wArgOd wrote:
Whisper wrote:
<snip snip> Obviously being part of GSP and being familiar with the environment, I more for automated tools to take care of 90% of issues as that is the only way we see we can deal with administrating such a large number of servers, but I could be wrong and the direction that servers are taking is for lots of single server setups run by the people playing on them, thus this is why I feel we get ignored on these sorts of issues.
I consider myself fortunate that i decided to NOT rent servers out thus the option I have to simply "close up shop and board the doors against hackers". A GSP has no such option.
Maybe if the GSPs agreed to some sort of miniscule royalty back to VALVe the new revenue stream would make them pay more attention than they currently do. (it could not be much of a royalty since making money as a GSP is as difficult as any other business today)
Being a software engineer myself I understand why Alfred tries to limit access to the team so as to ensure they are concentrating on priorities for VALVe.
Speed hax. What a pain. I tried dropping the sv_max_usercmd_future_ticks to 5 and it appears this variable has no effect on anything whatsoever. Perhaps sv_max_usercmd_future_ticks is not "hooked up" due to an oversight. I think I will see what happens when this setting is zero or 1. If the server code is not checking for movement bounds then I suspect there will always be speed hax. Seems to me the server would work harder but provide better quality gameplay if a player movement distance were checked to make sure they are not going faster than allowed.
Perhaps Alfred (or other VALVe engineer) might be willing to comment and make recommendations on the following variables as related to speed hax prevention... sv_maxrate sv_minrate sv_maxupdaterate sv_max_usercmd_future_ticks sv_maxspeed sv_maxunlag sv_maxvelocity sv_minupdaterate
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Our community currently supports only 3 HL/HL2 slots, but those servers are hosted from our corporate facilities on dedicated servers. And, being in the enterprise support business, we gravitate toward enterprise-level support tools and services. So, from our perspective, regardless of how small the server farm may be, the benefit of professional, scalable support and tools is needed by all.
As a suggestion, consider a premium, "qualified" support option for servers. By "qualified", I mean that Valve would submit a questionnaire and NDA, check up on the credentials of the server/staff and get them to sign on the dotted line. Then offer a tier-2 support contact and advanced management tools...possibly for a small fee. Or, instead, consider the group more of an alpha team with a signed nondisclosure agreement. Valve's legal department is happy, the server community is happy and the players get a better online experience. We do this with companies like Microsoft and Symantec all the time.
The concept of royalties/commission sounds like "double-dipping" to me. Asking a not-for-profit gaming community to pay again to play online won't go well either. Even the for-profit GSPs with <20% GP have little tolerance for increased operating expenses. But ask for a nominal fee to make the experience more streamlined and we'll open our wallet...within reason.
Kerry Dorsey Mike's Marauders!! www.mikesmarauders.com
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