Back in the game

[BetaSteward]

Hi Team,

I just checked in and saw that the domain expired back in May. Sorry about all the trouble that caused but I'm glad to see that it was resolved.

I have some free time now but I've been out of the xMage game for a while and have forgotten a lot.

The one piece that I feel is missing, which is preventing wider adoption is a Launcher. A lot of potential users just don't have the technical skills to install and configure java or to fix a previous install what went wrong. A launcher is something that I could put together without too much ramp up time.

I see several features that a Launcher could provide:
1. downloading and installing the latest java in a known location
2. downloading and installing the latest xMage in a known location
3. downloading and installing the latest images and symbols
4. launching the client
5. launching the server, with or without an AI

There are a few design choices that need to be decided. Finding the latest version of java is not something that is easily determined programmatically. This also applies to xMage and images as well. This could be accomplished by having a config file on the server that the Launcher downloads on startup. The config file could have the location of the latest versions of java, xMage and images. The only drawback of this approach is that if the xMage domain is shutdown for any reason the launcher will not work.

The launcher could be packaged with known working versions of java for several OS's or it could rely on java already being installed on the client system. I prefer the first solution since it prevents the user from having to worry about getting java installed correctly.

Let me know what you think.

Regards,

BetaSteward

[LevelX]

Hello, long time no hear.

Nice to see you again active for XMage.

A installer is absolutely a missing feature.
Would be very nice if it would work for windows, mac and linux.

In my opinion is the missing server stability the problem that should be addressed first/with highest priority.
*) Dead locks because of synchronized methods - blocking chat, blocking leaving games, blocking ending games of exspired players.
*) Random disconnects (maybe adjust of JBoss Remoting parameters needed?)
*) Reconnect feature not always working
*) Tournaments and games not ending for different reasons


If you see any chance to help looking into this, that would be great. I can go more into detail if you are interested/able to help.

Regards
LevelX2

[BetaSteward]

Thanks. I'm glad to be back. You guys have done a great job with xMage.

Like I mentioned I've forgotten a lot about xMage and I suspect that it has changed a bit since my time so it may take a while to get up to speed. While that is happening I will work on a launcher.

For testing I have a Windows and a Linux machine at home and I could spin up an OSX VM to handle the mac side.

As for the stability problems I can take a look at them but it will take time to get familiar with the code again. Any info or servers logs that you have would be useful.

I'm thinking that it might be time for a redesign of the server. Perhaps we could break out some of the components into separate services. One for chat, another for tournaments and drafts, yet another for creating/tracking games and tables, and finally one or more for playing games. If done right we could make the game service scaleable so that it can run on multiple servers. I'm not sure if we have ever gotten to the point where the load was too much for one server to handle but if so we could handle extra capacity by adding more servers.

Regards,

BetaSteward

[LevelX]

Thanks for your reply.

Take all the time you need to get back into current Xmage.
At least it should be fun working on Xmage and not stressing.

I send you a link by gmail for access to the server logs of the 2014-09-13 release.
The server is running in log4j debug state for a lot of classes, so there is some information included.

If you need/want access to the server send me your public key by mail, and I can add it to the server.

CPU load does not seem to be a problem on the public server yet. The cpu load with ~15 games running and 40+ users online is all the time below 10%.

The data volume going in and out on the network side shouldn't be a problem either yet. So it's not clear to me, why the disconnects are happening so often.

Regards
LevelX2

[North]

I spent a small amount of though on redesigning the client-server communication but have now forgotten most of it. I think we should start a thread were we can gather the different things related to this and discuss solutions. This definitely looks like fun.

[LevelX]

With the latest updates the situation of the public server was improved.

I guess mainly the parameters I added to be changeable for JBoss Remoting (e.g. backlog size) have improved the connection stability a lot. Also I changed user handling a bit, what also helped.

Second I could update the public server to more CPUs (3 now) and to 4 GB Ram (1 before) without costing more money. So I raised memory for the XMage server 1, what also helps I guess.

Anyway there are problems left that should be analysed and resolved.
I use the Github issues with tag "Public Server" to gather information for the problems.