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We split funds into a hot wallet which is on a machine that we have physical access to, a warm wallet that is on a machine not directly connected to the internet, and a cold wallet which is not connected at all. All three wallets are safe and in our control. No Bitcoins have ever been kept on the DDoSed machine.
What I don't have access to yet is the checkpoint (savegame) files for Dragon's Tale which are generated every 3 minutes while the game server runs. These are on a machine at the same colocation facility as the compute servers. Once I do have access, we'll have Dragon's Tale back up within 30 minutes. (Plenty of backup hardware in the US is always ready to go; I just need the most recent checkpoint file to flip the switch.)
Teppy
1-412-973-7914(c)
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We're experiencing another outage due to a DDoS, which the ISP has confirmed is directed at us. I'm trying to get things moved back to the US temporarily - will update when I know more.
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The game is back up. The ISP is telling me that the outage (10+ hours) was due to them re-configuring a firewall to be more resistant to future DDoS attacks. The way traffic flows between our servers looked to them like a DDoS. We may have another 1-2 hour outage in the next few days if they need us to reconfigure routing among our servers to accommodate their infrastructure - I haven't heard back yet if that will be necessary.
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We're back to the US as of last night; credit cards can't be used until we move back to Costa Rica. Bitcoin deposits and withdrawals are fine as always though. The game appears to be free of disconnects and lag.
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We're doing a halving-day celebration today, a freerolls tournament with 5 BTC in prizes. You'll need to get to Xinren island to join, which means reaching level 2. If you've never played Dragon's Tale, takes 30 minutes or so, and can easily be done without depositing. Just ask around in-game and someone will be glad to help level you up!
Typically around 20 players will participate in a tournament like this, so that's about 0.25 BTC in prizes per person, for free.
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I realize this is short notice, but in about an hour we're having a fishing tournament in-game with 10 BTC of prizes. It's actually a pair of tournaments, one for Level 0-4 players, and one for Level 5+. I only see about ten Level 0-4 players logged in right now, so there's a very good chance as a new player to win some Bitcoins. (The way the tournament is structured, a prize of 0.25 BTC would be likely.)
The grand prize for the Level 0-4 players is 1 BTC, and for Level 5+ players it's 3 BTC.
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And that record has now been broken - today we had a 600 BTC jackpot on a Coconut Tree. To be fair, it was a 300 BTC bet. (The previous record of 520 BTC was on a 90 BTC bet.)
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Yes, escrow would be in-game. It would be a fairly simple mechanism: The Arbiter would configure terms for the bet, and people betting would deposit their BTC, and when the Arbiter flipped the switch saying who won, all funds would go to the person he said.
More advanced versions could allow for multiple bets on each side of a proposition, fixed odds other than 1:1, parimutuel rather than matched bets, etc.
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There's no set procedure. Of course "until I know you" doesn't scale, so in the future I may use something like what bitcoingateway.com used for selling Bitcoins on credit cards. Cumbersome, but AKAIK, not a single fraudulent transaction.
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Until I know/trust you, Bitcoins bought on a credit card can't be withdrawn as Bitcoins or gifted to those that are allowed to withdraw as Bitcoins for the obvious reasons. Fiat-money players can cash them back out to the same credit card they bought them on.
For "normal play" we eat all fees. So you buy at the exact MtGox spot price, which is computed as the midpoint of the current best bid&ask, and sell back at the instant spot price. If someone uses this to just "play the market" and not do any actual gambling, we charge our own estimated cost, around 12%, when they cash out. A 6x playthrough waives this fee, a 3x play-through waives half the fee, etc.
Any of the above can be waived on a case-by-case basis, and "Pure Bitcoin" players are never charged any such fees.
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Do we need some sort of escrow service prior to multi-sig being widely adopted? I'd be willing to code such a thing in Dragon's Tale where each proposition would have a designated arbiter, where it would match each side of the bet on a first-come basis (or do it parimutuel style), where the arbiter could set a bet arbitration fee (or charge nothing.)
We have good security - for instance our hot wallet contains a small amount of funds and is on a machine with nothing running except bitcoind and sshd. We use warm (firewalled and encrypted) and cold (offline, encrypted) wallets for larger amounts. And my real name (Andrew Tepper), address (Home: 108 Foxwood Drive, Wexford, PA 15090) and even cell phone (1-412-973-7914) are well known.
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Correct - aside from sports betting, all the various federal laws don't actually criminalize gambling itself. Instead, they put up all sorts of rules around transmission of funds for purposes of funding a gambling account, or rules about gambling debts. And then the interesting part - they go on to define "money." And Bitcoin clearly doesn't fall within their definition, though there is a catch-all "...any other form of financial transaction, as the Secretary and the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System may jointly prescribe by regulation..."
So, to make Bitcoins illegal for gambling, the Fed would have to recognize them as a form of money. I don't see that happening in the ... well, ever.
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We just had the single biggest jackpot in Dragon's Tale history. The player who won ("Jase") didn't want to post here directly because he uses his real name on the forums, so I'm posting for him:  |
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Here's the scoop. We just moved the game to Costa Rica, and now accept credit cards, though the game will continue to be denominated in Bitcoins. IOW, Bitcoin is the preferred way to play because "pure Bitcoin accounts" have no restrictions on in-game gifting, PvP play, instant withdrawals. Also, credit card charges are only available for non-US players, though there's no such restrictions on pure Bitcoin accounts.
When you buy Bitcoins on a credit card, it sets a flag on your account. Once set, you can no longer withdraw Bitcoins, or gift to accounts that can withdraw Bitcoins, and you can't play PvP games against others that can withdraw Bitcoins. IOW, it sort of segregates the game into restricted and unlimited accounts. You can, however, cash out to the same credit card that you bought the Bitcoins on. Trusted long-time players have no such restrictions.
Buying and selling Bitcoins on a credit card involves no fees (to you), no market spread, just an exact spot price, computed as the average of the realtime MtGox bid&ask. Of course *we* pay fees of around 12% round trip including MtGox fees, market spread, credit card fees and the occasional chargeback. When you buy Bitcoins on a credit card, a little indicator appears lower-left showing how far to go until you get a free cashout (typically around 6x playthough, as they say on other gambling sites.) This 12% and the 6x will be adjusted to reflect our actual costs as time goes on. For instance, the more volume we do, the lower fees our credit card gateway charges.
BTW, on Friday we had the single biggest jackpot in Dragon's Tale history, 520 BTC. (A different player once had a better day, around 800 BTC net win, but this was the biggest single jackpot.)
Beta is a couple weeks off - cashing out on credit cards won't work until probably Tuesday or so, and I'm refining some of the level quests to reflect the current higher Bitcoin/$ price, and to include more newly released games. We now have 51 different games, all radically different than bricks & mortar casino games.
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Yeah, I don't have a way to know if the person posting here is the same one as the one who "should" have access to that account. Anonymous accounts + annonymous money = better keep your password safe  Assuming minimal funds in the account, might be better to just create a new one from scratch. If you can verify something about the account, I can at least fix your level. Teppy |
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You can withdraw at any time - click on your avatar then Utility/Withdraw Bitcoins.
What's your character name? I can help.
Teppy ("Di")
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I'm teaching myself Android programming and have a simple app I'd like to do as a first project. I'd like an experienced Android programmer to help me get up to speed for a couple hours. Willing to pay 5 BTC/hour.
Teppy
1-412-367-1000
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