I need control :)

Stonemason

Hi


Ive just spent the last two days searching for a certain item to no avail so i figured ill ask the boards (the wisest in the land ).

What im doing is starting a lan gaming shop but when someone comes in i need to be able to set a timer on whatever machine they use so that when an hour is up the screen (preferably)or the sytem will be paused abit like those what the bulter saw machines at the seaside .
Is there either hardware or software that will allow me to time access to a gaming lan network.Ive tried PCtimer with an alarm clock feature but this was easily bypassed and also currupted the sound in a game i tested it with.Any help would be greatfully received.



PS Mod if this is the wrong forum sorry feel free to move THX

pickarooney

I'd go with electrified seats. Ah, no, sorry I can't offer anything constructive, but you risk the wrath of Nerd0r by horsing him off the computer when he's on RAMPAGE! and two frags from YOU HAVE WOOOOOOOOONN THE MATCH! just because an hour is up. Would it not be far better to let them play until they drop and then bill them for the time spent on the LAN?

fatherdougalmag

Have you thought about setting up remote control slaves on each of the machines? You could then remotely control/shutdown the PC from a central control machine. You'd then need some application (like they have at a pool hall) to keep track of how long each machine has been enabled for. When the time is up you could remotely shut the machine down, run some app locally on the machine, whatever.

Have a look at Remotely Possible, LapLink, Netsupport Monitor. There's no shortage of apps.

Stonemason

Pickarooney as for Nerd0r this is half the problem its amazing how many Nerd0r,s just about to win there are :)the thing is if all of them over run by 15 mins loss of revenue, bad will for customers waiting and arguments about he had 15 minutes more why cant i ect ect is a situation we want to avoid.

fatherdougalmag as the above argument about just about to win goes completly turning off the machine would put Nerd0r out of the game and scores would be set to 0 so we wanted to avoid that if possible.I did see somewhere a new sony monitor can be remotely switched off this would be ideal but i have a feeling this is going to be very exspencive.

SouperComputer

what about standard web-cafe software?

fatherdougalmag

Stonemason

Powering down the machine was only an example of what you can do! You should be able to do something like freeze the keyboard, switch off the monitor, etc. with such a set up. Is there anything that could be done via DHCP to cut of the IP access to/from that machine? Do the network cards you are using have any remote control facility?

I'm afraid I've completely lost touch with online gaming since my college days but I thought that an LAN/web-cafe would be a pretty typical environment for these things. Has no one developed a game-server controller app with this sort of feature built in? (i.e. being able to kick people out of the game after a certain length of time)

Mountjoy Mugger

I must confess, I'd be a bit annoyed as a customer if I was kicked off in the middle of a game. There should be an option to have a net messenger pop-up telling you to wind down, or something similar.

Can you not simply charge them extra if they overrun their allotted time, and/or bar them if they don't pay up?

JohnBoy

to get some sort of a unit that accepts cash and runs a timer off it, just have it displaying a countdown to timeout, and then switch the monitor off, the only way to keep going is to feed it more cash.

Talk to someone who works with vending machines, they might be able to steer you in the right direction.


Just a thought. at least then if the 1337 gamez d00d does get his screen shut down at just before he kills anarki on nightmare he has no-one but himeself to blame,

or maybe just a light that comes on for the last minute or summat

John

Dr_Teeth

Stonemason doing *anything* like that to gaming customers is commercial suicide. You DO NOT interrupt a game player. You let them sit down, play until they're finished and then charge them for however long they spent.

Teeth.

sceptre

Originally posted by JohnBoy
to get some sort of a unit that accepts cash and runs a timer off it, just have it displaying a countdown to timeout, and then switch the monitor off, the only way to keep going is to feed it more cash.

I've no idea how difficult it would be but I've seen it done that way - the PC available for the Net in the youth hostel in Hiroshima uses such a system.

Stonemason

The slot machine type interface would be great and some countdown signal would also be a very good idea. The problem is where to find them: D.We did think of just charging for how long people stay on but being a gamer myself i know all to well how easy it is to lose track of time, and sorry m8 i haven’t got enough money will end in tears. Also bare in mind (no offence intended)we figure 90% of users are going to be teenage lads now I don’t know what they are like around your way but down here they can be saucy buggers at times and will chance their arms at every opportunity.Simply put we want to be fair to all customers otherwise we will end up with problems.I did find Specrem remote control Server & Client which i havent tried yet but it says you can freeze the keyboard and mouse remotely but it doesnt seem to have a timer.We plan to have twenty machines so keeping track of them all could be a problem if we have to do it manualy.Thinking about it you can get wall socket timers for you house but sudenly powering off your monitor that way ?times a day cant be good.

fatherdougalmag

You would, of course, need to back up whatever method you choose with some sort of time-tracking software. This could probably be achieved manually with a spreadsheet (or a post-it note!) and a clock. There is, however, pool-hall management software which you could use. This seems to be a free one but I have no idea what it's like. Search around and I'm sure you'll come across something.

Dr_Teeth

Well my experience comes from practically living in a games-centric internet cafe in Dublin city centre for the last two years. We get plenty of 'saucy buggers' but it's extremely rare for someone to come up to the counter and flat-out refuse to pay on the basis that they lost track of time!

If that happens you just take what they've got then bar 'em. If your cafe is the best place around for LAN/net gaming then they'll be back with what they owe..

Teeth.

Stonemason

I did a test with Specrem 6.1 this has time managment the abilty to switch of PC,s the whole 9 yards BUT... it still mucks up the game.Peoples games get minumized and a screen comes up that lets them add more time if they want sad thing is it kills the sound in game so those scores are lost when they have to restart the game grrrrr.Anyway we are looking at something that will just kill the monitor after a set time ill let you know how it goes if your intrested .

BigEejit

Dont most hospitals have a jobby attached to the side of the TV that you have to throw money into ... and it has a display on it as well showing how long is left .. just ring up any hospital and ask for maintenance ... worth a shot ... wont be the cheapest method though

parasite

wouldn't the obvious thing be to go in and have a chat with the managers of various netcafés ??

leeroybrown

There are a good few people here on boards who are involved to varying degrees with Net Café's.

I'd definitely agree that a policy of disconnecting people isn't good. Just let them pay per minute based on an hourly rate and make it clear that the charges are on a time basis.

ozpass

Why don't you just charge people for how long they spend using a given computer, instead of selling time 'up front'. Give them a number, time how long it takes them to return that number, and charge them for it.

I appreciate that it can be a problem for people having to wait for a terminal and getting upset, but is this any worse than the upset of a user who's booted mid-session for exceeding their time-limit?

If you're concerned about gamers hogging the systems, set certain terminals aside as 'internet only' at certain times of day.

It seems common sense to me, but I've never run a netcafe! I'd definitely advise asking around net cafe owners.

po0k

Nethouse and Clan Video (galway) have 2 nice systems for LAN café management.

If DooDee can operate them they can't be that hard to implement