Unreal Mafia and Unreal Playground Join Forces!

[MadMikey]

For over a year now, Unreal Mafia and Unreal Playground have operated as separate entities with the same goal: to support the UT community of level designers, mod and mutator creators, and online game players. While the sites have remained separate, each has utilized the other for ideas on providing the best in content, features, and gameplay.

Both sites have numerous ideas in mind to support the community with the pending release of Unreal Tournament 2003. With that in mind, we are very happy to announce a merger of the two sites into one.

By combining our resources, we will be able to expand our offerings to the community in many ways. There will be more features available at the improved UnrealPlayground, many of which will be announced in the next week or two. There will now be a total of six game servers, providing nearly all flavors of CTF and the upcoming Bombing Run.

By bringing these two communities together, we hope to continue to provide for everyone’s UT needs, be it maps, mods, mutators, game servers, forums, or ladders and tournaments. With the additional resources available, we will be able to provide a higher level of functionality to support these needs, both now and in the future.

[MadMikey]

UnrealMafia.com and UnrealPlayground.com Merger
------------------------------------------------
Q. Why the merger?
A. Most Unreal Mafia members know that HogMan posted a thread awhile back asking for help. The goal of this was to try and get more resources so UM could provide more features and functionality to their site. This sparked some conversations between StealthDP and HogMan. Soon after, they decided it would benefit both sides if they just merged together.

Q. What will happen with the UnrealMafia.com site?
A. Unreal Playground already has the features and functionality that UM was working on implementing. Their is no reason to keep the UM site up and duplicate efforts, so we will be using UP as the main site.

Q. What will happen to the forums?
A. We have developed a script that will merge all user accounts, profiles, avatars, forums, threads, posts, etc... into UP's existing forums. To help facilitate this, the UP website and forums will be unavailable Sunday night beginning at 9pm PST for a couple of hours, to perform the forum merge and some routine database maintenance.

Q. What will happen to our hosted forums?
A. These will be moved over and UP will conintue to host forums as UM was offering.

Q. I know that UP has subscribers just like UM does. I am a current UM subscriber, what will happen after the merger?
A. HogMan will continue to use your CC# to supply pr0n to everyone at UP. :D

Q. Won't it be confusing having servers named UnrealMafia, StealthDP, or UnrealPlayground?
A. Since ngWorldStats is pretty much dead, we have decided to change all of the server names to a standard naming convention. Something along the lines of:
[PURE] UnrealPlayground.com #1 - Relics
[PURE] UnrealPlayground.com #2 - Relics
[PURE] UnrealPlayground.com #3 - Strangelove
etc...

Q. I have better pings at one location than the other. Will the servers physically be moving?
A. The current servers will not be moving. So if you had better pings on a current UP server, then you should still continue to. If you were happier with the pings on a legacy UM server, that should not change either. Only the names will be changed, not the locations.

Q. What will happen to the #unrealmafia etg channel?
A. Their is no need to continue with 2 seperate channels. We will update the topic in #unrealmafia to let people know we have moved to #unrealplayground

Q. What about the ladders?
A. The system being used at UM did not fulfull all of the needs to operate the ladders the way we wanted to. Along with the fact that all of the customized scripts and templates were lost during one of UM's server moves. We have decided it would be easier to develop our own system.

Q. Will ladder teams still have private forums?
A. Yes. All of the ladder teams forums will be moved over as well, although they may not be available right away after the forum conversion since we have to add all of the groups again and assign permissions.

Q. What will happen to my stats?
A. We will be merging all of UM and UP's stats together. Stats will then be collected from all servers and put into the stats sytem.

Q. UM allowed me to change my stats name and combine aliases, will this still be an option?
A. The stats processor does not always handle this correctly. It often requires the reprocessing of ALL logs which can takes hours to do and still not produce the correct result. So this will not be an option anymore.

Q. Ok, this all sounds great. What can the community do to help?
A. UM and UP have pretty diverse crowds. Some are just UM regs, and some are just UP regs. And then we have those who spend alot of time at both places. Just remember that we are all here for the same reason. To be part of a community, play UT, and just have fun. The family just got larger now, enjoy. :D

If you have any other questions or comments, please post them below...

[[NFO]Monkey_Bum]

I have one question about all of this. Maybe Mikey or Hogman can answer this for me. The servers stay the same or is UM#1 server not going to be used. The reason i ask i use to play on SDP alot then for some reason all the your servers became very laggy and un playable for me which is to bad i liked playing here. Then i found Hogman's server and never had a problem since. So by this merger is Hog going to dump all his servers and just us SDP servers. If this is the case this could be the end of my playing days. I understand the reasons behind this and support the move 100%. But it might be time to move on and i hope not. :)

[NFO]Monkey_Bum

[MadMikey]

Originally posted by MONKEYBUM
The servers stay the same or is UM#1 server not going to be used. [NFO]Monkey_Bum All of the game servers will stay where they are. They'll just be renamed. :)

[IHopeToGod]

Sounds Good. Don't forget to filter out duplicate members :D

[[NFO]Monkey_Bum]

Thanks Mike you can get rid of MONKEYBUM on your server when pull UM's list over. OH yah when is this all going to take place?

:rockon:

[yomama]

will we keep our post count:p

[theswarm]

Yeah pull mine from UM too, just theswarm (seeing as KMS is long dead lol). :p

[ShirleyFT]

Well, things are certainly changing. 6 servers? How many will be public?

[Nova]

SWEET!!!!!

[radio667]

This is so great !!! Its kinda like having out of state family -not only coming back into town , but having them move right next door to you -YEY !! WE ARE NOW ONE BIG UNREAL FAMILY :D !!!

[Raindog]

Sounds like a good deal to me. Way to go, Monk and Hogman.

Dog

[theswarm]

Can we have the UM color scheme? :D

[Squirrelinabox]

please no, the mafia site doesn't look nearly as good... no offense hogman

[JaCanadian]

I'll see yas all on the no-mods UT server :D

and don't say there won't be one please :p

[-=Y_E_N=-]

WHAT ABOUT MAP VOTE UM OR UP STYLE i meen their are 6 server, damn i remember when it was sdp with only 16 people playing in the server aaahhhh yes the good old days of ut. We are growing bigger as a family!!! GJ HOGMAN AND MADMIKE

[Idle Idol]

i definently say UP map vote. frankly, i dislike the UM map vote. Newer maps rarely if ever get the spotlight because people only vote for what they have played before, and the map selection if the servers aren't populated with mostly all regs stinks. (read as: stormchasersv3 and co.)

with ups map voting system where the players actually have to exit the game and go to a website i think it helps filter out a lot of the riff raff that don't know their arse from a hole in the ground.

--idle, one is where P00p comes from, the other is where it goes

[Switch]

Welcome Unreal Mafia! Heard nothing but great stuff about you, and I've had the priviledge of playing your Strangelove serer. Sweet! Happy to be in the same community with yous gysz.

Welcome again and thanks for sending uncle Guido after my Mom's ex-boyfriend!

:D :) :D

[Nitestalker]

What about certain people banned from UP, that have been
playing at Unreal Mafia?

[wicked_chris42]

Will I have to join UM to download maps that they will be bringing over?:type:

[Lord_Simeon]

Does this mean we'll be called "Mafia Playground", as
that could attract some bad press, capiche.

[Recon]

Merger = Cool.

The mafia has infiltrated the playground. Perverts. hehe

[SK TastesLike KFC]

Originally posted by |KMS|theswarm
Can we have the UM color scheme? :D






No.




Hell no.


:D





SKTLKFC:moon:

[BOOBS]

Will the maps still suck? :D

[StealthDP]

Merger? What the...??????


Man, I can't go out for ONE NIGHT... look what happens...


J/K, i think this is going to be awesome for both communities. The focus will still be on supporting UT, and with the new game coming out, both sides will benefit from the additional resources each brings to the table. I see nothing but positive things happening here. What can be wrong with the two greatest UT communities on the 'net coming together?

[wicked_chris42]

O.K. I thought UM had one.:type:

[-=Y_E_N=-]

Originally posted by BOOBS
Will the maps still suck? :D

lol boobs

[SoBeiT]

Welcome Hogman, Staff & UM members to UP.

Imagine the unique UT & ut3 play we'll have here now.

Anyone should be able to find a server they like to play on...look how many there are now..w00t!

Time to add new players to your favorite people to play with.

Some good gaming ahead for us all.

Ah...just remember my sig and all will be just fine :p

[MadMikey]

Originally posted by BOOBS
Will the maps still suck? :D Of course!

[MARKER77]

I always liked to play on the UM server with Strangelove. Now I have more servers to add to my favorites.
Please keep the private server for the regs of UP & UM!
This is great news! Welcome UM!!

[Inkswitch]

Originally posted by BOOBS
Will the maps still suck? :D

ROFLOL.

Direct and to the point.

[outdoor]

wow......... UM and UP merging....... sounds like a good idea. I'd love to show my Lagging skillz to those nfo and um members :D


soon you'll be merging dvna servers, HERO servers, WW servers.......... and act like MICROSOFT!!!!!!!!!!!!:rockon:
































ps: looks like 'someone' will be back.......;)

[-=Y_E_N=-]

Originally posted by iitnaobor
wow......... UM and UP merging....... sounds like a good idea. I'd love to show my Lagging skillz to those nfo and um members :D
soon you'll be merging dvna servers, HERO servers, WW servers.......... and act like MICROSOFT!!!!!!!!!!!!:rockon:
ps: looks like 'someone' will be back.......;)


LOL

[excelscior]

The fact that all of this is being done for our enjoyment plus being FREE is "Unreal"!!!! If ever the time comes that we will need to pay a nominal cost to cover signing in or for whatever. I won't complain because I have been free loading here at the playground for about 5 months now! And yet no one has asked me for a dime.....Imagine that! So I can't complain. :D Thanks for all the efforts people!!!!! Keep it up!!!!:rockon: Excelscior.

[B.C.]

Tell me the new name for UP server 1. I only play on that!:rockon:

[Lord_Simeon]

hmmmm......

So the next 24H map comp will be "Mafia" themed

*LS starts making his map, laughing at the competition...bwa ha hah ah a*

[ShirleyFT]

So when is this merger supposed to happen? MM, you said something about Sunday, today. How will we know it happened? Will there be whistles and horns and flashing lights???

[Freakish]

Aside from not being able to access the forums or webpage, once it's done you'll see added forums on the list..

[Fa Kov]

Nice, a merger. Does this mean all our stocks are worthless now? Since we have a big giant family, let's all get along and follow the advice of a one Bill Murray, "Black guys help the White guys." :rockon: :hammer:

[_F7_]

LOL Fa Kov rules. :rockon:

[tr@xtandn]

One thing that was overlooked by this merger.....Phalanx is back!:tsk:

[phalanx]

yep i am back to haunt you all again:D
good things come to those who wait

[Shadowb&RPGTS]

Sorta Curious,

if unrealplayground=unrealmafia
and
if unrealplayground=Stealthdp'sPlayground
than
is the big chair still occupied by stealthdp? or by stealthdp and owner of unrealmafia?



btw. love the merger idea, only time will tell the results tho.

[Fl[e]ck]

Lots of us UP regs are also UM regs, so the 'merger' is a good thing. Now I don't have to go to two different web sites to see server status.:)
Congrats to Hogman, SDP, and MM, for making a great UT site for all of us junkies.

[MadMikey]

Originally posted by Shadowb&RPGTS
[B]is the big chair still occupied by stealthdp? or by stealthdp and owner of unrealmafia?The big chair, is more like a big couch. :D

[Shadowb&RPGTS]

Originally posted by MadMikey
The big chair, is more like a big couch. :D


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