Server Ideas?

[kodex]

Im currently working on a small-ish shareware game that will support networking and online play. I find one of the most annoying things about an online game is finding others to play with which is why i want to design a game server for it, much-like game ranger, or battlenet.

Designing the server isnt what im having a hard time with. The thing im having a hard time with is finding a place to host it. I have a very fast webserver for my website but its set up remotely and they wont let me install software on it. I was thinking maybe using SQL or something to store the active games and people online (which is all it needs to know), or try and find a cheap (very very) hosting company that would host a server application for me. The nice things about my setup is it should be pretty low bandwidth since it wont be hosting the games itself, just keeping track of all hosted game's IPs.

Anyone here ever toy around with anything like this? Any comments, suggestions or tips on this idea?

Thanks!
Kyle

[Max]

Gaming servers aren't cheap. About $40 to $80 per month. And they're all Windows computers.

[skyhawk]

Gaming servers aren't cheap. About $40 to $80 per month. And they're all Windows computers.
dude, a simple fast website, with a simple database could handle the job. Just need to know some simple scripting.

also, all servers are not windows boxes, a lot of them are also linux boxes

[Max]

also, all servers are not windows boxes, a lot of them are also linux boxes

Gaming servers! Not Web servers! Who would use a Linux machine for games?!?!

[skyhawk]

Gaming servers! Not Web servers!
gaming server is a relative term. how it is actually coordinated is relative.

Who would use a Linux machine for games?!?!
anyone who wants that machine to not suck ;)

[kodex]

Well i know there are some ones out there that are OS X, i just havent looked in a long time and they seem rather expensive from what i remember. here some examples

http://www.serverlogistics.com/hosting.php

http://www.standingwave.co.uk/eng/hosting/dedicated_mac

http://www.hostsolutions.com/colocation/

But i think im going to go the web-hosted database route..... Anyone know how to script? :D

[Skorche]

Gaming servers! Not Web servers! Who would use a Linux machine for games?!?!

I seem to remember that MS was really frustrated with bungie because they were running the bungie.net stuff on linux. (or the myth server or something along those lines.) MS just thought it was embarrassing.

[kodex]

ohh and game ranger is run on macs only. Clanlord/Alchera (www.deltatao.com) is run on OS X. there are some other ones i can think of. Its not as much of a windows world as some of you think, hope is not lost =)

[Quillbit]

I seem to remember that MS was really frustrated with bungie because they were running the bungie.net stuff on linux. (or the myth server or something along those lines.) MS just thought it was embarrassing.

I interviewed with Bungie, oh, I guess about seven years ago -- it was my lack of Linux experience that killed my chances. (Solaris/ATT, yes. Linux/BSD, not so much.) As it was, my next career choice was probably far better than I could have gotten from Bungie, so it all worked out. But sometimes I wonder....

Jason Jones is a pleasant fellow, though.

It wouldn't be an optimal method of game-matching, but you could use RSS to syndicate out open game information. (In fact, you could also syndicate other information, such as the status of various games, users' ranks on ladders, and so forth, that could be read by plain-vanilla RSS readers.) By building upon web technologies (and maybe writing your backend as servlets, for example), you shouldn't run into too many pricing and bandwith cap problems with your servers.

[kodex]

It wouldn't be an optimal method of game-matching, but you could use RSS to syndicate out open game information. (In fact, you could also syndicate other information, such as the status of various games, users' ranks on ladders, and so forth, that could be read by plain-vanilla RSS readers.) By building upon web technologies (and maybe writing your backend as servlets, for example), you shouldn't run into too many pricing and bandwith cap problems with your servers.

Wow, thats a pretty good idea, thanks i think thats what method im going to use then =D

[Carlos Camacho]

A dedicated server is about $99. Do you want me to list the places? Check another thread here on my recommended hosts and you will find a link or two to a dedicated server.

Look at webhostingtalk.com, for "specials" but be careful of fly-by-night operations.

Also, you might consider a VPS, if what you need is root access for installing things, but not the power of a complete dedicated server.

Cheers

[kodex]

well ive been looking into RSS feeds and i was thinking this is going to be pretty much the same as outputing an array to a file... What happens when someone post a new game? I will have to download the array, add an object and upload it. But what if someone has already modified it while that was happening. I could use checksums and such but it would be more a pain then anything else.

Anyone have any other theories on this? Or am i missing something about RSS feeds?

[Max]

I seem to remember that MS was really frustrated with bungie because they were running the bungie.net stuff on linux. (or the myth server or something along those lines.) MS just thought it was embarrassing.

Sure, some gaming servers run Linux. But they're high-end machines, mostly used by companies like Sony Online, Blizzard and GameSpy. We're not looking for high-end servers here, more like the average gaming server a single individual can afford. That kind of machine usually runs Windows.

Free publicity - BTL servers are quite good. My .Mac clan is using one to host games. www.btlservers.com