Tuesday, July 30, 2013

TORParse's Future

Hey everyone, I'm happy to let you know that a new home for the TORParse project has been found! So, please continue to use the website and client as you've always done and, in time, I'm sure you will see the client and website grow in new ways as the new developers bring a fresh view to the project.

Thank you to everyone that contacted me. Honestly, at first, I attempted to contact everyone back, but the response was quite overwhelming, so I became a bit selective in my responses. My apologies to you if you didn't receive a response from me, but I meant nothing personal by it and I definitely appreciated all the interest.

So, moving forward, over the next couple weeks, I will be working with the new developers to transition the website and server for the ingame client over to their server. We will attempt to minimize downtime as much as possible, but please be forewarned that there may be some minor downtime as a result of switching the DNS to the new server.

We have decided to take this opportunity to clean up and optimize the database for the site that stores all of the combat logs. We have not finalized the details of this yet, but will likely remove most of the older combat logs from the site. This will help rid the database of PTS and faked logs and also help reduce server costs to keep the service free for everyone.

And, lastly, I will hold off on introducing the new developers and let them introduce themselves when they deem most appropriate, likely sometime after the transfer has occurred. Just know that the project is going into competent hands and this transition will be good for everyone. The new developers were also kind enough to let me remain on the team; however, I will take a backseat to them and mostly function in the role of creative consultant and part-time coder.

Thanks again everyone, it's been a lot of fun.

James

Thursday, July 18, 2013

Update to TORParse status

Hey everyone, I want to provide you guys with a small update and let you know what's going on.

First and foremost, TORParse won't actually be going anywhere! There has been a lot of interest from a lot of different people in continuing the project, and I appreciate everyone that has contacted me. If you have not yet received a response from me, I apologize for the long response time and will reply when I can (it may take me a few days). So that everyone is aware, no deals with anyone have been made yet, but I'm confident that one will be made.

There is a possibility that transitioning the site will go past the original date I had specified of 27 July, but I will continue to manage the site until the transition takes place as to minimize downtime as much as possible.

Lastly, there has been a lot of interest in making the code for the site and parser open source. While it is something I seriously thought about doing, I have decided that the code for the project will not be open-sourced. This is subject to change later and whoever takes over the project may change this decision if they wish.

I'll post another update when I have some more information.

Thanks,
James

Wednesday, July 10, 2013

End of Service Announcement

Hey everybody, I've got some bad news today. I've been struggling with this decision for a few months now, but have made a decision to end the TORParse project effective 27 July 2013.

I've had a lot of fun developing this project and working with the community the last year and a half, but have ultimately made the decision to end this project due to a couple reasons. The most important reason is I do not play SWTOR anymore. While I still have an active subscription to the game, I haven't actually played the game in several months, and even more so, haven't played any high level content that this website is based around in over half a year. It is extremely difficult to stay motivated to work on a project that I no longer have any passion to develop. I'll keep my opinions on the game to myself, but wish the developers and players of the game all the best; maybe one day I will return.

Secondly, there has been a lot of change in my personal life that has limited the amount of free time I have to work on this project. This has always been a hobby for me and continues to be. Unfortunately, this is not actually my job, even though some days it feels like it is. There are so many things that need to be worked on between the website and ingame client that the project has just become too time consuming. I think I've done a good job at prioritizing thus far, but due to my lack of free time the past few months, it has become ever increasingly difficult to even work on the simple things.

So, with that, I want to thank everyone that has used the website since it launched on the 8th of April, 2012. Your support with words of encouragement, feature requests, and from some, monetary donations has been incredible. It goes without saying that the website and client would not have seen as much success as it has without a great community behind it driving its development.

Lastly, I will consider only serious offers to transition the project to another development team. I would love to see this project last beyond just my own involvement. If you're experienced and interested, please contact me at james@torparse.com. If there is no interest in transitioning the project, the website and ingame client will go down as planned on 27 July 2013.

Respectfully,
James

P.S. Some might be interested to know that over the project's lifespan (as of 9 July 2013), an approximate 623,747 people have visited the website and combined have spent 106,557 hours browsing (a little over 12 years). Since the ingame client's launch (22 April 2013), the ingame client has serviced over 20,000 unique users with an average of 1,000 being connected at any given time. The website currently hosts over 330,000 combat logs totaling nearly 600GB of combat log data!