As many of you have noticed, GDNet has been down over the last ten days or so. While the site leadership wishes to keep the exact happenings secret, I feel you are all entitled to the true story.
GameDev.Net, LLC does not run off a conventional data center. Such systems are not able to handle our unique site patterns. It was run in a conventional data center several years back, but stresses from many things, particularly the splurge of MMO threads in Help Wanted, would frequently damage the data center's physical construction, as well as the minds of those who worked there. Replacing the north wall of a data center gets old real fast.
When the newest revision of the site was rolled out we switched to a radically different architecture, molded around the highly concurrent and efficient phone switching systems used during the 1950s. However, one critical innovation was made. Instead of having women manage the switching, we hired a team of experienced monkeys to do it. They were far more resilient, and the added dexterity in their feet made them highly efficient. The team of monkeys was led by a rhino with several decades of experience in monkey management. The entire setup was designed by none other than Steve Irwin himself (rest in peace buddy). This safari zone resides in Fuchsia City, Texas, and continues to form the backbone of everything you see here today.
When GDNet went down, several of us went to the safari zone to investigate the problem. We discovered that the rhino had been attacked and drugged, and all of the monkeys were missing. We believe the attack was provoked when the drugs did not affect the rhino as quickly as the invaders had expected. The rhino sustained several injuries but he did recover quickly. The monkeys, however, were a different story, and it was that story which led to our extended downtime.
Upon examination of the outer perimeter of the safari zone, we discovered crumbs of a mysterious substance that was later identified as banana chips in a forensics lab. We believe that after the rhino was down, these chips were used to lure the monkeys away from the safari zone central building. (This building is a bomb shelter with heavy blast doors. It was designed to sustain nuclear attacks.) This trail of crumbs ended in the visitor center. We believe that this is where the switch monkeys were finally subdued.
A word about the visitor center. We here at GameDev.Net, LLC, are comitted to quality in everything we do. Our visitor center trinkets are not your normal trinkets. Most are worth in excess of several thousand dollars. We sell them to our esteemed visitors at a fraction of that price. Review of sales records and interviews with the (human) staff at the visitor center revealed that some unknown masked men had purchased several trinkets earlier in the day; no official visits had been scheduled that day. (Now, you may be thinking that masked men coming into a visitor center unannounced to buy things is unusual. Clearly you've never visited Texas.)
We put out a federal call to keep an eye out for any GameDev trinkets that might appear on the black market or eBay. A few days later, an eBay auction did appear, selling "Slightly damaged GameDev trinkets". The description indicated that the damage was limited to being knocked around by monkeys. We had them! Via a federal database of eBay sellers, we were able to link into the GPS system and satellite imagery to observe the criminals from space. By applying some well known automatic image enhancement technology (you've seen this stuff on TV, it's not that new), we were able to increase the effective resolution of the satellite imagery by a factor of ten, thereby reading the license plates, Burger King nametags, and other identifying marks from the criminals.
Unfortunately, the FBI was less than subtle in their approach and the criminals were tipped off a few minutes early when the raid was about to begin. They made a break for it (though the monkeys were left at the house and safely rescued). The car chase was quite epic -- I was personally driving the police vehicle (a Corvette C6) that finally stopped their getaway vehicle. While original footage is not available, we have used the recorded telemetry to reconstruct the chase. ">That video is available.
The monkeys were discovered completely unharmed and actually fairly happy about their surprise vacation. They were relieved to get back to work though. (They're very serious about what they do.) They were flown back to the safari zone and are now hard at work. As for the perpetrators of this most vile act, we do have them in custody, but we are not sure about their motives yet. While I cannot reveal more details there, I can assure you that we are using the latest and greatest in torture interrogation techniques to determine more.
and also, YAY JOURNAL!