PBW offline

[geoschmo]

We had a storm blow through a couple of hours ago. It's been down since. Nothing serious, I just have to get to where it is and reset it. A couple three more hours tops.

Geoschmo

[Binford]

AH, good I was wondering. Glad I checked here.

Just curious though, why is the address pingable if the box is down? Or is it behine a proxy/firewall that's still up?

Bin

[ July 23, 2002, 20:27: Message edited by: Binford ]

[geoschmo]

Ok. It's back up now. If you missed your turn or anything cause the server was down, talk to your game owner. He can get with the PBW admins if needed to set the turn back.

Geoschmo

[Atrocities]

Geo,

If I can ask, how much does it cost to run a server? You see, I have been kicking around the idea of running a Tribes 2 server for sometime. However, I know nothing about how to go about doing it. IE do I build and own the server, or do I lease one and the host ownes. Speaking of hosts, how do you do that? Send the server to a location and they hook it up and bill you for use each month? Any insights you have would be greatly appreciated. Thanks

[geoschmo]

Atrocities,

I am not sure how much of my experience is typical. PBW was the Admiral's baby from the start, it was his computer, and he programed the database. Lazarus setup most of the interface and web pages that you see. I have no idea how much time they put into these parts in the way of setup. I am sure if they had not been doing it on a volunteer basis it would have been quite expensive to hire someone to do the equivalent, and I am by no means capable of doing it myself.

The ongoing costs are about 90 bucks a month for the DSL line to hook the server up, and whatever power the server uses running 24/7. That I have no clue about, but I haven't noticed an appreciable differance in my monthly utility bill since I set it up.

There is also an yearly charge for the URL, but that is insignificant compared to the monthly connection fee.

Geoschmo

[CNCRaymond]

Forgive me for butting in, but I take it you chose DSL because of the FIXED up and down bandwidth rates? Atrocities that is a good option for you. You can get rid of that Cable modem and go DSL. The more you pay the more bandwidth you can get up to the limit your phone line can handle. You can run the server from your home. There are a lot of great free server programs out there that can help you too.

Of course you will more than likely want to have a fire wall PC or router too if your going to run a Tribes 2 server. The game Posts the IP of each server. Hackers love IP address.

[ July 24, 2002, 04:14: Message edited by: CNCRaymond ]

[capnq]

Whether DSL is an option depends on where you live; it's only available within a certain distance of the provider's central offices.

[Atrocities]

Thanks guys. I'll check it out. I have heard that they inudate you with hidden charges though.

[Puke]

i dont think you actually have to program anything for a tribes server. the game should come with the appropriate software to run a server with. you just need a machine and some bandwidth. you probably dont even need a domain name, as i think there are already Online places where you can register your servers IP address.

[Atrocities]

The game is heavily supported with multiple tools for running a server. I have ran servers before, but that was before AT&T reduced its upload speeds from 256 to 56k, and its download from 1m to 128k. I hate AT&T.

When I tried the Qwest DSL, I had signed up for 256k up and down, but got 26k both ways. It was a huge dissapointment. Factor in that the first month was suppose to be free, and I got billed $300.00 and had to fight them through the State's Attorney Generals Office for a year to get my money back, really soured me on Qwest.

I still have two of their INTEL modems. Hell they were worse than AOL.

Now that was two years ago. I wonder if the service has improved?