Same server, diff dedis?

[Asphy×ia]

Though I don't have much experience with networking and servers as much as I would like to, I have a question.

Would it be at all possible to have, say a dedicated host in Germany, as well as a dedicated host somewhere in the US host the same server? I understand the IP confliction foremost.

But to simplify what I'm trying to ask:

The same source code hosted in Germany and in the US, same server; just depending on your location - connect to the host that suits you better? And still be able to interact with players that are connected to the opposing host?

I realize it seems impossible, but was curious.

[donn]

That's pretty much impossible. With a lot of work, it can be done to have different servers as login/game servers, and 1 as a "core" server (that would collect data from both, centralize it, and re-issue it to each server in part). But that would add just overhead to the whole thing, and extra ping to players.

TL;DR It can be done, but highly unpractical. That's the same reason big companies never implemented this, and keep localized servers with different worlds.

[Asphy×ia]

Thanks for your answer. Though, I am curious of how TQ was able to do cross server CTFs or GWs( I haven't played official in like 4-5 years, so I was never engaged in anything cross server).I realize they just took characters from the separate databases so that characters could interact on a "new" server. However, did they split the US and EU cross server battles?

Ultimately, I'm sure the response you just gave probably answers this lol.

Just figured it could be a good idea to support a higher character base with a lower ping both ways. But anyways, thanks again.

[donn]

I never played in any cross-server event either. In fact, I don't play CO2 at all, just like you. But I guess in fact all playing a cross-server event are moved to a different server, the same for all, during the event?

[Super Aids]

Originally Posted by donn

I never played in any cross-server event either. In fact, I don't play CO2 at all, just like you. But I guess in fact all playing a cross-server event are moved to a different server, the same for all, during the event?

Or the original gameserver has a socket reference to the cross server, so the client never creates a new connection, but the server does.

That would be way more efficient too, because the connection to the shared server is based on a dedicated server's network and not a home connection.

[Aceking]

i have thought about doing something very similar, but as donn said it adds overhead and ping which is something you always want to keep to a minimum where possible.

Basically the idea is to have local servers for the region that act as a relay to the central server that hosts all the information.

So a US player would be:
Conquer -> US Host -> Central Host
Then the connection running back is:
Central Host -> US Host -> Conquer
-> EU Host -> Conquer

That extra connection would cause higher ping.
Add in double the processing load because we are now processing twice the amount of players (I realize pservers don't get hundreds or thousands of players but this is just theoretically). The server should be able to handle it but it still adds nano/milliseconds to the processing time.

So in all reality, you would likely benefit more from having everybody connect to the central host in my opinion since you cut out the middle server and extra processing/travel times.

[Super Aids]

Well you can't really host in the middle of the ocean.

[Xio.]

All you really need is a few servers on strategic locations acting as a proxy. Eg. Server hosted in Germany, Proxy in New York. People connect to the new york proxy and it transfers the packets from NY to GER and the other way around. That works really well I tested that a while back. Why? The server has a better connection than your home line so the ping between the NY server to ther GER server is alot faster in terms of ping times.

[CptSky]

Totally possible and wouldn't be that hard if you have some knowledge in distributed architectures. It begins to be harder when you want redundancy and 99.99% up-time (means rolling updates, etc).

Using one AccServer, you can dispatch the players on the right game server. Than, each game server is almost normal except for the synchronization between them. The only centralized thing is the database and maybe a synchronization database like Zookeeper.

It does not means higher ping. It does not means twice the processing.

Note1. Although it isn't used in MMORPG (due to the small amount of players on them for a server), most AAA games with a multiplayer part (often FPS) are a bunch of nodes working together as a single server. They're splitted by console, not by region or whatever. So you can have 200kk of players on all nodes that need to be synchronized. Well, as you don't need to synchronize 100 players on the same map, that's a bit easier, but the logic is still there.

Note2. I'm working on a SDK to allow developing such architectures for MMORPGs. I'm planning to prototype it using CO2 and hooking to have a conversion layer (see my server less CO2 thread).

[Asphy×ia]

Well, if you consider Xbox and its megaservers: (I believe there is one located in Asia, one in South America, and one split between eastern Europe/Canada/North America) -take for example, the EU/US/Canada server, it doesn't seem too detrimental to Europeans vs. Americans or Canadians. I realize different games use different methods (dedicated servers specific for their players) though back in Call of Duty 3, I would regularly be matched with players from Germany and France and maintain the same ping evenly alongside the opposing players. And to mention, Call of Duty 3 used dedicated servers, but not in individual game sessions. Rather a single player had host, everyone's connection was based off of his, etc.

All in all, I realize that playing-wise, 50 ping compared to 700 (on Conquer at least ) affects PvP greatly, but I never noticed an extreme disadvantage while on Call of Duty. Could be entirely different, just another view to look at.

Originally Posted by Xio.

All you really need is a few servers on strategic locations acting as a proxy. Eg. Server hosted in Germany, Proxy in New York. People connect to the new york proxy and it transfers the packets from NY to GER and the other way around. That works really well I tested that a while back. Why? The server has a better connection than your home line so the ping between the NY server to ther GER server is alot faster in terms of ping times.

I have used (free) VPNs before to evade a firewall and such (college), and though it's free and likely rather congested, I still noticed more of a delay with the VPN. I can't speak for the paid subscribers, I'm sure that they are much more efficient, but from my experience, I encountered more disruptions and delays than through my prime connection.. Noticeably higher ping, etc

[-impulse-]

Originally Posted by Asphy×ia

I have used (free) VPNs before to evade a firewall and such (college), and though it's free and likely rather congested, I still noticed more of a delay with the VPN. I can't speak for the paid subscribers, I'm sure that they are much more efficient, but from my experience, I encountered more disruptions and delays than through my prime connection.. Noticeably higher ping, etc

If you have a dedicated host with a big bandwidth and nice internet speed you can create your own free VPN host. I am not sure which is the minimal version of Windows that has the VPN lp2sec packages, but Windows Server 2008 has it for sure. It's a tad complicated to set it up especially if you dont have physical access to it mainly because if you make one wrong change you could lock yourself outside of RDP. If you have your own VPN host then you can be sure that latency or congestion won't be an issue.

You could also just get a $5 ubuntu host and set up VPN quite easily. It's how I've done it and the download speed/latency over UDP vpn protocol keeps it almost the same as my normal speed. I usually download with uTorrent with ~6MBs and through the VPN I keep a steady ~5MBs.