Resumption of activities

ただいま This should have been posted on March 17th, MGW Rank’s 1st anniversary, but here we are. There was a chance that the hiatus was going to lead to a closure, but I’m glad that it has not. Without exaggerating, God saved me more times that I can count and in more ways that I can count. Unlike the verses I quoted from 2 Samuel 22, I can’t say that He saved me because He delighted in me. But when no one was there, God was there. If you have been frequenting MGW Ranks over the past four months, you’ll notice it has changed a bit. That’s because I have been quietly working on that website. While I am excited about its progress, I apologize for failing to update you on the hiatus. I’m doubly sorry if you were indeed waiting on our return. Yours truly is back and MyGrailWatch is officially no longer on hiatus. Before everything returns to normal, there are a few things that need to be done. The services that were shut down need to come back. MGW Ranks depended on the Figure Search for pre-owned listings. However, with the Figure Search down, it created an unforeseen bug which left stale results. That was fixed after a bit. The functionality that was required for listing pre-owned figures was decoupled from the Figure Search. Pre-owned results thus returned to MGW Ranks on February 11th. All things considered, MGW Ranks is in good standing. It even has the long-awaited PWA support, meaning you can now install it. This leads me to the MGW Figure Search, which is still down. Some changes need to be made to the project. Simply, it needs to run in a container. It previously ran on Heroku and no longer does due to their nickle-and-dime pricing strategy. Our current host for the rest of the services hasn’t been as performant as we would have liked. Both server and database timeouts cropped up seemingly overnight in early 2022 and have persisted since. All things considered, we plan on moving hosts for most MGW services, but one at a time with the Figure Search going first. Maybe the MyGrailWatch Blog or Redirection Service going afterward. Moving the blog might take some time. The Figure Search is the priority and I want it to be up and running by its second anniversary in early April. Unfortunately, it will just be running, feature updates aren’t expected. With regard to the pre-order guides, we’ll take a split approach. Last year’s figures will be added for historical purposes. And to be relevant, today and tomorrow’s figures will be added in tandem. Essentially, we’ll be working backward and forward at the same time. The 2022 edition of the MGW Favorites Selection is way overdue. I don’t want to commit to a date, but late May to early June feels good. An exception to the rules will be anything from 2022 will be eligible, even if added this year (2023). We’ll see how it goes once last year’s figures have been added. Finally, activity on social media will resume. Exclusive MGW Member posts will also resume. The frequency could be low for a while. We also intend replicating posts, primarily our promotional videos, across video platforms. TikTok (I’ll wait until you wipe the vomit off your chin) and Niconico are incoming. So you can check out our content wherever you prefer. Hopefully you prefer our stuff her, social media sucks harder than a grown man wearing primary colors saying, “You can’t see me” in front of thousands of people. Not entirely sure when, but MGW’s supporting services will be back where they belong and the blog will be in full swing again. It’s not going to be easy; things that are easy are rarely worth it. That is all. P.S. Thank you for waiting and I hope you have a good weekend.