Mythic Servers

Details

Mythic Servers was a gaming community that I created and managed for nearly 6 years. It was originally founded under the name of “HTC Clan Servers” in May of 2012 on Garry’s Mod 12, a physics sandbox game.  In September of 2012, Garry’s Mod 13 was released which introduce a massively reworked API resulting in the server I was hosting to crash and burn. I decided at the time to take a break from Garry’s Mod and return at a later date. In April of 2013, I returned to the Garry’s Mod server scene under the name of “Mythic Servers.” This marked a milestone in the community’s history as it was the beginning of its rise.

At its peak, there were a total of 9 online game servers running at the same time and 3 private development servers, all of which were operated and maintained by me. We were known for our creative and unique spins on popular game modes while also introducing new and inventive game modes into the Garry’s Mod scene. I strived to create new and unique experiences for all players all while keeping the environment safe for all.

Before closing down in 2018 due to a changing environment on Garry’s Mod, the community had about 2,000 registered members on our website. The player base in the game was reduced significantly due to its age and people were more interested in the mainstream game modes of TTT and DarkRP. This was a massive undertaking and I was beyond happy to see what it had become and sad to see it go. I met many people, learned many things, and overall the experience made me a better programmer and a better person. This was certainly one of the most interesting, educational, and humbling experiences of my life.


Game Servers

Garry’s Mod:

  1. Fish*
  2. MelonBomber*
  3. Prophunt
  4. Stalker*
  5. Deathrun
  6. You touched it last*
  7. DarkRP
  8. Dodgeball**
  9. Puzzles**
  10. Crucible**
  11. Flood*

Outside of Garry’s Mod:

  1. Counter-Strike: Global Offensive
    • One in the Chamber**
  2. Rust
    • Tyranny**

* Gamemodes were entirely custom but based on their predecessors.
** Gamemoes were new and created specifically for Mythic Servers.

Website
  1. Global ban interface that allowed users to view bans on all servers, the banning admin, for how long, and the reasons for the ban.
  2. Server stats that shared server chat logs, player lists, current map rotations, game mode, and other various details.
  3. A server list that enabled users to see all of our current online servers and allowed them to connect to the servers directly from our web interface.
  4. Idiot Box which has a collection of hilarious comments, questions, and quotes from community members over the years.

Mythic Servers had many different facets and it was the first disjointed full-stack system I ever really architected. All of the servers were hosted by NFOServers (if you haven’t used them before, I would highly recommend checking them out).

Web Servers

We had two web servers that we used for the community. One of our web servers acted as our global data server. Its job was to house asset files, loading screens, and databases that were shared by all game servers. The second web server was for our website which communicated with the data server to acquire server lists and statistics, as well as to manage donations and fulfillment. The website used a mixture of PHP, SQL, JavaScript, HTML 5, and CSS while the database was MySQL.

Game Servers

As mentioned in the about section, we ran, at its peak, 9 public servers and 3 development servers at once. Every production server was hosted on a Windows Server OS and every development server was hosted on a Debian Linux OS. The server-specific code was written in LUA, C++, and SQL, utilizing local MySQL instances and proprietary flat data files for user data (depending on the game mode’s needs). The server’s reported data to the data server which is how we shared user data, managed bans, and report statistics for each server for use on our website. This allowed each server to provide a unique experience while globalizing the user experience across the entire series of servers. The other branching game servers on Rust and Counter-Strike: Global Offensive had code written in C# and SourcePawn.

Here are a couple of scripts that I created during my time with this community. There are many more but they are currently being kept private.

Garrysmod

  1. Drowning System (GitHub)
  2. Flood 2.0 (GitHub)

More scripts, such as my famous custom Fish and Melonbomber game modes, are available upon request. If you’d like to view the private scripts, you can contact me here and we can discuss further.