32-64CCU redistributable license?

johanz
edited June 2011 in Photon Server
Photon is great for mass servers to be handled on a remote machine, but it would be very cool if we could have a redistributable version of photon to include with our games that would act as a dedicated server for online games.
Or is there some reason why we don't have this?
Even right now I can redistribute my server binary(written from scratch). The only thing I can't is the photon server and a license. Thus I send my users to photon site to get the license :) Would be much cooler if we could include it with our games already.

Comments

  • How many CCUs per redistribution do you need?
  • How many CCUs per redistribution do you need?
    From the name of the thread I would guess 32 or 64 ccu.
  • Yeah 32 would be good, 64 would be perfect as that's what most games work with.
    But a truly redistributable 32 ccu license would be more than generous already.
    I am not demanding anything here, don't take me wrong. I am just wondering why there isn't such a licensing model. Photon works great as a single dedicated server for one room, so why not use it for that too?
  • So uh, any update on this?
  • johanz wrote:
    Yeah 32 would be good, 64 would be perfect as that's what most games work with.
    But a truly redistributable 32 ccu license would be more than generous already.
    I am not demanding anything here, don't take me wrong. I am just wondering why there isn't such a licensing model. Photon works great as a single dedicated server for one room, so why not use it for that too?

    I guess cause the required setup, firewall portforwarding etc does not make it that suitable. Also the number of places where gamers would host a game goes towards 0 as most game hosters are linux only.

    Keep in mind that photon servers don't do nat punchthrough etc so users that are not tech savy could not use it at all to host a game.

    and naturally last but least: do you really want to donate them your server side code? (the applications are .NET assemblies)
  • I guess cause the required setup, firewall portforwarding etc does not make it that suitable. Also the number of places where gamers would host a game goes towards 0 as most game hosters are linux only.
    Uh, any server would require you to configure firewall and port forwarding, this is nothing new and most gamers are not sheep, they can actually set this up.
    Also quite a lot of games don't even have linux binaries. Gmod for example. Also photon has linux version in development, so soon enough there will be a linux version
    Keep in mind that photon servers don't do nat punchthrough etc so users that are not tech savy could not use it at all to host a game.
    Not a problem, nat punchthrough can be easily coded in.
    and naturally last but least: do you really want to donate them your server side code? (the applications are .NET assemblies)
    Uh, why not? Every game that offers dedicated servers does this. And my frontend is .net too, so they can take game code too. And seeing as the networking would be in game anyway, I don't see anything wrong with sharing server binaries.
  • I've had my fair share of lan games and I'll tell you there are plenty of people that can figure out how to run a local server if given the tools and some mild instructions if any instructions at all. Also, most games are played on windows machines so hosting the server on a windows machine is also quite common. Just because it is a "server" does not mean it needs to be a linux server.
  • Games are played on windows machines right. But dedicated server hosting normally happens somewhere else than your home as home connections are, nicely put, crap.
    you can do small games with 8 or 16 players but then you hit the wall.

    But lets forget about this fact and just the fact that you don't want to hand out the code to all players (and you are handing out all server code in readable form if you give them the server), cause if you wanted cheaters to break your game to ashes you wouldn't have wasted the time to create it normally
  • Games are played on windows machines right. But dedicated server hosting normally happens somewhere else than your home as home connections are, nicely put, crap.
    you can do small games with 8 or 16 players but then you hit the wall.
    100/50 is crap? I host 2 cs source servers at my home and it gets ~48 players total on both at most times. Runs just fine.
    And I own a dedicated server with windows server 2008 on it. As I said, gmod too doesn't have linux server, but it has hundreds of dedicated servers.

    Also people who have crap connection simply don't host servers. It is there for people who can host it.
    But lets forget about this fact and just the fact that you don't want to hand out the code to all players (and you are handing out all server code in readable form if you give them the server), cause if you wanted cheaters to break your game to ashes you wouldn't have wasted the time to create it normally
    Do you even know how this works? Right now I am using unity as both client and server, in which case they already have access to all the code they need to "break" my game. Changing it to photon will not change anything. They have access to server and they can mod it if they know how/feel like it. Why should I care? It's not like all games will be modded cheat ridden ones. Hence why admins and passworded servers exist. Not to mention my game is coop and noncompetitive, thus cheating will not do much harm. Cheaters are there even if all your servers are hosted by you, the downside though is that for you to host all servers will cost much more than leaving it for community.
  • 100/50 is the total exception.
    Normal are 2k up and at that point 8 - 16 is the max.
    Just cause you are having a total non standard line that means nothing to all others.

    As for the "do you even know": Yes I know how this works and the reason you host the server normally is to exactly NOT hand them out the power to break it in a trivial way by just modifying the server to see what impact it has.

    Thats the reason why the big shooter brands are no longer handing out the dedicated servers either, the cheat problems you get to fight for handing out the server node are a magnitude larger than if all they have is the traffic from the server.

    There is a second reason to not hand it out: You need to secure all "persistency" (stats, achievements, "RPG alike xp gains", ...) significantly more or you make them impossible at all at worst (stats still are fine, but XP gains are not working out if you hand out the servers, as they can just gain whatever they want due to the lack of control from your end). There are games that can go with it, but its 2011 and the expectations from users, especially casual ones, is growing more and more towards persistency and "having a meaning in investing the time" not stupid "jump in, play, jump out, nothing changed and it has no meaning" as in "good old CS - UT - Q3" days and if you want to monetize your game with ingame purchases and alike, you don't even have the option to go there and offer them the servers anyway for example


    so yeah all your points are right for your case, but generally speaking I doubt its a model where an indie will come out with a financial win to continue to support the game and expand it etc
  • If you need to save all the data like stats and xp, then sure, host your own servers.
    But my game is a game that doesn't have any global stuff. You just jump in and play and then leave.
    Also tf2 has a lot of master-server side stuff and yet it has dedicated servers.

    As for most new games not sharing dedi servers, it's not because of cheaters, it's because of piracy.
    If you got a dedi, you can crack it to allow pirated games to play. With no server you can't do that.
  • dreamora wrote:
    Games are played on windows machines right. But dedicated server hosting normally happens somewhere else than your home as home connections are, nicely put, crap.
    you can do small games with 8 or 16 players but then you hit the wall.

    But lets forget about this fact and just the fact that you don't want to hand out the code to all players (and you are handing out all server code in readable form if you give them the server), cause if you wanted cheaters to break your game to ashes you wouldn't have wasted the time to create it normally

    Again, there is no rule stating that dedicated servers have to be located off-site at another location when we are talking about local LAN gaming distribution.
    dreamora wrote:
    Thats the reason why the big shooter brands are no longer handing out the dedicated servers either, the cheat problems you get to fight for handing out the server node are a magnitude larger than if all they have is the traffic from the server.

    There is a second reason to not hand it out: You need to secure all "persistency" (stats, achievements, "RPG alike xp gains", ...) significantly more or you make them impossible at all at worst (stats still are fine, but XP gains are not working out if you hand out the servers, as they can just gain whatever they want due to the lack of control from your end). There are games that can go with it, but its 2011 and the expectations from users, especially casual ones, is growing more and more towards persistency and "having a meaning in investing the time" not stupid "jump in, play, jump out, nothing changed and it has no meaning" as in "good old CS - UT - Q3" days and if you want to monetize your game with ingame purchases and alike, you don't even have the option to go there and offer them the servers anyway for example

    so yeah all your points are right for your case, but generally speaking I doubt its a model where an indie will come out with a financial win to continue to support the game and expand it etc

    Dreamora, this tread is in regard to asking for a limited connection re-distributed license for the purpose of hosting local servers with games. Your opinion about whether persistence of player data and the monetary value of that design is off-topic at best. If people want to distribute their server code with their game, that is their choice to make. Quit preaching and stick to the topic of discussion please.
  • I would agree to lan games, but if you read the initial posting and any after you see its not about local lan distribution only.
    No idea where you are even drawing the conclusion from that this thread has to do anything about local LAN hosting only. Its for redistributing small online game hosting what is normally called "dedicated servers" which is elementally different to hosting LAN only games in its requirements etc.
    Some might naturally host it in games, but for such games to be successfull you want modders / clans (depends on the game type which are present) to host their environments permanentely as more servers means that you can have more concurrent players with all its consequences. Its also favorable in PR terms if players jump in, get to the server listing and see 100 servers and not just 2 ;)

    @johanz: Yes, piracy is naturally a concern too but I'm unsure to what degree the locked away dedis for example impact piracy as any communication can be faked, including verifying yourself. But I know for sure to what degree they impact the legality of persistence and cheat protection in general as BF2 BC2 is worlds beyond both when compared to previous installments of BF for example.

    As for TF2: Unfair ;) TF2 is one of the prime example of doing stuff right and its backed with steams security and "if you fuck it up you lose a lot" threat against cheating, which is a thing most can't compare to. But going to a similar level naturally would be the dream of many, wouldn't it? ;)
  • You're right, he does say "online games", like TF2, where servers are dedicated online servers. My fault on that one. I just think the bandwidth availability, "don't give them your server code", and "everyone is doing things this way these days" arguments were weak and set me off.

    About the best you can do with server and game code is to obfuscate it so when someone decompiles code, they only get var a, b, c; instead of var myGameVar, myPurchaseVar, myExpVar, etc. Ultimately you won't be able to stop someone if they are determined enough. The only way is to change up the sensitive code areas with updates periodically to force them to decompile and figure it out again.

    With TF2's example, yes, they are doing things just right. As you mentioned Dreamora, the added threat of losing online play-ability of all of your Steam games just from screwing up and cheating on one game is enough to scare most from cheating. As with any game, you will want to implement your own methods for securing transfer of sensitive data and ensuring that data is properly validated on the server side. Minecraft is another interesting example where he gives people the server code and people make their own servers, but his client and server software is "cloud enabled" in that it has to contact his servers to fetch character skin data. The character skin data was the minimum reason he created to keep average people from just passing the game around. I'm sure there are probably hacked clients and servers out there. But with his constant updates and additions to the game, they quickly become outdated.

    And now I've gone off topic. We should make a thread dedicated to server-client security talk. :)