NWN Gamespy Server Replacement Project

[Legacy_Guest_orizvi_*]

               Alright - so it seems GLU Mobile are a bunch of jerks.

Reverse engineering the Gamespy servers shouldn't be impossible and from what I've seen might even be a realstic solution.

We have a few things working in our favor:
1) A basic Gamespy server list viewer kindly provided by Gamespy here:
http://gstadmin.game...rver/index.aspx

2) SDK documentation kindly provided on Gamespy's website here:
http://docs.poweredb..._Implementation

3) The Gamespy protocol remains identical across games. This means we can use packet capure on other games which still have working Gamespy servers. Packet capture on NWN is also quite useful as the Gamespy server does respond - just with no servers. Blank responses are also valuable when deciphering a protocol.

4) Modifying the nwn client to point to a different server, or changing the hosts file are both simple fixes on the client end.

5) An open source server would help the other games affected as well.
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_SteelStallion]

               I'm certainly for collaborating to find a solution, for this has affected NWN 2 as well!  You may find this link interesting:

http://aluigi.org/papers.htm#distrust

This guy here has done a lot of research into reverse engineering the gamespy servers, and has a lot of tools available for them as a result.
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Melkior_King]

               I welcome any effort which would make my workaround list redundant.

http://nwnserverlists.boards.net
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Shadooow]

               do we really need the exact gamespy replacement?

wouldnt be just simple solution better?

something like:
- downloading a server list per game type from community driven website such as neverwinternights.info
- filling the list into game GUI, pinging these servers up and finding their players count

it would then be the server developers' responsibility to request to add their server into that list:innocent:
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Zarathustra217]

               Yeah, we could easily make something even better. In our community, we've toyed with making an auto-downloader that also features direct connect options. If we set up a plug-n-play solution that allows PW people to send in an xml file to a shared archieve, the auto-downloader could automatically update that (wouldn't take much bandwidth to host). It may take a bit more work implementing listings of player count, but not overly so.

I wonder if this is something we should discuss in the PW section though.
               
               

               

                     Modifié par Zarathustra217, 07 décembre 2012 - 10:17 .
                     
                  

            

[Baaleos]

               I could certainly build an application/assembly that can retrieve the info from a remote server.
I just lack the skills/knowledge of how to put that directly into the GUI Display inside nwn.


That being said -  My own Auto-Downloader for my PW Sever does have a 'Start Rhun' command - which, as mentioned/touched on above, does the nwnmain.exe on command line, and supplies the server IP.

Something like that would be easy to implement.

eg- it could be a datagrid in a Windows Form application, each row being a server, and it has a button on each row that says Connect   - if the server doesnt respond to the ping/server status - it can be grayed out.
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Shadooow]

               Also good idea Baaleos, and much much easier to implement. I say go for it.
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_leo_x]

               I don't think you should worry about putting server lists into the client.  Server discovery would probably be best left to a website like nwn connections or whatever -- the client was never even particularly good at it, player counts and the tiny description box is all you have to go on.

I'd agree with Zarathustra217 that a text/xml/json format that could be downloaded and imported into a launcher is best.  Something simple enough that it could be implemented as a shell script on Linux..
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Aelis Eine]

               

Baaleos wrote...

eg- it could be a datagrid in a Windows Form application, each row being a server, and it has a button on each row that says Connect   - if the server doesnt respond to the ping/server status - it can be grayed out.

Sounds like this:

img713.imageshack.us/img713/5954/xfirelist.jpg

Trouble is, any community fix is not going to have out of the box functionality. i.e. when a new player runs a fresh NWN install, they won't be able to see it. It's going to be a third party download, and if players are typically apprehensive of haks, they will be just as reluctant to download a launcher or a custom NWNCX that points to a working server list or Xfire or anything else. That kills off a big source of new blood for PWs. But there's nothing that can be done about that I suppose '>
               
               

               

                     Modifié par Aelis Eine, 07 décembre 2012 - 12:38 .
                     
                  

            

[Legacy_henesua]

               

Aelis Eine wrote...
Trouble is, any community fix is not going to have out of the box functionality. i.e. when a new player runs a fresh NWN install, they won't be able to see it. It's going to be a third party download, and if players are typically apprehensive of haks, they will be just as reluctant to downlaod a launcher or a custom NWNCX that points to a working server list or Xfire or anything else. That kills off a big source of new blood for PWs. But there's nothing that can be done about that I suppose '> 

I agree with you which is why I suggested figuring out a way to raise donations and seek a partner with one or more of the parties still making money off of NWN.

This is an essential feature of NWN, a game which is still being sold, and yet the feature is not being supported. I think its just a matter of bringing this to the attention of the right people and get someone to take responsibility for the monthly bill for it.
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Shadooow]

               Aelis: this is not impossible to solve, if the community agreed on some global solution, then it should be easy to persuade the companies that sell this game to include such solution so every new player would start with.

Unfortunately, I dont belive that could ever happen. Anyway, any project to replace the gamespy server list have my support, at least in propagation.
               
               

               

                     Modifié par ShaDoOoW, 07 décembre 2012 - 12:41 .
                     
                  

            

[Legacy_leo_x]

               

Aelis Eine wrote...
Trouble is, any community fix is not going to have out of the box functionality. i.e. when a new player runs a fresh NWN install, they won't be able to see it. It's going to be a third party download, and if players are typically apprehensive of haks, they will be just as reluctant to download a launcher or a custom NWNCX that points to a working server list or Xfire or anything else. That kills off a big source of new blood for PWs. But there's nothing that can be done about that I suppose '>

I don't think it's much more dire than the day before yesterday...  The place people would be likely to buy it is GOG.com which is more than happy to direct people to mods for legacy games.  Look how much people have to download to even get a useable Baldur's Gate.
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Zarathustra217]

               Are there any other places than gog that still sells NWN?
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Aelis Eine]

               

ShaDoOoW wrote...

Aelis: this is not impossible to solve, if the community agreed on some global solution, then it should be easy to persuade the companies that sell this game to include such solution so every new player would start with.

Unfortunately, I dont belive that could ever happen. Anyway, any project to replace the gamespy server list have my support, at least in propagation.

I can see that happening for pirac... err... non-official distribution. I remember downloading a game with a community multiplayer fix built in. But NWN is still being sold so I wouldn't advise for anyone to go there. For official retail distribution though, I highly doubt it would happen.

Zarathustra217 wrote...

Are there any other places than gog that still sells NWN?

From page 1 of Google:

http://www.amazon.co.../dp/B005JQ05RS/

http://www.impulsedr...com/nwncomplete

http://www.gamestop....ollection/92959

http://www.gamersgat...nights-complete
               
               

               

                     Modifié par Aelis Eine, 07 décembre 2012 - 12:59 .
                     
                  

            

[Legacy_Shadooow]

               well why wouldnt GOG do this? as for other places, I didnt knew that the game sells there, but if GOG adds the unofficial multiplayer support from NWN community, there is a chance that others do the same

EDIT: i see, didnt know that...
               
               

               

                     Modifié par ShaDoOoW, 07 décembre 2012 - 02:13 .