PBEM helper now available - Page 7

Puke · #61 April 30th, 2001, 08:44 PM

hey guys. I have been having some problems with the helper and sending out turns. here is what I have observed:

the MAPI mail features do not seem to work when another MAPI compliant mail client is open. at first I thought that multiple profiles were throwing it off, but it seems to work only when all other MAPI mail programs are closed.

The SMTP support seems to rely on having OPEN MAIL RELAYS. for those of you who dont know, this is generally considered a BAD practice and leads to spam portals, and is the very kind of thing those stupid nazis at ORBS go around DoS'ing fortune 500 companies for. basically what i am saying, is since the software is trying to drop mail onto an smtp server instead of actually logging onto (with username / pass) a POP mailbox, any properly configured SMTP server will only accept mail for local accounts, and therefore if i logged onto MY server, and tried to send mail to somewhere else, it would be denied since open relays are 'bad' and most SMTP ports are now only good for receiving mail.

<<edit: admiral says puke is dumb, pop is inbound only and even though it supports authentication it will do nothing here. puke is also dumb because he forgot dialup ISPs offer internal smtp servers that will relay without being visible to the public net. puke is sorry he is so dumb, but some of those issues still stand>>

..so, what I should be able to do is have it log on to my smtp server, send the mail to ME, and then I could forward it off to the correct destination with a POP, WEB, MAPI, or any other client in an ordinary fashion. when I tried this, the mail was not rejected as 'unknown address' or 'address not present locally' but instead I got some long string of output from the PBEM helpers smtp client window, and it scrolled by before I could read it, and the SMTP helpers error dialog stole context from me so I could not even access the scroll bars in the smtp dialogue.. so I cant figure out why that was not working, but I can tell you that it demonstrated the same behavior when talking to an exchange 5.5 and an exchange 2000 smtp server. I have not tried a sendmail server, if anyone would care to give this a shot, it would probably be helpful.

now dont get me wrong, this isnt a gripe. this is constructive input from the beta testing squad, and I have to appologize to the PBW guys out there that I have not been able to spend enough time on that service to put together the same level of feedback as I had promised, but hopefully when everything is fine-tuned, it will all be kosher pickles.

I think the PBEM Helper SMTP support may need to be changed to POP support if people dont have a mapi compatible client, but that still wont help the web-mail guys, whom are basically f-ed and will have to do it manually. the SMTP support would be perfect in conjunction with the play by web service though, since the SMTP server could just be pointed to the central web server that is hosting everything. that would even ensure faster turnaround and no email delay, since it would be dropped directly to the destination mail server from each player.

[This message has been edited by Puke (edited 30 April 2001).]

Fuerte · #62 May 1st, 2001, 12:47 AM

It's getting very late here in Finland, and we has that serious spring party (Wappu) going on, but I will post here the same thing I posted in e-mail:

"In my point of view, the PBEM helper supports two things: Simple MAPI (Outlook Express, Outlook, Netscape, Eudora, or any Simple MAPI compliant e-mail client).

And SMTP, Simple Mail Transfer Protocol. You need to set up your SMTP e-mail address and the SMTP server address correctly in PBEM helper in order this to work.

These two interfaces should cover 99.9% of the e-mail clients out there.

But if you have some web based e-mail system, these do not work, I'm afraid."

Fuerte · #63 May 10th, 2001, 09:49 PM

Status update: We are in year 2400.6, in the beginning of long game!

The initial problems with e-mail systems and PBEM helper have been sorted out. We have 13 players, one player (Chewy) has not sent any turns, though.

I just made a new release of PBEM helper, 1.0.128. If you want to host (and play) a PBEM game, you should try this. Because of that bug in SE4 1.35, the hosting can't be automated fully.

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geoschmo · #64 May 10th, 2001, 09:56 PM

Have you heard anything from malfador about the 1.35 problem with it not running turns from the command line?

Geo

Devnullicus · #65 May 10th, 2001, 10:10 PM

Is there any way for the PBEM helper to run a game with a mod (like mine? =) ). If not, how difficult would it be to add support for that? And if you need help to do that, I could probably offer my services as an HTML/Javascript/Java/Perl programmer.

Puke · #66 May 10th, 2001, 11:37 PM

quote:
Originally posted by Devnullicus:
Is there any way for the PBEM helper to run a game with a mod (like mine? =) ). If not, how difficult would it be to add support for that? And if you need help to do that, I could probably offer my services as an HTML/Javascript/Java/Perl programmer.

as long as everyone has the same mod, it should not be a problem at all. it would not automatically change the path file or anything, but if you had seperate installs of the game for mod / unmod / Version 3 /Version 35 then you could even point the helper to different paths to run the game from. its pretty open-ended that way.

Devnullicus · #67 May 10th, 2001, 11:40 PM

Very cool. Is there documentation anywhere that tells a new user (like me) how to accomplish all this? =)

My interest is in setting up a PBEM game using my mod.

Also, Last I heard, the PBEM helper wouldn't work with Version 1.35 of SE4. Has this problem been fixed?

[This message has been edited by Devnullicus (edited 10 May 2001).]

Puke · #68 May 11th, 2001, 12:49 AM

actually the helper works great with any Version, the play by web host is the one that wont run the newest Version.

i have not seen any docs from the helper, but if you download it, its all fairly intuitive. be aware that you will need to edit the .ini file a little bit to get your paths working. Fuerte could probably provide some better answers

geoschmo · #69 May 11th, 2001, 03:53 AM

quote:
Originally posted by Puke:
actually the helper works great with any Version, the play by web host is the one that wont run the newest Version.

i have not seen any docs from the helper, but if you download it, its all fairly intuitive. be aware that you will need to edit the .ini file a little bit to get your paths working. Fuerte could probably provide some better answers

Actually the problem is not that PBW can't run the 1.35 Version, it's that the 1.35 Version has a bug. It can't run the host part of the game turn from the command line, and this prevents any auto compiler, PBW, or PBEM helper from working. That part of PBEM helper that has nothing to do with running the game from the command line still works.

Geo

Fuerte · #70 May 11th, 2001, 06:02 PM

Yes, the bug is in SE4 1.35. I have not contacted Malfador but I know that Admiral has. So we have to just wait...

PBEM helper supports mods, it knows about the path.txt file. And if you have several SE4 installations, you can change the folder in PBEM.INI:

[SE4]
Directory=D:\Games\SPACEE~1

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