OldUnreal (Engine)

Master server test:

master0.gamespy.com: TEST OK
master.thenerdnetwork.com: TEST FAILED
unreal.epicgames.com: TEST FAILED (There is no master server at this address, this entry can be deleted)
utmaster.epicgames.com: TEST OK (UT master server, lists UT servers!, not usable for U1 in this way)
master.hypercoop.tk: TEST OK
master.hlkclan.net: TEST FAILED

I tried to contact AcidRain and Havok through e-mail two days ago, and they have not replied as of this time.

The response time to have working community master servers is disappointing. So do we know a likely cause of these community master server failures? How about for you Shivaxi? I hope something could be learned from this to be better prepared.


-Zombie

Yes, I hope some lessons will be learned from this issue, at least:

1.) We can not rely on GameSpy alone (We already knew that)
2.) We need a reliable community master server with an exellent uptime for years to come.
3.) We need an Unreal server browser that properly handles downtimes of individual master servers.

In the meantime, Rune/HOV servers came back up about 2:30 am PST (Sept. 1st).   

Yes, someday GameSpy may stop hosting our old games.  For now, it has been in their best interest to continue doing this.  They have always been advertising themselves as "the Best One Stop Game Source" and so "game loyalty"/Nostalgia has been good business for them.

But viable server alternatives must be considered for any eventuality.  Unreal and  its' descendants, are still extremely popular with a much wider gamer base than ours.  So, having an established server master is a good idea. 

In our case, although Rune still has an active community, it is smaller. There are a few Master Server sites hosting a few Rune/HOV servers but not nearly as many as GameSpy has been doing. It has been up to individuals and clans, instead, to host one or more servers. But nothing like Hyper.nl has been doing for OldUnreal.

Perhaps everyone should run a master server lol....the list would never fail!

Running them is one thing but getting every Unreal server to use them is a whole other.

Perhaps everyone should run a master server lol....the list would never fail!

It is better to have a few reliable master servers than a whole bunch of masters that are more often off-line than online.

sorry everyone, I had misconfigured the firewall in front of the hlk master server. The firewall has some issues a couple weeks back so I factory defaulted it, and unfortunately misconfigured the rules allowing the master server ports in/out. Thanks Zombie for the email notifying me. Sorry it took so long to fix, I have just been super busy with work, etc..

If someone could test (hard to test from my own lan) to verify connectivity to the hlk master server, I would appreciate it.

thanks and apologies!

{hLk}Havok

sorry everyone,  I had misconfigured the firewall in front of the hlk master server.  The firewall has some issues a couple weeks back so I factory defaulted it, and unfortunately misconfigured the rules allowing the master server ports in/out.  Thanks Zombie for the email notifying me.  Sorry it took so long to fix, I have just been super busy with work, etc..

If someone could test (hard to test from my own lan) to verify connectivity to the hlk master server, I would appreciate it.

thanks and apologies!

{hLk}Havok

master.hlkclan.net: TEST OK

TNN is still unavailable with it's master server. I posted a notice in their support forum.

Perhaps everyone should run a master server lol....the list would never fail!

It is better to have a few reliable master servers than a whole bunch of masters that are more often off-line than online.

I was...joking...lol

TNN is still unavailable with it's master server. I posted a notice in their support forum.

The TNN master is STILL offline. For weeks now.
I posted a message in their support forum...no reply.
I dropped them an e-mail...no reply.

We cannot rely on TNN anymore. Maybe it is safer to remove it from Unreal.

Yeah I think TNN are no longer a reliable source for Unreal.

They already stopped running game servers for Unreal a good while ago and with their master server being shutdown and no response via their forums or email it might be safe to say they've left us for good.


Regards,
Anarchy.

For UnrealTournament 99 we have a new one

ServerActors=IpServer.UdpServerUplink MasterServerAddress=master.333networks.com MasterServerPort=27900

And then there is this for Unreal 1:

http://www.oldunreal.com/cgi-bin/yabb2/ ... 1284296948

skwmaster.dyndns.org

Master server status: 2010/09/20

master0.gamespy.com online
master.oldunreal.com online
master.hlkclan.net online
master.hypercoop.tk online
skwmaster.dyndns.org online
master.thenerdnetwork.com offline (Seems to be end-of-life)

Master server status: 2010/09/28

master0.gamespy.com online
master.oldunreal.com offline
master.hlkclan.net online
master.hypercoop.tk online
skwmaster.dyndns.org online
master.thenerdnetwork.com offline (Seems to be end-of-life)

Error when connecting to OldUnreal master: @Smirftsch: Plz check the availability and reliability of your master server.

Master server status: 2010/09/28

master0.gamespy.com online
master.oldunreal.com offline
master.hlkclan.net online
master.hypercoop.tk online
skwmaster.dyndns.org online
master.thenerdnetwork.com offline (Seems to be end-of-life)

Error when connecting to OldUnreal master:

Code: Select all

Log: Resolving www.oldunreal.com...
Log: Resolving master.oldunreal.com...
Init: WinSock: I am PC096 (192.168.52.94)
Log: Resolved www.oldunreal.com (85.88.2.206)
Log: Resolved master.oldunreal.com (68.198.44.178)
ScriptLog: UBrowserGSpyLink: Master Server is master.oldunreal.com:28900
ScriptLog: Ping Timeout from 83.170.81.100.  Attempt 1
ScriptLog: Ping Timeout from 83.170.81.100 Giving Up
ScriptLog: UBrowserGSpyLink: Couldn't connect to master server.
Log: CheckConnectionAttempt: Error while checking socket status.

@Smirftsch: Plz check the availability and reliability of your master server.

Shivaxi has been in London without internet access for nearly a week, so it may have gone down without him knowing.

Why is the OldUnreal master server with Shivaxi anyways? I thought OldUnreal.com was Smirftsch? :-?

yeah i know i know...I'm really not reliable right now. I shouldn't be hosting it. Smirf had me host it before because he couldn't. Though he has his own server now so perhaps he can host it again?

My server has problems with just randomly disconnecting from the internet. I'm also in the process of looking for an apartment, so it's really not an ideal time for me to be hosting anything...especially since the house I'm hosting my servers from is being sold soon...

Okay, understandable. But this also means that improvement is needed.

@Smirftsch: Are you willing and able to host a reliable master server yourself now?

willing? as if I wouldn't be willing
That hurts 
Well, current Oldunreal Serpentine server is hosted by Rewind and I need to ask him if he can host a Masterserver too.
His server is very powerful and turned to be absolutely reliable so far.

@ Shivaxi: thank you for all the work and for hosting the masterserver, even although it had it's downtime it was worth a lot!

[edit] New Masterserver is up and running.[/edit]

Oh, I'm sorry. I did not mean to hurt your feelings. It was just a business-like question, as one needs to be both able and willing to host before it can happen.

(Sometimes I can be a bit untactical with my remarks, not knowing how they arrive at the subject.)

Master server status: 2010/09/28

master0.gamespy.com online
master.oldunreal.com offline
master.hlkclan.net online
master.hypercoop.tk online
skwmaster.dyndns.org online
master.thenerdnetwork.com offline (Seems to be end-of-life)

TNN server is running also.

Status

A work in progress. It shows TNN as down but I verified that in Unreal and in fact TNN is running.