The future of PBW - a call to arms

[Gandalf Parker]

Shall we start a poll on Languages and OS's? (java, perl, php, mysql, msql, windows, linux)

Can it be designed as a generic PbEM site which can be modified for a particulat game? Maybe even one that can manage other game-hosts at once (SEIV and others) which would be good for gaining support from a company.

Would building off of a package speed things up? Maybe an opensource webforum package that allows uploads/downloads?

SourceForge it?

notes from another thread in another forum

Standard player map games can be offered for a web signup. Also randomly created maps can be displayed and offered for download and play.

Games with not enough signups can be deleted after a certain amount of time, games with enough players can be started. A directory created and the host called to start a game. Each game can have its own email address for receiving turns which would make it easy to move incoming turns into the game directory. And would create an archive of past turn-ins in case a turn had to be manually moved back.

Since a "full user" could be created for each game (might as well, already up to having a directory and an email address) then the directory created for each game could also support web pages which means each game could have its own webboard (with NO banners or ads), its own automatic elist, its own ftp directory.

The games webpage could automatically include any information that the game is designed to write out to seperate files. The map of course could be displayed. Score standings, player/pretender names, who has/hasnt submitted turn files.

Another advantage would be in the area of anonymous games. Complete anonymity could be done. Or various levels such as supporting a player creating a whole new persona for each game played but still allowing player-to-player contact for diplomacy which does not carry consequences from game to game (we have had many threads on this subject in the newsGroups)

Yet another advantage is that there would not need to be any human doing any of this. With a full-time server, and full automation, new games could be started and run without having to coordinate with anyone. And with the option to use a randomly generated map there will be no foreknowledge by anyone of where special things are. Even special items, sites, specially designed provinces could be randomized for a completely fresh and fair game each time.

OK this seems like alot but as far as I know there is nothing listed here that is all that hard to do. Most of it I have already done on my server but Im more idea guy than I am manage guy. I only messed with the pieces long enough to figure out that it could be done, then I dropped it. Im a system admin. We have player programmers Im pretty sure. Do we have any webmasters?


create cgi to upload files
create each game as user with email and webspace
give each nation subdir off of game webspace
give each player .htpasswd password access to their nations subdir
use midnight hosting script to gather turn files from subdirs
use midnight script or maybe --postexec to move turn files to subdir
setup procmail to extract turn files that are mailed into game email acct?
setup system for emailing turn files back to players who request it?
or setup system for email notifications of turns being processed?


Possibly create CGI signup for games. List the games parameters. Offer the nations. When a user signs up then give them the .htpaswd password to the upload/download directory. Requested by user: add password access to the signup? Or use htpasswd controls for that (give list of all nation access passwd to GameMaster of that game?)

Create a cron watchdog to keep an eye on the game directorys deleting anything that shouldnt be there so they dont get used as warez sites.

[ June 07, 2004, 17:34: Message edited by: Gandalf Parker ]

[AMF]

Excellent point. This is the "community of players" whereas the developers should be separate so as to facilitate cooperation, speedier development, etc....without fear of getting dragged down by user requests etc.... I would think the "suggestions" forum should stay here and the devlopers should also post "progress reports" perhaps?

Now I really am butting out. Not my bailiwick.

Originally posted by geoschmo:
Do we think that a bunch of threads here in the Shrapnel forum is the best place for this? I was thinking one sticky thread here to keep the public aware of what's going on, and a link to another forum somewhere where we can organize things more to our liking. Plus we probably need some method of uploading files, which we don't have here. I am fairly confident Fyron would be happy to give us room on his site for a forum. Depending on how we go about it we may need a dedicated site though with whatever software controls the check out of the code in progress. I am pretty sure that would be easily gotten somewhere, but not here.

[tesco samoa]

I suggest that we leave this thread as an openning where people can post if their interested and what experience they have. And most importantly what time they can invest to work on this.


Then we will set up a pbw development forum to work from and create a new sticky on the top of the seiv forum with links to pbw status and pbw development.

this is my suggestion.

Ok... Since this thread is developing a different path.
I will start a new thread called

PBW - Development - Sign Up

[Roanon]

Originally posted by Gandalf Parker:
Shall we start a poll on Languages and OS's? (java, perl, php, mysql, msql, windows, linux)

Can it be designed as a generic PbEM site which can be modified for a particulat game? Maybe even one that can manage other game-hosts at once (SEIV and others) which would be good for gaining support from a company.

[...]

Poll please, yes, so we can gather who acually want to contribute under the given conditons (i.e. Languages).
If we do a good modular design - which seems to be best for this kind of development anyway - it shouldn't be a big problem to adapt it for other games just by exchanging the relevant modules, being able to retain the main administration structure.
As for the other questions/suggestions/to do's: one step after the other please .

As you seem to have good overview over the problems/needed features, and the needed admin abilities, how about appointing you to project manager?? Any objections? No? Ok, you have the job

[Gandalf Parker]

Originally posted by Roanon:
As you seem to have good overview over the problems/needed features, and the needed admin abilities, how about appointing you to project manager?? Any objections? No? Ok, you have the job

Heehee. Thanks but firstly, I doubt very much that would go thru without objections.
Secondly, Id make a bad project manager. Im more debater than decision maker.
Call me when you think you have it all worked out and I will be glad to toss in "great ideas" that will stir the pot again. Thats what Im good at. (though thats not always considered a good thing)

ByTheWay, I probably should say that another forum, even a private one, can be setup here. Shrapnel has also offered in the past to help host web-signup sites like this when they are ready. But there may also be a faction interested in seperating and going with a fansite instead.

-- (sig line)The administration of programmers has been compared to herding cats. Basically you shoo them all in a particular direction by standing behind them, waving your hands and making loud noises. Eventually one of them might get where you want.

[ June 07, 2004, 19:37: Message edited by: Gandalf Parker ]

There seems to be an implicit assumption in some of the recent Posts (e.g. discussing polls to pick programming Languages), that we'll be building a new PBW from scratch.

Can I just throw in the suggestion that maybe we just need to overhaul (and document, and arrange for long-term maintenance) the current system? When working properly, PBW as is (or was) had an extremely rich feature set. It may not be the generic PBEM game-server that Gandalf is after, and may not have been built using our favourite tools, but it did the job specified - running lots of Space Empire games - very, very well. Now I know that going throuugh an existing chunk of (presumably undocumented) code is going to be difficult and unpleasant (and may leave us with IP limitations depending on the original programmers' attitude to copyright), but it offers us the following advantages.

1. We know somewhere on the PBW server is a system that works. The diagnosis and fixing process may be difficult, but all the components of a working system are definitely there.

2. It kills two birds with one stone. Remember, that our mission - should we choose to accept it - actually includes two tasks. The first is keeping the current PBW server up and running so that we can continue to play games. The second is restoring the lost PBW functionality and adding any extra new features we might need. The advantage of the overhaul approach, as opposed to a rebuild from scratch, is that it does both simultaneously. The nightmare scenario is that the current server fails completely (or just becomes badly unreliable), while a shiny new PBW II is 12 months away from completion.

Mark

Originally posted by geoschmo:
Do we think that a bunch of threads here in the Shrapnel forum is the best place for this? I was thinking one sticky thread here to keep the public aware of what's going on, and a link to another forum somewhere where we can organize things more to our liking. Plus we probably need some method of uploading files, which we don't have here. I am fairly confident Fyron would be happy to give us room on his site for a forum. Depending on how we go about it we may need a dedicated site though with whatever software controls the check out of the code in progress. I am pretty sure that would be easily gotten somewhere, but not here.

Geo is right that a design or programming team is going to need some facilities that these forums don't provide. On the other hand, I would like to think that the team can hold discussions in public. I think there's certain, welcome, level of accountability implicit in the idea that the potential Users of the system can follow what the developers are doing. And some of them may be interested, but unable to take part. Why split off into a private forum?

Everyone who plays SEIV has a stake in this process. Certainly we'll need to ask people to stay on-topic in certain forums, but why exlude anyone?

Just a thought.

Mark

[geoschmo]

I didn't mean to exclude anyone. My preferance would be for whatever forum we have to be open at least for reading and posting comments by anyone. My thought was just to allow us to organize the forum into different threads and whatnot that we can't really do effectivly here.

[geoschmo]

Originally posted by Mark the Merciful:
Can I just throw in the suggestion that maybe we just need to overhaul (and document, and arrange for long-term maintenance) the current system?

This is certainly an admirable goal. The open-source aspect of it may not be an option though in that regard since as I stated before, the code belongs to Admiral. I can ask him how he feels about making it open source, but I can't make any promises.

[Gandalf Parker]

I think that the gathering of information as to who is available and their backgrounds is still a good idea also. Overhauling PBW would be great, if we get permission and if we have people who can do that. Its both "ifs" that need answering.