Announcements

Tonight we’re joined by Jonathan Tweet, one of two lead designers on the upcoming RPG 13th Age. Jon will be answering some questions and telling us a bit about the game later on in the show. In the meantime, you’ve still got 4 days to enter our RPG Stack Exchange contest! Also, don’t forget to nominate worthy folks of our Excellence In Innovation Award!

Topics 

Fancy Dice / Lucky Dice

There’s a great article up on Stargazer’s world about fancy dice, do we stray away from games with fancy dice? What about ones with odd shapes or pictures on the faces? This also brings up the topic of lucky dice, do you believe in them? Why or why not? Jon and I discuss our love for the d20!

Pathfinder Online Tech Demo Kickstarter

So, Goblinworks (Paizo’s MMO team) has put together a kickstarter for the Pathfinder Online MMO. This kickstarter is to fund a tech demo instead of the actual game itself, which seems a bit strange to some – including myself. Though Paizo is a reputable company and I’m sure all of the dollars toward this project are more than well pledged. Jon and I discuss candidly.

13th Age Role Playing Game

I mini-interview Jon about 13th Age and what it brings to the table, he’s very open and honest about the game and that’s refreshing. We discuss what it’s about, why it’s different, when will we see it and if they really did create it just to compete with 5e D&D aka “D&DNext”. Tune in to find out!

Tip Corner

Our tip tonight isn’t very OP specific but a good one none the less. Need advice on your game? Or have a tough rules question? Try hitting up RPG Stack exchange, while you’re at it you could win our contest and score 75$ worth of whatever gaming stuff you want! Got an OP specific issue, hit up our forums, the community there is amazingly helpful and we appreciate all of their hard work!

Twitter Question

@d20Monkey asks: Who is the most iconic wizard in D&D for you and why?

Miscellaneous Links

• 13th Age on Google+
• Jonathan Tweet on Google+
• Story Bricks

Listen to find out!

Music Credits | Intro: “Prelude” | Outro: “Stande Alone” | by LukHash |

Announcements

Winner for best ‘How I Got Into RPG’s’ contest is Tallyrand with his story of transformation from the uncool jock into the super-cool uber gamer. Here it is:

I was a jock in high school, so needless to say I was teased mercilessly by the ‘cool’ kids in the gaming club. That is until the GM of the local group made a bet that he could get the coolest girl in school (Gary Gygax was her uncle) to ask me out. He taught me the slang, helped me pick out some nerdy tee-shirts, and ran me through drill after drill of dungeon mastering until finally he let me DM The Temple of Elemental Evil the week before prom. When her character was the only one to survive the 1st room she fell for me and asked me right there at the table. I realized then then I was cool all along, I just needed to believe in myself.

Also be sure to check out our contest with RPG Stack Exchange, you could win 75$ of whatever gaming goodies you want!

Topics 

Obsidian Portal Excellence In Innovation Award

We’re looking for those doing cool stuff in the RPG tech space! We want to know who and what is innovating our industry! There are a lot of awards for best art, or best mechanics but we feel tech is kind of left out in the cold. Listen in as we explain how the award works and get to nominating who you think deserves the award!

D&D Next Class Design Goals

There’s been a slew of Legends & Lore articles posted on class design recently, and while they are making very broad statements about what each class’s goals they are very interesting. Great reads on the Rogue, Fighter, and Cleric so far. Do you agree with Micah and I? Perhaps not? Let us know in the comments!

Monstrous Character Flaws

Gnome Stew has a great article up on character flaws. We often focus on just how great and awesome our characters are, but what about their faults? Flaws are what make characters unique and depending on what system you play, may often be an overlooked part of character creation and development. Tune in and theorize with Micah and I and be sure to stop by Gnome Stew to check out the writeup.

Tip Corner

Add your off-the-cuff characters to your Obsidian Portal campaign as you’re playing. Keep your laptop open and just add them right there along with a quick description of who they are and a tag with their location. You’ll be glad you did later on when suddenly that character is the most important one

Twitter Question

@alanhstewart asks: what are good critical hit/fail type tables, products etc… looking for some hilarity.

Listen to find out!

Music Credits | Intro: “Prelude” | Outro: “Stande Alone” | by LukHash |

First off, feel free to tell us about the man behind the GM screen. What do you do aside from gaming? Alter Ego’s? As Betty White would say: are you on the twitters?

I’m a 30 year veteran of role-playing, living out of the Brunx, Melbourne Australia with my wife and two kids. Professionally I’m a graphic artist with a background in video game development. Personally I’m a Star Wars nut (of course), toy hoarder, comic aficionado, cult T.V. fan, movie buff, iced coffee connoisseur and all round good geek. Roleplaying has been a rewarding and dominating force in my life since a baby-sitter ran me through ‘Keep on the Borderlands’. You can check out my webfolio here.

Tell us about Star Wars: Rogue Traders in a nutshell.

Rogue Traders is a Star Wars D6 campaign. The crew members of The Traitor’s Gambit pit their abilities, wits, blasters and character points against the dangers of travel and trade on the outer rim… and beyond! Nearly five years in the making, it was born out of my love for the Star Wars fringe (hives of scum and villainy, bounty hunters and scoundrels) and the desire to run a game in which the players can really choose their destiny. It is Gungan, Midi-chlorian and Battledroid free…

You’ve put a lot of work into your wiki, and from what I gather – a boatload of custom artwork. How much time have you put into this stuff, and are you enjoying yourself?

I find working on my campaign very therapeutic; it’s kind of a hobby within a hobby (like knitting)… Like all GMs, I toil away on stories, characters, locations, house rules and background information and it’s satisfying to record all that where it’s accessible to the whole group. Whilst still a work in progress I hope to create a wiki that’s useful to anyone running a similar game and bigger plans to publish it in some sort of playable form… It’s a big commitment but I really enjoy the process. As for the art? That IS a blast(er). I’m a professional graphic artist but Rogue Traders has been an opportunity to have a bit of fun on the side, creating Star Wars inspired artwork.

 

Fun? Hell’s yeah! I always start a campaign by illustrating the PCs and designing character sheets, but I wanted to do more. With Rogue Trader’s massive ensemble cast, I thought it would also be useful for my players to put a face to names and hopefully create a deeper connection with them. Interestingly, the personalities and even bios of my NPCs often develop or change after I’ve finished their portraits. Then, as these amazing journals started rolling in, I thought ‘people might actually read this stuff’ and was inspired to start portraying the game sessions. I plan to have a unique illustration for every session (obviously I still have a ways to go).

I’ve seen via forums and wiki that you have some interesting ways to entice players to be active on OP. Tell us about them.

Well, I give most of the credit to my players… One of the reasons I started an OP campaign was to immortalise the (often ridiculously) detailed session notes many were keeping. I ask my group (collectively) to contribute one journal entry each session which importantly, is written in their character’s voice and from their unique perspective. I actually think that is key to why our log is such a fun read and, also surprisingly why the narrative is so clear. So far we have at least one journal entry for every session and I’m very proud of their contribution! For my part I offer a simple, tangible reward for any Journal or wiki entry, specifically a “Destiny Point“ (essentially a bonus dice) valid for one session only. When the players stepped up to the challenge, I in turn upped the ante, expanding the usefulness of the Destiny Point as both recognition of their amazing efforts and a further incentive to contribute… And so the journal entries increased!

 

I had a recent rant on the forums (which I have now included on our wiki here but I can summarise my tips for enticing player involvement (if my crew disagree after reading this I’ll let you know) Inspire by example. Be realistic and clear about your expectations. Be persistent and consistent about your reminders without being pushy. Be understanding and patient. Applaud their efforts, and foster friendly competition. Most importantly, offer a commensurate reward that will motivate them to participate AND build incentives into your site to encourage them to read it. A good example is that I have included basic Bios for all my NPCs and organisations; players who take the time to read through might find ways to better interact with them!

Speaking of your players, how long have you known them and how long has your group been together? How long has your game been going on and how often do you play?

Rogue Traders is a year old… The ‘group’ has been around for more than ten with a roster that has evolved over time, resulting in our current line-up; which I can honestly say is the best group I’ve ever gamed with! Xandoxan and Shortmeister have been my loyal companions from the beginning; Kanhead is on his second campaign and Bort enjoys his first tabletop experience ever (though our latest crewmen stepped in like veterans!). We treat our game night like a social sport, playing weekly, usually for 3-5 hours. It’s one of those rare groups of like minded friends where everyone is on the same path as a roleplayer, it makes for easy GMing and a lot of fun all round.

D6 Star Wars eh? Nice choice, what in particular draws you to this system aside from the obvious “Star Wars” tag? What are some of your other favorite systems?

I generally upgrade my game systems but after trying SWD20 and SWSaga (which should’ve been D&D 4E) there really is no substitute for WEGD6 when it comes to encapsulating the spirit of the Star Wars universe. Its writers and designers really ‘got’ Star Wars and it shows in the material. I always return to D&D (Basic through to 4E and sideways to Pathfinder) but my other baby is Deadlands; I’m a western junky and Deadlands is a genre faithful, visceral system, with plenty of meat in its fluff. Overall though I like variety, we tend to alternate systems and genres and it’s less about the system for me than it is the GM and how much they ‘get’ the setting.

I see you’ve gotten a lot of use out of the items tab, how does it help your game?

Primarily I use OP as a repository and focal point for campaign notes, house-rules and NPC profiles. Particularly for SWD6 which is a sourcebook paradise (and therefore a reference maze) it helps to consolidate rules and information that is spread out over multiple volumes. Whenever a player expresses interest in a new hydrospanner (or I come across an item I think might be handy in later adventures) I record it in the items tab for later reference. Likewise when a new item is purchased or found, I publish it for easy access in the heat of battle. The item tab (like the rest of OP) is a one stop reference point for information in my game.

That galaxy map is absolutely mind blowing, are you truly prepared for your players to zip around anywhere in that massive space? That seems like the GM equivalent of being a master ninja or something!

With Wookipedia and the SWD6 Fanbooks (one of the best SWD6 resources you’ll find) bookmarked on my Kindle Fire (and a pair of brass D6s) I’m ready for anything! Whilst that is true, basically I think I keep them too busy (and hopefully interested) to put a pin in the map and hit the spacelanes (until they read this that is!). The backdrop for Rogue Traders is a privately owned space station called ‘The Eye’. Acting as a base of operations this centre of trade has its own cast of characters and overlapping story arcs, some planned, others actually developing out of the player’s interests and actions.

 

Then there’s the missions; ‘simple’ cargo runs which inevitably become more complicated (hopefully fun) and infinitely more interesting! And the character’s background stories… Added to that I have no predetermined outcome for any of these events, the players tackle each challenge however they choose and their success or failure affects all the other events that follow or cross over with it. Who’s got time for a holiday?!

What would you say the single biggest highlight from the game has been so far?

DamienMaster: My favourite session was a Cohen brothers inspired, bloody farce (Sessions 28-31) which actually played out beyond my expectations. My ‘highlight’ however is reading the player’s Journals each week, particularly when players have differing opinions on events (and each other). I often laugh out loud reading through them and actually gain a lot of insight into where their character is at and what they want from the game. Let me throw to the crew though…

 

Bort: Meeting new and interesting people, locations, and planets, not knowing exactly what’s waiting for us there, realising it probably wants to kill us, but remaining determined to get my crew through. Eating like a Wookie is pretty boss too!

 

Xandoxan: The confrontation with the Banshee Crew (Sessions 25-27), some of us learned hubris, some of us were shot into unconsciousness.

 

Shortmeister: Finally getting my sweet revenge on a pair of filthy Ubese that insulted me. What fun it was as the mercenary gang reined blow upon blow upon their heads (Session 36).

 

Kanhead: The highlight for me has been the recurring interaction with memorable NPCs, from the manipulative Madame Khorash to the eccentric and enignmatic ‘witch’. We can always be sure that each week Damo has cooked up a challenging mission, in a unique environment and mixed in some of the fantastic NPC characters he has created. It has greatly helped to tie together the varied adventures of the crew from week to week.

Okay, before we get out of here, give us some of your best GM’ing pearls of wisdom.

Players: Work with your GM. Read the rules at least once. Concept first, then character. Even heroes run, surrender and back down. Be a min-maxer but not munchkin. Keep the GM fed and watered. Run a game at least once. Take risks with your character. GMs: Work with your player. Don’t be scared to use the Rules Lawyer. An NPC is NOT a PC. Push your players and their characters. Beat your players down but let them win in the end. Help your characters to be cool. If it will make the game more fun, say yes.

 

My personal gaming motto is “Take the game seriously but not yourself” but “Don’t be a jerk!“ is always good gaming advice…

What a great interview! Damien’s enthusiasm is infections, no? Well everybody, that’s it for this month. Tune in next month as we highlight another amazing campaign, and remember to nominate yourself and others if you think your game is CotM material!

A while back on Haste we told you guys about a great site we stumbled across called RPG Stack Exchange. We touched on it lightly and moved along, but today we’re back to give you an exclusive contest in partnership with them. The site has gotten quite a facelift since we last visited too, if you’re not already checking it out – you should be, because you could be wining 75$ worth of whatever gaming goodness you desire just for doing so!

Wait?! Win 75$ Worth of Whatever I Want!?

That’s the exact thing we want you to do for this contest actually! We just want you to go and check out the site. Here’s how to enter:

• Head on over to RPG Stack Exchange
• Browse around and find something you found interesting or helpful – be it a question, answer, comment, tag, or anything else.
• Leave us a comment below along with a link to what you found.

2 lucky participants will be randomly selected on May 18th and win a 75$ shopping spree on any kind of gaming schwag they desire from Troll & Toad, Noble Knight Games, Cool Stuff Inc, DriveThruRPG, or Amazon.com. There will also be Obsidian Portal and RPG Stack Exchange branded trinkets in it for the winners as well.

This is a Win / ‘Win Big’ Situation!

Earn badges, rewards, and rep just for answering questions. Who doesn’t like chiming in on a good RPG discussion anyway?! You can also get some of those questions you’ve had lying around the corners of your mind answered too. There’s a really great community over at RPGSE. They are fast, and tremendously helpful, and they cover all kinds of RPG’s – not just your typical fantasy fare, don’t let my post image fool you.

Don’t take my word for it though, go look for yourself and leave us a comment below with a link to something you enjoyed over there. No matter how you look at it, you’ve got nothing to lose and only knowledge and/or schwag to gain. Enjoy, and we’ll see you back here when we ranomly draw our lucky winners!

Head On Over to RPG Stack Exchange Now!

This year at Gencon we’re going to start a new tradition for Obsidian Portal and its users. We’ve won our fair share of awards and we think it’s only right to dish out some recognition of our own. We’re up to our eyeballs in awesome stuff we dig up weekly for the Haste podcast, and it’s damn hard to not want to individually reach out to all of these people and say “hey, this is awesome!”

That’s why we’re calling upon you to tell us who you think is the very best at revolutionizing the blending of tech and tabletop!

How It Works

You fill out the quick form below telling us exactly who or what it is that you think is innovating tech in RPG’s these days. Just give us a reason why, a weblink and some contact info if you’ve got it and… well that’s it! We’ll be taking your nominations up until July 1st. At which point we’ll be judging our entries and deciding our winner on August 1st. We will be presenting the winner during our ”How Technology Is Changing RPG’s” panel at Gencon 2012. The panel time/location details are still pending, but we’ll be sure to update you as the convention approaches.

The winner will take home a fancy schmancy, heavyweight, engraved glass award for their innovation in our glorious industry of role playing games! Winner need not be present to accept the award, however we’d really love it if they would be able to come up and say a few words or speak during our panel. If that’s not the case however, we’ll be sure it gets to them asap.

A Quick Word On Nominations

We’re really focusing on innovation here, and for that reason I think we should provide a little emphasis on what we’re looking for. Examples:

Good: A great new mobile app that’s helped during your gaming sessions

Bad: A new forum for online PbP games.

It’s not that things like PbP forums are a bad idea, it’s just that they’ve been done before. Is there a way someone is revolutionizing PbP games? If that’s the case, then definitely let us know! Also please don’t think that example make you think we’re limiting this to things like apps only. Anyone or anything that is blending the way tech is shaping RPG’s is a candidate – publishers, developers, projects, etc. Lastly you may nominate yourself!

But Wait, There’s More!

We’ll also be highlighting our nominees weekly during the announcements on the Haste podcast during the run up to gencon. Our panel at the con should be similar to last year’s, and this year as an added bonus, we’ll be including 50% more awesome!

Go forth and nominate below!

Announcements

We are working on some very important backend stuff on the website, we haven’t forgotten about adding cool new features or innovating. Lots of behind the scenes stuff is going on, Micah wrote a blog post about it. Check it out! Also, we’ve got a winner for the caption contest!

Monte Cook Leaves WotC

Leaving very little details as to why, Monte Cook recently announced on his blog that he had left the WotC design team for 5th editions D&D. Monte’s post was minimal and devoid of drama, since the rest of the internet is speculating about why – Micah and I set the record straight and tell you all the truth.

D&D 5e Public Playtest – May 24th

Perhaps as an act of subterfuge, our next two topics were also very prevalent topics of discussion a midst the industry this week. Monte didn’t quit guys, look over here! In all seriousness, we’re happy to say that the public playtest for 5e D&D starts on may 24th. We give some helpful tips on being a playtester and providing feedback.

The Healing Surge Debacle

Do healing surges change the entire feel of the game? We think so, and so does everyone on the internet. A recent post by Bruce Cordell explores some ideas. We weigh in on the healing surge debate with our own ideas, what do you think? Let us know!

Tip Corner

Tag your characters with the place they are from, whether it’s a planet, town, country, or whatever. That way, you can quickly filter the character list to find all the characters from a particular place. Very handy when you have tons of characters and the players want to find one person in particular.

Twitter Question

@celestian_gc asks: What do you do when someone invites you to a game you don’t want to play. Friend or fellow player. Running a game I don’t really care for.

Listen to find out!

Music Credits | Intro: “Prelude” | Outro: “Stande Alone” | by LukHash |

Announcements

• A God Rebuilt, our Campaign of the Month – check it out!
• The d20Monkey caption contest for April – there’s still time!
• We’re sponsoring the One Page Dungeon Contest – check it out!

Paizo to Reddit: “Ask Us Anything!”

Recently, brave, brave Paizo put themselves out there on Reddit to answer questions about Pathfinder. This is nice and very transparent of them, we think everyone in the industry should do stuff like this. Micah and I discuss some of the questions, both the good one and the silly ones.

Roll20 Virtual Tabletop

A new virtual tabletop is making its way into our d20 shaped hearts with ambitions of focusing on the story and good times that go along with roleplaying, not the crunch. Roll20 is currently in kickstarter-phase and is worth checking out. Micah and I discuss the “industry” and some skepticism on these sorts of things, are we dead wrong? Tell us!

Building The Halls of Undermountain

Despite our previous mention of WotC not being very transparent, it does appear they are attempting to change that as of late. A good article on the WotC site explains how a product like The Halls of Undermountain went from a grab bag of minis, tokens, and other goodies – to a simple book and some poster maps. Everyone has to make money in this industry, looks like it’s even tough for WotC sometimes. Be sure to check this one out!

Tip Corner

Use our integration with Pen and Paper games to start recruiting your next player. Edit your campaign to set it toLFP and also give it a location. Then you can look for potential players from the Edit Members screen. Consider yourself to always be recruiting, even if you have no open slots. You never know when a player will suddenly stop coming to sessions, and it’s always good to know that there are other people out there.

Twitter Question

@d20monkey asks: “If you could choose only 1 secondary class (bard, ranger, etc) for dndnext, which would it be?”

Listen to find out!

Music Credits | Intro: “Prelude” | Outro: “Stande Alone” | by LukHash |

Announcements

Tonight we’re joined by Jeff Quick of Alderac Entertainment Group, he’s the lead guy for Thunderstone Advance and he’s been in the industry for 15 years now. He’s probably had his hands in at least one game you’ve played in some capacity! Jeff’s computer set up was not cooperating very well, and of course there’s always good old Skype issues so please excuse the roughness of the audio in this episode as I promise Jeff is entertaining qualities are well worth the listen!

There’s also a new comic up so be sure to caption the hell out of it! Also we’re now proud sponsors of the One Page Dungeon Contest, one of the lucky winners will score a year of ascendant time and a bundle of OP schwag!

Thunderstone Advance

AEG has recently put out new rendition (and expansion) of the deck building dungeon crawl game Thunderstone. Thunderstone Advance serves as a great entry point to the game as well as giving a huge overhaul to the mechanics and clarity of the game. Its a really cool game and hey what do you know, Jeff is our guest host!? I talk with Jeff about the game, and he gives some insight and details on upcoming cool stuff for the game. You can also check out my full review of both games if you’d like to as well.

Dungeon Crawl Classics Pre-Order

If you remember a while back we talked about Goodman Games’ Dungeon Crawl Classics when it was still in beta. Well the time has come for the game to get ready for launch, you can nab it up on pre-order on their website for $40 as a hardback. Jeff and I argue back and forth as to whether the game is a retro clone or not, I concede early in the argument. DCC is a unique game with retro trappings but does indeed stand on its own two spike-trap-maimed feet.

The Legend of Grimrock

Yeah, another video game topic. Don’t worry we aren’t turning into a video gaming podcast but Legend of Grimrock is another good exception to the rule. How long has it been since a game encouraged you to use graph paper and map out your explorations as you played? Yeah, this game is in the old school vein of classic dungeon crawlers with some very pretty graphics, hear all about it and grab yourself a copy if you’re so inclined, it’s only 15$.

Tip Corner

Use maps! Everyone likes pictures and doodles, perhaps something you scrawled out last session? Scan it in so the players visual memory can help them recall the session, it may do you better than a whole adventure log sometimes!

Twitter Question

Ralph from Facebook asks: “What board games have you been playing lately and what are some of your favorites?”

Listen to find out!

Music Credits | Intro: “Prelude” | Outro: “Stande Alone” | by LukHash |

Announcements

The d20Monkey caption from March has wrapped up, congrats to our winner Andrew B! There’s a new comic up so be sure to check it out! Speaking of checking things out, be sure to take some time to check out Stitcher Radio, where you can now listen to Haste right on your mobile device without any downloading or syncing!

Roleplayers Chronicle

There’s a new news aggregator for the RPG community, much in the opposite fashion of Haste but there’s enough information here to sink a ship! The Roleplayers Chronicle pulls in from over 450 websites and blogs and dumps it all into one place for your perusal. Does your life demand boatloads more tabletop RPG info? Of course it does! Now go have a look and report back to us with the juciest stuff you can find.

Legends & Lore Polls / D&DNext Updates

Two recent Legends & Lore polls on the WotC site have asked us “How long until you’re ready to leave your character behind and start over?” and about how long should it take to reach level 10? Micah and I discuss these things and more, it almost seems as if some of the poll answers are false choices. There’s also been a ton of new coverage for D&DNext with PAX East just having wrapped up, check out the video from the seminar if you’re interested.

Shadowrun Returns & Wasteland 2 Kickstarters

Two very legendary games are getting another chance at achieving awesomeness via kickstarter. Yes these are video games but at least Shadowrun has its roots in tabletop RPG’s and I’m pretty sure that Wasteland, which inspired Fallout is a game most anyone can at least give a nod of respect. These games are far beyond their goals and will be made by some great teams and great communities, so jump on board if they sound good. After all 15$ for an RPG crafted by those who appreciate the golden age of gaming is a steal.

Tip Corner

Be lazy if that’s what it takes for your game to be fun. Both Jerry and I have been slacking off on using Obsidian Portal for our games…but they’re still fun, so we’re obviously doing it right. Don’t burn yourselves out!

Twitter Question

@onlinedm1 asks: “Do you have any memorable stories of players using vehicles or mounts in-game in a creative fashion?”

Listen to find out!

Music Credits | Intro: “Prelude” | Outro: “Stande Alone” | by LukHash |

Micah – Rails 3 Upgrade

The software that powers the website is called Ruby on Rails. We started Obsidian Portal about 5 years ago, when Rails was in its infancy, with version 1.2.3. Since then, Rails has progressed through 2 major upgrades: Rails 2 and Rails 3.

About 3 years ago, we upgraded from Rails 1 to Rails 2, and this was a fairly big undertaking. Since then, we’ve been on Rails 2, even as Rails 3 has come out and become the industry standard. It’s finally gotten to the point where we need to upgrade to Rails 3. It’s hard to find documentation and support for things in v2 anymore, and so to stay on the cutting edge, we have to run in place for a while.

Unfortunately, the Rails 3 upgrade is huge, touching pretty much every part of the site. If we’re lucky, most users won’t see any changes, but when you make this make code changes there will undoubtedly be bugs that appear. On the plus side, once we finish this, we’ll be better positioned to add new features faster.

Timeline

We don’t have an ETA on this yet, as it’s really tough to tell how far we have to go. I’m working my way through the site, page by page, fixing any issues I find. I hope to be done sometime by the end of the summer, but I’m not sure. To speed things up, we’ve hired The Agile League, an Atlanta-based Rails shop. I know the people involved and they do excellent work. I just hope they can stomach working with my crappy code!

Ryan – Server Upgrade

Our server setup is also a little long in the tooth, and so we decided to upgrade to some new virtual servers and the newest software versions as well. We’re also restructuring a bit to take advantage of some of the cloud resources (I use cloud to mean Amazon AWS or Rackspace-type services, not just ‘on the net’) that have become more mainstream in the past few years. We are moving to hosted versions of some of our infrastructure pieces (database, cache layer, email sending, a few more) in order to cut down on the number of services that we have to maintain.

Just like the Rails 3 upgrade, there won’t be much difference to see here, except hopefully things will be noticeably faster. On our end, we’ll have less infrastructure problems and things will run a little smoother, freeing us up to spend more time on features and less time fighting fires (figuratively…).

Timeline

Again, no real timelines here, but we hope to have the server upgrades ready to go along a little before the Rails 3 rollout. I don’t usually like to put 2 big changes into the same deployment, but it may make sense this time. We’re planning to run a big round of testing on a test server, and we may as well test both the Rails 3 upgrade and the new server setup.

Moving Forward

So there you have it. Things look quiet from the outside, but we’re scrambling hard and fast behind the scenes here to make sure Obsidian Portal stays on the bleeding edge. We hate having to put off feature upgrades and cool new stuff, but we think these infrastructure improvements are necessary and worth the investment.