NWN Gamespy Server Replacement Project

[Legacy_Lazarus Magni]

               I am not interested in finding out all of which servers are not listed. A proactive server admin, such as my self, should be asking the same questions and reporting themselves as not being listed, just as I am. I only pointed out other servers (such as PoA HGLL) as an example of others who are also not being listed by this. I am interested however, in seeing this suposed solution be a real one, and one which is user friendly and easy to impliment (both for players and aDMins.)
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_painofdungeoneternal]

               

Lazarus Magni wrote...

Look at the readme for SkywingL's NWNCX file. Now that is what I would call user friendly and a full explanation of the functionality of a plugin (sadly his version seems to be for nwn 2 only). These sort of details (both in terms of what a plugin does, and how to install it, or use it) are what seprate a true community contribution from an exclusive club contribution.

Read the readme for Virusman's "NWNCX", or Skywings "NWN2 Client Extender" - Virusman's readme is actually pretty good ( remember skywings is actually much older and has a lot more features, and the questions you are asking are features of skywings )

If you can gather up the info, it would be helpful, I generally have found the only way to make that happen is to do it myself ( hint hint ) I am still trying to figure out quite a bit of these details, but then a lot of the details are not completely without problems either.

I am trying to make my program a means of putting a "hand holding" GUI on top of a lot of this stuff, makes it all work how Skywing and Virusman want, but likewise make it so an end user does not have to read or think and can just click play.
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_painofdungeoneternal]

               

Lazarus Magni wrote...

I am not interested in finding out all of which servers are not listed. A proactive server admin, such as my self, should be asking the same questions and reporting themselves as not being listed, just as I am. I only pointed out other servers (such as PoA HGLL) as an example of others who are also not being listed by this. I am interested however, in seeing this suposed solution be a real one, and one which is user friendly and easy to impliment (both for players and aDMins.)

Unlike you, i am... because it's helpful to have test cases showing the problem, without this It's hard to know what the problem is or the extent of it. And others can go thru it and make sure all those listed are fixed, and determine where the problems are occuring.

Please start a thread listing your server, that it's not listed, it's direct connect ip and port. ( and what techniques you've tried, ie hosts file edit, posting on nwlist.com ) Perhaps even stating it's not showing up in NWNCX/nwlist.com/etc   ( probably do so in some backwater area like the PW section )
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Lazarus Magni]

               Why on earth would I start a new thread? This is the thread for this "solution" to the loss of the game spy service.

I am merely reporting the problems I personally have experienced with this, and have other wise seen for other servers.

Not sure why you, Painofdungeoneternal, think you are the voice of virusman or skywingL? Or even the OP? I merely posting in response to the suposed solutions presented at hand, and my experiences with them
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_painofdungeoneternal]

               I am a nobody who happens to also be a programmer, who is developing yet another solution to these issues ( which does so in another way ), and triaging the problems, documenting them, and organizing them, and doing some higher level testing since I can actually directly communicate with that api, and directly with your server via gamespy. ( hence i was able to document 38 servers in the action category when it was assumed that there were no servers in that category, and determined it was an issue in NWNCX and nwnlist.com and not in the API as was assumed )

I at one time was listening to people on the PW I was on complain about all the problems we were having, and I asked why don't you ask the devs about it. They said the devs won't listen, and just kept complaining. I went and organized the list of complaints, documented the issues in an easy to follow listing which those devs could understand, and can say those dev's did actually listen, and a large number of those issues are fixed. Now some were fixed by me, some by skywing, some by the devs, and the rest of the community. It's important to present things in a way that is helpful to those types of people, I just present it like I'd want it myself if I were in their position, and quite often that means figuring out the exact problem and also presenting a real solution easy for them to implement. The gamespy issue is no different.

I am interested in documenting which servers are not on the list, but pulling out what servers are not listed is kind of hard reading thru this thread, having a known list is a lot more helpful than "lots".

I can correlate things, like on your server, I got a socket timeout on the first connection attempt. Your server also does not have an actual host name ( per my gamespy query ). But unless I have more information, it's hard to know that certain issues are going on, but listing known servers and their direct connects which are not showing up is very helpful. I also am concerned about some of the character encoding issues ( latin vs utf-8 ) which I suspect might be causing some problems.

So I am not Virusman or Skywing, but I am very good at running down problems and figuring out who is actually responsible for a given bug, and also understand at a pretty in depth level how the game works.

I guess I'll start my own thread... Please post there your server info.
               
               

               

                     Modifié par painofdungeoneternal, 12 février 2013 - 07:16 .
                     
                  

            

[Legacy_Aelis Eine]

               

painofdungeoneternal wrote...

( take a look at the NWNCX plugins, the plugins are all nwncx_*.dll and are each optional, you mainly need nwncx_connect.dll, nwncx_serverlist.dll and nwncx_disablems.dll )

These are the files, they seem self explanatory to a degree, ( and in the readme )

• nwncx_nwnxbridge.dll This plugin attaches NWNX (server-side extender) to the client. You'll need updated NWNX Core and plugins to run them on the client
• nwncx_connect.dll  hak/tlk preloading on character creation (server-side plugin is required for this to work)
  
    Doesn't affect the game in any way if the server doesn't support these extensions
• nwncx_disablems.dll Disables client account validation to eliminate timeout waiting
• nwncx_dmtest.dll Use DM client instead of the player mode when using "Test Module" (F9) in the Toolset.
  
    This will work if you use patched nwmain.exe
• nwncx_serverlist.dll  GameSpy replacement - queries Skywing's server instead of GameSpy
• nwncx_tweaks.dll Un-hardcodes some features in the client. Currently it only allows to add new weapon VFX, beams and texture replace VFX, new ProjTypes and open face helmets support

I looked at the DLLs, but I couldn't find one that disables the camera hack. According to Google, the camera hack is done on the EXE itself as a hex edit.
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_virusman]

               

Aelis Eine wrote...

I looked at the DLLs, but I couldn't find one that disables the camera hack. According to Google, the camera hack is done on the EXE itself as a hex edit.

Yes, camera hack is part of the patch.
Try this patch:
http://data.virusman...ch-nocamera.rar

Lazarus Magni, NWNCX is just a client for the server list service. I don't think its readme should contain information for module builders on how the service works. Once there is a comprehensive guide on this, I'll be happy to add a link to it in NWNCX readme.
               
               

               

                     Modifié par virusman, 12 février 2013 - 11:23 .
                     
                  

            

[Legacy_Lazarus Magni]

               Sorry Virusman, I think my comment about lack of documentation came from previous frustration working with various different plugins, and the obscurity or lack of information regarding them.

My pain point as far as this plugin is concerned is there needs to be clear directions as for how players use it, and likewise for server owners as to how to get included in this list.

Pain, thanks for your help getting us listed, however this issue remains for everyone else, and I would think addressing this should be a top priority.

Laz

P.S. I don't mean to seem ungrateful, community solutions like this are what keeps this community going. I, and I am sure many others, appreciate the work being done in this effort.
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_virusman]

               

Lazarus Magni wrote...

Sorry Virusman, I think my comment about lack of documentation came from previous frustration working with various different plugins, and the obscurity or lack of information regarding them.

My pain point as far as this plugin is concerned is there needs to be clear directions as for how players use it, and likewise for server owners as to how to get included in this list.

Pain, thanks for your help getting us listed, however this issue remains for everyone else, and I would think addressing this should be a top priority.

Laz

P.S. I don't mean to seem ungrateful, community solutions like this are what keeps this community going. I, and I am sure many others, appreciate the work being done in this effort.

As you may know, English is not my native language, so writing lengthy docs requires some effort from me.
If the docs are lacking in anything, contributions would be greatly appreciated.
I will soon start working on NWNX plugins for server admins that would help them get listed without any hosts editing, etc.. Just one thing at a time.
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Lazarus Magni]

               Thank you kindly Virusman.
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_painofdungeoneternal]

               

Lazarus Magni wrote...
Pain, thanks for your help getting us listed, however this issue remains for everyone else, and I would think addressing this should be a top priority.

Well the goal is shared, we all want it easy of course, easy just takes a lot of work up front, more than most realize, and until all the problems are dealt with, nothing is going to be easy, and hopefully the community is patient and supportive of Virusman, Skywing and the others who are doing all this work. ( Still don't know the peep behind nwnlist.com, him too )

How to get where it's easy, it's always one step at a time. Helping you was one step, without which I don't think anything will get fixed. Hopefully other PW admins who are not listed can make a little noise in that thread I created and I can see why they are not listed, I really need a nice list of all the problem children. ( going to have to read this entire thread again looking for the missing PW's. ) Knowing why ( that certain things i thought should work actually don't ), allows me to contact the developers with concrete details and evidence that helps them know exactly where to step to squish that bug.

If I can get more PW's that should be listed but are not, I can use them for further diagnosing of the overall system, and by eliminating the bugs and problems one by one, only when all the hard parts are eliminated will you have an easy system.
               
               

               

                     Modifié par painofdungeoneternal, 12 février 2013 - 10:20 .
                     
                  

            

[Legacy_Sandrax]

               I've tested and looked over the new 2.7 NWNCX sources that Virusman posted and they're rock solid and contain some good fixes (some of which have revealed to me some terrible coding tricks that went on at Bioware during NWN's creation -- which The Vast was somewhat inadvertantly effected by).  I would encourage everyone to upgrade to that version, even as Sadira of Tyr points out " I guess it was not liking a download from someone named Virusman" -- its alright, it doesn't do anything to your computer other than modify the NWN process '>

A server side solution is on the horizon (I can't give a time, but "far away" is a good answer), and will probably happen for Linux faster than Windows.
               
               

               

                     Modifié par Sandrax, 13 février 2013 - 01:46 .
                     
                  

            

[Legacy_Sadira of Tyr]

               

Sandrax wrote...
I would encourage everyone to upgrade to that version, even as Sadira of Tyr points out " I guess it was not liking a download from someone named Virusman" -- its alright, it doesn't do anything to your computer other than modify the NWN process '>

That was just me being funny, lol.

I just wanted to mention that I think Virusman did a pretty good job writing the readme file. I was able to figure out what to do without much trouble, and I usually have trouble with that kind of stuff. However it should mention to click the run as administrator box.

I have noticed that all the servers show as 75 ping, but if you add them to your favourites list, they will show a more accurate ping.

Our server is still not showing on the list, but it is a Linux server, and may require that more complicated solution. Our server admin is currently reviewing the topic before making a decision. I guess we are hoping that there will be a way to get our server listed without making a whole lot of changes.
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_SkywingvL]

               

Lazarus Magni wrote...

I am not interested in finding out all of which servers are not listed. A proactive server admin, such as my self, should be asking the same questions and reporting themselves as not being listed, just as I am. I only pointed out other servers (such as PoA HGLL) as an example of others who are also not being listed by this. I am interested however, in seeing this suposed solution be a real one, and one which is user friendly and easy to impliment (both for players and aDMins.)

The intention is for the tracker infrastructure I've provided to serve as an authoritative centralized data source for servers, so that we don't have PW admins needing to run around and list themselves on a bunch of different server listing databases, nor players having to check a bunch of different databases to find servers.

That's why the tracker infrastructure is setup to allow anyone to write a program, website, etc. that pulls a data feed from it, so that we have one data source that is as inclusive and accurate as possible made available to the community.  Anyone can consume the data and present it as they wish, but gain the benefits of presenting a single, global data source instead of each server list website/database starting from scratch and risking becoming out of date over time.

So, for example, PW admins only have to list themselves in one place to show up in both NWNCX, nwnlist.com, pain's NWN launcher program, and isleclostridia's web server listing for NWN1, or in one place for the CE and nwnlist.com, isleclostridia's web server listing, the NWN2 server monitor desktop app, etc. for NWN2.

For NWN1, addicted2rpg is working on a solution (NWNX2 plugin) to allow servers to automatically self-register themselves with the tracker infrastructure.  This takes away any sort of maintenance headache once the plugin (still under development I believe) is installed, since it's "fire and forget" after initial setup, even if you change IPs for your PW, etc.

For NWN2, there is already a NWNX4 plugin (xp_bugfix) that fulfills this automatic server self-registration functionality.

As an additional alternative registration method for both games, the tracker infrastructure allows anyone to request that any address be listed as a server (the infrastructure verifies that it is a valid server first).  The Register Server page at nwnlist.com provides a front-end to this functionality, although anyone is free to write their own against the API and add to the collective known server dataset.
               
               

               

                     Modifié par SkywingvL, 13 février 2013 - 05:06 .
                     
                  

            

[Legacy_Lazarus Magni]

               As far as I could tell, as mentioned above, none of the self registration functions seemed to work. Our server only got listed due to something pain did programming wise (don't ask me it was way over my head.)

I tried, e-mailing, using the self registration page on nwnlist.com, and editing the host file. All three methods didn't result in getting listed.

I am just looking for a surefire way for servers to get listed, so that I can include this information in my post attempting to consolidate all of the different alternatives to the access to the server lists, which hopefully can get stickeyed. (I don't care, btw, if my post gets stickeyed, just that there is one single, all inclusive, unified source of this information for players and admins, that is easily accessible to everyone [e.g. a stickey] and available at all of the different places people might be going to seek out this information [e.g. first and foremost the general discussion boards and PW boards here on the game developers website, and also places like the nwn facebook page, nwn wiki, nwn community page, the vault, gog.com, ect...)