Re: New & raw web based Dominion II game server
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">You could allow players that are in the same game to see each others e-mail, as well. Of course, there should be an account option to ask players if they want to reveal such information (disabled by default).

Re: New & raw web based Dominion II game server
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">I know Ermor hasn't taken a turn in a long time. My armies have been walking around in his territory with no resistance for a while.

Pretty sure Pythium is out too. Inexplicably, nobody has attacked them, but army size, research, provinces, and income have all been flat for about 6 turns.

Not sure about C'tis. They're one of the strongest nations in the game so I'd be surprised, but you never know.

Re: New & raw web based Dominion II game server
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Let me know when you get around to packaging the web interface.

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">From experience I would make it a game option, or leave it off. Known players is something we have from creating games here in the forum. Its been a common request to have some easy way to do anonymous games. Some players feel too restricted by playing within their personal reputations. For instance, "Gandalf Parker" is much more likely to never break an alliance agreement than "PsudoNym" is.

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">In my notes about making a web game server (until you shot way ahead of me) I was considering creating a subdirectory for each game and making it an option to have stats and score file put there. Possibly other game info such as a way for players to converse and still maintain their login aliases.

Re: New & raw web based Dominion II game server
 

Here's a big suggestion that could potentially take some work to implement, but be very awesome:

1. Don't use the Dominions II pretender upload interface: It's too prone to undesirable behaviors like accidental starting or overwriting. Instead, make people upload and delete their pretenders for the game through their web interface: That way, nobody can overwrite somebody else's slot, start the game prematurely, etc.

2. Implement AWOL tracking: A player has obviously staled when, at the time of a turn generation, his .trn file exists and is more recent than his .2h: If this occurs for several turns in a row, perhaps a number of turns determined at game setup, the player can be deemed to be AWOL. Since he had to submit his pretender through the web interface, the server now knows who he is: Display his AWOLness on the game status screen, and mark it on his permanent record.

3. Allow a player to hand his slot over to another player. Allow a player deemed to be AWOL to have his slot taken over by another player, if he did not password and can be subbed.

4. Configure the game setup such that the creator of a game can disallow a player who has more than X games AWOL to join: Thus, if BillyBob has gone AWOL in 3 games, and I wish to start a zero-tolerance game, such that no player who has ever gone AWOL may join, this player may not join the game. The caveat being that an unruly game-wrecker may attempt to create a second account to get around this. Also allow it such that games can be restricted to allow only those whose accounts were created BEFORE the game was created, or some other fixed date/offset. As a stopgap measure to reduce this occurrence, disallow anyone whose IP/email matches that of a player who has been recorded as going AWOL from creating another account. This won't catch them all, but it'll certainly make this harder, and be fairly trivial to implement.

Re: New & raw web based Dominion II game server
 

Mose, have you put in any anti-overwrite protection yet?

Love your site, btw. You Rock. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif


Is this a bug or a *new* feature?

Upon a mild change of strategic heart, I tried to overwrite my own pretender well before the start, but the pretender I ended up with is my first Version.

Is this new MP overwrite protection, or just me somehow screwing up?

If the former case, how *does* one amend one's design?


Rabe the Revisionist

Re: New & raw web based Dominion II game server
 

Stopping overwrite:
Its kludgy but I was just doing some quick thinking on it.

Set the game to not be auto-started. Set a cron to watch the game directory and copy each upload to a safety directory renamed from name.2h to name+number+login.2h and when the game starts then copy them back to the game directory in reverse order for hosting. That way Man2joe.2h will be overwriteen by Man1bob.2h just before hosting.

Offer the Users login an option to delete a file created by their login so that Bob can delete Man1bob.2h allowing Man2bob.2h to be used when the game is created.

Like I said, kludgy. But something like that. Hole the uploaded files somewhere until the game is first hosted then select the ones which should be used. Heck its Linux. There is probably a hundred ways of doing it. Some use of RCS or CVS commands (which Ive always avoided). Probably the easiest would be to go to a php script or using zope to make uploads go thru the web page so you can control its actions.

Re: New & raw web based Dominion II game server
 

Or you could just make it so pretenders are uploaded on through the web interface instead: This will force it so firstly, only registered Users can play, and as a result, you'll know who's in the game: Thus, people can be penalized by blacklisting them in their permanent records if they go AWOL from games, even without having to be identified publicly....as most of the AWOLers are also the anonymous Users, with the new confession option.

With that in place, you could then setup a mechanism to disallow AWOLers from joining games with the low/no tolerance for AWOLness options enabled.

Re: New & raw web based Dominion II game server
 

1. The source is here:

Dominion 2 host pages source
Note that it is licensed under GPL v2, viral and all. This means that if you modify and distribute it, you must publish the source. Also, the license notifications must be included.

2. Been a bit busy lately. I've just updated the pages, The only visible change is that it is now possible to set a master password. If anyone knows what this is supposed to be good for, please tell me. The only effect I can see/find is that "master password is enabled" appear in the game settings in the game. Please verify your findings --- you can use the TestGame005 if you please. Ulm doesn't have a password; and the password is "testpassword". The other two nations does have passwords --- these are "palm".

Regarding all the player stealing mess: I'm trying to find a solution. I want it to be in-game and as transparant as possible The best solution would, of course, be if the games themselves could be password protected. Why Illwinter didn't include this feature is beyond me. Maybe for next Version? Anyway, keep the suggestions coming, they are very useful http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif

Have a nice night!

Re: New & raw web based Dominion II game server
 

The test game is crowding the slottage. Could you please stop the thing so we can bring the other regular games back up?

Also, master pass is mostly useless for people to set on your server: You may as well set a global server masterpass manually, because only the local host is able to use master pass. It's useless to use it from remote, it will still say "wrong password" and reject.

Re: New & raw web based Dominion II game server
 

Well, sorry for taking up a slot on my own server http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...s/rolleyes.gif I've stopped the game now.

Pity about the masterpass thing. It is completely useless (for me) as I cannot run anything but textmode on my server. So much for that idea for removing stale players by making them computercontrolled. Back to the drawing board http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon9.gif

Re: New & raw web based Dominion II game server
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Thank you Johan. That would be so extremely helpful. Those two things (stealing positions and being able to change a AWOL player to computercontrolled) is no 1 and 2 on the wishlist, and ones I can't find a good solution for.

Yes, the reason for the low limit was memory considerations. However, I went ahead and actually read the man top, and found out that each dominions II game uses about 20-30Mb virtual memory. Or at least I think so. Between caching, shared libraries and shared memory I get terrible confused about what number to use.

Currently, the server has used about 500Mb virtual memory, while having 256Mb of RAM. I do not consider it wise to push it further.

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">code:</font><hr /><pre style="font-size:x-small; font-family: monospace;"> total used free shared buffers Cached
Mem: 249 239 10 0 43 29
Swap: 1004 255 748</pre><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">I think perhaps the number of games could be pushed to 20, but as this server is my everything from my email server to my Gentoo repository, I really don't want to test it to the point of destruction. I hope in the future that somebody else will add a server. Otherwise, we'll just have to make do with this one, until I happen to invest in a new computer.

Re: New & raw web based Dominion II game server
 

I like memstat. I found it handy to use "memstat|sort -n" because it includes librarys and who is using it. Dom2 has improved ALOT in its memory useage and has plugged nearly all the memory leaks. (I think there is a windows-host leak still which has a fix in the next patch)

Re: New & raw web based Dominion II game server
 

I have taken a look at it now and the master password will be usable for network clients too in the next patch. No password protection for god uploading though, but I have added a warning message that might prevent some people from stealing positions by mistake. Something like "Warning this nation is already controlled by a player. If you overwrite someone else's god Mose Hansen will visit you on next tuesday and beat you up, punk. Are you sure you want to take this risk?".

Re: New & raw web based Dominion II game server
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Great news about the master password :-D

I think what I will do, then, is this: When creating no-anonymous game, a new player will only get the port number after stating what nation(s) he wants to play. That should reduce the problem.

Thanks for your effort!

Re: New & raw web based Dominion II game server
 

I'll take a look at password protection for God uploading and check if it might be possible to use master password for network games as well.

What is the problem with having more than 15 games running on your old computer? Running out of memory perhaps?

Re: New & raw web based Dominion II game server
 

Just a suggestion:

You could make direct link from starting (logged) players page to games he is playing. It will make checking game status faster and will encourage players to ID themselves in games they are playing.

You did great work with this server and helped MP community greatly. You earned a big THANK YOU from me. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

Re: New & raw web based Dominion II game server
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">I'm not sure I understand... I already have a page that show which games the player havn't taken his turn in:
Points of Interests
And a page that show games that a player either started or play in. Maybe it's because I don't recognize the "starting (logged) players page" --- which page is that? Sorry if I'm being dense
http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...s/confused.gif

And you're welcome :-) And I appreciate all the suggestions I receive, even though I sometimes doesn't get around to thank you for them http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/tongue.gif It's been a fun project; only wish I had 256Mb extra RAM of whatever type my Celeron 300Mhz server uses, so I could run more games simultanosly.

Re: New & raw web based Dominion II game server
 

Ahh, sorry. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/blush.gif You already have "My games" option that does what I suggested. I thought it only shows games you started. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...s/rolleyes.gif

Re: New & raw web based Dominion II game server
 

I started another thread where I suggested that you create a small Paypal donation button on your website... or somewhere else.

I would certainly be willing to donate $10-$20 for the purchase of more ram or whatever else you want to add to your game server. If everyone that used your server donated a few dollars it would be a decent amount of money to finance some upgrades.


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

Re: New & raw web based Dominion II game server
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">While I really appreciate the sentiment, I really do not wish money for what I do. If I received money, I would feel I had to provide this service, and use the money to buy stuff for the server. That would kill the fun.

However, if anybody knows the type of RAM a Celeron 300Mhz computer would use, and had a 128--256Mb or so block of the stuff lying around, then I wouldn't mind accepting that. I doubt it is worth more than $20 now-a-days, though you never know. If you decide to do this, I'll take the server down, open the box and have a look inside to see how many slots are free.

And my next computer upgrade is probably in a few months in any case. Me & and my wife are getting cramped on our two non-server computers. If that happen, I migh even upgrade the server-to-be to 1Gb RAM --- enough for any number of Dominions2 games.

Again, I really, really appreciate the sentiment. But I do this for fun, and money would kill that fun.

Re: New & raw web based Dominion II game server
 

I'm guessing your server uses PC100 RAM if it is only running on a celeron 300. I don't know if it would registered RAM or not.

You might try looking it up on Crucial.com

We probably have some old RAM at the office that we are not using any more. I'll check if I know exactly what you need.

[ May 02, 2004, 21:10: Message edited by: Maltrease ]

Re: New & raw web based Dominion II game server
 

Server pages has been updated. Check the news on the page itself (don't care to write the whole shebang again).

Though looking at the submitted jabber ids was interesting. My Favorites were "huh?" and "Iamnot@real" http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif

Re: New & raw web based Dominion II game server
 

OK, I have matched up the output from cat /proc/pci to my stack of manuals and come to the comclusion that the server is using a Asus P2B-L motherboard or a very close sibling. It sports 4 DIMM sockets, of which 2 are currently taken by 128Mb modules (97% sure). The slots accept "Intel PC100-compliant SDRAMs (8, 16, 32, 64, 128 or 256Mb) up to 1024Mb", according to the manual.

I want to stress 2 things.I would really, really appreciate this. And I would use every megabyte for more games, which I think is something like 1 game/4Mb, though I would increase the limit gradually. But I want this to be 100% voluntary. In a few months the server will probably be upgraded in any case. I would say ETA is between 2 and 6 months.

If you decide to go ahead and do this, the address is, (transmogriffed to international mode:)

Esben Mose Hansen
Blomstermarken 2
DK-3450 Alleroed
Denmark

Re: New & raw web based Dominion II game server
 

A few questions and comments about this server:

1. Totally Awesome! I hope you get your memory chips http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif
2. I got into a game that started yesterday (Orania Fast) but was stopped on turn 1 with a note that some limit has been exceeded and the game can't be restarted. Yet there is now a new open game looking for players...this seems weird...and possibly problematic.
3. Memory space is at a premium, yet looking at the list of running games the ones running the longest (several almost a month now) appear to be still on turn 1 - and many have the "Hosting In" field blank...is there a bug in the website display or could these games reasonably be deleted at this point? If you aren't interested in the job of playing time cop for this server (and surely you have done plenty already) I would be happy to if that's possible. At a minimum I could keep tabs on the run list and send you an email of games going nowhere - again assuming the web data is accurate.

Re: New & raw web based Dominion II game server
 

1. Thanks http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif The memory is unlikely --- the pricing of old PC100 RAM is just way more than I is willing to pay, even using someboy else's money :-/ Instead, I'm slowly expanding using virtual memory. We'll just have to see how far I can carry this. Currently swapping 320Megs with any overt problems.

2. The game was stopped on purpose. I don't log much information, but here it is from my server logs:

[Wed May 05 01:47:53 2004] [error] [client 203.173.3.90] Killing dominion2 game Orania_Fast, pid=26468 at /Game.pm line 362., referer: https://www.mosehansen.dk/cgi-bin/dom2.
pl?page=BrowseGamePage&game=Orania_Fast

Don't mind the time, my server's clock has gone ballistics. Probably the CMOS batteri is giving up :-/ Anyways, from the IP the game was killed from a dynamically assigned IP from iinet.net.au. Probably the game owner.


3. The turn counter was bugged. I think I've fixed it now, but all old games are screwed. If any particular game strikes anyone as dead, post here, and I will investigate. I don't have time to hunt for dead games myself. The hosting In was recently added; games need to be restarted (just go to the change game options and press submit without changing anything. Make sure the game is "in progress" afterwards". (Reload page at least once to make sure.) If not, repeat. And yes, it would be great if you'd care to hunt for dead games. I'm working on an automatic solution for this, but... there is so much to do.

Hope you enjoy the server despite it's problems. It's still very raw --- though it has come a long way since the first beginnings :-)

Re: New & raw web based Dominion II game server
 

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

Re: New & raw web based Dominion II game server
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">The game was deliberately stopped because somebody started the game prematurely before players could all sign up.

Re: New & raw web based Dominion II game server
 

Suggestion: Change the connected/has taken turn display to no longer list the presence of a player in the event that he is defeated or goes AI, as indicated by the fact that he no longer has a .trn file.

Also, allow game owners to entirely delete games that are stopped.

Re: New & raw web based Dominion II game server
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">The first is a good suggestion. I'll look into it.

I prefer to avoid the latter, since it would mess up my plans for making statistics, but some sort of "hidden", "not relevant" and/or "aged" flag+filter would be nice.

First I want map uploading to work, though. Then I'll implement something else that strikes my fancy. BTW, the connected column is useful for me when I stop+restart games to take advantage of new features....

But hey, anybody can implement whatever they like! The source is availble, just make a patch and send it to me http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif (Sorry about that http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif )

Re: New & raw web based Dominion II game server
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">I'm not sure why you would want to keep statistics on dead games, such as the ones that failed to ever actually start, though. Given that a game will likely have at least one false start, wouldn't it better if the failed game could just be completely expunged, freeing the port as well?

Re: New & raw web based Dominion II game server
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Except that it's not really THEIR fault that the game had to be restarted, the blame can be squarely placed on the unknown individual who accidentally or deliberately started the game without permission, or the guy who uploaded his pretender over somebody else....

Re: New & raw web based Dominion II game server
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Except that it's not really THEIR fault that the game had to be restarted, the blame can be squarely placed on the unknown individual who accidentally or deliberately started the game without permission, or the guy who uploaded his pretender over somebody else.... </font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Before those statistics kicks in, both of those problems will be solved, somehow. Actually, I just had an idea on how to make sure that only the game owner can start the game: Just make --noclientstart a game option. Then the game owner could have it on in the beginning, and then turn it off from the change game option page before start. How does that sound?

The problem with pretender overwrites, on the other hand, HAS to be solved. This is what I am currently contemplating:

1. When creating a game, the port is NOT selected by the creator, but generated (in secret) by the server.
2. Then the players select what nation they want to play. This is recorded, and the port is displayed (to those players)

Not perfect --- I can't see how it can be without password protected slots on the server itself --- but pretty close, no?

Re: New & raw web based Dominion II game server
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">I'm not sure why you would want to keep statistics on dead games, such as the ones that failed to ever actually start, though. Given that a game will likely have at least one false start, wouldn't it better if the failed game could just be completely expunged, freeing the port as well? </font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Freeing up the port is a non-issue. I'll have a port-reclaiming feature ready way before we use up the 200 ports currently allocated.

I would like the statistics --- for fun. (Yes, I'm a mathematician, can't help it). And perhaps one could imagine gamers who would avoid game creators with many games that have been restarted? I would, at least.

Re: New & raw web based Dominion II game server
 

Hmmm. Are you aware that there is empty new game slots on the server?

Anyways, I work from the feedback principle. If noone cares to comment on my suggestions, I'm certainly not going to implement any. So I've canned the suggestions posted below, and now go to work on other stuff (than the server)

Re: New & raw web based Dominion II game server
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">What you've described is probably the best way to do it without creating a web-based upload interface.

Re: New & raw web based Dominion II game server
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Sounds good.
how about a cron that watches for file uploads and copies them to a save dir? If man.2h is there then 2Man.2h is put into the save dir. That way you can always restore.

In fact maybe the cron could always restore? A new Man.2h file is saved as 2man.sh but the original Man.2h is copied back. if a player meant to replace his god he would need to request a manual deletion of the...

OK new thought. Have the cron watch the upload directorys and remove the write priveleges on uploaded god files. Would that work?

*sigh* Im still thinking a php drag-n-drop might answer things. You could put all the checks and balances in then. I need to get off my ascii and try to get my own working. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

Re: New & raw web based Dominion II game server
 

I still say web-based upload interface is best: This will also allow you to implement an element of accountability, so that people go AWOL from games can thus be blacklisted from joining future games automatically.

Re: New & raw web based Dominion II game server
 

I may implement all 3 things, then. THEN we'll see who is right ;-)

Thanks for commenting again. I go strange without feedback, as you see http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/blush.gif

The upload thing is very simple to do. I'll look into that first. As for the cron script, that would be simple too, though a bit worse (harder to test). I don't even need a cron script; the domwatcher script sees every upload. The main problem with that approach is no feedback. Still, it may not be too bad.

Re: New & raw web based Dominion II game server
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">I think it would be much simpler to just have the game owner confirm whether each applicant can join.

Re: New & raw web based Dominion II game server
 

Perhaps, but most of the time, it's generally implicit that people can join unless they have a history of not upholding their commitments. That, and it's always fun to blacklist people.

Re: New & raw web based Dominion II game server
 

Feedback on my latest endeavor on the server would be welcome. To quote myself:

Pretender protection, stage 1 implemented:

From now on, pretenders cannot be overwritten from within the game. For each nation, the first pretender to be uploaded will be squirreled away in a safe place and restored just before the game starts. In other words, you can no longer steal somebodys position.

This could be problematic if somebody WANTED a pretender overwritten. To accomplish this, the game owner/creator now have the option to "kick all anonymous players" from the game. So to give up a position, just mark it as Anonymous and ask the game owner to kick all anonymous players.

Kicking anonymous players before game start would probably be a sensible move in any case to avoid AWOL players. Or at least learning which players tend to go AWOL.

This also means that being Anonymous is risky business, as it stands. If you have a problem with this, please let me know.

Re: New & raw web based Dominion II game server
 

What if somebody wants to overwrite himself? You should include the option for somebody who has claimed a slot to kick himself from the game.

Re: New & raw web based Dominion II game server
 

Sorry Norfleet --- can't be done, since kicking somebody from the game involves a restart of the game server.

I only want game owners to be able to restart games, though I could easily change that. That is why it is done the way it is. Alternate solution are welcome, especially if it includes a patch http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/tongue.gif

2 thing to keep in mind:

1. You can still kick yourself if you can contact the game owner: Mark yourself as Anonymous, contact the game owner and ask him to kick Anonymous players. Tough luck for those who wants to remain Anonymous, however.

2. Manual upload of your own pretender .2h file will be possible in the future. That way you could overwrite your own Pretender.

P.S: Careful with that word, "should". In the OSS world, that word can hang you out to dry real good. I've seen it happen and it's not a pretty sight.

Re: New & raw web based Dominion II game server
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">I almost always want to overwrite my pretender, so I hope you implement an easier method for this soon.

Re: New & raw web based Dominion II game server
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">I almost always want to overwrite my pretender, so I hope you implement an easier method for this soon. </font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">I'm a bit confused. Why would you do that? I'm guessing that you don't want to risk the nation taken while you are creating a pretender, but I would like to know. Makes it easier making the right design.

Re: New & raw web based Dominion II game server
 

Its not uncommon for me to create a pretender then immeadiately regret something. And sometimes I will see how the joining is going and want to make changes to prepare for the opponents I will face.

But usually if Im stuck with my first one I can do that. Its a batter option than having overwrites, for now.

Re: New & raw web based Dominion II game server
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">I overwrite pretenders because I often change my mind about how I want them to be setup. This is also highly dependent on what opponents I will be facing.

Re: New & raw web based Dominion II game server
 

Esben, this is a huge step forward.
Thanks for your continuing efforts to make automated serving available to the Dominions community.

Re: New & raw web based Dominion II game server
 

I got a "nagot gick fell" (or whatever) in the Pascentiful game after completing my Last turn, and the game seems to have hung...

Re: New & raw web based Dominion II game server
 

Yes, I'm *****ing at Cohen about it right now.