I am an ammature programmer interested in creating a multi-player
online game.  Here's my question:

What kind of server do I need to be able to run and administer a
multi-player online game, and where can I find one for a decent price?

I have a web server that is hosted by another company right now... but
that is just your basic 'host a website' kind of thing.  I cannot run
.exe files on that server.  I assume that I need to be able to do that
to run an multi-player game on a server (?).

Take something like Dinky Bomb
(http://www.weplayhere.com/launch_db.php) for example.  When you log
in, it takes you to a chat room where you can talk to other players
and wait for a game.  You can challenge people or be challenged to a
game.  Once you get into a game, the two of you fire shots back and
forth until someone wins.  All of this, from the chat room to the
actualy game itself, has to be overseen by the server in one way or
another.  What kind of server do I need to be able to make a game like
that?  I plan to program my game in java, if that's any help.  I just
don't see any way to handle a game like this without having a
server-side .exe program running.  I guess you could do that chat room
part with a java / PERL sort of thing, where you use a PERL script to
write to a text file somewhere on the server... but that seems clumsy
and slow.

So, my question is:

A. What kind of server do I need to be able to handle a multi-player online game?

and

B. What is the most affordable company that I can rent such a server
from?  This is just a pet project, and not something for which I have
a lot of funding.

Thanks so much!

---

Clarification of Question by sgware-ga on 01 Apr 2006 00:52 PST

(Re: Part B) From the looks of it, I really don't even need a web
server.  All I need is a computer with a static IP that is always
connected to the internet.  Is there anywhere I can rent that?

Why not just use your own computer while you develop it?  Either
install Microsoft's web server or install Linux or a BSD and install
apache (my preferance).  You can then access stuff by going directly
to your ip:port, where port is whatever port your server is running
on.  If you do successfully develop your project, then you can shop
for a dedicated host and register a domain name.

With respect to how you actually develop a multi-player game, well I
don't develop games. However, I can think of a few ways you could
architect this such that it works.  Here is one of the top of my head:

The chat/matching server should be separate from the game server.  

When the desired number of people are matched, feed this info the game
server and launch the applet/flash/whatever for each person.  The game
server should create a game thread for this instance, as well as a
thread to handle the i/o for each client (you probably want to use a
thread pool in general, but this model will work if not scale well).

The client's, upon launching the game, should connect into the gamer
server (over sockets).  Once the game server has received  a
connection for each client, it should send the begin command to each
client.  When each client performs an action, the game server receives
notification of that action, computes the new game state and tells the
client what it is.  That is where the meat of the game logic should
reside.


How to program the meat of a game is a huge topic covered by many
books.  I can tell you that this project of yours is non-trivial.  You
might want to start out by having a simple game so  you can focus on
the back-end architecture.  For instance, multi-player tic-tac-toe. 
Your game client could be simple html then.  You could still have a
chat server, matching engine and game engine.  The meat of the game
engine would just tell clients to update the board with the new state
and figuring out if there is a tic-tac-toe.

Thanks for the advice.  I think I will be able to get some (usable)
server space from my University for testing purposes.  As for coding
the meat of the game, I know it will be challenging, but I am looking
forward to it.  The purpose of my question is just to get a hold of
what I will need on the back end... an exe program as far as I can
figure.  Also, I want to know where I can rent something like this
after the game moves out of its testing phase.

I'll just say that finding a web host is the least of your worries at
this point, but I use textdrive and they are fine.  I use them because
of their extensive support for ruby and ruby on rails.  I'm not sure
if you can run a java server, though.

Well, from the looks of it, I really don't even need a web server. 
All I need is a computer with a static IP that is always connected to
the internet.  Is there anywhere I can rent that?