Pandora "pandora Live"

[closetwam]

There's no point comparing this to xbox live. You're talking about two players, 1 host and 1 guest, and a dinky server on a dinky 1mb connection to keep track of who's looking for someone to game with. The server is pie easy. The hard part is implementing it on the Pandora. You have to have add networking capabilities (and all the optimization that goes with networked gaming) to every kind of emulator on the Pandora. If things get that far, making a hub for everyone to get together will just be natural.

 

[TheAddicted]

This can also be made with a php/mysql web application at server side. Something like a users script, I programmed something similar few years ago and its not hard to do. Client side we only need a background running application that tells server that this user is [alive/playing at/etc.] every X minutes. Chatting/file transfer/etc. must be done P2P.

Any opinions? I already have 6.5TB of monthly transfer and 320GB of space in one server.

 

[PoisonedV]

No, this is absolutely stupid. Many programs that will be ported already have online in them, and recoding them to work with this shit isn't worth it. Not to mention it will put EXTRA effort on developers trying to implement netcode- hard enough as it is. There aren't enough people, there is no reason for it at all.
QUOTE
Chip said I think this is kind of a silly idea, but there's nothing wrong with being silly once in a while.

As long as you don't need it to be super fancy, then it shouldn't cost anybody anything. No server needed.

Simply take one of the many IRC clients and make a frontend for it that integrates into the GUI. The client logs you into a pre-defined IRC channel whenever you're online. You tell the frontend who your friends are (just like xbox live). Whenever the client sees a familiar nick log in, it alerts you. Sending messages back and forth to one or many of your friends is obviously easy.

That's the simple version, but I'm sure you can think of more bells and whistles to add to it given a little imagination. You wouldn't play multiplayer games over IRC, but the IRC connection could be used to swap IP numbers for P2P gaming. There's no need for a centralized server for multiplayer games on this level. This is assuming that developers take the time to build multiplayer over IP into their games.


Not my cup of tea, but if enough people are interested, maybe somebody will set it up.

There are already IRC bots for this type of stuff. You tell the bot what games you have, it can alert you when other players who added that would come online. And some other features. However, this, and especially not a gamespy/live type feature would not be needed unless there were a shitload of homebrew games for pandora with online. Which I doubt.

 

[CronoTriggerfan]

As cool as a "Pandora Live" system would be, I really don't think something of this nature would be very practical. If online play were to be done, it would/should be on an app by app/game by game basis. Whether the connection is as limited as two players for things like emulators to more advanced things such as a lobby-based system for potential FPS ports, I'd envision a Pandora online system implemented that way as opposed to a single unifying program.

Then again, what do I know?

 

[Rayek]

I'd be happy if any sort of Netplay function existed for certain emulators, but finding people to play would be a horrible pain without some way to get in touch with people. Not only that, any other method than a chatroom or a unified something wouldn't be quick enough to connect two people together.

 

[PoisonedV]

I'd be happy if any sort of Netplay function existed for certain emulators, but finding people to play would be a horrible pain without some way to get in touch with people. Not only that, any other method than a chatroom or a unified something wouldn't be quick enough to connect two people together.

IRC is good for it, like I said, you can use a bot or a frontend. Also, if programs can have arguments passed to them, its not hard to make a frontend for those, IE zbattle.

 

[Insanemal]

You can do this crazy idea BITTORENT STYLE... it wont cost much to implement. HTML pasing is easy. and BAM it will work. A few hours of coding some php to do the hard work. and an SQL backend.. Not as hard as the neighsayers claim.

 

[DasFool]

A good start in my opinion would be to have a chat standard set up so that everyone can communicate with each other through the device (IRC?). Then, when the chat room starts getting crazy large someone could think about implementing a matching service since we know enough people are using their Pandoras online.

Example:
User1: "any1 want to play some snes games?"
User2: "I'll play!"
User1: "k, here's the info"

 

[Insanemal]

A good start in my opinion would be to have a chat standard set up so that everyone can communicate with each other through the device (IRC?). Then, when the chat room starts getting crazy large someone could think about implementing a matching service since we know enough people are using their Pandoras online.

Example:
User1: "any1 want to play some snes games?"
User2: "I'll play!"
User1: "k, here's the info"

This can be too hard for some users. Possibly having applications that support command line options to start multiplayer and a modded irc client that calls em. That would be the easyest to implement. It would also be user friendly. Click on name, select "Play <Insert Game HERE>" irc client pm's the user with ip adresses and it fires the game up using them. Dunno but it could work.

 

[Soulkiller]

The only way I could see this REALLY working and getting a good amount of users on would be building the feature into the OS to run on bootup. That way you don't have the lazy people who don't want to bother installing it and if they really want to they could disable it. In the beginning I would jsut imagine something simple like letting users create a username and password on the first start up. Then the systen would be tied into the OS so you could have alert boxes (drawn on top of everything) like Live and PSN have. Add simple messaging, P2P file transfer, freinds list, voice chat, etc. Then based on how many people use this we can determine if a lobby system is needed. But I will tell you this, you could get some programmers lashing out at you by making them "conform" to your system and programming for it. This will be the biggest problem, getting everyone to agree on a standard. Good luck with that if you can get things that far, personally I'd jsut be fine with this upgradable community network for right now ;]

 

[Insanemal]

The only way I could see this REALLY working and getting a good amount of users on would be building the feature into the OS to run on bootup. That way you don't have the lazy people who don't want to bother installing it and if they really want to they could disable it. In the beginning I would jsut imagine something simple like letting users create a username and password on the first start up. Then the systen would be tied into the OS so you could have alert boxes (drawn on top of everything) like Live and PSN have. Add simple messaging, P2P file transfer, freinds list, voice chat, etc. Then based on how many people use this we can determine if a lobby system is needed. But I will tell you this, you could get some programmers lashing out at you by making them "conform" to your system and programming for it. This will be the biggest problem, getting everyone to agree on a standard. Good luck with that if you can get things that far, personally I'd jsut be fine with this upgradable community network for right now ;]



That is in the WAAAY-T.H.B. try thinking Xfire. its a pc app. its the more likely answer that gets the job done.. just mix it with irc.. and you get the idea.

 

[Soulkiller]

I don't think I mentioned it in my post but my aproach wasn't meant to be the practical, easy approach, more so the "get as many people as we can" approach. Of course a balance will need to be found but I do think that integration into the actual OS will be needed for something like this, we will need support from craig and most likly have it come bundled and ready with Pandora out of the box. As far as what it implements, a simple p2p messaging system and maybe a global chat room with the ability to start a smaller chat room with a group of people would be good enough for right now. Even then thats still a good amount of work. Could be a neat project.... any takers? I might look into this more..dunno, will see how busy finals and work will make me.

 

[parag0n]

as long as any games with netplay support being launched with an ip address and a port, and have some way for an external application to request the current server ip, port, and other info (could be map, username, rom name, users on server), that would be all the work needed on the developer's end to make their code pandora live compatible.

I see the arch as follows:

• Each program has a programname.plive file, that contains information like how to get program status from the software, and how to launch the game with special options (-s 16.40.230.10 -p 3298 -n parag0n). These files would either be generated by the software's authors, or by the pandora live developers
• The software would be split into 2 parts: the daemon, which sends game status to the server whenever it is changed (or every 60 seconds).
• the pandora live software, which can query the server to find out what your friends are doing, to look for people playing the game you want to play, and view how long people play what games. Once you find someone you want to play with, it should just be a case of tapping their name, and pressing 'play'

[*] On the server end, there should only be a simple PHP / SQL system, which stores any information as it is sent / received.
If we make the server API open, there is nothing to stop people writing software to support other devices.

I'm happy to work on this software, I have a lot of experience with web development and client - server communications using XML and JSON.

 

[parag0n]

I've put up a wiki page at http://pandorawiki.org/TINXL if anyone wants to contribute towards implementing the above system.

 

[Chip]

I've put up a wiki page at http://pandorawiki.org/TINXL if anyone wants to contribute towards implementing the above system.



It looks like you have a good handle on the project. I wish you luck.

I added a link to the TINXL page from the Utilities page on the wiki. It is generally considered "bad form" to create orphan pages

 

[.Gogeta§§J4BR.]

nice to see this idea is getting along nicely, with helpful people contributing thx a lot

the concept seems relatively easy for the (pandora homebrew / emulator) developer to implement... and it looks like the server side is also simple and lightweight... eh, it might work =`]

lol @ name... I tried coming up with names but TINXL is really fun maybe PING (pandora's internet network gaming)? or PIGS (pandora's internet gaming system)? :lol:

 

[Red Ring Rico]

lol @ name... I tried coming up with names but TINXL is really fun maybe PING (pandora's internet network gaming)? or PIGS (pandora's internet gaming system)? :lol:

Maybe, but recursive acronyms are so much more fun.

 

[parag0n]

I used tinxl because the website is free, its recursive, and means it can be used for more than just the pandora.

(did i mention that? i'm going to add a 'device' field to the status feed to allow people to write clients for any device they want )

 

[redstar1949]

The attitudes of a lot of the people in here are absolutely terrible. If people take this self-defeating attitude of "there aren't enough people, it would be stupid," then we WON'T HAVE ENOUGH PEOPLE! We have to figure out how to make this a community that people would actually want to be a part of, and to make it actually grow!

Whatever system is implemented, it should integrate chat channels and maybe even friends lists with the game that people play. It should promote a sense of people wanting to be online and connecting with their friends.

I strongly support this effort and am willing to donate for any server space/bandwidth that is needed to make this project a reality.

 

[PoisonedV]

The attitudes of a lot of the people in here are absolutely terrible. If people take this self-defeating attitude of "there aren't enough people, it would be stupid," then we WON'T HAVE ENOUGH PEOPLE!

This isn't some paranormal bullshit, our expectations wont affect it.