Re: Connection solutions (from Ask the Staff)

[Hymwen]

I know you didn't ask for my opinion, but I think that what it takes to reach MMORPG status is a fee to play the game. I personally wouldn't mind paying 10 dollars a month to play Armageddon, but I know that a lot of people don't want to, and I think it would steer the game in the wrong direction. I hope the connection issues become better, but apart from when it happens during an HRPT or the rare once in a while where it happens several times in a day or the MUD is down for hours, I think it's pretty good and more than acceptable for a free game. The staff are doing a fantastic job and spending a lot of time to give us a game that is top quality, and from previous experience, MUDs that turn pay-to-play status tend to develop a negative atmosphere and a "we pay for this game so you better give us what we want!" tone.

[Larrath]

Arm can't go pay-to-play because it would go against the DIKU license.  Well, it could and would probably avoid any legal consequences, but it would just be immoral and very very crappy.

There's a MUD that already did that, turn pay-to-play (pay-for-perks in that specific case) from a DIKU-based MUD, and they're notorious and vastly hated by the mudding community.
I won't mention their name, but you may have seen the backlash on the Top MUD Sites forums after they were added into the list - and were eventually, thankfully, removed.

All that said, I'd love to see Ginka and its mechanical appendages grow to Cthulhuian size and power, though my own means are a bit meager at this time.
Perhaps one day, after I join a major corporation and use my Zalanthan training to become the CEO in ten years flat...heh.

[Halaster]

Just a note, we have said through the years that ArmageddonMUD will never, ever become pay-to-play.   We accept donations, anonymously, through the Community links, but that's it.  No one is solicited or asked to donate.

Having been on staff 12.5 years, I can say that our player numbers are currently at an all-time high, however, not by much.   If it's taken this many years to maybe get double our average numbers, then I have a feeling it may never get incredibly high.  Why?  A lot of reasons, but I think the biggest is because it's a text-based game.  This is even more noticable in today's age of MMORPG's that have great graphics (hell, I love them and have played a few myself).

Do I want to have hundreds if not thousands of people on?  You bet I do - that'd be a dream come true.  I'll even do my part to help us get there.  But I'm also being realistic in saying I don't genuinely expect it'll happen (I hope I'm proven wrong one day!).

Just my opinions.

[Anonymous]

Furthermore, pay to play is not a guarantee of network stability - something that is, as far as I know, out of the scope of staff control.

I've played numerous MMORPGs where I've tried to log on and couldn't play because of lag, bad connection, netsplit, etc.

If you really want to pay to play for an RPI mud, try out Eternal City. That's what pay to play will get you.  Arm's still more fun, AND it's free.

However, if you do like the game, and the staff is willing, I see no issue with voluntary donation to maintain server hardware, monthly internet connect fees, and the like.

But in today's realm of shiny pictures and graphics snobs, I would find it hard to believe that it would be easier to expand the existent player base by charging for a text-based game.  Without knowing what it would take to convert it from its current glory to something graphically playable, I don't know this would be worth it, even for an extra $2,000 a month.

[Xygax]

Furthermore, pay to play is not a guarantee of network stability - something that is, as far as I know, out of the scope of staff control.

You can, in fact, pay for network stability.  But it's expensive.  

-- X

[Ritley.]

I tell you what guys.. I'm going to try something. It might take a couple of weeks, but will guarantee almost over 100 players more if this works out the way I want it too.

[John]

I tell you what guys.. I'm going to try something. It might take a couple of weeks, but will guarantee almost over 100 players more if this works out the way I want it too.

No hacking into Achaea and shutting it down

[Ritley]

I tell you what guys.. I'm going to try something. It might take a couple of weeks, but will guarantee almost over 100 players more if this works out the way I want it too.

No hacking into Achaea and shutting it down

Damn.....



Although, this was my idea:

Like I said in Enriah's groupie thread, I've got a friend who owns a fairly famous website, which thousands of people visit everyday. If the next day I go to tae kwon do, I can persuade (force) him to advertise Arm, and even, maybe, put another link to the site which is all about Arm.

No promises....

But, I'll do my best.

He's a very good friend to me, perhaps one of my only -proper- friends, so to speak.

[John]

Aaah, good stuff! Good luck Ritley. Hopefully it works

[Ritley]

Aaah, good stuff! Good luck Ritley. Hopefully it works

Yeah, I'll do my fucking best. I will.. I'll have to wait until thursday to see him though.


Edit: And staffers.. if I do manage to get over a hundred players for us, then I expect lot's of luvin' and kisses.

[Zhaky]

1. Im really glad that arm isn't a pay to play, cause not everyone lives in USA and have a valuta that matches it, fx me, 10 dollars will be almost two hours work, and I earn the minimum of what is allowed.

2. I don't think arm was made to get as many playes as the big mmorpgs, and I think it is alright that we aren't that many players, cause I've already experienced how crappy the connectipn can get.

3. I have played many free as well as paid mmorpgs with a good graphich and all, but I admit that non of them had as much RP in them as arm has, and besides that, I think that it is cool that it is only textbased, cause my fantasy is way better than any computer-graphic.

Armageddon ROXER  

[Bogre]

If something as shitty as Achea or Aardwolf can get 500 players on at one time, I see no reason why we can't get there.

And remember, the average number of players online only represents a fraction of the entire playerbase...so there might be 200 players online to interact with, but 2000 more active characters...which is what the mud really needs...more active characters, then every clan could have its ranks filled, and there would be tons of independents and tribals too. Mmmm.

[Larrath]

The difference is that many of the larger MUDs cater to the lowest common denominators - in other words, they build their MUD in a way that everyone can enjoy it; casual players, intensive players, social players, raging PKillers, roleplayers and anti-roleplayers and people that just like running scripts.

To do that, permadeath has to be softened (multiple deaths or easy resurrections), levels probably need to be added, karma has to be made much easier for people wanting to play mages, we'd probably need a global channel or two and the creatures around the cities would have to be made easier so the real dangers are only around if you purposely look for them.
And that's not even mentioning Recall and, worst of all, limiting and downsizing the roleplay so the non-roleplayers can fit in.

Character approval would probably need to go out, too, and the magick system might need simplification.  And don't expect on keeping the game secrets secret for very long with such a diverse playerbase.


Arm caters to a niche (heavy-duty roleplayers) within a niche (mudding as a whole), so it's not really possible to compete against Achaea or Aardwolf.  It's not that they're better, they just appeal to more people.
Think about it like pizza - almost anyone would eat an onion pizza, but pineapple pizzas are only consumed by the select few.

[Morgenes]

Not to mention, many of those muds allow multiplaying.  Not hard to get to 500 when each player is playing 5 chars

[Anonymous]

Xygax -

You can pay for more stable network - but it's still not guaranteed to be perfect.  There's nothing stopping some guy from nailing an important cable and causing a total disconnect, or from someone ddosing a major backbone with a new virus....

It's happened.

[Xygax]

You can pay for more stable network - but it's still not guaranteed to be perfect.  There's nothing stopping some guy from nailing an important cable and causing a total disconnect, or from someone ddosing a major backbone with a new virus.

That's why you pay for redundant trunks through different providers in different locales.  Believe me, I have spent a lot of time thinking about network uptime for games at my Real Job.  But yeah, if a disgruntled someone runs through your datacenter with a shovel, your network is likely to be less than "perfect".  That's not the issue we're dealing with (unless Saikun is more disgruntled than he appears to be).

At any rate, I didn't say you could pay for perfection, I said you could pay for stability.  

-- X

ps - Referring back to your original post, "netsplits" are an IRC term, not a general network topology one, and so not an issue for Arm.

[Anonymous]

Fair enough.

May I amend my original statement to say "within reasonable cost"? =)

[Xygax]

That I definitely agree with, and was what I was aiming for in my original Ask the Staff post.  Running a game like EQ is exceptionally costly, and basically Arm is doing the very best it can with its budget.

And we're not going pay-for-play.

-- X

[FiveDisgruntledMonkeysWit]

Xygax wrote:

And we're not going pay-for-play.

*Shudders*
Thank God. Even if I could pay for it, I wouldn't. I love Arm, but if it went pay-for-play, three things would happen:
1. A sizeable chunk of the playerbase would leave.
2. We'd suffer even more accusations of elitism.
3. You might think the quality of RP would increase, due to "weeding out" the twinks, but trust me, it wouldn't. Paying for something creates a sense of entitlement. Eventually you'll get people saying, "hey, I pay $10 a month for this game, so I should get to have fun the way I want. So let me spam-kick gith!"
Pay-for-play Armageddon would be an incredible tragedy. It'd be like hollowing the pyramids of Gizeh for a mall, or something.

[The7DeadlyVenomz]

I never want to see Armageddon pay for play. I hope that never entered the air of what I posted. I'm simply interested in seeing the network stable for things like RPTs and the like, and seeing the machine stable enough to support these players.

The machine seems to be no trouble at all, considering that the server runs on only one of the available four CPUs in the Ginka Tower. If it ever got to be more of a load, the machine could easily handle it using another of the CPUs in tandem with the current, as I'll assume that at least one if not all of those other CPUs are doing nothing at all.

On that note, what is the approximate monthly cost of redundant network systems and so forth and so on? We wouldn't need an EQ quality system, most likely, but three or four routes would probably make a huge difference.

If Ginka's specific connection costs are concealed under the NDA, can anyone tell me what one would normally run for a like-populated game? Or do I need to go find out about this on my own?

[Anonymous]

Our company paid something like $1.5k per month.

But that was a greater bandwidth (by far) than I could assume Arm would use.

I'm not even sure if you can get it in smaller bandwidths...

Can you spend $1,600 a month and get redundant links with "high" bandwidth  from joe-random ISP?

edited because I realize I missed a decimal point =/

[The7DeadlyVenomz]

For what, precisely?

[Anonymous]

dedicated fiber.

[Halaster]

At the company I work at, I'm in charge of the I.T. dept as well as all purchasing, etc.

We have a 5Mb/5Mb dedicated fiber connection - $800 a month.
A 10Mb/10Mb dedicated fiber connection is $1200 a month.

Time Warner.

Our uptime has been good - down maybe twice in 12 months, and then not for long.

Not bad prices, for a business.  Obviously way more than we would afford or pay for Ginka.

[The7DeadlyVenomz]

5 MB doesn't seem that good. For that matter, neither does 10MB. Of course, I am thinking of those things in terms of computers, and not so much connections.

What does that mean, in dumb-ass' terms? What would a 1MB connection do for us, or does such a thing even exist?

[Dalmeth]

5 MB doesn't seem that good. For that matter, neither does 10MB. Of course, I am thinking of those things in terms of computers, and not so much connections.

Well, for one thing, it's not MB but Mb.  Megabit.  Given that, I really don't know what Halaster is talking about.

[Saikun]

For our text based game, 1Mb would probably be overkill. We currently have a 3Mb incoming and 768K outgoing connection. The 768K is a little tight, but since the GDB moved to Zalanthas.org, it's been OK. Our problem has always been the stability of the external network, not so much the bandwidth of it. The bandwidth problems only come into play when some player decides they want to web-spider the entirety of the web site, and it clogs up our outgoing connection. I still subscribe to the theory that slowdown during HRPT events is not due to bandwidth limits (so much), but that the base, brain-stem DIKU code still only does one thing at a time. While 160 people are fighting a huge battle, the game still has to give time slices to all the kanks out there twitching, the gith moving from room to room, etc.

Anyway, I'd like to have a more stable network connection, but (aside from our upstream speed) not necessarily a faster one. The problem is that the next step up from where we are, we'd end up paying as much in a month as we currently do in a year.

-S

[The7DeadlyVenomz]

...well, crap.

I guess there is no sort of easy solution, is there?

Thanks for explaining that. I understand almost fully now, I think.

Still, if I ever have the easily free resources, rest assured that we have the next step up.

[Halaster]

5 MB doesn't seem that good. For that matter, neither does 10MB. Of course, I am thinking of those things in terms of computers, and not so much connections.

Well, for one thing, it's not MB but Mb.  Megabit.  Given that, I really don't know what Halaster is talking about.

When I say 5Mb/5Mb I mean 5Mb downstream and 5Mb upstream - at the same time.

[amoeba]

I still subscribe to the theory that slowdown during HRPT events is not due to bandwidth limits (so much), but that the base, brain-stem DIKU code still only does one thing at a time. While 160 people are fighting a huge battle, the game still has to give time slices to all the kanks out there twitching, the gith moving from room to room, etc.

I can obviously only see and interpret as an outsider, but the indications I got during the recent HPPT issue was of a flooded network rather than an disk i/o, cpu bound issue.  Pinging ginka produced a 30% to 80% packet loss. Pinging one hop up from ginka had 0% packet loss at all times.  Also indicitive was while on, with a user count of over 100, commands were quite speedy, until the packet loss started.  

A few weeks back I saw this behavior with our networks here. If you were on the console, everything was quite responsive, yet while this was happening our switch was flooded, effectivly killing off our network.  Basiclly network I/O was through the roof.  I know with the hardware you describe it would take way more than 100+ connections to flood the network I/O.  I have at least that many on our network everyday with more demanding applications than telnet.

Anyway, this is all speculative, just from one user's view. I have every confidence that you have stellar equipment, and absolute expertise, seriously. You may be already, but I would throw into the mix nefarious intentional or incidental influences.

[Saikun]

I meant the slowdown during past HRPTs. I was speaking more generally. The problem during the last, abortive attempt at an HRPT was probably an upstream network thing that we didn't have any control over. We're unable to see anything that would indicate that there was a problem with Ginka at the time.

As far as incidental or intentional disturbances, I wouldn't rule that out at all. We've had this DNS name for a long time, and we get a lot of crap coming our way. Ginka filters out well over 10,000 pieces of spam mail per week at this point. There's always machines scanning us, throwing half-hearted hack attempts our way, and all that. The signal to noise ratio is getting worse and worse, and that's something we're probably going to have to address soon, bandwidth-wise. None of this garbage ever gets to Ginka, but by hitting the firewall, it's still sucking down bandwidth. It's getting to the point where even if no players are logged in, the network is still pretty busy. So, I don't know. All I can say is we're actively monitoring the situation to make sure the lag and such is definitely nothing we can fix on Ginka. Once we isolate the actual problem, and come up with a viable solution, we'll fix it.

-S

[Ava]

(I'm seeing this again on Friday night...10 PM EDT.)

Staff/network people, what's the best thing to do when teh evil lag is hitting? The behavior I see is that
(a) I suddenly get no response to commands. Sometimes the connection drops.
(b) When I try to reconnect, I either get no response, a partial mantis, or partway into the login...I often stall after "C" or the username prompt.

What's the right thing to do when this happens?
(1) Keep reconnecting. The socket's trashed.
(2) Wait at the hung prompt.  Reconnecting just slows things down.

[mansa]

(I'm seeing this again on Friday night...10 PM EDT.)

Staff/network people, what's the best thing to do when teh evil lag is hitting? The behavior I see is that
(a) I suddenly get no response to commands. Sometimes the connection drops.
(b) When I try to reconnect, I either get no response, a partial mantis, or partway into the login...I often stall after "C" or the username prompt.

What's the right thing to do when this happens?
(1) Keep reconnecting. The socket's trashed.
(2) Wait at the hung prompt.  Reconnecting just slows things down.

I'm also getting this.  *Cry*

[Halaster]

It doesn't matter what you do, you're not going to affect it much.  What I personally do, is:  if I'm playing a PC, I type save, then I log out - because I don't want to die because of lag.  Then I go do something else because I'm tired of fighting the slow connection.  But as for you, it doesn't matter much, you're not going to hurt it be reconnecting.

[John]

It doesn't matter what you do, you're not going to affect it much.  What I personally do, is:  if I'm playing a PC, I type save, then I log out - because I don't want to die because of lag.  Then I go do something else because I'm tired of fighting the slow connection.  But as for you, it doesn't matter much, you're not going to hurt it be reconnecting.

is there anything we can send to any Imm that would let them track down the problem quicker? A log? Just an alert to say "lag started at time X and continued until time Y"? Or do the right Imms already have easy enough ways to find about it when it happens (assuming of course it happens when they're not logged on)?

[Delirium]

Thing is, John, lag's usually not a problem with Ginka, it's a problem with routers or ISPs.

My connection has been borked for the last day or so, a tracert shows that I'm hitting a whopping 1023 ms (sometimes more) after the first hop, and it only gets worse from there.  Best it ever got was 923.

If it doesn't clear up by Sunday I'm going to be pissed.

[Fnord]

This has gotten worse for me yesterday/today. Permadeath rules and I love it, but not when the cause is lag.  :evil:

[Delirium]

It's pretty ridiculous for me.  Every action takes 2-3 seconds to scroll up onto the screen, and travelling anywhere is an exercise in patience, and I keep getting d/c'd.  But.. it's not ginka.  It's, apparently, my ISP - ever since the thunderstorm it's been like this, so hopefully they're fixing whatever got fried.

[Hymwen]

It has been unplayable for two days. This does not bode well!

[palomar]

I've gotten serious lag the past couple of days too. I usually have a fine connection to ginka.

[Zhaky]

:cry:  I keep getting disconnected, it is not fair. I didn't think a MUD required that much coonection...  :?

so does it always happen when there is a HRPT or whatever you experienced players call it?

[spawnloser]

Not completely unplayable...but there are times, like now, that I get lagged out, but I can get into the game...just to immediately lag back out. This seems to be a half hour out of ever three.

[Zhaky]

so you are saying that it might be over in 30 minutes?

[spawnloser]

(shrug)  Maybe?

[Anonymous]

:cry:  I keep getting disconnected, it is not fair. I didn't think a MUD required that much coonection...  :?

It doesn't.   diku doesn't have a high overhead (relative to computers nowadays) and 160 people connecting to a mud is not a lot of network traffic.

What's causing the lag is packetloss.  It could be a number of things in between ginka and us.  Misconfigured duplex settings on a router interface, wonky HA configuration.  Bad hardware, etc.

Best thing would be for us to determine the ISP whose router is the issue and then all of us open up trouble tickets with them.

[mansa]

I think it's because there's no Net Neutrality in America!!!  Now we have to pay more for our connections!

[Bebop]

Please never make Arm pay for play.  Not only do I think it would decrease players and up elitism some people just can not be paying and what if the prices keep going up.  Ten bucks might not seem like much when you're in High School and it's part of your allowance or whatever (no offense but seriously) But when you have kids or you are making it month by month an your internet connection already costs fifty bucks a month, you just can not afford it so some people would not be able to play.  Ten bucks a month isn't that more then like XBOX live or like close to the same price?  Anyway - please don't make Arm pay for play it wouldn't be the same.  Those that can donate should but yeah.

I think it's kinda clear some people *cough*Hymwen*cough* are worked up about this HRPT.

[LauraMars]

Please never make Arm pay for play.

The staff have stated repeatedly that they will never turn Armageddon into a pay-to-play.

In this very thread, even.

[Bebop]

Please never make Arm pay for play.

The staff have stated repeatedly that they will never turn Armageddon into a pay-to-play.

In this very thread, even.

I know - I still just had to add my own two cents.

[elvenchipmunk]

Edited because Laura can read my mind.

[Halaster]

We will never, ever make the game require money to play.  However, we have already taken payment in the form of your souls.

[Hymwen]

I demand a refund.

[Zhaky]

We will never, ever make the game require money to play.  However, we have already taken payment in the form of your souls.

Im not sure I have mine anylonger, but I keep selling it anyway, so there you go, have my soul, Im not sure I'll be needing it anyway, and if that is what I have to pay to play arm, then I'll be happy to harvest some more souls  :twisted:

[Sanvean]

We're currently talking about the finances of a solution.  Armageddon will not go pay to play, not matter what we decide.

[Delirium]

FWIW, it seems to have cleared up on my end.

Knock on wood, toss salt, etc etc..

[Anonymous]

We're currently talking about the finances of a solution.  Armageddon will not go pay to play, not matter what we decide.

Sanvean, given that Armageddon is a not for profite website/mud and how long it's been around has anyone considered trying to get some corporation to host it for free?

I work at a major company with several datacenters worldwide and they provide cabinet space and internet bandwidth for free to at least two dozen not for profit websites.    These sites are single-homed in their own tiny subnet with a link to the internet via our border routers.

It's a longshot but the advantages are free connectivity (Armageddon's bandwidth utilization per month has to be tiny given that it's a mud and the website is low on graphics) and possibly free hardware.  It's all a matter of finding a marketing contact because those guys love saying they are giving back to the internet or whatever.

Due to the fact that I'm a sub-contractor I do not feel it would be appropriate to approach the marketing guy I know at this company who does this, which is a shame because he likes me because I worked a weekend on his behalf.

The obvious drawback is that finding a site local to Saikun will be difficult unless he's willing to drive a state over (NY or MA) whenever maintenance is required.

[Sanvean]

I'd rather try to continue funding it out of pocket;  funding through a corporation usually comes with some strings and complciations.

[Saikun]

I'm going to try a couple annoying things over the next few days. I'm getting annoyed. It's a pretty good chance there's nothing wrong with the AT&T link, as it turns out, and also nothing wrong with Ginka. Time to start swapping out cables, jiggling wires, and swapping out network equipment. Nothing shows any signs of being broken, but it's gotten to that point... so, we'll see if that helps.

-S

[John]

Nothing shows any signs of being broken, but it's gotten to that point... so, we'll see if that helps.

*sigh* Don't you just love computers?

Good luck. I hope you find it quickly (mainly for your sanity ).

[The7DeadlyVenomz]

I have to say thanks to the Immortals, for their continued work on this problem, and even more for not blowing up at us for bugging out about it.

Good gig.

[chang]

I'm going to try a couple annoying things over the next few days. I'm getting annoyed. It's a pretty good chance there's nothing wrong with the AT&T link, as it turns out, and also nothing wrong with Ginka. Time to start swapping out cables, jiggling wires, and swapping out network equipment. Nothing shows any signs of being broken, but it's gotten to that point... so, we'll see if that helps.

-S

Are there spiders inside ginka's belly again?  (Didn't that happen once?)

[mansa]

http://armageddonmud.livejournal.com/5963.html

Baby Spiders
OK... so Sanvean has been wanting me to post this story for a long time, and I'm getting around to it now.

For those of you who don't know what I do, I administrate the server that Armageddon runs on, named Ginka. Back several years ago, before I was officially in this role, the machine was acting all strange. There were fears that we had been hacked, as had happened several times in the past. The problem, however, turned out to be almost as serious. In an attempt to safeguard the system utilities after the last time we had gotten hacked, somebody decided to keep the various important sys utils on a write-protected floppy, so that someone trying to hack the game wouldn't be able to replace them with their own evil versions. It kind of sounded like a good idea, in theory, but there were many problems with it. Not the least of which was that the floppy had began to disintegrate after years of constant use in the drive. The machine was becoming uncontrollable. Certain utilities wouldn't even work anymore because those sectors of the floppy had been eaten away. The decision was made to mail me Ginka so I could rebuild it.

Now at the time, Ginka lived in the basement of Dr. Dave, User #1 from ISCA. Dave ran an ISP and through some ancient agreement, had been hosting Ginka for free in his basement for years. When Ginka finally arrived, its outside was in pretty sorry shape. The fans were clogged with dust, and I could tell the machine wasn't well cared for. When I opened it up, however, I was in for a creepy surprise. Much of the interior of the case was full of dust, obviously, but also of webbing. In this webbing, and the dust, and everywhere else, were thousands of baby spiders, all dead. It was one of the most horrible things I've ever seen, while working on computers anyway. To this day, I don't know if the spiders had died inside Ginka, or if they had been living in there, and died in transit from Iowa to Connecticut. I didn't think about it very long, and vaccuumed the little suckers up.

Once Ginka was physically cleaned, I backed the data up, and rebuilt the machine from scratch (with the previous components, plus a few little things I added). When everything was working, I sent it back to Iowa, where it was eventually put back on the net.

As something of an epilogue, that Ginka was replaced a couple years ago with a brand new machine that we bought, and which I now host here in Connecticut. We were never able to get in touch with Dr. Dave to recover our old machine (the inside of which contains the signatures of many of the Arm's original imms), and as far as I know, it's still running down in his basement, with nothing on it. The current Ginka does have the signatures of all the imms who attended the AIM at which I built the machine, as well as a nifty logo drawn inside by Gleden.

[Hymwen]

Very interesting read. Thanks, mansa

[Zhaky]

wow almost as a farytail or something, it was wild, and the old imms sounded like some lost civilazation    anyway, the coolest true story I think I've ever heard... when it comes to computers that is, and by the way I've also heard that the word "debugging" actually comes from the time when computers were huge and made by radiopibes (or whatever they are called in english, now a days they are made by tiny transistors), at that time they actually had to get a man inside them and clean them for bugs , I guess that is what you did to old ginka, whom now is on her own all alone   ... poor old ginka, I hope new ginka won't experience the same thing