Somethings that bug me about the BZ1 community...

[HitchcockGreen]

And Hitchcock, I've already been dummied by him before.

I know. My favourite is being banned for about 3 years now despite the fact I've never played over there - although I was told I was banned for "hacking a game last time I was here."
lol

Anyway....

^ This is what I'm talking about. If you make a server a home, that doesn't mean you're forced to only play with those people by default. It's the guys who make the rules in that other home that make it so.

Very true.

Like I said, I see nothing wrong with another server at all. There may be challenges, that's all I'm saying.

It'd be nice if it were a field of dreams kind of thing - build a half dozen servers and they will come.

[Firestorm29]

It'd be nice if it were a field of dreams kind of thing - build a half dozen servers and they will come.

If my hunch is true about people trying to search for a hybrid like this, we might need em'.

BTW, an interesting question, just how many people can fit in a single server without some nasty lag kicking in?

[SnakeEye]

"BTW, an interesting question, just how many people can fit in a single server without some nasty lag kicking in?"

when that day comes i'll be there...

"And Hitchcock, I've already been dummied by him before."

"know. My favourite is being banned for about 3 years now despite the fact I've never played over there - although I was told I was banned for "hacking a game last time I was here."
lol"

Most of the time i'm playing on bz1.net but as i don't agree on all the rules i've got my self banned a bunch of times.

"Like I said, I see nothing wrong with another server at all. There may be challenges, that's all I'm saying"

creating a new server instead of facing the problem at hand often makes the problem worse.

[Firestorm29]

creating a new server instead of facing the problem at hand often makes the problem worse.

You mean like things I've been mentioning above? I'm convinced there will be no change unless there's a reason to. Having a packed server versus owning a wasteland might that reason, because just telling someone that the current system's broke ain't fixing anything.

[HitchcockGreen]

BTW, an interesting question, just how many people can fit in a single server without some nasty lag kicking in?

It depends on the server. Any modern server would be able to handle the ANET load, since ANET's requirements are pretty low. I believe that you could have your server population maxed out (100 players) and not feel much of a bump. Bandwidth would be the biggest bottleneck. Even the cheapest VPS would be able to handle the entire online playing community if it doubled.

creating a new server instead of facing the problem at hand often makes the problem worse.

Ok, I'm listening.... how do we face the problem? This is how I've faced it so far: not playing on bz1.net

[Apollo]

BTW, an interesting question, just how many people can fit in a single server without some nasty lag kicking in?

The anet server runs many games at the same time, if you have a hosting company, they will have plenty of bandwidth to serve everyone. The session limit is 100 people. This is why there was many servers that Bz 1.4 players was spread accross in the old days.

creating a new server instead of facing the problem at hand often makes the problem worse.

As for the above, we identified the problems, then we avoided the problems. We aren't dependant on any private server, we are free thinking and sovereign people, we are not anyones subjects.

[Firestorm29]

So a single session can handle 100 people? Is there a way I can have multiple sessions on one server and have them show up on the server?

I know using sub-domains like server1.hostname.com and server2.hostname.com works on the sever list, since in the instruction manual is shows up like that, but I don't know if it'll freak out if all those sub-domains point to the same place.

Hey, dreaming never hurts, and it's good to be prepared.

[HitchcockGreen]

So a single session can handle 100 people? Is there a way I can have multiple sessions on one server and have them show up on the server?

I know using sub-domains like server1.hostname.com and server2.hostname.com works on the sever list, since in the instruction manual is shows up like that, but I don't know if it'll freak out if all those sub-domains point to the same place.

Hey, dreaming never hurts, and it's good to be prepared.

No, subdomains by themselves won't work because you can only run one instance of anet on any given server at a time (that I know of - unless someone has managed some tweaks that I don't know of ).
In the instance where you see subdomains for anet servers is where you basically have a server farm, or a couple of servers and the dns/cname settings for each subdomain point to each server individually.

As for using different sessions - having the game (or games) run on different sessions is already in practice - TRO and BZ use different sessions. But you won't see each other. The anet documentation lists dozens of different server sessions (all for different games that utilized the anet server) and technically speaking, if you run an anet server you're hosting for all those games.
The only way you can change the session a game runs on is by recompiling bzone.exe (or whichever flavour) to do so. So then you'd need two different installers of the same game to have them run on different sessions.


Nevermind multiple servers, if you fill one, then worry about a second. There hasn't been a single full server in many years.

[Apollo]

If you fill a session with 100 players, then edit anet code so you can have more than 100 players, i'm sure that was limited to 100 because of the time it was made, we should be able to add much more today.

[Firestorm29]

If you fill a session with 100 players, then edit anet code so you can have more than 100 players, i'm sure that was limited to 100 because of the time it was made, we should be able to add much more today.

I thought the limit was because of the available ports for BZ to use. I remember Ken saying he didn't work on the multiplayer section of BZ before, so that might be a tricky one...

[GSH]

I have recommended to Ken that in the future, he should take a look at Gamespy Open, as it's got features like NAT (router) negotiation, voice chat, etc. No limits there, whatsoever. No server.dat to write protect. And, probably will be running for a lot longer than anet.

-- GSH

[HitchcockGreen]

I have recommended to Ken that in the future, he should take a look at Gamespy Open, as it's got features like NAT (router) negotiation, voice chat, etc. No limits there, whatsoever. No server.dat to write protect. And, probably will be running for a lot longer than anet.

-- GSH

So you basically opened up a whole can of worms.

I think something similar was discussed before. Sounds like a major re-working of the code. BZ 1.6 maybe?

Anet has been running this long. Doesn't take much to get it going, either. Still, I'd be curious to see how much work would be involved in porting BZ to something like GameSpy.

[Zax]

I have recommended to Ken that in the future, he should take a look at Gamespy Open, as it's got features like NAT (router) negotiation, voice chat, etc. No limits there, whatsoever. No server.dat to write protect. And, probably will be running for a lot longer than anet.

-- GSH

What hitchcock said, but that isn't "a" can of worms it is "the" can of worms.

I can see a whole lot of nervous sweating starting up around the room.

[GSH]

Given that Ken would be doing all the work if switching matchmaking servers, my comment is only a suggestion. But, ~12 years ago, going w/ Gamespy for BZ2 was the right decision compared to whatever matchmaking provider Dark Reign 2 had, etc. Gamespy has remained running and added features over time. Just about everything else in 1998/1999 has bitten the dust.

-- GSH

[Zax]

Given that Ken would be doing all the work if switching matchmaking servers, my comment is only a suggestion. But, ~12 years ago, going w/ Gamespy for BZ2 was the right decision compared to whatever matchmaking provider Dark Reign 2 had, etc. Gamespy has remained running and added features over time. Just about everything else in 1998/1999 has bitten the dust.

-- GSH

It's more of the unsaid things that you haven't seen. The other crowd which we don't see is largely the main group testing it. Give news like that and it will be spun as "programmer tries to destroy bz1.net server" which is his testing base. That being gone = lack of progress.

And they would revolt, too. It isn't an if.