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JG1 Dedicated server for RoF


Butzzell

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S! All

 

Big news. Rolf Hett has been doing a CONSIDERAL amount of work investigating the various options for JG1 to be able to operate a dedicated server. He has found a company in New York city that will allow us to operate a server for $2 per player. That is not a per player charge like World of WarCraft. It is a charge for the total number of players online at any one time. At this time, final details of administration are being finalized. If all goes well, we will have a dedicated 24/7 server that can hold 40 people in the next week or so. The number 40 came up because it looked like what we would use for tournament play. Depending on interest and total activity, that number could eventually be raised if necessary.

 

We all owe Rolf Hett a big thank you and a night at the HoffBrau for taking the initiative and doing a lot of work!

 

S! Herr Hett

 

and a great big THANK YOU !!

 

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Idea 1 is I use my old business account for Paypal (currently it has 40cents in it so its almost a 0 balance to start) donations to pay for the server. It is going to be 80$ PER MONTH and as Fred stated, its not 2$ / person, its 2$ / slot maximum. So, what we would hope is that people donate what they can to help provide for the server, not like a subscription. I will keep track of the bookwork using Paypal's merchant services and send out monthly reports to HQ so its all transparent for records keeping. I have created a donation button service with my account and its ready to post once I get the go ahead for people to donate. Its html code so can be made a part of the website or right in the forums here. Note that you can use a credit card to Donate to Paypal without having a Paypal account.

 

Idea 2 is someone else does it entirely using whatever method they want to do all of the above.

 

 

And you are more than welcome! Done lots of this over the past 15 years for my now defunct Sith Clan, concept is still the same, Server Presence = visibility for the group = interest is generated = success and growth for JG1 Richtofen!

 

S!

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A couple of questions come to mind with this idea. First, @ $80 / month is there enough interest to pay that? In the past with other such, pay to play servers or donate to play servers, I got the impression that less than 10% of the server population was willing to donate. That by itself predicates a need for 400 players if the 10% pays $2 / month.

 

Also, pay to play servers never stayed around or stay that way very long, because of that. The reason for that is quite clear, the # of free servers / player was such that it never was viable.

 

Also, if the provider is charging $80 / month, that raises a red flag. What sort of bandwidth are they allowing, what are the CAPs? What sort of access do you get? Full computer access? Is it dedicated hosting or shared hosting? Actually, @$80/month, it's got to be shared.

 

On a positive note. These websites, can handle subscription based services. If one wanted, they can have a new role, "Paid Services" and associate accounts with that role. The payments would have to happen elsewhere (PayPal, Authorize.NET, smoke signals, etc) but the functionality to handle subscriptions is there.

 

 

 

 

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S!

 

Great job Hett.

 

Love idea #1

 

some questions...

 

Should the server have it's own page where we can advertise the server service?

 

Would a seperate server page like that be a good place not just for the donation button but a description of the missions that we run on the server?

 

A monthly donation/ server fund totals report sent to HQ sounds good. Donations should be kept private. I would not want people that are unable to donate feel any preasure to donate. Right now, times are very tough for a lot of folks. We want people to be able to join and fly with no expectations or obligations.

 

I know we have enough interest to come up with a few months service to see how the server handles with a full load of 40 people. That will allow us to evaluate the bandwith situation. I do not believe that we will have any problems but I am an optomist.

 

I am curious to see what the server interface is like. I presume it will be a simple text dialogue box where we upload missions and can change the ini file. Simple but limited.

 

S! and well done !!

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Perhaps we shouldn't have mentioned the 2$ per slot. It is NOT a pay to play server at all, this is a JG1 Home Server for our use with 40 PUBLIC slots that just happen to break down into 2$ per slot. The server is entirely supported by JG1 player donations. Even if only the 4 people I have agreements from including myself donate that would be 20$ a month evenly split. This isn't a business venture for the RoF general population to buy into. Simply having the server will generate interest in JG1 Richtofen and it will give us a home server.

 

Control

 

There is the interface, details of its capabilities to follow. Bandwidth was determined last night when we worked with Kevin at Jestservers to benchmark the system as he had not yet had an install of it. It is not a dedicated box, however for an additional 35$ a month we can have that. Running over 150 titles, I think Jest is a professional provider company and I know it has server hubs in many major world centers, so its not run out of someones house. If we want a dedicated box I have prices for that also starting at 150$ a month for basic, which would allow us to run RoF, CLOD, IL-2 and the website if necessary all through a GUI as we would control the whole process from install on up.

 

Donation Services

 

Paypal Merchant Services provides a simple button creation system which gives me the ability to simply place http code on any page. As for any "associate account" benefits donating would grant a member over and above having our own JG1 Home Server...That could be discussed but I think that would cross the line into "specialized services" for those that can afford it and I would rather just be able to play and have my friends play with me. For that, its worth it to donate for me...no other incentives are required.

 

Website Pages

I believe from what I know of the modular website program that is used on JG1.org the Donation button could be in the sidebar and appear for every page. Websites tend to be more like dashboards these days and the button would sit there throughout. I would like to see the server provider get a banner yes and missions we run could appear like "newspaperl" pages themed 1916 style or as missives from "High Command" showing what missions are running. If we also decide to run from the begginning of the war to the end of it, like a campaign style, month by month, to year by year, we can also make it like an almanac and include links to AAR's

 

Hope this answers your questions.

 

S!

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Paypal Merchant Services provides a simple button creation system which gives me the ability to simply place http code on any page.

 

Just not in ASP.NET sites nor this portal.

 

Problem is the code that paypal gives you, is form tags. This portal already uses a form tag and that's integral into server side events. And since the form tag is integral in the server side client side to server event management, you can't have nested forms.

 

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Well I don't know about that but it seems like a limited system if that is the case. Might be something to research then and if not, I know we can link to a donation page hosted elsewhere. Fred for one has the FiF site he has been working on and the donation icon in JG1.org would simply link to a page there set up for donating to server support.

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Interface control will include the following for now

 

1. Start/stop

2. Upload Missions

 

Apparently Kevin says there are not easy control methods or GUI built in so he has sent a email to RoF People to see what can be done. Breaking new ground I guess.

 

Fortunately the CFG is set to full realism and we don't have to play with that.

 

 

S!

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