Topic: Gamespy closing on may 31st

[FVA_C_ Blade_ XC]

Sad but true.

[Javora]

Is this going to have any affect on SFC multiplayer?

Sounds like Gamespy was a victim of Steam and consoles.  I remember when it was Mplayer, I think we used to call it Mpig around here.  Personally I haven't used it in years, but I wonder how many people and games this will effect.

[Corbomite]

MPlayer, then GSpy. They were hopping back in the day. Hundreds of rooms since there was no Dyna yet (it didn't work on release and took months to get going). Best time I ever had on this game. You could play dozens of battles a night with ever changing foes. If you found a good wingman back then you kept them close because there were no voice comms yet and you needed people who thought just like you did to fight well.

[Strat]

Gamespy authenticates for the dynaverse.

This may mean that it is now impossible to login to the dynaverse inside sfc.

The code is accessible to be modified to authenticate with other sources, like dynaverse.net, or other things. But if that will actually be done is another story. As it is, if it is indeed disabled when GSA goes offline, the Dynaverse may be totally gone until further coding is restarted.

[Javora]

Strat, does Gamespy have any code that they can share with us?  If so then this might be the time to ask.  That will make any coding you have to do a lot easier.

Edit:

Without that authentication code and without the source code for SFC/OP to make changes, SFC/OP might be dead in the water next month.  Not good.

[Strat]

Well, to clarify, this should not affect the regular games, like IP mode, or Game Ranger, games. It should ONLY affect the Dynaverse.

When you logged into the Dynaverse, you had to log in with a gamespy account at the area where you entered an email address. This login all happened through GSA servers and their database, and then handed back to SFC. Your ships, your character for a Dynaverse server, was all tied to a GameSpy account. Weather you actually logged into it using GameSpy arcade is unrelated, or if it was made with a real email address. The point is, all your Dynaverse character info was tied to a email in GameSpy. Note that char data was not actually stored on GameSpy, it was only a login. Once logged in it handed back an "OK" and something to securely identify you to the dynaverse servers, which actually held all the char data.

When the GameSpy servers go offline, I suspect that the Dynaverse login will fail at the screen where you enter your email. It's not a matter of missing code. It's a matter of:
A) making a new authentication server to replace GS
B) altering the SFC client to use the new server instead of GameSpy's servers.

[Corbomite]

Yeah, I remember when we changed from the Interplay to GS servers. It's not a big deal. We just need a new host for account verification.

[Javora]

Yeah, I remember when we changed from the Interplay to GS servers. It's not a big deal. We just need a new host for account verification.

Back then Bethke and company was still around to make the changes to the code needed.  We don't have that this time around and in the case of SFC/OP we might not be able to make any changes at all.  It all depends if that part of the code has been compiled or not, if it has then we can't change where SFC/OP goes to find this verification.  So SFC/OP is going to continue to look for a website that no longer exists.  From reading Strat's post he seem confidant that he can make the changes needed.  However I still think this is the time to ask the people at Gamespy for a copy of whatever they have and if Ziff-Davis still plans on keeping the servers running.  Who knows, this closure might not even effect us.  But regardless I'd still ask, the people there might not care if we get a copy because they are leaving soon anyway.

I think the best way to move forward from here is to change the Dynaverse server program to include account verification.  If this is even possible we can cut out all the middlemen entirely.  At this stage of things, having a central location for account verification isn't really needed anyway.
 

[Strat]

Imagine it this way..

You have a locked room with a special lock and key. The door and room belong to you, but the lock and matching key(s) are handled by a "special Company". You want to change companies who handle your lock and keys. But the new company has a different shape lock, and to use it means altering your door to fit it.

The room is the Dyna. The door is the login screen to the dyna. They lock is GameSpy's login server, and the keys are the user email for logging in.

Now, say we want to change from GameSpy to Steam (just an example....) the 'door' will have to be altered to 'mount' a different locking mechanism. In programming this is called an API, Application Programmer Interface. This means that Interplay, GameSpy, and Steam provide an API (which is programming code) that we insert into SFC and alter SFC to use it. Thus SFC (the door) does not handle the locking itself, but talks to a API that does, weather it is GameSpy or Interplay, etc...

The above is 'easy', because, the 3rd party provides the server and the API for SFC to use to connect to their server. I say 'easy' because each 'lock' may have a different way of authenticating users, which means it might mean other changes on the SFC side to properly use the new 'lock'.

However the above assumes there is a replacement authentication server to use. What if we had to create our own lock from scratch, lets say, because the door was so old we had to alter it as little as possible. This means creating our own authentication server, databases, and API. This is so hard it almost certainly would never happen.

My dream*
I think it would be cool of somehow we got the Dynaverse to authenticate off of the Dynaverse.net forum. It contains it own authentication already (forum login), and would remove dependency on 3rd parties forever. But this means creating a new API and testing it, where-as things like Steam provide fully tested API's for this sort of thing already. Sort of like having to make half the lock (use Dyna forum, just create new API) vs a fully supported lock premade (Steam).

[Javora]

However the above assumes there is a replacement authentication server to use. What if we had to create our own lock from scratch, lets say, because the door was so old we had to alter it as little as possible. This means creating our own authentication server, databases, and API. This is so hard it almost certainly would never happen.

That is why I suggest talking to Gamespy.  They already have the authentication server, databases, and API we need.  And they might be in the mood to help out their "loyal fans", at least until the end of the month.

[FA Frey XC]

We can look at this, we've already had a couple things in the works in the event this happened.

Regards,

[Age]

I am not sad to see it them close up except where the Dyna is concerned.

[virag0]

Hi,
I have kind of got Dynaverse working with OpenSpy.  I have the OpenSpy server running against Mysql.  I need a little bit of help to get it working 100%.
I am also trying to get a D2 working for myself, but that can be a separate job.  If anyone who is already running a D2 would like to assist me
in getting the OpenSpy stuff working, they just need to let me know some details and I can create accounts - manually for now but it would be pretty
simple. My problem is that getting the D2 working inside my network is awkward but if someone has a D2 already running it will make this easy to test.
I have lots of experience setting up server systems like this, just need someone who wants to give me some details to stick in my database and serve it up.
Once we get this working, I can share how to do it so this game does not have to die.  In the long run, if it all works I will add other legacy games as well.


rachel

[FPF-DieHard]

So that's it huh?  The final, final nail in the coffin?

Pour some bloodwine on the ground for our dead hommies.

[Age]

So that's it huh?  The final, final nail in the coffin?

Pour some bloodwine on the ground for our dead hommies.

There is always GameRanger and it supports SFC GameRanger

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