Re: PBW server is back up.
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Correct, they don't need to be the actual .emp files they used at the begining of the game even. All the players have to upload .emp files before PBW will let you upload the first turn, but you don't have to use the .emp files they upload. And since this game has already been running PBEM you don't need their .emp files for anything except to get PBW to let you upload a turn. Just have them upload something for an .emp file and then you can upload your current turn as the first PBW turn.

Geoschmo

Re: PBW server is back up.
 

By the way, this process is explained in the FAQ available on teh PBW website, question 1.14. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

Re: PBW server is back up.
 

Well, I didn;t see that it addressed the "former AI now human" question...so....pbbttt! |grin,duck|


<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">

[ December 01, 2003, 17:10: Message edited by: alarikf ]

Re: PBW server is back up.
 

duuhh ????
cant access PBW either by link or IP adress !

Something wrong ?
Others in the same situation ????

Re: PBW server is back up.
 

Yep, seems to be down.

Re: PBW server is back up.
 

Confirmed.

Re: PBW server is back up.
 

Yep, my DSL went down today around 1:30. I have already called the ISP and they are checking it out. The telco has a truck in the neignborhood today. Might be a coincidence, or maybe the guy unplugged the wrong wire. More information as I get it.

If you have a game due to process between now and 10:30 PM there is nothing I can do to stop it. I won't be home till then to shut off the automatic processing. Hopefully the DSL will come back up before then and there won't be a problem. If not you can contact the game owner about having the turn set back.

Geoschmo

Re: PBW server is back up.
 

I turn up to work and discover and our entire building as lost power after a huge thunder storm. We finially get everything up and running, and I'm ready for some downtime, only to find out PBW is down.
Looks like it is going to be one of those days. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon9.gif

Re: PBW server is back up.
 

Ya even our phones a messed up up here. The best connection I can get is 24.0 kbps. Someone please tell me there is hope...

Bad wheather all around and the holiday season is really effecting phone traffic. I actually got a "All channels are curently busy" message twice today just trying to call local and long distance.

Re: PBW server is back up.
 

yeah, yeah, we lucky guys in europe http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/tongue.gif I've read quite a lot of articles about (your) bad infratructure in US telecommunication and electricity network. there is just one chance, move over here http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

[ December 02, 2003, 22:32: Message edited by: Maerlyn ]

Re: PBW server is back up.
 

Laugh! I remember dealing with the electric company in Cambridgeshire. That was the single most incompetent billing department I've ever dealt with, and the rates were astronomically expensive. They didn't get one single bill right the whole time I was living there.

But yes, particularly recently, it seems there have been many greedy scum in the US utility industry undermining the infrastructure.

PvK

Re: PBW server is back up.
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Made possible by… deregulation and privatization.

Gecko

Re: PBW server is back up.
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Made possible by… deregulation and privatization.

Gecko </font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Not that they didn't do it before. To switch subjects a bit, highways that go from 2 lanes to 6, then 2..with no exits in between..anyone?

Re: PBW server is back up.
 

Am I just a superstar in my chosen vocation ( I don't think I am) or is the level of incompetence in the world rising steeply?

From Phoenix-D:

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">PD, you must live in Calgary! *groan*. We have that particular foul-up in spades.

Re: PBW server is back up.
 

Tell me where EXACTLY this spot is, I want to install an advertising billboard there. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif

Re: PBW server is back up.
 

Ahem - back to the topic, any news about PBW? Do we have to activate the emergency server(s) again (Ruaaatthhaaaaa!) ?

Re: PBW server is back up.
 

what time is it in ohio?

Re: PBW server is back up.
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">As approx 15 players already had uploaded I'll give it another day before I fire it up.
(otherwise all has to reupload, usually leads to problems....)

Re: PBW server is back up.
 

I think Geo's provider needs to be sent a trophy for having the worlds least reliable internet service. It took them a month to fix it, Last time it broke. It took a month to "hook him up" in the new location, and now it's down again, for the third time in 2-3 months, for who-knows how long. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...s/rolleyes.gif

Re: PBW server is back up.
 

I can't get to the PBW site http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon9.gif I have tried opening with iexplorer, MyIE. And I have no problems accessing other internet sites.
Is PBW down?

EDIT - I see that it is..

[ December 03, 2003, 14:53: Message edited by: BBegemott ]

Re: PBW server is back up.
 

*cry*

*curses geo's net provider*

pbw if fubar yet again -> Shrapnel, pls consider taking over the pbw site - this shrapnelgames.com site seems big enough to host a little measly pbw server http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

just an idea

Re: PBW server is back up.
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Aside from lately I think Shrapnel has gone down more than PBW has..

Re: PBW server is back up.
 

Shrapnel has considered it. We have discussed it. We are still discussing it.

The thing you have to remember is that companies, even good companies like Shrapnel, have to do things that make sense from a business perspective or they go out of business.

PBW is a free site. As much as those of us hardcore fans would like to think it could make money, it can't. There just aren't enough regular players that would be willing to pay for it.

We get donations, enough to offset the actual monetary expenses for hosting the site. But not anywhere near the amount neccasary to offset the man hour expenses for running the site. It's an all volunteer organization, a labor of love. If Shrapnel ends up hosting the site, it will have to be in such a way that it does not negativly affect their legitimate business.

Geoschmo

[ December 03, 2003, 16:34: Message edited by: geoschmo ]

Re: PBW server is back up.
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Maybe Shrapnel can bill you for all the hours they'd free up for you http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

Re: PBW server is back up.
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">PBW - IMO - is essential to the success of SE - just looking at how many postings the PBW site generates should tell anyone that - not to mention that the players who play PBW are probably the games biggest evangelists, most likely to buy the upgrades, good for cross selling, etc. etc. Heck I wouldn't even be playing SE if wasn't for PBW.

I don't know what the numbers are, but my guess based on # of forum Posts, would be that SE is shrapnel's cash cow and Shrapnel not putting resources behind one of SE's - and Shrapnel's - biggest marketing components is derelict.

It's absurd that Shrapnel supplying PBW resources is even an issue.

[ December 03, 2003, 17:30: Message edited by: rextorres ]

Re: PBW server is back up.
 

Geoschmo,
Can the PBW Website be hosted on a Windows 2000 server? I have a couple of those hooked up to a T3. May be we could rig up a mirror or a back up site.

Rimfire

[ December 03, 2003, 17:39: Message edited by: Rimfire ]

Re: PBW server is back up.
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Shrapnel and Malfador have supported PBW. They donated the free products that we gave away in the fund raisers we have had. In fact they offered me some more recently but I never got around to announcing another raffle. Malfador has gone out of their way to make patch changes that allowed PBW to work in the first place.

But I must say you are WAY over estimating the effect PBW has had on the Shrapnel or Malfador bottom line. They don't release actual sales figures, but they did announce at one point SE4 Gold had gone over half a million in sales didn't they? A little math should give you an idea of how many units sold that is.

PBW at it's absolute peak has had something like 500 Users a week, 300 a day. Maybe that sounds like a lot, but it's only a fraction of the toal number of SE4 buyers.

You are probably right that Space Empries is the biggest seller at Shrapnel, but it's still a niche game. And PBW is a niche in that niche. Shrapnel is not rolling in dough. Tim, Richard and whoever else is on staff could probably leave right now and make more working for someone else. In fact they may have regular jobs in addition to Shrapnel. Not sure about that. The point is they don't have a lot to give, so whatever they give has to show an actual, quantifiable return.

PBW can't do that, as much as us diehard fans would like to think it could.

Geoschmo

Re: PBW server is back up.
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">It can, it does actually. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif Send me an email. Let's talk about it.

Geoschmo

Re: PBW server is back up.
 

Battle.net is paid for by Blizzard and charges no money to use it... all you have to do is have the game. Battle.net makes them money specifically because a lot of people buy their games to play on Battle.net. PBW can become something similar for SE4/SE5.

Re: PBW server is back up.
 

I would say that 300 - 500 "hardcore" players is not insignificant based on the total announced sales of the product. Again this is all based on conjecture.

[ December 03, 2003, 18:37: Message edited by: rextorres ]

Re: PBW server is back up.
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">I didn't mean to imply it was insignificant. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif Merely that it doesn't justify the level of direct financial support that some people seem to feel Shrapnel should be providing.


<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Which is a perfect example of the point I am trying to make. Blizzard games are not what one would classify as "niche" games. They have a much larger fan base which can support things like bettle.net through proceeds from retail sales. Shrapnel is a little fish compared to that.

Re: PBW server is back up.
 

Yes, and they would use little fish servers as opposed to the massive server farms used for Battle.net. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

Re: PBW server is back up.
 

First off, thanks again for all your great work setting up PBW.

Second, I can't help but think that charging people 1 $1/month for the privilege of using PBW is a good idea. Plus, I often find that people value that which they pay for more than that which is free. Ever worked in an office with an intern who worked for free and a paid employee who did less than the intern but got paid for it? <g>

BTW, do you yet know why the connection is horked? (apologies if this has been asked, I didn't see it below).

Thanks,

Alarik

[ December 03, 2003, 18:59: Message edited by: alarikf ]

Re: PBW server is back up.
 

Yeah!

What's your provider got to say, this time around?!

Re: PBW server is back up.
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Lets ALL go over there and, and, and http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon8.gif UNPLUG them!

Re: PBW server is back up.
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">I am sure you are correct. If anyone wishes to give a dollar a month, we will happily accept it. We accept donations by Paypal and by mail.

The problem with pay for play is this. While it is highly likely that a sizeable portion of the regular Users would happily pay, there is a significant portion who won't, or can't. If we don't allow those people to play, then the people who do pay will get let use out of the service because there will not be as many people available to play against.

By working from donations, those that are able and willing to pay can, and they will get the maximum value for the money they give.

At least that's the way we see it.

Geoschmo

Re: PBW server is back up.
 

Ok, time for an update.

I called the ISP yesterday within 30 minutes of it going down. Got the usual answers on the phone. Got a call back a few hours later saying they couldn't find the problem remotly and would be sending a tech out on Friday.

I was not ammused.

I fully expect that the problem will be with the telco and not the ISP, but I have to play that game and cannot call the telco directly. For the purposes of my DSL the telco doesn't work for me, they work for the ISP.

We've been down this road before and the ISP tech coming out Friday means the telco doesn't get involved till middle of next week at best. So I wrote a stern email to the ISP support detailing the disatisfaction I have had over the Last several months with the service. I told them that if their objective was to drive me away as a customer towards their many competitors in teh highspeed market, they were doing an excellent job. (in those words exactly.) I also told them that I would not be happy unless they got a tech out to my home by today. (wrote this yesterday remember)

Well, lo and behold, it worked. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif The tech just left my house and is heading to the central office as I write this. Assuming she doesn't find a problem there she will get the phone company involved at that point. Not sure how much of a fire I can light under them, but at least we saved 3 days of the process. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

Geoschmo

[ December 03, 2003, 20:24: Message edited by: geoschmo ]

Re: PBW server is back up.
 

Thank, GOD!

Thanks for not letting them drag us all through the coals, Geo. Stay on them! Break out the whips and chains!

http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

--Ed

[ December 03, 2003, 20:27: Message edited by: 1FSTCAT ]

Re: PBW server is back up.
 

totally right geo. i wouldn't pay to play if it was required. i'm not against making voluntary donations, mind you, but i don't think it right to follow in the steps of the big game companies. Shrapnel isn't like that, Malfador isn't like that, and PBW isn't like that. It'd be a sad day indeed when if ever we had to pay to play our dear old PBW games.

plus, there's the matter of implementation. how would you smoothly implement such a measure with so many games running at once. i can only imagine how many players would miss turns, drop out of games, and just generally be irked. one can only guess what a nightmare that would be for the admins, having to reset all the turns and such.

Finally, I'd be very very willing to wager that many of the current die-hard PBW players would migrate to other sites, and use them to organise their own PBEM games. I mean, PBEM wasn't that hard to do when the PBW server went down just a little while back.

Re: PBW server is back up.
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Obviously you weren't running eight separate games like I was. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif

Re: PBW server is back up.
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Obviously you weren't running eight separate games like I was. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif </font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">well, speaking from a player's perspective, anyways. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/tongue.gif

Re: PBW server is back up.
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Obviously you weren't running eight separate games like I was. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif </font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">well, speaking from a player's perspective, anyways. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/tongue.gif </font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">And that's the truth. PBW has always been more of a service to the game owner then the players. When it's working correctly it makes running games a breeze. This means a game owner can run games he's not even in as a player. You can do that PBEM too, but it's not a lot of fun. And it means owners can run many games simultaneously, which means more opportunity for players to get into a game.

Re: PBW server is back up.
 

I agree that making a mandatory fee for PBW is not the best solution. However, I also think that the current "advertising" for donations is not too strong. Why not just a nicely worded request at the front end that says, simply, "we'd really like it if you donated $1 each month to pay for this site. If you don't want to, ok, no problem."

It would sort of act like the donations box in the lobby of museums - you can get in free, but many people do donate becuase it's easy to do so and it's right there...you could even put a PayPal button right there, give it a little "donation box" with animation, yadda yadda yadda...Maybe even a graphic showing running donations, and deficits for the costs involved, so that when you got low on funds people would see that and get more excited about donating...I'm sure there are plenty of javaistas out there who could whip that code up in their sleep...

In any case, PBW is a wonderful service, and I will go right now and donate even more money to it. (But I'm buying a new house in the next week, so not much this time around...)

Thanks,

Alarik

Re: PBW server is back up.
 

check out Simtropolis for an excellent example of asking Users for donations. what i really like is how easy it is to donate, and the fact that they list out the costs and what they need. of course, they have about 18,000 registered Users, which is around half again as many people as have bought SEIV...

Re: PBW server is back up.
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">The big companies let you play MP for free, unless it is a MMORPG... Blizzard lets you play for free, using the MSN Gaming Zone thingie is free, using Gamespy is free, etc.

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">SE4 Gold was said to have passed the $500,000 mark Last year some time. Not SE4, just Gold. 500,000 / 40 = 12500 Users that had purchased SE4 Gold about a year ago or whenever that statement was made. Now add more people that have bought it since then, and then all the people that bought SE4 original but never bought Gold (of which there are a relevent number of). http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

[ December 03, 2003, 23:37: Message edited by: Imperator Fyron ]

Re: PBW server is back up.
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Fire it up. No ETA yet, looks like poor Geo will be out of DSL for another month. In the unlikely event that it will be back up before the weekend, we can revert to PBW without trouble. Otherwise, it looks like developing your autorun programm shortly before PBW had its brief revival has not been a waste of time http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif .

Re: PBW server is back up.
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">I was referring to MMORPGs.

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">But the point still stands that, when compared to Sim City 4, SEIV is a very small game; and when compared to Simtropolis, PBW is a very small community.

Re: PBW server is back up.
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Fire it up. No ETA yet, looks like poor Geo will be out of DSL for another month. In the unlikely event that it will be back up before the weekend, we can revert to PBW without trouble. Otherwise, it looks like developing your autorun programm shortly before PBW had its brief revival has not been a waste of time http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif . </font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Ok, it's up again.
I'm recoding the entire autoturn app and will rewrite alot of the site later on, it's a fun learning process for me.
If PBW comes on-line again soon we'll switch back immediatly.

Re: PBW server is back up.
 

farstryder:
That just means that you only run one server, not a server farm. It is just a difference of scale.

Comparing any game to a MMORPG is a mistake because they are built around an entirely different marketing base. MMORPG, pay as you play. Other games, buy it once (or thrice in the case of certain disreputable companies *cough* civ3 *cough*). It is better to compare to the large majority of games/companies that provide MP servers without charging for them.

Re: PBW server is back up.
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Except that most of these companies -don't- provide servers, they provide matchmaking services. IIRC even Blizzard's Battle.net is like this except for the Realms games for Diablo 2. This reduces the strain quite a lot..

And the comparison is relevent because someone else was refering to the pay by the month scheme..