The Frobozz Magic Hosting Company -- do it yourself

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The Frobozz Magic Hosting Company
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World And Object Path Hosting For VR Worlds Using AW Technology

Do Your Own Hosting:

The simplest is what might be called solo hosting. That is, you set up your world and OP so that only you can visit, even though your world is in a public "universe". Why would anyone want to do this? If you are under some severe budget constraints, solo hosting can give you some time to work on your world, and your only cost is the world license fee. A rather severe downside is that if you've just spent hours perfecting a custom object, or a really awesome build, there is no way to share it with anyone. That will have to wait until your world (or your budget) is ready for the Grand Opening. Solo hosting does require that your PC be connected to the Internet while your world is running, but a dial-up works terrifically. Learn how you to set up a PC for solo hosting

your world and object path.

If you have dial-up, you can publicly host your world on your PC, then let someone else host your object path. Because the world service does not use much bandwidth, you can do this on a slow connection as long as your world is limited to a handful of visitors at a time. It would probably be best to discuss running a lightweight server with your ISP. You can stress that it will only be active a few hours a day, it is low bandwidth, and if they want to know what it does you can describe it as something like IRC (Internet Relay Chat), but with 3D objects — which will be hosted elsewhere.

There are two issues: Getting your service canceled by your ISP because you violated their Terms of Service (this is typically the providence of cable companies though, not dial-up ISPs). Also, they may have a feature where they block incoming connections to protect you from malicious hackers (again, if any class of ISP is doing this, it is typically the cable companies, although some DSL providers are starting to do this too). Technical details are discussed on the public hosting

page. Of course if you want your world running 24/7, you'll need a different kind of connection than dial-up.

Trying to host the object path on dial-up will be very painful to your visitors. If you have a dedicated friends with a lot of patience, it might work. However, if you have two or more visitors enter your world at the same time, it will become very apparent that your OP is slower 'n a dead hound dog on a lazy afternoon. Part of the problem is how 56k modems work. The uplink speed can never exceed 33.6 Kbps, even under perfect conditions. This is the best speed your visitors will ever see.

If you want to run a public server 24/7, or you want to host your object path, you'll first need the right kind of connection. This connection will need three attributes: 1, the uplink speed needs to be adequate. 2, things will work the smoothest if you have a static, publicly routeable IP address. 3, you really, really need an ISP that won't pull your plug once they discover you are running a server.

First, do not ignore ISP acceptance. If Mega Cable Conglomerate is the only way to get broadband in your city, and their Terms of Service forbids running any kind of server, and they catch you (and tracking down a OP server is child's play), they could cancel your account and refuse to reconnect you. If you are faced with this, it would probably be best to negotiate with them for permission to at least run the world server (a low bandwidth service), but you may have to have them run the OP server, for extra money of course. Any web server will work for this.

Simpler is just finding a broadband provider who will allow you to run a server in the first place.

Second, you will need some uplink speed. A quality some broadband offerings lack (the big sales point is the downlink speed, uplink rarely gets mentioned). An uplink speed of 128 kbps is blazing fast if you only want to run the world service (and will put your OP somewhere else), but can get kind of sluggish for an OP if you have three or more people enter your world at the same time. An uplink speed of 256 Kbps should be adequate for a small handful of worlds. Also, if you want to run your world 24/7 you really should get a broadband provider who not only offers "always on" service, but will give you at least one static IP address.

I've been shopping broadband access for my daughter (at college). It seems to meet these first two points, in the USA you need to be spending $50 per month or more on DSL. There are always exceptions though.

Finally, if you are connecting several PCs to your broadband modem using a router running NAT (Network Address Translation), you'll need to properly configure your router (and have one that can be properly configured), but this is the easy part.

Ok, so you already have a decent connection. Or this all seems so amazingly cool that you don't mind getting a decent connection. Here is how to do public hosting

of both the world and object path.

Naturally, I hope you'll choose to host your world and object path with The Frobozz Magic Hosting Company. If feel if you understand what is involved, you'll be able to make a better decision.

Quick Navigation:
The Frobozz Magic Internet Companies , home.
The Frobozz Magic Hosting Company , hosting home.
	Don't want just a world? Here are some other choices .
	Do you want to do it? Learn to host your own world and object path.
		Self Hosting: Solo hosting lets you to run a world and OP for your own use.
		Self Hosting: A little more complex, public hosting lets others visit your world.
	Let Frobozz do it: The resources to do the job, get the details .
	Let Frobozz do it: What to expect from world hosting and the cost.
	Let Frobozz do it: What to expect from object path hosting and the cost.
	Let Frobozz do it: The Terms of Service agreement.
	Let Frobozz do it: News and announcements in The New Zork Times .
	For world owners and world builders: The resources you need.
The Frobozz Magic Objects Company , objects home.
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This page last edited 06-Apr-03.