Myst Online: URU Live Forums

Re: Discussion on setting up an Inter-Guild server bank

JKla — Thu Dec 18, 2008 8:51 pm

Author: JKla

Posted: Thu Dec 18, 2008 8:51 pm

Back in the day (he says pulling up a sandbag and swinging the hurricane lamp) the Nexus board had different screens an tabs on the bottom with labels for different languages.

The Nexus was not in D'ni so presumably the DRC had already hacked the code so hacking it a second time is not without precedent.

If the DRC can do it surely we must have some talented bod at COBBS with some savy that can sort it. It is still COBBS or is this the new GoIM.

Whatever another wait and see production...

Re: Discussion on setting up an Inter-Guild server bank

Rusty_Russell — Thu Dec 18, 2008 6:14 pm

Author: Rusty_Russell

Posted: Thu Dec 18, 2008 6:14 pm

Quote:

While many want to keep Uru unchanged, there are bugs to fix, and interface changes that will need to be made from the addition of UCC. Those using advanced interfaces in other games are going to be looking at adding those improvements. When people see how some tough problems are elegantly handled to make life easier, they generally want those improvements. So, there is a whole compatibility and code tracking issue.

This is being addressed in detail in the asset / code management and VCS threads. Indeed, this is the perfect summary of why we need version control of the open source.

Re: Discussion on setting up an Inter-Guild server bank

Nalates — Thu Dec 18, 2008 6:09 pm

Author: Nalates

Posted: Thu Dec 18, 2008 6:09 pm

Artic_Wagon wrote:

Grogyan wrote:

I'd personally like to see the Nexus used for managing player created Ages

Me trying to imagine having to scroll down a long list in Nexus, click by click, and having
to remember the exact name and/or spelling or having to remember age descriptions

I remember looking for neighborhoods (limited to 50) and
how bad it was.

Other possibility:
A video library where one could see a small trailer about an age and
being able to click on a book for access to a "video trailer" or to link to an age ?

AW, points out some of the problems from a growing Uru. Here is to hoping we have such problems.

It also points out the need for some changes in the Uru client side interface.

There is also going to be a bigger need to get back story content into the game. New players will have no idea who some of the characters are or what they did in MO:UL. Journals, links to GoA… something.

None of these are immediately urgent problems. I think experience in other games, whether SL, WoW, GW or what does not matter. But the solutions in other games to some of these problems we have in Uru could show how to handle them. SL chat has advanced features that reduce what we call chat spam, allowing people to forum impromptu groups and handle the equivalent of belonging to 25 bevins and deal with the thousands of bevins in game. Understanding what is around and what we may want to use to solve Uru issues I expect to save time and reduce false starts.

May be cleaning up the server API interface between client and server would let others build client side viewers that work for Uru and have better interfaces. There are groups working to standardize AV’s so they can move from game to game. So, we have many possibilities.

While many want to keep Uru unchanged, there are bugs to fix, and interface changes that will need to be made from the addition of UCC. Those using advanced interfaces in other games are going to be looking at adding those improvements. When people see how some tough problems are elegantly handled to make life easier, they generally want those improvements. So, there is a whole compatibility and code tracking issue.

Re: Discussion on setting up an Inter-Guild server bank

JKla — Thu Dec 18, 2008 1:54 pm

Author: JKla

Posted: Thu Dec 18, 2008 1:54 pm

I don't pretend to understand the technicalities.

However I agree it should not be to difficult to do as long as there is no conflict in any of those secondary URL's with the Cyan master. Changes in the secondary data servers are not at issue but changes in the Master data server will only be at the discretion of Cyan.

It does not look as if they want us screwed they just want to protect their IP rights.

This is why we have to be careful about Myst data ported from places other than MO:UL those ages belong to Cyan. Stuff we write from scratch ourselves should not be at issue and although FCAL would not appear to be compulsory compliance would allow a fan age to enter the fold should Cyan gain funding and come back to play.

Re: Discussion on setting up an Inter-Guild server bank

Anaerin — Thu Dec 18, 2008 8:53 am

Author: Anaerin

Posted: Thu Dec 18, 2008 8:53 am

JKla wrote:

It might be worth noting that Cyan intend maintaining the Data server for the original MO:UL ages. It remains to be seen if this means we have our own data servers in addition or if we want to add new ages they would have to be loaded on the the Cyan data server.

Even if that is the case when the source code is first published, how difficult would it be to change a (for example) hard-coded URL to an array of URLs. As we'd have the whole source available, it really wouldn't be that difficult to make realtively minor changes like that.

Re: Discussion on setting up an Inter-Guild server bank

JKla — Thu Dec 18, 2008 8:25 am

Author: JKla

Posted: Thu Dec 18, 2008 8:25 am

It might be worth noting that Cyan intend maintaining the Data server for the original MO:UL ages. It remains to be seen if this means we have our own data servers in addition or if we want to add new ages they would have to be loaded on the the Cyan data server.

The way people are talking the Cyan hosted ages will be sacrosanct as they are their IP and individual shards will have secondary data servers for fan created stuff.

This is one of those things that will not be 100% clear till the code is released and examined.

Re: Discussion on setting up an Inter-Guild server bank

Bah'tahm — Thu Dec 18, 2008 6:59 am

Author: Bah'tahm

Posted: Thu Dec 18, 2008 6:59 am

In UntilUru I had experimented a bit with distributed servers where instances of ServerAgent, GameServer and LobbyServer were run on different machines. Basically the ServerAgents registered with the LookupServer, AuthServer and VaultServer and spawned GameServers (Age Instances) and a LobbyServer where clients connected to. I remember someone from Cyan saying that would require fast connections and would probably be only possible within a LAN. My experience was that our setup worked for a bit but when anything went wrong because some of the UDP packets went missing, zombie servers were not automatically removed properly. And things got more complicated with NATed servers. I guess with the source available the servers could be modified to provide a better recovery from lost connections. Of course I don't know how the server code has progressed during the Myst Online phase.

Given the server structure is still the same this would mean a "Guild" shard maintainer would have to run the Lookup, Auth and Vault servers (and probably a data/web server) and Server Agents could be distributed on suitable machines, probably dedicated servers with at least 100Mbit Internet connection.

Re: Discussion on setting up an Inter-Guild server bank

RW. — Tue Dec 16, 2008 4:30 pm

Author: RW.

Posted: Tue Dec 16, 2008 4:30 pm

Rusty_Russell wrote:

RW, I think you have yourself a job, designing database(s) for a super-shard.

Crawl - walk - run - fly - ? [Eleri's vision for URU ]

For me, it will be a crawl. But I am excited about getting a chance to look at openly (pun intended), what is under the hood of URU. I am sure others feel the same way and that with other items that have been discussed on this site in related threads and on other sites, could speed things up.

Re: Discussion on setting up an Inter-Guild server bank

Rusty_Russell — Tue Dec 16, 2008 3:56 pm

Author: Rusty_Russell

Posted: Tue Dec 16, 2008 3:56 pm

RW, I think you have yourself a job, designing database(s) for a super-shard.

Crawl - walk - run - fly - ? [Eleri's vision for URU ]

Re: Discussion on setting up an Inter-Guild server bank

RW. — Tue Dec 16, 2008 3:48 pm

Author: RW.

Posted: Tue Dec 16, 2008 3:48 pm

mszv wrote:

I'm also a bit concerned about the central database, the vault.

I have often wondered, pulling from an environment I work in, if some of the elements of large scale network management could not be applied here. For instance, in the network management world, the world of networks that underpin the WWW, there are multiple network element vendors. These are the folks that supply the large scale switches and routers that move the voice and data traffic around the world. The vendors (Nortel, Cisco, etcetera) provide their own element management application with its own database to manage their specific proprietary elements, this is known as an Element Manager (EMS). This works fine if all the elements in your network are from the same vendor. In the real world, they are not. So to present a whole world view of what is happening in the overall network to the folks who set in the control centers, another layer is added. A Network Management System (NMS). This system aggregates/collects the feed from multiple vendor EMS databases, that is, only the key information that is needed to give an overall view of the whole network state, not the full details about what is occurring in each vendors specific network element.

Okay, apply this to URU. Rather then a central vault/database, containing all the information about all the possible states from all the ages, each age would have associated with it its own specific vault/database, tracking as is performed now by the single central vault, the progress, location of objects, within that environment, this information would not be stored or transferred to the central vault/database. Only flags that are needed to express states in other ages/environments would be transferred to the central vault/database and much of that would occur only when you 'link' from one age to the next (this is needed for instance, so Bahro poles, books, etc., can appear and disappear at the Relto and in other ages). An exception example would be KI traffic which would always communicate with the central vault/DB.

I would be interested to know if Cyan (or others) have investigated along this line.

Again though, if mods are possible and doable, none of this is going to happen quickly, I do realize that.

Re: Discussion on setting up an Inter-Guild server bank

JKla — Tue Dec 16, 2008 9:42 am

Author: JKla

Posted: Tue Dec 16, 2008 9:42 am

There is all kinds of stuff like this that we are going to have to face but until we have the code and decisions are pointless.

Speculation does keep the forums ticking over so while we are waiting speculation is not at issue however calls for decisions other than things like a name are moot.

Lets restrict ourselves to arranging the deckchairs till Cyan comes up with the code.

Re: Discussion on setting up an Inter-Guild server bank

Artic_Wagon — Tue Dec 16, 2008 9:32 am

Author: Artic_Wagon

Posted: Tue Dec 16, 2008 9:32 am

Grogyan wrote:

I'd personally like to see the Nexus used for managing player created Ages

Me trying to imagine having to scroll down a long list in Nexus, click by click, and having
to remember the exact name and/or spelling or having to remember age descriptions

I remember looking for neighborhoods (limited to 50) and
how bad it was.

Other possibility:
A video library where one could see a small trailer about an age and
being able to click on a book for access to a "video trailer" or to link to an age ?

Re: Discussion on setting up an Inter-Guild server bank

Rusty_Russell — Tue Dec 16, 2008 9:27 am

Author: Rusty_Russell

Posted: Tue Dec 16, 2008 9:27 am

Eleri wrote:

Rusty_Russell wrote:

Eleri wrote:
But we could all still gather by the tent in Tokotah for dancing if we felt like it.
You're still seeing this as one implementation, Eleri.

And you're still seeing it as multiple. I have yet to see anything that insists it must be one way or the other.

Ok...

Quote:

We realize that this could turn UruLive into the "wild west" and lead to many fractured and diverse MystOnline servers.

That could support either view. (Not necessarily what I wanted ) However, I think technology is against your vision at present. In a word - lag. 35 people at most in Ae'gura in Prologue, 100 in MOUL... I think that "all" is a long way off.

Re: Discussion on setting up an Inter-Guild server bank

Grogyan — Tue Dec 16, 2008 6:35 am

Author: Grogyan

Posted: Tue Dec 16, 2008 6:35 am

Wow, 7 pages read, almost.

Jkla wrote:

COSMOS

D'mala was the cannon if I remember from UU, so I think that COSMOS
COMMUNITY
OPEN
SOURCE
MYST
ONLINE
SERVERS
Works well

MOOSE can also be suggested as the cannon server net name, just my thoughts

Should the MOUL forums continue to be the central location for all guilds?
If so, would Cyan still hold onto the domain name and not pas it onto one of the Admins here, if in the worst case scenario Cyan closed up shop?

One thing I like to make clear, that even though the code may become Open Source, I am estimating that it will be a few months before we believe that the server code is stable enough after modifications for you guys to play on it.

Does the open sourcing lead to the actual client code as well?
Reason for that is that, is that when we have Ages that are playable for the general populous, we would need a mechanism that would allow you to visit these Ages, can't use the Relto books shelf as that is part of "Yeesha's Power" to spawn books on the bookshelf "magically".

I'd personally like to see the Nexus used for managing player created Ages

Re: Discussion on setting up an Inter-Guild server bank

Braggi — Tue Dec 16, 2008 6:31 am

Author: Braggi

Posted: Tue Dec 16, 2008 6:31 am

Well, I can't speak for the rest, but I've learned a ton by reading the exchange between mszv and RW.

Thank you both.