The Star Citizen Thread v5

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Gnorok

G
sleutelbos said:
Personally I'd first check what corporations would charge me for providing a virtual server service. As they are in it for profit themselves, they will charge you for all that convenience and flexibility. Your argument is a bit like saying you'd take a restaurant over cooking yourself, because you can always up/downscale your menu by picking different things from the menu, and if you dont eat much the wasted ingredients are not your problem. Its all true, but restaurants do tend to charge for all this fun and convenience. :p
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If I have to cook for myself there would be quite a amateur at work and I wouldn´t like that for any data center [big grin]
So in your example you would have to compare the costs of hiring a chef for yourself (plus costs for a kitchen etc.) or going to a restaurant. The result should be obvious.

The only MMO still using dedicated hardware servers today is WoW (as far as I know) and that started developement around 20 years ago. And because of that they run into trouble every new addon start.

Today no sane developer would not use virtualization even if he decides for some reason to build his own datacenters (when the game is finished and he knows for sure what kind of hardware he needs).
 

Asylum

A
Dooguk said:
They would normally hide this stuff in "Concern" but are more focused on Spectrum now to notice. All this stuff will disappear along with the forums.
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My own refund request imminent...see what the concept sale promises as they usually make me cringe so hard I may go full refund on them.

That thread does make me feel like the forums are turning around a bit. I just cannot fathom how people (regular backers) could defend this absolute abomination of a game development. Management lead, no discredit to the hard working worker bees being asked to dig holes, fill them in and dig more holes....to fill them in.
 

Snarfbuckle

S
Zetta said:
Nah, they're just saving their money for the upcoming concept sale....

:rolleyes:
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Not a problem really, they are smart enough to save it in their wallets instead of on a website.

I have no problem with people spending money but asking them to STORE real money as VIRTUAL money and no way to get them back (except through a refund) is madness.
 

Dooguk

D
Asylum said:
My own refund request imminent...see what the concept sale promises as they usually make me cringe so hard I may go full refund on them.

That thread does make me feel like the forums are turning around a bit. I just cannot fathom how people (regular backers) could defend this absolute abomination of a game development. Management lead, no discredit to the hard working worker bees being asked to dig holes, fill them in and dig more holes....to fill them in.
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The latest post in that thread is

"did they pay you to post this?" [haha]
 

Zetta

Zetta
Snarfbuckle said:
Not a problem really, they are smart enough to save it in their wallets instead of on a website.

I have no problem with people spending money but asking them to STORE real money as VIRTUAL money and no way to get them back (except through a refund) is madness.
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Well it's contrary to what they are stating, ie "Nope, CIG don't deserve any more money until they deliver... oooh look, a new shiny, TAKE MY MONEY!!!"
 

dsmart

Banned
D
Viajero said:
Do you have any links on that 2008 thing that can be shared?
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Yes. It's in an interview that I did with Vox Day. It's probably up on his website. He was one of the industry people shopping it around with Chris to investors and publishers. Several passed and/or failed to come up with the money, after (probably before, not sure now) Chris and co also failed to get EA interested in the project and thus couldn't get the Wing Commander rights. They couldn't get the Freelancer rights from Microsoft either.

It all goes as far back as 2008. He finally gave up in early 2010, and just decided to start a new IP which became Star Citizen. They started working on it in 2011 after co-operating with CryTek to use the CryEngine for the prototype (which they used to make the movies shown in the Oct 2012 Kickstarter), with an optional source license if they got the funding. The rest is history.
 

dsmart

Banned
D
Zetta said:
Most people would consider 'started' to mean a project entering production status, prior to that it's just ideas and chin-wagging.
In Roberts' 2012 inverview he explicitly mentions production "Basically I’ve been working with a small team over the course of the past year to get the early prototyping and production done."
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That's precisely what he said. He also repeated it at various events (BAFTA, PAX) and to various publications (Forbes etc)

This argument is the same one that some backers use to defend this travesty. Even when croberts goes - on the record - and says these things; they pretty much make excuses and try to interpret it as something else. They do it all the time. The most recent being the 3.0 releasing on|before Dec 19th fiasco. To this day, there are those who say he didn't say that. It's amazing.

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Snarfbuckle said:
How is it NOT cheaper with virtual servers compared to actual owned server racks?

- You do not need to own a physical rack for each server location
- You do not need to order new physical racks to be delivered and installed for each server location when needed
- If player count increases you call the company you rent server access from and request an increase in server size and THEY will be responsible for getting the increase you request (and pay for)
- Any repairs and support is done by the company who owns the servers

Or is there another aspect you are referring to that would make it more expensive?
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If you have to ask, then you don't know anything. And I'm not in the mood to explain it. Especially given ALL the resources sitting right there on Google. If you know how cloud and hardware servers work, their uses, how they are billed, the differences between renting or co-lo etc, you won't be asking. Go ask on Reddit.
 
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dsmart

Banned
D
hairychris said:
I kind of agree with you, although it's a yes & no at the same time situation.

It's not necessarily a cost saving when you build on the cloud: if you're buying cloud-based high availability and high horsepower services then it is really not cheap, as what you want is scalability which cannot easily be provided in a corporate datacenter.

A cloud-based solution is certainly the most sensible option in most cases, though, as maintaining an in-house datacenter is an absolute nightmare: the physical racks and pieces of hardware loaded in them is the least of your problems!
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It's all rubbish (what he posted). All of it. People who don't understand these things, or have never been involved in them, shouldn't be offering opinions on them.

Maintaining an in-house data center has nothing to do with co-lo. There various reasons why all three exist and are suited for a specific purpose. Expansion, maintenance, costs are all irrelevant if the solution is inadequate for the intended purpose.

https://selecthub.com/cloud-technology/colocation-vs-cloud-hosting/

http://www.lifelinedatacenters.com/...rence-between-cloud-computing-and-colocation/

https://www.atlantech.net/blog/best-for-business-data-center-vs.-server-room
 
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dsmart

Banned
D
Stigbob said:
Another important positive point is that if you are selling pre-orders for a game you can't make, by saying cloud a lot you don't have to waste valuable "we've gone bust sorry everyone, never mind we tried. Read your TOS of course I keep the millions I've paid myself" money on server infrastructure.
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I just chose to ignore him because, costs (in/out bandwidth costs are higher) and application (database, websites, games) aside, he has no clue what he's talking about.

When you co-lo, you own the hardware, you rent the space. I have an entire room in two data centers with rack equipment hosing Dell XEON servers. We can replace/upgrade everything as-needed; either by going there, or using the facilities "smart hands" service which is very cheap.

And when you co-lo, bandwidth is dirt cheap. Right now, I have over 30 servers sitting in two data centers and costs me less than $5K per month. And we've never used even 25% of the bandwidth allotted under our contract. My bandwidth won't just shock the hell out of me when the bill shows up each month. Even GCE/AWS which charge for both in/out, end up being very expensive (especially for xlarge instances).

These guys somehow think that hosting websites and database applications on cloud servers, is the same as hosting/running game instances. You can go to places like www.pingperfect.com right now and rent game specific servers. Those people actually co-lo and/or rent servers at a datacenter, then rent out their servers to gamers. And last I checked, those aren't cloud servers (GCE, AWS). They are shared server instances sitting on powerful hardware.

Star Citizen uses cloud instances. Aside from the fact that the game's networking sucks, it's costing them a fortune in bandwidth bills. Compare to ED which also uses cloud instances, but with their robust network tech, I'm sure their costs are lower.

Also, it's easier to configure things like server transitions (e.g. scene to scene) in HW, than it is on cloud-instances because for that, you have to *reserve* those instances so they are there - being billed - whether you use them or not.

And even if you co-lo in the US, you can still rent same HW servers around the world and have them upgraded as needed. It all ends up being about what's right for the project, and not because there's a buzzword bandwagon you need to hop on.

As I said, it's a complex subject and anyone who thinks it's just a simple matter of "oh, yeah co-lo and/or hw sucks because..." is a fool who should stick to buying JPEGs for non-existent games.

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Zetta said:
Surprised at the general sentiment in this thread asking people to chip in and "save" the game https://forums.robertsspaceindustri.../celebrate-2-6-1-show-your-support-buy-a-chit
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That's nothing. Considering that in Jan/Feb 2016 they raised over $4.7m, but in Jan/Feb 2017 they're barely over $2.7, the upcoming sale is going be all kinds of interesting.

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Gnorok said:
The only MMO still using dedicated hardware servers today is WoW (as far as I know) and that started developement around 20 years ago. And because of that they run into trouble every new addon start.

Today no sane developer would not use virtualization even if he decides for some reason to build his own datacenters (when the game is finished and he knows for sure what kind of hardware he needs).
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That's patently false. Cite your sources. I'll wait.
 
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Tippis

Tippis
Gnorok said:
The only MMO still using dedicated hardware servers today is WoW (as far as I know) and that started developement around 20 years ago. And because of that they run into trouble every new addon start.
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Also EVE, because they have their own very special needs and use-cases, what with having to be able to run highly specialised codes for both world sim, db backend, load balancing, and routing just to keep the server from keeling over every time 1k+ players pile into the same system or whenever they feel like making a couple of bajllion market requests every second.

They're colocated, but it's still very much dedicated and bespoke hardware.
 
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dsmart

Banned
D
Tippis said:
Also EVE, because they have their own very special needs and use-cases, what with having to be able to run highly specialised codes for both world sim, db backend, load balancing, and routing just to keep the server from keeling over every time 1k+ players pile into the same system or whenever they feel like making a couple of bajllion market requests every second.

They're colocated, but it's still very much dedicated and bespoke hardware.
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Like I said, these guys have no clue what they're talking about. Which is the same attitude they employ toward Star Citizen development.
 

Gnorok

G
VidarSnipes said:
Um, what about EVE Online?
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I honestly don´t know. But Eve launched around 2003, so development should have started in the last millenium (same as WoW).


dsmart said:
That's patently false. Cite your sources. I'll wait.
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As mentioned in my comment you quoted "as far as I know". But if it´s "patently false" it should be easy for you to give some examples to prove your point. I have no problems with standing corrected, especially if your examples are MMOs that were not developed two decades ago [yesnod]
 
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hairychris

hairychris
dsmart said:
It's all rubbish (what he posted). All of it. People who don't understand these things, or have never been involved in them, shouldn't be offering opinions on them.

Maintaining an in-house data center has nothing to do with co-lo. There various reasons why all three exist and are suited for a specific purpose. Expansion, maintenance, costs are all irrelevant if the solution is inadequate for the intended purpose.

https://selecthub.com/cloud-technology/colocation-vs-cloud-hosting/

http://www.lifelinedatacenters.com/...rence-between-cloud-computing-and-colocation/

https://www.atlantech.net/blog/best-for-business-data-center-vs.-server-room
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My employers are currently pushing from co-location to cloud, we've been avoiding in-house datacenters as much as possible - especially for externally facing apps - for years. They just aren't practical. In a lot of ways co-locations are also a pain in the backside. We had our own kit racked at the 3rd party and in some ways it can be the worst of both worlds - biggest problem being that there are some reasons that you need to get physical hands on the kit and you aren't close to it geographically. Going cloud for us (FTSE 100/NYSE listed, >100,000 employees globally split across a large number of self-contained daughter companies) is both cost-effective and gets rid of many of our hardware headaches. I'm oldschool and yet to be convinced as I like "real" boxes, but I'm getting more on board with it as a concept.

A sensible cloud solution seems to be the best for running a game like this from a standing start. Cheapest option? No, certainly not if you bare bones something with your own boxes.

Caveats being that you don't control the hardware, may have to spend $$$ for enough power and bandwidth, and make bloody sure you know what you're doing with backups.

Whole thing is kind of moot as CIG don't seem to be able to manage patching properly so all bets are off. Also whether CIG will ever need scalability to the point that they're thinking of is also up for debate... [wink]
 
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