Back-End Management Suggestions

[Damoxes]

Hey Everybody,

I am a Systems Engineer for a large hospital that just happens to love games, and I've not only noticed how great of a job the staff did to make this game what it is, I also noticed some small things that can be done to make the user experience for everyone just that much better. The suggestions I am making are not unrealistic, and can be implemented with custom scripts that I have already written and methods that would cost little to no money at all. I'd first like to go over a the things that I really love, and ways I think they can be improved, and then go over the implementation separately.

 

So far, I think as far as game design goes, nothing can be improved. To be completely honest, I truly believe the guys at Nintendo would hire you guys on the spot just on the work you have done so far. If the creator of this game isn't already in the business - they're missing out. In fact, most of the beef I have with the game is purely architecture. (BTW I understand we are still in BETA, these are just a few pain points I noticed that can be solved quickly)

 

1 The server goes down and stays down for hours.

 

2 As far as I've seen, 250 people seems to be the load the server can handle.

 

3 There are a LOT of repeated questions on the IRC - I know this is hard on both parties involved.

 

4 The staff seems ill equipped to handle the needs of the people.( This is nobodies fault at all, and for the record the staff do a great job of managing and assisting the players in game and out o the game.)

 

The fact is, these are all easy to fix. The team behind the game seems savvy enough to get it done, but I would love the chance to throw in my two cents on the issue and how I would go about solving it. There are also ways to not only solve your issue, but go beyond and turn it into a chance to blow the community away with an even more polished feature.

 

 

1 This is one of the more complicated fixes and where I can offer some of my knowledge. Depending on what OS you use or your server, it could be as easy as setting a bash script to close and restart your server every 4-5 hours or 15 minutes or so. This can be done on timers and would also clear up the chance that it would crash even after a restart. You even get the added benefit of clearing any memory leaks that may have resulted from all of the pokemon encounters and game instances. This would also depend on how you have your server set up, but Unity has a pretty straight forward networking layout when it comes to the way servers are usually run. I'm confident there would be no issues no matter the OS.

 

2 It seems either your hardware is outdated, which I doubt, or you don't have the bandwidth to support the user base anymore. Either way, hosted solutions are typically better on your wallet and your community. Most co-located data centers, and really all data centers in general have 1 gig up and down connections. They can also provide server hardware to host all of your application for a small price. OVH is a great one that I recommend!

 

3 I really believe the IRC and game client can bed modified to make the jobs of your staff a lot easier, and the players a lot happier. I do not have experience with KIWI IRC, but I know a ew IRC clients that allow for user scripting, that have all of the tools needed for custom commands such as server status, FAQ responses etc. This can also be integrated into your game to clear any doubt as to what is going on with the game.

 

4 First of all, the staff seem GREAT. The only issue is that as it stands now, they can't really manage the server to allow for 100% up-time. I haven't really seen what they can do in-game, I'm sure they have more power there, it would be nice to know that somebody else was able to save the day sometimes when the big boss is away. This can be done safely with telnet server wrapper to allow for simple pre scripted commands to be run. I have a few saved on my google drive that I can share specifically for Linux OS's, but this can also be done through Microsofts Active Directory. All you would need to do is set DA's and create super users who can access very specific parts of your server(Block them from player files)

 

If you would like me to expand upon any of my points, please feel free to ask and I will be happy to answer. I do not know the working of the back-end of this server, so I'm not saying that all o this is the answer, only what it looks like from a users perspective who has gone through similar issues. Thanks for reading and I can't wait to hear your responses :)