Sleuth Home - Message Boards - Sleuth Talk

May-30-2006 04:31

I think it would be great if non-subs vs subs can be seperated from each other in terms of bandwidth use.

For subbed members to get priority when they call up on the sleuth database or server.

Or....

Either have a unsubbed NYC (where the bank sells no skill, hahah), where the unsubbed get now on a different server or different part oft he server. When they all log on en masse.....they are just hindering each other and not the subbed people.

And have the other cities including the subscriber version of NYC on a different partition somewhere.

When I do a call for who's online, I often notice a tun of unsubbed people and a few subbed.

Anyway, I am not a network or a sys engineer. So I am not sure how of the details. But I think partitioning a server is possible, and have two environments running seperately, which just meet each other on the PM system and message board.

May-30-2006 06:07

Is it at all possible to get regional servers? Or one for the US and one for the rest of us. How much would this cost? Would everyone then HAVE to sub to make it affordable.
*had always figure "servers'' were just satellites or something and that's where internet came from*

May-30-2006 06:34

Go for a server based on a pontoon in the middle of the Tasman Sea LED ;)

May-30-2006 06:55

I know of two people who have not re-subbed based on slowness of the game.

Partial or full partioning of servers (and the database structure) is likely part of the optimization tweaks that Admin has done over the past few months.

The key is money. Running multiple servers costs more money. That means more subscribers. Not new people per se, but exisiting customers extending thier subscriptions out as well.

This topic comes up on a predictable schedule. When ever school is out of session in the US server load goes up. Last summer, Winter break, Spring break now again this summer. It may coincide with school schedules in other parts of the world as well.

May-30-2006 07:34

I like the perks of subscribing, but I would like to see the game stay as similar for non-subs as subs. How else can they know what they would be getting? Maybe I'm also a little sensitive to folks who just don't have the money. I'm lucky to be able to afford a subscription. Not everyone is.

I do like the idea of speeding up the game, which lags a bit more than other games I play (and some of them are free). If that means more, bigger or faster servers - we might have the equivalent of a bake sale to raise money for it. But downgrading the non-subs would be my last choice.

May-30-2006 07:47

*I meant separate DSNs for the server connection, if DSNs are used. DNSs are something else entirely.

May-30-2006 09:09

I agree Dogberta, which is why I wondered if having separate servers was a good idea as it might cost more. If the cost of having them means it's more expensive so less people sub it makes them redundant. Or something.. :D

In the middle? Nah, what about in Tassie itself, more Australians play. I thnk I'm the only kiwi :D

May-31-2006 04:07

I don't think seperate servers are required for slowness, though it may be an idea for redundancy or single points of failures. I think that the sleuth up time is still well above 95% so not worth the investment.

Also 70% of us I believe are in North America. The rest of us don't bring up enough cash to place a server here. Besides, I don't think it is the solution regardless technically either.

This site wouldn't even need a super huge server to run on. Much bigger are for sale. Cheaper to buy one big server then two smaller ones. And inherently things can be set up partitioned server database wise.

I assume that Ben already has something in place where everybody gets to share the bandwidth the most economically, and has removed redundant processes to increase speed.

Which is why I mention guaranteeing subs the best bandwidth.

May-31-2006 07:19

Well, let's look at this realistically with... (poorly compiled) statistics! I honestly don't know a whole bunch about servers, so I just went to PriceGrabber.Com and checked out server prices, then found the median page (~37) and looked at those prices. Then I found the mean price of the servers listed (~$1478.60).

Since I found that the mean price is approximately $1478.60--and I have no idea if the Sleuth owner could even use those servers--I looked at one-year subscription fees. It would take 42 one-year subscription sales to completely cover that server and it would take 269 one-month subscription sales to buy that new server. This speaks nothing of the expenses of setup, downtime or any other factors that are liable to occur if, by any chance, Ben would buy that server.

In response to this, Sleuth subscription fees would likely have to raise if a new server were to go up for subscription members only. As always, the cost would be passed to the users. And since I'll have enough money to buy a one-year subscription with my next paycheck, me as well.

May-31-2006 09:13

*Wins the lottery and puts up a server in Australia for Squirrel, one in Chicago, a couple in Amsterdam just to store Nikkie's post history and two in Sweden.*

May-31-2006 10:41

*puts one in Canada too and hopes someone sends her poutine!*