GuiSys Preview...

[Stephen]

I was playing around in Photoshop with some ideas that I want to see if I can make in the next release, and I came up with this:

http://stephengentle.com/img/ca3de/mainmenu.jpg

It will hopefullly have sub menus for the optioins and start server buttons, and a "Really Quit?" dialogue for the Quit button.

It's just a concept, but I think it looks pretty good . It would be great if it could be a map in the background, with animated water, and maybe birds flying past every now and then.

Now, to start learning LUA... It looks pretty easy to pick up after the languages I already know.

Can't wait for the next release!

-Stephen

P.S. Carsten, are you planning to have some kind of "Find servers" functionality, or are we going to have to specficy an IP every time we want to connect to a net game?

[Sindwiller]

Carsten, are you planning to have some kind of "Find servers" functionality, or are we going to have to specficy an IP every time we want to connect to a net game?

I think, for that you need first a master server who collects all IP's of the gameservers and gives them to the clients. And then you need the technique. It wouldnt be also bad to write a external server-lister who (can be configured tough) connects to a masterserver, collects all IP's of the gameservers and when you choose one, it starts CA3DE with the IP of the server as a argument.

Wfr, Sindwiller

[Carsten]

Hi Stephen, hi Sindwiller,

well, the initial old Ca3DE "Options" dialog will be replaced on a step-by-step basis with the new GuiSys functionality, i.e. it will probably take me another release or two until the old dialog can completely go.
About the "Find Server" functionality, we must distinguish between LAN and Internet games, because on a LAN figuring out the listenting servers automatically is well possible, but finding servers on the Internet requires a master game server that maintains the list, as Sindwiller correctly stated.

[Stephen]

It would be pretty easy to do a master servers thing... You could do it with a PHP script that the engine interacts with. You could host it here, if you didn't expect to have all that many people playing internet games at the same tuime. You could just make it have a list of IPs that were active in the last hour or so, and then when someone clicks on 'Find Servers', it just pings all the IPs on the list to see if they are still alive, and get stats from them (eg. Map, number or players and Max players, latency). I'm not sure how well that would scale though....

-Stephen

[Carsten]

Yep, the concept of a master server is of course simple.
I somewhat like the idea of using a PHP script for that purpose - that would make the setup of such a server indeed very easy, and would certainly be a good start.
However, I wonder if implementing a master server with a PHP script would be robust enough e.g. against (d)DoS attacks. I.e. can a challenge/response system be implemented sufficiently with such a script? I don't know. In fact, writing a proper master server in proper C++ would probably be a great and fun programming excercise.

[Stephen]

However, I wonder if implementing a master server with a PHP script would be robust enough e.g. against (d)DoS attacks. I.e. can a challenge/response system be implemented sufficiently with such a script?

I'm not sure about stopping DoS attacks... I'll do some research. Security could also be an issue; eg someone analysing what the game server sends to the master server, and then sending the master server hundreds of different IPs that a client would have to ping in order to join. Maybe some kind of encryption? Encryption in PHP is easy, but the problem is having a seed that stays the same on the server and client without sending it.

In fact, writing a proper master server in proper C++ would probably be a great and fun programming excercise.

I agree that it would be a good exercise, but could you get this application installed on a host? Or would you host it from home? I guess it would not need all that much bandwidth to operate, so that could be an option.

What I think would be really cool is a web site where you could see all the servers that are running, and the number of players on each, and the players' health and score.

-Stephen

[Sindwiller]

Back to server listing from client, i think there are only two ways to solve that issue. I suggest that the second one is better.

- Implementing a Routine into the client, that connects to a masterserver given by a configuration file.

- Writing a external server browser who connects to a master server given by a configuration file and launches Ca3DE with the IP paramaters.

What I think would be really cool is a web site where you could see all the servers that are running, and the number of players on each, and the players' health and score.

Im not sure about that, but, i think that would be more expensive than writing a server brower into Ca3DE or writing a external one. Also, it wouldnt be very useful because, most developers wont welcome a service for all Ca3DE-servers at all.

Wfr, Sindwiller

[Thrawn]

I think there should be an executable provided in the SDK that creates a master-server.

It is right now absolutely NOT necessary to run a master server and if someone releases a game, it is his own task to host one, not the job of Carsten.