On January 6, 2001, Elrac said:
If you're dirt poor but have flat-rate Internet access, then
simply run the server on your own PC and keep it connected to
the Internet 24/7. Depending on how much data your game
transfers and how fast your modem is, this may be enough for 1
player, for 10 or for (less likely) 100.
In order for people to find your game's address, you'll need
to put up a Web site on a free Web site host, where you can
advertise your game and include a link to the current IP
address of your PC. If this changes (this is quite likely if
your connection is temporarily interrupted), you'll have to
update the address in your Web page.
If you don't want to keep updating your Web page when your
address changes, you can use a service like DynIP to give you
a permanent Web address (such as: Harastonia.dynip.com) which
will be automatically redirected to your PC's address,
whatever that may be. I used it for a year and was happy with
it, but I think $40 a year is a bit steep. There are other
services doing similar things, but I don't have addresses or
names for them. Dynip's address is (would you have guessed?) www.dynip.com
.
If you can afford it and your player base is large enough to
justify it, move to a real Internet service provider. One
place I used to deal with, specializing in online (text!)
games, is www.mudservices.com
. Astonia spent about half a year with AdGrafix,
and I still have a small Web and game site there, for $39 per
month. Be aware that the operating systems offered by various
ISPs differ: Some give you NT, some Linux and some (like
AdGrafix) Solarix (a kind of UNIX). To run a game on a rented
server, you either need the server all to yourself ($hundreds)
or a virtual (shared) server like mine, with Telnet access and
the ability to run compilers and other programs. There are
many providers offering such services. Search the Net for
"virtual server" or "server hosting".
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