Not that Ive done much modding, and Ive never hosted a server, but I would say a good community is mandatory, followed by server hardware and software, if a server had a community I loved and was a part of, I would put up with less capability and things that make you go OOOOHHHH.

I played for almost 2 years with one bunch of people on a couple different servers called Pitch Black I and II. II came about when the host of I ran into financial issues. This server was basically mod free, 1200 cruise, ammo mod, etc. It didnt need a fancy mod because it had a great community, just logging in made my mood improve. The server was a extened family, people knew who knew you, your personality, and what you liked. Most of the people on there knew me by name, rather then by tag, perhaps a bad idea, but we trusted each other that much. I still remember some of the conversations I had with my m8s.

I appreciate the difficulty of trying to keep FL alive, and some of these ideas are rather interesting. The problem is motivation. Not enough people are actually motivated to do anything about it. I for one dont even have a computer to play FL on right now. Im posting this on my brothers laptop. Like you guys said, When the global server goes, so will the vast majority of players. The bigger and popular servers will stay do to DC. The small servers like Aduis will more then likely go, mostly because no one will play. THe only chance anyone has of keeping them up is perhaps a page with a link right on the front page of TLR that has every active server and IP addy listed for people to find. Have them sorted by type, i.e. rpg, vanilla, total conversion to X universe.

This is not men to attack anyone, and may not be totally coherent, but id hate to have FL die out.

If any of my old pals read this, shoot me a email. hello to wherever you guys are, zippy, hunter, grim, smokie, and prom, and bob, i miss ya guys.

the ramblings of 007 have ended.

007



Voilà! In view, a humble vaudevillian veteran, cast vicariously as both victim and villain by the vicissitudes of Fate.The only verdict is vengeance; a vendetta, held as a votive, not in vain, for the value and veracity of such shall one day vindicate the vigilant and the virtuous. Verily, this vichyssoise of verbiage veers most verbose vis-à-vis an introduction, and so it is my very good honor to meet you and you may call me V.

V from V for Vendetta

Edited by - 007 on 2/3/2007 6:13:45 PM

Digging up this thread again to keep some attention on these issues...

I don't keep track of whats happening with FL mods anymore but I agree the community as a whole would be better served if some of the larger mods were combined together. Consolidating the mod resources into a centralized resource would really help too. Continuing to add new features to FL will help to hold people over until Openlancer is developed enough to release a playable or at least somewhat functional alpha build.

For my part, in addition to ongoing work on Openlancer, I'm working on the following:

Game Forge:
A game and mod development forge designed to gather small hobby game projects and many of the isolated mod studios together on a single website where they can all work together. This would be ideal for consolidating FL mods. The project was postponed at the request of BP until TLR got its new server but thats taking longer than I expected. I've also been busy with OL's design and have yet to build the test site. I still need a name for this forge community, theres a working list of names with available domains, one is Lancer's Forge for a forge connected at the hip to TLR, or there are various other options for a site connected at the hip to OL.

Web Hosting Cooperative:
My web host, FuitadNET, is circling the drain, so OL needs a new web host ASAP. OL and the game forge will both need a dedicated server eventually. Rather than waiting to get the server until its really needed, I'm taking this as an opportunity to get the server now. In time I'm hoping this coop will grow to include five or more servers, this translates to nearly unlimited free hosting resources for community sites, providing they run ads. I can also host TLR if MS ever pulls the plug on their server, call it the community's safety net. Can include a global server too if EOA or someone else develops one. Another option is getting a bunch of MP server communities together, one dedicated server can replace two or three FL MP servers on residential broadband. I still need a name for this cooperative community, an OL member suggested WebLancer. See webcoop.php for a coop outline and softlayer.com for server details.

Note: The first two or three coop servers will run RedHat ES 4 in a standard LAMP web hosting platform. The fourth server can be a Windows game server for hosting consolidated FL MP servers, or just about anything else. OL's MP server will run on both Linux and Winblows. Also keep in mind these server shares are open to anyone, not just the greater TLR community, we won't have the full run of the server and at $35/mo per share we really have to respect the other coop member's share of the server resources.

Community Communications:
Right now OL has #openlancer on DALnet (irc.dal.net). After the hosting coop gets started I'll run an IRC server for the coop itself, OL, the forge site, and any community members that need a chat room. After the coop adds its second server we can host another community TS server too. Free community email is another option, the server will have unlimited pop3 accounts and a couple web based pop3 clients (can use any normal email client too). Just have to make sure these services aren't abused by spammers or become a battle field for some of the old disputes between some community members.


The general theme here is if we all pool our resources together it will result in a greater benefit for the community as a whole and each of its members. Then we can start looking at expanding the greater community by merging in other like minded communities. Maybe my next project will be the "Lancers Nation"...


-Burn

Lead Designer and Webmaster,
Openlancer Project

combining mods is not a real solution because....
1. they are coded different and therefore incompatible
2. future development of the mods would be very hard
3. the bigger a mod is the more lag it does create
4. ppl dont want this

4. is the main issue. If enough people want something done and are willing to do the work then the other issues can be overcome ( 1 & 2 ) or mitigated ( 3 ) .

Just look at existing mods and break them down into individual components, or what I call "line item features" (with line item credits). Then pick the features you want, expand on them a little to fit your "host mod", integrate the features, rebalance, and test. This kind of mod mining works best on older mods that are otherwise abandoned.

Beyond that future development could be merged into a more cooperative effort. Namely merging development teams even if they're still producing two different mods. Some parts of the mods could be developed in common.

The general idea for the game/mod forge site is roughly the same. Break down all games/mods hosted on the forge into individual components that can be readily archived into a community repository available to all other forge projects/members. These can be general ideas, canon material, snippets of game/mod design material, source code, game data (INI/SQL data), regular media assets (graphics and audio), or pretty much anything else. Credits will be specific per item. Licensing will be item specific too, either be game specific (i.e. original FL content would be exclusive to FL mods) -or- any license the allows for free unrestricted non-commercial use by other forge members (project license audits won't be fun but should be clear cut). From there forge community members can either work on the common repository resource base or on a specific project, or start their own project. Again, the forge will be ideal for mod consolidation when (not if) people become motivated to work on it.


-Burn

basically thats what i did. i was given permission by mace to use the broken oath mod in my mod . so i took what i needed cut and paste some jump holes leading out from st01 added nomad and order ecounters where there in tohoku and decreesed the activety in the unknown systen allied the gammu and primus with the order made them sell weapons. made ryuku base allied with the order mode them sell stuff. then i put in the order want mod by tyco and the new order ships by astedted demon then you have the order mod

I didn't read everything, because, you know, I'm just one of the players, the hoi-polloi... not a modder or anyone famous like you guys.

So the global server goes down... and you need a place with updated information. You could use IRC you know... register a channel, and get a bot or something, to handle requests: server additions, schedule, description, and most importantly (what you guys are worried about), how to connect (the IP address?).

If you're afraid automation will get screwed up by spammers, fine, have server admins submit requests to add their servers to the list.

So, all a player has to do, is go to the channel and xdcc the list from the bot. Then he just needs to pick which servers he wants, and maybe some enterprising soul could write a script which pings them for him.

You can still have as many servers as now, with their <5 population, all they have to do is sign up if they want people to join. Nobody needs to shut down their server, and nobody needs to merge their mods.

Edit: You could also probably host a webpage that does this, but I know squat about how to go about it. Still, these are options... like Adui said, noone wants to let go of a server they've run for a while.

Edited by - Trucidation on 2/28/2007 1:11:10 AM

Interesting ideas on all sides.

I stand by what I said in that I would not want anyone "Telling me" I HAVE to close my server, and now that I have a decent if still small community going I doubt my players would either.

However that all being said, I really really like the idea of a site that brings together the mod components and modders as well as the gamers to give better access to the information and resources. However, isnt that what TLR is supposed to do? I mean if you've an idea for another site go for it! I will likely use both if allowed.

Bottom line we all need to do what the main theme of this thread seems to be saying: Get along, agree, agree to disagree, and SHARE IDEAS for the respective games we came to the community for.

Freelancer will not be getting its plug pulled by MS this year to my knowledge, but all software loses its support eventually. There are many EXTREMELY talented coders on this site; what is to stop us / them from replacing the global server when it goes down with a site similar to any of the suggestions?

It has been said that people will not come because its not easy. (Those werent the words but thats the idea) I disagree, most of us who still play Freelancer are not n00bs to the computer gaming world. We are die hard FL enthusiasts or we'd have moved on long ago. Yes there are new players still coming in, but they can EASILY be pointed to the right places to get resources, and with the talent I see here it should not be very hard to make those resources point and click easy, or nearly so.

I have limited resources, but would be willing to help out in whatever way I can even if it is just to log into a site and help manage it.
My E-mail [email protected]
If you guys are serious about a secondary (or even a new primary) support site for FL and the other games associated with TLR let me know. (That invite goes out to the TLR hosts as well, I would be glad to help in any way I can.)

I wanted to add a final note, I am not in any way advocating a site that would compete with TLR, in my humble opinion that would simply kill the FL community that much faster. Rather I am all for the suggested sites that could be used to augment the wonderful tools and resources TLR has.

Just another day in Paradise!

Trucidation,
There are several concepts for a GS replacement. I still think using RakNet's global server system in a limited network layer wrapper would work well and make it near idiot proof, but requires an exe patch for both the client and server (to expose hooks for the wrapper). Another option for manual server listing is LDAP, could be a web form for server owners and automated on the player/client side without, patching FL at all.

Either solution would take all of a month to implement throughout the community before the GS goes down and maybe half that after it goes down (extra motivation).



Adui,
On server consolidation:
I doubt forcing people to close their servers was ever the intention and even if it was, there are far better ways to handle it. Best bet is working with server owners to match pairs of servers with the same mods and similar interests, with a little compromise on each side I think 20% of the servers could be consolidated.

If the web hosting cooperative were started/run by/through TLR then it could host 4 FL servers per quad core box (say dual woodcrest with 8 gig ram on a 100mbps tier 2 backbone), each on its own VPS, and do that for less than the cost of 4 dedicated Hypernia servers without a performance loss. If a MP server community has enough donations rolling in to fund a dedicated box then it can certainly save money with that sort of arrangement (~20 to 30% of dedicated hardware) - more incentive to consolidate. Some of the high end servers on dedicated residential broadband could switch over for little added cost. A large enough web hosting cooperative could also help to subsidize the gaming servers to further reduce the overall operating cost. Getting MS to collocated a couple quad MP servers for free would just sweeten it more. This would indeed be a marvel of achievement for any gaming community, especially one already on the decline.

Beyond that its just a matter of heavily focusing on where the action is. Coordinating community events across all hosted servers and most consolidated servers. Turn it into a real gaming community rather than the disjointed mess it is now. Attrition would ultimately draw in or kill off many other MP servers, those that remain would likely be semi-private clan, mod testing, pirate, and otherwise wayward corners of the community.

All said and done, I'd bet anywhere from half to two-thirds of the MP servers could be consolidated. After the GS is shutdown that'll probably increase to 80 to 90% of the active servers.

On the community in general:
I agree, so do a lot of people, the community can do great things if it were rallied together. Problem is no matter how hard people try to do that its just not happening. The other day I finally gave up on pushing to get TLR to rally the community and trying to support TLR with the projects I'm working on. Now the forge site and an extremely small version of the hosting cooperative are starting based out of the Openlancer community. I waited 6 months to cut ties with TLR because I knew it would hurt both TLR and OL, but the resources from those projects will be available to the rest of the FL community in due time.


-Burn

Lead Designer and Webmaster,
Openlancer Project

>I agree, so do a lot of people, the community can do great things if it were rallied together.

Thats the main problem. The whole FL community is seperated into all the FLServer communities that provide very good environment due to the rivalry to other FLServer communities. So you see, the seperation of the FL players is caused by design.
Another point. Freelancer is on one half an action game, on the other half an rpg game. There are a lot of players who just want to play their RP with their friends on their small FLServer.
Im not ranting against those players. The point is, it is very hard to "unite" such a playerbase. If not impossible, Im afraid.

Here is what I have to say.
As for those particular mods out there that are "closed", I say let them stay that way until the chief engineer of that mod changes their mind.
There is little of anything we can do to convince them to change their minds and it is within their "rights" to keep it that way for whatever reasons they see fit.
That is all well and good.

NOW,
We as a community do not have to rely on any of the closed mods to be creative enough to pool together the existing talent and open mods to "build" a super "community" mod where everyone can be proud to say they have a part in it. I feel this is what we are really hoping to achieve.
We have creative talent enough to go around to develop this "super mod"..but it's going to require a very sophisticated server to handle the load. (that might get expensive BUT...everyone contributing to it will reduce the weight of the cost to run it. In this case, it could very well end up as a "pay as you play" server as in some MMORPG's. BUT THIS MAY BE WORTH IT if enough dedicated people sign up)
A server of this MAGNITUDE would have to be rented or leased under contract and equipped to run with the minimum of a T2 line.
Unless some altruistic millionaire hardcore Freelancer fan decides to foot the bill)
Believe me, If I were that person, I would personally see to it.
I can see a super mod where the server will handle thousands of players at a time. (It's no different than such as Guild Wars or some other server that is a pay to play server)

Edited by - Rankor on 3/1/2007 9:07:17 PM

Edited by - Rankor on 3/1/2007 9:09:43 PM

Rankor,
A "super server" isn't possible without a massive overhaul (requires the FL source code), FL isn't multi-threaded and too bandwidth inefficient to ever support a thousand players on a single server. Anything over a 100 players per FL server is unrealistic.

That said, getting 1000 players on a single box running a dozen FL servers via VPS might be possible. Getting a 1000 community members to split the cost of that is certainly possible and largely the point in server consolidation.


-Burn

Thanks Megaburn. I felt someone knew that was possible. Your suggestion of running a "bank of servers" was also an idea I had once mentioned several months ago.
I think at least many of us are thinking along the same lines.

I sadly couldn't help at all with cost
currently unemployed

wouldn't mind seeing someone come up with a way to run their own global server or using irc like was already suggested
at least those ideas wouldn't alienate the people that like running thier own servers