Dedicated servers now blocked by PhoenixNet

[TasKiNG]

Sorry to see that Phoenix have blocked the Dedicated servers now that they have gathered the info they needed from the Beta testing.
Looks like we are back down to a handful of servers again.
A number of us have spent a lot of effort ( and money ) setting up dedicated PC's to host the Dedicated server application.
I know they say a new version is being worked on but you would have thought they could have supported the beta version until it was available.

What do you think ?

TasKiNG www.dragonflies-server.co.uk

[jrohland]

I was about to comment on this issue as well.

It was fun while it lasted. I hope it does not take too long to get the general release (GA) version out.

I had a blast building my systems to run the servers. It was a big vigor to build and maintain the system but, I enjoyed the effort...and, the result.

I am willing to give Runtime Games the benefit of the doubt as to how difficult it would be to maintain the beta system.

jrohland

[trickybit]

Have you sent them an e-mail w/ links to your threads on this, and discussed your enthusiasm and commitment to making it work?

T'were I them, I'd be delighted to engage you on the issues. I hope they can tweak their protocol so it works through NATs and such.

[TasKiNG]

I've been keeping them updated with the problems with NAT etc.
One interesting thing I found last night was that if I run a server from within the phoenix simulator on my client machine then I am visible on PhoenixNet but if anyone connects then they appear on my server on the dedicated server application. :)

[trickybit]

I think I follow that KiNG. There would seem to be two ways to register any server in any registry, the IP address the server application thinks it's running as, and the IP address that the server appears to be when it connects to the registry.

Seems like maybe the dedicated servers end up using the former, and the client uses the latter...

So the client is registered as your outside address, and connections to your outside address get forwarded to your dedicated server.

From what I think I read from you guys earlier, a dedicated server running NATted doesn't get found at all? People try to connect to 192.168.1.oops.?

Sounds like somebody maybe read about SIP but only got as far as the RFC.

[TasKiNG]

Just got the following back from Phoenix in reply to my question asking when the new dedicated server would be out.

We are working on a new dedicated server application, but due to added problems with keeping the software running for long periods of time this may not be released straight away.

Best Regards

PhoenixRC Support



I also asked about whether it would run under "Wine" for Linux but they did not comment

[TheBum]

We are working on a new dedicated server application, but due to added problems with keeping the software running for long periods of time this may not be released straight away.

They must be running a Windows server. ;)

[TasKiNG]

That's what I was thinking :shock:
Shouldn't be too hard for them to port it to Linux if they wanted too. Not the most graphically taxing of programs. Hope they've heard of portable graphics libraries ;)

[trickybit]

Unfortunately, in this arena the only portable graphics library that matters is Direct3D... :-)

People can get real servers working on Windows... hope they are among those people...

[kamtsa]

We are working on a new dedicated server application, but due to added problems with keeping the software running for long periods of time this may not be released straight away.

They must be running a Windows server. ;)

Or having memory leaks in their application.

Kam

[TasKiNG]

Unfortunately, in this arena the only portable graphics library that matters is Direct3D... :-)

What's wrong with OpenGL. Every bit as good for this type of application and would have made it easier to also produce a Linux and Mac OSX version. Surly any company which wants to maximise its profits should be looking at the bigger picture and not be blinkered to windows only development.

People can get real servers working on Windows... hope they are among those people.

I'm really hoping that they produce a Linux version of the Dedicated Server Application. I have run Windows servers and found them to be problematic and unstable. For security and reliability it's hard to beat Linux.

TasKing www.dragonflies-server.co.uk (http://www.dragonflies-server.co.uk)

[trickybit]

Most definitely, I'd love to see the servers run headless on Linux. i've got a couple in the DMZ I would gladly run stuff on.

Last I looked (deeply) you could still get a lot more out of accelerated PCs w/ DX.

Don't matter... those guys do a lot of things right, and I hope they keep up the streak one way or another...

[kamtsa]

What are those Phoenix servers? Do they allow multiple remote players to fly in the same scene and to interacti with each other in real time? How do I connect to those servers and where can I find them?

Thanks,

Kam