5 days till the full release of TF2.
Zach could you have this ready please?
We know your the busiest cat here but it would be awesome!

Thanks
Dos

Hope you have Direct access to your box and feel like setting it up yourself cuz thats the only way you will see it at release...

I would follow Gearbone's advice as there's already MAJOR game releases that are out and yet to be added that people are waiting on, ie....Quake Wars, which was always spoken of by Kevin and Logan as a high priority.

FWIW, setting up ET:QW and TF2 without Cortex isn't a big deal at all (although this was our 1st Steam endeavor). There are already a couple server admin apps out there to fill in the void in that area.

This all assumes none of that ranked BF fal-dee-ral, of course.

Here is a link to a good set of instructions for setting up a Source Dedicated Server.
http://www.srcds.com/?knowledge


Can we have it done with a support ticket on a ranked box?

Im Linux and im ranked, thats why im begging...

Rut ro...


Ya I know, I already have QW servers running just figured some arent aware that the I365 they joined, isnt the same anymore, instead its IDIY.

I already put in a ticket. I have gotten a, the Devs should be working on it but Im not for sure. And was left for them or him to answer. And no reply after 2 days.



This should be gravey to add.

All,

I honestly wish I had access to the interface and program and knew my way around Cortex DEV to do it myself. I know that you guys want the updates and mods and all the new games that hit the market to be added ASAP. I really want to see you guys getting what you want too. But right now, its my understanding that we are taking the requests in via tickets and then queueing those up for Cortex DEV to work on. It's also my understanding that Cortex DEV has been spending a lot of time trying to focus on security updates, patches and taking care of the hard down customers first before getting to work on these adds - this is the only thing that I know of that is keeping your adds from being done or completed within Cortex.

The big thing, as for as expectations go, is to know that we are not ignoring your requests and that instead of it taking 24 hours or less, its taking days. We know that is completely unacceptable as your clans and gaming community need these updates yesterday. We are doing what we can to take care of each of you and do appreciate your continued patience while we work through all of your tickets.

Kind regards,
PD2

You do a great job trying to schmooze things over Paul and some input from an official at TP does help, and I dont want to speak for every I365 customer, but never did think they were ignoring requests, just in limbo it seems and way understaffed. When Kevin and Logan left abruptly, something didnt seem right, but we all plugged on, now with MAJOR releases and updates going days and weeks without showing up, it just seems I365 / Cortex is not in TP's plans anymore.

How could anyone run a professional GSP dependent on Cortex here anymore? I run our box's for personal clan use only, so just go with the flow and do what I have to, but if we needed a ranked version of QW we would be screwed here and forced to rent a server from another provider, when were already spending $500 a month here, that wouldnt go over to well or make much sense and TP will be losing many customers now and into the future with all this ranked bs these games are coming up with.

I have never been a TP basher and have always had great support and sales service here, just stating some facts and a little of my own disappointment in the downslide of the I365 i signed up for.

Thanks for sticking your neck out and replying PD2

Gorrdy pretty much said anything that I wanted to say, and did it very nicely (Good Job Gorrdy).

Please focus on getting TF2 ready for release day.

Gorrdy,

Thanks for your reply. I definitely don't take that post as bashing, just the continued cry for help in this area that I am trying to get you the right answers on. I have escalated these concerns as well as several others in this area to the VP over Cortex DEV asking for his input and help on these items. Should I get some direction that I can share with you, I will definitely share it so as not to leave you guys in the dark here. But at this time, yes, unforunately, as you have pointed out Gorrdy, things are not where we want them to be to properly serve you and all of our customer's needs and requirements and I know, one way or another, we will be correcting that to insure that you do not continue to experience this level of service or lack there of.

UniSoL,

I will definitely pass along the message to the team that you guys are counting on them to get this up and running for release day. We will do our best with what we have to make that happen.

Kind regards,
PD2

All,

Here was an update from Zach in Cortex DEV that I figured would be beneficial to all, even though it was directly related to one person's ticket:

Medal of Honor: Airborne is going to be released into Cortex first, followed by ETQW and TF2 (not necessarily that order, maybe a simultaneous release).

I'm not going to give any ETA at this time, but please keep an eye out for news through Cortex

I've been working with management and upper management to get a strong support team assembled for Cortex, in the meantime I appreciate your patience with things.
_________________________________________________

I know its not much, but at least we have something that has been discussed in regards to releases and support.

Regards,
PD2

That is promising news and somewhat releiving.

Hmmmmmmmmmm Sounds just like my ticket. Thanks again Zack and PD2!!

sounds just like my ticket too.

sigh.

Better to hear something rather than nothing.

Kudos to you Paul for putting up with our rather constant banter and noise makers. I don't find easy to even read some of them, and I am not at the recieving end of those per say 'warheads'.

Up until recently my biggest problem was the silence, yes the silence from TP in this forum. Threads were going up as normal but there was no communication here. To outsiders that may seem odd but to us involved in gaming forums are what keep us connected and in the know. We expect that TP would realize and take advantage of these forums.

Your posts and attention to the situations developing in here are reassuring, because all we had before was silence.

Please encourage Zach and those that work around him. We aren't leaving and still appreciate TP's service.

Texas TeamPlayers is still here as well.

But we're already having to outsource our ArmA, TF2, and likely a QuakeWars server to other companies......we can't do this forever. We don't want multiple logins, multiple ftp's, multiple files and management and messiness. We want one host, one login, one focus.

We want to buy a new, double dual core server, likely another opteron like we currently have, to run our quake wars and 2 new BF2/2142 ranked servers.

But we're not doing so until quake wars is in the engines list.

And TF2 comes out TOMORROW. These are game releases......what's to happen when it's simple things like patches? Are we going to have to wait on those as well? Days? Weeks? Longer?

TP needs to stop playing around, rehire whatever staff they need, and get the cortex department up and running. It's ridiculous for a company as large and as organized as The Planet to totally neglect a major aspect of their business.

And I say major, becuase it's part of their sales pages, website, and support system. Webservers, and dedicated game servers.

Please, cortex........please wake up.

You have a good point on patches. If MAJOR releases cant be added on time. Just wait till we here.
I'm not going to give any ETA at this time, but please keep an eye out for news through Cortex. For a patch.

And yes Silence kills. As you see one person that we know of has headed to the big H company. I must admit I have looked them over myself. I want the good old TP I joined back.
Like when did you have to start asking in a ticket for a game to be added to Cortex? Will you have to ask to be patched as well? lol

Ppl try to tell others that want to start a GSP to have a good business plan. Right here on these forums. Isnt keeping your customers happy and uptodate not a part of that?!?

I also agree Big Dog that TP should staff the Cortex section with how ever many techs are needed.
Just what ever happened to common sense....

When they found out the amount of revenue they brought in for the gaming section does not even produce enough revenue to justify 1 Cortex developer they won't hire anymore. Not stating opinion either.

So more or less your saying. That TP's business plan is flawed and is going down with Cortex all together then.. And anyone that is here and still using Cortex is just wasting their time and money. More or less.

This part is just my opinion but I don't see them hiring Zach help anytime soon so don't wait and hope that games and patches will be added. The poor guy has his hands full as it is just handling support which leaves little time for adding new stuff.

Another opinion, I don't think they should rent out anymore Insomnia boxes since they can't support/develop them properly as it is.

Well ppl that came to TP for their gaming needs/wants are not paying 200,400,500,600 and more dollars a month to feel sorry for the Cortex Dev team. Thats not trying to be cold towards Zach at all either, but Im pretty sure is a fact. TP needs to make adjustments so they can give him help. And soon. Thats my opinion.

then where did you get that information?

other than making sure my boxes stay powered....what exactly does the cortex team have to do with their clients? Only at patch and engine time do they have anything to do, other than maintenance. We haven't put in a "help me" ticket in.....years.

I refuse to believe they can't make money on a box. the initial capital investment is the only cost. After that, the entire cost of parts is paid for in barely a 3-4 months. And that assumes all the parts are new.

Doc...you talk like you know what's going on IN the planet. How is that?

Ask the right people the right questions and you will find out more than enough.

I don't think that the box is what we are paying for, like you said, they pretty much are paid for in a short time.

But instead, I think what we are paying for is premium bandwidth, a uncapped pipe of very low latency bandwidth.

If The Planet is not going to continue with Cortex development, I would hope that they set up the ranked boxes with some type of Remote Desktop access. Other GSPs do that, and I would guess they accomplish this by giving the customer a user account that is restricted from the BF2/2142 folders.

I dont think any of that has a chance here. They cant keep up with what is in place now, much less change everything over. They had to show EA that no one could get to the ranked files to be able to offer EA's ranked games. If they change that, they break the agreement. They would have to prove they can make sure we couldnt get to the ranked files again and reinstall OS on all the machines we paid for to have a ranked install.

If they cant release a game in a timely manner all that isnt going to happen.
I dont think there is even a Cortex Tech at the data center.
Thats why all the tickets are copy and paste answers with regards to adding games to Cortex.

All,

I know and understand your frustration with having so many game releases coming and feeling like you are being left in the dark. I'm really trying to get as much information to you as possible with regard to releases as well as patches and issues related to patches. Am I the one that handles all of this and has any control over this? No, but as an employee of this company its still something that I do empathize with all of you and try to reachout and help you our customers as well as my fellow team members. You would not believe how many times I have asked to get in and help Zach and Cortex DEV in any way I can. From what I'm gathering, supplying you with the info you are looking for is my contribution, be it small or insignificant.

As to your concerns about game releases, patches and general support, from what I understand, its a prioritization situation. What does that mean? Basically, things get prioritized in Cortex DEV and support via the following priority list:

1) Hard Down customers - customers that have servers that are not responding, not up or even accessible.
2) Security patches, updates and the like - if a server is compromised via Cortex, then patching it is priority.
3) Other Customer Support Related issues - these could range from customers who have ranked servers not acting right to engines not installing the game correctly to all sorts of other support related issues.
4) Game Patches and Updates - This would be for any supported game already installed into Cortex, including Cortex updates itself
5) New Releases of Games - Any new major releases or new games that would be on the install list for Cortex and The Planet support.

So, as Doc pointed out, you can quickly see how missing a major release of a new game might fall off the release day and time, if we have some other priorities hitting our plate before the release priority. It's not that the major releases and updates are not important to us - we know its what your users/gamers want and ask you for from the time they first hear a rumor about a new release till the release actually is released (even if its not GA yet!). Right now, today, we cannot give any ETA's or guarantees of release dates, but we do promise to continue to work and strive to get the release out as quickly as possible within our priorities and abilities.

And just to make sure we level set here, there are times that Cortex DEV could be working on a release, update, or even a patch and get hung up due to the fact that something is not working correctly. Just in the little bit I have been getting more into the gaming side I have noticed that a packed file can really screw up a deployment and cause us to start all over again. So its bad to assume that its just as easy as downloading a file, unpacking, testing, pushing to production and going.

Again, we do understand and we are listening. You are our customers and we value your business, time, and efforts. We will improve and get back to where you want us to be and where we know we can be.

Kind regards,
PD2

In my opinion, being a insomnia customer for a few years now, they are really making some bad decisions. Dissolving the domain name and burying it under TP own website for one, was just insane. I had a friend that was interested in buying a server and the domain wasn't usable and wasn't even linked to the correct webpage. Sorry, but if things were like that a few years ago I would have never bought a server. He ended up getting a server and in my opinion their only new customers could only possibly come from refferals from people like myself since a great thing like insomnia is being buried by TP for some reason.

I have had nothing but great service over my years. I am currently running a TF2 server off my box, but thats through RDP. I know my friend though, is waiting on TF2 to be added through cortex. And who is this Zach fellow, what happened to klaude?

Also what ever happened to cortex v2?

http://www.bjorn3d.com/read_pf.php?cID=944

This was written nearly a year ago, Have the entirely abandoned it? I know they released the new orbit and quickly rolled it back to the previous version because the new one was entirely unusable and poorly designed. But cortex v2 looks really nice. Hopefully they haven't just given up on it...

PD2, completely understand that the current tech has to take care of the items you listed.

The problem is, items 1-3 WILL NEVER go away with 1 person. Meaning he/she will more than likely NEVER get to 4-5 in a timely manner.

Even when Klaude was around towards the end it was the same copy/paste answers.

My team found a new provider so we are outta here end of this month. Been with TP for awhile now. If its a money issue, then they should look into charging a few extra bucks to be able to have the staff. Id happily pay an extra $15-20 bucks a month to have the cortex panel actually DO what I want it to and have the new games/updates in a timely manner.

Folks, its been a pleasure.

Well thats 2 ( that said anything before leaving), they will drop like flies now........
Of course youll just lose the ranked box installs. Other than all the time to make our BF2/2142 servers popular and the extra memory I had to buy. I dont guess a change would hurt to bad. But gesss I dont want to do that! Probably help TP right out of Cortex all together. Then they wont have to pay anyone to work on these problems with everyone else left with RDT.

Hell, Kevin worked his ass off and answered the forums. Look at his post count compared to these other ppl now. They probably all mean well. But nothing is happening.

All the games that are in Cortex are getting older and older. I havnt had to put in any tickets for stuff on my box in a while. What could all these other priorties be? As far as tickets. Point their ass to the manual if its stupid questions.

Damn im swatting at flies with a 2x4. lol

This is why i started this thread with 5 days to release, i was hoping that a week was enough time to get this into cortex.
Im glad we are getting responses though for TP atleast. This seems that the problem is not going to go away with new games coming out.

In Zachs defense though, the first month or two he was on the ball and anything i needed was done in a fast manner, i can tell he is overwhelmed now as he has not posted at all, get the kid some help for christ sakes.

For the money we pay this is unacceptable.
Every other gaming host is up to date.
Maybe its time to move also.

Nov 16th is Crysis release, should i start a thread about that now, is that enough time?

then you know nothing, and/or are not being helpful.

name names, and say what you know, or don't say anything at all. Everyone can speculate. But if you're on a first name basis with Mr. X who said that Mr. Y is going to do Z......and you expect us to believe that.....you gotta pony up some info.

I do feel for Zach, I am sure he is working his tail off. It is a shame that management cannot or will not justify adding more people to help with Cortex. But I guess when the main developer of Cortex and then the main support person leave, it is difficult to fill their shoes. But still Cortex is a good product for a clan to use on their server. With no help in sight for Zach, it will continue to slide and then it will tumble.

TTP is also on it's way out, if TF2, Quake Wars, and Arma are not loaded and playable in a timely manner.

And since billing cycles for us are on the 1st of the month, that's our own internal deadline, since Cortex won't give any definitive deadlines/ETA's of their own (how you can run a business like that......beyond me).

We've got enough cash on hand to rent small boxes from planet competitors, just to see how their systems work.

We find the right one, that has the games The Planet does not have yes.......and boom, there goes $900 a month client. Hell, might as well make it $1200, since we will be leaving now with the intention of adding more servers to the group. We had to do this to accomadate a ranked Quake Wars box, since it won't fit on our current BF2/2142 ranked box.

Servers that could have been, and should have been bought here. But aren't.

Excuses are for friends. Maybe coworkers. This is business, PD2. We aren't friends, and we certainly aren't coworkers. We are paying you money to do items 1-5. Not 1 and 2, and sometimes 3, 4, and 5 when it's not "busy" around the office. If your managers and VP's aren't taking you seriously, then print out my post here, and forward it to them the next time you are having budget and resource meetings.

It's excuses that convince big ticket clients that The Planet is a risky investment, rather than a stable one, and that it's worth spending money on other hosts (competitors) for a better solution.

It's not about threats, or ultimatums, or "you better do this or else, cortex".....it's about things we want that we are not being given. Gamers want games. Games like quake wars, TF2, and ArmA.

Oh, by the way, TF2 will not be ready in Cortex for release day.

If we have to we will shop elsewhere for a server

Can i get a status update plz?

Bigdog and any others,

You are definitely right about that. And for that, I do totally apologize. What I have been doing here does you no justice for the business you supply to The Planet. In fact, in some ways I'm sorry that I did not say or guide all of you down this path sooner.

As a business, we have certain processes and procedures. One of which is our ticket system. So this morning I browsed all of the open Cortex DEV tickets and I have found only one TF2 request tickets in the entire queue that is still open (4298100PLNT). I looked at the ticket and it had no update as of this morning, where the originator of the ticket (looks to be Dosinator) was looking for any updates. I will be changing the priority of this ticket and escalating it to Cortex DEV as it appears that they are updating it (grant it, not every hour or 24 hours, but there have been updates).

My next recommendation to anyone else is that you too open a ticket in Orbit requesting TF2 be added to Cortex. The reality is that those that can help do not come here to the forums to see your posts. I see them and have tried to bring attention to them, but when they look at a ticket queue and only see one TF2 ticket open, they probably get concerned that I'm over escalating things based on people posting in a forum. In other words, it does us no justice to understand how many want/need this TF2 install if there are none to one tickets opened for one customer.

And actually this should go for any game request, update, patch, etc. If you don't have a ticket open, open one. If the ticket is lacking attention, post here and let us know and we will check into it and even assist in escalating it if necessary. It only stands to reason that we use the business systems and processes to properly handle these issues and request.

If you already have a ticket open and you have received slow to no response, let me know and then I can look into what can be done via our escalation procedures to see if we can get a quicker response.

Again, thank you for correcting me on the relationship here and bringing me back to what I really need to be doing in order to help all of you out! I really appreciate it!

Thank you!
PD2

Well I have never used the ticket system before to ask for engine addons. Looks like this is a new angle. Before posting here was usually more than enough, because "Cortex DEV" aka Zach Oldson, was already in the process of adding the new game.

I have taken your advice to hand Paul and posted up some tickets. If I read your post correctly, a spam load of tickets will actually be the convincing factor in whether or not a game gets added as an engine.

So here we go for starters:

4309296PLNT
4309304PLNT

I know I have a ticket asking for new games and 1 was TF2. Its just not in the subject line of the ticket. So there is more than 1 ticket about TF2. Also, once I seen not much was getting answered to the ticket with out the game title in the subject line, I started another ticket with TF2 in the subject line. It was closed the next day. Thats probably why you think theres only 1 ticket. But I asure you it is not.

Ticket submitted

4309926PLNT

You guys want me to go to a website like Gamespot and look at the release schedule of upcoming "big" titles and submitt tickets for them to be added to Cortex?

BF3 comes out in 2008.
COD4 comes out soon.
SOF3 comes out in November

It might be worth doing just that, a month, and a week in advance of the games release.

I would have never used a ticket for something like this because I really don't want to spam up the ticket queue with these kind of requests. I would like to believe the forum is good enough for that. But as it turns out, it seems that it is not.

I am going to file one soon for COD4, because you just reminded me. Thanks!

Guys,

I know and definitely understand. But as Bigdog and few others pointed out, Zach/Cortex DEV is so busy, as you can tell from their lack of posting here, that if you post your request here it never gets reviewed/heard by the correct people/area. So, in order to make sure that we are capturing those requests in a timely manner and getting it to the right people to have their eyes on it, its safer to open a ticket and insure that your request gets captured and responded to by the right people than it sit here in the forums unresponded to or responded to by someone like me who is far removed from the actual work that needs to be done and priorities that need to be set to get a game engine installed. As I stated in the other post, it does you, our customer, no justice, and of course increases the frustration level because there are no responses posted that helps anyone.

I wish we did not have to do this and that we still had Kevin and all the others around that we used to have. But this is a different time and we are trying to support our Gaming/Cortex Community as best we can today.

I hope you understand and should you have a ticket that is open/pending with no response for a longer than normal period of time, please feel free to post here or PM me and let me know and I'll check into things for you.

Best regards,
PD2

Well, in their defense, before Klaude (ok, fine, Kevin ) left, we had him hanging out in the forums posting and asking and replying and whatever. The guy had a feel for what was up without us telling him and I am guessing he was a true gamer as he seemed to know what was going on before it was going on in the gaming scene. At the most we had to wait till later in the day of release day for a release on a game, that is any game that I was looking forward to (I don't know about all of them.)

I just don't get how one would miss release of Quake Wars or TF2. Both these games have been hyped up so much.

Unfortunately those of us that can have to move on/away from Cortex if were staying, why? Its not only the issue of getting the game into it, but how long would we be down waiting for the patches to be applied?

Why? Cause our BF2 or 2142 servers are popular. Its hard to change ips on a server and get your regs over to the other server. And if your a clan/team you probably depend on donations. A big change can help or bring you down. I like my server and the ping is awsome to many ppl. 1 of my BF2 servers are like in the 70's in rank from game monitor. Its a busy and fun place.

It seems the problem is money for the Cortex techs to have a job. Seems some big wigs have a way to nice pay check. I mean, wasnt there others that could have been cut instead of Kevin for god sakes. He worked his ass off. And as Uni said. He knew about the gaming world usally before we did. He steped up here on the forums and in getting stuff added and or fixed fast as possible. Hell I know 1 person cant handle it all. We can see that. Thats what needs to be fixed. Im sure Zack is doing what he can, where ever he is. But thats just not cutting it. As we all can tell from the lack of 2 major releases being added.

Just stuck between a rock and a hard place posting here.

Yep, it's tuff to move for that one reason alone, your established servers. To get a BF2 server established so that you aren't spending more time looking at "Waiting for 6 players to join.." than playing takes alot of time and commitment, and it's all back to square one with new IP addresses.

..but, they say pulling a band aid off slowly hurts worse then just yanking it off.

Anyways, here's to Zach pulling a miracle out of his ass. We don't want to move either.

I didnt tell anyone to move and have no plans on moving myself at this point, what I said was, I'm done depending on Cortex, getting the games you guys want into it is only HALF the battle, what about all the patches that come out often on new games? You will be right back here posting, "its been X days and my servers are still down from needing the patch"

Your DAMN right we will. Because we have to untill they say its over.

So by god TP, PLEASE fix the support of the gaming side of your company!!!

We love our servers and just feel like there should be a way of fixing all this. With out shutting down.