Some very intresting maps on the goon site.

The games are... unstable. Almost to the point of frustration. Try joining a variant, looking forward to it, only for the game to be cancelled, due to the fact that there are still bugs in the system. -flails arms in rage-

this looks really cool. i noticed that you can adjust the lengths of different phases, ie make the retreats or builds shorther in length than diplomacy phases. why dont they do that on this site?

Kestas can obviously correct me if he feels, but in the past the development of webDip has been done in such a way as to keep it as simple as possible for new players to join and understand.

Who knows, if they work out then it's likely things will appear on this site over time - if there's enough interest.

@Onar, it *is* unstable, and the developer is pretty up front about that - the main purpose of the site is, basically, to help him test nifty things

once has a game i've been in been cancelled, most of the variants are fine. The fog of war which was recently introduced has been wthdrawn pending further work - with all (6) games being cancelled - this is a first as far, as i'm aware, that a game has been cancelled. (usually the are able to continue with fixes during them, but in this case as historical maps are saved it becomes messy, at least i think that's the reason...)

I'm fairly sure the Kestas will integrate some of Goondip's code when he's ready. (which currently includes instant messaging - though that may be too much of a server load to wedip to handle - it may be possible to redirect it through a seperate server - several variants, so to include fog of war, and maybe touch dip- where you can only talk to players you have units physically in contact with...)

anyone want to play a live variant game?

http://goondip.com/board.php?gameID=225

you have to register first if you are not already registered at goondip

you have to copy and paste the whole link. if you just click the game id it will take you to a different game.

I just heard about goondip from this thread, joined with a few friends from this site, and tried to play a live game but it crashed in the middle. I think I will be sticking with good old webDiplimacy

If you try the new fancy stuff, sure, it's unstable. However, I'm in many games and haven't had any problems, other than occasional very short downtimes. Personally, I preffer goonDiplo greatly to webDiplo, not only for the variants but for the smoother chat interface and greater customability in game settings.

the chat interface will likely notbe added here due to the increased server load, (as far as i've heard, not directly from kestas though) however i may look into working on a seperate socket based im client which would let you get instant messages without the same increased server load...

I just don't like that goondip crashes/goes offline every once in a while.

goondip.com is where gilgatex tests out experimental features like variants. I've just added variant support to webDip code yesterday and without gilgatex's work I'd have no variants to try the new code with, so it is important to the future of this site

Live chat code might take longer to add, because as others have said it does mean increased load, but gilgatex is constantly reporting that he has optimized it and hopefully it'll eventually be efficient enough that it can be included here

why i cannot acces goondip?

Have we considered running chat off a separate server to spread load?

We have no separate server. Someone did offer one after expressing frustration with this server, but (unsurprisingly I have to say) the offer didn't materialize (and using 70GB/month I do wonder about whether a laptop with a home connection could support this site)

(Though that would be a good way to run live-chat if we can get a separate server, and by the way hiring out two Dreamhost servers isn't an option, I checked a while back and they don't allow it)

finally i've accessed.
kestas, don't u wanna play i south america map?
we need only 1 more

I remember seeing that.
How long have you got the current Dreamhost package for, because this site can't be far off going to a dedicated server? Or indeed, have you switched to one yet?

A decent dedicated server means running ads unfortunately fig. :-( For the second half of this year all updates (except live/anon games) have been about limiting server load to try and keep the site at Dreamhost, and they have worked so far. This way I can avoid something ridiculous like holding the site hostage for $20,000 and hundreds of dollars per feature like another site

Fair enough. Well, can't be too much further. Maybe we can look at making the code support multiple servers, thus spreading the load. I think the SVG map code will help reduce load, and I did start looking into the idea of writing code to upload the maps to an image sharing site rather than do them from here, but it seemed impractical with the limits those sites impose

@kestasjk:
Hopefully you did use the updated maps from the development forum instead of the ones gilgatex use at his site. They are a bit out of date...

That offer was just a week or two back. It's the holidays, kestas. Give me time. And the issue will be the bandwidth, but they are supposed to be getting me full duplex 30 gigabit within then next month or two. Oh and I have several old laptops I can put to this purpose. I'll just have to learn a thing or two about setting up a server farm in Apache and MySQL.

By the way, you have my email address I believe. Send me all the specs in an email so I can get started on it after the first of the year.

Are we considering *moving* to Draugnars or making use of it? If just making use then all that's needed is a generic fast host that can call this site and act as a cache...

I can always tell when a thread about goondip has been posted here because I get a bunch of "I can't register!" emails, heh.

Yes, goondip.com is unstable. It's mostly because I jump into developing new and exciting things before fully debugging the less new and exciting things ;) I'm taking a break from new development for a couple months, which means I'll be able to fine tune the buggy stuff.

I look forward toward adapting all my variants for "official" variant code kestas just finished, but it may take a bit.

Change. Yes we can!

Yeah, I just joined goondip, it looks pretty interesting.

Must... play... Chaos

In defense of goondip I must say I've played a few games, encountered problems, reported them and got a quick fix without much consequenses for the game in progress. It is ofcourse still a testing site (but getting more popular each day because of all the variants) so I don't expect to play to the full experience.

Last thing gilgatex has developed is a neat feature called 'reliability rating'. I don't fully understand it yet, but it keeps your NMR and drop-out rate in check by preventing to join games with a low rating. This feature may be a great help preventing CDs from occurring too often.

I think mine was primarily for testing, but if need be, I could set it up as part of a farm for production. I just need some time to finish my Six Sigma certification while I'm on vacation (way to spend vacation :-( ) so after the first of the year, I should be able to free up a weekend or two and get it all set up.

JOIN GOONDIP ITS AWESOME! WE NEED MORE PLAYERS!