Proposal: Open Game Lounge System / Community

[Noya]

Hello everyone!

Today I'd like to present you an idea that is centered around free and open
source games. It was born via a discussion on mailinglists and IRC-channels
between people from Freedesktop-Games, freegamedev.net and GGZ [1] in the course
of the last two weeks.

The vision is an open, cross-platform game lounge system, used to play online
with people from around the world, browsing through and easily joining
multiplayer games. Its core elements will be:

* a set of open standard protocols describing the communication between a
game-lounge-server, a game-server and a game-client
* an open API for games implementing these protocols
* a game-lounge-server including community features (user-database, statistics,
chatting, etc.)
* a game-browser

The main goal of the project is to make the creation of an open community for
games and gamers eventually possible.

Most of you will certainly know services like Gamespy, Steam, Windows-Live,
Xfire and possibly more. It seems like there currently is no free and open
alternative to them, and this project aims to change that. Maybe we can change
that together.

A more detailed overview of how the system could look like, what the goals and
what the benefits are is available at:
http://apps.sourceforge.net/mediawiki/g ... ctOverview

Just a word about what this project is not: it is not a replacement for your
current lobby-system. It may be if you want, but it will be created in a way
that it can be used in parallel to your own system.

I have sent this mail (or forum-post, wherever you read it) to the most
influential [2] open source games. You can see a complete list here:
http://apps.sourceforge.net/mediawiki/g ... e=Projects

Ideally this project will be a cooperation between the major open source games
out there. But that's for you to decide. I invite you, game developers and
people interested in open source games, to the Glou (= Game LOUnge) mailinglist,
a place to join the efforts and discuss how this project should look like. You
can join the mailinglist here:
http://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/glou-devel

To hear from you would be great. As a starting point it would be interesting to
know...
* what features the lounge system definitely should have
* what features the current lobby system of your game has
* if you feel the need for an open gaming community
* if you would use the system in your game if it is done "the right way"
* and what you think about the idea in general

For now that's everything. Thank you all for your attention and patience .
Hopefully we'll see each other on the mailinglist to shape the future of this
project together.

Best regards
- Sven Pfaller (aka Noya)

[1] http://freedesktop.org/wiki/Games
http://wiki.freegamedev.net
http://www.ggzgamingzone.org
[2] This is obviously subjective. Feel free to contact projects that may be
missing and add them to the list.

[Z-Man]

Sounds interesting. I was looking into GGZ integration a while back, but was stopped by the difficulty of wrapping our 'server runs all the time, people drop in and out at will' system around GGZ's main view that a game is a session with a table with n slots that are filled with players or CPUs. Don't expect too much help with the actual implementation from me, but if the API turns out halfway decent, I'll surely be voting to add support for it.

[Lucifer]

I just want to know how this is different than GGZ.

[Infa(mous)]

GGZ
* close to the idea of Glou
* the GGZ server spawns gameservers: this is only suitable for smaller games like card-games or a very small number of gameservers

[Z-Man]

Yeah GGZ's only supported model seems to be 'X people gather, a game gets created for them, they play, the game is over, the game gets destroyed.". Glou's concept is more akin that of our master server married with IRC. Plus, they go around asking for support. And they call us important

[compguygene]

Sometimes I think you dev's underestimate the "value" that some are placing on our game and community. For instance, in several "top ten" linux online gaming lists, reviewers have noted that you may be more likely to find someone to play with in Arma 24 hours a day, than you will in the majority of "XBOX Live" games!

I have also seen other reviewers write about how easy it is to get sucked in, but how high the "skillz" of online players is. Which allows for a "real challenge" just to get good enuf to play online, plus, ITS FREE!

Don't underestimate how the larger "geek community" is starting to view our game! Armagetron Communities FTW!

[Lucifer]

True, this first post in this thread doesn't sound arrogant like most GGZ docs, but..

GGZ's model is as you say, but that's not strictly enforced. Our model can work, it just takes more work, an the docs for GGZ in tht area are very thin...

Anyway, if we need to send up a representative to make sure they don't totally screw up this glou thing, I'm willing to volunteer, but wont' be able to do much more than kibitz their api and be whatever sort of bureaucratic go-between we need.

[Tank Program]

I think this sort of system could be good for us. Mixing with players from people obviously willing to try other opensource games could be a boon for us.

[compguygene]

I know that I am NOT A DEV, but if I can do anything to help...just ask!

[Noya]

Sounds interesting. I was looking into GGZ integration a while back, but was stopped by the difficulty of wrapping our 'server runs all the time, people drop in and out at will' system around GGZ's main view that a game is a session with a table with n slots that are filled with players or CPUs. Don't expect too much help with the actual implementation from me, but if the API turns out halfway decent, I'll surely be voting to add support for it.

Really good to hear that you're interested. No problem if you have no time for implementing anything, the most important part would be to watch the project grow and give tips and criticism, so you can make sure that the API turns out "halfway decent" .

I just want to know how this is different than GGZ.

GGZ
* close to the idea of Glou
* the GGZ server spawns gameservers: this is only suitable for smaller games like card-games or a very small number of gameservers

Thank you .
Two other points are that GGZ does have no plans to make an open standard for the protocol and no goal to create an open gaming community. At least those are not the primary goals of GGZ.

Yeah GGZ's only supported model seems to be 'X people gather, a game gets created for them, they play, the game is over, the game gets destroyed.". Glou's concept is more akin that of our master server married with IRC. Plus, they go around asking for support. And they call us important

Rich Gade from GGZ told me that for the proposed model the server would need a rewrite from scratch. After all it was never written as distributed system.

Imho a project like Glou stands and dies with support from the gaming community. Luckily almost all contacted game developers were interested and offered support, once the thing is implemented .

Sometimes I think you dev's underestimate the "value" that some are placing on our game and community. For instance, in several "top ten" linux online gaming lists, reviewers have noted that you may be more likely to find someone to play with in Arma 24 hours a day, than you will in the majority of "XBOX Live" games!

I have also seen other reviewers write about how easy it is to get sucked in, but how high the "skillz" of online players is. Which allows for a "real challenge" just to get good enuf to play online, plus, ITS FREE!

Don't underestimate how the larger "geek community" is starting to view our game! Armagetron Communities FTW!

Yeah, go Armagetron go .

True, this first post in this thread doesn't sound arrogant like most GGZ docs, but..

GGZ's model is as you say, but that's not strictly enforced. Our model can work, it just takes more work, an the docs for GGZ in tht area are very thin...

Anyway, if we need to send up a representative to make sure they don't totally screw up this glou thing, I'm willing to volunteer, but wont' be able to do much more than kibitz their api and be whatever sort of bureaucratic go-between we need.

I've never noticed that GGZ is arrogant. The developers are nice people like you and me .

I don't know the GGZ code that much, but as far as I know GGZ's model is "strictly enforced". You would have to rewrite large parts of the server to support a distributed gameserver system.

And yeah, I think it is a pretty good idea to have a representative over at Glou's mailinglist. To bring in your thoughts is a good thing .

I think this sort of system could be good for us. Mixing with players from people obviously willing to try other opensource games could be a boon for us.

Wouldn't it be great to have an open gaming community ?

I know that I am NOT A DEV, but if I can do anything to help...just ask!

If you (or anyone else) wants to help, that's great. Just come over to our mailinglist and if you see something that you think you can help with, step up .

Thank you all for your answers. It's a bit hard to keep up with messages in 16 forums / mailinglists, so my answers might be a bit delayed .

[compguygene]

Just so all of my arma buddies know. I took Noya's advice. I have signed up for the mailing list.

[sinewav]

Mixing with players from people obviously willing to try other opensource games could be a boon for us.

Maybe with a larger group, the number of people who might actually donate to a project financially would grow, which could actually increase Arma's bottom line - slightly (provided overhead doesn't change much). One can only hope, eh?

[epsy]

Signed up as well. Also /join #freedesktop-games

[compguygene]

Ty epsy for the info about the IRC channel. I will add it to my list of Freenode channels.

[2020]

glad you have signed up compu as a player rep
and epsy as player-developer
and luc as one of the triumvirate

sounds like a useful development