A GameXP strike and a 300 Gbit/s DDoS: what happened to our free server
"Your server is no longer alive." That is what the hosting support wrote to us on 15 September. Twenty two seconds earlier the same operator had written that we were indeed being hit, with a 300 Gbit/s attack.
We built MMORPG Genesis without any plan to make money on it. We wanted to gather people who like this game and let them play for free. The server means something because of the people who come to it, which is why this lands harder than the phrase "technical problems" suggests.
Here is what happened, and why we came to suspect GameXP.
The strike came first
Shortly before the attack, YouTube removed our video about Genesis. The notice names the claimant: GameXP. It also says the channel received a copyright strike.
For us that closes a way of telling people about the project. Being free does not cancel copyright, and YouTube says so plainly, so one strike on its own does not prove the complaint system was abused. Asking about the grounds is still fair.
Then the host reported the attack
In plain terms, a DDoS fills the network in front of a server with someone else's traffic until ordinary players can no longer connect. Nobody has to break into the game for that.
300 Gbit/s is 37.5 gigabytes every second. At 15:41:56 the host told us the channels were saturated, their DDoS protection was the basic tier, and the address would not be unblocked. Fourteen seconds later they added that otherwise the channel would be saturated again.
The hardest part to put into words is how little any of it depends on you. You want to give people their access back and you are told the address stays blocked.
Why we suspect GameXP
The strike gives us reason to suspect GameXP of a hand in this, and we are saying so openly. At the same time, the screenshots we publish tie GameXP to the video takedown and say nothing about who organised the attack. A sequence of events is not enough for that conclusion.
So we ask GameXP publicly: explain the grounds for removing our video, and answer the suspicion of involvement in the attacks.
What this means for us
What stings most is the time we put into Genesis. Private servers can be judged in different ways, and a specific complaint can be argued on its merits. Deliberately shutting down someone else's infrastructure is a mean way to damage their work, whoever is behind it.
The server is running again
The world is up at a different address with a different provider. Live population and uptime are on the status page, the client is in the download section, and the steps to connect are in the guide.
If your client archive still carries the old address, take a fresh one: the server moved and the old build dials nothing.
What you can do
Publicity matters to us. Share this story together with the screenshots, and keep the difference between what the documents show and what we claim. If you run another server that went through the same thing, messages from your provider and the times of the incidents would help us see the scale.
Questions
- Is the server running now?
- Yes. The world is up at a different address with a different provider. Live population, character count and uptime are on the status page.
- What is established and what is still suspicion?
- The documents show that GameXP filed the takedown request and that the host reported a 300 Gbit/s attack. Who organised the attack is not established by these materials.
- Do I need to download the client again?
- Yes, if your archive still points at the old server address. The current build in the download section already knows the new one.
- Was any character data lost?
- No. Accounts and characters were moved: 823 accounts and 1371 characters opened on the new machine in the same state.
The account is free and so is the client. Registration takes a minute. Create an account - Download.