Shrapnel game server

[MaxWilson]

JimMorrison said:
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?

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

[JimMorrison]

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. 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. (Edit: Especially if it were a larger "Shrapnel" server rather than just a Dom3 server, and could host other games as well.)

[MaxWilson]

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

[S.R. Krol]

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.

[Tyrant]

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.

[chrispedersen]

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.

[Gandalf Parker]

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?

[chrispedersen]

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