Server Hosting in Venice Unleashed

[NoFaTe]

As we have previously mentioned, one of the main features of VU is the ability to freely host your own servers, without having to be some kind of 'Registered Server Provider'. However, some of you have queried us about how exactly that will work.

Will you need to find and download the dedicated server files?
Will you be able to use your normal game installation?
Will the servers have some kind of authentication mechanism?

Server Hosting

So, first of all, VU servers will be hosted using the regular BF3 client files.
That means that you will simply need an up-to-date BF3 client with the Venice Unleashed client installed, and you're almost good to go.

Concerning dedicated server files, we have decided to not support them, mainly due to legal issues that may arise by their use from unauthorized parties, and because even though it's more work on our side, after it's finished, it will be much easier to properly maintain and update.

Now, we do understand that using the actual client may cause some minor issues to some server providers (as a download of 30+ GB is required for a single server installation), and we will be looking into providing a solution in the future.

Authentication

When it comes to server authentication, some of you may know that the way 'vanilla' dedicated servers work is by having a hard-coded username and password that is used to simply allow access to the backend. Servers also require a providerid file, which is supposedly used to identify RSPs, however it is only verified client-side, and is of absolutely no significance to the backend.
Additionally, EA has introduced a whitelist for several backend commands (like game creation), in order to restrict hosting abilities to specific authorized parties.

If you ask us, we think this system is stupid, exploitable, and extremely difficult to manage.
For that reason, we will be using a custom authentication system for VU servers.

Instead of using a pair of hardcoded credentials, each VU server will require a unique key in order to be able to properly authenticate with our backend services.
Each key will be account-tied and obtainable through a subsection of the VU website.

Limitations

Even though keys will be generated for free, you will not be able to generate an infinite amount of them.
In order to be able to properly manage servers, we will be placing restrictions depending on your account's 'provider status'.

There will be 4 provider statuses: Regular, Clan, Registered, and Official.

Each status has the ability to host more servers that the previous one, with Official being able to host an infinite amount of servers.
The server limit of each provider status will be adjusted during the Closed Beta, so we can't really tell you right now exactly how many servers you will be able to host.

Finally, we should note that upgrading from one provider status to another will be completely free, given that you fulfill some criteria.

We would love to hear your feedback, so feel free to discuss this on our forums by clicking on the button below!

From the Venice Unleashed Blog.

[Rodney]

This is more or less 'meh' to hear.
But at least: progress!

[AlexEe]

Criteria? What for example?

[krug]

another tabloids!

[zesty]

Does hosting the game server require the server hosting PC to meet the minimum requirement for gaming, because I think I prefer hosting servers with less electricity usages and hosting with a gaming PC is just too wasty for me.

[Paulofonta]

Does hosting the game server require the server hosting PC to meet the minimum requirement for gaming, because I think I prefer hosting servers with less electricity usages and hosting with a gaming PC is just too wasty for me.

Obv not, since server hosting won't trigger textures loading and rendering.
However, using client files instead of dedicated server files may increase RAM usage, due to the size of the files being loaded.

[WarBeast-GT-]

That's sad that I can't use my R38 server files And what is with the server log, it's stripped out of the client so server admins can't track events. And copy my 30GB+ client to my dedicated server is also not comfortable.

[zesty]

Does hosting the game server require the server hosting PC to meet the minimum requirement for gaming, because I think I prefer hosting servers with less electricity usages and hosting with a gaming PC is just too wasty for me.

Obv not, since server hosting won't trigger textures loading and rendering.
However, using client files instead of dedicated server files may increase RAM usage, due to the size of the files being loaded.

I doubt it. Since it's client-side hosting, I guess it shouldn't be consoles or something like that. Also NoFate has mentioned in-game server hosting in IRC channel before so I'm really curious about that. If it actually need a graphic card even just only inbuilt chips, my server would still not be able to host it due to there's no such chips in my CPU... So I'm waiting for the answer here

[Paulofonta]

The answer is in an "awesome blog" (http://blog.nofate.me/?p=143).
You can see a dedicated server being launched from the client files, and it's just a server console.

[WarBeast-GT-]

The answer is in an "awesome blog" (http://blog.nofate.me/?p=143).
You can see a dedicated server being launched from the client files, and it's just a server console.

Yeah, but:
1. Server is still 30GB big
2. No log output (bad for admins)
3. Can you launch a server and play the game with one installation?
4. Stability?

Hope, NoFaTe gives further information soon.