11/21/07 Staff Meeting Transcript

Believe it or not, before the loss of my HD, I was working on a top secret C coded DirectPlay lobby for Jedi Knight, extremely similar to the zone. My plan is to eventually retrieve and finish that project.

Well, i love the idea of coming up with events, we could advertise them with time and try to gather anough people to make things interesting. I think keeping scores and such things would help keeping people motivated to show up and play.
Of course, for that idea to work, i think it's needed a proper game lobby where people can join to set their games.

On how to make the gaming lobby, here's an idea i've had in mind since a couple of years now...
When the Zone stopped supporting XvT and XWA everybody thought that was the end for those games, but some guy TRA_Stresser came up with this thing called Errant Venture, and managed to keep the community active in there almost like nothing happened for a long time, and you can still find lots of people to play these old games in there all the time.
It's a very simple program, based in html code. It works the same way than the zone, and it's light and really easy to use. After you log in you enter the main chat room, there you can host a game which opens a private room where others can join (with or without password), and once they are all in there, they hit "Launch" and everyone's game launches and connect to the host's IP.
Here's a link where you can get the program if you want to check it out: http://vsg.rebelsquadrons.org/files/redist.zip
Also, i know Stresser (the progra,mer), so if you like this idea and need help to make it work, i can ask him to give us a hand.

About 2, 3 years ago, I corresponded via email with TRA_Stresser after being impressed with his client/server. I don't remember exactly what ended up happening, but this is what I remember(I'm still kind of sketchy on the details).

- We stalemated on the fact that XWvT was launched toward a host IP via command line variables. JK is not in fact launched in this manner, unfortionately. JK uses the now outdated DirectPlayLobby architecture which many examples of which can be found, but is obviously more complicated than simply passing variables via a command line.

- I eventually lost communication with Stresser, his emails were bouncing or he was not replying, as I recall

- Stresser I believe was an active duty officer and deployed oversees during our correspondence.

TRA_Flambard I believe developed a more advanced client..possibly for SWGB. I attempted to contact him as well and get his source code, because like JK, SWGB is launched via DirectPlay.

Hey I believe this is TRA_Flambard, right?

Hi,

I have been looking all over for something to use or work off of, I came across Stresser's DirectPlay Client, I emailed him about it, he forwarded me to someone else who referred me to you.

Basically what I want to do is run a DirectPlay lobby. I just checked out your client today and I have to say it looks awsome, it's perfect.

This DirectPlay lobby would be for the Jedi Knight: Dark Forces 2 community that was previously on the zone, like XvT/XWA, but got removed last fall

The JK community has been divided up quite a bit with various irc channels, ect., and I predict it will die pretty fast at this rate and under these circumstances.

I believe however that the JK community would undergo a HUGE revival if it were to have a zone replacement come it's way.

I'm sure you can see where this is going, what I'm after is source code.

My intentions are to customize the client visually and possible delve deeper to make it look more like zone because the JK community is very familiar with zone.

Well that all said, I would really appreciate it if you were able to provide source code to your client/server, that would mean a ton to me.

I myself am not a programmer, so I'm not sure what would be involved in changing it to be for JK instead of XvT/XWA, but I know they are both DirectPlay so it can't be too hard.

Is there any chance you could do this?

ReT

Hi there!

If you have ICQ or MSN, we could speak over there. My ICQ # is [removed]
(preferably), but if you use MSN its [removed]

I'm not going to distribute the source code, until I'm leaving the
community. Or thats what I think now Also I think if you're not a
programmer yourself, it wouldn't do much for you anyways.

But! What I could do is to add JK support (or atleast I could try) to my
client. (There were also some requests for Battlefront made).

BTW, I also kept zone design in mind, when were designing this. I beleive it
looks pretty familiar now, and it's not hard to learn the new features at
all. I'm going to make a tutorial/faq/whatever describing all of the
features and functions someday.

So what do you think?

Flam

Hiya,

May I ask you, why do you want to make it visualy look as much as zone as
possible? Mind you I'm not making any offensive statements, I'm just curius,
so consider that while reading the next phrase. And it is: do you think that
JK players are so dumb, that if they see something they are unfamiliar with,
they would stall? If they are already using IRC, where client configuring is
much harder (along with launching of the games), could that be true?

Let's delay the source code question for a while.. and maybe I'll be able to
persuade you. Here's my argumentation:

1. I make updates on regular basics (bug fixes, new features etc), so If
someone else would begin making the other version, the development process
could kinda split into two threads. Nowdays, everythings is centralized.

2. Server code is made by Stresser, and he is planning a major rewrite also.
I don't even have the sources for that, but getting them wouldn't be hard.

3. I'm planing to make possible some visual customizations for the client,
i.e. allowing user to change all colors, possibly some of the layout etc.

4. More and more games might be added to the list. So it could become
something like the Zone, with Star Wars gaming theme. Again, some
centralization.

5. It would be possible to run your own server for the JK games only.

6. There a lot of bugs in the client and I don't want them to spread and
multiply, by presenting them to you.

7. That's the reverse of #6. I'm in fond of some tricks I used in the code
and don't want to give them away that easily =) Even for credit lol

Anyways, I'm not going to argue with you, so please don't respond with
something like "1. you can work together with my programmer" etc. If you're
absoultly positive on the topic of the source code, I think, that I'll send
it to you. (I'll have to ask permission for that, cause it's a big security
breach, but again, that wouldn't be hard)

I'm only asking you to think it all over again and to make a good decision.
So, the rest is up to you.

Flam

P.S. After your email, I finnaly composed a FAQ page for EV
( http://ev.mindloop.ru/faq.php )

P.P.S. Sorry for my awful English (

Hey,

I actually believe yes, JK players are so dumb that if they saw something foreign they would stall, and that they would feel uncomfortable with something other than that which they were previously used to. The few that have moved to IRC are the ones who can be arsed to learning how to use IRC, and organize games in that fashion. There is a lot of people that do not even bother with IRC because of the complicity. It's also a personal thing, I just really love the zone interface, I know that might sound funny but I just love the way the userlist shows up, and the professional feel of the zone.

I'm sorry if I sounded unreasonable in any way.

I just read your points and I must say, I have been persuaded, hehe.

1) Makes a lot of sense, I doubt my programmer would have enough time to spend on bugs and stuff anyway.
2) Do you intend to work with Stresser on the rewrite when he gets back?
3) As you know, I want it to look as much like zone as possible, something I or my friend can do, but obviously not necessary if your client is already very similar to zone.
4) That's cool, I'm gunning for a JK exclusive community tho.
5) That would be great.
6) Good point.
7) I see

Well it would be fantastic if you go ahead with this, it would be a great revival for the JK community.

As for source, yes I would like it very much, but if you feel you do not wish to give it out for whatever reason I fully understand that. I've thought about it and I've decided that having the source code would come down to having a full featured example for my friend to look at and see exactly how it is done(he has expressed interest in making a very simple DirectPlay lobby with JK launching capability.)

I see now that using your source as a base would be a bad idea, as you are still working on developing it.

Well whatever you can do would be fantastic, because right now I'm working off nothing at all, so thanks for listening to my ramblings, I hope to talk to you soon.

Take care,

ReT

P.S. Your English is excellent, perhaps better than mine haha.

Here you go buddy =)
http://ev.mindloop.ru/for_stresser/Venture.rar

Don't know if it's much help now?

Sorry for being so stubborn before!

Good luck with your JK community anyway

And thus I had the source code. As I recall, the source was not what I was looking for, as it did not contain a method for launching a Dplay app...

I've never cared about anything more than I have cared about setting up a DirectPlay lobby for Jedi Knight. I've offered to pay programmers, I've followed every possible lead on a Dplay based Lobby that would work, poured over examples, and stalemated on the fact that I do not in fact meet the criteria of programmer, lacking the nessecary skills to create a lobby from scratch.

But yeah there were some promising leads:

Hi there

there is a version out there that supports Galactic Battle Grounds that was created with the assistance of Tra_N2GHY ... basicly all that is needed is the registry keys added to the locally supported program checker and the option to create a game room for it in the game room configuration dialog box...

I can't really do it at the moment cause I'm posted out on a course at the moment and will be heading to the middle east till may... I don't know what kind of support I'll be able to give while I'm there, either.

anyway I'm forwarding this to N2 so he can put you in contact with the persons doing the GBG project

goog luck

A SWGB lobby would have been perfect if I had source code.

Hi,

I am desperate for a DirectPlay solution to the lack of a Zone type
solution for gaming for a couple of old games.

I would really really like to get ahold of your your redistributable
source code - note that I would not perform a direct rip of your
source code in any manner - I am interested in your implementation of
DirectX's DirectPlayLobby function, and I would use it for no
commercial purpose. ..

I would really really really like to save some old games by offering a
lobby solution to the lack of a centralized gaming community, like
Zone used to provide.

I would appreciate it very very much if you could send me the source
code. Is there any chance of this?

ReT

Robert, we've had this discussion before, I"m not using direct play to launch games, I'm simply calling the games from the command line and passing the parameters needed to tell one instance of the game to host, and the others to connect to that host... I'm attaching snipits of code that I use to do this

this tells the command line to launch the game as a host

dim path as string

path = Chr$(34) + "C:Program FilesLucasArtsXwingTiez_xvt__.exe" + Chr$(34) + " ishost /" + Chr$(34) + "a=" + hostIPAddress_External_To_Internet + Chr$(34) + " /" + Chr$(34) + "n=host" + Chr$(34) + " /" + Chr$(34) + "skipintro" + Chr$(34)

Shell path

and the following tells the command line to launch the game and connect to a hosting game

dim path as string

path = Chr$(34) + "C:Program FilesLucasArtsXwingTiez_xvt__.exe" + Chr$(34) + " isclient /" + Chr$(34) + "a=" + hostIPAddress_External_To_Internet + Chr$(34) + " /" + Chr$(34) + "n=client" + Chr$(34) + " /" + Chr$(34) + "skipintro" + Chr$(34)

Shell path

I'm using a shell library as follows

Private Declare Function ShellExecute Lib "shell32.dll" _
Alias "ShellExecuteA" (ByVal hwnd As Long, ByVal lpOperation As _

and call the library with a function as follows

Function Shell(Program As String, Optional ShowCmd As Long = _
vbNormalNoFocus, Optional ByVal WorkDir As Variant) As Long

On Error GoTo Failed
Dim FirstSpace As Integer, Slash As Integer

If Left(Program, 1) = """" Then
FirstSpace = InStr(2, Program, """")

If FirstSpace <> 0 Then
Program = Mid(Program, 2, FirstSpace - 2) & _
Mid(Program, FirstSpace + 1)
FirstSpace = FirstSpace - 1
End If

Else
FirstSpace = InStr(Program, " ")
End If

If FirstSpace = 0 Then FirstSpace = Len(Program) + 1

If IsMissing(WorkDir) Then

For Slash = FirstSpace - 1 To 1 Step -1
If Mid(Program, Slash, 1) = "" Then Exit For
Next

If Slash = 0 Then
WorkDir = CurDir
ElseIf Slash = 1 Or Mid(Program, Slash - 1, 1) = ":" Then
WorkDir = Left(Program, Slash)
Else
WorkDir = Left(Program, Slash - 1)
End If

End If

Shell = ShellExecute(0, vbNullString, _
Left(Program, FirstSpace - 1), LTrim(Mid(Program, _
FirstSpace)), WorkDir, ShowCmd)
If Shell < 32 Then VBA.Shell Program, ShowCmd 'To raise Error

Exit Function
Failed:
Open CurDir + "errorlog.txt" For Append As #4
Print #4, "shell - " + Str(Err.Number) + " - " + Err.Description + " - frmHostGame"
Close #4
Resume Next

End Function

I would be more than happy to include the games you want support for into EV, however, I need the command line arguments to launch the game from the command line to host and to connect to a host, once I have those, I can include the game in about 5 minutes to the existing systems.

I highly doubt that the games do not have command line arguments, I would not be suprised if they were similar to XVT and XWA. email the creators and Lucas Arts and request them.

sorry I can't help you anymore than this, I simply don't know about how direct play works with launching games.

Thus my efforts proved fruitless

- ReT

Hmm... i see...
Well, i never even thought of that issue, but it's true, EV works by running a DOS command line, and as i understand that doesn't work with JK.

Well... this is really a bummer, ReT. I'm not a programmer either, but i always thought EV held the key to save JK... i guess the saying is true "ignorance is bliss" lol
Good thing i referred to this here... otherwise i would've spent all my efforts just to find out the facts you discovered a long time ago Thanks for that, ReT

After all of this i think the only way to concentrate the JK community in one gaming area is through Zeqmacaw's JKLauncher. As it is today it's not perfect, but it's the closest anyone got to create a usefull utility to launch and join JK games. Also i know Zeq is still working on it to perfect it.
Maybe if it ends up being possible the integration of jkdf2.net with JKLauncher (again, i'm speaking from my ignorance here), with some serious advertizing, it'd be possible to recreate the Zone.

Maybe i'm dreaming with my eyes open, here... so feel free to slap me anytime

Anyway, maybe i'm derailing this thread, if i am, i'm sorry, i'd have no problem moving this into another topic

I can't wait till the SDK arrives...I can't wait, I just checked and it left Austin, TX, shipping via expediated... then we can take a look and figure out how hard it would be to fix the issues... again we could launch it as is, with very simple code modifications, but it wouldn't be perfect. Even as is though, people would LOVE it, so it can only get better. What I wish is I still had my old HD, then I could pull up some screenshots

WOW, this sounds good!
*fingers crossed untill further notice* lol

The company sent me the wrong book, I got someone's book on Alcohol self-intervention.

I spent like two hours searching for the DX5 SDK, but with no avail. Then I realized that the DX5 SDK shipped with Visual C++ 6.0. I'm not sure if it has what I'm looking for, but I'm sure as hell gonna try anyway.

Ooooooooh I got it

The company sent me the wrong book, I got someone's book on Alcohol self-intervention.

lol, maybe you could use that anyway...

Well, good luck with this, man! (*fingers still crossed*)