https://gameshare.co/index.html
QuoteGameShare
ITS TIME TO SAY GOODBYE
Sorry. I don't have the time to keep the old services up and running. GameMaster will shutdown on 01.06.2016. Best wishes for the future of our lovely old games... I'll be back some time with something great again...
Perhaps we can ask them to help us set up a SWBF/SWBF2 master server. We need to work together to keep the community from fragmenting further.
Quote from: Led on May 18, 2016, 11:46:31 AM
Perhaps we can ask them to help us set up a SWBF/SWBF2 master server. We need to work together to keep the community from fragmenting further.
I already contacted him
Quote from: KalleHey Anyder,
Some things are required:
Get the following gamespy services up and running:
https://github.com/derkalle4/gamespy-masterserver
https://github.com/derkalle4/gamespy-natnegserver
https://github.com/derkalle4/gamespy-keyauthserver
https://github.com/derkalle4/gamespy-web
https://github.com/derkalle4/gamespy-statisticsserver
and get a DNS server up and running for the specific gamespy hostname (I
used dnsmasq with a wildcard for gamespy.com).
The other stuff would be an MySQL-Server (for database things) and a
webserver (like apache2 with php) for the never finished battlefrontII
statistics overview.
I used to have two virtual servers (one in germany, another in america)
who shared the mysql database. Also I used to keep the masterserver in
sync. You have to specify (in the sql database and in the config of the
services) the connection between multiple gamespy masterservers and
gamespy natnegservers so that two guys who aren't using the same
masterserver virtual machine could join each others game. This isn't
neccessary if you're only running one virtual machine at all.
And another hint: the services seems to run very stable and I haven't
the need to restart them every month. I did it only because of security
updates for my ubuntu OS.
Best Regards,
Kalle
That sucks. And right after they added support for the 2 PSP Battlefronts too. :\
So my question now is: If we do get a master server up and running based on Kalle's data, will the executables need to be updated again?
Also, will this mean there will be separate master servers for Euro and US players? Or does it not matter where the master server is located, but as long as there is one?
We should quickly figure out whether any of us has the know-how to do this based on that info.
If not, it seems like the ideal situation is for Kalle to help us set this up, to the maximum extent that he can.
Does the info he shared represent the maximum extent to which he can help? If not, how willing is he to help beyond that? Maybe we could pay him to set it up for us (I'd chip in).
Quote from: Gold Man on May 18, 2016, 02:03:38 PM
So my question now is: If we do get a master server up and running based on Kalle's data, will the executables need to be updated again?
Yes, cause the IPs will be different. I'm already talking to {U.E.F}ACE about creating a VPS out of our Rootserver, and to host there the masterserver (IP will be similar cause it will be by Hetzner.de (same company).
Quote from: Gold Man on May 18, 2016, 02:03:38 PM
Also, will this mean there will be separate master servers for Euro and US players? Or does it not matter where the master server is located, but as long as there is one?
I will just host one in EU so that we dont have to spend another 100€
Quote from: Joseph on May 18, 2016, 02:13:41 PM
We should quickly figure out whether any of us has the know-how to do this.
Maybe we could pay him to set it up for us (I'd chip in).
Same from me.
Edit: would kelle be willing to transfer his server into someone else's name to avoid changing everything?
Quote from: {PLA}gdh92 on May 18, 2016, 02:38:13 PM
Same from me.
Edit: would kelle be willing to transfer his server into someone else's name to avoid changing everything?
Maybe it is not a matter of money, cause he would have told us to pay a little amount.
I can ask him if he'd be willing to do that.
Anyder is interfacing with Kalle to see about a transfer. We will let him try to work it out :cheers:
I've ordered a rental server in case this will work out.
Well we thought this day would probably come. Thanks Anyder and good luck, last time when we had the miscommunications, he didn't seem interested in any money to help us set up our own. Hopefully this time will be different. I had only just started to try to dissect the communications to the GM server but didn't get far yet.
I have contacted Jedikiller for some help in case Kalle is not able to help us. Stay tuned.
We went a year with tunngle, so one way or another we will still play SWBF :P
Ill chip in if needed. Wanna keep SWBF alive for a while longer
To have Anyder as an "man in the middle" is maybe not ideal. So I start to discuss with you in this forum thread :)
The german masterserver is hosted by myvirtualserver.com and can maybe directly transfered to another owner. I don't know. It costs about 3,49€ / month. The second server is hosted by digitalocean and costs about 5€/month. I also have the domains "d.gameshare.me", "u.gameshare.me" and "*.gameshare.onl". I could redirect this domains to the new server(s), of course. But then you have to agree to not host any kind webpages on this available domains nor make any redirects to another pages for them.
Because of the money:
It was never a thing because of "to less money" for me. I had the paypal button for at least ~ 1,5years for now and only a few people (thanks for that!) spent some money. I've got around 40€ at all. That's not much compared to the costs for the virtual servers for a year + domains + time to answer just every thread on my community forums, but It was something good that people have done.
In my current situation I don't have the time that I need to spent to the whole project. At least a complete code rewrite would be neccessary to eliminate most of the bugs and to add support for new games at all. We don't have an 100% masterserver emulator for gamespy, it's just 70/80% right now. And there's much space for optimization, too.
Because of the two masterserver thing:
Some people in your community have the meaning that a "german" masterserver gives you a pad ping on your servers in US or somewhere else far away from germany. That's simply not true. I discussed a lot and I don't know why ever people still think that there is a need for a second masterserver. Last word in this: the masterserver is an application to give players a serverlist of available servers for their game and also provides some kind of account management. Your game client does not connect to the gameserver of your choice through the masterserver itself, you will directly connect to the gameserver of your choice. Your ping to this gameserver depends on your internet connection to this specific gameserver. So at least, hosting one virtual machine with at least 256MB RAM (double it to be safe...) and 1 vCPU would be enough to host the entire infrastructure. At least I've got a second masterserver to have a little load balancing, for worst case scenarios (one masterserver is not available atm -> so half of the people could play regardless of this case) and for destroying any discussion about bad pings... that was why I hosted a second server in america for 5€/month. It was for YOU guys :)
Because of the installation of the masterserver and all it's components:
In term of privacy I wouldn't recommend to use the user database (most entries are old and never used) and I won't give these entries to you. All passwords are encrypted but I can't make sure that you guys will decrypt them and try to login to popular web services. What I could help you guys initially is to a) make a video about hosting a gamemaster infrastructure or b) to install such a masterserver on an linux based distribution (Ubuntu 16.04 prefered) and give some of you advices over teamviewer. But only once. I don't have the time to correct problems in future. I don't wan't to improve the masterserver and make bugfixes because nobody can help me to make things even better. I searched for developers a year ago and I decided to make this code Open Source on 01.01.2016 and nobody helped me, either.
So do what you want to do with the sources and the virtual server and let me just out of all related administrative tasks. Server administration needs time and some knowledge about linux and other things. Don't be dump and buy a virtual server if you have no knowledge about how to secure it and tell me to install the software on it.
Best regards,
Kalle
Hi Kalle,
Jedikiller is working on setting it up for us. We will let you if we can get it going.
For the other members of SWBFgamers, please hold off on posting in this thread for a couple of days.
Thanks!
Hey Kalle, can you reach out to me over some sort of IM? I've gotten your server up and running on both Windows and Linux, but have a couple questions about your database setup and some problems to resolve.
You can find me on Steam at the link in my profile or you can PM me for other stuff.
would be great if we (the community) could revive the multiplayer in some way. best of luck to anyone who is trying.
Hi Kalle,
Would you be able to help us (Jedikiller) complete the setup of your master server software? Your help would be greatly appreciated.
:cheers:
A conversation from May 02, 2016 on this page: http://www.swbfgamers.com/index.php?topic=10369.15
Quote from: TheGangstarTY on May 02, 2016, 04:05:10 PM
That is indeed the sad truth. There will be a day where NOBODY will play it. The only way I'd see of making this delayed is by illegally remaking SWBF to the latest technology with a lot of advertising to get it ahead of EA. But of course the developers would be enjoying their punishment for copyright before that could possibly happen. I think when Phobos' TWD mod begins releasing to the public it'll help keep a few people coming back to see more but when it's ended things will probably die down again. Hell, it's 12 years old, it's had a long lifespan to still be this active.
Quote from: Ultimo on May 02, 2016, 05:03:52 PM
When I said it was doomed to die, I was really only thinking about Multiplayer. I have a feeling Gamemaster won't be staying up forever, either. I don't know enough about the deal with that, but will the owner shut it off if usage continues to drop?
Quote from: Led on May 02, 2016, 05:14:12 PM
Gamemaster also has the support of other games, so I think it will be a long while. Additionally, the source code is released, so we can potentially make our own if we needed.
A game this old doesn't really get new players, but this website will continue as long as I do, which I hope is still a good number of years ;)
Quote from: Ultimo on May 02, 2016, 08:05:15 PM
Led, i will believe every second of that, and I will be impressed when it happens. :P
I'm actually really glad to see that we can work something out about this situation. I myself don't play SWBF much since I came back, but it's joy to me when I see this community able to come together and have a fun match.
I just have sunday time all the day (german timezone). Just ready when you are to talk a little bit about server problems. Teamviewer prefered for remote hands.
Okay, Jedikiller just spinned up a new virtual machine with Ubuntu 16.04 and I managed to get all the stuff working (after 3 hours)! So he no knows all the neccessary things to run gamemaster for gamespy games at all.
At least we had the following agreements:
- they'll add credits to gameshare.co
- new user database (every user needs to register a new account, for security I won't give them all the current users)
- i will redirect all the hostnames (d.gameshare.me, u.gameshare.me, gamespy.onl) for at least one month to the new IP address so that the games will still work. Only PS2 / hosts file will get a change at all.
- they won't disturb me with requests regarding any kind of problems / bugs / whatever with gamemaster and these tools. They can create a github issue (https://github.com/derkalle4) because gamemaster is open source but I don't know if I will ever have the time to change things.
Thank you for keeping the services online - and good luck in future!
Best regards,
Kalle
Thank you Kalle and your team for getting GameMaster running and for helping JediKiller install it on our own server. It is truly a technical feat. On behalf of the end users (players), thank you.
Thank you to JediKiller as well for taking his early Sunday morning to help us out. He has gone above-and-beyond to help us out.
The new master server has been tested for SWBF and SWBF2 and works well. Please know that the Gamespy accounts that Kalle mentioned are not necessary to play, but you can make a new account and maybe at some time we can try leader boards and statistics again.
I will make a forum board here for any issues with the new master server. They are to be brought to my attention and we need to not disturb Kalle. About the most that I can personally do to fix anything is to reboot the master server, but I think JediKiller is interested in it and may dig around a little if he gets time.
Kalle will start to re-direct the domains to point to the new master server. At some point soon, we hope to release a new patch and take the opportunity to make a few upgrades to SWBF at the same time.
Please begin to get the word out to SWBF and SWBF2 players that a new patch will be issued in the future and to check SWBFgamers.com for updates.
:cheers:
Quote from: Led on May 22, 2016, 11:04:12 AM
About the most that I can personally do to fix anything is to reboot the master server, but I think JediKiller is interested in it and may dig around a little if he gets time.
At some point soon, we hope to release a new patch and take the opportunity to make a few upgrades to SWBF at the same time.
If for any reason Led is busy, he's granted me access to it in case we require of an instant reboot (who knows, maybe the world ends and Led isnt here to reboot xD)
We're working already on a new patch which will include upgrades for SWBF1 (People in swbf2 dislike this idea for some reason lol). In case someone wants to remove anything, we'll attach a !README note which will explain how to remove specific stuff. :cheers: :cheers:
Quote from: Anyder on May 22, 2016, 11:15:52 AM
We're working already on a new patch which will include upgrades for SWBF1 (People in swbf2 dislike this idea for some reason lol). In case someone wants to remove anything, we'll attach a !README note which will explain how to remove specific stuff. :cheers: :cheers:
And the idea is that if someone does not have the upgrade, they will still play all the old maps without any problem (although they still need to point to the new master server).
Thank you JediKiller and Kalle!!!!
Yes, much appreciation for taking up this responsibility!
Excellent work everyone. We all appreciate it. :tu:
This sounds awesome! Thank you Jedikiller, Kalle, and Led for doing all this!
If you guys can get statistics and leaderboards rolling again, though, that'd be sweet. :D
Also Anyder, what did you have in mind for upgrades to SWBF1? Just curious. :)
Quote from: Gold Man on May 22, 2016, 02:23:34 PM
Also Anyder, what did you have in mind for upgrades to SWBF1? Just curious. :)
Will post it here after we gather everything :D
The SWBF2 PS2 community wanted me to ask if you would be hosting their master server as well or just PC?
Quote from: [FC]BoMbeR on May 22, 2016, 04:00:54 PM
The SWBF2 PS2 community wanted me to ask if you would be hosting their master server as well or just PC?
We hope to offer the same service that currently exists, just a new IP.
If someone wants to try it, please see this link for the IP address for the hosts file:
http://www.swbfgamers.com/index.php?topic=10542.0
also, I am moving this discussion to the new board
Quote from: Led on May 22, 2016, 11:04:12 AM
Thank you Kalle and your team for getting GameMaster running and for helping JediKiller install it on our own server. It is truly a technical feat. On behalf of the end users (players), thank you.
Thank you to JediKiller as well for taking his early Sunday morning to help us out. He has gone above-and-beyond to help us out.
The new master server has been tested for SWBF and SWBF2 and works well. Please know that the Gamespy accounts that Kalle mentioned are not necessary to play, but you can make a new account and maybe at some time we can try leader boards and statistics again.
Nice work everyone :cheers: