When can we host private games?

[Karnage]

So, you finally closed that Singapore server (and the thread which we could have talked about it in, for some reason) and of course we want to know if there is any hope for the Asian and Australian contingent of the Legions community. I was going to pay for a dedicated server but I looked into it and I don't know if I am willing to fork out 2- 300 $ per month for a server in order to play a game that might only be available for a short while. Still thinking about it.

The question we would all like to have answered is whether we are ever going to be able to host games ourselves. This would solve all the issues. Any updates regarding this? I know it is not just the Asian and Australian communities that are interested in this. It seems to me that this is the most important problem in Legions at the moment. Some teams are falling apart because people are bored with the lack of competition. Many of us are considering moving on to greener pastures because we are sick of Pubs and are not necessarily part of the little in-crowd that knows the codes to the private servers.

Please tell us if this is possible and if so please give us some sort of time frame to work with so that at least we know what to expect more or less.

 

[Yani]

hmmmmn, yeah, is it possible that we can have a dedicated server ? (for the devs)

 

[57thSylph]

Exactly. Legions needs to be more international. I'm just sayin'.

 

[Daphinicus]

Many of us are considering moving on to greener pastures because we are sick of Pubs and are not necessarily part of the little in-crowd that knows the codes to the private servers.

Two things regarding this.

1. The game's still in beta, and there are going to be lulls when y'all get bored. We're trying to come up with ways to combat this, but everything we could do to add to the game takes time, and time is a very precious resource.
2. Those "private" servers are the PUG servers; the "codes" for them are simply the server addresses. We actually STRONGLY discourage people from using them when PUGs aren't going on, and it pisses us off to no end that folks do. So don't feel like you're not in the "in" crowd; just know that you're not one of the folks who are abusing the PUG servers. =)

Regarding your bigger question, let me start asking around. I'll see what I can come up with.

 

[Karnage]

Thanks Daphinicus. Appreciate your consistent level-headedness and understanding.

 

[MJ1284]

I doubt current devs have same resources IA had back in it's golden age, adding Create your own server -feature would require too much.

Correct me if I'm wrong but even if a person hosts a game it'll still generate network traffic that passes through master server, meaning that the game would require more hardware on devs end to maintain the traffic (which in turn means more expenses). Long as Legions: Overdrive stays on beta stage I hardly doubt we'll be seeing this feature.

 

[Daphinicus]

There are actually two major issues with private servers: the often-mentioned security/legality issue (can't release server hosting capabilities at the moment without releasing the game and all its source -- this is the issue I'm checking up on, because I want to learn more about EXACTLY what would go into creating a dedicated host executable), and community splintering. Splintering is actually a really serious issue: As soon as players have the ability to create their own servers, they start playing exclusively on those servers. Small groups of 5-8 people see each other all the time on their own servers, but get bored because they never see anyone else -- never interact with fresh blood. Given the fact we're still in beta, have a small number of weapons and an equally small number of maps, getting bored is a significant problem, and it'll only be exacerbated when players are playing with the same 5 friends over and over and over again.

You can already see the threads of this on the Teamspeak server. We gave a bunch of teams their own channels, and now two or three people (sometimes a little more) idle in each channel, chatting only with that very small circle of friends and rarely stepping outside. Each group becomes isolated, and PUGs happen less often. If that's just on Teamspeak servers, what happens when we start splitting player servers apart too? What happens to this community?

That said, the fear of splintering won't stop us from making private servers available as soon as we can -- we're not idiots, and we know how important hosting is to a multiplayer game's success. But we are nervous about it.

Anyways, like I said, let me check up on what's involved in creating a dedicated server executable. =)

[Edit: Also, /hug, Carnage. =)]

 

[Karnage]

Lol <3

I understand your concern about splintering but remember that for quite a number of us it is as if we have no server at all. Back in the IA days there was no splintering that I knew of. People got bored of playing with the same people all the time and sought out the public games or the PUGs for that injection of freshness. I honestly don't think that will be a problem. I assume you were talking about a situation where there are no public servers at all? Because I can see that it might be a problem then, yes.

Also, I know it's probably unlikely but if we could get some kind of an estimation of how long it might take to get private servers up and running that would be awesome. Would just give us (the high pinging community, of which I assure you there are quite a number) that little something to keep hoping for. It's very difficult being in the dark, as I am sure you can recall from the IA days. If it was something minor, like a new map or an upgrade of some sort we would not be as anxious but I am sure you understand that this is a very big issue for us, if not THE issue.

 

[Daphinicus]

Okay, Daph's got answers. Unfortunately, they're aren't the happiest answers.

Private servers have a very, very large number of issues that go with them, including (but definitely not even close to being limited to):

1. Version control (how does everyone update their servers with new versions of Legions?)
2. Administration (we're still working on implementing admin controls and server voting, both of which would be crucial if we were to give out private servers)
3. GUI work (you've got to be able to interact with the game as a server owner)
4. Consistent gameplay during testing (we're testing the game and trying to figure out what needs to be done to improve it; as soon as folks get their hands on servers, they can change a crapton of stuff, and their feedback on the game becomes useless)
5. Codebase modifications (lots of back-end code would need to be rewritten to allow you guys to host private servers without it breaking our agreement with IA)

The good news is, none of this is insurmountable. The bad news is, it adds up to such a body of work that it would take the development team away from making gameplay fixes and additions for quite a long time (over a month, at the very least). Which brings us to a little bit of cost-benefit analysis:

The United States harbors well over two thousand Legions accounts. Europe, just under two thousand. The rest of the world, including Australia, Southeast Asia, and the Mediterranean, make up a fraction of that playerbase -- it's in the hundreds, not the thousands, and that's just accounts, not necessarily active players. Those players don't have a problem with the ping on the available servers, but they are playing a mere demo of a game -- Legions ain't close to being feature-complete, by a long shot. Add to that the fact that the American and European communities are paying to keep the servers we've got up and running -- it's THEIR donations that give them an active place to play, that's dedicated and with consistently good ping to make everything from PUGs and PUBs viable and enjoyable.

So, we can either stop working on Legions gameplay for as long as it would take to enable private servers -- screwing everyone, not just the Americans and Europeans -- or we can hold off on Private Servers until we have a game that's much closer to being feature-complete. Will we make private servers available? Absolutely! But certain things must be made a priority.

Now, we would be positively overjoyed to be able to host a dedicated Australian or Southeast Asian server or two, but there aren't nearly enough donations coming from those locations to support it. If the Australian/Asian communities can come together and put forth the dough, you will get your dedicated servers.

But as for private servers? Sorry, folks. They are coming eventually, it won't be for a while.

Big hugs all around. Hang in there!

 

[Karnage]

Thanks for the info. I will point out though, that even some of the USA clans that I know would probably want private servers ASAP. Maybe one should create a poll about the priorities you mentioned above?

 

[GReaper]

We're still entering raw commands into the console to play pickups. The servers are in a poor state and it still needs lots of work, the only way we can get the games going is with a hack and it's certainly not a long term solution.

Just remember that we're gamers too, we do play the game. We do understand about the things which suck in Legions and what we need to work on. It isn't fun having to babysit pickup games on a daily basis, it's something we want to fix!

The effort required for this is rather large. We'll probably be working towards this, along with some alternative solutions to keep people happy until we're able to come up with the final solution.

 

[Karnage]

Appreciate the effort, I really do. I am not complaining because you guys are doing us a favor anyway, just wanna let you know how we feel about things.

 

[Chi-Ro]

Splintering is actually a really serious issue: As soon as players have the ability to create their own servers, they start playing exclusively on those servers. Small groups of 5-8 people see each other all the time on their own servers, but get bored because they never see anyone else -- never interact with fresh blood. Given the fact we're still in beta, have a small number of weapons and an equally small number of maps, getting bored is a significant problem, and it'll only be exacerbated when players are playing with the same 5 friends over and over and over again.

I disagree. I understand all the other reasons the servers aren't here, but I strongly disagree with this...

 

[godofgames]

As of right now what are your biggest priorities? I for one am perfectly happy with the servers the way they are, as there is not too big of a community right now. And as such we are forced to join the popular game. Usually, even on prime playing time, there are at least 4 open servers, so you might as well organize your game on one of those servers.

 

[Mabeline]

I disagree. I understand all the other reasons the servers aren't here, but I strongly disagree with this...

If you're going to post, post reasons.

 

[Chi-Ro]

I understand your concern about splintering but remember that for quite a number of us it is as if we have no server at all. Back in the IA days there was no splintering that I knew of. People got bored of playing with the same people all the time and sought out the public games or the PUGs for that injection of freshness.

That covers most of it. I had a post going a bit more in-depth into it as well, but remembered this game isn't worth getting into arguments over anymore. So I deleted it and went on with my life.

You can give an opinion without giving your reason.

 

[ocarina_boy]

Why not start an Asian/Australian petition? Gather all the players willing to donate/contribute to a new(Asia/Aus) server so we can see clearly how many players there are who will cough up the cash. The first thing we should do is aquire an Asian/Australian public server first, then atleast we have something to play on! If we can prove that there are enough of us (Asian/Australian players) to maintain a steady stream of donations for a new server to keep up, maybe then we can get one.

 

[St3lth]

Why not start an Asian/Australian petition? Gather all the players willing to donate/contribute to a new(Asia/Aus) server so we can see clearly how many players there are who will cough up the cash. The first thing we should do is aquire an Asian/Australian public server first, then atleast we have something to play on! If we can prove that there are enough of us (Asian/Australian players) to maintain a steady stream of donations for a new server to keep up, maybe then we can get one.

What she said.

 

[Immanent]

Okay, Daph's got answers. Unfortunately, they're aren't the happiest answers.
Add to that the fact that the American and European communities are paying to keep the servers we've got up and running -- it's THEIR donations that give them an active place to play, that's dedicated and with consistently good ping to make everything from PUGs and PUBs viable and enjoyable.

But really, they're just paying for their own server right?
Like some other thread thechamp mentioned in, are we going to be assured that if we donate, the donated funds will be used for Asia/Aus only?

edit:
Because, I don't know about you, but playing in 300+ ping constantly starts to become a drag, and will lose players.

 

[radiofriendly]

The United States harbors well over two thousand Legions accounts. Europe, just under two thousand. The rest of the world, including Australia, Southeast Asia, and the Mediterranean, make up a fraction of that playerbase -- it's in the hundreds, not the thousands, and that's just accounts, not necessarily active players. Those players don't have a problem with the ping on the available servers, but they are playing a mere demo of a game -- Legions ain't close to being feature-complete, by a long shot. Add to that the fact that the American and European communities are paying to keep the servers we've got up and running -- it's THEIR donations that give them an active place to play, that's dedicated and with consistently good ping to make everything from PUGs and PUBs viable and enjoyable.

Legions is a game which is promoted primarily through word of mouth. This community pretty much came together because Legions and Tribes vets talked to each other and said 'hey, you should check out this game'. Bluntly said, this does not happen when you don't have a server to play on. It's a bit lopsided to state that you don't want to invest in AU servers because there are no AU players, while the only way you will attract them is to provide a server.