Shrapnel game server
 

I have been venting a bit on game hosts dropping out lately.
Sorry If I have been a bit callous.

This begs the question though, why is there not a Shrapnel Dom 3 server? Dom 3 seems to be a popular game, with more people joining in regularly. The MP games fill up quickly. Could not Shrapnel, the publisher, host a Dom 3 network server? It would not be much work to set one up, and the cost would be very little. One employee set to administer the games. A part-time job at best.

Re: Shrapnel game server
 

I dont think its fair to expect something like that from Shrapnel, which serves such a small market. If we paid subscription dues or something, maybe.

Re: Shrapnel game server
 

Well, considering the small amount of actual bandwidth that (I imagine) is needed for the games, the main cost would be the hardware. What kind of hardware would be needed to host 10-20 games on one machine?

And if it were possible that we could donate funds to get said machine up and running, would it be possible that a simple interface could be set up, to allow a select few trusted people (like Llama, Ich, I dunno) to start and end the games, with just a couple of minutes actual effort spent here and there?

Not implying that anything is expected of anyone, just tossing out ideas here. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

Re: Shrapnel game server
 

If shrapnelgames wanted to continuing promoting DOM_3... they would find a way to provide a reliable server, even if it was from a 3rd party source.

Increasing a games popularity is more than just advertising. Usually we don't hear from the folks at Shrapnelgames unless it's advertising or someone's in trouble.

Re: Shrapnel game server
 

I think you mean "the administration." People are always more expensive than machines, and one of the reasons Shrapnel has given for not supporting downloadable distribution of Dom3 is that downloadable distribution's costs are dominated by support costs. I expect an official Dom3 server would be similar. How much time does llamabeast spend on the Llamaserver?

-Max

Re: Shrapnel game server
 

The support cost for online distribution, I was under the impression, is mainly in people having various and sundry issues with the process. Otherwise, it's just a matter of infrastructure, and that's why you see less of the smaller outfits doing downloads, as the cost per unit goes down very fast once you have invested enough time and effort to get a system that "almost always" functions flawlessly for most customers.

I've noted Llama stating repeatedly that he has no qualms about hosting games for whoever asks, because it only takes him a couple of minutes to set them up. The largest drain is when people do blitzes, and for some reason people like to restart blitzes a lot, which leaves a lot of games needing resets, for nothing. Otherwise, the few minutes taken for a game that will last a month at least, is kind of trivial. And again, that's why I suggested that rather than this "part time job" system of paying a guy to hang around doing nothing all day, cooperation could be gained from people who already actively donate time to get extra games up, and who are trusted by the people in charge, to operate a more powerful system that requires even less effort on a per game basis.

I am sure that Llama, and Gandalf, would be happy to do the same service that they willfully already give the community, if they had the opportunity to do so without tying up their own hardware. Reasonably sure, that is. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif Obviously it's not my decision to make, I was mostly just proposing that if someone in said position looked into it, I'd bet the project would have a very good chance of resolving in a way that led to faster, more powerful, and ultimately more reliable hosting, which should hopefully translate into a more robust MP community that would attract new customers by virtue of its existence. That's all. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...ies/tongue.gif (Edit: Especially if it were a larger "Shrapnel" server rather than just a Dom3 server, and could host other games as well.)

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Well, maybe you're right. I don't have much experience with Dom3 servers--I just remember from some of the Wishlist threads Llamabeast mentioning that a couple of new server switches would save him loads of time.

-Max

Re: Shrapnel game server
 

Hosting game servers have been batted around in the past but if I remember correctly the main reason nothing has been ever pursued are the time and support issues. Say someone is having problems with their game would we have time to help solve that along with everything else that goes on in the normal course of the day?

If we reach a point we think it is feasible I'm sure we'd do it, as we'd love to provide a place for MP gaming even beyond Dom3.

Re: Shrapnel game server
 

This has come up before, and at one point Shrapnel said that they were looking into it and asked for some advice from veteran hosts about how much hardware they would need etc. My impression was that they were going to hang back and see if it was really needed or if we would handle it on our own, and that they concluded that it wasn't really needed.

Though i would love to see a pro hosting service, i think they were right, I hardly ever have to wait long when i'm looking for a new game. (Though if Velusian is leaving us that might not continue to be true.)

On the flip side, it's such an easy thing to do i'm not sure why they don't. From Gandalf's posts and my own hosting experience it seems like you can run really quite few games on pretty modest hardware. My frakenstein 1G Win 98 p.o.s. does not break a sweat on three games for instance.Perhaps i'll do an experiment and see how many it can handle. As far as the time commitment goes, well, it's a bit of pain for a volunteer, but as an extra duty for an employee it would seem to be trivial. I do not know anything about the particulars of Shrapnel's business and i'm sure they have good reasons. <shrug>

There was also some general gaming site (Battlefield?) that tried to get a community going once, but i'm not sure if they actually provided hosting. They did not quite get Dominions and were focused on a ladder thing for 2 or 4 player games so it kinda just died on the vine.

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Hardware isn't a problem.. I have like 30+ PIII or PIV's lying around. Its the game setup and admin thats a bear.

Really it would be cool if someone would write an app that would allow html setup of a game.

Aka web interface to sign up, web interface to pick all the options etc.

Re: Shrapnel game server
 

You mean something like this?
http://game.dom3minions.com/MakeGame.htm

If you check my status thread you will see that I have been drawn out by a nasty email. Since my server crash seems to have resurrected this subject, you people might want to check back thru the previous conversations about this. I might mention that Ive been running internet servers since internet was born and this is a common situation.

Its not the hardware. Any old computer in your closet because it wont run the latest windows games can be more of a server than your ISP is giving you access to.

Its not the software. Dominions 3 is native to Linux and definetly runs best that way. Linux is free. Adding webserver, email server, ftp support, etc is all free. Even forums, IRC, chats, and live voice chats could be added. Dominions itself runs very efficiently and communicates even more efficiently.

Its not even the support. Altho no matter how much you automate it there is still a fair amount of support due to users. Admin by telecommute is fairly cheap.

The scarey math is in turnover. Even blitz games like I run of 2-4 players on small maps can fill up quick and can take a month of play time. How many of those should a server handle in a month? What about mid-sized games of 10 players on a map of 500 provinces? Some of the mods which can add to load? What about era games with 20 players on 1000 provinces? mega games of over 60 players on 1500 provinces? What rules would there be to insure that everyone doesnt create their own mega-game to play against all AIs? If you ran Dom3 on default and tried to keep 10 games open for signup at a time, and let them all run until the players decided they were done (and hope they tell you when to take it down) then it can add up fairly quick.

If you check the conversations in the past you will see many things including my recommendations, excellent work by many people, and Tim Brooks responses. That would be a good place to start if you want to bring all this up again. Do a search on MakeGame and it will show you various conversations on the subject. Particularly the one called Any plans for an "official" hosting server?

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wow.
I am constantly amazed at the talent of the people here.

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Why would Shrapnel with in niche games like this with an active community it's usually solved by the community. We have some hosts and it's enough for those on this forum. if I want to host a game I talk to llama and the game runs.

Gandalfs server broke down, nasty but .. so could shrapnels I guess http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/laugh.gif

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Yeah, as Aezeal says I am always happy to host games. So no-one should ever feel without a host.

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Speaking of great community projects in this line, the PBEM site for SEIV was very cool and community based. I have no idea if the technical side of Dom and SE are similar, but it is a great example of the community doing great things.

http://www.pbw.cc/

Re: Shrapnel game server
 

< shrug >

They could get people to PayPal 1$ for every hosting? And if someone had to flip a switch to start larger games, such as all of the volunteer hosts already do, then they'd know if there were real people playing them or not.

I think what would help the most, from what I've seen, is if there could be a script running on the servers (private hosted, or company managed) that ran a backup of the game files on each turn. Then if the main system did crash, there might be a brief delay, but the game could get restarted elsewhere with minimal complications.


I'm basically just theorizing, that broken games are likely one of the primary reasons that people stop playing Dom3. The more people give up the game, the smaller the community gets. The smaller the community, the less games going at any given time. The less games up, the less likely someone will stumble on it and get into it. I mean, take SE5 for example, there is 1 thread from this year in their matchmaking forum. Who is going to buy the game when they see that?

At a certain point all of the reasoning in the world can't take the place of action. And on that note, we are honored by your efforts Llama, but what happens when life changes, and you also move on? We're losing a well respected host as we speak, no? We can count on you today, and we're more than grateful, but tomorrow, the only server we can count on, won't be privately operated. Well, maybe day after tomorrow, or next month, but someday for sure! <3

Re: Shrapnel game server
 

Seriously what would Shrapnel offer that Llama doesn't..

- He get's games started faster than you can find players
- more admin options than I usually need.
- can't really think of other options I would need
- easy, clear and simple to use interface

The back-up system is the only thing that might be worth mentioning now gandalf crashed and some players are unhappy.. but how often has llama gone down?

If llama leaves I'm sure someone else will pick it up, it's the way things go and for a company like shrapnel it's a huge effort and cost to set things up and run it I guess while it doesn't add much to the community atm.

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@Saxon: SE is actually more involved than Dom since SE is windows only I found it more difficult to setup hosting. Thats why I only hosted one SE game at a time. By comparison, and for much of the same reasons (having to interface to my windows desktop) I only hosted one mega-game of Dom3 at a time.

@others: any server can run into troubles and backups are standard recommendations. Backups of games were offered and available on my server but unfortunately not utilized by some of the games that were running. In fact, my server was acting as a backup receiver for games on other servers. I would create a mailbox and other hosts would send email copies of pretenders, passwords, games, etc to it.

Llama's server is actually a great example of a host server done right for Dom3 (IMHO). We have all learned from experience over the years.
A) Someone decides to "run" a game
B) They start a thread or a chat and decide on the game parameters, the map, the mods. Sometimes this can take a month of discussion.
C) They contact me, or lch, or llamabeast, or someone else to host the game. With scripts it can be fairly easy.
D) The person who is running the game handles the player discussions and forwards requests for changes. A discussion to hold the game up for a day or two while someone is on vacation can take a week. Or turn a player AI for missing in action. Or even to decide the game is won (and HOPEFULLY send a nice thankyou note to notify the poor server that the game can be deleted and replaced with another)

What kinds of things have we learned?
1) Setting up games with no discussion of the game parameters between the players can be a deadend. Dom3 running in signup mode is actually the biggest hog of Dom3.
2) Doing games setup yourself easily ends up with 30-35 threads that you have to read 5 or 6 times a day to catch the user conversations about game changes because for some reason they expect you to see the conversations without emailing you
3) Let someone else setup and manage each game. That way you only have 30-35 people whose responsibility becomes to let you know whats going on. AND it helps many players get their feet wet with the headaches (loves?) of what is involved with hosting.
4) If you can handle the bulk of standard games, then the players can manage to host the extreme oddballs. Servers dont have to provide all game options.
5) And I think its fairly agreed between the server people that automating game setup such as I have in that example page would be BAD. Its not the hosting of the games that is hard on the server. But starting hundreds and hundreds of games that no one comes back to would definetly kill one. I suppose that setting it up thru paypal to charge would solve that.

Gandalf Parker

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I am trying to set things up so that, should I become hopelessly busy or my attention moves elsewhere for a while, all can carry on without me. At the moment I'm only needed for the actual starting of the games, which does not take too long, but I hope to automate that ultimately as well.

The only outgoing at present is the cost of the domain name, which is something like £9 a year. I can cope with that, indefinitely I'd say. If, in the future, my brother can no longer let me use his mail server (which is what we're using at the moment), then hopefully I will be able to set up my own.

Finally, all the game files on the llamaserver are backed up every turn to another system. So I think there's no need to worry about games disappearing entirely if my machine explodes.

I do dream of one day making such a setup page. I started work on it at christmas, but then got busy. It's a huge job. But if I do ever get it working I will have quite a remorseless system of game-culling: If there's no activity on a game for a week, it'll e-mail the game admin to warn them. If they don't do anything for another week it'll kill the game. Possibly I might include another warning week in the middle there. But anyway, ultimately I will not have to watch it at all to prevent the number of games growing too large. Of course, with a PBEM system there is no overhead from dormant games anyway, so the main reason for culling would just be to keep the website tidy.

Any system requiring input from me is ultimately in trouble if I get distracted, so I will try to make sure that I can just leaving it ticking away on its own with no problems.

Re: Shrapnel game server
 

You are so awesome Llama, there are not really words. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...ies/tongue.gif You as well Gandalf, but I don't see you as much, you are as mysterious as you are wise. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...es/redface.gif

Anyway, since you're dissembling my arguments Llama, one suggestion on the auto-kill - as it seems that the worst "offenders" are the blitzers, I'd recommend that if a game runs for less than 48h before it stalls out, that it be given a 72h wait before termination, with no notice. Or something along those lines to keep people from abusing it (even accidentally).