State of the multiplayer server

[Soliton]

and for firewall stuff - im 100% sure there are ways to allow incoming connections from wesnoth

The problem is not incoming connections but outgoing..

[mowerpower]

Does anybody know what kind of advertising revenues on-line game servers with wesnoth.org's traffic can attract? It might not be too bad, since it's a fairly affluent niche.

IIRC the game server itself doesn't attract enough daily traffic for these folks to be interested in giving us money, though the web server might do...

[chains]

We love Wesnoth, and I am sure the community can work out a more robust solution for the best open source strategy game on the Internet

Five possible solutions that wouldn't take but a few hours to implement:

1) A quick programming fix for this problem: Don't force everyone to connect to the same server when they click play online. Randomize the server they choose between the tux server, Debian server, and official server. Simply make wesnoth select the server for them splitting the traffic between 2-3 servers randomly. Distribute the load.

2) The donation fix: If you can estimate the amount of throughput Wesnoth is using I am sure we can find someone to donate hosting to this wonderful project. Donating hosting makes a lot more sense than donating cash. I can't say for certain I can donate a free server in our closet to the project as I still have to pay for bandwidth and power. But if you give me some numbers to run by our accountant, I am sure we can work out something.

3) A business model fix: is advertising for other games on the wesnoth website. Many web-based games have revenue models that allow them to spend money on advertising. Wesnoth could easily be supported quite easily through click ads.

4) Sign up for the referral program at a web hosting company, and put a link on the index page of wesnoth.org. Four users signing up for a basic hosting account would pay for the month charges of hosting the wesnothd server.

5) Add a donation link to the Server disconnect message, so every time the server clicks you off have it say, "You've been disconnected due to server load, please donate to the project so we can afford faster servers!"

[Sombra]

Donations are fine but honestly would you like to depend on them if you have to pay 150 bill month by month yourself?

1. I think Dave is right if he says first he would liek to optimize the code.

2. looking for advertisment

3. Depend on donations to invite the rest of the developers to a beer once in a while.

P:S: it isnt well know that there are other independent multiplayer servers out there . TUX´s server for example.

Perhaps make this choice more obvious to redirect some traffic.

[Lim-Dul]

Dave - you said that you're beta-testing the optimized server on tuxfamily? I think you might want to test it on the official server - I mean, Tuxfamily is not getting enough traffic for a proper stress-test and the official server lags SO BADLY, especially now that it is Friday and the Easter Holidays are coming, that you could just as well have a fast albeit unstable (if it is unstable) server up and running - the game is unplayable on the official server anyway. =)

[Carzal]

I'm sorry if this has already been mentioned, but I know that for a promisance game that I played, the designer was able to get google ads on the forums. This didn't interfere with gameplay, and we were all able to contribute to the game by clicking on the ads a couple times a day. I admit that I do not know very much about it, and I'm kinda hoping that someone else jumps on this idea and says "in fact, that's brilliant" so that I can soak up the glory, but, if it hasn't been mentioned already, that is an option.

[gnurob]

To me its a matter of pride--and fear of being in public naked--that I buy clothing (mostly T-shirts) supporting GNU/FOSS projects, and Podcasts (quick a plug for the Rock and Roll Geek Show with Michael Butler, and The Roadhouse Podcast with Tony Steidler-Dennison. Check out OpenBSD's long line of offerings!! ...GNU project lags not far behind.

My personal two favourites:

• Free Software, Free Society by GNU
• So long and thanks for all the passwords. by OpenBSD

A few suggestions:

• Don't make it so gamer/nerdy I can't wear it out in public.
• Change the style every six months to get re-occuring income
• Offer a T-shirt, golf shirt, and pull over (not a long sleeve T)
• Maybe offer some shirts that are faction or high level unit specific...

P.S. I really would like a Wesnoth shirt!

[AI]

Why no longsleeves?

[gnurob]

Why no longsleeves?

I tend to shrink 'em ...and I need more pullovers so why not influence all of Wesnoth to suit my needs?!

[maxgamer]

hmmmm... i scanned most of the posts and ive seen a couple good ideas. why not just do all of them (the ones that make sense), i mean at least one of them has to work, and thats all you need.

[chains]

Perhaps you should undo the "improved ghost detection" code ? I get ping timeouts even when the server isn't full of players.

It seems I am more affected by the ping timeout messages than other players... Drastically so. I get ping timed out when others aren't complaining of any connection problems at all. I have no problems connecting to anything else, and I can telnet to the game server just fine. and I've ran a ping in the background and it returns successsful pings meanwhile my game client tells me it recieved no pings ... I get pingtimed out every ten minutes or so no matter the time of day I log in... yet galifax has 3 accounts logged in and they stay logged in all day... I am not sure what is different between our two installs, but I had to install mine from source as I use ubuntu, its possible the windows binary is more stable?

Also an hour glass appears on my screen every 3-4 seconds or so, not sure if this related, but it sure is annoying.

[LipeR]

I am not sure what is different between our two installs, but I had to install mine from source as I use ubuntu, its possible the windows binary is more stable?

I believe it isn't. I use Windows binary, but I have the same problem. I get disconnected very fast, usually between first three turns. Sometimes it doesn't exactly log me off, but usually I cannot connect for several minutes. I can ping the server with nominal results.

[Carzal]

T-shirts were be amazing, especially among friends who play Wesnoth: it would be the perfect nerdy present, having a shirt with an Elvish Champion/Ancient Lich on it with an amusing line underneath. I'd certainly buy that.

[Weeksy]

I'd suggest some of Kitty's portraits, or a close examination of current in-game sprites, trying to find one that looks good when blown up.

[CK5Y12]

i swear, DRAUG is awesome