The new website:

Over the past few weeks I have been hard at work getting our updated site ready for the masses. Sadly the progress has been hampered by the ammount of new features introduced by Invision in this so called "Minor" Update. These new features sadly broke quiet a few of our add-ons and thus I am relying on the add-on makers to get things compatible with the new version. With the add-ons out of my hands I have focused mainly on the new theme. And as the website developers among us will know debugging CSS is a P.I.T.A. Because of this it is taking longer then I had hoped to get things looking decent. However you can see a sneak peek of the new theme above this post.

The old website:

Of course the work on the new website does not mean I wont be working on the old one. In reality its actually quiet the opposite. With the add-ons broken on the new site it is actually easier to test and implement them on the old site. This saves me a lot of work when the updated version become available as I can just upgrade them without any side effects (I hope). This week I have introduced two new things.

The first is the new front page layout. The new look makes our site feel a little more flashy and a little less "Texty". This same layout will be used on the new website so get used to it

A bigger change is the addition of the new Steam profile integration. The integration can be found in your profile under the "Steam Profile" tab:

When no profile is linked it will show a guide on how to link one. In short, edit your profile and fill in the Steam ID field, click save when done:

Your profile should now look similar to this:

Congrats, you have now added your steam profile to the website.

Whats coming next:

One of the bigger things I am working on are forms, all tho they sound boring they allow us (CM's and Admins) to create predefined forms that can be used to submit a range of templated information. Expect things like the admin white list requests and the ban disputes to be converted to a website form for easier use. Another thing that will come with the new website is a better reputation system, it is now called the reactions system. It allows for more responses then just the positive and negative reputation. Sadly this new reactions system also broke our prestige system, meaning a new way to keep track of our members activity will have to be developed. The CM's are working hard on this and I am sure the new system will be communicated with the rest of you in due time.

Hello Everyone!

After a time of exactly soon(tm), the moderator rank is now live on both Teamspeak and the forums!

The list of moderators (still the same as in the announcement meeting report):

1. Benji/Winters
2. Andyt90
3. Forked
4. Zenthar
5. Rezonath
6. Servok
7. BigT
8. TimberHawk
9. Chuck Yeager
10. Anden3
11. Vados

Hope to see you on the battlefield

Your friendly neighbourhood staff team.

As you can all see the new website has gone live. The past weeks I have been hard at work squashing bugs and finding new ways to implement old features. Sadly not all of them made it to the new site, more on that later in this post. I would like to thank @V1rU5 for helping me find these bugs and getting them squashed, it was very helpful to have a second pair of eyes

The update:

As it stands the new theme is ready to be used, however the new features have not been fully implemented. Things like our server list and the new tags system still require some work and will follow soon. Over the course of the weekend I will be making some more changes to the theme updating things like the staff page. Should you find something you consider a bug please let me know in the website suggestion section of the forums.

Promotions & Tags:

With this update we have said goodbye to the old promotion system. Due to changes in the core of our website we can no longer use the reputation system, now called reactions system, to hand out prestige. A new plan to deal with promotions is being worked as several ideas are being looked at. Possibilities such as using an application based promotion system, or the time a person has spend on teamspeak are being looked at. Expect news on a final plan soon(™). The tag images being used to identify someones roles have also been lost during the upgrade. The plugin used for that was to broken to be ported. Fear not, the new tags system is close to being finished.

Sneak peak:

Like the last time I am going to leave a little sneak peak. This time the new tags system that is being worked on. This image shows the new Medic tags:

While the image below shows the new tag holder page. Note that the name list will probably change as I am not happy with it yet.

As it's the season of "giving" and "goodwill"; we're hosting a raffle for all members of the community to get their hands on some arma swag.

Check out this thread for info :

The 1st FK Merch Giveaway winners have been announced!

Winners of the Lanyard & Luggage Tag :

• @Shoxe
• @UniDigit
• @IceCream
• @Silver Snow
• @Major_Third

Winners of the Altis Map, Lanyard and Luggage Tag :

• @Philkill90 
• @Krieg 

Winners of the Altis & Tanoa Maps, Lanyard and Luggage Tags :

• @AntiMatter 
• @anden3

Congratulations to all of you! I will be PM'ing you over the coming week to arrange shipping details and wil get these prizes sent out to you as soon as I can.

*Proof of RNJesus*

From all of us at the Admin and Moderator team we would like to wish everyone a very Merry and Happy Christmas

Say hello to Luigi, a robot who our very own @Brelf helped create, and who has now been selected to represent Europe in a world championship! 

So here's Brelf to talk a bit about it!

Quote

Five other students from my school and I have, at the start of the school year, formed a team to compete in the FIRST Tech Challenge (FTC). The goal is to create a robot that can complete many different tasks on a playing field. The more, the merrier, because for each task completed our team scores points. Every match consists of two parts: a 30 seconds autonomous period, where we initialize a program and cannot drive the robot ourselves, and a 2 minute driving period, where we use two controllers to drive the robot around the field.

For the past seven months we have been working hard to create a robot, our estimated count of hours lying above 80 per person already. We build from scratch, so the hardware and software is completely configured by our own hands. Halfway December we received a message from the American FTC organization: we had been chosen to represent Europe in the World Championships. We could not be any prouder. So, in late April we and two other teams from Europe are flying to Detroit, USA, to compete against 144 other teams from all over the world.

I attached a few pictures of our robot, which we named Lazy Uninformed Information Guidance Intelligence, or for short: LUIGI. (Someone came up with the name and it stuck). It uses a phone to communicate with the controllers and scan pictures, a colour sensor on a short arm, and a lifting system to stack blocks. It’s a lot of work, but it pays off whenever we win another match. The whole process has been an amazing experience already. Our robot is doing incredibly well in all the scrimmages (unofficial matches) we’ve competed in so far, and we are super excited for the World Championships in America.

If you would like to help support this team in their path to the world championships, drop @Brelf a message on the forums!

This is the April Fools meeting report! For the actual report go here.

"Коммунизм это лучшая жизнь для человека, а лучшая жизнь это материальные и духовные блага для человека. Поэтому только лишь лучшую жизнь, то что мы, коммунисты, называем коммунистическим обществом, мы можем трудом своим создать. Так давайте, товарищи, всё сделаем, чтобы сегодняшнее наше хорошо... чтобы завтрашнее ещё было лучше. Чтобы верным шагом, уверенной поступью двигаться самим, вести за собой товарищей. Чтобы вся Партия, весь народ под руководством нашей Партии, под знаменем Ленина уверенно двигались в строительстве коммунизма, к победе коммунизма!"

НОВОЕ КОММЬЮНИТИ - НОВЫЕ ЦЕЛИ / NEW COMMUNITY - NEW GOALS

Мы рады сообщить, что после долгих поисков, команда Коммьюнити менеджеров нашла способ сократить наши операционные расходы, а также улучшить производительность наших игровых серверов. Мы получили предожение от компании в России (которую мы не можем пока что назвать) разместить наши игровые сервера в их дата центре без дополнительных оплат за аренду серверной стойки. Мы получим более быстрое интернет-соединение и лучшую производительность. Нам придется платить только за техническую поддержку серверов, что положительно скажется на требуемую сумму пожертвований.

Однако, это также означает что Русский язык теперь становится вторым оффициальным языком коммьюнити, так как наш спонсор ожидает, что это позволит привлечь игроков из СНГ и повысить популярность нашего коммьюнити. В связи с этим вскоре мы откроем курсы Русского языка для всех текущих членов сообщества. Также все отчеты о собрании коммьюнити-менеджров будут доступны на обоих языках. Ожидайте, что через пару дней форум изменится, поскольку мы изменим искусство на то, что было согласовано с российской компанией.

We are pleased to announce that after a long search, the Community Management Team has found a way to reduce our operating costs, as well as improve the performance of our gaming servers. We received an offer from a company in Russia (we are not at liberty to disclose their name as of yet) to place our gaming servers in their data centre without additional fees for renting the server. We will get a faster Internet connection and better performance. We still will have to pay for the technical support of servers,  but it will positively affect the required amount of donations.

However, it also means that the Russian language is now becoming the second official language of the community, as our sponsor expects that this will attract players from the CIS and increase the popularity of our community. In this regard, we will soon start giving Russian language courses for all current members of the community. Also, all meeting reports will now be available in both languages. Expect the forum to look a bit different in a couple of days as we change the art to something agreed upon with the Russian company.

ИЗМЕНЕНИЯ В КОМАНДНОМ СОСТАВЕ / STAFF ROLES

Чтобы обеспечить единообразие стила в сообществе, названия ролей персонала будут изменены. Роль Коммьюнити-менеджера теперь будут называться «Генеральный секретарь», а модератора - «Комиссар». Мы также обновим иконки на форуме и TS, чтобы отразить эти изменения. Новые названия никак не скажутся на рабочем процессе, привилегии и обязанности персонала останутся те же.

To make sure the style is consistent, we will be changing the staff role names. Community managers will from now on be called "General Secretaries" and Moderators will be called "Commissars". We will also be changing the art on TS and the forums to reflect these changes. There will be no changes to the way we operate; we will still carry out the same tasks.

ИЗМЕНЕНИЕ СИСТЕМЫ КАРМЫ / DOWNVOTE BUTTON

Мы рады сообщить что мы возвращаем возможность минусовать сообщения других пользователей. Участники сообщества давно просили нас об этом и мы думаем что время для этого наконец настало. Минусование будет работать также как и остальная система кармы, никаких дополнительных действий не потребуется.

We are happy to announce the return of the Downvote Button! People have asked a long time for it to return, and we thought the investment was the opportune time to reintroduce it. It will work just like the rest of the reaction system; there is no special button.

МИССИИ / ARMA MISSIONS

Как  часть соглашения с нашим спонсором, все миссии теперь будут теперь ориентированы на оперирование войсками Российской Федерации / стран СНГ. Миссии войск стран НАТО будут разрешены только после обсуждения с коммьюнити-менеджерами. Также мы внесем некоторые изменения в список наших модов, чтобы облегчить эту задачу, но как мы упоминали ранее, все изменения списка модов будут сделаны после выхода обновления "Tanks DLC".

As part of the agreement, from now on every regular mission will be required to be played on the Russian side. NATO missions will require permission from CM team. We also will be making a couple of changes to the modset to accommodate this, but as mentioned in the previous meeting report, those will wait until after the Tanks DLC.

НОВАЯ СУВЕНИРНАЯ ПРОДУКЦИЯ / NEW MERCH

Чтобы отметить грядущие изменения, мы запускаем новую линейку сувенирной продукции от FK. Весь старый товар скоро исчезнет из магазина, чтобы освободить место для новых вещей. Поэтому убедитесь, что вы купили что-то из текущих товаров, потому что их больше не появится в продаже! Шапки-ушанки, стилизованные костюмы Adidas с тремя полосками и автоматы Калашникова. Также на данный момент комманда коммьюнити-менеджеров вместе с нашим спонсором ведет переговоры о создании своего бренда водки!

To mark the coming changes, we are launching a new line of merch from FK. All the old goods will soon disappear from the store to make room for new things. So make sure that you bought something from the current goods because those will no longer be available! FK Ushanka-hats, stylized FK three-stripe Adidas jumpsuits, and FK Kalashnikov assault rifles. Also at the moment, the CM team together with our sponsor are negotiating to create its own brand of vodka! Stay tuned!

ИЗМЕНЕНИЯ В СИСТЕМЕ БАНОВ / BAN SYSTEM CHANGES

В связи с возросшим количество жалоб на нарушения правил все баны становятся перманентными. Только лучшие из лучших достойны находится в нашем сообществе и мы не будем больше терпеть сознательное нарушение правил. Обжалование бана теперь будет возможно только после прохождения курса психологической коррекции в одном из учреждений ФСБ РФ, находящимся в центральной части Сибири. 

Due to an increased number of complaints about violations of rules, all bans become permanent. Only the best of the best is worthy of being in our community, and we will no longer tolerate a conscious violation of the rules. Appealing the ban will only be possible after passing a course of psychological correction in one of the institutions of the Federal Security Service of Russia, located in central Syberia.

Мы надеемся что вам все понравится в новом и улучшенном FK!
СЛАВА РОССИИ!

We hope you will all enjoy your time in the new and improved FK!
GLORY TO MOTHER RUSSIA!

Hello all, I thought it was about time to sit down and update the costs for the FK servers/licenses currently, and let you know a bit about the work I've been doing since taking over from @Mavy. Since taking over from him I've been looking at our current costs (as they have not been updated in 2+ years even after changes in infrastructure) with the Tech team and how to cut some costs, some of which I've already done, and others I still have yet to do. So, let me recap on our changes before I get into the current costings.

FK 2 has been replaced

Something I noticed as soon as I looked at our current FK infrastructure is that FK 2, our 'carbon copy' of the ARMA box we use for FK 1, is used perhaps 1% of the time, and was just as expensive as FK 1 to run, clocking in at just over €40 a month. A bit steep, right? Thus last month we didn't renew that box and instead refreshed FK 2 with a virtual server hosted on our lovely Aux server hosted by @kMaNand @Garfield0003 (This also hosts FK ARMA 2/3/4/5, FTP Server, ARMA Admin/ARA Stuff, DCS Server, sometimes Minecraft). This effectively reduces required donations by over 40 euro a month as we are already paying for the FK Aux box. 

FK Website

As you may remember, the FK website was running quite slowly 6+ months ago, down to a mix of our provider and generally the FK website framework not being super robust. Before he left, Mavy moved us to a new cloud-based solution which sped up page loading a good amount, however he left shortly after this migration and didn't see the increase in costs caused by this migration, to costing over €100 a month in hosting the website, and associated logging/certificate management/DNS management. This is usually offset by the generous donations we receive, but it is still a large amount of money monthly and something I don't particularly enjoy paying for. Since removing FK 2, cutting this cost is my next task. Short term I will be looking to decrease the amount of resources allocated by this provider to reduce costs, and potentially long term looking at switching provider. 

Website Modules

Due to them not being particularly used, I have stopped paying for two website licenses; Videobox and Steam Profiles. This doesn't actually change much as the website will still feature these functions, however they won't be featured in any places and some of the Twitch functionality has been removed as it didn't really work anyway. If any website updates break these further (no license = no support/updates), they will be removed completely.

Anyway, after those updates, let's move on to the current costs. 

Updated Costs

Thus the new donations total will be €293, for ease (€0.11 buys me a beer in like, a year right?). I completely admit that this increased goal is a lot to do with the website hosting, so it will be rectified as soon as I have time to figure it out.

Updating the donations page

One of the points in passing from Mavy when he left was his plan to merge all the donations goals back into a singular goal for ease, and I agree with his intentions. This will make donations much easier to manage in the future, ensure costs are distributed evenly between FK 'services', and I will continue to ensure that costs are passed to kMaN and Garfield to pay for the Aux server (as they are kind enough to host that for us). 

To conclude...

That was a lot to take in! I'm glad you stuck around to read all this boring stuff. As always, my DMs are open for you to slide into if you'd like to discuss any of this, or reach me on Discord.

Everyone who donates to FK has my eternal gratitude for continuing to host a community I'm proud to be a part of.

Hello all, I thought it was about time to sit down and update the costs for the FK servers/licenses currently, and let you know a bit about the work kMaN has been doing since taking over from @mrrbatty. Since taking over from him, kMaN has been working on reducing our current costs (our donation goal was downsized from €300 to €150/month a while back after changes in infrastructure). Working with the Tech team and have consolidated our resources to cut some costs. So, let's recap on our changes before I get into the current costings:

FK 1 & Aux Box

We used to have FK1 running on a separate server with the FK Aux box running virtual servers for all our other resources FK2/3/4/5, Teamspeak, Website, Foundry, etc. We have stopped the payment for that box and the old AUX server and instead switched to a more powerful server to run all our servers from one box and moved all the resources onto the new server, the cost of the new server was not that much more than we were paying for the Aux box on its own. This work was started and finished in the latter half of 2022, because the priority was reducing the cost of the website.

FK Website

The FK website has undergone a lot of changes to make it more stable, along with updating it to the latest software versions. Before he left, Mavy moved us to a new cloud-based solution which sped up page loading a good amount, however he left shortly after this migration and didn't see the increase in costs caused by this migration, which was well over €100 a month just for the website. Mrbatty was attempting to get it moved to cheaper hosting but could not complete this due to lack of time IRL, so upon handing the reigns over to @kMaN, he and @L00_Cyph3r have done some excellent work in moving the website to cheaper hosting, saving us a lot on the monthly costs. This project was the priority and was started in early 2022.

Website Modules

The TeamSpeak module on the website was unfortunately a victim of the recent updates, because the author hasn't updated the module in several years. This module allowed users to input their TeamSpeak UUID so that tags from the website could integrate over to Teamspeak. At this time, updating or adding the UUID to a user's profile will need to be done manually by a CM or Tech.

Teamspeak

The original TeamSpeak license was owned and hosted by Mavy. As the free licenses are no longer being offered by Teamspeak and transferring the license from Mavy was not an option, we had to get a new yearly license when creating the new TeamSpeak server.

Anyway, after those updates, let's move on to the current costs.

Thus the new donations total is €150

To conclude…

That was a lot to take in! I'm glad you stuck around to read all this boring stuff. As always, if you'd like to discuss any of this, reach out to kMaN on Discord.

Everyone who donates to FK has the eternal gratitude of the FK Staff for continuing to host a community we are proud to be a part of. All donations are welcome, if you wish to donate, please visit our donation page, https://www.fkgaming.eu/donate/

Special thanks to @L00_Cyph3r for handling the majority of the server, website migration and cutting FK costs by 50%.

After failing several times, one time to PC failure, to organize and create this post, I'd like to thank @LurkerOne for finally taking his time to put this together. Something I should have done months......okay, okay.....a year ago.

Hello all, Since we changed to a new server, I thought to give an update on what our costs are going forward.

FKZero & FK Luna

The server we had up until August 2023 (FK Zero) was a high-powered box that was not being fully utilised and so as a cost-cutting measure we have move to a cheaper box (FK Luna) that still gives us plenty of headroom to run our FK Arma servers along with our Game of the month and similar games such as SCP & Minecraft, etc

Website & Website Modules

It was believed that the TeamSpeak module on the website was no longer accessible since we updated to a more recent version of Invision software (the software the runs our website) because the author hasn't updated the module in several years. Our tech found a way to continue using this function that was hidden in the settings and so updated everyone's profile to add this functionality back in.

We are in the process of migrating away from the current website and forums and welcome any and all feedback to what we might have on the new website, please use the following form to give your opinion

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScxKA5aAv56ug9_KAIkFhcg396KYwPOLW8v8zcv0ZyujKgG1Q/viewform

2024 Costs

Thus the new donations total is €135 a month

To conclude…

We have reduced our monthly costs somewhat, which takes some of the pressure off our remaining funds but as always all donations are welcome.

Everyone who donates to FK has the eternal gratitude of the FK Staff for continuing to host a community we are proud to be a part of. If you wish to donate, please visit our donation page, https://www.fkgaming.eu/donate/