Useful Puff? Re: [CIRCLE] Zones

From: Patrick Dughi (dughi@imaxx.net)
Date: 09/10/01


> >Jz`1ust wondering what I might have missed ... I removed puff as well,
> seems like
> >from looking at SPECIAL(puff) that he just 'says' stuff?
>
> That is true, however keep in mind that it helps maintain a connection
> to the server. for any information that is sent FROM the mud an ACK must
> be sent back from the client. this is enough to keep the connection alive.
>
> Take a level 1 player and move them to room 1 and remove loading of puff
> from the zone list. then leave the computer alone. you will see that
> very soon the player will be disconnected. if not just from the mud then
> from the ISP also.
>
> At least this is what I came up with. I could be wrong, if I am I am
> sure I will get flamed from it. I ran a telnet BBS for a long time and
> when people stepped away from the computer they would DC after a few
> min. (from the net)  however if we sent text to them every 60 seconds
> they would stay connected.
>

        This is of such little consequence that it doesn't matter either
way, of course, but puff does not exactly 'keep the client alive'.
Instead, most ISP's monitor their dialup customers for traffic and have a
set timeout value.  If you pass that timeout value without traffic in
either way, you're disconnected.

        This has nothing to do with the mud - just that your users will
get disconnected after 10-15 minutes of inactivity.  If they were surfing
the net, or reading email or doing anything that used their net connect at
all, it'd never be a problem.

        Puff just causes traffic to be generated.

        Aside from this, why would you want to keep people who've been
away from the computer for so long that they've idled into the void, and
then so much more in addition to that, that their ISP kicked them offline?

                                                PjD

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