The recent forum and website downtime

[Irongron]

So, its been a dramatic (and busy) few days. Starting on saturday morning, when I told the website had gone now.

Back at the founding of Arelith, or at least soon after, the website was registered by the original team. There was seemingly a limit on this, and on the 16th of November, this year, it vanished.

What should have been straightforward however, has not proved to be.

I tracked down the registrar (the provider of the domain 'arelith.com') to be register.com, and after a VERY lengthy call to them, they told me I could renew it for 9 more years, at a price of roughly $400.

I had toyed with buying arelith.net and arelith.org to be on the safe side before making the call, and had seen they were avaiable, but decided against it.

So, when it came to buying the domain, my bank, smelling a rat, blocked the transaction. Having worked in Fraud in the past it was clear what had happened, so I told them I'd just call my bank to get them to the lift the block, and would call back to make the payment.

Which is when it got strange...

I was kept on hold for around an hour when I called back, and then the operator told me they actually didn't have our domain after all, that it expired in 2018 and had been 'deleted'. I explained this wasn't true, as we were using it until just that day, and after being on hold for a lot longer again, I was told that they may have tranferred this to a more 'exclusive' service, for a free trial period in 2018, but that they were not certain, and would open a ticket with their back end people, and get back to me within 24 hours.

Well, nothing happened, and I called back, and was told to wait yet further, and then one day later...the same thing happened. I am still, now, waiting on a response from the firm.

I then got chatting with Fireboar (some of you may remember all the great things he did for us) and he advised me to be careful; that companies have been known to transfer domains to other providers, and then try to make huge charges to get them back. Becoming increasingly suspicious, I thought it best to buy arelith.org and arelith.net after all....

And saw that they too had now been bought, just after my original call to register.com

More and more, this looked like a shakedown of our community, and I decided not to wait any longer. I bought the domain 'nwnarelith.com' from a different company, and asked our team to fix everything to work with the new address. It's not ideal, but for a price of $100 for 5 years, it's definitely preferable to whatever price we're about to asked for arelith.com.

If I can buy our original address back, I will, and have both work. I can't say if register.com were trying to do a shake-down, or if my call to them was related to arelith.net and arelith.org being being MOMENTS afterwards, but the whole thing left me deeply suspicous. I now fully expect to be told it will cost considerably more to get our original domain back, despite the fact that original operator in the first call told me that it was available, and that they DID have it.

Anyway, it won't work; we are now nwnarelith.com and if I can be bothered I'll look at mounting a complaint, as this registering of domains with a name that is clearly the property of ourselves is, in fact, 'squatting' and theoretically illegal.

Thanks for the patience everyone, and if you're seeing this - please let your friends know that this is our new address.

Irongron

[Hoodoo]

I'm so glad it's all back. That was a rollercoaster.

[Party in the forest at midnight]

Wow, that is extremely scummy. I'm sorry you had to go through that, SCREW those guys.

[Vatheril]

Damn that truly sucks. But thank you and the Arelith Team for your hardwork and persistence in getting everything up and running again.

[Skarain]

I am mostly concerned about search engine functionality. If you seek for Arelith on Google, it provides the old domain, so while we existing players can tell our friends of the new domain, new or interested players will struggle to find it.

I think it should update in search engines in time, as more trafic and activity racks up on nwnarelith.com and the old one sees none.

Domain providers sound rather shifty indeed. In terms of the domain cost, that on itself is no issue. If you ever needed funding to boost over temporary paywalls, i am sure the community could accomodate. Its more about the principle, the bad taste left by the conduct of the service provider, and making sure you arent screwed over a second time by those guys. But i guess we will see, when they finally get back to you.

[In Sorrow We Trust]

Get back to us with what might be needed to restore the old domain name. Maybe the community is willing to help take it back. :]

[Preserver]

It's nice to have the forum and domain back!
Unfortunate you had to go through such scum and villany to do that =/ ! Thanks for bringing stuff back though.

[Scylon]

I work in IT for a living. I'd suggest godaddy.

They are one of the entity's that all domains have to go though. getting and SSL cert though them was a real legal pain. Needed official docos and everything from out lawyers.

[Scylon]

Oh, FYI. I looked into this a bit for you. They are full of crap. They still own it according to godaddy

https://au.godaddy.com/whois

Domain Name: ARELITH.COM
Registry Domain ID: 106616775_DOMAIN_COM-VRSN
Registrar WHOIS Server: whois.register.com
Registrar URL: http://www.register.com
Updated Date: 2019-11-16T08:05:35Z
Creation Date: 2003-11-14T06:06:22Z
Registry Expiry Date: 2020-11-14T06:06:22Z
Registrar: Register.com, Inc.
Registrar IANA ID: 9
Registrar Abuse Contact Email: abuse@web.com
Registrar Abuse Contact Phone: +1.8003337680
Domain Status: clientTransferProhibited https://icann.org/epp#clientTransferProhibited
Name Server: SK.S5.ANS1.NS148.ZTOMY.COM
Name Server: SK.S5.ANS2.NS148.ZTOMY.COM
DNSSEC: unsigned
URL of the ICANN Whois Inaccuracy Complaint Form: https://www.icann.org/wicf/
>>> Last update of whois database: 2019-11-19T12:15:53Z <<<

[Irongron]

Oh, FYI. I looked into this a bit for you. They are full of crap. They still own it according to godaddy

https://au.godaddy.com/whois

Domain Name: ARELITH.COM
Registry Domain ID: 106616775_DOMAIN_COM-VRSN
Registrar WHOIS Server: whois.register.com
Registrar URL: http://www.register.com
Updated Date: 2019-11-16T08:05:35Z
Creation Date: 2003-11-14T06:06:22Z
Registry Expiry Date: 2020-11-14T06:06:22Z
Registrar: Register.com, Inc.
Registrar IANA ID: 9
Registrar Abuse Contact Email: abuse@web.com
Registrar Abuse Contact Phone: +1.8003337680
Domain Status: clientTransferProhibited https://icann.org/epp#clientTransferProhibited
Name Server: SK.S5.ANS1.NS148.ZTOMY.COM
Name Server: SK.S5.ANS2.NS148.ZTOMY.COM
DNSSEC: unsigned
URL of the ICANN Whois Inaccuracy Complaint Form: https://www.icann.org/wicf/
>>> Last update of whois database: 2019-11-19T12:15:53Z <<<

Thanks for looking into this, and yes - that's the same information I am seeing, and was indeed what they themselves told me during my first call to them. That the story changed as soon as they I saw I was prepared to pay is not encouraging.

The whole episode is now just far too suspicious as I said, especially given that someone bought arelith.net and arelith.org shortly after my call to them.

'Arelith' may not be trademarked, but given our history, the unique nature of the word, and the timing of these domains being bought, it is clear this is a case of cybersquatting, and can be dealt with legally, should we be prepared to take that route. Be it filing a UDRP or contacting the domain registrar. That part at least, would almost certainly fall in our favour. We ARE Arelith, and anyone buying these domains has done so in bad faith. If this was an individual (and should they be reading this) I would strongly advise reconsidering such a course of action.

More likely though, I'll just try to talk to the firm once they reply, rather than going down any legal/social media route, first thing is to see what they actually say to me when they (finally) get back to us.

[Orian_666]

The .org and .net were bought up by a domain registry called "Namecheap".

I couldn't find any link between it and Register.com but they did, as you said, buy the domains on the 16th of this month, which I assume is around the time you were in contact with Register.com about the whole mess.

I'm sure if you were to look hard enough you'd find a link between the two, somewhere, or maybe something else that would prompt Namecheap to snatch up the domains the moment you looked into getting them.

Either way it's a shitty situation, hopefully it can all be resolved as least somewhat amicably. Seems you've got the know how to handle it so at least it's in good hands

[Scylon]

The .org and .net were bought up by a domain registry called "Namecheap".

I couldn't find any link between it and Register.com but they did, as you said, buy the domains on the 16th of this month, which I assume is around the time you were in contact with Register.com about the whole mess.

I'm sure if you were to look hard enough you'd find a link between the two, somewhere, or maybe something else that would prompt Namecheap to snatch up the domains the moment you looked into getting them.

Either way it's a shitty situation, hopefully it can all be resolved as least somewhat amicably. Seems you've got the know how to handle it so at least it's in good hands

That does happen a lot. Typically when we purchase a domain we look at all the .nets, .orgs etc etc and buy them all at once.

Something like Arelith it wouldn't be necessary.

[thimblegiant]

Thanks for the patience everyone, and if you're seeing this - please let your friends know that this is our new address.

You may want to consider updating your address in your module description, or maybe list both addresses. For new players this will probably be the most direct way to communicate the change (even if it's only temporary).

[MalKalz]

Thanks for the patience everyone, and if you're seeing this - please let your friends know that this is our new address.

You may want to consider updating your address in your module description, or maybe list both addresses. For new players this will probably be the most direct way to communicate the change (even if it's only temporary).

Yes, this will be looked at.

Thanks

[Scylon]

Wiki link also needs an update

[Drowble Oh Seven]

Thanks to everyone who worked to get us the forums back!

[Irongron]

After a not inconsiderate amount of wrangling and far more time on the phone than I would like registry.com allowed me to renew our domain at the original price of a few hundred bucks for the next 9 years.

arelith.com now back online, and using either that or the new address will direct players to our site.

[MissEvelyn]

After a not inconsiderate amount of wrangling and far more time on the phone than I would like registry.com allowed me to renew our domain at the original price of a few hundred bucks for the next 9 years.

arelith.com now back online, and using either that or the new address will direct players to our site.

This is great news! Thank you~

[ActionReplay]

After a not inconsiderate amount of wrangling and far more time on the phone than I would like registry.com allowed me to renew our domain at the original price of a few hundred bucks for the next 9 years.

arelith.com now back online, and using either that or the new address will direct players to our site.

Good to hear. Was getting tired of typing nwnarelith.

[Davner Felmop]

Thank you for all your hard work. In the short time I've been here I've grown attached to Arelith