NiHao Studios Growth

This week has been interesting to say the least.

As well as having been a very busy week, this previous week has also been a fruitful week with 3 new additions to the NiHao Studios team.

Chris (Grimthorn), Caroline, and Jane have joined the NiHao Studios team to fill their specialist field positions.

This makes life a little easier for me from the head person's point of view, yet it also adds to it new challenges, more responsibilities, and a little more to be concerned with on a daily basis.

Its a funny thing...
One brings in more people to make one's life a little easier, then in doing so; one's life becomes more complicated.

Chris fills the position of 3d weapon's modeler.
Caroline takes the lead in project management.
And Jane takes over from Irene in translation.

One would think that with such an array of professionals around me I should be able to relax and take a long needed break.

Unfortunately not so.

Seems now I have even more to do, pre-thinking what the pro's have to be thinking about.

Its a bad habit that I have but it proves to be useful in times when something goes wrong.
For when something does go wrong, and something always does, I have already prepared a number of probable solutions for the event.

Sometimes I think team management has nothing to do with people management at all, but has more to do with problem solving.

Most people when told to perform a task will do so, whether it be done well or not.

But its when everything falls apart that the manager shows his / her true strengths.
And thats what the manager / head is for...To get the machine working again when it has grinded to a halt.

However, that means with every new person joining the team there's new probable wrongs that need solutions....Oooooh my poor head.

I am now thinknig its time to bring in a middle management team.
A sort of buffer between me and the Pro's that make up NiHao Studios.

I dont actually want to, but for my own sake I think I have to.
I think if I problem solve much more than I am doing now, I would be getting close to achieving god mind power lol.

So an interesting and busy week.
Fruitful yet not without its own drawbacks.
Yet growth must of course be a good thing.

One hopes.

Proactive server admin

Something I have learned over these previous few months while moving all of my applications and servers from my local servers to hosted servers is something called proactive server admin'ing.

Having hosted and managed my own servers for many years now I have gotten used to the way I like to do things, what i like running and not running, and controlling whats going in and out.

When I started this move to pay for hosting trend I found some of the hosting companies requirements bothersome, or demanding, or too strict.

Yet in dealing with these new hosts I have realised that their restrictions are in place so as to guarentee a good service all of the time.

Their requirements are set to allow what is being hosted is being hosted well and at good speeds.
They are strict because all too many hosting companies have blocked IP addresses in some countries; especially true of Asia and the Middle East.

Demanding because unless its a hardware fault then probably its something that you have done wrong which is not really their problem.

At first all of these quirks annoyed me. Hell I have been managing my servers damned well, and I am by no means a novice.

But over these months my heart has settled some to realise that they are in fact like this to help me as opposed to hinder me.

Sure I am the one paying the money, I want the best.
But when we are talking about internet technologies I also want the most reliable and efficient in my systems.

So one has to sit back and consider.....

Do I want it all on a platter then find a week later I am only serving to half of the world because the guy next to me wanted his porn sites all on a platter too?

Or should I be happy with the rugged, raw servers with no frills that are going to be seen globally?

So the choice was easy; I want global.

Not that I disagree with porn, but my porn site neighbour is not paying my bills. I am.
And if i am going to reach my target audience then why should I compensate my service for the porn guy?

So this is a lesson in hosting server admin; be proactive, work those few hours longer on the no frills servers, for when the work is done, its done.

Go for gold and be a champion for 5 minutes. Then the next runner will park himself next to you and tear it all down.

".....and down will come baby cradle and all"

So what is a proactive admin?

Well I think from my experience its an admin that finds the right solutions and compromises all for a good IP and an uptime guarentee.

For if one wants to consider themselves to be a server admin then obviously most server chores should be understood by that person.

And if you screw it up....dont scream at the company...its not their fault, they are but service providers.

Like a telephone company; they provide you with a way of communication, they do not however guarentee every phone call is going to be a happy one.

Server admin is just like that....
"Here is your server, your bandwidth, and your internet speed, have fun."
If your operating system spits at you like an angry girlfriend, then its probably your fault.

Finally, have patience with the support workers.
I used to contact them at some ungodly hours not thinking twice that it was an ungodly hour. In my thoughts "I am awake, you should be too!"

Then I forgot that I was also in another time zone...."oh what? Its like 5am there and you're changing shifts now? oh right ok. ummm....I'll write you again tomorrow." Many such conversations did I have lol.

To sum it up I think a proactive admin knows what he / she wants, the rest....well they take care of of that themselves.
A proactive admin pays for what they want.
And then is humble when the need arises to contact the support workers.

For we are all just people anyhows.

Game Server Solution finds its way home

I've been in communication with the group at http://www.x3mservers.net/ and been very happy with the result of our talks.

I was working with GoGrid as mentioned in previous posts.
I cant achieve the results I need to launch NiHao World effectively on their systems unfortunately.

GoGrid specializes in Web TCP package handling. For game serving TCP is redundant as most online games will use UDP for speed.

Ping tests with GoGrid's best systems in place showed that the average pings from the game client to the server were 230ms.

Anyone thats played an online multiplayer game before will know that anything over and above a 90ms ping is far too high and creates in-game lag.

So hunting for another solution I went, until I found X3M Game Hosting.

Different than other game hosting companies I talked to, X3M were happy to offer me their slot system in which I pay per X number of users in the system, eg. 32 users could cost around 20 Euro's a month.

Other game hosting companies that I had checked in on had denied me this service insisting that I go for their dedicated plans starting at an average price of 140 US$ per month.

20 Euro or 140 US$.....hmmm.....
If I only have 30 users for the first three months which would be the best plan?
I wonder with great effort.

You see launching a game comes with it many draw-backs.
The greatest of these is the initial financial outlay.

Launching a new game, a first game carries with it many tasks that need to be performed such as, hosting the game, a successful web face to it all, a customer / user support system in place, a marketing plan and strategy, and an advertising campaign to get the thing started.

All of these cost the small game companies dearly. Some small game companies give up the thing and sell out to bigger companies. Others are simply looked over because their marketing and advertising campaigns were not strong enough.

So where does all the money go upon launching a new / first game?
That is the big question that a game company crew such as mine have to ask.
More money on good hosting means less on advertising.
More on advertising runs the risk of inadequate hosting, and a game that users will join and forget in 10 minutes.

Its an ongoing consideration for small game companies to get the rewards they deserve for the work that they have done, and developing an expenditure system that meets all of their game's needs without breaking the bank is the greatest cosideration of all.

Why is it so much trouble to get something that has been worked upon for such a long time started?
Simply because at the time of launch....
The last beautifying features have been added, and some of these features have to be bought. eg: flash movies for advertising, extra in-game adornments that were needed and added quickly to meet the deadline, sound files of good gaming quality, and many such small items.
Most of the time more money goes into the game's trimmings than the game production.

So there it is....the ready to launch game, so whats wrong now?
Now....the game is ready, but it is still to earn its keep.

Most small game companies that give up the thing do so at this point.
Its there....but the money is gone, and the game is still to produce an income.
Yet....more money needs to be spent.

So therein lies the problems of game developing and why its hard to be the smaller team wandering around in a world that is dominated by the game making giants.

So me and my team decided on X3M, and X3M it is.
In the next coming week/s we'll be sending NiHao World up to X3M's servers and give it a trial month or two.

Until then.....

Keep you posted.