theworldofdreams.com

Hi, I have been a long time fan of Drockets' WOD server code. Run local LAN server on and off in the past a couple of years. Now that I have the final release from Drocket (thank you man always for the great work!!!), would like to try it out. However, this time I am going to give it a try for a small public server to test water.

I do have a question regarding the hosting machine, in order to host a small public server, say 20 players max, what kind of minimum server requirement can support a relatively smooth gaming experience without much lagging? I care more about the network bandwidth requirement since I assume that's what's important and what costs money.

I would appreciate any input on this.

Rocko

There's really only 2 important requirements for a shard, the more important one being the network connection. Starting with the PC, though, the most important factor for the PC running the shard is the amount of RAM: You should probably have 512M or more. Things like CPU speed aren't as important.

For the network connection, I'd strongly recommend DSL (or the vastly-more-expensive T1, T3, etc type connections. They're more than you need for a small shard, though, especially for the price.) Cable connections tend to have a lot of latency (lag), especially during primetime because you share your connection with everyone in the neighborhood. Probably some form of high-speed cable would be workable, but that's more money. Also, I have RoadRunner, and somehow or other they completely block incoming connections for most types of servers. Quake-type games work OK (they must has an exception allowed for them), but I've never been able to get anyone else connected to a UO server on my Roadrunner connection. Just as a warning.

For DSL, the most important factor is the upload speed. Usually connection speeds are rated as something like: 2M down/256k up. The reason that the upload speed is more important is because you'll mostly be sending data to the client, and the client doesn't really send all that much information back (client sends information about one player's actions, the server has to send out information about 5 player's actions (to each one of those 5 players), plus the actions of the 10 NPCs around them.) 256k should be enough for 20 people or so online. Unless you go nuts with itemcount - then you may need more. But 256k should be good

Thank you Drocket for quick reply!

I got 512MB Ram, and thinking about upgrading it.
The DSL I have is a very basic one, just tested it, 1.3MB up, 326KB down. So I guess I could use these setup to get started for a small server. The only hassle is I am using a dynamic IP, so would have to inform future player of the new IP everytime I restart my computer. Will have to get that solved first.

Regarding roadrunner blocking UO traffic, I have no experience since I was solely using LAN server before, but my DSL does have a firewall setup where you could allow or disallow traffic for a list of games (a very long list). I'll try see if my UO server traffic can get through.

By the way, I noticed in your final release, most dungeon regionspawn only have "dungeoncrap". It kind of puzzled me at first when I didnt see anything except a slime or two, then I realized you didnt have anything included. So now I switched to one of the earlier regionspawn.cfg, and mobs start to spawn again.

Lately I am actually thinking about a career in online game design (that's the reason why now I start to digest your whole WOD code), any suggestions from a seasoned game designer like you?

rocko123 wrote:I got 512MB Ram, and thinking about upgrading it.

That would be more than enough for a small-medium sized shard.

The DSL I have is a very basic one, just tested it, 1.3MB up, 326KB down. So I guess I could use these setup to get started for a small server. The only hassle is I am using a dynamic IP, so would have to inform future player of the new IP everytime I restart my computer. Will have to get that solved first.

Try checking http://www.no-ip.com. They offer a free service where they'll give you a fake domain name (like XXXX.no-ip.com) and you download software that runs and sits in your system tray. If and when your IP address changes, the software informs their servers and changes the domain name to point to the new address. Its not a perfect solution - there's can be a delay when the IP address changes before the new address reaches the clients (mostly because of ISP caching), but it'll be better than trying to hand out new IPs all the time. (there are other companies that offer this service, too. This is just the one that we're using for now on the Project.)

Regarding roadrunner blocking UO traffic, I have no experience since I was solely using LAN server before, but my DSL does have a firewall setup where you could allow or disallow traffic for a list of games (a very long list). I'll try see if my UO server traffic can get through.

I'm sure it is a firewall of some sort, but RoadRunner doesn't give me the option of allowing the traffic or not - they make that call. I suppose if I called them up and begged them, they MIGHT open the UO ports for me... Actually, they'd probably just remind me that I'm not supposed to be running servers on this level of service and make me upgrade...

By the way, I noticed in your final release, most dungeon regionspawn only have "dungeoncrap".

Doh, I didn't think of that. As part of the 'WoD is closing' events, players were able to pretty much defeat evil. As part of that, I disabled most of the spawn. I'll have to fix that and issue a new release. If you find any other bugs, let me know about them, too - I'll wait a week or so and put up a final, final release.

Lately I am actually thinking about a career in online game design (that's the reason why now I start to digest your whole WOD code), any suggestions from a seasoned game designer like you?

Not really

Drocket wrote:Try checking http://www.no-ip.com. They offer a free service where they'll give you a fake domain name (like XXXX.no-ip.com) and you download software that runs and sits in your system tray. If and when your IP address changes, the software informs their servers and changes the domain name to point to the new address. Its not a perfect solution - there's can be a delay when the IP address changes before the new address reaches the clients (mostly because of ISP caching), but it'll be better than trying to hand out new IPs all the time. (there are other companies that offer this service, too. This is just the one that we're using for now on the Project.)

Great, will give it a try. So, what new project are you talking about? Another UO server or something totally different? any link? I might be of some help since I am working on improving programing skills. Even not, at least I can keep track of what you are working on and may learn something from it.

Drocket wrote:Doh, I didn't think of that. As part of the 'WoD is closing' events, players were able to pretty much defeat evil. As part of that, I disabled most of the spawn. I'll have to fix that and issue a new release. If you find any other bugs, let me know about them, too - I'll wait a week or so and put up a final, final release.

A-ha, players defeated evil..... never heard of it in a MMORPG world. New and stronger evil always seem to follow new expansions.
Actually, I just found you have a regionspawn_old.cfg in the same directory of regionspawn.cfg, in the final release, that has all the dungeon spawns. So I think another release may not be necessary, as long as those who will use the code knows how to configure it.

rocko123 wrote:Great, will give it a try. So, what new project are you talking about? Another UO server or something totally different? any link? I might be of some help since I am working on improving programing skills. Even not, at least I can keep track of what you are working on and may learn something from it.

Oh, thought pretty much everyone knew about it. Its 'The Project' (just a temporary name), another UO shard. The website is currently residing on my own personal site, http://www.drocket.net. Its not really up yet - its still in early (very early) beta testing. Its based off of RunUO instead of POL. RunUO offers a lot of features that POL simply can't match at this time (I hope that they catch up eventually, but its been a long, long time since the last POL release...) The downside is that RunUO is much, much, much more difficult to program for. It uses a 'real' programming language, C#, which has the advantage that the basics you learn working on RunUO can be more readily applied to other software. Still, though, its vastly more difficult than POL...

Anywho, drop by my website, drocket.net, and read the forums for more information. Also, if you post any questions you may have about the WoD scripts in the Scripting forum on Drocket.net, I'll likely respond faster, because I'm currently checking that forum a lot more than this one.

Hehe, sorry about my iliterate, the most time I spent on WOD is either checking whether new release is available, or read posts in script forum.
I actually found out about your new project on your website last night, and logged onto the beta test server. I am hoping I can participate, and following your comments, I'll start picking up the C# used in RunUO, so I hope soon I can contribute to coding. I am a software engineer in RL, although so far work mostly with scientific data analysis programing, I guess it shouldnt be very different.
I'll post on your new project forum starting today...