Re: Online games

[Jan Ekholm <chakie@infa.abo.fi>]

On Thu, 9 Mar 2000, Pierre Phaneuf wrote:

>Gareth Noyce wrote:
>
>> You mention chat etc for players to meet and greet. Something similar
>> (albeit simpler) to LICQ would be good in that regard -- as it covers all
>> those functionality areas. Also a way of seeing how many players (and who)
>> are currently on a server/game -- this ties in with the ping to allow a
>> player to estimate the speed they'll get on a game - on a given server, or
>> to allow them to meet old 'foes'?! ;-)

The hypothetical system I'd like to see would allow all this. All clients
connected to the server would automatically be notified of all other
clients, when they join/leave and so on. Every client always has an
up-to-date list of the other connected clients.

The system should not be tied to a specific game, it should only take care
of transmitting generic data from one client to another, either as
point-to-point, multicast (simulated) or broadcasts, depending on the
needs. It should also take care of management of clients (notification or
join/leave), authentification (if private games), teams (groups of
clients) in a game independent way.

Actual games should then have to implement a shallow layer of code upon
this system to implemnt that specific game's needs. Quake-like games
should probably just blast out moves as soon as player does something,
while a strategy game would send some status data when the player moves
some troops.

>> Remote viewing of active games is definitely a nice addition aswell...

Should be simple.

>> Whilst a game is active, quick messaging would be needed to throw taunts
>> etc...

Should be implemented by the 'shallow layer' on top of the communications
system. Basically the client who 'chats' creates a packet with data, sends
it to a specific client or to everyone, and the receiver(s) get the
packet, check the type and do whatever is necessary. 

>We have a meta-server (implemented as a CGI script) which keeps a list
>of servers, with informations, current players and statistics for each
>of them. A client gets the list, displays it to the player, who chooses
>a server.

This is a handy feature. Really nice.

---------------------+------------------------------------------------------
 Jan 'Chakie' Ekholm |    CS at Åbo Akademi University, Turku, Finland
    Linux Inside     | I'm the blue screen of death, no-one hears you scream


---------------------------------------------------------------------
To unsubscribe, e-mail: linuxgames-unsubscribe@sunsite.auc.dk
For additional commands, e-mail: linuxgames-help@sunsite.auc.dk