Re : how to program a jabber game server

Re: how to program a jabber game server

On Thursday 01 February 2007 16:11, Denis Guillaume wrote:
> Hello everyone,
>
> What you suggest Michal is to rewrite your document on game sessions and
> propose a new XEP ? The goal was to define a new namespace like
> jabber:x:gamesession ? Why the original one has been refused ?
>
> Richard and Tomasz, now my mind is getting clearer (but not clear :p) about
> components and bots I guess I can program one or the other with the
> libraries found here : http://www.jabber.org/software/libraries.shtml
>
> But Richard, you've been telling that components implementation depends on
> the server I choose, it doesn't sound really nice ! Are there some servers
> more appropriated to components dev ?
AFAIK - components usually works with all kinds of servers. I myself wrote 
several and AFAIK again - they work with plenty different servers w/o 
problems. There can be very minor differences but component protocol is 
standartized so if component not works with particular server - that is 
usually enough reason to fix _server_.

--

-- 
Respectfully
Alexey Nezhdanov

Re: how to program a jabber game server

>> But Richard, you've been telling that components implementation depends on
>> the server I choose, it doesn't sound really nice ! Are there some servers
>> more appropriated to components dev ?
>>     
> AFAIK - components usually works with all kinds of servers. I myself wrote 
> several and AFAIK again - they work with plenty different servers w/o 
> problems. There can be very minor differences but component protocol is 
> standartized so if component not works with particular server - that is 
> usually enough reason to fix _server_.
>   
Not if you are writing an internal component to take advantage of 
certain capabilities/increased performance some of the servers may have 
for internal components compared to external components, or even if you 
are writing against a server who's component protocol differs from the 
standard giving extra capabilities.

Richard

FOSDEM logistics

I've set up a small discussion list for those of you who are going to be 
at FOSDEM / interop event in late February:

http://mail.jabber.org/mailman/listinfo/fosdem

Arrange rides, room shares, etc...

Peter

--

-- 
Peter Saint-Andre
XMPP Standards Foundation
http://www.xmpp.org/xsf/people/stpeter.shtml

Re: Re : how to program a jabber game server

On Wed, 31 Jan 2007, Richard Dobson wrote:

>> Have you looked at http://volity.org/?
>
> Yea, but id rather not go down that route as I dont like the way it uses RPC 
> rather than a more standard xmpp like way using a properly defined xml 
> protocol.

Hi -- I'm one of the Volity developers. I missed this discussion 
yesterday, but I can comment on how Volity got the way it is.

The early Volity discussions went very much like this one: we need a "game 
layer", which can handle players invitations, game membership, chat, 
outcome recording.

And one big bullet point was: use the Jabber standards. Ironically.  
The point of using XML-RPC was not to bypass the "standard XMPP way" of 
doing things, but to *be* a standard XMPP way of doing things. (Similarly, 
a lot of the game discovery uses standard service discovery, with a 
soupcon of XEP-0115.)

The idea was to make the "game layer" sit cleanly on top of Jabber. That 
way we could concentrate on making it do what we needed, without requiring 
Jabber to change each time we came up with a new idea. Proposing Volity as 
a JEP[*] would have been like building a play-by-email game by requesting 
an extension to RFC822.

Similarly, we thought it would be better for all games to use a "bot" 
referee, rather than putting game code in the server. Better separation. 
(And this proved true, because we changed the server software on 
volity.net a couple of times, with only the smallest hitches to the game 
system.)

[* This was before XEP.]

--Z

--

-- 
"And Aholibamah bare Jeush, and Jaalam, and Korah: these were the borogoves..."
*
If the Bush administration hasn't shipped you to Syria for interrogation,
it's for one reason: they don't feel like it. Not because you're patriotic.

Re: Re : how to program a jabber game server

Hello,

On Thu, Feb 01, 2007 at 12:32:49PM -0500, Andrew Plotkin wrote:
> On Wed, 31 Jan 2007, Richard Dobson wrote:
> 
> >>Have you looked at http://volity.org/?
> >
> >Yea, but id rather not go down that route as I dont like the way it uses 
> >RPC rather than a more standard xmpp like way using a properly defined xml 
> >protocol.
> 
> Hi -- I'm one of the Volity developers. I missed this discussion 
> yesterday, but I can comment on how Volity got the way it is.

Do I get Volity right that just everything happens on the server and you
can not have games without server support? It is a bit glitch for things
like tic-tac-toe or battleship, IMHO.

If you want to accomplish this (please correct me if I'm wrong), you
need something more than RPC.

--

-- 
Hallowed be the zeroes and ones

Michal "vorner" Vaner

Re: how to program a jabber game server

Hello,

On Thu, Feb 01, 2007 at 01:11:40PM +0000, Denis Guillaume wrote:
> What you suggest Michal is to rewrite your document on game sessions and propose a new XEP ? The goal was to
define a new namespace like jabber:x:gamesession ? Why the original one has been refused ?

Well, it was not as much denied as first argued about the proper way to
do it (new requirements kept popping up) and it got ignored at the end,
and I did not have much time working on it lately, so I wanted to try
again and make people cooperate somehow.

And, about rewriting, it may be reused, if it is found useful by anyone.
I just wanted to know what people want it to do.

(And, jabber:x:gamesession wouldn't be probably the NS, but thats a
detail)

With regards

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There is one difference between linux and windows.
With windows, you pay for the software, but you get all the T-shirts for free.
With linux, you get all the software for free, but you buy the T-shirts.

Michal "vorner" Vaner

Re: Re : how to program a jabber game server

Michal 'vorner' Vaner wrote:
> Do I get Volity right that just everything happens on the server and you
> can not have games without server support? It is a bit glitch for things
> like tic-tac-toe or battleship, IMHO.

Actually for a game like battleship, and any game with incomplete
information, you HAVE to do everything server-side.  Otherwise it's too
easy to cheat.

--

-- 
Neil Stevens - neil <at> hakubi.us

If you're seeing shades of gray, it's because you're not
looking close enough to see the black and white dots.

Re: Re : how to program a jabber game server

On Thu, Feb 01, 2007 at 12:18:58PM -0800, Neil Stevens wrote:
> Michal 'vorner' Vaner wrote:
> > Do I get Volity right that just everything happens on the server and you
> > can not have games without server support? It is a bit glitch for things
> > like tic-tac-toe or battleship, IMHO.
> 
> Actually for a game like battleship, and any game with incomplete
> information, you HAVE to do everything server-side.  Otherwise it's too
> easy to cheat.

Why? You can do the check after the game (as you would have done in real
world). It can be done for example lake this:

• Every side makes its sea
• Generates a random string
• Puts that together and makes a hash
• Sends that hash to the other side
• The other side does not know your sea, even by trying all seas - it
does not have tho random data
• After the game, you send the sea and hash
• It can be tested if it fits
• You can not decide you change your sea in the middle, because your
hash would not fit (with a good hash, you could not generate proper
"random" data)

So it would be the same safety as in real game

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Michal "vorner" Vaner

Re: Re : how to program a jabber game server

Michal 'vorner' Vaner wrote:
> On Thu, Feb 01, 2007 at 12:18:58PM -0800, Neil Stevens wrote:
>> Actually for a game like battleship, and any game with incomplete
>> information, you HAVE to do everything server-side.  Otherwise it's too
>> easy to cheat.
> 
> Why? You can do the check after the game (as you would have done in real
> world). It can be done for example lake this:
....
> So it would be the same safety as in real game

That's a good protocol for making such cheating detectable, but it
doesn't prevent the cheating.  A trusted server acting as moderator
prevents the cheating, so it's still superior.

--

-- 
Neil Stevens - neil <at> hakubi.us

If you're seeing shades of gray, it's because you're not
looking close enough to see the black and white dots.