAM|4Gb
Drive|160 Gb SATA
NIC|Gigabit Ethernet


At some point when we're actually switching over to the new hardware there will be a high potential for downtime due to DNS changes and general propagation issues though every effort will be made for this to be as seamless a process as possible. Again, Murphy's Law will most likely apply.

So far, we're looking at the following order of migratory events:
[LIST=1]
  • IRC Services
  • E-Mail & Webmail
  • Database(s)
  • LORE
  • Forums


Please note that when all is said-and-done, we're intending for all LORE features to resume 100% functionality at that time.

Thank you all for your patience and understanding in this matter.
-OneST8

PS: This thread will be updated with all significant stages and events of notable progress (and/or setbacks as the case my be).
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19
Introduce Yourself / Greetings from the Machine...
« on: March 18, 2007, 02:39:15 pm »
Hello folks!

For those of you who don't know me, I figured I may as well follow the nifty trend of introductions.

My real name is Kevin C. Krinke and my nickname is OneST8 (which is read as "One State" and is not OneSTB, not that I really care that people have a tendancy to misspell my nickname; just stating it here for clarification purposes).

So what do I do here at Layonara and why aren't I publicly active within this community? Well... there's a lot that I cannot talk about for whatever reasons but there's a bunch I can talk about so lets focus on those goodies.

Firstly, I'm the one footing the bill for the server which is hosting the new forums as well as the aging LORE site. I'm also responsible for starting up the official Layonara IRC services as well as maintaining the Layonara email services. While Layonara does not compensate me for these services; I am more than happy to provide them to this wonderful community of zany people who are enjoying the world I've helped to foster. A HUGE thanks must go out to our webhosting partner Netelligent located in Montreal Canada who has graciously set us up with a bandwidth package catered to our community needs.

Secondly, I'm the creator and general mastermind behind the LORE site itself, so let's talk a bit about what LORE really is "under the hood". LORE is a wiki engine that I wrote almost from scratch using Perl, Apache, and a slew of Perl libraries. The actual wiki engine is a fork and virtually a complete re-write of the CGI::Wiki Perl library that I've named it YAWT which stands for Yet Another Wiki Thing. One of the major features of YAWT is it's insane plugin capabilities. This plugin system has enabled me to write all of the nifty parts of LORE that everyone seems to be totally hooked on. For instance, the Bird Messaging, Character Pages, Deity Relations, Parchement Folders and so forth. Most of those features were written 100% by me with help from the venerable orth when it came to the NwN integration and database optimizations.

One major shortcomming of LORE is it's speed and performance. LORE itself was never really intended to run as a straight CGI application like it is, but rather it was designed for a mod_perl environment however I've never gotten around to implementing the actual support for mod_perl. You could say that greater priorities have taken over since LORE was made and sadly I'm in maintenance mode with it. For the curious, LORE will at some point in the next few weeks be fully functional again but with the added load of these wonderful new forums it's been a little trying to get all the different services to play nice with eachother.

One thing to note is that this server is still considered "unstable" until we get all these bugs and quirks ironed out. At which point we should see the months and months of uptime that LORE previously exhibited even though it's more sluggish than a slug at times.

Ok, so a lot of what I do here is all about programming for Layonara Studios... which seems kinda strange to some... "why does he not play anymore???" some may ask... well... let's look into my history with Layonara and what's brought me to where I'm at right now.

I started playing the character Elrond Anwamane with my friend and resident room-mate orth back when he started the absurdly popular cleric Plenarius Ashaley (yes, I'm allowed to poke fun at him while everyone else should show some respect hehe). Now, "Elrond" was created prior to the copyright rules being put in place and the name Elrond Anwamane is actually my middle and last name put through an elvish name generator so it's not like I'd just grabbed the Tolkien character's name out of uber-fanboy-ness. I'm really just lazy and so when pressed for a name, I used a program to give me one.

So, I played Elrond for a while, was part of the Red Caps when they first started up and at the time I coaxed my now ex-wife into playing in Layonara with orth and I. This proved to be a heartwrenchingly bad idea as hindsight shows me because only a few short months later my life fell apart with separation resulting in a full divorce. I won't go into the nasty details but suffice it to say; the in-game world of Layonara became polluted for me and I no longer had the mental strength to endure the memories made within the world. At this point I knew I would return someday as Layonara is just that incredible of a world but I also knew I needed time to heal and so believe it or not; I stipulated a part of my separation and divorce agreement that my ex-wife voluntarily leave the world of Layonara permenantly of her own free will and to her credit that's what she did. She made a nice post thanking everyone for the fun times and left the world.

During this time off I began to rediscover myself while rebuilding my life and my sanity. In this process I figured out something very important about myself. I don't like playing video games. I like programming them more than playing them. Yep. I'm crazy. I absolutely LOVE programming more than playing. With this renewed steam under my wings I eventually returned to Leanthar and basically flat out stated that I'll probably not play or GM within Layonara but instead wanted to code for the world exclusively. Now, I'm not certain that Leanthar had taken me seriously at the time and so that's when I dove right into developing LORE and within a month an a half I had the core engine created and fully functional and within the next five weeks LORE as we know it was implemented. At this point I believe Leanthar actually got the picture regarding my talents and my obsession with programming. This then brought me fully into the Layonara fold and the position I now hold within this organization. For this, I am grateful as Layonara has been a major driving factor for the happiness within my life.

If happiness is knowing what you want and wanting what you have, my role in Layonara has made me absolutely happy regardless of the ups and downs.

Ok, so you now know more of my history and background with respect to Layonara... what about me as a person? Well, some things worth mentioning are ...

I love to write poetry. For me, English is just as fun to program as Perl, Python, PHP, C, C++ etc etc and so by extension, Poetry has become a major outlet for my creativity and emotion. I've even been published in a few vanity-press type poetry books that were the direct result of wining a contest or two. I've always wanted to do some stand-up poetry recitals but have not found the time nor and interesting enough venue to do so. In time I'm sure I'll cross that of my "list of things to do before I perm-a-die" but for now I'm content to just write my poems and publish them on my personal wiki site which you can find here:



I'd like to draw everyone's attention to three poems I've written and while you can find them on my wiki, you won't find the background leading up to my writing those poems in there. Rather, I'm going to make this long post that much longer by elaborating a little about each of them.

The first, and most sacred to me is "Perceptions of Life". I'm not a religious person by any means though I have done my fair share of reading up on various religions from the Christian and Catholic to Taoism and Hinduism, from Islam to Bhuddism and other psuedo religions like the twisted Scientology. Each of the religions of Earth are interesting in their own right but I'm forced to take them all with a grain of salt as each has it's own pros and cons. While struggling to bridge the gap in my mind between science and faith I became inspired one night and under a full moon while meditating in my backyard I wrote the following poem in hopes of making sense of it all.

Quote
Perceptions of Life

Life is a state of energetic vibration.
Vibration is the resonance of being.
Being is the basis for thought.
Thought is a pattern of energy.
Energy is the ability to effect change.
Change is the nature of growth.
Growth is the essence of experience.
Experience is a memory of existence.
Existence is the perception of life.


While that poem does not touch upon the concept of a higher being who's sometimes referred to as "the creator" or what not, my answer to that is a simple acronym for the word GOD.

Quote
GOD

Grand
Omnipotent
Design


Now, jumping away from the ever-so-hotly-debated topic of religion and science... let's look at the other two poems I mentioned above.

The first I will bring up is one that I wrote because of someone else who inspired me to look for my soulmate. While her and I no longer communicate, I am truly grateful for all the time we shared together and it was on one of our camping trips that this poem was written.

Quote
Happiness

Happiness is the silent breaking of dawn,
When the moon recedes and darkness is gone.
Happiness is a flowing wisp of her hair,
When it catches a ray of the golden sun's glare.

Happiness is a long conversation with depth,
When the coffee is warm and words steal your breath.
Happiness is a sweet moment that's drawn,
When it takes some time yet does not feel long.

Happiness is that connection of eyes,
When the clouds break and open the skies.
Happiness is the smooth voice on your ear,
When the words spoken ring true and clear.

Happiness is sharing the depths of the mind,
When the emotion is strong yet pleasantly kind.
Happiness is excitement enthralled,
When the world seems to have slowly stalled.

Happiness is found in every glorious day,
When nothing can take nature's beauty away.
Happiness is the silent breaking of dawn,
When the moon recedes and darkness is gone.


Now, the structure and general format of that poem is rather strict and stems from a previous poem I wrote called Sadness. In fact, Happiness is my answer to the heart-wrentching emotion I poured into Sadness.

Shortly after separating from my ex-wife, there were a few deaths in the family starting with my Godfather's. He was a good man, a "man's man" if you will. Such a rock solid and invariably honest fellow. I truly cherish every memory I have with him. He had passed away suddenly one night from a heart attack. All I can say is that he led a long life, was able to know his grand children and his passing was a quick and relatively painless one. For that I am greatful.

The next death in the family was the one that inspired Sadness within me. It was my own Father's passing. I'd found out only a few months before that he had advanced limphoma cancer and that it had spread throughout his body. There was little hope but he started the treatements and so forth. Witnessing his slow and brutal decline while I myself was going through my own personal depression was intense to say the least. Two weeks before his passing, I had to let out all the pain somehow and so I poured my heart into some words and the following poem is the result. Literally, these are the words that came out of me on the first try... I didn't even know what I was doing until the poem had been written out and lay there in front of me. I ended up finding the courage to read that poem during his funeral service. Surprisingly, the congregation truly did appreciate the words even though I'd ripped a hole in everyone's heart that was listening.

For those with a weak heart, please stop reading. You have been fore-warned.

Quote
Sadness

Sadness is when you know someone dear will die,
When you can see it in their face and in their eye.
Sadness is when you can see their pride obstruct,
When you can see that they're about to self-destruct.

Sadness is when you can see the frailty of their day,
When you can see it in their actions; in every way.
Sadness is when you know their every step is in pain,
When you can see that there is no way they can remain.

Sadness is when too many emotions become dumbfounded,
When you yourself feel the weights of life compounded.
Sadness is when you have a defined lack of choice,
When you can hear death creeping though someone's voice.

Sadness is when you know in a few moments they'll fail,
When you know this person's soul will soon set sail.
Sadness is when they deny their own mortality,
When you know there will be one more fatality.

Sadness is when you see their remaining time cut short,
When you know the treatments are of the horrible sort.
Sadness is when you know someone dear will die,
When you can see it in their face and in their eye.


For those that have made it this far in my introduction turned mini auto-biography. I appreciate it and sincerely thank you for your time.

I hope all this helps you to somehow understand me better.

Sincerely,
One State of my mind,
One State of mankind.

PS: If people think this is too depressing of a posting, I'll remove the Sadness section. Just let me know and I'll edit it out.
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