[viper2040]

In one of the topics pinned to the top of the forum, you said that 35,000 hits per week, 8 megs per hit meant 900 gigs per month. Well, many of those hits come from people who only wish to socialize, not play. Thats 8 megs down the drain, per social butterfly. Why not turn one of the game chat servers into a pure chat server, with its own link, so they could bypass downloading the game and save a few megs.

IE, on the main page, there would be a "Chat" button within the "start" button, along side "download" and "mirror 1". This "chat" button would only load up the chatroom, and challenges would not work there. You could keep the same setup, with the "join" and "host" buttons, and just disable them (save some work). That way, people who just want to socialize wont be draining our precious bandwidth.

What u think? Of course, you'd have to see if people would even use it, but in general, what do u think?

EDIT--just had a thought...i know what you're probably gonna say, but.....here goes. Why not turn those hits into an asset? If the game gets into BAD troubles again, then consider TEMPORARILY adding some banner ads, JUST UNTIL THE TROUBLE GOES AWAY. Or maybe having banner ads up for 1 or 2 months to get your equipment into tip top shape. Banners arent all that bad...