Response to Mintopia Ambassador
Posted by Zachary Carter
on 26 May 2008, 6:18:43 am
Back on the old website before we lost it, I posted a detailed response to a post on the Prometheus Stargate Network website. I have decided to re-post my response, to clarify some issues people may have.
The torch for in-world Stargate networks is being carried by the Alteran Network, a good effort by Zach to make an extensive network.
It then proceeds to criticisms of our project, which I would like to de-bunk if possible, and if not explain why those criticisms are true or needed.
There is too much internal conflict. The ASN/PSGN team have really fallen apart during my absence, and this disheartens me.
This is true. Due to disagreements about how Eternal Calm was run the ASN left Eternal Calm. However, if the PSGN would be willing to work together again in the future, we would have no problem with it.
Some of the staff had changed between the ASGN and ASN, but we took the most contributing members and compiled them to form a stable network.
The entire layout, design and especially the content seems heavily inspired by this site. Whilst I am flattered, it is slightly annoying.
I am truly sorry for this, Mintopia. My original website when that was posted was heavily based off of Mintopia's design. However, after reading the post I decided to redesign the website to what it is now, which was purely of my own concepts.
In the quest to be canonical, he has reduced the size of the gates to match the 22ft that they are in the show. This is bad for a few reasons. Firstly, existing gate tech, like the Puddle Jumper by Reyo, does not fit through the smaller gate, and secondly, it does not take into account that avatars and item and buildings in Second Life are generally about 25% larger than their real-life counterparts.
Yes, most items in Second Life are 25% larger. However if we want to be as canon as possible and replicate the gates, the correct size is needed. Existing gate tech has been moving to the "actual" size in meters lately, including the SGC by Reyo Neutra.
Server Resources: A gate network has huge server resources, to maintain any kind of smooth continuity of service, using XmlHttpRequest, you need each gate to poll the server every 5 seconds or so. With 300 gets, this is approx. 60 queries a second. This takes a substantial amount of bandwidth, CPU and RAM. The PHP code must be extremely efficient for this to work even remotely successfully and I find it incredible to believe that MySQL even copes well under this strain. Unfortunately I have my doubts over the Zach's coding abilities to produce efficient code.
To keep our gates using as little resources as possible, we slowed the check-in time to 5 minutes. We figured with the built-in delete functions (with effects, mind you) and the fallbacks if a gate cannot be contacted, that the time would be fine. It is true that my PHP skills are not quite up to Mintopia's levels, but I have been learning ways from several people (eg. Lex Mars, Ash Qin) on ways to improve my PHP code. All in all, I think my current code is efficient enough for its current use.
Server Hosting: Servers for a service like this should be hosted in datacenters with redundant power supplies and connectivity. Having downtime because you forgot to update the dyndns record is just unacceptable. Not to mention the level of traffic the network requires. Home ADSL is not a good idea!
In order to keep our network completely free, we had to cut costs. Mintopia I believe has the server Prometheus available for things besides the Stargate network. If we are ever to come into money where a server could be purchased, it will be done. Until then, our fail-safes (such as a UPS I plan on buying, and cronjobs that monitor the server's IP address) have provided us with decent uptime.
UPDATE
After 18 February 2008, the gates were moved to a static IP server hosted at Subnova Core
Changing domain and project name every few months, along with making new characters (Christos Mousehold, Zachary Carter and others), changing important aspects of a communications protocol between two networks, gets tiresome, quickly.
This has been one of my weak points. We have changed project names 3 times since starting (not every few months, by far) including the Abydos Stargate Network, Arcturus Stargate Network, and now the Alteran Stargate Network. My account has also changed several times because of abuse by other members of Second Life, but should not be happening anymore.
The aspects of the communication protocols were changed only slightly, and that was to make way for new features / quicker ways of doing things. When a developer of the opposite network is absent for a substantial period of time, we had no option but to move forward.
There a few more common pitfalls that Zach could fall into with his network, but I hope he works out a way to overcome them, as SL needs a good Stargate network.
Yes, Second Life does. I hope to not fall into more pitfalls, and I think I've crawled my way out of many with the help of others. I hope to carry on what you originally started with the Prometheus Stargate Network. You also have the credit of being the first person who created a Stargate Network in Second Life and the person who gave me ideas to create my own.
Zachary Carter
