News Archive        

8-18-01 News Update: Posted by Kailef

Our Dynamic IP hosting company (No-ip.com, who hosts and redirects sanctumbbs.com for us) seems to be having some trouble as of mid afternoon yesterday.  SanctumBBS.com's IP is not resolving properly, and as of 1:00 AM Pacific time, we're still not working.  However, if you're not able to connect to SanctumBBS.com, just connect to the backup DNS, which is SanctumBBS.darktech.org.  I tested it out before making this web update, and it's working just fine.  The only problem is I doubt many of you guys will think to check the web page for status updates.  Oh well.

8-17-01 News Update: Posted by Kailef

The BBS should have it's new fiber internet connection by the middle of next month, according to a higher-up at our ISP!  In other news, Peregrin has won the second round of BRE!  The game will be reset tonight and we'll start play on the new game this Monday.  We're still having a little trouble getting the external Alien Manager to work in TradeWars, but we should have it sorted out soon.

8-9-01 News Update: Posted by Kailef

It's been a little bit since the last webpage update, but we've certainly been active on the BBS!  We've just finished our first complete BRE game, and it was a blast.  It's been reset, and the new game will start tomorrow.  We've also added and registered Falcon's Eye to the Games area, which has also become quite active.  Also, the DragonBall Z MUD that we host is making good progress.  If you are interested in having us host your MUD, drop us an email!

7-18-01 News Update: Posted by Kailef

Status update:  We've been waylaid by Time/Warner in getting the fiber internet connection for the BBS, unfortunately - It'll be available for us in about two months.  ::growl::  That's the bad news.  On the good side, BRE has become quite lively!  It looks like Arcadia is going to come out on top so far, but we'll wait a few more days and see what happens.

For anyone who'd like to take advantage of this - I've opened Sanctum's POP server up for normal traffic.  If you choose not to have your mail forwarded to your netmail address, you can use Sanctum's POP server as a "normal" email account.  The POP and SMTP server addresses are both mail.sanctumbbs.com, and the login and password are the same as your BBS password.  Therefore you can send and receive mail in Outlook/Outlook Express, Netscape Messaging, Eudora, etc.  Don't abuse it too much (IE, large file attachments) until we get the fiber line, tho - It'll stress the poor ISDN modem too much and will likely slow down the BBS performance and the performance of our hosted sites.

7-18-01 News Update: Posted by Kailef

Just a quick update today - We've gotten Barren Realms Elite registered.  This adds a few new features, the most notable of which are investments and variable interest rates at the bank.

7-16-01 News Update: Posted by Kailef

We've begun hosting an ambitious MUD project on Sanctum II BBS's main server.  It is a modified Smaug codebase formed around the DragonBall Z universe.  There's still a lot of building to be done, so it's not available at all times, and it's not complete yet - But we're looking forward to seeing how it turns out.  Right now, access to it through the BBS is restricted to the admins and coders.  Sanctum BBS isn't directly involved in it's development, however;  you can check out the website at  DragonBall Z MUD for news and updates from the MUD staff, plus a link to the MUD.

7-15-01 News Update: Posted by Kailef

NOTICE: Okay, my ISP wins a few points.  They called and woke me up at 8:15 AM to tell me that they'd located the problem and fixed it, and apologized for the inconvenience.  It was a problem with their DNS server, as I suspected.  They said they'd been having a few intermittent problems with it lately, too - Which explains Trillistar's reports of the BBS sometimes connecting but seeming to "hang" without letting him get to the log-on screen:  It was simply trying to resolve the DNS name of the IP of the user who was calling, and failing.  In any event, everyone should be able to connect again, and all services are up and running.

7-15-01 News Update: Posted by Kailef

NOTICE: Sanctum II BBS's ISP has had some sort of large scale failure this morning.  The DNS server is gone completely, and while I can path to a few websites by using the DNS server at 4.2.2.1, most places I try to reach time out, including unfortunately No-IP.com, which is Sanctum's Dynamic Hostname provider.  It's 1:38 AM Pacific time, so my calls to my ISP's data center have fallen on the deaf ears of an answering machine.  Hopefully somebody over there will figure out there's a problem and get it fixed tomorrow morning, otherwise the BBS will be offline until they do.  At least I've got the web page hosted off-site.  Stay tuned for further updates.  Note that with the BBS down, the mail server is down as well - You'll be able to reach me only at the BBS emergency mail address, Kailef@viod.net.  We'll have a fiber cable ISP by the end of this month and we won't have to worry about any of this nonsense anymore.  I'm getting impatient.....

7-9-01 News Update: Posted by Kailef

"Barren Realms Elite" has been added to the games area!  BRE is a more advanced (and currently supported!) game which is very similar in function to Space Empire Elite which was added on the 4th of this month.  It turns out that Space Empire Elite is impossible to register these days as the author has dropped the project and we haven't been able to locate him.  It turns out OK in the end though, because Barren Realms Elite is a nicely polished, more advanced version of Space Empire Elite.  We'll let the current SEE game draw to a close, and leave BRE up in it's place.  Remember, if there are any door games you'd like to see, let us know!

7-6-01 News Update: Posted by Kailef

There was a power failure sometime in the late AM that forced the BBS offline.  While the power was returned a few hours later, the board didn't come back up until about 5:20 PM pacific time, because the ISDN router had lost it's configuration from being without power for too long.  Everything seems to be back up and running now.  Thanks to Trillistar for emailing me and letting me know about it.  Remember, if the board seems to be down and you can't connect with the 'sanctumbbs.com' DNS name, try the backup DNS which is 'sanctumbbs.darktech.org'.  If that doesn't work (it wouldn't have this time, obviously) drop Kailef an email at the emergency contact email address listed at the top of the page, and I'll get right on it.

7-4-01 News Update: Posted by Kailef

"Space Empire Elite" has been added to the games area!  This is a personal favorite of mine...  I used to play every day for about three years straight.  While it didn't run on the original Sanctum BBS, it was on an Atari ST BBS also based in the Palm Springs area.  The game is fully functional, but unregistered - If anyone has any idea how to contact the author to get a registration key, let me know - He doesn't seem to be at his former address and hasn't (as far as I can tell) been listed in any of the common Internet white pages.

6-30-01 News Update: Posted by Kailef

We resolved the TradeWars registration issue - All we really needed to do was remove the old copy of the game and reinstall it.  It apparently didn't like being drag-copied over to the new server.  Other good news - DoorMUD version 0.96c is now online!  Apparently there are numerous balance changes, new items, new skills, and 150 more rooms to explore.  Have fun!

A few of our users have reported having a lot more intermittent lag than usual.  If anyone experiences this, send me an email explain the symptoms to me.  

6-28-01 News Update: Posted by Kailef

The new dedicated BBS server is up!  Very late on Wednesday night (and early on Thursday morning for that matter) all of the BBS and door info was moved and it went online with only the slightest of hitches.  The only problem we're having is that TradeWars refuses to believe that it's registered anymore, but that should be sorted out soon.  The telnet and web addresses have not changed, of course.  Note - The cable internet connection still isn't here - We are still serving over ISDN.  You still ought to see faster, more stable performance, though, which will only improve when the cable connection is installed.

6-24-01 News Update: Posted by Kailef

Smaug has been taken offline, likely on a permanent basis.  Most of you haven't been using it anyhow, so it shouldn't have too much of an affect.  After using it for a while, myself and a number of my active users came to the rather obvious conclusion that over half the commands supposed to be in the MUD weren't implemented at all.  Fear not, though - Once the BBS is moved to the new server, we'll be running Mordor instead. 

6-22-01 News Update: Posted by Kailef

Server update:  It looks like the new high speed line will be available to order by the end of July.  It may take a few days for the line to be installed after I order them, though.   I've got the new server (Oddly enough, another 1 GHZ Athlon) arriving tomorrow morning - I'll have it set up and ready to go as soon as the line is in.  I don't anticipate more than maybe four hours of down time for the move to the new server.

6-17-01 News Update: Posted by Kailef

Sanctum II BBS is getting a new server!  Sanctum II currently runs on my primary workstation, a 1 GHZ Athlon based PC.   While this was fine when we were just running the BBS itself, with the addition of the TradeWars and Smaug MUD game servers, as well as locally hosting this web page, the FTP server and the POP server, my computer is starting to become unhappy.  This move won't happen until the new Cable internet connection is ready, which will be before the end of July.

In other news, Sanctum II BBS plans to host a NeverWinter Nights server as soon as it becomes available!  Once running, the server will be located at nwn.SanctumBBS.com and nwnights.org.  Any persons interested in developing scenarios should contact me!  I will announce when the server arrives both here and on the login screen on the BBS.

6-15-01 News Update: Posted by Kailef

We’ve added a new mud, Smaug, to the Games menu under External Programs.  It’s a quite a bit more complex than DoorMUD, and it’s definitely harder to play.  More geared towards an experienced mudder.   Have a look at it and see what you think!

TradeWars 2002 Gold has also arrived!  Right now we've got a single universe, 'Andromeda', configured.  Email requests for new universes or customizations to Kailef!