forums

(If you're curious to see the progression of events, check out the first news item on this matter.)

Okay here's another update on what's going on. The bots2.net domain did in fact expire. Apparently the notices had been going to an inactive email account. The good news though is that floR's registrar keeps expired domain names for a 30 day grace period, which means it can be recovered. I don't have an exact timeframe, but floR hopes it will be back up within the next few days. The issue, I believe, is that it takes some time for a new domain name to propagate (around 24-48 hours). I do not know for sure if floR has initiated that process at this time.

So what can you do in the meantime? You can still access blue via the IP address of the server. The number CAPTCHAs (enter the 3 numbers to continue...) might not load properly initially, but just keep refreshing and eventually they will. Green, on the other hand, is currently inaccessible. The IP address of the green server leads to the server-neutral page. There has been some speculation that knowing the location of green's login page on the server's file system would allow players temporary access. floR has been notified of this and I will update this post with that info if I get it. There has also been some talk of accessing the green server through port 82. This works, but it only accesses a snapshot of the game's state of December 2003. You can make new bots or play old ones you had back then and it's neat to see what everything was like. Go and have fun, but just be aware that this is not the real Bots and your progress there won't count in the real Bots. Lastly, ma has found that you can get into green by making a new bot. You basically rely on the system to forward you to the game once you've created the bot. Once on, you won't be able to get back on that same bot if you logout for the same reason you can't login to existing green bots. Personally, I couldn't get this to work, but others have.

And as for the lottery, I've delayed the drawing for last week's tickets until next weekend. All the tickets that you collected last week will still count towards this drawing. So next weekend's drawing (the midnight between the 9th and the 10th) will have two weeks worth of tickets in it.

So the bots2.net domain is not lost, Bots is not shutting down, your bots are not lost, floR is aware of the problem, etc. And unless you live in southern Asia (India, for instance), the cut underseas cables is most likely unrelated. Just be patient and within a few days, hopefully everything will be back to normal.

Update (Feb 3, 8:24 pm EST): Bots is back!

Yay first comment! Phew thought that it was my internet connection that was stuffing up and that's why bots2 wasn't working for me. Lucky its a Bots2 downtime. Hope floR fixes this problem as soon as possible. At least he's doing something at the moment towards this game. School starts tomorrow for me NOO! End of my fun Summer Holidays. :)

Bots is back!

I can confirm that we are now in that 24-48 hour period I mentioned. Depending on where you live, Bots may or may not be available at this time. It works for me (eastern US).

In UK everything works just fine, so i guess in whole europe should be fine now :>

thx for givin BOTS back to us floR :]

I live in Australia and Bots2 is working fine! 10 people online at the moment LOL!

<i>ANNOUNCEMENT The last few days, there have been severe problems with the domain registrar, which caused the game to be unavailable. These problems should now be fixed. Sorry for the invonvenience.</i>

I still wonder if the cause of it wasn't just floR who didn't pay the bill for the domain ;)

<i>I still wonder if the cause of it wasn't just floR who didn't pay the bill for the domain ;)</i>

He claims he never got the renewal notifications. But even so, since he's prone to forget, he should just have it auto-renewed of course. But yeah.

4 days downtime. I wonder how many players that cost the gane -_- Anyway, thanks for keeping us all informed, Ender.

Is Bots down again?? There's no way I can login, neither can other I've spoken with

Has anyone noticed that since the servers went down the blue server is lagging a bit more than normal dose anyone know why?