Open-Server, a means of supporting developers
Poll: Would you like to see the open-server idea become reality?
| Yes, somebody should get it working. |  43% (23) |
| Yes, I would even consider contributing by donating. |  15% (8) |
| Yes, I would even consider taking a share of the responsibility/work. |  16% (9) |
| No, the idea is prone to abuse/fail. |  11% (6) |
| No, BYOND doesn't need something like that. |  7% (4) |
| I don't mind/care. |  5% (3) |
Login to vote.
Now, since I find the idea interesting, I want to gather information on how the community sees the possibilities of such a project.
Basically, the idea is to provide a shared server that can be freely used by certain competent game makers. As most developers on BYOND lack resources (including monetary), there are games that might see more activity (and thus an increased fan-base) if they would be hosted on a more frequent base.
It might be a far fetch, but it could be one additional step to feature original games, instead of spreading the player-base out on various low quality games.
I doubt (and don't think) that BYOND would (should) take the venture, because of the financial risk and the immense workload involved (imagine the spam by 'programmers' wanting to get a free slot), but a private person/group should have less trouble, if the concept is well planned.
My suggestion would be the following:
- Start out by compiling a list of 'reasonable programmers' that be granted a slot in such an open-server
- Assemble a team to operate the server (money and access wise)
- Contact one of the BYOND hosting companies and negotiate on a somewhat decent server
- Collect donations in advance and come up with a detailed service description (esp. what would be strictly forbidden)
- Talk to Tom and query if such a service could have a little payback through referrals
Feedback and voting would be most welcome.
Thank you in advance!
P.S.: Please keep things civil.
Posted by Schnitzelnagler on Friday, August 28, 2009 10:23AM
- 55 comments
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Keywords:
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openserver,
developers
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#55 Schnitzelnagler:
Ryanmcshain wanna be wrote:
> Ok im be blunt about this, i need help
Great.
In that case, I'll be blunt as well.
There is a forum for this sort of issue, namely BYOND Help Software Problems.
Use the template that you're going to be provided with, describe the problem as detailed as possible, which means, it is best if you include the error log, for example.
Saturday, September 26, 2009 06:51AM
#54 Ryanmcshain wanna be:
Ok im be blunt about this, i need help, i keep getting a message each time i click my byond " Byond.exe has generated erros and will be closed by windows, an error log is being created" Please help me i tryed to uninstal it and re instal it like 20 times and its not working, if you could please reply back with some advice?
Saturday, September 26, 2009 06:38AM
#53 Axerob:
> I checked out the vpsland some more and wanted to comment briefly since they were brought up in this thread.
>
> In short, they have a ton of bad reviews online. Check them out before you blindly jump in. Getting support is apparently like trying to get a refund on your "Wow Gold" purchase and while they are the correct people, they don't know what "Wow Gold" is.
>
I dunno, I haven't had any problems with support, they've actually been pretty helpful.
Wednesday, September 02, 2009 06:58PM
#52 Airjoe:
Tsfreaks wrote:
> First off, I didn't mean any offense by my comments. It's an awesome service for byond devs and at that price, what more could anyone ask for. Obviously I have some different stuff in mind and I didn't mean to "bash" on you or the site.
Yep, I definitely understood that, and sorry if my comments came off that way, too. The internet has a way of twisting words :P
Wednesday, September 02, 2009 06:30PM
#51 Tsfreaks:
Airjoe wrote:
> Tsfreaks wrote:
> >
> > I went to ATPDevelopment and the site looks extremely unprofessional not to mention, "Webserver Error: Please check back soon." when viewing package information.
>
> As Schnitzelnagler said (and a thank you, for explaining in my absence!), this project makes no profit. Thus, we tend to be preoccupied with other things (for instance, I have a 20 credit semester at Univeristy). The website for the service is not my primary concern; if something goes wrong with a game being hosted, I'm around, but I don't have the time to make the website super pretty, etc.
>
> > Until then, the options look limited,
>
> In what way?
>
> > the system access looks limited(?)
>
> SSH, FTP, and a custom web panel for game control.
>
>
> > the resources look limited, no DB access (SQL server)(?),
>
> If you want a website, go with a webhost. No need to bloat a server with a sql server when it's not necessary. ATP is cheap because we provide BYOND hosting, not a million other things only a few users need.
>
>
>
> > and no running custom .exe(framework or otherwise)(?).
>
> Linux does not run .exe. Nevermind that though, because as per above, there is no need for a custom framework. If you want to host BYOND games, host BYOND games. If you want a website, use a web host. If you want a custom framework, go find someone that will let you do it.
>
>
>
> I'm the kind of person that doesn't like a camera, mp3 player, etc in my cell phone. I want a cell phone. Because of that, I get really inexpensive cell phones. I apply this philosophy to ATP Development hosting. It's great for some people, and I'm happy for them. If it doesn't work for you, there are other, more expensive options available, and best of luck with them.
First off, I didn't mean any offense by my comments. It's an awesome service for byond devs and at that price, what more could anyone ask for. Obviously I have some different stuff in mind and I didn't mean to "bash" on you or the site.
and... while I'm off topic and causing grief for myself...
I checked out the vpsland some more and wanted to comment briefly since they were brought up in this thread.
In short, they have a ton of bad reviews online. Check them out before you blindly jump in. Getting support is apparently like trying to get a refund on your "Wow Gold" purchase and while they are the correct people, they don't know what "Wow Gold" is.
Anyway, I think I'm going to get a static IP and buy a dedicated server. If my service provider complains at some point, I may upgrade to a business account or jump back into the find a decent host game.
I don't see why they would ever complain though. We have 5 pc's and several game consoles going nearly all hours of the day. Night time could be an issue though... hrmm. Anyway... if anyone is interested in this off topic stuff, lets move it over to a new thread in the dev forum. Notify me if you do. Until then... (bows out).
ts
Wednesday, September 02, 2009 05:40PM
#50 Airjoe:
Tsfreaks wrote:
>
> I went to ATPDevelopment and the site looks extremely unprofessional not to mention, "Webserver Error: Please check back soon." when viewing package information.
As Schnitzelnagler said (and a thank you, for explaining in my absence!), this project makes no profit. Thus, we tend to be preoccupied with other things (for instance, I have a 20 credit semester at Univeristy). The website for the service is not my primary concern; if something goes wrong with a game being hosted, I'm around, but I don't have the time to make the website super pretty, etc.
> Until then, the options look limited,
In what way?
> the system access looks limited(?)
SSH, FTP, and a custom web panel for game control.
> the resources look limited, no DB access (SQL server)(?),
If you want a website, go with a webhost. No need to bloat a server with a sql server when it's not necessary. ATP is cheap because we provide BYOND hosting, not a million other things only a few users need.
> and no running custom .exe(framework or otherwise)(?).
Linux does not run .exe. Nevermind that though, because as per above, there is no need for a custom framework. If you want to host BYOND games, host BYOND games. If you want a website, use a web host. If you want a custom framework, go find someone that will let you do it.
I'm the kind of person that doesn't like a camera, mp3 player, etc in my cell phone. I want a cell phone. Because of that, I get really inexpensive cell phones. I apply this philosophy to ATP Development hosting. It's great for some people, and I'm happy for them. If it doesn't work for you, there are other, more expensive options available, and best of luck with them.
Wednesday, September 02, 2009 01:34PM
#49 Axerob:
Tsfreaks wrote:
> So write a little five minute .exe killer that closes the DreamDaemon and shell() out your own ShutDown call as needed. Done.
>
> As to everything else... ok. Different strokes for different folks.
>
> ts
@ECHO OFF
ECHO Killing DreamDaemon....
TASKKILL /F /IM "dreamdaemon.exe"
ECHO DreamDaemon Killed.
PAUSE
EXIT
Easy as pie? o.o (Usin Batch file..)
Wednesday, September 02, 2009 11:03AM
#48 Tsfreaks:
So write a little five minute .exe killer that closes the DreamDaemon and shell() out your own ShutDown call as needed. Done.
As to everything else... ok. Different strokes for different folks.
ts
Wednesday, September 02, 2009 06:59AM
#47 Axerob:
Schnitzelnagler wrote:
> Axerob wrote:
> > I'm using a windows one with 512 mb of ram...I could easily upgrade the server and host a few more games on it for a small price..?
>
> That is a nice offer, however, Windows has never (and likely will never) be a good choice for a server, given the fact that it is too bloated up and simply was never designed for multi user access like *nix.
>
> You're paying 18$ (or 24) a month, where you'd get more RAM for less money at ATPDevelopment.
>
> I really appreciate the offer, but there are too many (monetary and BYOND hosting compatibility with Windows) issues.
I'm paying 51 every 3 months, and as I said they have linux builds there, so I could easily set one up, but I'd definatly need some donations for that since i have a limited amount of money.
Wednesday, September 02, 2009 06:59AM
#46 Schnitzelnagler:
Tsfreaks wrote:
> 1 bug which will most likely get fixed does not warrant the statement of "compatibility" issues.
If you did read the bug-report, yes, it does and no it won't likely get fixed anywhere near soon.
Under windows, shutdown does not close the DreamDaemon instance.
Which means that whenever you spawn of a new server under windows with startup, you get stuck with a resource hogging beast.
Given the fact that Lummox JR mentioned the difficulty of the debugging session, I would guess that we won't see that one attended in the next few month.
Which means, when you're using startup/shutdown under Windows, you are wasting RAM, something you pay for, or in other words, you are directly wasting money.
Tsfreaks wrote:
> I went to ATPDevelopment and the site looks extremely unprofessional not to mention, "Webserver Error: Please check back soon." when viewing package information.
Airjoe is aware of this, but, as you could read in the 'How we do it section', it is not meant to thrive in money, which means the project does not run on first priority.
Tsfreaks wrote:
> After reading "How we do it", I see that it's run/owned by BYOND folks which is neat. I'll check it out later and see if the site works properly.
I would not judge the server and it's administration by the page in this case.
Though I am well aware that this would be a natural choice to do, Airjoe could likely sack both you and me together hands down, when it comes to knowledge of both programming and Linux/hosting/servers ;)
Tsfreaks wrote:
> Until then, the options look limited, the system access looks limited(?), the resources look limited, no DB access (SQL server)(?), and no running custom .exe(framework or otherwise)(?). Again, it's hard to know for sure if these statements are accurate at this time.
You get SSH, FTP and game panel access, as from what I could read.
For the project mentioned here, this is more than enough and I do not know what more you'd be looking for.
CPanel?
SSH should grant you all you need at far, far less resource cost than the Windows GUI.
But I would suggest you contact and suggest ATPDevelopment directly ;)
Tsfreaks wrote:
> I'm not trying to do shared hosting of games so my needs are a little bit different and off topic I suppose.
Indeed ;)
Tsfreaks wrote:
> At this time, VPSLand is the most affordable and compatible (windows-byond) service I have seen to date.
I'm a bit biased here.
I (together with 99% of the server administrators ;)) would say that hosting under Windows is like racing with an SUV.
Their Linux offers look kind of nice though, but have a hard time comparing to a non-profit organisation specifically developed around BYOND ;)
Wednesday, September 02, 2009 06:55AM
#45 Tsfreaks:
Schnitzelnagler wrote:
> Axerob wrote:
> > I'm using a windows one with 512 mb of ram...I could easily upgrade the server and host a few more games on it for a small price..?
>
> That is a nice offer, however, Windows has never (and likely will never) be a good choice for a server, given the fact that it is too bloated up and simply was never designed for multi user access like *nix.
>
> You're paying 18$ (or 24) a month, where you'd get more RAM for less money at ATPDevelopment.
>
> I really appreciate the offer, but there are too many (monetary and BYOND hosting compatibility with Windows) issues.
To be fair...
1 bug which will most likely get fixed does not warrant the statement of "compatibility" issues.
I went to ATPDevelopment and the site looks extremely unprofessional not to mention, "Webserver Error: Please check back soon." when viewing package information.
After reading "How we do it", I see that it's run/owned by BYOND folks which is neat. I'll check it out later and see if the site works properly.
Until then, the options look limited, the system access looks limited(?), the resources look limited, no DB access (SQL server)(?), and no running custom .exe(framework or otherwise)(?). Again, it's hard to know for sure if these statements are accurate at this time.
I'm not trying to do shared hosting of games so my needs are a little bit different and off topic I suppose. Although I am in the market for getting a byond hostable server.
At this time, VPSLand is the most affordable and compatible (windows-byond) service I have seen to date.
ts
Wednesday, September 02, 2009 06:29AM
#44 Schnitzelnagler:
Axerob wrote:
> I'm using a windows one with 512 mb of ram...I could easily upgrade the server and host a few more games on it for a small price..?
That is a nice offer, however, Windows has never (and likely will never) be a good choice for a server, given the fact that it is too bloated up and simply was never designed for multi user access like *nix.
You're paying 18$ (or 24) a month, where you'd get more RAM for less money at ATPDevelopment.
I really appreciate the offer, but there are too many (monetary and BYOND hosting compatibility with Windows) issues.
Tuesday, September 01, 2009 11:53PM
#43 Tsfreaks:
Axerob wrote:
> http://vpsland.com offers some great cheap computers that support BYOND hosting. I'm using a windows one with 512 mb of ram...I could easily upgrade the server and host a few more games on it for a small price..?
Hrmmm.. nobody mentioned these guys when I was asking about it a few weeks back. I was looking for a dedicated Windows server that supported running BYOND and other applications (.net framework). I'll check these guys out.
Thanks,
ts
Tuesday, September 01, 2009 09:27PM
#42 Tiberath:
Stupot wrote:
> No, it most certainly isn't impossible, but it's not going to be something that is bundled in with the OS be default. That's what I was trying to get across. I may be wrong, but I would think that something would have to be written in order to handle that correctly.
I don't think so. Something like that can be handled by IPTABLES I think.
Tuesday, September 01, 2009 08:47PM
#41 Axerob:
http://vpsland.com offers some great cheap computers that support BYOND hosting. I'm using a windows one with 512 mb of ram...I could easily upgrade the server and host a few more games on it for a small price..?
Tuesday, September 01, 2009 02:28PM
#40 Stupot:
Tiberath wrote:
> > Stupot wrote:
> > > Limiting the game to a certain number of players isn't something that can easily be handled by the server itself (if at all).
>
> I don't think it's impossible to limit the number of active connections to a single port.
No, it most certainly isn't impossible, but it's not going to be something that is bundled in with the OS be default. That's what I was trying to get across. I may be wrong, but I would think that something would have to be written in order to handle that correctly.
Tuesday, September 01, 2009 07:37AM
#39 Tiberath:
> Stupot wrote:
> > Limiting the game to a certain number of players isn't something that can easily be handled by the server itself (if at all).
I don't think it's impossible to limit the number of active connections to a single port.
Monday, August 31, 2009 09:24PM
#38 Schnitzelnagler:
Stupot wrote:
> BYOND staff shouldn't have to (and most likely won't) pay for servers for devs to host their games.
If you did read the blog posting carefully, you might have come across this passage, which basically says just the very same:
"I doubt (and don't think) that BYOND would (should) take the venture, because of the financial risk and the immense workload involved (imagine the spam by 'programmers' wanting to get a free slot), but a private person/group should have less trouble, if the concept is well planned."
I never claimed in any way that BYOND should be responsible for this.
Stupot wrote:
> Limiting the game to a certain number of players isn't something that can easily be handled by the server itself (if at all).
If you only have hand-picked developers, you can either trust them to do something (with your help), or you took the wrong decision and should pick another developer instead.
The idea behind limiting the amount of players is not meant to keep resources down, but to encourage people to buy a membership (as only BYOND members can join past the limit, if you want to play 24/7, it's only fair if you support the system).
Sunday, August 30, 2009 11:35PM
#37 Stupot:
AJX wrote:
> I'm going to friggin kill chrome...
>
> Anyway~ Basically all I said in the post I just lost was the majority of those games if put under a 24/7 server situation will suffer from 'empty server syndrome', where players will not join and wait for people to join, and so they will stay empty.
>
> Never played Hazordhu, Proelium 2, or Wurms. I'd LIKE to play Proelium 2, but I have never ever seen a server hosted for this game or players in it.
>
> Tanks: I loved this game. This game was awesome. However, Tanks died because of stagnant issues, not because it wasn't an awesome game. If Tanks was still being updated then I'm sure it would still being played.
For short games, where it's like a 10 minute battle, or really where the game ends for everybody after something occurs, the BYOND pager system fails. It might help if the pager had some system that could inform players that a game will be occurring in 30 minutes or whatever. There are a lot of different ways to attempt to implement this, but it could be a worthwhile endeavor. Anyway, that was fairly off-topic.
>The thesis is that a lot of developers can not (or do not want to) afford paying (shares) on a server and thus lack the opportunity to host their innovative games.
BYOND staff shouldn't have to (and most likely won't) pay for servers for devs to host their games. Unless they will eventually make profit from their initial investment, they shouldn't. And if that is the case, I don't see why it needs to be BYOND staff at all. It could easily be a group of devs who go out, by a server, and determine what games get hosted and for how much a month. It's just a matter of who makes the initial investment and who decides whom is a competent developer worthy of including.
Limiting the game to a certain number of players isn't something that can easily be handled by the server itself (if at all). From my experience, it's best to have a self-maintained system rather than rely on users to do something correctly. Plus, just because a game only has 5 people on it doesn't mean it might not use 25% of the CPU (assuming quad-core). Once again, you'd be relying on the users (in this case the devs) to make sure their game is efficient right off the bat.
Sunday, August 30, 2009 01:51PM
#36 AJX:
I'm going to friggin kill chrome...
Anyway~ Basically all I said in the post I just lost was the majority of those games if put under a 24/7 server situation will suffer from 'empty server syndrome', where players will not join and wait for people to join, and so they will stay empty.
Never played Hazordhu, Proelium 2, or Wurms. I'd LIKE to play Proelium 2, but I have never ever seen a server hosted for this game or players in it.
Tanks: I loved this game. This game was awesome. However, Tanks died because of stagnant issues, not because it wasn't an awesome game. If Tanks was still being updated then I'm sure it would still being played.
Saturday, August 29, 2009 11:15PM