New efforts!

[Ironwolf]

Please no political remarks - I could respond as well and then the flame wars commence.

Not everyone here is a liberal/progressive/socialist.

I personally am a fiscal conservative and only one person has mentioned a plan to erase the $19 trillion in national debt. I tend to be socially more lenient than others but fiscally if you can't pay for it - don't buy it - Dave Ramsey school of thought.

[Linuial]

That's why I kind of give the reports of NCSoft offering to license a "server image" a sideways glance. NCSoft doesn't have a single image with everything on it. They never could have, because all the pieces never ran on the same server at once. I can only assume that someone is simplifying things for reporting purposes and what was being talked about was actually a set of images, or perhaps the filestore containing all of the components that got deployed to severs to update them to a new issue release.

Interesting.  Did anyone mention how much NCSoft wanted for such a license?  (Even if it were speculation...) 

[Arcana]

I personally am a fiscal conservative and only one person has mentioned a plan to erase the $19 trillion in national debt.

I'm a Taurus and its a sad day when I have to consider the fact that talking about basic fundamental arithmetic errors could be seen as a political discussion.

[Angel Phoenix77]

Interesting.  Did anyone mention how much NCSoft wanted for such a license?  (Even if it were speculation...)

From what I remember, there was no mention of a dollar amount, just the price us doable.

[Arcana]

Interesting.  Did anyone mention how much NCSoft wanted for such a license?  (Even if it were speculation...)

Codewalker is making a technical statement, not commenting on insider knowledge of negotiations.  It has often been stated publicly that there were talks involved in acquiring a "server image" but none of the server shards we played on could possibly have been contained in anything singular like an "image."  Not a server disk image, not a backup image, our infrastructure was too distributed for a singular footprint.  However, that could simply be someone misspeaking a plural as a singular.  Server images is possible, especially if the servers were virtualized.

It is worth noting, as I often do, that when people guess, or worse when they just make stuff up, they often lack certain fundamental knowledge of how things are that they don't think is particularly important.  It is those errors that knowledgeable people use to spot fabrications.  When these are pointed out, the fabricators never go down quietly: they will rigorously defend their errors as misunderstandings or unimportant details.  I don't know how successful this is in convincing those not knowledgeable, but it has a zero percent success rate on the actually knowledgeable.  It doesn't seem to stop people from making stuff up, though.

[Linuial]

I was actually daydreaming for a moment ( my paycheck was on time, but my bonus is late, so I'm being slightly passive-aggressive by posting here instead of working) about a sting operation to infiltrate Austin, Tx and get the game servers/equipment back - but then I'd have no idea how to get it working again.

Me, too.  However, a bunch of 2012 hardware?  Set up to run all the servers?  Sold, or reused.  Nobody is going to have stuff like that just sitting around in a warehouse.  Anything sitting in a warehouse is too old to get it running again.  Anything actually running in 2012 would be sold for what they can get for it, or shipped to another installation, and wiped.  Even if you found such a bounty, it would have to be housed, electricity and a/c paid for, and the...oh, heck...something a lot bigger than a T-1 line set up and paid for.  Routers.  Switches.  None of those would be left behind.  Server racks.  LOTS of money. 

[Linuial]

  N mapserver instances to run "the game" where N is a dynamically changing but often pretty big number.

Mapservers were dynamic?  Interesting...

[Arcana]

Mapservers were dynamic?  Interesting...

Well, the way I meant it that isn't as interesting a fact as all that.  When the servers are first booted up, say after maintenance, there's no one logged into them.  Therefore, there can't be any mapserver processes running instanced maps.  The only mapserver instances running at that moment would be the ones running the shared zones.  But as players log in, mapserver processes would have to be allocated to running the missions those players enter.  That number changes over time.  It is possible that when the players leave a mission the mapserver stays running and waits for new load to run, or it shuts down and restarts when necessary, but either way the total number of mapservers running would have to change as the number of players running missions changed, at least from start up.  That would be true not just for CoH, but for any MMO with a comparable architecture.

I suppose it is possible to make an MMO where all the total number of mapservers runnable start at startup and stay running and are allocated to workload as necessary, making that number static, but that seems inefficient.

[Linuial]

Well, the way I meant it that isn't as interesting a fact as all that.  When the servers are first booted up, say after maintenance, there's no one logged into them.  Therefore, there can't be any mapserver processes running instanced maps.  The only mapserver instances running at that moment would be the ones running the shared zones.  But as players log in, mapserver processes would have to be allocated to running the missions those players enter.  That number changes over time.  It is possible that when the players leave a mission the mapserver stays running and waits for new load to run, or it shuts down and restarts when necessary, but either way the total number of mapservers running would have to change as the number of players running missions changed, at least from start up.  That would be true not just for CoH, but for any MMO with a comparable architecture.

I suppose it is possible to make an MMO where all the total number of mapservers runnable start at startup and stay running and are allocated to workload as necessary, making that number static, but that seems inefficient.

"How many programmers does it take to change a lightbulb?  None, that's a hardware issue."  ;-) 

I'm used to seeing people chat about "the mapserver".  Just as it's easy to get the erroneous idea that a "server" such as Liberty is a piece of hardware, the "shard" terminology is clearer, and so is the term "mapserver processes". 

Just trying to wrap my head around it.  I've been away from the Titan forums since the shutdown, and there is a massive amount of reading to catch up on...  :-O 

[adarict]

Me, too.  However, a bunch of 2012 hardware?  Set up to run all the servers?  Sold, or reused.  Nobody is going to have stuff like that just sitting around in a warehouse.  Anything sitting in a warehouse is too old to get it running again.  Anything actually running in 2012 would be sold for what they can get for it, or shipped to another installation, and wiped.  Even if you found such a bounty, it would have to be housed, electricity and a/c paid for, and the...oh, heck...something a lot bigger than a T-1 line set up and paid for.  Routers.  Switches.  None of those would be left behind.  Server racks.  LOTS of money.

That depends on the company.  The company I work for is a large multinational software company.  We have multiple large datacenters, plus our call centers.  We currently have a huge stack of old hardware that has been sitting around for at least 3 years, some probably longer.  They aren't using it for anything, have not wiped any of them, and have no plans to sell those assets off.  They are gradually being scavenged for parts for other equipment of similar age, that is still being actively used in things like our lab environments.  Eventually, the hardware will be scrapped, but that may take another couple of years.

Granted, in the case of my company, there is the potential for personally identifiable information on  those servers.  This means additional cost in order to scrap the hardware.  even if they just paid someone to sit on a loading dock and smash the platters with a hammer, it still means extra cost in order to get rid of the old hardware.  You right that any routers/switches etc have likely been re-used though.  When you talk about things like Routers and switches, those can last even longer.  You have no idea how many high-end routers that large companies will have still in active service that are a decade old.  NCSoft likely would not have the restriction of PII on anything other than possibly the account server itself.  That would mean it would be pretty simple to sell of or scrap the old hardware.  Still it doesn't ensure that they would have.  It is more than possible for the VM Hosts to just be sitting in a storage closet. 

All of that is kind of moot though.  I know that a good portion of the machines HAD been virtualized.  I had been told that when I had an interview with them at one point.  Granted, this was a hiring person, and maybe they were speaking out of their rear, but it would be logical for them to have virtualized as much as possible.  Even back then, virtualization was a popular thing in datacenters.  Much better for dynamic allocation, which CoH needed.  Otherwise you have the under populated servers costing you the same amount as the overutilized ones.  Assuming they DID just scrap them, it would have been nice to go dumpster diving around that time.  :)  correctly wiping machines can take effort.  A lot of the people tasked with such a thing, are probably low level people.  Much easier to just chuck them out than actually destroy the data in a way that it can't be easily recovered.  :)

[LaughingAlex]

I'm a Taurus and its a sad day when I have to consider the fact that talking about basic fundamental arithmetic errors could be seen as a political discussion.

As a person who dislikes extremists, well, I think it's pathetic that a man who said he "would not rule out nuking europe" after also saying "Bomb the hell out of them" in response to how he'd deal with the middle east, would be nominated.  After also saying "having nukes would be a game changer" and saying Japan should build nukes, he legitimately scares the hell out of me.  Even without the rest of the guys very bad words, and even if I was a conservative, he wouldn't have my vote.  Just his suggesting he'd launch is enough.

World doesn't need nuclear warmongers who over-react to the smallest mishaps and jokes at them.

Edit: Numbers is a pathetic political argument.  But the suggesting of using nukes is an even more pathetic argument.

[Mister Hassenpheffer]

@Mister Hassenpheffer

Love your avatar, Capt Carrot and his Amazing Zoo Crew was my favorite comicbook back in the day!

I used Pig Iron as my avatar for years until I ran into someone else who was using the same image.

Busted!   

You can always switch your avatar back to the The Swine of Steel, The Porcine Powerhouse.

If we ever get our game back, I feel an SG starting up :)

[slickriptide]

For reasons that are too hazy to recall well any more, I got interested in trying to track down the Ms. Liberty uniform worn by the Ms. Liberty trade show model. I learned that the costumes belonged to NCSoft and I messaged Matt Miller about it. He replied that it was most likely in a box in a warehouse collecting dust in some obscure corner.

Considering how quickly they shut down Paragon Studios, I have this niggling suspicion that wherever it is, that in that same warehouse there are a bunch of PC's, DVD-RW's, papers, leftover Heroclix and other assorted gimcracks bearing usable data about City of Heroes that were packed up from Paragon Studios and shoved into storage and forgotten.

The only question is where that warehouse is located.

[Taceus Jiwede]

Oh political!

Taceus for president.  That is all.

The only question is where that warehouse is located.

My first act or possibly last act of president will be to find that warehouse!

[Arcana]

As a person who dislikes extremists, well, I think it's pathetic that a man who said he "would not rule out nuking europe" after also saying "Bomb the hell out of them" in response to how he'd deal with the middle east, would be nominated.  After also saying "having nukes would be a game changer" and saying Japan should build nukes, he legitimately scares the hell out of me.  Even without the rest of the guys very bad words, and even if I was a conservative, he wouldn't have my vote.  Just his suggesting he'd launch is enough.

World doesn't need nuclear warmongers who over-react to the smallest mishaps and jokes at them.

Edit: Numbers is a pathetic political argument.  But the suggesting of using nukes is an even more pathetic argument.

I agree, but you could make the political argument that people support that particular candidate not because they think he will do all those things, but because they want someone in the White House who would be seen as capable of doing those things in order to bargain and negotiate from strength, even if it is crazy strength.  That is a legitimate, if scary, political argument.  I think it deserves to be debated respectfully.

But I think in a democracy there has to be space to at least analyze the proposals of all legitimate political candidates.  There are objective ways to analyze, say, a deficit reduction proposal.  If you say something like (and more than one presidential candidate over the years has said something like this) they wouldn't make cuts in Social Security, would institute reforms in Medicare without eliminating it, and yet reduce the Federal budget to certain levels, simple math can provide constraints on how much benefit that can provide, given large cuts to defense, no cuts to defense, and other cuts to discretionary spending.  Even those kinds of analyses which involve objective facts and simple arithmetic are often attacked on purely political grounds.  As if political leaning could influence the rules of subtraction.

As an example, whether we do anything about climate change, and what if anything, is ultimately a political question.  It is a values question.  There are no objective answers to that question, and thus it is a legitimate point of debate.  But when we let politicians decide what the facts of the situation will be, that's just wrong.  It isn't that scientists are always right, and it isn't that you can't disagree with current scientific consensus, but when you decide to pick and choose which parts of scientific consensus to agree with and which to disagree with solely based on your own political point of view that I think that is wrong.  This isn't a left or right problem.  Antivaxxers on the left have the same problem as anti-climate changers on the right.  The anti-GMO movement has both people on the left and the right.  We believe in a free press because we believe that a democracy only works when voters are educated and informed, and a free press is supposed to expose people to the commons of ideas and knowledge.  But the marketplace of ideas is full of both good ideas and bad ones, and it only works when we can discuss and evaluate them with as much freedom as those who offer to sell them to us are allowed to peddle them to us.  That's true for everything from the Higgs Boson to the (US) debt ceiling.

[Vee]

My first act or possibly last act of president will be to find that warehouse!

We have top men working on it right now. Top...men.

[rookery.]

And all I wanted to do was make a easy joke with some low hanging Donald Trump fruit.

/e shuffles off.

[TimtheEnchanter]

Ya know... if Donald Trump put restoring COX into his platform, that'd be YUGE!

Wouldn't happen. Surely he hates Supers. They give their time and effort for free, which makes them evil socialists, and he'd say the only reason they do it is because they can't get a real job.  :P

[Tubbius]

Oh political!

Taceus for president.  That is all.

My first act or possibly last act of president will be to find that warehouse!

It's the best little warehouse in Texas.

Oh.

Wait.

That was a. . . never mind.

[Arcana]

And all I wanted to do was make a easy joke with some low hanging Donald Trump fruit.

Marco Rubio already beat you to that one.