Upgrade Main Server

[SnowMan (DayZ) 0]

In my opinion, and I believe many others would agree with this, the main server should be upgraded to allow more connections. Or adding more servers for players to get their character information from.

The reason behind this is that at this moment in time, I've spent nearly an hour and a bit trying to connect to several different servers. I don't actually feel like wasting my time away trying to join a game server, but this really puts me off of this incredible mod. I know it is still in Alpha, but if you want to progress, I'd suggest investing into better/more servers to hold the amount of new players to the game, that have bought Arma2, simply for this mod.

The increase in the flow of traffic to the servers is ridiculous. To cope with this, there's only one real solution, to add/upgrade current servers.

Regards,

SnowMan

[Fionny 7]

Im sure they would love to do this themselves, but this costs money? As yet these guys arent making any money. So the only way this is likely to come about is if people donate to them, would you be willing?

[SnowMan (DayZ) 0]

I would be willing, as would many I suspect, to donate to this mod.

Obviously there's a financial cost, but to progress and to make it successful, there needs to be some sort of investment.

[pepsi 0]

I've heard somewhere that the dev team doesn't accept donation.

Tbh, they still could upgrade the server, this game has a minecraft*10000 potential, why would they care of spending their pocket money on the servers right now ?

[SnowMan (DayZ) 0]

They (rocket I believe) stated that he would always keep this mod free. However, I disagree with this opinion and I believe that there should be a relatively small fee $5-10 for the mod. This could initially help to finance the team with their efforts to improve the gameplay and server performance and I would have no objections to help out.

Minecraft is a pathetic game compared to this.

[oktyabr 53]

The database server is already ran on the dev's most powerful box. Something like a 8 core, 32GB ram setup with a dedicated pipe.

It's been hinted at that the game servers will one day have their own, dedicated database's. No more central "HIVE". No more cross-server persistence, no more server hopping to farm loot, much more flexible, and hopefully no more waiting 30 minutes to get on.

Patience.

[SEM (DayZ) 5]

I don't think that own databases for each server would be good. Some servers would be extreamly crowded because if you start play with some friends and those friends will bring more friends you will fill those 50 slots really fast and then you wont be able to search for another one because you will have to start from begining.

[guran 1]

It's been hinted at that the game servers will one day have their own' date=' dedicated database's. No more central "HIVE". No more cross-server persistence, no more server hopping to farm loot, much more flexible, and hopefully no more waiting 30 minutes to get on.

Patience.

[/quote']

Sounds quite good but a little boring too since I really like that the character can be used on any server. You can join any person on any server you want with the current system without having to start a new character for example. Server admins could exploit it (although I guess that's already very possible) and if the server is gone your character is gone.

But I understand that it cost a lot (?!) of money to maintain a master server.

[oktyabr 53]

That's not to say that a server host with multiple servers couldn't use one of their servers to act as the central database for the ones they host. Then you could still have limited persistence, especially if you play in a region where three or four servers are all hosted by the same folks.

Separate DB servers, yeah, a new character on each DB, but is that so bad? Suppose you quit playing with your group, all of you log off at the same place with plans to fire back up where you left off the next day. You still want to play some. Join a different server (with it's own DB) and you can lone wolf it for an hour or two without affecting your main character on the other server.

Clans could have private servers (without contaminating other servers with farmed loot), PVE only groups could try playing the game their way, another group might want to play on a different map, etc.

---

And just maybe rocket would decide to keep a limited master DB, like now, and have it support just a small cluster of "pure" servers to let him experiment, try new things on, etc.

[Vipeax 318]

Where does this whole imagination come from regarding the database server being too slow? You can't instantly connect so we just start pointing fingers at the database because others do so? The database server is NOT the problem. Really it's NOT the problem. If you don't believe me I'm even willing to have you contact me either by PM or IRC and I will give you the required info to connect to a server that is connected to the main database just like any other server, no tricks, no special methods, just the standard Hive setup that is being shared by 4 60-slot servers (Chicago 5-8). There is absolutely ZERO, I repeat ZERO, waiting time in entering the server apart from your own loading screen.

The gigantic delays are caused by the massive connection spam the servers get. Everyone mass clicks join on every server and with 4000 people doing that, the servers get hammered upon and before having recovered from the first attempt, 20 others have attempted a join as well.

Now regarding that: "Feel free to contact me for proof", said server will go down shortly after you enter as it's not intended to be up, but it does proof that you can't blame Rocket, or any other staff member, for the delays that you experience upon joining a server.

[SEM (DayZ) 5]

@Oktyabr

Your idea is double edged sword. For example some ppl can go play for serious on X server for example and then just join Y to pop some ppl with makarovs cuz they have nothing to loose. And yes you can have it right now too but those situations are occuring far more less than if you could have more than one character.

Ofc developers will do what they have to, but i think it will kill part of this mod.

[oktyabr 53]

@Oktyabr

Your idea is double edged sword. For example some ppl can go play for serious on X server for example and then just join Y to pop some ppl with makarovs cuz they have nothing to loose. And yes you can have it right now too but those situations are occuring far more less than if you could have more than one character.

Ofc developers will do what they have to' date=' but i think it will kill part of this mod.

[/quote']

But it would also limit those guys that find a DMR or whatever and then hop from server to server to server just to collect the ammo for it. Double edged sword is right.

[Lady Kyrah 1110]

@Oktyabr

Your idea is double edged sword. For example some ppl can go play for serious on X server for example and then just join Y to pop some ppl with makarovs cuz they have nothing to loose. And yes you can have it right now too but those situations are occuring far more less than if you could have more than one character.

Ofc developers will do what they have to' date=' but i think it will kill part of this mod.

[/quote']

But it would also limit those guys that find a DMR or whatever and then hop from server to server to server just to collect the ammo for it. Double edged sword is right.

I really hope the db remain centralised, simply because as it is right now, the Zday team hold the server hosts "by the balls" if i can say and can apply sanctions to bad hosts.

If the servers can be entirely autonomous we will go back to server admins giving advantages to their little clique and kicking you for killing them.

[SnowMan (DayZ) 0]

I would personally like to have the database remain across all servers, with the exception of SOME servers being private with their own databases.

As Oktyabr has said, you've proven my point, that the developers should invest financially for a better/or more servers to be able to cope with the demands of players.

Or introducing more and more servers could also reduce this problem?

[oktyabr 53]

Now we have the added problem of some servers updating way behind the rest of them. Wanna guess how many players are gearing up on the 1.5.6 servers so they have an edge when they join a 1.5.7?

The more I think about it the more I like the idea of having an official database server, like now, but only serving official "pure" servers that are forced to update when one comes out. This let's rocket have a dedicated test bed for trying new things and progressing forward with the mod. Those who don't want to play on the bleeding edge could stay on the other servers instead of coming here and writing 100 different threads about how the zombies are too tough or whatever... Let the rest of the servers do what they want (3rd person, hardcore, private, PVE, different maps, mods, whatever) as long as they have their own data bases separate from the official one.

[landstriker 9]

That's not to say that a server host with multiple servers couldn't use one of their servers to act as the central database for the ones they host. Then you could still have limited persistence' date=' especially if you play in a region where three or four servers are all hosted by the same folks.

Separate DB servers, yeah, a new character on each DB, but is that so bad? Suppose you quit playing with your group, all of you log off at the same place with plans to fire back up where you left off the next day. You still want to play some. Join a different server (with it's own DB) and you can lone wolf it for an hour or two without affecting your main character on the other server.

Clans could have private servers (without contaminating other servers with farmed loot), PVE only groups could try playing the game their way, another group might want to play on a different map, etc.

[hr']

And just maybe rocket would decide to keep a limited master DB, like now, and have it support just a small cluster of "pure" servers to let him experiment, try new things on, etc.

The current database is doing one hell of a job, considering there are thousands of people trying to connect to it at the same time, not to mention each server that get's spammed by connections and disconnects.

I like the idea about having a database for each server, would certainly put a lot of less stress on the current single database.

I can't wait to see what the future brings for DayZ. :)

[Guest]

No. Fucking. Way.

Servers are full. It's a miracle when I can find one with a slot for me. Even sometimes the ones that are not full will tell me that they are. The site says that there are 41040 characters alive as I am speaking. How the hell could you play on only one fucking server? No, it's not conceivable.

/thread.

A smart thing to do would be to have one database for each "region".

One main server For Western Europe, one main server for Eastern Europe, one for North America, etc - So German, French, UK servers for instance would use the Western European main server, Russian, Polish, etc - servers would use the Eastern main server, and so on.

Plus I would finally get rid of Russians.

[oktyabr 53]

A smart thing to do would be to have one database for each "region".

One main server For Western Europe' date=' one main server for Eastern Europe, one for North America, etc - So German, French, UK servers for instance would use the Western European main server, Russian, Polish, etc - servers would use the Eastern main server, and so on.

Plus I would finally get rid of Russians.

As I said on the first page...

That's not to say that a server host with multiple servers couldn't use one of their servers to act as the central database for the ones they host. Then you could still have limited persistence, especially if you play in a region where three or four servers are all hosted by the same folks.

[SnowMan (DayZ) 0]

I believe that having multiple servers in different regions for the main database is a great idea in my opinion. Would speed up the joining process and loading much more.

[SnowMan (DayZ) 0]

Anyone elses opinion is very welcomed.

[MickeyKnox (DayZ) 1]

Fragmenting the userbase by locking characters to servers and getting rid of cross server persistence will do incredible damage to the core appeal of the mod, way in excess of people server hopping to get gear which is something that can be fixed any number of ways.

[SnowMan (DayZ) 0]

Fragmenting the userbase by locking characters to servers and getting rid of cross server persistence will do incredible damage to the core appeal of the mod' date=' way in excess of people server hopping to get gear which is something that can be fixed any number of ways.

[/quote']

That's exactly what I thought, but having the option to run your own database on your own server if you wish to do so.

[cardboardcutout 0]

Run a US, Europe, Russia, Far East database then have those update to the central server each night or each week. New players come from the central server and their player gets cached on the server serving the game server they choose to play on. It forces people to play in their own timezone at least until the servers update yet they can still server hop to play with different people. It would help stop the waiting too as 5 servers would be getting hit not 1.

[rocket 16567]

The database does not break a sweat from handling these connections. Databases are designed to handle 5000 requests a second in proper environments. The box it runs on is extremely powerful, with 8 cores and utilizing SSDs. Website was causing severe issues with it, but this has now been fixed.

The issue is the game servers THEMSELVES and technology involved in connecting.

Game Server admins need to be diligent and restart the connecting app when required, and regularly restart the game server.

Rather than moving to individual databases, the only logical next step would be a cloud database model, but the current configuration can easily handle more than double what we have now. And I highly doubt we will reach 10,000 concurrent connections.

[SnowMan (DayZ) 0]

Right, thanks for clearing that up rocket. I had a second thought that it might be the servers themselves, when I swapped servers, some I could connect, some I couldn't.