any chance of a pregrid room?

[2020]

may have asked this before...
but is it possible to write a module
which enables players to join
their sort out their team
and then the team ports onto the grid?

that is
it is syncronised with a server?
say at 8.30pm
the server checks the pregrid room
and players there get the option of entering

just trying to make it a little easier
for teams to set up
so that as soon as they port
they are in competition mode...
like the film

this is not to contraveine the current method
which works for drop-in
but
do you guys have anything in the pipeline
or trunk
or where-ever you put these things?

[ed]

I played a game that had one of those. Can't remember what it was.
It was much like the server browser, you could see all online servers and who was playing where.
But you could also see who was browsing servers, as you were, and you could chat to them also.
It was very handy.

[2020]

yeah yeah
enough of the sarcasm...

[Luke-Jr]

But you could also see who was browsing servers, as you were, and you could chat to them also.

Interesting idea, and probably quite simple to add once XMPP is integrated.

[Lucifer]

Um, require /teamjoin? The only thing we're missing is a few chat commands that set up the team. Looks to me like the rest is there.

[ed]

yeah yeah
enough of the sarcasm...

Really none was meant. I thought it was a good a idea.
If I remember that game, I'll let you know. Maybe it's used on others, I don't know.

[2020]

Really none was meant. I thought it was a good a idea.
If I remember that game, I'll let you know. Maybe it's used on others, I don't know.

sorry
my mistake
many apologies

i thought you were refering to this forum
since it also shows who is playing at the bottom of the page


interesting developments
guys
interesting...
but from my experience of how players get together
it really has to be thought out well:
it is all to do with timing...

would it also be possible
if players in a pregrid room
could simultaneously enter other games while they wait
and when the time comes
they are notified
perhaps even automatically pulled out
and ported into the pre-grid room...?

do you see what i am getting at...?

[Z-Man]

IMHO, we shouldn't integrate all of this stuff into our own executable. That's bloat in itself, and a really nice entry point for feature creep. Before you know it, Arma is a full featured multi-protocol chat client.

A better approach would be integration with multi-game browsers. I know three, Gamespy, the All-Seeing Eye and GGZ. Gamepy wants to see money and don't tell you how much, so they're basically out. ASE would give small licensing problems, as the interface to ASE is non-GPL, but they're solvable and the interface is really easy to work with. The last time I checked GGZ, which was at version 0.0.3 or so, I couldn't figure out how to integrate it; it was geared towards games that do all their networking through GGZ itself. I think it is worth a second look now.

[Luke-Jr]

well, in theory, once we have XMPP, players could just use their favourite IM client to join the Armaserver's chat (presuming it's allowed), discuss stuff there, and arrange their teams with the server (using /commands) before they all fire Arma up...

[Revan]

XMPP sounds promising. A lobby would be a great idea. You could invite someone to a game, private chat, and (mabye?) chat with someone in the game from the "lobby".

[Z-Man]

Sorry, to me, XMPP, especially with the "everything gets trivial once we have that" attitude, sounds like a hellish hack. For the suggested team formation through ingame chat commands prior to the game, the server whould need to be aware that a message over XMPP would come from a potential player, create the player data, and later, when the player really joins, link the real player data with the previous player data from chat. I'd also like to note that "their favorite IM client" only applies if it happens to be jabber or one of the multi-protocol clients. Or have I missed the news of Yahoo, MSN, AOL and ICQ announcing the adoption of XMPP?

Anyone wants to take a deeper look into GGZ? That could give us an out-of-the-game matchmaking interface, tournament organization, team configuration with team leader assignment, and if I read the FAQ correctly, even authentication and statistics. Well, and Windows and Mac headaches. A starting point could be to actually test the system with the other supported games. FreeCiv, which some of you seemed to be actively playing a while back, has GGZ support.

[2020]

took a peek at ggz
it looks good
but i am afraid i am not the man to implement anything

even the way simple stuff
started turning my head inside-out

i didn't realise it needs a developers cool eye to perceive what's needed

[Luke-Jr]

For the suggested team formation through ingame chat commands prior to the game, the server whould need to be aware that a message over XMPP would come from a potential player, create the player data, and later, when the player really joins, link the real player data with the previous player data from chat.

Except with XMPP authentication, the server would be identifying players by their IM address anyway. Sure, there would be some work needed, but a lot of it would be taken care of by XMPP integration.

I'd also like to note that "their favorite IM client" only applies if it happens to be jabber or one of the multi-protocol clients. Or have I missed the news of Yahoo, MSN, AOL and ICQ announcing the adoption of XMPP?

Their favourite IM client need only be standards-compliant. That includes almost all clients except a select few which practice vendor/network lock-in (primarily AIMCQ and Yahoo-MSN). And AIMCQ is known to be working on standards compliance at least at the server-to-server level. That leaves one major network which refuses to be standards compliant because they want vendor lock-in. Nothing stops the Yahoo-MSN network from implementing the XMPP standard. And their two clients are a vast minority among the many that are standards-compliant.

[Revan]

Their favourite IM client need only be standards-compliant. That includes almost all clients except a select few which practice vendor/network lock-in (primarily AIMCQ and Yahoo-MSN).

Yes. The few that almost everyone uses. Yes, they suck, but they're simple and easy to use. Besides, MSN, AIM(Triton) and Yahoo! all have "nice" "pretty" interfaces. In other words, those three are the most popular(unfortunately).

I took a look at GGZ. I don't get exactly how it works. There aren't any screenshots or FAQs I could find. Zman you said you read a FAQ? Link please?

[Luke-Jr]

Their favourite IM client need only be standards-compliant. That includes almost all clients except a select few which practice vendor/network lock-in (primarily AIMCQ and Yahoo-MSN).

Yes. The few that almost everyone uses. Yes, they suck, but they're simple and easy to use. Besides, MSN, AIM(Triton) and Yahoo! all have "nice" "pretty" interfaces. In other words, those three are the most popular(unfortunately).

And making exceptions and sacrifices in functionality to not "offend" people who don't use something standards-compliant isn't going to change that. Most people using lock-in networks already run multiple IM programs. If none of their current ones support XMPP, what's one more program to get some added gaming functionality? We can always have web interface(s) in addition.