Cyber Heist on Steam

[A.J. Dimick]

Hey guys.  I hope everybody is well.  

A few of the guys want to fix some CH bugs, get it working and put it on Steam.  For that to be possible a few things would have to be worked out.

1.  How to put it up on steam.  We would either have to form a business entity to put it up (even for free) or put it up as somebody individually.  In either event, this requires consent.

2.  How to handle multiplayer.  We can put it up with the lobby, redo the networking so it works and purchase web services with the funds we have remaining (about 4.5k) or just put it up for LAN play.  The first option here requires consent.  My opinion (and there others that disagree) is that if we put it up, it should be LAN play and we shouldnt spend a dime on it because if we do, it has a ticking clock instantly. 

Nothing is possible without everyone expressing an opinion IMO and any opinion of whether or not to proceed is welcome.

Thanks all

AJ

[Vaibhav Bhalerao]

I will vote for an individual putting it out so that we don't have to go through all the hassle that we have already been through. I am okay if AJ puts it out on his name. At this point, I just want some people to play our game and make some cool videos about it so that little child inside me can excited about it.

I would say, we support multiplayer with the server for as long as we can. We can also provide help with people running their own server and changing the IP of the server in a config file. 4.5K sounds enough to support the game for an year. If it stays live for an year and people are still playing out, we can figure out what to do then. But an year is a long time.

[Zachary Truscott]

I second Vaibhav on both comments. 

AJ to put it on Steam, and use the money for the game till it runs out. 

I vote to give AJ the power to run the game till the games bank account runs out. 

[Kiran Rajachandran]

I agree with Vaibhav too.

[Jake Muehle]

I vote to give AJ the power to wash my car this weekend. Double wax coat, if you wouldn't mind.

If AJ is willing to be the person to put it on Steam (which we have not confirmed), I'd be totally fine with that.

Putting up and maintaining a server takes more than money, it also takes time. Who will be the person maintaining the server? Will they be compensated? This will probably run the money out even faster. (For the record, I am absolutely not interested in being that person.)

I think it's very silly to put a lot of extra work into CH at this point when there's a guaranteed death timer on the game. If we're going to put it on Steam, we should have players take care of their own hosting for the game. Servers will fail and need maintenance leaving players inable to play the game even if they wanted to. A LAN solution would mean that the game always works (forever), provided that the players are willing to set it up. 

Conveniently, the LAN solution also takes the least amount of effort. This email chain doesn't exactly have a strong history of getting large tasks done, so the less work needs to be done the more likely success seems to be.

Any votes for server solutions should also be accompanied by a real plan for maintenance, setup, and transitioning out of the server solution once the money runs out. Otherwise its just the same empty, hopeful emails we've been shooting around for the past 2.5 years.

[Vaibhav Bhalerao]

Running the server is not much effort. We just have to run two programs which anyone can do with instructions. As I mentioned, players will be able to host their own server. Our server is just a game hosting server and not a lot traffic goes through once the games are connected. It is peer-to-peer after that. So I don't see a lot of complications with it. We can figure out cheap server space hosting options and check on it once every morning. The previous attempts to bring this game life has failed because of our current job policies. But now some of us have permissions/no objections from the companies to work on it. So hopefully it will work this time. With regards to when it dies, it dies when it dies. No game lasts forever. We can tell the community that it will happen after a particular time and servers can be setup locally and the game will be working on LAN forever.

[Vaibhav Bhalerao]

Also maintaining it would have been an issue if we were charging for the game. It is a free game so things like these are expected.

[Zachary Truscott]

Can we give the player both options?

[Vaibhav Bhalerao]

They do have both options currently.

[Vaibhav Bhalerao]

LAN only game is going to restrict players from playing it. And our whole idea of releasing the game here is so that people can play it. Buddies who want to try out the game won't be connected to the same network in most cases.

[A.J. Dimick]

bump.....4 people have expressed opinions.

[Andrew Witts]

I'd say that LAN idea is better and you get the game with 2 copies.

Can it be P2P? One person hosts and the other connects?

With dedicated server time/money it might not be worth it in the long haul - even for the players since the game only lasts as long as a bank account allows it to. Detaching the game from that might be smarter in the long run. 

I'm cool with whatever. My two cents though.

--

Andrew Witts

Game Designer

ajw...@gmail.com

[Sagar Mistry]

My opinion is not releasing the game at all. We had a good run. We made a project that we are proud of and won many accolades. People recognize it for winning the IGF Student Showcase award, it didn't get released but it was pretty fucking cool nevertheless.

I feel that if we do a half baked release we might jeopardize that reputation.  None of that will then matter and all people will recognize the game by is that super buggy game with bad reviews.

Just my 2 cents.....

[Sagar Mistry]

My opinion is not releasing the game at all. We had a good run. We
made a project that we are proud of and won many accolades. People
recognize it for winning the IGF Student Showcase award, it didn't get
released but it was pretty fucking cool nevertheless.

I feel that if we do a half baked release we might jeopardize that
reputation. None of that will then matter and all people will
recognize the game by is that super buggy game with bad reviews.

Just my 2 cents.....

DAMN GMAIL APP! Sorry if you got this email multiple times..

[Vaibhav Bhalerao]

But it ain't super buggy yo! Try one of the recent builds. We have figured out most of our issues. Even the networking issues.

[Max Xu]

I agree with Jake on this matter. 

It might be that it's just a match-making server, but it would still take some effort to maintain it (making sure it's running every day, restarting it IF it crashes) and whoever is doing it should be compensated, but I don't think we have that kind of money, or maybe energy for that matter. At least not enough to support it for long.

The best solution I think would be giving the player the ability to connect via IP address so we can bypass the server all together, but that would mean re-doing some of the UI and we all know how "awesome" Scaleform is.

If we are not okay with releasing it with just LAN (maybe with instructions for players to setup their own match-making server, if the config part is already done), then I say maybe don't release it at all.

[Vaibhav Bhalerao]

We keep saying its hard to maintain but now after looking into all the issues we know its nothing more than making sure that the Facilitator and the Master Server are running. That does not require a lot of effort. If we are ready to work on it, we can also check on it. Its not such a big deal.

[Vaibhav Bhalerao]

Here's why I think we should support internet games.

1. The whole point on working on this game is so that people can play it. If we do LAN only, we are going to reduce the number of people playing the game by a HUGE amount. A lot of people don't have two PCs at home. Sure people might have laptops but no one is going to make their laptop a gaming PC just for playing Cyber Heist. Many people are going to have their gaming rigs and assume that their laptop doesn't handle new games. Buddies who want to try out the game are going to set and time and day for meeting online and not meeting at someone's house. Those times are gone.

2. Maintaining the server is not a huge deal. We just have to make sure that master server and the facilitator are running on it. We don't have a server which sends/receives all the gameplay data. It's just a matchmaking server. After the 2 players connect, its all peer-to-peer. Server spaces are available for an average of 30$ per month (Kiran will have more info on this) which will make us support the game for almost 12 years theoretically (4500/30 = 150; 150/12 = 12.5 years) which I don't think its a ticker. Kiran and I are ready to take care of maintaining the server (making sure everything is running every morning) for no compensation. We ain't WOW which will be alive for multiple decades. 

Please send me your reasons for not doing internet games and I will try to either give a sound reason of how that can be avoided or find a solution for it.

Thanks.

-Vaibhav

[Kiran Rajachandran]

Hi,

I too think the game should have the online match-making server. Otherwise its dead on arrival. We should host it atleast for a couple of months or till the traffic significantly reduces. After stopping the server, interested players can host their own servers by updating the external IP config files.

Max and Vaibhav has already put in work to integrate the game with the Steam api and connect using steam IDs.

We can rent out Linux VPS for about $30 - $100 per month (http://www.hostgator.com/vps-hosting , http://vpsdime.com/ ) depending on the server capabilities. So cost is the least of our issues. Our issue has always been disagreement. If not, the game would been on Steam 2 years ago.

Vaibhav and I volunteer to maintain the servers. I just started work at Sling TV and they are ok with me working on games too.

And I don't think we or the game will get affected or remembered by bad reviews. Even Infinity is slammed on Steam. But for job interviews, I know from experience that companies only look at the individual's skills, which Sagar should agree. The game will still be a great student game which won the IGF student showcase and other awards.

Lets finish what we started, guys. Steam has always been the final destination for the game. Even Vinyl is on Steam now. Better late than never.

Regards,

Kiran

[Zachary Truscott]

I say let them go for it. What else are we doing with the money?

[Vaibhav Bhalerao]

Thoughts guys?

Does the points make sense?

[Vaibhav Bhalerao]

Guys...For? Against? Something?

[Zachary Truscott]

For. 

[Saurabh Pendse]

I'm all for it!

--

Regards,

Saurabh Pendse

[Saurabh Pendse]

As Kiran says, I feel we should host it for the amount of time there are significant number of users on it. After that if they wish to play, we have the LAN option in there already. Not having an Internet option for a strictly multiplayer game is counter-intuitive I feel.

--

Regards,

Saurabh Pendse

[Damean Lyon]

Let em try it. How much do we have though to pay for it?

[Jake Muehle]

"I want to do this" is a very different conversation than "I want AJ to do this". If you're asking permission... well, shoot. You don't REALLY need to ask permission I guess if you're gonna do all the work yourself, otherwise you'll be waiting a couple years to hear back from Nikhils lawyers...

I suppose it's probably best for you to only to use money of people who've agreed that you can use the money for that purpose. You can use my share for whatever you want. 

Good luck fellas.