NOVEMBER 2012
SANA reformed and on its way to full return!
by Walther, published: 11/11/2012
SAN FIERRO - After a few management meetings, the reformed San Andreas News Agency is making final preparations for the return to full service. Obviously, quite a few changes took place within the ranks. Firstly, a transition of leadership took place. [SAP]Livisor and founder Migs have lost their positions in SANA Council due to long inactivity, and [SAP]Walther resigned as the editor-in-chief of the website. Logan, who has proved himself as a capable news reporter, with outstanding knowledge of English, was promoted to SANA Council and immediately took over as the new-editor-in-chief. [SAP]Nodroz, who has been tirelessly working to expand our media section by running our own SANA YouTube channel, has now officially been designated as the media director. CraHeX, [SAP]John, and [SAP]Walther will retain their SANA Council positions.
More dramatic changes took place within the ranks of contributors. 5 people have left the organisation or have been fired due to inactivity. That leaves us with 3 remaining - our faithful proofreader [SAP]Torran, and hard-working reporters [SAP]Egert & Migs. This means that we are more than ever ready to accept new members into the organisation, but riding on coat-tails will no longer be tolerated.
We hope that with the renewed management, SANA will continuously reduced its dependence on the work of the few, and will have more actively involved members than ever before. Having said that, I move to another place at SANA Council office, to clear the editor's desk for Logan, and let him carry on with the work that lies ahead. Good luck to the new editor-in-chief!
SAN FIERRO - After a few management meetings, the reformed San Andreas News Agency is making final preparations for the return to full service. Obviously, quite a few changes took place within the ranks. Firstly, a transition of leadership took place. [SAP]Livisor and founder Migs have lost their positions in SANA Council due to long inactivity, and [SAP]Walther resigned as the editor-in-chief of the website. Logan, who has proved himself as a capable news reporter, with outstanding knowledge of English, was promoted to SANA Council and immediately took over as the new-editor-in-chief. [SAP]Nodroz, who has been tirelessly working to expand our media section by running our own SANA YouTube channel, has now officially been designated as the media director. CraHeX, [SAP]John, and [SAP]Walther will retain their SANA Council positions.
More dramatic changes took place within the ranks of contributors. 5 people have left the organisation or have been fired due to inactivity. That leaves us with 3 remaining - our faithful proofreader [SAP]Torran, and hard-working reporters [SAP]Egert & Migs. This means that we are more than ever ready to accept new members into the organisation, but riding on coat-tails will no longer be tolerated.
We hope that with the renewed management, SANA will continuously reduced its dependence on the work of the few, and will have more actively involved members than ever before. Having said that, I move to another place at SANA Council office, to clear the editor's desk for Logan, and let him carry on with the work that lies ahead. Good luck to the new editor-in-chief!
Full SANA functionality resumed, and recent changes.
By Logan, published: 12/11/2012
SAN FIERRO - San Andreas News Agency is pleased to announce that we are fully resuming our functionality. This means that news coverage is resumed, and we are hiring hopeful employees, who have the opportunity to keep the community informed about the latest stories, whilst earning money from doing so! If you are an active player, and have a reasonable knowledge of the English language, you could be on your way to submitting your first report! To apply, click here.
On another note, we are also happy to announce the return of the Seasonal SANA Awards! They were unfortunately postponed due to the temporary shutdown of SANA, but the event planning is currently in the works! It has been a slow season, but an interesting one, with the announcement of the SAP Flights 3.0 update sparking everyone's interest. Here is a look back at the past few months:
We now patiently await the Flights 3.0 update, and everything it brings. Hopefully, this update will put the server back on track, activity-wise, and attract players, new and old. With all these changes, the future looks bright, and we will see you soon at the 4th Seasonal SANA Awards!
SAN FIERRO - San Andreas News Agency is pleased to announce that we are fully resuming our functionality. This means that news coverage is resumed, and we are hiring hopeful employees, who have the opportunity to keep the community informed about the latest stories, whilst earning money from doing so! If you are an active player, and have a reasonable knowledge of the English language, you could be on your way to submitting your first report! To apply, click here.
On another note, we are also happy to announce the return of the Seasonal SANA Awards! They were unfortunately postponed due to the temporary shutdown of SANA, but the event planning is currently in the works! It has been a slow season, but an interesting one, with the announcement of the SAP Flights 3.0 update sparking everyone's interest. Here is a look back at the past few months:
- The Civil Department has had a full makeover, along with the Civil Test itself, with the promotion of [SAP]Evel to Civil Instructor and [SAP]John to Secondary Civil Instructor, to pick up where now-resigned [SAP]Andy left off. We wish them the best of luck.
- 2 custom-gamemode events; the 24 hour SAPRC Endurance Race, and the San Andreas Stunters Extreme Championship. Both events were highly successful, both with large turnouts.
- The re-addition of the island known as Keywest; This came as a surprise to players, when [SAP]Torran announced that he had gone and dug up Keywest with a bucket and spade, after it had been hit by a devastating tsunami.
- A few organisation changes; [SAP]John decided to close down SAPEC and SAAA, due to players' lack of interest in them. Fortunately, 2 new organisations have obtained official status; Civil Aviation Club, led by [SAP]John, and SAP Dogfighting Club, led by Logan.
- The removal of rental & fuel prices, and a new swearing filter; To many players' delight, the SAP Council decided to remove rental & refuel prices, due to complaints about them. SAP Bot has also decided to be a bit less harsh on players, allowing them to swear, without muting them, thanks to a new filter.
- The re-addition of the Forum Shoutbox; It took a long wait, and a lot of patience, but the shoutbox on the forum has finally been re-added, due to high demand. It was removed in the past due to spam, but we hope players have learnt their lesson, and will use the shoutbox as a tool to announce events and share news with everyone else instead.
We now patiently await the Flights 3.0 update, and everything it brings. Hopefully, this update will put the server back on track, activity-wise, and attract players, new and old. With all these changes, the future looks bright, and we will see you soon at the 4th Seasonal SANA Awards!
SAP server under attack?
by Nodroz, published: 13/11/2012
The SAP Server & Forum appear to have been offline for most of today, and some of yesterday. Players who try to view the server in the SA-MP client will be met with little to no response. Upon an attempt to connect to the website, you will be greeted by the well known Cloudflare maintenance page. We assume the server is under a DDOS attack, due to it behaving a little differently than if it were down for maintenance.
[SAP]Torran has stated that he could not access the server to look into the problem. SAP Council have been informed about this issue, and we hope it will be solved as soon as possible! Stay tuned for updates.
UPDATE: The server is back online. According to [SAP]Torran, the downtime was caused by a network problem, not by an attack on the server.
The SAP Server & Forum appear to have been offline for most of today, and some of yesterday. Players who try to view the server in the SA-MP client will be met with little to no response. Upon an attempt to connect to the website, you will be greeted by the well known Cloudflare maintenance page. We assume the server is under a DDOS attack, due to it behaving a little differently than if it were down for maintenance.
[SAP]Torran has stated that he could not access the server to look into the problem. SAP Council have been informed about this issue, and we hope it will be solved as soon as possible! Stay tuned for updates.
UPDATE: The server is back online. According to [SAP]Torran, the downtime was caused by a network problem, not by an attack on the server.
Server activity on the rise!
By Nodroz, published: 19/11/2012
San Andreas News Agency has been recording data concerning player activity since August 2012, according to the SACNR Monitor. The data has been recorded every night around 20:00 - 21:00 GMT. As of 16th of November 2012, we have collected 100 pieces of this data, so we have decided that we have a sufficient amount to put together a graph displaying the results.
The Y-Axis of the graph (vertical) shows the average online players, since the recording began, on the 8th of August, and the X-Axis (horizontal) shows the date recorded. This graph fluctuates quite frequently, as you can see below. We are happy to announce that during the past few days, the activity has experienced a slight rise! We have also noticed that several of the third-party organisations of the server have resumed activity, and have started organising events again, which contributes to this rise. However, on the contrary, forum activity has been dropping. More details about this will be released soon.
We are expecting these numbers to drop soon enough, as exam periods have commenced around the world, and no doubt players will be too busy studying to visit the server. We hope the activity will reach it's peak during the Christmas period when everybody enjoys sitting in the warmth, perhaps playing games with their friends. However, it seems that some players cannot wait for this period, as we seem to be experiencing one of the most active periods of the whole year!
Statistics:
Maximum average online players: 3.36 On 02/11/2012
Minimum average online players: 0.69 On 12/09/2012
The overall average online players: 1.4642
Activity Summary:
We look forward to recording the results of the coming weeks, and stay tuned for information about forum activity!
San Andreas News Agency has been recording data concerning player activity since August 2012, according to the SACNR Monitor. The data has been recorded every night around 20:00 - 21:00 GMT. As of 16th of November 2012, we have collected 100 pieces of this data, so we have decided that we have a sufficient amount to put together a graph displaying the results.
The Y-Axis of the graph (vertical) shows the average online players, since the recording began, on the 8th of August, and the X-Axis (horizontal) shows the date recorded. This graph fluctuates quite frequently, as you can see below. We are happy to announce that during the past few days, the activity has experienced a slight rise! We have also noticed that several of the third-party organisations of the server have resumed activity, and have started organising events again, which contributes to this rise. However, on the contrary, forum activity has been dropping. More details about this will be released soon.
We are expecting these numbers to drop soon enough, as exam periods have commenced around the world, and no doubt players will be too busy studying to visit the server. We hope the activity will reach it's peak during the Christmas period when everybody enjoys sitting in the warmth, perhaps playing games with their friends. However, it seems that some players cannot wait for this period, as we seem to be experiencing one of the most active periods of the whole year!
Statistics:
Maximum average online players: 3.36 On 02/11/2012
Minimum average online players: 0.69 On 12/09/2012
The overall average online players: 1.4642
Activity Summary:
- The first major drop in activity started on the 15th of August, right after the SAPRC Endurance Race. We have no explanation as to why this happened.
- The first major rise in activity started right after this period of inactivity, lasting from the 29th of August, until the 5th of September. The primary reason for this happening is the amount of events that happened during this period. First of all, San Andreas RallyCross held a race on the 26th of August. This marked the beginning of an activity rise to an average online player count of over 3! Exactly one week later, on the 1st of September, San Andreas RallyCross held another race, which caused the average player count to rise yet again! The next day, on the 2nd of September, SAP Dogfighting Club held their most successful event to date, SAP DFC #3. Yet again, another event contributing to the activity rise.
- However, directly after the San Andreas RallyCross championship, the forums went offline for a period of time. This caused the average online player count to drop below 1! This marked one of the most inactive periods of time since the records began.
- After a short amount of time, player activity began to pick up again, due to the addition (and re-addition) of features such as touchdown smoke and the forum shoutbox. San Andreas Stunters also held a custom-gamemode event on the 15th of September.
- Activity rose yet again during the time period of [SAP]Evel being promoted to Civil Intructor, and the announcement of new features in the pipeline. However, this period of activity was short-lived.
- The SAP Council decided to hurry the Flights 3.0 gamemode, due to the drop in player activity. They announced that player input was of utmost importance in the making of the new gamemode, so the forums became a place for players to suggest and vote for new features. A day after this announcement, the average player activity reached a record high of 3.36! However, right after the holiday period, the activity sunk like a rock, hanging just above 1.
We look forward to recording the results of the coming weeks, and stay tuned for information about forum activity!
SAP Airshow returns, SAP reunion announced!
by Walther, published: 25/11/2012
LAS VENTURAS - The clear skies of the desert city are waking up to the roar of dozens of engines, as groups of pilots are perfecting their performances for the upcoming SAP Airshow! The SAP Council have announced the return of one of the greatest annual events to take place in our community, which means that once again (and for many of the new generation of players - for the first time), we'll be witnessing a breathtaking show of daring formations passing over our heads at Las Venturas International Airport. And there's also something for the old gang as well - many players of all generations will be gathering at the SAP Reunion to celebrate the six years (and counting) spent flying together.
Both events will take place on Saturday, 29th of December. It is still possible to sign up as a participant for the airshow, just create or join your own formation or aerobatic team, perfect your display, and submit an application. Your performance will be reviewed, and if you're good enough, you'll be among the participants! Meanwhile, old and not-so-active players are encouraged to send a personal message to current SAP spokesman [SAP]John or just leave a reply in this thread to confirm whether they are able to participate. With so much excitement building up, we may actually face the problem of having an overcrowded server, which, according to [SAP]Torran, will not be too difficult to solve. Hopefully, all goes well - just don't forget to make a note in your daily planner!
LAS VENTURAS - The clear skies of the desert city are waking up to the roar of dozens of engines, as groups of pilots are perfecting their performances for the upcoming SAP Airshow! The SAP Council have announced the return of one of the greatest annual events to take place in our community, which means that once again (and for many of the new generation of players - for the first time), we'll be witnessing a breathtaking show of daring formations passing over our heads at Las Venturas International Airport. And there's also something for the old gang as well - many players of all generations will be gathering at the SAP Reunion to celebrate the six years (and counting) spent flying together.
Both events will take place on Saturday, 29th of December. It is still possible to sign up as a participant for the airshow, just create or join your own formation or aerobatic team, perfect your display, and submit an application. Your performance will be reviewed, and if you're good enough, you'll be among the participants! Meanwhile, old and not-so-active players are encouraged to send a personal message to current SAP spokesman [SAP]John or just leave a reply in this thread to confirm whether they are able to participate. With so much excitement building up, we may actually face the problem of having an overcrowded server, which, according to [SAP]Torran, will not be too difficult to solve. Hopefully, all goes well - just don't forget to make a note in your daily planner!