Council_of_Sparta

As many of you are aware the Legion of Sparta is in the process of migrating its dedicated server to the US. This process has been implemented in stages with the last stage (the transfer of the teamspeak server) taking place yesterday. The teamspeak migration will have been seamless for most of you and should be accessible as it was before. There are 3 ways to access Teamspeak: ts3.legionofsparta.net voice.legionofsparta.net 173.199.66.162:9987 The server has been run in parallel for several days with no problems, but we will continue to run parallel servers for a couple of weeks before the UK server is turned off completely. We have migrated to a better physical dedicated server with an SSD drive, 32 gigs of RAM and an Intel Xeon 3.4 Ghz processor (quad core plus hyperthreading). The server is in Dallas, the location Legion of Sparta's first ever dedicated server when the group was created in 2007. We are currently running 2 instances of Arma III, one private on the SSD and one public on a RAM drive. Our public server has limited acces to pilot and attack vehcle slots. To gain access people need to be registered on our forums. If you see people asking about pilot access they need to be on TS3 then ask them to register on the forums. Remind them of the rules. In the unlikely event of any problems do not hesitate to bring it to the attention of one of the admins, whereupon we will do our best to remedy it promptly.

We have run a US and UK server for more than a year, the original intention being to have servers for Arma and OFP DR. Since we were severely let down by codemasters and all subsequent games use slot servers, we need to rationalise them. For some time the Sparta UK server has hosted the main public ArmA session with no problems. It will now also host our ArmA Tac Dom and Tac sessions. The transition to the UK server should be seamless as we already switch sessions between the two for maintenance purposes. We will also be hosting teamspeak 3 on the UK server. The UK Teamspeak server has been set up and the privilege keys are in the process of being issued. It is running now on TS3.legionofsparta.net:9987. Moderators should receive their keys on sept 11 and members on sept 12. When all our members have their keys we will announce the transition date (some time in the next 10 days) Feel free to bookmark it but it will not be officially in use until the transition date A day prior to the transition date we will give non members the new address verbally on the current TS. On the transition date voice.legionofsparta.net will also redirect to the new server and we will announce the new port number in game, on the website and in the forums. Some of us will camp in the old TS to help redirect people to the new address. This will not be seamless but we will try to make it as painless as possible. If you have any issues or concerns please direct your questions to an admin who should be able to help you. The council of Sparta

It was decided some time ago to not allow political posts on our forums. This decision was not taken lightly, we ask that you respect it. We wish it were different but it is the nature of forums to degenerate from sensible discussion to something less pleasant when such matters arise. Overtly political posts will be moderated (as will any post that contravenes our rules).

We have completed our quarterly financial report and would like to take this opportunity to thank everyone who contributes to the running costs of our servers. We do not solicit monies so your generosity is appreciated all the more. Thankyou

Firstly many thanks to all that have contributed towards the cost of maintaining our servers. These unsolicited contributions are greatly appreciated. When making the contributions please remember to note your forum name as there have been instances where we have received money but cannot identify the payor. Thanks again on behalf of the Spartan Admins

In a recent post concerning global politics, the disussion deteriorated and became unacceptable. The resulting alienation of people who had previously only had amicable interchanges is intolerable. Therefore all political discussion is now banned, as soon as any are started, they will be locked or deleted. This forum is to not be used for political discussion.

Friends, Spartans, Gamers Firstly and most importantly Seargent Postal has been deployed, he and all men and women posted into unpleasant and dangerous places are in our thoughts. Welcome to the 3rd edition of the Legion of Sparta newsletter. We have been around for seven months now. We continue our philosophy of being a dynamic, varied and laid back gaming group. The games we host and play are: COD4 (7 servers 24/7) EVE Online GRAW 2 (Coop 24/7) GTR2 (Incorporating Custom skins 24/7) FPS Games COD4 is evolving nicely. Our Map makers have released their first map, a recreation the last stand of the Uday brothers in Iraq. It has been well received by the community. This is pretty much Durkas first map (ever) which makes it all the more impressive. Read more about it here. Also the game developers are set to release four more maps. Since the last newsletter, Rocky and Floyd have organised the very successful ghostrecon.net crouch only nights. This runs on Server 7 on Friday and Saturday, created especially for this event, it is a modded server that eliminates the Last Stand, Martyrdom, Airstrike and Chopper and UAV. This is a new server and yet it is rising in the rankings very quickly. Thanks to all our guests for making it so popular Elvis has organised our first one on one tournament which is currently in round 2. This is a lot of fun and we look forward to more of these in the future. Server 1 is our tournament server. Krambo came up with the idea for a sniper only server, which we run on server 6. There are a limited number of Sniper rifles and no side arms. This is very challenging and good fun. We are looking for good sniper maps for this server, if you have any ideas please feel free to give us a shout. The Mods&Rockers server is proving popular. As a modded hard core custom map server it allows us to not only run custom maps such as village, Uday and now Sparta but also allows us to disable unwanted features of the game. Suggestions for new maps or mods are welcome from anyone member or not. Server 4 is a modded, ranked custom server. It allows you to rank up locally but once you have rank on this server you will have access to all the weapons and the ability to have the 5 custom kits. The downside is that players start with very limited selections. But since it is a modded server unwanted perks have been removed Server 3 is the main server. It is a ranked hardcore server. We run this completely stock and allow all the perks. We have the ability to disable the chopper but for now the chopper retains it's lethality. Server 5 is the rankup server, go there to complete challenges. GRAW2 As a hommage to the game on which this group was initially founded we have maintained our GRAW2 COOP server and due to the declining popularity of the game it remains one of the few places people can go to play it. We run a variety of custom maps and will continue to add to it. Ghost Recon The original and for many still the best FPS, it is in our project list for server creation. MMORPG We have a growing number of members who are interested in this type of gameplay. Currently the most popular here is EVE online, but our members also play other games in this genre. The knowledge base for this game although young is growing rapidly. Simulations GTR2 Sunday is raceday at the Legion of Sparta. We run regular races and have incorporated F1, World Touring Cars, Saleen Mustang Challenge, DBR9 Cup, Mini Challenge, on top of which custom skins developed by our own members have also been incorporated into the game. The emphasis in these races is fun. All are welcome regardless of skill. The races are run in novice mode you can use whatever aids you want. For those interested in skinning we have a number of members who are more than willing to help. Some of our members are evaluating Race07 which we may run seperately. Forum and Web page. Viiiper is steadily working on the forum and web page (Obviously the latter will only be visible when completed). For now it is best to come straight to the forum using this link As you can see Viiiper has added some useful buttons such as the TS connect button, the TS viewer button, the exchange rate button (very handy considering the multinational nature of the group) the most important is the general downloads button. Here you will find a veritable cornucopia of downloads for all the games that we play. As a matter of course all of the Legion of Spartas download needs will be made available here. The forums are very open and can be largely read without logging in, most of the forum is open to non members for posting. A few closing thoughts This is an open group, we welcome helpful suggestions from everyone, member or not. Friends are friends whether they wear Sparta tags or not.

Spartans Welcome to the second edition of the Legion of Sparta newsletter. As a gaming group the biggest news is the arrival of Call of Duty 4 where we ran six servers on launch, we are new to this game but it has been embraced with enthusiasm and has won the admiration of our staunchest GRAW players. This game has beautiful graphics is not demanding on a PC and the server is easy to administer, all in all very satisfactory. The visual feast that is Crysis was launched a couple of days later, we will run 2 instances (there is only one game type but there will be a DX9 and DX10 version running) of this on our server. It too has been popular, but the preemptive strike of COD4 stolen its thunder, as gamers we are lucky to be spoilt for choice. We will run the following on our server: GRAW2 Coop IL2 Rainbow Six vegas Coop Call of Duty 4 (x4) Crysis (x2) GTR2 rFActor Our lodgers, the British Parachute Regiment (BPR), have managed to resolve their server issues and have departed our teamspeak. It was a pleasure to help out this friendly group and also to have at them on our COD4 server, a lot of fun was had by all and we hope to see them in some scrims shortly. Since the last newsletter we have added 7 friends to our group, Adder360, Billy, CoBoL, Direwolf5, Punisher, Spoon and X-wind, on behalf of the Legion of Sparta, welcome. We have held true to our recruiting doctrine and will continue to do so. Of course if you have friends over 23 you think would enjoy being amongst us feel free to invite them to teamspeak to get a taste of what tactical game play with a group of like minded friends is like. There is no pressure to join, and they won't be hassled for money if they do. Also if you see players in game behaving in a manner becoming our group do not hesitate to invite them onto Teamspeak (remember the 18+ rule) Whilst on this subject the council reaffirmed its commitment to the strategy we have so far pursued and are happy with the progress of the group. As always any ideas to enhance our fun or smooth out any rough edges please don?t hesitate to post here: Forum Suggestion Box

Spartans In the spirit of openess that we here have embraced, we present to you the Legion of Sparta newsletter. This open letter will be posted as and when newsworthy material is available. It will be written by a member of the Gerousia and will keep you informed of decisions that have been made and ideas that are being discussed. To start with you might like to know how are we organised. The council is made up of Gerousia and Ecclesia (Admins), there are 15 admins that form the council. There is a council meeting every Sunday and the 15 members discuss then vote on all matters related to the Legion of Sparta. There is no over riding vote, the majority decides on every major step that we take. So far this has not proved to be a problem and there have been some lively discussions. Every meeting is chaired by one of the council members, that person makes sure that the meeting proceeds in an orderly fashion and that none of us rambles on. This ensures that nothing major happens without a discussion and that we have come to an accord. We are a well funded group, so we dont need to ask for donations, with that said voluntary contributions will be gladly accepted, those who donate more than $100 will have access to a section of the forum with a detailed account of debits and credits to the legion of sparta paypal account. The council members are chosen by the council not by the amount of money donated. Because we are well funded we dont need to go on a recruiting binge. Here at the Legion of Sparta we are a group of friends, we will grow one friend at a time. This, like the democratic process embraced by the council, is difficult sometimes. At times some of us may choose size as a measure of success. But as we have already seen size is a poor measure. We cannot predict the future but the friendships formed here will be our measure of success. Having said that obviously there will be times when TS will look a bit thin in your time zone, as the group grows that phenomonen will fade, but we will not compromise our recruiting principles to inflate our numbers. As for the council meetings, the topics discussed so far have been varied, from age limits to financial disclosure. We will be discussing new games and we always vote on new members. If anyone has thoughts that they would like the council to consider please dont hesitate to share them with a council member on ts or via a private message. We may not embrace all your ideas but you will be heard. For now GRAW2 is the game around which this group is based, it is flawed and quirky but at this time it is our core game. We also play Rainbow6 Vegas (well done Inimigo for reigniting our interest in this game), IL2 1946 and GTR2. On the horizon is the much anticipated Crysis and Call of Duty 4. If they live up to their betas and demos these will become new core games here at the Legion of Sparta. You should know that our gaming server is capable of running multiple instances of all the games we want to play. The web page will change shortly. The interim page developed by Maj3stic has served us well. Given that he is new to this and that he is studying hard, we think he did a great job. The biggest news though is about Seargent Postal has been assigned to 101st. The 101st have a rich combat history so congratulations on your posting Seargent, we are proud of you. That's all for now folks The council of Sparta