The fun layer
Mothygames
Game servers are the oldest thing we run and the most fun, so they get their own name and their own corner of the plan. They run on a machine built for them, in the same building as the films, and they are kept apart from the AI on purpose — a model saturating every core is exactly what gives players lag.
01How the games layer works
The games machine
An 18-core server with plenty of memory and no graphics card, because game servers want steady speed, not graphics. It has its own block of internet addresses and its own public doors, which is the one place in the house where keeping doors open is the right answer.
Running
The control room
The half that starts a server, stops it, and shows who is on it. It runs as a fully separate machine inside the games machine, so a change on one side cannot disturb the games on the other.
Being rebuilt
The games themselves
Each server is its own tidy box with its own files and its own save data, so one mod that misbehaves cannot reach the others. Room for a dozen at once, and we are nowhere near full.
Running
02What is changing in the rebuild
Today: a borrowed panel
The control room currently runs on a panel set up by someone outside the family, on a machine we do not fully control. It works, and it has worked for a long time. It is also a door we do not hold the keys to, and a set of accounts we cannot fully audit.
Next: our own control room
In the coming rebuild the panel is replaced with something we host ourselves, with our own accounts, our own logins, and our own audit trail. The games, the saves and the players are unaffected — the plan is that you notice the page, not the move.
Why it is sequenced: the games layer is the one place where a change touches other people’s servers, so it is scheduled with a person, not dropped on a schedule.
A page where you start, stop and check a server yourself, with an account of your own. Until then: tell us which game you want and we will put it up.
03The house rules of the games layer
What stays true
- Game doors stay open on the games machine — a server you cannot join is not much use.
- Every open door is written down, with a reason next to it.
- The games machine does not run the AI, and the AI machine does not run the games.
- Save data is data: it is on the list of things that need an off-site copy.
What we ask of you
- Tell us what you want to play, and roughly how many people.
- If a server is lagging, tell us the time as well as the symptom — that is the difference between a guess and a diagnosis.
- Do not open a port on the house Wi-Fi box to “make a game work”. Ask us; there is a right way, and it is not that.