Re: Commercial Hosting
 

I have a spare PIII 600 with 384MB Ram which is currently not in use. The only problem is trying to get the graphics card to drive my TFT screen.
Screen is Phillips, card is Geforce 2 Titanium 64MB. I would be happy to host games I'm not playing.

Re: Commercial Hosting
 

I think I would pay some euros (a month, or for each game) for a web site showing which games are in progress, what games (with settings) are proposed, a list of players ranks, and other added values. A centralized place for PBEMing for dominions would be a rather cool idea, and I dont see why this would not lead to a small reward for the author. Initially, it would have to be free, so that there is enough players attracted though.

Re: Commercial Hosting
 

I just checked the memory requirements and while it is bad for running one copy of dominions it doesnt seem too bad for multiples.
http://www.techno-mage.com/~dominion/memstat.txt
I did have more problems earlier but just upgraded to a swapd arrangment which might be helping (daemon to manage swap area on the fly). This information is from a Debian Linux machine.

A server is pushing the information out the port. A server machine doesnt really need a graphic card or sound card that can play the game. It also doesnt need much hard drive, or all that much CPU. But CPU and RAM are the two things that make the most difference in the performance of a server. Unfortunately those are the two most expensive things if you wanted to build one. You can cut back by having minimum video/sound/drives, and no keyboard/mouse/monitor.

If someone wanted to pick up one of the BBS softwares (Bulletin Board System, all-in-one package for web managing web forums, file upload/download, personal Messages between Users, and a news page) then they could probably become a multiple game manager with just that knowledge. The domains of dominions2.net dom2games.net domgames.net dommap.com dommaps.com dom2taw.net dominionist.com dominionism.org are still available if anyone wants them.

Re: Commercial Hosting
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">I might as well, though I'm not sure of that. It would need to have added value in addition to just hosting the game, though, like a "find opponents" feature (need not be ultra-refined).

As for the "hoster loses interest in the game" problem - what prevents them from zipping the game's files and sending the result to another player, who could from then on act as a host - either network or PBEM?

Re: Commercial Hosting
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Good idea if someone else can host.

Too often I have seen players who are about to lose (1 or 2 turns away) just quit showing up. Everyone waits for them to do their turns, eventualy the hosting is forced. If the first person out also happens to be the one who started the game it can be a real headache. Thats what happened on the game Im hosting on my machine. I suspect the whole game would have died if it hadnt been hosted on a neutral server. The new "master password" feature can help and I would highly recommend it when anyone is starting a game. But there is also a definate need for neutral servers so that someone isnt stuck hosting a game for months that they are already dead in.

[ February 05, 2004, 19:55: Message edited by: Gandalf Parker ]