[MUD-Dev2] [OFF-TOPIC] A rant against Vanguard reviews and rants

[Adam Martin]

On 11/03/07, Amanda Walker <amanda at alfar.com> wrote:
> On Mar 7, 2007, at 2:12 PM, Adam Martin wrote:
> > Nah, b/w is ever cheaper and computing power now for servers is
> > shockingly cheap - prices I was quoted last year for quad-core servers
> > with more RAM than any of our dev machines are lower than I was
> > expecting for single-core 1Gb machines.
>
> Bandwidth is ever cheaper, yes (though dedicated low-latency
> bandwidth is less so than "good enough for a web site" bandwidth).
> Power, alas, is not.
>
> Let's back-of-the-envelope what it might take to roll out an indie
> MMO (as opposed to an indie MO, which are legion :-)), since I
> suspect we're comparing apples and oranges a bit.
>
> Baseline assumptions:
> - Let's say 2000 clients per server, and disregard for the moment

Optimistic, perhaps, for an inexperienced team, but I've seen some
that managed it first time, so OK.

> - Say half a rack per data center: 6 servers, Ethernet switch(es),
> router, a couple upstream bandwidth providers (in case one has bad
> internet weather).

At this point, you've gone way beyond what's necessary for an indie
MMO with no funding. Switches and router are unnecessary, as is extra
b/w provision. ThePlanet have for years been giving out 1.0-1.5
TB/month b/w as standard with all it's cheap servers (some as low as
$50/month).

> - Start with, say 3 data centers; say, SF, DC, and Chicago.  Since

Multiple data centers? Nah, not necessary - although as you grow your
customer base and have to add more servers, you'll start spreading
them around because you might as well.

> we're an indie, using data centers with "smart hands" service means
> you don't have to travel as much to deal with stupid hardware problems.

You should be using commodity stuff where there *are* no hardware
problems, beyond the occasional complete failure whereby your ISP just
switches you to a new server (and you have to manually restore
everything from a backup).

So long as you have powerstrips with SSH support for manual remote
reboots, and a sensible linux setup, you should be able to sort all
other problems without any paid help from the ISP.

> Conclusion: Very practical for a startup if you have some money to
> throw at it, but not practical as a sideline even on an affluent
> programmer day-job salary.

The way I've done it before, and seen others do it, it works out a lot cheaper.

OTOH, I have one friend who put a combination of credit-card money and
personal savings into spending $45,000 on initial setup costs just for
a pair of servers, which he ran for a couple of years before getting
any income from the business. I tried to persuade him not to spend so
much upfront :), but it worked out for him, and he was indeed a
programmer with no funding and a day-job (which he eventually quit to
go full time on this).

> http://aws.amazon.com/ec2
>
> A virtual world toolkit based on something like that would be very,
> very interesting, I think.

Irrespective of all previous comments, I'd love to see that too :).

> > For instance, have a look at people like OGSI.
>
> OGSI, if their website is accurate, is hardly funded by spare

Sorry, I was pointing to them as an example of powerful hosting for
relatively low cost. If I were seriously cash-strapped, they wouldn't
be my first port of call, but you don't need that much for them to
become a viable option.

> I'd have thought so too (my day job is definitely in the "bet on big
> iron" category ;-)), but I am continually surprised that it keeps
> popping back up.  Skype, BitTorrent, Joost, ... there's got to be
> some benefit or people wouldn't keep doing it.

But none of those are entertainment delivery...

Skype and BT both gain a lot from the P2P because it lets them evade
corporate firewalls and use as much local b/w as they can possibly
find - IMHO neither of which are showstopper issues for games. e.g.
Google about locking down / preventing Skype in a corporate network
for some of the details on how hard it is to track down and block.

So, as per my comment about b/w, for now P2P really has very little
advantage and yet major disadvantages for mmog's (and for many other
online games too).

Adam