Hyper.nl Unreal Services

Hyper · Posted: Thu Jan 27, 2005 9:25 pm Post subject: Project Behemoth

January 27, 2005

The Unreal community brought forth a large number of excellent additions to the game. Unfortunately, some of them have faded into shadow by lack of online support, capacity or simply because they were forgotten. I hope I can be able to bring one or more of these additions back to the online support by hosting new game servers.

This month ISP XS4ALL announced a bandwidth upgrade for all its ADSL customers, which allows me to start a new project to provide more services to the remaining Unreal community. This upgrade gives enough upload bandwidth to provide multiple servers with increased capacity. The theoretical bandwidth of 768 Kbit/sec allows 19 simultaneous player connections at ISDN speed. However, the real bandwidth will be lower, depending on the quality of the cable, the modem and the business of the internet.

Together with the extra bandwidth, the server hardware will be upgraded too. The CPU usage went quite high lately, because it runs many services like the HyperCoop server, the master server, a firewall, proxy server, web filtering and virus protection. Therefore the server will be upgraded to a 2.2 GHz AMD Athlon 64 processor (3500+), enough RAM (1024 MB) and a new architecture (nVidia nForce 4).

All servers will at least run Unreal 225 with Nepthys and UProtect to form a solid base. The first new server will be an Unreal Crystal Castles server because there are currently no other organisations providing this game type, and Crystal Castles simply deserves a permanent server. Other servers are being considered.

This project is going to be the largest Unreal project I ever started, and will take quite a lot of time and effort to complete. All servers have to be installed and configured, the bandwidth needs to get balanced and tested. Therefore there will probably be a lot of downtime during the project. Therefore I ask for your understanding. (Tip: Don't start saving a lot of frags when you play at the HyperCoop server, but use the GemDagger to 'buy' the lower items instead)

In this topic, the progress can be followed and ideas exchanged.
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Hyper · Posted: Thu Jan 27, 2005 9:38 pm Post subject:

The first point of discussion could be:

Which servers do we want?

I'll probably increase the player capacity of the HyperCoop server to 6 and the CC server will also have a capacity around that.

Here are some idea's that I've been thinking of:

[*] MonsterDM (MCoop2 deathmatch mode)
[*] HyperDM (The DM counterpart of HyperCoop, so a DM server with aura and other goodies, maybe MonsterDM too)
[*] Return to NaPali Coop (As soon as there is a good RTNP Coop version for Unreal 225 servers, compatible with all Unreal clients.)
[*] Something else? Feel free to post your suggestions!

I will NOT host a server unless it's somehow unique. It's useless to add another Deck16-only DM server for example.

One thing is fo sure, I can not host large files from the server, so any large mods and new maps have to be downloaded before a player can enter. Time will tell how much players my connectioncan handle at a decent speed. Because it's very unlikely that all servers will be full at the same time, it's possible to have more available player spots than bandwidth, but this depends on the popularity of the games served.
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Zombie · Joined: 27 Jan 2004 Posts: 295

When a good RTNP conversion is released you shouldn't need another separate server for that. You can merge HyperCoop with the conversion and just link the teleporter of the last regular map to the first RTNP map/last RTNP to first regular. Now if you wanted to do a Gold-only specific RTNP server that's a different case.

A DM server sounds nice as long as it brings something new like Aura weapons perhaps. I'm not to sure about Monster-DM knowing that each monster might have very different attributes, but it may be worth a try to see if that sort of gameplay works out.

I do wonder why you'd still want UProtect for a coop server. Is your goal to stop players from using aimbots against scripted pawns (forgot your view on that)? I know of a few players that used to have problems on your server because they preferred using custom consoles (to avoid GPF crashes, enhanced display...etc.).

-Zombie

swagman · Joined: 17 Jan 2005 Posts: 36

I played an awesome Co-Op gametype called "Stargate Coop". What i remember of it is that monsters spawn around the map (Usualy DeathMatch maps) and the players have to kill all of the monsters to proceed to the next level through the stargate..

Anyone remember this?

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Zombie · Joined: 27 Jan 2004 Posts: 295

I remember playing that as well but in regular coop maps long ago. Is that player Candela back in Unreal again or is this some player who is using that older mod? There was a few nice features in that mod that I rarely seen others attempt to make. The theme in that mod about killing all the monsters was what lead me to develop a similar feature MKR in DZMapM. ;) I think a couple players (Booda and/or Bolk?) wanted to do a remake of that mod to honor the creator of Stargate, but I'm not totaly certain.

-Zombie

Hyper · Posted: Fri Jan 28, 2005 3:11 pm Post subject:

Interesting. Is that "Stargate Coop" still available for download? I did never see it, but it probably is from the time before I entered Unreal Coop. I'm making some test servers now (Crystal Castles is almost done) so if I can get it I'll make a stargate test server as well.
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Zombie · Joined: 27 Jan 2004 Posts: 295

I never seen it up for public download. Long ago I asked Candela if some players could run the mod themselves and this person said not many had requested for it so it was not made available. I have many cache files from playing on the Stargate server, but I think the mod had large portions of its code on the serverside so I wouldn't be surpised if those files didn't work on their own.

-Zombie

Hyper · Posted: Sat Jan 29, 2005 1:34 am Post subject:

The server hardware has been ordered, because it has been ordered via the WWW it will take some time to arrive.

When it arrives I got to rebuild 3 PC's (Exchanging hardware) and then hopefully the installation can begin.
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TheEmperorStalwartUK · Joined: 11 Feb 2004 Posts: 261

If you are to run a DM server that will have custom maps feel free to use my maps ;)

Then again you probably wont have custom maps on knowing what happened on the HyperCoop server a while ago...
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Hyper · Posted: Sun Jan 30, 2005 1:34 pm Post subject:

Skaarj Slayer · Joined: 27 Aug 2004 Posts: 38 Location: Canada

Hyper · Posted: Thu Feb 03, 2005 5:30 pm Post subject:

Update: The server hardware has arrived. I'm rebuilding the server and configuring the games.

The servers will be:

HyperCoop 225 (6 players)
HyperDM 225 (6 players)
Hyper.nl Crystal Castles 225 (6 players)

But the final result may change by demand and/or the availability of resources like network bandwidth.
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Hyper · Posted: Sat Feb 05, 2005 3:36 am Post subject:

Both the HyperCoop as the HyperDM servers are online now. Because my connection is not upgraded yet, there might be lag when both servers are full at the same time, but that's only a temp. problem.

(And statistically they are not both full at the same time: there are almost as much servers as players online: 1.13 player per server :p)

Updates:

HyperCoop:
Uses AuraArmy1 now
Fixed a security conflict between inventory recovery and the gamdagger security. (Thanks Dots for the fix)
6 player slots instead of 5

HyperDM:
Uses ScoreRecovery
Fixed a AKCoop2 problem
Soulseeker removed
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TheEmperorStalwartUK · Joined: 11 Feb 2004 Posts: 261

Will there be custom maps on these servers?

EDIT: Ok... there are custom maps on the HyperDM server. Would it be possible for you to provide a list of the maps on that server?

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Hyper · Posted: Sat Feb 05, 2005 3:54 pm Post subject:

Current maps on the HyperDM server:

Maps[0]=DMZeitkind_Pro.unr
Maps[1]=DMKonosusR2.unr
Maps[2]=DMWickedMansion.unr
Maps[3]=dmancientarena.unr
Maps[4]=DmTempleOfTheMoons_V2.unr
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