Author Topic: REQUEST: Need screenshot of lobby from old PXO days  (Read 3250 times)

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Offline taylor

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REQUEST: Need screenshot of lobby from old PXO days
If anyone has a screenshot of the lobby from the old days of retail and PXO, please send it to me.  I tried looking through google, and although I found exactly what I was looking for, the original image doesn't appear to be available any longer and the thumbnail is too small for me to get what I need from it.

The problem is that going through the code I've realized that the lobby chat server isn't providing channels like it's supposed to.  The chat server code that was used in the old PXO and what we use now is so different that it's extremely difficult to figure out how and what the differences are.  So, a single screenshot from the old days should be all that I need to figure out those differences and modify the code accordingly to get the desired result.

 

Offline castor

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Re: REQUEST: Need screenshot of lobby from old PXO days
Lost all the old stuff in numerous hard drive crashes since pxo days :(

SSX site seems to have at least one lobby shot up.
http://www.shatteredstar.org/groups/freespace/screenshots.php?mode=list&group=freespace

 

Offline Colonol Dekker

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Re: REQUEST: Need screenshot of lobby from old PXO days
If i remember correctly, you'd just type "/channel blah" to either create it or join depending on whether it existed or not. Then it would appear in the top left of the PXO lobby.
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Offline FUBAR-BDHR

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Re: REQUEST: Need screenshot of lobby from old PXO days
If you need any more I should have a couple somewhere.  I checked the place they should have been but didn't find them so I'll have to do some digging. 
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Offline taylor

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Re: REQUEST: Need screenshot of lobby from old PXO days
The screenshot that caster linked too was what I was looking for, but unfortunately it sent me in the wrong direction from what I was expecting.  So I'll just pose my current questions to you guys and maybe that will clarify things for me:

  • Did the original PXO show chat channels with zero users?
    Currently only the Eleh general chat channel ever shows up since it is the only one with any users.  I'm curious whether the other general chat channels ever showed up without any users in them or not.

  • For the standalone server channels (lobby_#), what showed up as a user for the standalone server in the channel?
    I had expected the screenshot to confirm that standalone created channels did not show up with any users in them initially.  Going by the game code it would appear that the lobby_# channel wouldn't have any users in it initially since it specifically looks for one or more users or that it's a "lobby" channel before showing it.  But instead the screenshot indicates that the standalone server itself shows up with a user in the channel as well.  What was this user?  Did it have a basic name or the name of pilot that standalone starts with?  Did standalone have any sort of lobby chat capability?  Or is this just some issue with the screenshot and standalone server chat channels actually did show up with no users initially?

  • Did the game counter show active games for any available game, or just when at least one player was in the game?
    This concerns a change I made this weekend where the standalone server will advertise in the game count as having an active game though it doesn't actually have an active mission loaded yet.  I realize now that was probably a mistake and it needs to only show up in the game count when a mission has been selected by someone.  I need some sort of confirmation on that though.

  • The lobby shows the game count for each chat channel, so does that mean that the game browser would show only the games from the active chat channel too, or does it show them all?
    Basically, if you have 10 games going split evenly between channels Low and High, with you being in the Low channel, does moving to the game browser show you the 5 games that were in the Low channel, or does it show you all 10 games?  There is enough code left in the game to indicate that such filtering might have been done, but so much was ripped out it is very difficult to tell how that remaining code was actually used originally.

So if anyone could answer those questions for me I would appreciate it. :)

 

Offline FUBAR-BDHR

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Re: REQUEST: Need screenshot of lobby from old PXO days
  • Did the original PXO show chat channels with zero users?
    Currently only the Eleh general chat channel ever shows up since it is the only one with any users.  I'm curious whether the other general chat channels ever showed up without any users in them or not.
Yes the same channels were always there.  There was Lobby_20, Squadwar, tech support, and about half a dozen others.

[/li][li]For the standalone server channels (lobby_#), what showed up as a user for the standalone server in the channel?
I had expected the screenshot to confirm that standalone created channels did not show up with any users in them initially.  Going by the game code it would appear that the lobby_# channel wouldn't have any users in it initially since it specifically looks for one or more users or that it's a "lobby" channel before showing it.  But instead the screenshot indicates that the standalone server itself shows up with a user in the channel as well.  What was this user?  Did it have a basic name or the name of pilot that standalone starts with?  Did standalone have any sort of lobby chat capability?  Or is this just some issue with the screenshot and standalone server chat channels actually did show up with no users initially?

No user showed up for standalone servers.  The only thing that showed up was the game in the list with an * indicating it was a standalone.  Nothing in the lobby except the game counter.  Lobby_20 was just about the only channel that contained standalones.  That and Squadwar were the only 2 channels that were used for 99.999 % of the games.  Occasionally a standalone would be put up in the Squadwar channel but very few people even knew how to do this.  No chat capabilities except the in game stuff and the host could send a message from the standalone to people using the server. 

[/li][li]Did the game counter show active games for any available game, or just when at least one player was in the game?
This concerns a change I made this weekend where the standalone server will advertise in the game count as having an active game though it doesn't actually have an active mission loaded yet.  I realize now that was probably a mistake and it needs to only show up in the game count when a mission has been selected by someone.  I need some sort of confirmation on that though.

I believe it was any available game.  Standlones just showed up as forming games with 0 players.  Basically anything you would see in the games list counted as a game weather it be a forming with just the host, in progress, debriefing whatever and even standalones. 

[/li][li]The lobby shows the game count for each chat channel, so does that mean that the game browser would show only the games from the active chat channel too, or does it show them all?
Basically, if you have 10 games going split evenly between channels Low and High, with you being in the Low channel, does moving to the game browser show you the 5 games that were in the Low channel, or does it show you all 10 games?  There is enough code left in the game to indicate that such filtering might have been done, but so much was ripped out it is very difficult to tell how that remaining code was actually used originally.[/li][/list]
So if anyone could answer those questions for me I would appreciate it. :)

Only shows you the games and standalones in that channel. 

And before you ask private channels did not show up in the channel list util you visited them.  They disappeared when everyone left the channel so they were only temporary but otherwise functioned as a regular channel.  No one probably ever tried to put a standalone in a private channel though but you could play games in them and no one in the lobby would even know you were there.  Some squads would have practices that way. 
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Offline FUBAR-BDHR

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Re: REQUEST: Need screenshot of lobby from old PXO days
I just had the PXO lobby screen up.  The original that is.  Seems the backdoor still halfway works.  If you start retail multi, turn PXO off, go into the server list, and then turn PXO back on when you exit you will get the PXO lobby screen.  Unfortunately since there isn't a server to validate the pilot you get kicked out.  Wondering if you might be able to trick retail by having it look at FS2netD for pilot validation so you can see the original lobby. 
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Offline FUBAR-BDHR

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Re: REQUEST: Need screenshot of lobby from old PXO days
There is a shot of the lobby in the FS2 manual on page 46.  It show the person being in the squadwar channel with no one in any other channel and no games.  So it's players in squadwar channel 1 all other channels 0.  Games in all channels 0. 
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Offline taylor

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Re: REQUEST: Need screenshot of lobby from old PXO days
Was lobby_20 always present, even when no users were in it?  Just wondering if I need to set it to create that channel by default (the original PXO doesn't seem to indicate that it was permanent, which is why I ask).

Anyway, this info is exactly what I was looking for, thanks! :D

I've already added code to handle filtering for the server list so that it only gets the servers on that chat channel, and I'm modifying the chat server to allow for zero users right now (the game itself will still filter those out unless they are lobby_# channels though).  The other other main todo list item is to make sure that standalone will actually create chat channels properly (right now it doesn't do anything with the chat server).

I think that all that will be left after that is handling mods properly.  I know that we talked a little about that via PM, but getting more input would be useful when it comes to figuring out the best way to present this to the user.  Right now what I'm leaning towards on the mod front is to filter the chat channels so that only special mod prefixed channels show up for mods.  So if you are on the "tbp" daemon, the chat server will prefix all channel requests with "tbp_".  This will be transparent, the "tbp_" wouldn't show up, but would allow the chat server to have multiple lobby_20's, one for each mod, and they would all be named "lobby_20" as far as the user is concerned.  And that would apply to all channels when playing via a mod, of course.  This way everyone can keep separate, and instructions on lobby use can be generalized since in-game it will be the same for everyone (only users logging in via standard IRC chat client would see all of the channels).  Does that sound acceptable to everyone?

 

Offline FUBAR-BDHR

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Re: REQUEST: Need screenshot of lobby from old PXO days
Yes Lobby_20 was always present and so were the others like Squadwar and tech support.   The only ones that weren't were private channels and they only showed up in the list when you joined them.  They would however remain in your list until the private channel shut down or you exited PXO.  So private channels were like a private list as well.  All the other were permanent and there was no way to add another public one. 

Oh and not having the standalones show up as games unless a person is hosting on it wouldn't be a problem.  It might be better that way. 

One channel per mod with that channel as the default for the mod (+pxo flag perhaps) would probably be the best.  The real question would be weather to allow other mods to create games in channels that aren't theirs.  Like a TBP game in the Saga lobby or something. 
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Re: REQUEST: Need screenshot of lobby from old PXO days
Well, considering the MediaVPs are a mod, but not a separate game, I take it you only mean standalones?  And if so, how would a standalone mod differentiate itself from retail FS2?
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Offline FUBAR-BDHR

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Re: REQUEST: Need screenshot of lobby from old PXO days
Different multi.cfg setting or even like they have been by port.  The problem will be keeping people from one mod or conversion (not counting the MediaVPs) from joining a game from another mod.   
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Offline taylor

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Re: REQUEST: Need screenshot of lobby from old PXO days
Well, considering the MediaVPs are a mod, but not a separate game, I take it you only mean standalones?  And if so, how would a standalone mod differentiate itself from retail FS2?
I mean the different FS2NetD daemons that the server runs, so "mod" is in the server sense rather than what you generally think of on the client side.  That is the only thing which is always the same and that is always kept separate as far as the server is concerned.  We can't rely on any sort of client side mod config in other words, there are simply too many options to ever hope to get it working properly.  For something like the mediavps or other client-side mods it would just be best to keep separate with user-made channels rather than trying to handle such things in code.

Different multi.cfg setting or even like they have been by port.  The problem will be keeping people from one mod or conversion (not counting the MediaVPs) from joining a game from another mod.   
It would just be specified by the port, since we need it all taken care of server side rather than client side.  But in that respect the code will always be able to keep them separate, since chat channels will only be available to the mod name of the daemon you are running on.  It will be impossible for something playing TBP to joing a WCS game, because the users would never see the same chat channels, and being on a different daemon they don't ever get the same games list anyway.

 

Offline FUBAR-BDHR

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Re: REQUEST: Need screenshot of lobby from old PXO days
OK that's where I was getting confused.  I figured Lobby_20 or whatever it's called would be for FS2 and the MediaVP's while other channels would be for other mods.  So I was thinking if you were in the TBP channel and switched to Lobby_20 you could chat with the FS2 people. 
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Offline Shade

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Re: REQUEST: Need screenshot of lobby from old PXO days
I could see myself wanting a 'general' chat channel at some point down the line, a chat which allows all mods/TCs to join but notably doesn't allow you to create/join games in it. Exactly so you can chat with people across mods. Would be useful in case there's one person on for each of three mods, letting them coordinate to all log on with the same mod so they could kill eachother.
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Offline taylor

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Re: REQUEST: Need screenshot of lobby from old PXO days
Yes Lobby_20 was always present and so were the others like Squadwar and tech support.
I've double and triple checked the code, and it looks like any "lobby*" channel would only show up if there was a user in it whereas things like squadwar, tech support, and the general chat channels would show even with zero users.  The code specifically looks for #lobby channels and excludes them from the list unless at least one user is present.  How this worked exactly I still don't know, since it causes a conflict from how the standalone servers are reported to work.

So, I'm going to go with what the code says and allow channels that are not #lobby's from showing up unless a user is present.  And I'll just assume that the standalone code actually handled their channels specially and what I need to do is attempt to figure out how to recreate that missing code with its unknown functionality. ;)