Re: [Widelands-public] Multiplayer Battle.net-like functionality

[Gabriel W. <gab...@gm...>]

It seems that if there is going to have to be a dedicated server to
negotiate multiplayer games, there is sufficient benefit to justify having
chat functionality built into it (Victor raises a number of excellent points
above). Perhaps I am being naive, but I think it might actually be easier to
have dedicated chat through the games server rather than trying to piggy
back on an existing chat service.

I'm not familiar enough with GGZ to know if it is a good match for this type
of project (though the GGZ page does say it has Widelands support built-in),
but I think it is important not to make a Widelands specific solution. I can
foresee a situation where someone wants to play Widelands multiplayer game,
logs into the server and nobody else is interested in playing. If the server
is Widelands specific then that could be the end of it and the player
wanders off to do something else. If the server supports a number of
different games then the player could play one of those while waiting for
another Widelands player to show up (or maybe even recruit someone who is
unfamiliar with Widelands to play). Making the game server inclusive of
other games will provide greater exposure and a larger pool of players to
pull from. I think a lot of people interested in playing a game online would
choose playing a game other than their first choice over not playing
anything. If there was an inclusive game server which had a range of
immersive games (Widelands, Battle for Wesnoth, Freeciv, some FPS, etc.) and
games to be treated as filler waiting for other players - not that their
popularity should be downplayed (card games, board games, puzzle games,
tetris, tron, etc.) perhaps these games would all be able to reach a wider
audience, attract more contributors / developers etc. Also, I believe the
less frequently people have the experience of logging into a game server and
not actually playing a game, the more popular the server will be.

I know that this isn't a simple task but I think at the very least it is
worth considering this as a possibility at the outset of a Widelands game
server development project. That way even if the project decides to start
off as being Widelands specific, decisions which will limit making it more
inclusive can be avoided and perhaps inclusion can be designed for from the
beginning.

That's my two cents, anyways.

Gabriel


On Tue, Sep 30, 2008 at 10:45 AM, Victor Pelt <vic...@gm...> wrote:

> maybe an option is look at existing sollutions. (
> http://www.ggzgamingzone.org/ is one that comes in mind)
>
> - one thing you have to worry about if you use existing irc channels is
> multiple channels & spam bots (ok #widelands isn't that busy but i think
> allowing the option for multiple language channels should be take in
> consideration. ) I remember battlenet in the old diablo I days and it wasn't
> always pritty.
>
> Also it would be nice if there was some kind of integration between the
> chat & game functionality. (maybe that can be done through the private
> messaging function) just think about sending game invites to specific
> people. Also i'm not sure you want to force everyone to register to freenet
> but it would be nice if if there was some insurance that the irc person
> Dwarik is the same person Dwarik as you are playing against today and is the
> same person using that nick tomorow
>
> as far as game listing you could broadcast some information over irc. like
> //widelands-command newgame host.at.this.ip:port
> (of course you would filter this out so if you look at the channel through
> widelands you would see a game in the available game list instead of the
> chatter).
>
> Also i'd sugest making the option of inviting someone to a game (having
> player slots reserved for a specific player)
>
> just my random toughts
>
> Victor 'Dwarik" Pelt
>
>
> On Tue, Sep 30, 2008 at 3:33 PM, Nick Moore <shi...@gm...>wrote:
>
>> Hello all,
>>
>> I go under the pseudonym "Kel-nage" - some may have already met me on
>> the forums. As I have mentioned there, I would be interested in
>> contributing to Widelands. I''ve primarily worked in Java, PHP and
>> some C beforehand, however, I am happy to work in C++ - particularly
>> as it would be a nice learning experience for me. However, based on my
>> lack of experience with C++, I feel I should start somewhere
>> relatively simple. That said, one thing I feel quite at home with is
>> network communications - last year I wrote (a basic) Jabber
>> client/server pair from scratch in Java.
>>
>> I've seen on your forums a request for a Battle.net-like functionality
>> for the multiplayer and feel this would within my capabilities. As I
>> see it, there are two important parts to such a functionality:
>>
>> * Chat Area - since you already have an IRC channel, I feel this would
>> be most suited to using either that or a close room
>> (#widelands-multiplayer maybe?). This would also save us any hassle of
>> writing a server and having to find somewhere to host it. Obviously
>> authentication would have to be implemented (thanks to Freenode), but
>> that isn't too hard.
>>
>> * Game List - primarily for listing open game lobbies that are waiting
>> for other players, but maybe also for gathering statistics (such as
>> how many people are playing Widelands at one time). Obviously this
>> couldn't be done through IRC, so an alternative method would have to
>> be found. Based on my experience with PHP and MySQL, my idea would be
>> to do a GET based online server, which the game would fire off a query
>> to a when the following happened: game lobby opened, game started,
>> game finished - which then updates a database of game lobbies (and
>> possibly any other information wanted). The game lobby list can then
>> be requested whenever someone wishes to play a multiplayer game of
>> Widelands - giving them an easy way to find a multiplayer game. This
>> would probably necessitate some sort of name requirement for games
>> that wish to be shown online (to identify them), plus an option to not
>> show the game online, if so desired.
>>
>> Any thoughts would be welcome - I hope to do a more complete feature
>> list in the near future (particularly in regards to the game list).
>> I'd like to keep the system as flexible as possible - maybe allowing
>> for tournaments or tables at a later date, possibly even individual
>> player ratings for matching similarly able players (like Xbox Live's
>> system). One worry might be the strain such a system will put on a web
>> server - I'm not sure of your current servers capabilities - but with
>> suitable caching and a bit of thought, I'm sure there is a solution
>> out there.
>>
>> Nick "Kel-nage" Moore
>>
>> --
>> Well you wore out your welcome
>> With random precision
>> Rode on the steel breeze
>>
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