19-05-2001 18:59									#1
	Could we find an another game server? Support Apolyton, buy Alpha Centauri

..where we could start a game which has the rules we have constituted in this forum. We only need to find one enthusiastic TW2002 admin who is willing to host a game for us Apolytoners.

Further, I have an idea to prevent DL's (dubbies): we require that everybody who are playing must use his Apolyton name in the game. At least he must post to one special thread which is the nic he wants to use.

	19-05-2001 19:25									#2
	Support Apolyton, buy Civilization: The Boardgame

That's actually a good idea Marko. Now, were to find a server laying around...


------------------
After all is said and done, usually more is said than done.

	19-05-2001 19:31									#3
	Support Apolyton, buy Civilization: The Boardgame

You can minimise problem of dupes, but cannot totally eliminate it. Some people do have many e-mail accounts - real ones, not Web based. Not counting re-directors, I have five.

Let me assure you that I don't have any DL's on Apolyton. Stop looking at me like that.

	19-05-2001 19:34									#4
	Avatar Enlargement: We've got the solution

If one (two?) has multiple personalities, does using different account for different personalities constitute a violation of the DL rules?

	19-05-2001 19:37									#5
	Get a bigger avatar today!

It's usually not the server cost but the connection cost that's the killer. I can throw together a box that can support maybe 50 players at no cost to me (I have a lot of junk lying around ) but it'd take me like USD$500 a month for a 128K lease line.

	19-05-2001 20:27									#7
	Support Apolyton buy from Amazon

Yes, but what if my (our) particular personality disorder is such that my (our) personalities don't communicate with each other?

	19-05-2001 22:47									#8
	Full PM-box? Change here!

I could probably setup the server at home, I have a DSL connection that is 1.5mbps down and 256Kbps up. Tw2002 is text based so that should be sufficient speed. However, I wont be able to garuantee uptime and stuff like that. I have an old p75 with 40mb of Ram sitting around that I could turn into a dedicated server and stuff, but the router/firewall for my LAN is my main PC as well. (yes thats why there might be down time) that is on 24 hours a day anyway, but sometimes I manage to crash it.

Another thing that needs to be considered is trust. As the game admin I will probably have access to all sorts of settings and configs that I could theoretically tweak to my advantage. (not that I've ever administered a TW2002 server before, but I've noticed that it is highly configurable).. So either we need complete trust, (and I dont see any reason they should have that), or we need to get a non-layer, or Markg to administer the server.

	20-05-2001 03:15									#11
	Support Apolyton, buy Galactic Civilizations

King Thor, it would be really great if you could host a TW2002 game. It is just that the TW server should also be registered and that costs money. It feels unfair if you should pay that all by yourself. Any easy way to collaborately participate in that?

	20-05-2001 06:29									#12
	Suffering from ads?

oops
[This message has been edited by King Thor (edited May 19, 2001).]

	20-05-2001 07:22									#13
	Remove this text

Well you guys could chip in for the purchase. With around 10 players it like $5 a person.

I will need some time however to configure the p75 to work on my LAN because its sitting in a corner rusting away. Also remember the uptime wont be like that of a dedicated server. I will try to keep the LAN up as much as I can, but sometimes my system crashes, (I've noticed that I every time it has an uptime of around 7 days .. BOOM!).

It doesn't take me more than 5 minutes to bring everything back up. Thats close to more than 99.9% uptime. So I guess thats not too bad. (It might behave differently with a big load)

Let me know what you guys think.

[This message has been edited by King Thor (edited May 19, 2001).]

	20-05-2001 08:30									#14
	Got spare money?

There are a number of technical issues I can think of:

• Most ADSL connections don't have 256K upstream
• Your machine might not be accessable from outside, i.e. your ISP might have some kind of firewall for DSL subscribers
• If you use an ADSL, it probably runs on DHCP, i.e., your computer would have a differenct IP within a range - I would guess a class B subnet. That means you have to find out that IP everytime it crashes or reboots, and post that here before we can get on the server again.
• While it's quite usual to have a few computers sharing a common DSL connection by using a 4-way router, I think the router can only handle outbound traffic, not inbound. In other words, your router can handle traffic that is initiated by one of your computers, but not traffic that is initiated by outside computers. This has something to do with the fact that, ultimately, you have only one IP, and therefore one socket for each of the well-known ports.

Last edited by Urban Ranger on 30-05-2001 at 08:13

	20-05-2001 09:51									#15
	Put an end to popups!

There are a number of technical issues I can think of:Most ADSL connections don't have 256K upstream

Not exactly wrong, I dont know about most getting 256K up or not, but I do get it. I'm less than 2000 ft from the CO, with connection provided by telocity. I repeat its 1.5Mbps down, and 256Kbps up.

Your machine might not be accessable from outside, i.e. your ISP might have some kind of firewall for DSL subscribers

Wrong. Telocity encourages and allows you to host your own Webpage from your own computer. I access my computer remotely all the time. There is no such system. They CANNOT setup a system that doesn't allow anything on anyones system to not be a server. When you run any file sharing client, it has to act as a server too.(to make the p2p connection) They have to allow it.. What you are talking about is the way Cable companies monitor routing load to your system, and if they suspect you are running a Server get you to stop or cut your service. The reason they do that is your bandwith in cable is shared with your neighborhood, with DSL my bandwith is fixed all the way to the CO. So they really dont care what I'm running. (samething with LANs as far as cable and DSL are concerned).

If you use an ADSL, it probably runs on DHCP, i.e., your computer would have a differenct IP within a range - I would guess a class B subnet. That means you have to find out that IP everytime it crashes or reboots, and post that here before we can get on the server again.

Wrong again. Yes it does run on a DHCP, but that doesn't mean my IP isn't static. I do have a static IP. 64.192.162.41. Telocity is one of the few DSL subscribers that give a static IP and that was the primary reason I signed up with them.

Infact, http://home.telocity.com/pages/request_srvcs.html
this URL allows me to configure my domain name to reach my IP directly (since its static). I'm planning to get a domain name so that access my comp for anything becomes easier.

While it's quite usual to have a few computers sharing a common DSL connection by using a 4-way router, I think the router can only handle outbound traffic, not inbound. In other words, your router can handle traffic that is initiated by one of your computers, but not traffic that is initiated by outside computers. This has something to do with the fact that, ultimately, you have only one IP, and therefore one socket for each of the well-known ports.

I'm not using one of those Linksys router/firewalls. I have my DSL computer connecting straight into my comp, and I've configured my computer to act as the router firewall (ie, its a software router not a hardware one, so those limitations dont apply). I will have to look into how I can setup the p75 as a server though, I will probably have to configure IP forwarding to handle that. But I dont think its impossible, most companies have one machine act as the firewall/router and then another machine as a webserver (ofcourse the HTTP ports will remain open), and another as an FTP server (with FTP ports open). Its to do with configuring IP forwarding. Haven't quite tested or tried that yet, but I think I can figure it out.

It's a great idea, KT, however you might have to put the TW2002 game on your main computer for the setup to work.

True, I might, but most probably I think I'll be able to get the p75 to run as a server. Tell you guys what. I'll go pull out my p75 later this week, and hook it up to the LAN and try to configure it as a webserver. If I can get it to work as a webserver, I can get it to work as a TW2002 server.


Either way, I could always run the server as a service on my main box. Sure it will take up some RAM and slow me down a bit, but I dont mind trying, if it gets annoying we'll think of something else.

In the end fellas, I think its doable one way or the other, point is do we want to do it. I think Wittlich might have dedicated access of some sort himself because he is always on, on ICQ.
[This message has been edited by King Thor (edited May 20, 2001).]

	20-05-2001 09:52									#16
	Support Apolyton, buy Civilization III: Complete

dang it!
[This message has been edited by King Thor (edited May 20, 2001).]

	20-05-2001 10:43									#17
	Support Apolyton, buy Call to Power 2

Not trying to be overly technical:

"There is no such system. They CANNOT setup a system that doesn't allow anything on anyones system to not be a server. When you run any file sharing client, it has to act as a server too."

If you mean by "file-sharing client" as "you can access files on the Web" I can assure you that you can be a client and not a server. For example I can be a ftp client and not a server by blocking all IP packets sent to port 21.

"Yes it does run on a DHCP, but that doesn't mean my IP isn't static. I do have a static IP. 64.192.162.41."

If it runs on DHCP, you wouldn't get a static IP. Dynamic IP assignment is the main reason for using DHCP

"its a software router not a hardware one, so those limitations dont apply"

It still does, since all of your well-known ports still get one socket each, there's no way that an outside computer can tell which computer is which.

"I dont think its impossible, most companies have one machine act as the firewall/router and then another machine as a webserver (ofcourse the HTTP ports will remain open), and another as an FTP server (with FTP ports open). Its to do with configuring IP forwarding."

That's because each box gets it's own IP. IP forwarding is necessary for a router, because that way it wouldn't just throw away any IP packets not destinated for itself. Very bad for a router

	20-05-2001 11:05									#18
	Increase Your PM Length

If you mean by "file-sharing client" as "you can access files on the Web" I can assure you that you can be a client and not a server. For example I can be a ftp client and not a server by blocking all IP packets sent to port 21.

Yes I know. But like I said file sharing clients are generally two way, Napster, Imesh, Kazaa, Gnutella. Any one of these, if you are serving/providing files in any way (file sharing .. get it?) you have to act as a server.

If it runs on DHCP, you wouldn't get a static IP. Dynamic IP assignment is the main reason for using DHCP

Yes, but you can keep the IP lease length to an indefinite amount. In fact my main computer acts as a DHCP server, and I've assigned static IPs to each of the computers on my LAN.

It still does, since all of your well-known ports still get one socket each, there's no way that an outside computer can tell which computer is which.

Yes but that problem only arises if you have more than one server of the same type, (ie more than one webserver, file sharing client, ftp server), if there is only one, the router just fourwards any packets to the port to the appropriate computer no?


That's because each box gets it's own IP. IP forwarding is necessary for a router, because that way it wouldn't just throw away any IP packets not destinated for itself. Very bad for a router

Exactly. When I say its got to do with IP forwarding, I mean, it is done using that and that I have to configure it correctly to allow the p75 to act as server. I just haven't done that yet, but I'm sure I can figure it out.

	25-05-2001 23:12									#20
	Browse Apolyton AD-FREE

check this out.. Apolyton could register a domain for over 2 years for $5. Then we could set the IP to point to who ever can host the TW2002 server.

We could register the Server in MarkG's name for Apolyton, and we could all contribute some money to get it set up..

http://www.twlinks.com/playtw/

the alternative is using thestardock.com or some similar BBS.

	30-05-2001 07:09									#21
	Browse Apolyton AD-FREE

I will rebang the game in a week or so when I can get some free time. Everything is happening fast and furious right now around the office.

In the mean time, I see you've all started a few polls for what options you'd like to see and to not see in the game. Feel free to compile those and send me a crib sheet for what kind of game you guys want to see.

Thanks for your patience.


Dan

	30-05-2001 08:07									#22
	Put an end to popups!

Thanks Dan.

	30-05-2001 20:29									#23
	Suffering from ads?

quote: Originally posted by Dan Magaha FIRAXIS I will rebang the game in a week or so when I can get some free time. Everything is happening fast and furious right now around the office. In the mean time, I see you've all started a few polls for what options you'd like to see and to not see in the game. Feel free to compile those and send me a crib sheet for what kind of game you guys want to see. Thanks for your patience. Dan

Markg could possibly do the compilation. Please post an advance notice with the exact date the game begins. .. oh and
Thanks Dan, I think I speak for all of us here when I say "I really appreciate the time you are putting into this for us."

	30-05-2001 21:45									#24
	Support Apolyton, buy Galactic Civilizations: Deluxe Edition

I just wanted to agree, Dan, you have done a great
job, and I really appreciate you providing this game for
all of us!!!

	31-05-2001 03:19									#25
	Got spare money?

Yes, thanks for doing this for us

Did you take the current game down until then? Because it's not up right now.