DC Server Back in Business!

[[AK]Palooka]

And better than ever! Or, at least as good as ever.

[[AK]FiGHT*CLuB]

Great news!... It was widely missed Palooka.. good work..

[[AK]Palooka]

One caveat, though. I'm thinking about having hours of operation for the game server. Perhaps 5 PM PST (8 EST) to 8 AM PST (11 EST) M-F and 24 hours per day Saturday and Sunday. Because I'm not being charged for bandwidth utilization, I'm expected to police it. Any thoughts?

[[AK]The Beast]

I'd prefer to see it start at 7 PM EST (4 PST) and end at 10 AM EST (7 PST). I'm more likely to play in the early evening than the early morning. In fact, on weekdays, wouldn't play at all past 1 or 2 in the morning Eastern time.

[[AK]Gunny Highway]

If it's not a big deal 7pm est would be nice, there are a couple of days a week that I hop on around 7pm but I will make do with whatever is best for you. After all you provide us with a great server.

[[AK]Abaddon]

I'm cool with any time your needs require here, Palooka. That's a hefty monthly fee you are paying to run the server.

BTW - we need a server update to the AK news page so folks don't get confused. :-)

Thanks,

[[AK]Faxman]

Any times are fine by me.

[[AK]Devil_Dog]

Whatever you Gentlemen think is best is fine by me!!!!

[[AK]Squidly]

The 7pm EST start time would be cool, but if undoable I can live with 8pm as well.

If we implement limited hours of operation, we should post it in the "message crawl" as well as update the FAQ.

[[AK]Palooka]

Right now, the hours will be 4 PM PST to 4 AM PST. I'm going to keep an eye on the bandwidth utilization and adjust the hours as needed.

The server will always start and stop at precisely 4 PM and 4 AM, respectively, since a cronjob will be taking care of it.

[[AK]FiGHT*CLuB]

lol I was about to post that server was down.
I play all differant times. From 7am to 3am.. I really hope this doesnt affect the popularity of the server...

Now I have to find other servers to play on as many others will. Im actually surprised that bf takes that much bandwith. If I remember correcty, that was one of there big selling points for bf, was the way the code was writen for multiplayer...

[[AK]Bribo]

If Beast continues running his DC server you could simply just switch to his server during off-hours.

[[AK]Palooka]

Look at this usage graph:



I shut down the bf1942 server a little after 8 AM, and as you can see, the usage dropped down to nothing, demonstrating that almost all of the bandwidth I use is sucked down by the bf1942 server. From the time the bf1942 server went live yesterday evening to the time I shut it down this morning, the bandwidth usage was very high. Since most AKers are not benefitted during off hours,when most players are European (I don't even like Europeans), I don't see any reason to keep it online, especially when it will cost me more.

I don't think the hours of operation will seriously hurt the server's popularity with Americans. It filled up almost immediately after it went live last night and stayed that way until I stopped it.

[[AK]Devil_Dog]

That's a pretty cool graph Palooka!
Nothing against our counter parts in Europe, but if it can save you money then that's the way the grenade bounces...

[[AK]Palooka]

I'm experimenting with limiting the bf1942 server's bandwidth to 2048 Kbps and the client bandwidth to 56 Kbps. The latter may be a bit low, but I've read testimonies from people who have cut the client bandwidth from 128 or better to 56 without a complaint. It's certainly worth a try; this has a good chance of greatly diminishing my bandwidth utilization.