As you've probably noticed if you've tried to browse the forums at all over the past month or so, Smash Boards has been tremendously slow for the past while. You may have noticed pages taking an inordinate amount of time to load, servers not responding, and other such inconveniences when trying to browse SWF. Thanks to the dedicated help of a number of people, we've been able to resolve the issues that were contributing to our server overload and do believe that we're ready to handle all the traffic that will be coming its way over the next weeks and months. We may yet see some additional upgrades and tweaks, but we've been moving quickly over the past couple days and plan on remaining stable through the long haul.
Based on what we found, it seems that SWF's servers were being subject to a coordinated attack from a number of (very possibly compromised) computers. In brief, this was the main reason that the server had so much trouble keeping up during peak times, as these extra connections really strained the database and caused it to keep falling behind. We've taken steps to block the offending machines and optimized some code on the server to help cope with additional traffic. These changes thus far have been very successful, and we do not expect any additional problems keeping the servers up and running. At this point, it would appear that the main cause of our excessive slowdowns was this group of computers, rather than underpowered servers.
We know that many of you have been disappointed that SWF has seen so much downtime, and we apologize to all of our users. In particular, a number of premium members missed out on some of the perks of their membership while the site was having trouble. We'd like to try to make it up to all of you, and help gear everyone up for Brawl's release. Consider it a "thank you" for sticking it through during the past few months.
Next weekend (February 9-10), SWF will be entirely ad-free for all of our members. We're also adding three months to all premium memberships that are currently active or have expired since January 1. On top of that, through next weekend only, new premium memberships will also come with a three month extension. If you've been eyeing a premium membership, now is definitely the time to join. (SIde note: if for some reason you should be eligible for the three month extension and haven't gotten it added to your account, send me a PM and I'll make sure it gets added.)
Relatedly, we will be introducing a slew of new avatars shortly, and we also plan on launching our Friend Finder for testing soon--truthfully, it'll be a dead simple way of finding people to add to your Brawl Friend Roster. In addition, keep an eye on the Brawl rooms, as things will be changing over there in these weeks preceding Brawl's North American launch. And you can rest assured that the #1 competitive Smash resource will help fuel the Brawl tournament scene and push it in brand new directions in the years to come.
Thanks for reading.
The Smash World Forums Team
Based on what we found, it seems that SWF's servers were being subject to a coordinated attack from a number of (very possibly compromised) computers. In brief, this was the main reason that the server had so much trouble keeping up during peak times, as these extra connections really strained the database and caused it to keep falling behind. We've taken steps to block the offending machines and optimized some code on the server to help cope with additional traffic. These changes thus far have been very successful, and we do not expect any additional problems keeping the servers up and running. At this point, it would appear that the main cause of our excessive slowdowns was this group of computers, rather than underpowered servers.
We know that many of you have been disappointed that SWF has seen so much downtime, and we apologize to all of our users. In particular, a number of premium members missed out on some of the perks of their membership while the site was having trouble. We'd like to try to make it up to all of you, and help gear everyone up for Brawl's release. Consider it a "thank you" for sticking it through during the past few months.
Next weekend (February 9-10), SWF will be entirely ad-free for all of our members. We're also adding three months to all premium memberships that are currently active or have expired since January 1. On top of that, through next weekend only, new premium memberships will also come with a three month extension. If you've been eyeing a premium membership, now is definitely the time to join. (SIde note: if for some reason you should be eligible for the three month extension and haven't gotten it added to your account, send me a PM and I'll make sure it gets added.)
Relatedly, we will be introducing a slew of new avatars shortly, and we also plan on launching our Friend Finder for testing soon--truthfully, it'll be a dead simple way of finding people to add to your Brawl Friend Roster. In addition, keep an eye on the Brawl rooms, as things will be changing over there in these weeks preceding Brawl's North American launch. And you can rest assured that the #1 competitive Smash resource will help fuel the Brawl tournament scene and push it in brand new directions in the years to come.
Thanks for reading.
The Smash World Forums Team