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What Is World Hosting?

The Basics, Frobozz Style

An AW world is a VR environment where visitors can interact with each other and with the environment. The world service handles messages between visitors (chat and sequences) and maintains the world's attribute database, build database, and terrain database. A world service can only connect to one Uniserver at a time, but can run any number of worlds in that "universe". Some of the basic attributes such as size (land area) and visitor limit is controlled by the Uniserver. You will need a world license from the Uniserver administrator for each world you want to run.

When The Frobozz Magic Hosting Company hosts your world(s) you will get your own instance of the world service running on your own private port. This will allow you to run the remote administration tool yourself. This tool will let you to add (for which you have a license) or delete worlds. You will be able to backup and restore the database set for each of your worlds to your local PC any time you like. Thus, you'll have the power to completely change the look and feel of your world by backing up the present database set, then building anew. By keeping several different sets of databases, you can switch between them by restoring the desired database set to your world. Backing up and restoring your world database set through the remote administration tool is quicker and more complete than using a bot.

Quite simply, all that Frobozz does is set up and run the world service for you. Then give you the tools so you can do the rest yourself. Of course technical support is always available. And if you like, I can get your first world(s) running before passing control to you.

What Is Involved?

After receiving your order for world hosting, and getting some basic information from you, I will:

Step 1: Create twin folders on my primary and backup Internet servers, then install your instance of the world service software on both and properly configure the world.ini file on both.

Step 2: Either using world license information you provide (world name and password) or a test world (if in the ActiveWorlds "universe"), I start your world service on each of the servers. Passing control back and forth to check that all is functional and that the database cross-linking is working properly.

Step 3: I package up the remote administration tool, along with its customized admin.ini file, into a self-extracting zip and e-mail it to you with some installation instructions. Additionally, if you also have the OP service from Frobozz, I will put a copy of your admin tool and the instructions in the root folder of your FTP account.

Step 4: Provide help as needed to get you started and keep you going.

The Information I Need To Get Started

Uniserver connection data: Which "universe" will your world be running in? If it is a Uniserver I'm not familiar with, I'll need the host name for the Uniserver (or IP address) and its port number. The simplest is to just provide the world service software installation package from the Uniserver administrator. The Frobozz Magic Hosting Company has hosted worlds in: ActiveWorlds, CyberNet Worlds, and Dreamland Park.

World setup: If you want me to do the initial setup of your world(s), I'll need the name and password for each world (the world password is assigned by the Uniserver administrator). And the citizen number of the caretaker(s) for each world. You can easily change caretakers later.

Finally, I need full contact data for the person(s) who will be responsible for the world's content: A real name, online name, address and phone number where they can be reached in a reasonable amount of time (a PO Box or work address and phone number is fine), and a stable e-mail address. Additionally, the responsible person(s) needs to read the Terms of Service and Acceptible Use Policy document and agree to it. If the actual world owner (as defined by the Uniserver administrator) is different, I really should know the real name, online name and stable e-mail address for them as well. And finally, if someone else is paying for the service (and anticipates continuing to pay for it as renewal comes up), then at least a name and stable e-mail address would be very useful. I consider the responsible person(s) my primary customer, my responsibility is to them and their wishes override the wishes of others.

I value your privacy . Discover what I do with this information.

What Does World Hosting Cost?

There is a one-time setup fee of $5 (US) for each instance of the world service you purchase.

The low annual fee for running the world service is based on server resources (disk, RAM, and CPU cycles) and bandwidth usage. All are minimal, but not zero. Running more worlds does take more resources. Therefore, a world service running zero through five worlds costs $25 (US) per year. And six through ten worlds costs $45 (US) per year. Obviously this is per instance of the world service.

World hosting customers are not also required to purchase object path hosting.

 

Ready to order world hosting ?

Questions? Contact me .

Or learn about object path hosting and the cost.

Payment

Pay me securely with any major credit card or checking account transfer through PayPal using the e-mail address:

I also accept mailed payments via check or postal money order drawn in US funds as well as Western Union. Please see the contact me popup for mailing address.

Odds And Ends

The world service logs are presently not available remotely. Build 66 (and recent previous builds) of the world service does not "break off" a separate log file each day. So the only available file is the active file, which the world service adds to at the bottom and deletes from at the top (to keep it from growing forever). My FTP service software (IpSwitch) refuses to allow a download of this file because another process has it open for writing. This is a feature, heaven forbid a file might change in the middle of a download!

Until I find a solution that allows you to manage your own world logs, if you suspect funny business in your world(s) and want to view the log file, give me a holler quick. On a busy world service only about 24 hours of log data is kept.

The log data for all worlds running on a single world service gets mushed up together in a single file. No chat or whisper data appears in the file, but citizen number, privilege number, IP address, and entry/exit times do appear, as well as if anything was said or whispered, just not what was said or whispered.