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Lasher · 08-31-2007, 02:13 PM

These cover a fraction of the professionalism of a game, all but one related to the physical stability of the server.

Does there need to be? If there does, is that a good sign or bad? Open to debate.

How far do you take that? I know of at least one very high profile MUD that thought their backups were being taken daily but their provider at the time hadn't tested any backups and they weren't good. I know of another down for a week while an entire city was without power (Hurricane Charley, ouch).

You would also need:
- What is your retention schedule for backups?
- How often are backups taken off-site? Where?
- How often do you do a test restore of backups?

Also valuable, but shared/dedicated only goes so far.
- "Do you have a written security practice for your server?".
- "Do you do your own penetration testing?"
- "What is your disclosure policy on any successful hacks that may occur?"
- "How do you protect yourselves from DDOS attacks?"

System operators don't care about your mud. Your mud could be frozen and they don't care if the server looks healthy. Exceptions might be the hosting companies that specialize in MUDs such as Wolfpaw. Needs to be elaborated:
- Test the MUD can be reached.
- Test the pfile checksums are all intact (you do have checksums right?)
- Can you login?
- Is its heartbeat (or equivalent) running?

The number of bps isn't really relevant without knowing the type of MUD, average online, etc. More useful for a player to know about latency, rate of connection "drops" (often ignored by hosting companies as it doesn't affect web sites if links drops but can immediately reconnect). A non-ANSI MUSH needs much lower bandwidth for 100 players than an ANSI/RIP mud with color overhead map feeding a custom made java client.

As for h/w failures, you could argue that the person running the mud out of their basement on a cable modem is in a better position than anyone here assuming they have another machine in the house somewhere.

Not trying to give you a hard time, as a CISSP (its a security cert) this stuff is interesting to me, but in terms of judging a MUD's professionalism this seems to have a massive bias towards availability over everything else that comes into play in the day to day running of the MUD itself.

As with most of the other recent discussions, we could add dozens of categories and there'd still be missing information.

08-31-2007, 02:13 PM	#27
Lasher Administrator Join Date: May 2005 Name: Derek Location: Orlando Posts: 357	Re: Professional vs Hobbyist These cover a fraction of the professionalism of a game, all but one related to the physical stability of the server. Does there need to be? If there does, is that a good sign or bad? Open to debate. How far do you take that? I know of at least one very high profile MUD that thought their backups were being taken daily but their provider at the time hadn't tested any backups and they weren't good. I know of another down for a week while an entire city was without power (Hurricane Charley, ouch). You would also need: - What is your retention schedule for backups? - How often are backups taken off-site? Where? - How often do you do a test restore of backups? Also valuable, but shared/dedicated only goes so far. - "Do you have a written security practice for your server?". - "Do you do your own penetration testing?" - "What is your disclosure policy on any successful hacks that may occur?" - "How do you protect yourselves from DDOS attacks?" System operators don't care about your mud. Your mud could be frozen and they don't care if the server looks healthy. Exceptions might be the hosting companies that specialize in MUDs such as Wolfpaw. Needs to be elaborated: - Test the MUD can be reached. - Test the pfile checksums are all intact (you do have checksums right?) - Can you login? - Is its heartbeat (or equivalent) running? The number of bps isn't really relevant without knowing the type of MUD, average online, etc. More useful for a player to know about latency, rate of connection "drops" (often ignored by hosting companies as it doesn't affect web sites if links drops but can immediately reconnect). A non-ANSI MUSH needs much lower bandwidth for 100 players than an ANSI/RIP mud with color overhead map feeding a custom made java client. As for h/w failures, you could argue that the person running the mud out of their basement on a cable modem is in a better position than anyone here assuming they have another machine in the house somewhere. Not trying to give you a hard time, as a CISSP (its a security cert) this stuff is interesting to me, but in terms of judging a MUD's professionalism this seems to have a massive bias towards availability over everything else that comes into play in the day to day running of the MUD itself. As with most of the other recent discussions, we could add dozens of categories and there'd still be missing information.