Ever Quest Type Loading Servers And Zones...

[Jerrid]

I was wondering and I am sure has already been suggested if there is a way to take each FN (What ever that stands for.) server or any dedicated server home made or not and give it a specific map or zone. That map or zone would only be on that particular FN server. Then another FN server has another unique map or zone for it's server and so on and so forth until we have enough FN servers to host each and every map or zone.

Then have each some how (That being the key.) be connected one way or another so that when person 1 and 4 want to go to Thornlands they can without having to wait for 2, 3, 5, and 6 to want to go as well. This would give the feel of a massive world that lets you go where ever you want rather than having to worry about who ever owns that particular server where he or she wants to go or having to wait for a group of others to get to the exit.

Each server would be independent from one another, but all connected to a central server or hub. Obviously I am computer illiterate, however there must be a way to do some thing like that and if not for HL1 for HL2 maybe. It just needs to be found out how and would really put this mod on the map.

However, even if there is a way to do it the central server or hud would have to be huge and would cost a fair bit of money considering it has to take info of all players going to and from each server independtly. Now who would shoulder the price of the server I am not sure. Maybe donations, maybe each person has a spefic pay x amount per month or year. (Like $2 a month or $15 a year some thing to that effect.) Or just ask every one who plays to click on an advertising link and try to get money that way.

It must also be noted that only 32 people could be max (And that is a lot.) per server/map/zone. So if there are 32 in one server and 32 in another and one or two want to go to the other land they wouldn't be able to until someone got out of the other server to free up space.

 

[Blasto121]

the original design was for that very reason, to be made into an mmo style first person. However as I am sure many people will point out the community isn't that large, and we don't have enough servers to do said task.

Of course another big hitting thing is writing the needed network code in order to perform said task. It is no small feat but it would be cool if done, but alas it isn't going to happen.

 

[Thothie]

Last est. hardware costs to make that possible was $12,000/systems + $75/month. (Maybe $8000 now, with the improved ms.dll)

Pocket change when you're Everquest charging a million subscribers $16/month each + $48 for software. We, however, foolishly offer our services for free.

viewtopic.php?t=2044

I've still not gotten around to selling my car to pay for that. :roll:

 

[ITS'aME'aMARIO!!!!]

tch.... THIS AIN'T YO EVERQUEST!!!

cool idea though... (i believe you are the 1408571th person to suggest it even after it was in the original mastersword plan)

 

[Jerrid]

What does the $12,000 system have to do with any thing? My computer is 5 years old and as soon as I can I will be getting a new computer for nothing else but two things. HL 2 mods and Star Trek Online. So this old computer can be used for a server it self 24/7. (Of course if I am playing ST:Online on my new computer most likely I wouldn't be playing MSC...)

The $75 a month however I can see... but doesn't certain companies give you (Give is not the actual word, you have to pay for it.) space for a central hub it self to do what you like with it? And Ever Quest no offense is way more huge than this game. Simply speaking there are 1,000s apon 1,000s playing it every day. Of course as you said they are a huge company that had a lot of money to start with and to top it off the subscription prices that you said they have to pay. They are also not restricted by a game engine that is old and was built for a FPS.

This is why I give you guys so much credit and try to play the game to discover it's secrets that you took so long to make. Any one can make a FPS that has some skill in computers. Change a slight weapon look or the power of the shot and a model here or there and you have a new FPS game you can call your own. But to actually make a MORPG or RPG for that matter on a FPS game engine and you have some thing special. Half Life Rally, International Online Soccer, even ESF are also great examples. The cool thing about HL2 is that there will be even more unique games besides the old rehashed FPS. Don't get me wrong. Some FPSs modded are very good. Natural Selection is very unique and DoD is solid enough to have a unique feel to it as well as Hostile Intent which is like Rainbow Six. But you know all the ones that don't feel different enough.

 

[ITS'aME'aMARIO!!!!]

woot for old laggy servers =P

um... I sense some hostility in your last post... I'm sorry we kind of brought it down hard that we already have considered this idea and as it stands now It would simply be ineffective to try and have a server for each map... Even if we were able to... imagine having 5 adventurers try and level on the 3 rats in edana... we could increase the amount and how fast they spawn... then a single player can just jump in and level extremely fast... And some maps have scripted events that would need to reset... and could you imagine how boring the thornlands would boring the thornlands server would be with only boars to kill?

Hope you decide to join Fuznet soon... playing on the challenging maps with lots of people is definetely a rush that mastersword offers.

 

[Jerrid]

I wasn't trying to be hostile I was just asking a question. But I do not understand about the boars or easy leveling. They keep respawning regardless. Also the 5 adventurers do not have to be in Edana. That is the beautuy of having them go where ever they want. The world would be open to them.

But I do see the "almost" futile attempt of havin Ever Quest type servers. We would need an unused computers strictly for each server and map. I know some people own three useless computers, rather they play this game or not is the problem. And even a bigger problem when we do reach the part of where we have like over 60 players (Now that would be nice.) we would then need a whole new batch of people with donated old, but working computers...

 

[HobbitG]

You might not need that many machines to run all the maps. You could run multiple instances of the server on one machine. That's what the server host companies do.
Think about the amount of players. Is there ever more than 10 players on at a time?

And as far as transferring between servers... I've played on some counter-strike servers, where a clan owns multiple servers and instead of kicking people to make room for clan members, it redirects the client to another of their servers. That means it's currently possible without changing much.

 

[Thothie]

What does the $12,000 system have to do with any thing? My computer is 5 years old and as soon as I can I will be getting a new computer for nothing else but two things. HL 2 mods and Star Trek Online. So this old computer can be used for a server it self 24/7. (Of course if I am playing ST:Online on my new computer most likely I wouldn't be playing MSC...)

If ya followed my link, you would have read that the $8000-$12000 dollars comes from the fact that you need a system to run EACH MAP (At best, two maps her system - or a server rack about that cost.) - so multiply the cost of your system from between 8 and 24, depending on how much the world expands - then add bandwidth (which is horrifically expensive out here in the USA). So, yeah, sadly, not real feasible for a free mod.

 

[Jerrid]

I still am not understanding why only use one computer for. And I did go the link.

 

[Thothie]

I am not understanding what you are not understanding. But I *think* you mean to say you do not understand why we can only use one computer per map. You can only host one map at a time per server, and because this game eats a lot of computer horse power, to have a viable server, each computer has to be dedicated to running one server at a time (maybe two, on a good system). Thus, 16-24+ servers, for 16-24+ maps means 8-24+ seperate computers (or one big one made of server racks - about as expensive). Otherwise it will explode in a blinding light brighter than a thousand suns - or just lag to hell and be unplayable - one of those two.

Suffice to say the people at Everquest have HUGE server racks, with tons of fins, that cost hudreds of thousands of dollars, and several data centers with this same setup, even though they actually have their game running on an engine specifically designed to work that way. Easily covered by their fees, of course - but even though we don't need a datacenter quite like theirs, we still would need one way beyond the means of the game's income. (Namely: $0)

 

[Jax]

You mean merge a group of maps together?

I don't know much about mapping, but I'm sure MS:C mappers will tell you that the sizes of the current maps now are rather pushing it (but I'm quite sure. Thothie?) :?

 

[Thothie]

Yes, most of them are pushing it - some have even gone pretty far over that line (Daragoth for example). Plus the larger the map, the more CPU it uses, particularly with ones as badly optimized as some of these. Even if we took the 'shrink everything down' recommendation we had in another thread, in addition to introducing a whole new slew of issues (not the least of which is remaking every map from scratch), there are still entity limits and such to deal with. (The ESF maps that brought this up are virtually barron, entity wise - while MSC maps are entity whores the like of which HL1 has never seen before.)

 

[ITS'aME'aMARIO!!!!]

maybe put a port of ms:c onto source and put all the maps together lol

maybe it'll work =P

 

[BioRage]

GEEPERS!....


I really want to read that...

But I'm lazy..

So I'll read it later

 

[Netrogor]

Figured I would let some of you know... but I've already read about AMXX plugins (and for GMod10 especially, LUA scripting) that links servers using a simple script, and when players enter a certain spot on the map it redirects them to so-&-such server; and like-wise to launch so-said-player back to the so-&-such server....

Seems somewhat simple of a concept to me; but I know it is outside of my abilities to code'n'script (unless I look at a commands chart, since I haven't gotten the memorization down for computer coding as of yet... albeit I am easily remembering all of the books I've been reading as of late *The Testament anyone?*)

 

[FuzzyFish]

It's hard enough to get a server to host 4 players on one map in MS, let alone 16+ servers. As cool as that would be HL1 is not the game engine to do it with. And the costs just for bandwiches alone would be absurd.

Technically FuzNet cost me about $10-15 a month to run for electricity (Or about half my electric bill. )

Fortunatly the random "high-end circa 1996" parts have proved to be quite reliable with a grand total of one hardware failure which I fixed with spare parts.

Bandwidth usage by FuzNet is minimal, but would cost on average of $40 a month.

But in all reality it cost just about $60 a month to run a server that uses no real bandwidth. None of which I would ever see a dime for anyways, nor would I ever expect to.


Now factor in you would need about twice the processing power/bandwidth I have and it gets really pricey, really fast. Granted most modern computers have about 4 times the processing power FuzNet does.

 

[The Valorous]

To the maker of this topic: Early on in 1.01 that was the idea, to have a server be specific to a map, and that idea continued until... well... even now. Anyways, there was a system in 1.01 and some future versions until maybe about 1.2 (of original MS) where when you go to the loading zone it'd pop up an in-game server browser that'd show which servers were running what. Unfortunately, it didn't seem to work... and that was on WON. Soon, people figured out that staying on one server is much more efficient, less time-consuming, and less expensive than having specific servers play specific maps. It also had to do with the database, where up to until this point (thanks to FuzNet) would be stuck to that specific server, meaning you couldn't carry over your characters from one server to another. Now the devs originally had a central server idea, but that plan never came to fruition. We are very lucky to have Fuzzy host the FN database, which pretty much is MS:C's central server.

 

[Jerrid]

I am not understanding what you are not understanding. But I *think* you mean to say you do not understand why we can only use one computer per map.

What I am not understanding is why do you need a $8,000 - $12,000 system to play a single map on a computer? You do not need to run one computer with every map with every person going to what ever he or she maps wants to at any time. I suggested having several computers at the $400 price range (Mine is probably worth less than $200 now...) playing one map only then having all computers hooked to a server somewhere that would be rented. There is no way that server would cost $8,000 - $12,000 to run.

Maybe my title was a little misleading. EQ has several servers that are for different purposes. Some have all good races vs evil races, tall races vs short races, players vs enviroment, role playing only etc. And each server plays every single map, plain, zone, planet etc.

I was only saying each computer runs one map only. If there are 12 maps lets just say you would need 12 computers linked to a central server. The central server does nothing other than let one travel from one "computer"/map and that is it with others or by him self with out disturbing any one else. Nothing more, nothing less besides obviously letting players keep their items and skills and not crashing when "loading" to each "computer"/map.

Each computer is still doing it's own thing with that map. Joe, Greg and Jenny are killing orcs in Thornlands. I am in Helena and pop into Thornlands. I see them. I say hello, see them kill an orc. Then I run to Edana zone exit and go through it leaving Thornlands and leaving those three to contiue to do what ever they want to do and meeting up with Thomas who is shopping at the town square who has been there for 15 minutes way before I even got online. No one is affected except me and that was only by loading to another "computer/map.

Bandwith shouldn't change for each "computer"/map except for the additional people coming into it. The central server or hud should be handling the loading between "computers"/maps.

 

[Thothie]

You need one computer for each map, or at least one for every two maps. A $200 system can't cut it with this game very well - that's a 4 player server with 1 map at best, and it'd be laggy. To host 2 maps at a time with 8 players each and tolerable lag, you need a $1000+ system. The central server program itself would likely take very little CPU, and should, theoretically, be able to run on any one of those computers along with an actual map hosting server (perhaps two).

I say theoretically, as while Fuznet, for instance, takes very little CPU itself - it will explode if you try to run an MSC server on the same system. (They don't like each other)

Maybe my title was a little misleading. EQ has several servers that are for different purposes. Some have all good races vs evil races, tall races vs short races, players vs enviroment, role playing only etc. And each server plays every single map, plain, zone, planet etc.

Nein. Each map is a different computer on the same server rack in a network. This is why it takes you time to zone, and why maps with lots of players lag, while maps with very few players do not. Each separate "server" as defined on the browser (good, evil, PvP, non-PvP, east coast, west coast, etc) is actually a separate Datacenter containing one or more server racks of that same type. (Each rack, is several hundred thousand dollars worth of equipment the equivalent of serveral dozen computers - and each datacenter, is probably worth millions, although also likely not containing exclusively EQ servers.)

But when you have 14 million customers paying $16/month + $50 for the game, tis peanuts.

 

[Netrogor]

So then, again, a simple map changing & redirecting script (for amxx, these such scripts already exist for Natural-Selection; not merely a server-redirect, but if a player attempts to join a desired map that server-A doesn't have, they'll be sent to server-B)...

We could designate servers that are up now'n'then to take over "quadrants" of the map-list
I could startup my dedicated again (I used to host on 512MB, now I have a whole gigabyte of ram!! and four times more CPU power since last I hosted)

I would be proud to host two servers at once, maybe even four (if I can on a gig of ram)... dual-core has its bonuses when I can assign each processor to take over an individual task