MAngband Lag free? No Way! Not Possible... Or is it?

[Hades]

Hey guys,

Since I been back I've done a lot of brain storming with my friend Lopper, although I got the idea he has the technical mind to actually know how it works. Cause I don't specialize in networks I only know how to sercue and setup a small one which is all that is needed in my career path. The idea has a relatively simple structure to it. And after talking to Steel he suggested to me a new idea also that would be interesting. Please note I've done some research on my idea's. and Steel's and it all seems plausible. Will need patiences and hard work but in the end. It would make MAngband lag free environment for the most part. Lets begin.

As you all know I try to run PWMAngband, and thats where my begin actually came to me.

I figured that a way we can have a lag free environment is this. Why do players have to dive on a Europe server if they are just going solo into dungeon? 90% of dives happen Solo and I don't think its needed for Europe to actually run the dungeons and everyone must connect to it regardless of where they are from. So my idea is this. We need an only Dungeon server with no town. Instead of the town code we tell it to get the town code from another source. In Europe! Thats right, with this idea, I can host an American Dungeon server, and anyone else can also. When you log onto MAngband you pick the server closest to where you live if you want to solo dive, and wala! You can dive without lag cause the server isn't on the other side of the world. Instead only time you are on the other side of the world is when your in town. This works by changing the code by telling it to send and retrieve information from another source for the town only. Results? Only time you will experience lag is in town. You still can buy/sell/trade, can still talk to your friends. And if you want, can still dungeon party.

You must be asking "What if I want to party with someone?" Well, I was thinking we could have "Portals". If you need to connect to another Dungeon Server to party with a person you find the portal > for the server and just go down into that dungeon with your friend. This would require a pretty good deal of coding, but I know its possible. Lopper has all the technical details sorted out and as I said, thats not my area of experience. If we have people willing to have small boxers just to run these "Dungeon Servers" Everyone can have a lag free game, regardless of where they are from. And there be hardly any difference in game play. I hope I explained it clearly, if I didn't just post me to explain in further detail. I am writing this pretty early in the morning, i just wanted to give everyone a basic rough draft that me and Lopper are sorting out.

I know its possible I've done my research, just a question if the Team can implement it or not. No one is expecting it to be soon. Just a small project that maybe in a year would be implemented. I'm not a coder(yet) and I just started college for this stuff so I can't tell anyone how much work is needed, I just know from the basic layout, it's less then what people think. Mangband is just really hard to code to begin with anyway so it can be tedious.)

Your Friend,
Cord aka Later

[Ace]

Sounds good if there is no lag as long as you are alone but...

- What happens when some of the small boxes disconnect? Would this not make the game inconsistent?

- What is with the player "savegame" if you log out on a local dungeon, will it be sent to the server? This will make cheating easy(ier) and verification of the savegames more difficult. Basically everything that's client side can be cheated.

- What happens if you play alone and someone joins your level by recalling or stairs. Transitions will no longer be smooth. If you go from local to remote mode, you first connect to server XY and receive all the data.

- Artefacts will no longer be unique if the different servers do not synchronize properly becasue they will be generated on all the various dungeon servers.

But maybe I do not understand the system yet completely :)

[Hades]

I didn't mention this before cause Lopper is the technical mind for this and I didn't want to start a topic I can't describe in detail, But from my understanding it will work like this.

All the servers will be Networked together. Europe will still be the main host and all information will be sent to that location for proper storage. the small boxers never actually hold data, they just hold the code for the dungeons so it will take the work off Europe to provide it. So basically the small boxers are just going to be shells with just dungeon code and thats it. They never actually hold savefiles, or artifact list data or anything. so if a box goes down you can connect to the next one closer to you, or just play on Europe. With the dungeon being on the small server it just elimiates Europe having to give the player a dungeon to play in. The box does it but is constantly sending the information back to Europe for storage. I wish I knew all the technical details, when lopper gets up i'll have him explain.

So basically everything else the boxes use is from Europe. They just provide and regenerate the dungeons for you.

On cheating thing, we just need truth worthy people. I'll be hosting North America and mostly everyone is from europe or north America anyway. We can decide if we need more later.

(Sorry for the edits, stuff came to me after the fact... Still early morning.)

[Lopper]

I know it is possible but I don't know what method is the most time or Cost effective.
Hades and me are going to work on this concept for a while and hopefully PW will help us with any coding so that mAngband can handle it's new environment. Once we have figured out the mechanics of what we want to accomplish. I am sure there is more than one way to do it.
I am confident that virtual utilization may make this idea very feasible. In using virtualization we may not need to touch mAngband code because it will feel like it is on the same machine even though it is spread over several servers.
This is called server spanning or server clustering and is the best solution that I have found but has anyone tried this through a VPN?
I don't know but I think it would fix lag issues especially the more servers that are in the cluster.
I bet the Virtual software will cost a fortune. I have heard of ESX servers doing this within a local network but this is way outside the box on this mAngband idea unless there is a free linux distribution that was able to span not only servers on one network but servers on different networks via virtual private network.
The game is perfect because of the simplicity. I won't pretend I know or even looked at the mAngband code. That matter is up to the developers. I am just a humble Network guru "want to be".

1. Find a server clustering Operating System
2. Make a server cluster
3. install Mangband server on a server cluster
4. connect a client
IF 1-4 work try
5. link two networks and have a cluster spanning a server in both networks(with a stable VPN connection between).
6. Install Mangband server on the cluster
7. connect several clients from outside those networks.
if 5-7 work
8. expand that to 3 networks

We can try a second model which is to make a master server and have slave servers in each country this may take an overhaul of the code.
but this idea of having different dungeons is a bit more than my brain can handle. Someone who knows the code inside and out would be able to give us a fair estimate of what it would take to make it up to Mangband code to do all this fancy stuff or at least part of it.

[Beholder]

i'll present one situation
imagine, i want to put my server in the cluster.
but i made a small change, so that the orcs drop great items and artifacts.
I put the server on line , lik to the network, go down to figth some orcs, get tons of money and great artifacts.

that's why the server should be centralized.
Maybe some sort or program, that only refresh the dungeon, and the screen, and a protocol special to send items, creatures, drops.
the game mechanics must be in the main server, allwais.

[Emulord]

I think the way it would work is that the central European Server needs to verify you. So if you do some abusive things, then the European server would remove you from the list.

[Ardor]

I have characters on a home server to get artifacts and play lag-free. The only reasons to play on the online servers is to get stuff from character owned stores and have the possibility of being rescued when you die (instead of losing all your stuff). If I die and it's impossible, or a big hassle for someone to get to "my" dungeon, then it's not worth it. I can just play at home.

I wondered why such a simple game should lag so much, so the server is in Europe? That's why?

[Ace]

You can also resurect yourself with the admin user on your home server I suppose....

Online gaming has more plusses:
+ learning from other players
+ "social interaction" with other human beings (at least to some extent)
+ more competition
+ no cheating
+ having someone else administrate and care the server
+ multiplayer

Regarding netcode - not the graphics decide what information has to be transferred. Playerdata, monsterdata, screenupdates, and a lot more "crap" is not handled by the clinent and has to be transferred between server & peers, so lags are to be expected (in all games more or less)...

[Flambard]

The only reasons to play on the online servers

Uh? Partying? :)

[Ardor]

I tried partying with my brother, in person, and we still ended up doing our own thing, and not really helping each other. Partying isn't for me. Still, I have a new respect for what goes into this game and the work you programmers do.

My brother mainly plays online for glory.