PBEM game: Advice and/or recommendations?

[PashaDawg]

Rowlff said:
PBEM host would be a fun project for me

deccan said:
I've been toying with the idea of making a website for facilitating PBEM play.

Sounds like a great idea!! 'Tis beyond my computer skills (which never went beyond learning Basic in 1983 on a TRS80 and an Apple II - - - scary thing is that I still have my old floppies (the ones that really were floppy). I think I could probably throw them away, along with that dot-matrix printer. Bad, Pack-rat, bad!). But, I'd be pleased to be a tester, if the need should arise.

[Rowlff]

@Gandalf: I'll try and dig that up...

@deccan: We could join forces, no?
And how hard could it be? I've only been doing a little thinking, but I am quite confident it's possible to get a nice system running in a relatively short timeframe. The hard part always is getting the bugs out, and implementing all the new features the damn Users suddenly seem to want (^_^)
Anyway, I develop PHP and MySQL for a living, so why not get another (free) project on the plate... PM me, if you like!

[Rowlff]

I found the thread you mentioned, Gandalf. Definitely an interesting read...

And I started running some tests: Hosting regular turns once you get the .2h files from the players is easy enough from the commandline (and thus automatically from a script). But there does not seem to be an obvious way to start a new game when you only have the initial .2h files from the players' "newlords" folder.

I played around with a script starting and subsequently killing a text only TCP server of "Dominions II", and that did generate a "fathrlnd" file, but even when I specify all the options like map, and set "--uploadtime 0", the damn server still insists on some interactivity on my part, having to click "OK" several times. Does anybody here know of a way to get this process completed without the user having to do anything?

[10.49pm] Got it working! It's late... still, a good start, methinks!

[deccan]

Heh, my day job isn't even remotely related to programming and I tend to be the kind of person who learns just enough programming to make what I need and then promptly forget whatever I learned afterwards. I'm not sure how much help I could be to a pro...

The reason why I said it might not be too hard is because there are already plenty of free PHP scripts about that handle user registration / management (including such things as "remember me" login, "I forgot my password" functionality, "I want to change my e-mail address" etc.) and file upload / download, which to my mind are the most difficult parts.

Other than that, we would only need a way for a registered user to create a virtual game with x number of open slots (which is after just rows in an MySQL table), allow players to apply for an open slot and upload their pretender file, and after the host presses the "Start Game" button, allows the host to upload turn files and Users to download them and upload .2h files in turn. Since in Dominions, the the correct .2h file is always (nation_name).2h, and the turn file is always (nation_name).trn that helps too. You'd also want some functionality on the game page to allow the host to post news on the game (which I suppose would also get e-mailed automatically to each player).

It would make it really easy to do if we force the host to upload each .trn file individually. I suppose the alternative would be to allow the host to zip all the turn files into a zip and upload that and have the server unzip them and sort all the (nation_name).trn files correctly, which would be a lot more complex and need lots of testing. (You need error checking of all kinds such as seeing if the host forgot to include a particular nation's .trn in the zip etc.)

Personally, I'd just aim to get the above to work first (and force hosts to upload each .trn individually) before thinking about other things, like e-mail notifications, giving players the option of having the latest turn attached to their e-mail notification etc, allowing players to withdraw, allowing the host to kick a player etc.

Yeah, I've been thinking about this for a while now. And oh, you'd also want to think about some reasonable size limits for the various files. How big can a .2h get? How big can a .trn get?

[deccan]

Rowlff said:
[10.49pm] Got it working! It's late... still, a good start, methinks!

Oops, looks like you've been playing around with actually hosting a game. Remember, my thought was to simply make a web-based tool to help hosts organize PBEM games, not to actually host a game. But if you have the machine and always-on connection to make it happen, hey, more power to you.

[Rowlff]

Of course, the system we're aiming for would have to do all you describe - and you're right that it's pretty much a standard framework in regard to authorization and such.

But to be frank, without the capability to actually generate turns automatically, there's not much sense to the whole thing, is there? If the 'owner' of a game had to go to a webpage, download all .2h files to his home machine, host the game and reupload all .trns (zipped or not), that's more work than just doing it all for yourself with an email-client. Nothing really gained here.
What I want is a system that, once set up, can run (that is: start and host) a large number of games with minimal administrator involvement.

You are right of course, that you need a web server that allows you to run a copy of "Dominions II" and some cron jobs to schedule host runs, but with services like DynDNS that's not that big a deal to do it with a spare computer from home (and I intend to do it myself, once I have changed apartments in January).

Hey, the more I talk about it, the more difficult (or, should we say, interesting?) it sounds... still, I think it's worth it (^_^)

[Gandalf Parker]

I have a 24/7 Debian Linux server (its easier and cheaper than you think). I wouldnt mind hosting either arrangment but Im going for the simplest modular arrangment that I can do as a sysadmin-upward system rather than the all-in-one webmaster-downward Version already available (Mose Hansens package).

So for mine, the keystone would be the simplest possible script that doesnt have much "this must also be loaded for this to work" stuff. It would transfer the Users "C:\Program Files\dominions2\game2\man.2h" file to "../dominions2/game2/man.2h". No variables, and no switches.

Im also hoping for "create game" and "host then quit" scripts rather than up-all-the-time hosting. Those ARE supposed to be possible. I would much rather CRON or CGI kickoff the hostings.

[Rowlff]

Thanks for the offer, Gandalf! Like I said, I'll most likely be able to host something like this myself come the beginning of next year, but the more offers, the better!

As to the simplicity, I am thinking along the same lines. A single package that's easy to install with as little dependencies as possible would be best. Seeing that having a database makes keeping track of players, games and everything so much easier, I am currently aiming for PHP5 with the included SQLite (or maybe PHP4 with some libraries I wrote myself for simple flatfile DBs). So if you had that, I'd like to keep you in the loop regarding my progress...

And, yes, we're talking about a solution here that 'hosts and quits' - no permanently running "Dominions II"-servers (^_^)

[Gandalf Parker]

Since Im more SysAdmin than programmer or webmaster, my method of tracking Users and games was going to be user accounts on the machine. Managed by ISP methods. If a game has an account then it automatically has a web space, quotas, an email address that can be automatically programmed for processing incoming turn files and sending outgoing result files, ftp, etc etc etc. With user accounts they could simply be email aliases allowing for playing anonymously.

Of course to some that would seem the hard way and a database the easy way but Im thinking that depends on your background. The Mose Hansen Version is Perl/MySQL (and available for download if you want to look at the scripts)

[Rowlff]

Like you said, Gandalf: There always more than one way to do it. I prefer the database approach, because it allows for so much more flexibility in aggregating data. A list of all games you play? Just an SQL query! Displaying all games that have open positions left? Another simple query!

Whatever! I've started working on 'domserv' (anybody have a better name?) today, and am making progress (at least that's what I think). As soon as I have something to show, I'll either point you to the address or send you the files to try them on your own machine.