I had a thought, after reading the bandwidth probs - Maybe cut down some costs? (tmyapp)

[viper2040]

In one of the topics pinned to the top of the forum, you said that 35,000 hits per week, 8 megs per hit meant 900 gigs per month. Well, many of those hits come from people who only wish to socialize, not play. Thats 8 megs down the drain, per social butterfly. Why not turn one of the game chat servers into a pure chat server, with its own link, so they could bypass downloading the game and save a few megs.

IE, on the main page, there would be a "Chat" button within the "start" button, along side "download" and "mirror 1". This "chat" button would only load up the chatroom, and challenges would not work there. You could keep the same setup, with the "join" and "host" buttons, and just disable them (save some work). That way, people who just want to socialize wont be draining our precious bandwidth.

What u think? Of course, you'd have to see if people would even use it, but in general, what do u think?

EDIT--just had a thought...i know what you're probably gonna say, but.....here goes. Why not turn those hits into an asset? If the game gets into BAD troubles again, then consider TEMPORARILY adding some banner ads, JUST UNTIL THE TROUBLE GOES AWAY. Or maybe having banner ads up for 1 or 2 months to get your equipment into tip top shape. Banners arent all that bad...

[DX Zero]

lol ...

why not make the link to chat to server 1 but they cant fight ?

[viper2040]

true, he could do that, but one server should be for fighting alone, and not have damn spammers/flooders there. They go in the chat server :biggrin:

[TMyApp]

... no banners... (noffin can change this... EVER... so lets just drop it) :biggrin:

now... we would need ANOTHER chat server (we're running low on em already)... and, i'd need to know that a LOT of people would like/use this feature...

until then... it will just have to remain as an "idea" :biggrin:

[ssj2trunks52]

I like the Idea.....

[SSJKarma]

you know, if you want PURE chat servers, there is always IRC like web chat that can be used on the different servers !

as what i consider good, any person with a good CABLE connection can do a chat server as there is not much sending in those !
if i had UNLIMITED and 24/7 cable connection, i would gladly want to be a CHAT ONLY server !
but the bad side, is that i am on a damn 33,6 !

as for the banner, players will just be using AD-KILLERS which mean it won't be that much helping, thoo i'm with TMYAPP. BANNER will ony make people mad.
it's better without em.

for the rest, i think you're right VIPER, but there is not much people that can dedicate such servers, and for the past 6 months, all 3 servers have been being used even late in the nights !# which means LOTS more SERVER are needed ! but not much persons can dedicate it and TMY is running low on ressources !

i was talking about servers TMY not about your financial situation !

[nosoul4evr]

Im with Karma on this one....sorta.

There are tons of FREE chat services out there...But there is a problem with these services though.....Not everybody uses the same IM service...so getting/keeping in touch with some one can be a pain.

Senshuk tried a chat...it flopped...so Quass added a trivia bot to the chat...it got more use...but was still not over whelmingly popular as a whole.

X-Force 2010 has a public chat...it aint a happenin' thing.
The only time it gets any use that I have seen. Is when I need to have a meeting with more than 1 person....We'd meet in the X-Force chat, since we all dont share the same IM service provider.

"Just chatting" isnt all that popular around here...because people chat for a bit..then fight a few rounds then chat for a bit,fight a few more rounds,chat,etc. etc. etc. most dont just come here to "chat"...they come for the fight as well as to chat.

However in my humble opinion..the "player enters/leave","player challenged by player" text should be displayed in a "thin" single line text block. That is located just above the main chat field.

This "kinda simple" change to the game chat. Would clean up the entire main chat field making it possible to actualy "chat", with out having to constantly be scrolling and "reading between the lines" in order to carry on a conversation.

Since TMy already put the "kabosh" on the "public chat" idea.(for now)
If people are coming to XvsSF just to chat...and not to fight,
Why dont ya come on over to X-Force 2010 and utilize it's FREE chat,and save TMy some band width.(kinda)
NOTE: If ya double click a users name in the chat...you can send them private messages with out the public seeing!( not like anyones in there anyways. :D )

(There are some "game bots" for the chat...i "may" look into adding one of these some time next year.)

However I do have an idea about the chat that "might" help cut band width.( i use the term "might" VERY loosly).

IDEA:
Players hit the game page...
Load a "very" small portion of the game (just the stuff neccessary to operate/get you to the chat room.)
Change the "Quick Game" button to a "Load Game" button. Players that log into the chat room would then have the option to "chat" or "Load the game".
If they opt to "Load Game", THEN they would begin the process of D/L'ing the rest of the nessecary files to play the game. After they are finished loading the game. The "Load Game" button would convert into our current "Quick Game" button, and would then operate normaly.

Theres my 2 cents...what do ya think?

(If people would start playing the game off their cache, instead of D/L'ing the game everytime they visit XvsSF, or started using the down loadable version of the game instead. THAT would save TMy,Lefty,Zing,Quass,(who ever else I forgot) ALOT of bandwidth!)

[Roll]

That's...pretty good, NoSoul... But, I still like having the idea of having a chat seperated from the people who don't want to chat. I mean, those people usually get annoyed and start telling people to stop chatting and start fighting. Then there are those who just say "Come fight me" over and over and over. They won't stop until someone agree's or until they leave. When they leave, they usually come back and repeat the process until they get their wish (and they usually do). So, a seperate chat would be good because of this.

....I wish beseen were up though, then I could give us a chat to use... :(

[viper2040]

NoSoul, what a great idea. I came up with a similar idea right before i saw yours, and then became disappointed that my idea wasnt origional :biggrin: seriously, though, why even load a small part of the game? there could be a load game button on the main shockwave page.

Or, the game could load the first time a player accepts or sends a challenge (but that could cause problems, as some people take forever to load)

Oh, and awesome banner, DXzero. But of course, noone here uses marijuana, do we now :biggrin:

(no i dont, but whatever. Its still a damn cool plant)