Servers....

[crystalmethod]

Okay, it appears no one has come up with any way for us to continue playinig DC games online. Now this scene has been lacking lately so I thought a project like this would be a great idea to promote us Sega lovers. I thought about why something like this hasn't been done yet and it occured to me....its cuz anyone who gives a shit enough is here, and we haven't done anything.

As I hear, Sega has sold some of the ip's for the games. I'm willing to buy them if possible, and collect donations for those who wish to help. What I'm trying to do right now is gauge interest in the project and see first off, its feasibility and second off those of you willing to work on it. I have noticed that most of you here in this forum are extremely talented and if given the right motivation can do pretty much anything.

So to reiterate, how possible would it be to set up our own servers for DC, what do we need to do, and how many of you would be willing to help out doing it? I have a few people in the DC hub conferencing on the idea so if you can please leave a message here and hopefully we can soon start work on a great project.

 

[Daniel Eriksson]

It would be very nice to see some DC servers! Wasn´t it possible to play DC Quake 3 on a normal pc server? Then I could put one up...

 

[Resident_Lurker]

Chu Chu Rocket server, please.

 

[crystalmethod]

Well, its good to see that you guys want one...but what about the feasibility of it? Can anyone comment on this **cough ExCyber, Mal**cough**

 

[gameboy900]

Sure you can do it....if you manage to write your own server daemon, pay for a dedicated machine, high speed internet connection and maintain the damn thing. Oh and good luck getting the servers software from Sega. I doubt they'd let anyone have that.

 

[AntiPasta]

well maybe we could start a petition to release the server software... heck, what does sega have to lose?

 

[gameboy900]

Umm...I doubt they will. There is alot of proprietary code in the server software I'm sure other companies would love to get their hands on and rip off.

 

[mal]

crystalmethod, you flatter me, really you do.

I wouldn't have a clue as to where you would start.

 

[Edge-`]

I agree with gameboy00 that the code isn't something they are willing to part with, for free anyway. If there are still servers operating, one may be able to sniff traffic and attempt to write a daemon to emulate what the servers are providing (this would be quite the project, and no gaurentee that a daemon could be created just by watching the data that is passed to and from the client).

I personally think the only way Sega would part with the software if 1) They are going to completely abandon all rights to the technology because the technology won't provide competition to the companies that provide them with revenues, meaning they won't release the software until it would be 100% obsolete or 2) the technology/software/and all rights would be sold to another firm for mega bucks. Both of which, I feel would be out of reach for us, the common consumers.

I think it *COULD* be possible, but it is going to take a lot of time, skill, and money on the part of the hardware that would be involved. Even getting ahold of DC dev. docs on creating network compad. games might provide some insight on writing a daemon and patching current games to work with them. I wish the best of luck on the project and I hope that more info may be avail. for it

 

[crystalmethod]

Ok well here's the deal...Money can be made so that is not my worry at all currently.

Servers are still running games....Outrigger, Quake 3, Chu Chu Rocket and a host of others are still up as can be seen here.

If there are any interested parties perhaps we could set up a metting via DC or IRC...I think this is doable but it's will, as Edge said, require alot of time and skill but at the same time will become an incredible learning process. I've seen some of the stuff that you guys have done on the board and its incredible!

In the mean time, gimme your thoughts and I'll see what I can do.

And where is ExCyber already? :lol:

 

[ExCyber]

There are three major things that potentially need to be dealt with by a server (in increasing order of difficulty):

1) Matchmaking

2) Feeding game data to clients

3) Running the game

The ideal case for developing a new server would be that the server itself is only a matchmaking service, like Blizzard's battle.net is for Starcraft. In this case, data coordination and the game logic are usually handled by whichever peer initiated the game. The next level is a server that routes data among the clients while the clients run the game. Finally, the clients could potentially be "dumb", and the server runs the actual game (i.e. keeping track of characters, projectiles, physics, etc.).

More later, need to leave.

 

[Alexvrb]

While I think that having new Dreamcast servers would be pretty sweet, it won't always help me. I can only currently play broadband titles, and I'd have to pick up a BBA. I should look and see which ones supported it, out of curiousity. Besides, I think the task itself would be nearly impossible unless Sega releases their server software. Maybe you should try and get in touch with them?

OT: Some b.net games are served by b.net, and others are not. I am actually not sure about starcraft, as I've hosted lag-free 8-player games back when I had dialup. I always assumed that the server HAD to take the burden for that to be remotely possible. Diablo II is definetely more than just matchmaking, because it doesn't matter who hosts - it is laggy regardless, and you're not allowed to complain because its free. Warcraft III is absolutely just a matchmaking service, I guess doing otherwise would have cost too much money at this point. A modem should be able to host a satisfactory 1 on 1 match, but any more than that and you start having trouble. Even a broadband host can often struggle with large games. One thing they did right was that if the host leaves, it takes a moment to transfer the burden over to someone else, I don't know how it determines who makes the best host (latency probably, but when/where, in relation to what? dunno).