From akb+lists.netrek-dev at mirror.to  Wed Nov  1 02:25:35 2006
From: akb+lists.netrek-dev at mirror.to (Andrew K. Bressen)
Date: Wed, 01 Nov 2006 03:25:35 -0500
Subject: [netrek-dev] MacTrek 1.0.1 Released
In-Reply-To: <3e8ca5c80610311959k3d2c85fcydc01d453ae1a74f0@mail.gmail.com>
	(Stephen Thorne's message of "Wed, 1 Nov 2006 13:59:14 +1000")
References: <mailman.1.1162054802.2608.netrek-dev@us.netrek.org>
	<22A2E2DE-9057-4688-B739-569A55C28D26@luky.nl>
	<0qiri0aq8z.fsf@lanconius.mirror.to>
	<3e8ca5c80610311959k3d2c85fcydc01d453ae1a74f0@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <0qd587bmkg.fsf@lanconius.mirror.to>



> On 11/1/06, Andrew K. Bressen <akb+lists.netrek-dev at mirror.to> wrote:
>> I'm losing.
>> I downloaded 1.0.1 and did the client and font installs.
>> But when I click on the app, very little happens; a little disk activity,
>> then nothing. No icon ever shows on the dock, no windows, no error
>> messages. I tried rebooting the machine.
>>
>> The machine is a G3 ibook running OS X Panther (10.3.9).

"Stephen Thorne" <stephen.thorne at gmail.com> writes:
> Open Console.app and see if there's a crashlog.

OK, it says:

dyld: /Applications/MacTrek.app/Contents/MacOS/MacTrek can't open library: /System/Library/Frameworks/Quartz.framework/Versions/A/Quartz  (No such file or directory, errno = 2)

And, indeed, while the system has a Frameworks/QuartzCore.framework,
there is not one called Quartz. 

What next? 

  --thanks 
  --akb



From stephen.thorne at gmail.com  Wed Nov  1 02:58:04 2006
From: stephen.thorne at gmail.com (Stephen Thorne)
Date: Wed, 1 Nov 2006 18:58:04 +1000
Subject: [netrek-dev] MacTrek 1.0.1 Released
In-Reply-To: <22A2E2DE-9057-4688-B739-569A55C28D26@luky.nl>
References: <mailman.1.1162054802.2608.netrek-dev@us.netrek.org>
	<22A2E2DE-9057-4688-B739-569A55C28D26@luky.nl>
Message-ID: <3e8ca5c80611010058i276d02afwdc71644d69baa2dd@mail.gmail.com>

On 10/31/06, Narcis <narcis at luky.nl> wrote:
> checkout http://mactrek.sourceforge.net for the latest release which
> should have OmniFrameworks included in the app bundle.

I've finally had a chance to test it!

Stunning work. I'll update netrek.org tomorrow. We'll need to get you
an RSA key.

Is the source on the website somewhere?

-- 
Stephen Thorne

"Give me enough bandwidth and a place to sit and I will move the world."
  --Jonathan Lange


From quozl at us.netrek.org  Wed Nov  1 04:02:04 2006
From: quozl at us.netrek.org (James Cameron)
Date: Wed, 1 Nov 2006 21:02:04 +1100
Subject: [netrek-dev] MacTrek 1.0.1 Released
In-Reply-To: <3e8ca5c80611010058i276d02afwdc71644d69baa2dd@mail.gmail.com>
References: <mailman.1.1162054802.2608.netrek-dev@us.netrek.org>
	<22A2E2DE-9057-4688-B739-569A55C28D26@luky.nl>
	<3e8ca5c80611010058i276d02afwdc71644d69baa2dd@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <20061101100204.GB8868@us.netrek.org>

Awesome ... can we have more screenshots?

-- 
James Cameron    mailto:quozl at us.netrek.org     http://quozl.netrek.org/


From netrek at gmail.com  Wed Nov  1 06:03:04 2006
From: netrek at gmail.com (Zach)
Date: Wed, 1 Nov 2006 07:03:04 -0500
Subject: [netrek-dev] MacTrek 1.0.1 Released
In-Reply-To: <20061101100204.GB8868@us.netrek.org>
References: <mailman.1.1162054802.2608.netrek-dev@us.netrek.org>
	<22A2E2DE-9057-4688-B739-569A55C28D26@luky.nl>
	<3e8ca5c80611010058i276d02afwdc71644d69baa2dd@mail.gmail.com>
	<20061101100204.GB8868@us.netrek.org>
Message-ID: <ecfa260c0611010403r1019a0aco55021402f349a792@mail.gmail.com>

On 11/1/06, James Cameron <quozl at us.netrek.org> wrote:
> Awesome ... can we have more screenshots?

Yeah this client looks cool. I wish there was way to compile it for
Linux! Is there any way to get the code working in Linux?

Zach


From stephen.thorne at gmail.com  Wed Nov  1 06:19:50 2006
From: stephen.thorne at gmail.com (Stephen Thorne)
Date: Wed, 1 Nov 2006 22:19:50 +1000
Subject: [netrek-dev] MacTrek 1.0.1 Released
In-Reply-To: <20061101100204.GB8868@us.netrek.org>
References: <mailman.1.1162054802.2608.netrek-dev@us.netrek.org>
	<22A2E2DE-9057-4688-B739-569A55C28D26@luky.nl>
	<3e8ca5c80611010058i276d02afwdc71644d69baa2dd@mail.gmail.com>
	<20061101100204.GB8868@us.netrek.org>
Message-ID: <3e8ca5c80611010419s4bf6c5fje92d5a2eff8d7afe@mail.gmail.com>

On 11/1/06, James Cameron <quozl at us.netrek.org> wrote:
> Awesome ... can we have more screenshots?

I'm sure there's a key combination for that somewhere. :)

There's a whole series on the website. The planetary graphics use the
new graphics that we had done, the ship selection screen is really
nice an intuitive, and a big departure from cow's.

-- 
Stephen Thorne

"Give me enough bandwidth and a place to sit and I will move the world."
  --Jonathan Lange


From narcis at luky.nl  Wed Nov  1 13:44:12 2006
From: narcis at luky.nl (Narcis)
Date: Wed, 1 Nov 2006 20:44:12 +0100
Subject: [netrek-dev] MacTrek
In-Reply-To: <mailman.1.1162404002.4801.netrek-dev@us.netrek.org>
References: <mailman.1.1162404002.4801.netrek-dev@us.netrek.org>
Message-ID: <3200A762-F972-4A5A-9EE4-2AFFA5479D91@luky.nl>


Wauw, i had expected some reaction, but am pleased to read your emails.

> From: akb+lists.netrek-dev at mirror.to (Andrew K. Bressen)
>
> The machine is a G3 ibook running OS X Panther (10.3.9).
> What do I try next?

Upgrade to tiger i fear. I will try to find out the differences and  
see if they can be detected
/circumvented. But the splash screen is Quartz, which is 10.4+ only.

> (also, when I mounted the .dmg, the finder window with the package
> files in it opened halfway off the right side of the screen; I have no
> idea if window position comes from the package or if it was just the
> finder doing something random...)

uh uh, minor drawback of a 23" screen, next time when i make the  
package, i'll position the
window upper left before saving (i think packagemaker stores the  
window position)

> OK, it says:
>
> dyld: /Applications/MacTrek.app/Contents/MacOS/MacTrek can't open  
> library: /System/Library/Frameworks/Quartz.framework/Versions/A/ 
> Quartz  (No such file or directory, errno = 2)

Yep, that would be the Quartz Application library,  you'll need tiger  
for that. I'm not sure if sending you the Quarz lib would help.  
(probably not)

> And, indeed, while the system has a Frameworks/QuartzCore.framework,

That is at system level (graphic card) MacTrek does not make that  
extensive use of 10.4 functions, so in theory maybe i can strip some  
functions of and create a 10.3 client too.

> What next?

Drop me a private mail and let's see what i can do

> I've finally had a chance to test it!
> Stunning work. I'll update netrek.org tomorrow. We'll need to get you
> an RSA key.

I'll have to figure out how to include the generated files from the  
netrek rsa package
into the Xcode source tree.

> Is the source on the website somewhere?

I'd prefer to clean it up a bit before releasing it, but if you are  
in need drop me a email :-)

> Awesome ... can we have more screenshots?

Sure, anyone can press "\" in game and find the screenshot on the  
desktop, however my
current netrek rating does not make nice screen shots (but does make  
nice explosions)

> Yeah this client looks cool. I wish there was way to compile it for
> Linux! Is there any way to get the code working in Linux?

Well it rests on top of Cocoa (Mac OS X), which means that many  
functions are specific to that framework,
but Cocoa is based on nextstep which is now openstep. The gnu  
compiler supports it, it is just that apple
added many many things to Cocoa which may or may not be in openstep.  
Most notably the Aqua server
which is ... well neutrally put..  different from X11. I think it  
will be a very large port action and the code
was my first large Objective-C project, so not really that clean.

The ideas to learn would be
- seperation of drawing and communication.
- menu structure seperate from game screen
- flexibility only for expert users, (currently only in source code)
- must run out of the box
- scroll function (though this leads to a projection of the gamegrid  
to the display that is variable.)

I believe that it is quicker to create a KDE or Qt application, embed  
the communication from COW in a
thread and use signals and threads to implement the above on gui level.

> There's a whole series on the website. The planetary graphics use the
> new graphics that we had done, the ship selection screen is really
> nice an intuitive, and a big departure from cow's.

Thanks, i'm trying to get it on the apple downloads site, which means  
many newbie users, it should be
as visual as possible. Anyway my wife managed to login and fire a  
torp, which made it ready for release i guess.

Thanks for the positive feedback!

Chris



From akb+lists.netrek-dev at mirror.to  Wed Nov  1 13:48:38 2006
From: akb+lists.netrek-dev at mirror.to (Andrew K. Bressen)
Date: Wed, 01 Nov 2006 14:48:38 -0500
Subject: [netrek-dev] MacTrek 1.0.1 Released
In-Reply-To: <ecfa260c0611010403r1019a0aco55021402f349a792@mail.gmail.com>
	(Zach's message of "Wed, 1 Nov 2006 07:03:04 -0500")
References: <mailman.1.1162054802.2608.netrek-dev@us.netrek.org>
	<22A2E2DE-9057-4688-B739-569A55C28D26@luky.nl>
	<3e8ca5c80611010058i276d02afwdc71644d69baa2dd@mail.gmail.com>
	<20061101100204.GB8868@us.netrek.org>
	<ecfa260c0611010403r1019a0aco55021402f349a792@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <0q8xivaqy1.fsf@lanconius.mirror.to>


Zach <netrek at gmail.com> writes:
> Yeah this client looks cool. I wish there was way to compile it for
> Linux! Is there any way to get the code working in Linux?

Chris previously wrote:
>> [...] In theory it could  
>> be compiled on Linux too. The nextstep frameworks are open source, i  
>> would probably need to rewrite mayor parts using only the  
>> constructions available in that frame work...

So it's doable but would take some work. 

  --akb



From stephen.thorne at gmail.com  Wed Nov  1 17:46:22 2006
From: stephen.thorne at gmail.com (Stephen Thorne)
Date: Thu, 2 Nov 2006 09:46:22 +1000
Subject: [netrek-dev] MacTrek
In-Reply-To: <3200A762-F972-4A5A-9EE4-2AFFA5479D91@luky.nl>
References: <mailman.1.1162404002.4801.netrek-dev@us.netrek.org>
	<3200A762-F972-4A5A-9EE4-2AFFA5479D91@luky.nl>
Message-ID: <3e8ca5c80611011546v64ae1c89y3f963522658b0430@mail.gmail.com>

On 11/2/06, Narcis <narcis at luky.nl> wrote:
> I'd prefer to clean it up a bit before releasing it, but if you are
> in need drop me a email :-)

Release early, release often. Can you send it to me?
-- 
Stephen Thorne

"Give me enough bandwidth and a place to sit and I will move the world."
  --Jonathan Lange


From narcis at luky.nl  Sat Nov 11 16:03:46 2006
From: narcis at luky.nl (Narcis)
Date: Sat, 11 Nov 2006 23:03:46 +0100
Subject: [netrek-dev] MacTrek downloaded over 3300 times
In-Reply-To: <mailman.1.1162490402.30775.netrek-dev@us.netrek.org>
References: <mailman.1.1162490402.30775.netrek-dev@us.netrek.org>
Message-ID: <DF02F42C-1829-479D-B1BF-7FC29A1339A7@luky.nl>

I go away for a weekend of holidays and Apple decides to post the  
game on their website:
  http://www.apple.com/downloads/macosx/games/action_adventure/ 
mactrek.html sourceforge clocked over 3300 downloads. but i have not  
had much feedback, how's life on the servers been? are they crawling  
with newbies?

It would be a great achievement if it would bring substantial new  
players to the game (and fun too) Next week i'll try to figure out  
the marriage between Xcode and CVS on sourceforge (sigh) and release  
the code i a way that everybody that likes can contribute. Probably  
need to add a developer guide of some sort too, Doxygen is fun, but  
not really readable.

regards

Chris


From netrek at gmail.com  Sat Nov 11 20:25:53 2006
From: netrek at gmail.com (Zach)
Date: Sat, 11 Nov 2006 21:25:53 -0500
Subject: [netrek-dev] MacTrek downloaded over 3300 times
In-Reply-To: <DF02F42C-1829-479D-B1BF-7FC29A1339A7@luky.nl>
References: <mailman.1.1162490402.30775.netrek-dev@us.netrek.org>
	<DF02F42C-1829-479D-B1BF-7FC29A1339A7@luky.nl>
Message-ID: <ecfa260c0611111825t77f54988saf7e132938af0b51@mail.gmail.com>

On 11/11/06, Narcis <narcis at luky.nl> wrote:
> I go away for a weekend of holidays and Apple decides to post the
> game on their website:
>   http://www.apple.com/downloads/macosx/games/action_adventure/
> mactrek.html sourceforge clocked over 3300 downloads. but i have not
> had much feedback, how's life on the servers been? are they crawling
> with newbies?
>
> It would be a great achievement if it would bring substantial new
> players to the game (and fun too) Next week i'll try to figure out
> the marriage between Xcode and CVS on sourceforge (sigh) and release
> the code i a way that everybody that likes can contribute. Probably
> need to add a developer guide of some sort too, Doxygen is fun, but
> not really readable.

Nope. I haven't noticed a great influx of new players. Everyone is
still flocking to the sturgeon server. Be nice if we can get games
going on a bronco server again such as continuum. Bob/James can you
run pre-T bots on continuum to entice players?

Zach


From netrek at gmail.com  Sat Nov 11 20:27:38 2006
From: netrek at gmail.com (Zach)
Date: Sat, 11 Nov 2006 21:27:38 -0500
Subject: [netrek-dev] MacTrek downloaded over 3300 times
In-Reply-To: <DF02F42C-1829-479D-B1BF-7FC29A1339A7@luky.nl>
References: <mailman.1.1162490402.30775.netrek-dev@us.netrek.org>
	<DF02F42C-1829-479D-B1BF-7FC29A1339A7@luky.nl>
Message-ID: <ecfa260c0611111827h24265771ja060ab90fc6170cd@mail.gmail.com>

27 MB for a netrek client. Wow that must be a new record ;-)

Zach


From jrd at gerdesas.com  Sat Nov 11 21:38:23 2006
From: jrd at gerdesas.com (John R. Dennison)
Date: Sat, 11 Nov 2006 21:38:23 -0600
Subject: [netrek-dev] MacTrek downloaded over 3300 times
In-Reply-To: <DF02F42C-1829-479D-B1BF-7FC29A1339A7@luky.nl>
References: <mailman.1.1162490402.30775.netrek-dev@us.netrek.org>
	<DF02F42C-1829-479D-B1BF-7FC29A1339A7@luky.nl>
Message-ID: <20061112033823.GJ27491@legolas.gerdesas.com>

On Sat, Nov 11, 2006 at 11:03:46PM +0100, Narcis wrote:
> I go away for a weekend of holidays and Apple decides to post the  
> game on their website:
>   http://www.apple.com/downloads/macosx/games/action_adventure/ 
> mactrek.html sourceforge clocked over 3300 downloads. but i have not  
> had much feedback, how's life on the servers been? are they crawling  
> with newbies?

	Not that I have seen.  I have talked with two people that
	are using your new client.  The only comment that I have
	heard regarding it is the supposed inability of finding 
	a help document or help screen showing the default
	keymap.

	Please note that I do not use a Mac and have no used your
	client; just passing along the single comment I have heard.

	Also please note that there very well may be many more
	people using the client on the twink server then I see on
	any of: continuum, pickled, pulsar-zone.  I do not play
	on the twink server so I have no way of gauging it's usage
	there; perhaps Bill can shed some light on it?

	That's quite a few downloads, I must say.  It's a shame 
	that the twinky sturgeon server has completely destroyed
	pickup; if more people were on continuum the chances are
	much greater that they could be taught the finer points of
	the game rather then shooting at silly 'bots and getting
	twinky 'upgrades'.




							John
	
-- 
"I'm sorry but our engineers do not have phones."
As stated by a Network Solutions Customer Service representative when asked to
be put through to an engineer.

"My other computer is your windows box."
                                     Ralf Hildebrandt


From williamb at its.caltech.edu  Sun Nov 12 01:42:45 2006
From: williamb at its.caltech.edu (William Balcerski)
Date: Sat, 11 Nov 2006 23:42:45 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [netrek-dev] MacTrek downloaded over 3300 times
In-Reply-To: <DF02F42C-1829-479D-B1BF-7FC29A1339A7@luky.nl>
References: <mailman.1.1162490402.30775.netrek-dev@us.netrek.org>
	<DF02F42C-1829-479D-B1BF-7FC29A1339A7@luky.nl>
Message-ID: <Pine.GSO.4.58.0611112333440.13096@sue>


> I go away for a weekend of holidays and Apple decides to post the
> game on their website:
>   http://www.apple.com/downloads/macosx/games/action_adventure/
> mactrek.html sourceforge clocked over 3300 downloads. but i have not
> had much feedback, how's life on the servers been? are they crawling
> with newbies?
>

Hi Chris, as I don't have a mac I can't test a few things I'd like to,
specifically, does your client list netrek.warped.us or hockey.tamu.edu?
I was told it only lists bronco servers..which doesn't do much good these
days as all the games are played on either the hockey or sturgeon server.
If it is true that they aren't listed, what is the logic?  Shouldn't the
users have the choice of all active servers?

I will gladly turn off RSA on warped until you get the RSA issue settled
with your client, however if it's not listed on the client's server list,
there's not much point.

3300 downloads is quite impressive , with those numbers (if they are
accurate) I would have expected more players.  Of course, which servers
does your client connect to exactly?  Continuum has RSA last I checked..so
what are the valid servers these new mac players can actually connect to?
I think this may be the reason why we aren't seeing more players..


 > It would be a great achievement if it would bring substantial new
> players to the game (and fun too) Next week i'll try to figure out
> the marriage between Xcode and CVS on sourceforge (sigh) and release
> the code i a way that everybody that likes can contribute. Probably
> need to add a developer guide of some sort too, Doxygen is fun, but
> not really readable.
>
> regards
>
> Chris
>
One thing I should mention, I did not notice in the client credits any
mention of Pascal (Defcom) whose planet art you used, I think he should be
credited somehow.

Bill


From narcis at luky.nl  Sun Nov 12 11:37:04 2006
From: narcis at luky.nl (Narcis)
Date: Sun, 12 Nov 2006 18:37:04 +0100
Subject: [netrek-dev] MacTrek downloaded over 3300 times
In-Reply-To: <20061112033823.GJ27491@legolas.gerdesas.com>
References: <mailman.1.1162490402.30775.netrek-dev@us.netrek.org>
	<DF02F42C-1829-479D-B1BF-7FC29A1339A7@luky.nl>
	<20061112033823.GJ27491@legolas.gerdesas.com>
Message-ID: <BD48AD98-BCD9-4B81-97B4-DAC0CBC770AE@luky.nl>

Hi,

> 	Not that I have seen.  I have talked with two people that
> 	are using your new client.  The only comment that I have
> 	heard regarding it is the supposed inability of finding
> 	a help document or help screen showing the default
> 	keymap.

hmm, there is the manual and the settings screen, but i think they  
are looking for the 'h' key. I'll implement that asap. There are some  
other COW keystrokes that need to be implemented too (like Quit)

> 	Please note that I do not use a Mac and have no used your
> 	client; just passing along the single comment I have heard.

Of which i am very grateful, this allows me to improve.

> 	Also please note that there very well may be many more
> 	people using the client on the twink server then I see on
> 	any of: continuum, pickled, pulsar-zone.  I do not play
> 	on the twink server so I have no way of gauging it's usage
> 	there; perhaps Bill can shed some light on it?

I check sometimes, but do not see many more that usual.

> "I'm sorry but our engineers do not have phones." As stated by a  
> Network Solutions
> Customer Service representative when asked to be put through to an  
> engineer.

My internet line is down to 32kbs upstream since two months, but my  
ISP's engineers have
only phones, no email ...

strange world..

Greetz

Chris




From quozl at us.netrek.org  Sat Nov 11 21:04:24 2006
From: quozl at us.netrek.org (James Cameron)
Date: Sun, 12 Nov 2006 14:04:24 +1100
Subject: [netrek-dev] MacTrek downloaded over 3300 times
In-Reply-To: <DF02F42C-1829-479D-B1BF-7FC29A1339A7@luky.nl>
References: <mailman.1.1162490402.30775.netrek-dev@us.netrek.org>
	<DF02F42C-1829-479D-B1BF-7FC29A1339A7@luky.nl>
Message-ID: <20061112030424.GA9715@us.netrek.org>

On Sat, Nov 11, 2006 at 11:03:46PM +0100, Narcis wrote:
> mactrek.html sourceforge clocked over 3300 downloads. but i have not  
> had much feedback, how's life on the servers been? are they crawling  
> with newbies?

Haven't noticed, but then I don't watch.  You've included a practice
server, give those people time to try it out.  They will base their
decision on that.

> It would be a great achievement if it would bring substantial new  
> players to the game (and fun too) 

Yes.

> Next week i'll try to figure out  
> the marriage between Xcode and CVS on sourceforge (sigh) and release  
> the code i a way that everybody that likes can contribute. 

You've placed the source up there, that's the best start.  Investing in
source control management is something you can delay until you become
burdened with contributions.

-- 
James Cameron    mailto:quozl at us.netrek.org     http://quozl.netrek.org/


From quozl at us.netrek.org  Sun Nov 12 18:28:38 2006
From: quozl at us.netrek.org (James Cameron)
Date: Mon, 13 Nov 2006 11:28:38 +1100
Subject: [netrek-dev] MacTrek downloaded over 3300 times
In-Reply-To: <Pine.GSO.4.58.0611112333440.13096@sue>
References: <mailman.1.1162490402.30775.netrek-dev@us.netrek.org>
	<DF02F42C-1829-479D-B1BF-7FC29A1339A7@luky.nl>
	<Pine.GSO.4.58.0611112333440.13096@sue>
Message-ID: <20061113002838.GB11672@us.netrek.org>

On Sat, Nov 11, 2006 at 11:42:45PM -0800, William Balcerski wrote:
> If it is true that they aren't listed, what is the logic?  Shouldn't the
> users have the choice of all active servers?

Agreed, they should have the choice of all active servers.  Let them go
where the players are.  If the players want features we aren't
implementing on a particular server, then off they will go.

> One thing I should mention, I did not notice in the client credits any
> mention of Pascal (Defcom) whose planet art you used, I think he
> should be credited somehow.

Agreed, please mention the people your derived work is derived from.

-- 
James Cameron    mailto:quozl at us.netrek.org     http://quozl.netrek.org/


From netrek at gmail.com  Mon Nov 13 00:05:21 2006
From: netrek at gmail.com (Zach)
Date: Mon, 13 Nov 2006 01:05:21 -0500
Subject: [netrek-dev] MacTrek downloaded over 3300 times
In-Reply-To: <20061112030424.GA9715@us.netrek.org>
References: <mailman.1.1162490402.30775.netrek-dev@us.netrek.org>
	<DF02F42C-1829-479D-B1BF-7FC29A1339A7@luky.nl>
	<20061112030424.GA9715@us.netrek.org>
Message-ID: <ecfa260c0611122205r2065a959t8aba7441b1339b13@mail.gmail.com>

On 11/11/06, James Cameron <quozl at us.netrek.org> wrote:
>
> > It would be a great achievement if it would bring substantial new
> > players to the game (and fun too)
>
> Yes.

As much as I appreciate Bill's and others efforts I think it would be
an even greater achievement if we could get regular bronco pickup
games going again! Netrek IS bronco. There has always been variants
such as hockey, chaos, sturgeon, etc.. but there was always an active
pickup scene in which players learned what real netrek is and learned
to appreciate that which is IMHO the most satisfying gameplay. For the
first time in my memory that is no longer the case. I haven't seen a
single bronco pickup game in over 2 months.

Zach


From netrek at gmail.com  Mon Nov 13 00:10:35 2006
From: netrek at gmail.com (Zach)
Date: Mon, 13 Nov 2006 01:10:35 -0500
Subject: [netrek-dev] MacTrek downloaded over 3300 times
In-Reply-To: <20061113002838.GB11672@us.netrek.org>
References: <mailman.1.1162490402.30775.netrek-dev@us.netrek.org>
	<DF02F42C-1829-479D-B1BF-7FC29A1339A7@luky.nl>
	<Pine.GSO.4.58.0611112333440.13096@sue>
	<20061113002838.GB11672@us.netrek.org>
Message-ID: <ecfa260c0611122210o109db59k389476317fd910b0@mail.gmail.com>

On 11/12/06, James Cameron <quozl at us.netrek.org> wrote:
> On Sat, Nov 11, 2006 at 11:42:45PM -0800, William Balcerski wrote:
> > If it is true that they aren't listed, what is the logic?  Shouldn't the
> > users have the choice of all active servers?
>
> Agreed, they should have the choice of all active servers.  Let them go
> where the players are.  If the players want features we aren't
> implementing on a particular server, then off they will go.

It's a bit tautological but the players go where the players are! And
that means wherever there is a server running pre-T bots. The vast
majority of players I spoken to who are still atively playing are
newbies who logon wherever they see a game and some oldbies but don't
play much but will logon wherever there is a game. They are not
playing on sturgeon because of perceived superior richness of
funtionality but rather just because that is where the games are. This
hypothesis can be easily tested. Run bots that show 8 players logged
into continuum on the metaserver at all times and you will see a
direct correlation between decline of games at sturgeon and rise in
games at bronco I assert :-) But seriously please run pre-T bots on
continuum so we can get bronco off of life support! 2 months now with
no bronco pickup is long enough I say.

Zach


From akb+lists.netrek-dev at mirror.to  Mon Nov 13 05:39:58 2006
From: akb+lists.netrek-dev at mirror.to (Andrew K. Bressen)
Date: Mon, 13 Nov 2006 06:39:58 -0500
Subject: [netrek-dev] MacTrek downloaded over 3300 times
In-Reply-To: <ecfa260c0611122205r2065a959t8aba7441b1339b13@mail.gmail.com>
	(Zach's message of "Mon, 13 Nov 2006 01:05:21 -0500")
References: <mailman.1.1162490402.30775.netrek-dev@us.netrek.org>
	<DF02F42C-1829-479D-B1BF-7FC29A1339A7@luky.nl>
	<20061112030424.GA9715@us.netrek.org>
	<ecfa260c0611122205r2065a959t8aba7441b1339b13@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <0qirhj4ltd.fsf@lanconius.mirror.to>


Zach <netrek at gmail.com> writes:
> As much as I appreciate Bill's and others efforts I think it would be
> an even greater achievement if we could get regular bronco pickup
> games going again! [...]

My feelings exactly. Nothing against Sturgeon 
(no matter how twinky it is :), but bronco is the heart of the game.

We need a bronco bot server that is not pulsar-zone,
and which the new mac users we hope will materialize 
can use (ie, without RSA). 

And I think the no-T idle mode hack is also important;
there needs to be a way to hang out waiting for enough 
people to show up for a game without some twink dooshing
you while you're doing email in a different window. 

(For those that don't know why pulsar-zone is problematic: it is
tcp-only and the lag is vicious. No continuousTorps increases the lag
liability, as well as being terrible for RSI.  As the only bronco
server with bots, I'm concerned it will draw newbies who will then
give up on the game because they don't know that the lag is atypical;
if I won't play there, I'm rather unsure newbies would...)

  --akb



From williamb at its.caltech.edu  Mon Nov 13 07:04:37 2006
From: williamb at its.caltech.edu (William Balcerski)
Date: Mon, 13 Nov 2006 05:04:37 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [netrek-dev] MacTrek downloaded over 3300 times
In-Reply-To: <0qirhj4ltd.fsf@lanconius.mirror.to>
References: <mailman.1.1162490402.30775.netrek-dev@us.netrek.org>
	<DF02F42C-1829-479D-B1BF-7FC29A1339A7@luky.nl>
	<20061112030424.GA9715@us.netrek.org>
	<ecfa260c0611122205r2065a959t8aba7441b1339b13@mail.gmail.com>
	<0qirhj4ltd.fsf@lanconius.mirror.to>
Message-ID: <Pine.GSO.4.58.0611130502350.17544@blinky>

> My feelings exactly. Nothing against Sturgeon
> (no matter how twinky it is :), but bronco is the heart of the game.
>
> We need a bronco bot server that is not pulsar-zone,
> and which the new mac users we hope will materialize
> can use (ie, without RSA).
>
Yup I agree, which is why I have asked repeatedly for continuum to have
pre-t mode on.  And maybe RSA off again (for the new client) would be a
good idea too.

> And I think the no-T idle mode hack is also important;
> there needs to be a way to hang out waiting for enough
> people to show up for a game without some twink dooshing
> you while you're doing email in a different window.
>
I added the no-T idle mode to sysdef option as a darcs patch a month or so
ago, it's in the latest vanilla source.

> (For those that don't know why pulsar-zone is problematic: it is
> tcp-only and the lag is vicious. No continuousTorps increases the lag
> liability, as well as being terrible for RSI.  As the only bronco
> server with bots, I'm concerned it will draw newbies who will then
> give up on the game because they don't know that the lag is atypical;
> if I won't play there, I'm rather unsure newbies would...)
>
Agree, pulsar is not a good server for new players due to lag.


From netrek at gmail.com  Mon Nov 13 11:24:04 2006
From: netrek at gmail.com (Zach)
Date: Mon, 13 Nov 2006 12:24:04 -0500
Subject: [netrek-dev] MacTrek downloaded over 3300 times
In-Reply-To: <Pine.GSO.4.58.0611130502350.17544@blinky>
References: <mailman.1.1162490402.30775.netrek-dev@us.netrek.org>
	<DF02F42C-1829-479D-B1BF-7FC29A1339A7@luky.nl>
	<20061112030424.GA9715@us.netrek.org>
	<ecfa260c0611122205r2065a959t8aba7441b1339b13@mail.gmail.com>
	<0qirhj4ltd.fsf@lanconius.mirror.to>
	<Pine.GSO.4.58.0611130502350.17544@blinky>
Message-ID: <ecfa260c0611130924h2ac1854ke64159cf81c19688@mail.gmail.com>

On 11/13/06, William Balcerski <williamb at its.caltech.edu> wrote:
> >
> Yup I agree, which is why I have asked repeatedly for continuum to have
> pre-t mode on.

Same here. In past few weeks I have explicitly emailed Bob and James
about this several times yet have not gotten a single response. I also
raised the issue to them on this list and on rec.games.netrek.
Bob/James can you PLEASE address this issue or at least reply and let
us know your thinking. Thank You!

Zach


From jrd at gerdesas.com  Mon Nov 13 11:48:50 2006
From: jrd at gerdesas.com (John R. Dennison)
Date: Mon, 13 Nov 2006 11:48:50 -0600
Subject: [netrek-dev] MacTrek downloaded over 3300 times
In-Reply-To: <ecfa260c0611130924h2ac1854ke64159cf81c19688@mail.gmail.com>
References: <mailman.1.1162490402.30775.netrek-dev@us.netrek.org>
	<DF02F42C-1829-479D-B1BF-7FC29A1339A7@luky.nl>
	<20061112030424.GA9715@us.netrek.org>
	<ecfa260c0611122205r2065a959t8aba7441b1339b13@mail.gmail.com>
	<0qirhj4ltd.fsf@lanconius.mirror.to>
	<Pine.GSO.4.58.0611130502350.17544@blinky>
	<ecfa260c0611130924h2ac1854ke64159cf81c19688@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <20061113174849.GG2417@legolas.gerdesas.com>

On Mon, Nov 13, 2006 at 12:24:04PM -0500, Zach wrote:
> 
> Same here. In past few weeks I have explicitly emailed Bob and James
> about this several times yet have not gotten a single response. I also
> raised the issue to them on this list and on rec.games.netrek.
> Bob/James can you PLEASE address this issue or at least reply and let
> us know your thinking. Thank You!

	Perhaps you both should take their silence as their answer?

	Perhaps this question might also be asked of Karthik and Dave
	Ahn in the hope that the admins of pickled would be more 
	responsive of, and interested in, player comments?

	


							John

-- 
"I'm sorry but our engineers do not have phones."
As stated by a Network Solutions Customer Service representative when asked to
be put through to an engineer.

"My other computer is your windows box."
                                     Ralf Hildebrandt
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: not available
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 189 bytes
Desc: not available
Url : http://mailman.us.netrek.org/pipermail/netrek-dev/attachments/20061113/e91391ee/attachment-0001.pgp 

From narcis at luky.nl  Mon Nov 13 12:44:51 2006
From: narcis at luky.nl (Narcis)
Date: Mon, 13 Nov 2006 19:44:51 +0100
Subject: [netrek-dev] MacTrek feedback
In-Reply-To: <mailman.1.1163354402.15766.netrek-dev@us.netrek.org>
References: <mailman.1.1163354402.15766.netrek-dev@us.netrek.org>
Message-ID: <5264FAB8-1CF6-4A19-8363-CCE608EF042D@luky.nl>


Zach pondered

> 27 MB for a netrek client. Wow that must be a new record ;-)

Yes, mainly because the game does not uses a fixed resolution.  
Everything is stored in the game
grid and then projected with a variable scale factor to the screen.  
This mean that a ship is still 40x40 ?
in the game grid but may be smaller or larger then 40x40. The source  
bitmaps are therefore quite large

Also the theming allows for multiple sets of sounds (2 included), all  
required frameworks are static and
macos binaries are actually a PPC and intel bineary glueed together.

The bitmaps should also be reusable for NetrekXP since the have the  
same format......

> Hi Chris, as I don't have a mac I can't test a few things I'd like to,
> specifically, does your client list netrek.warped.us or  
> hockey.tamu.edu?
> I was told it only lists bronco servers..which doesn't do much good  
> these
> days as all the games are played on either the hockey or sturgeon  
> server.
> If it is true that they aren't listed, what is the logic?   
> Shouldn't the
> users have the choice of all active servers?

Yes you're right i ran into some trouble in the beginning and show  
only bronco
servers, forgot to turn the hockey servers back on. I've added it to  
the tracker as bug.

> I will gladly turn off RSA on warped until you get the RSA issue  
> settled
> with your client, however if it's not listed on the client's server  
> list,
> there's not much point.

I think i get close to understanding RSA. i may need your help to  
test it though

> One thing I should mention, I did not notice in the client credits any
> mention of Pascal (Defcom) whose planet art you used, I think he  
> should be
> credited somehow.

Yes, will do so. I may have forgotten many others too. Feel free to  
enlighten me,
credit should go to those who contributed.

Chris





From narcis at luky.nl  Mon Nov 13 12:58:42 2006
From: narcis at luky.nl (Narcis)
Date: Mon, 13 Nov 2006 19:58:42 +0100
Subject: [netrek-dev] MacTrek feedback 2
In-Reply-To: <mailman.4192.1163440476.30014.netrek-dev@us.netrek.org>
References: <mailman.4192.1163440476.30014.netrek-dev@us.netrek.org>
Message-ID: <90D117D2-6492-440F-BFED-E65536728FD1@luky.nl>

> You've placed the source up there, that's the best start.   
> Investing in
> source control management is something you can delay until you become
> burdened with contributions.

Still it would be easier, also for myself to keep of what i am doing :-)

> Agreed, they should have the choice of all active servers.  Let  
> them go
> where the players are.  If the players want features we aren't
> implementing on a particular server, then off they will go.

Are you referring to the FEATURES packet or to the general sense ? i  
had a
problem in the beginning which seemed to occur only on hockey servers
so i limited the selection. But will try to put it back in. I did not  
notice any
specific support for hockey in JTrek, but can take a look at the  
latest COW

>> One thing I should mention, I did not notice in the client credits  
>> any
>> mention of Pascal (Defcom) whose planet art you used, I think he
>> should be credited somehow.
>
> Agreed, please mention the people your derived work is derived from.

Of course, no ill intention, maybe lack of knowledge (or too lazy)  
They'll be
in the next release.

> Yup I agree, which is why I have asked repeatedly for continuum to  
> have
> pre-t mode on.  And maybe RSA off again (for the new client) would  
> be a
> good idea too.

Looking at RSA, but there it may take a month or two as i am  
extremely busy
with other things, and we _do_ want to keep the momentum
so that sounds like a good option.

regards

Chris



From quozl at us.netrek.org  Mon Nov 13 18:05:44 2006
From: quozl at us.netrek.org (James Cameron)
Date: Tue, 14 Nov 2006 11:05:44 +1100
Subject: [netrek-dev] MacTrek feedback 2
In-Reply-To: <90D117D2-6492-440F-BFED-E65536728FD1@luky.nl>
References: <mailman.4192.1163440476.30014.netrek-dev@us.netrek.org>
	<90D117D2-6492-440F-BFED-E65536728FD1@luky.nl>
Message-ID: <20061114000544.GB9316@us.netrek.org>

On Mon, Nov 13, 2006 at 07:58:42PM +0100, Narcis wrote:
> Are you referring to the FEATURES packet or to the general sense ?

Only in the general sense.

-- 
James Cameron    mailto:quozl at us.netrek.org     http://quozl.netrek.org/


From netrek at gmail.com  Mon Nov 13 22:23:11 2006
From: netrek at gmail.com (Zach)
Date: Mon, 13 Nov 2006 23:23:11 -0500
Subject: [netrek-dev] MacTrek feedback 2
In-Reply-To: <90D117D2-6492-440F-BFED-E65536728FD1@luky.nl>
References: <mailman.4192.1163440476.30014.netrek-dev@us.netrek.org>
	<90D117D2-6492-440F-BFED-E65536728FD1@luky.nl>
Message-ID: <ecfa260c0611132023q6de5162eh9f2ae5b459905e15@mail.gmail.com>

On 11/13/06, Narcis <narcis at luky.nl> wrote:
>
> Are you referring to the FEATURES packet or to the general sense ? i
> had a
> problem in the beginning which seemed to occur only on hockey servers
> so i limited the selection. But will try to put it back in. I did not
> notice any
> specific support for hockey in JTrek, but can take a look at the
> latest COW

Oh so your MacTrek client is written in Java and based on Robert
Temple's JTrek code?
If so it should not be that hard to get a cross-compilation codebase
setup. Use Ant or Swing framework so Linux and Windows users can enjoy
using the client as well !

Zach


From williamb at its.caltech.edu  Tue Nov 14 17:39:25 2006
From: williamb at its.caltech.edu (William Balcerski)
Date: Tue, 14 Nov 2006 15:39:25 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [netrek-dev] 2 issues with INL stat script
Message-ID: <Pine.GSO.4.58.0611141533430.5403@sue>

I've come across 2 issues with the autogenerated INL gamestat script that
require someone more knowledgable than myself.  First, the old statboys
email address (statboys at csua.berkeley.edu), to which INL stats are sent
if both captains register, is bouncing messages.  Anyone know who was/is
in charge of this email address, and any thoughts on what should be
done about it?

The second issue is that when I am sending gamestats to the stat archive
at www.netrek.org/stats/, it is not creating a new folder for my server,
even though I debugged the script to make sure that servername was being
defined properly.  The game stats are being dumped into the unknown
folder.  I believe the problem is in the script on the other
end (i.e. not on my end), so I 'll need someone like Dave Ahn to
look into this one if he could :).

Bill



From niclas at acc.umu.se  Tue Nov 14 18:04:43 2006
From: niclas at acc.umu.se (Niclas Fredriksson)
Date: Wed, 15 Nov 2006 01:04:43 +0100 (MET)
Subject: [netrek-dev] 2 issues with INL stat script
In-Reply-To: <Pine.GSO.4.58.0611141533430.5403@sue>
References: <Pine.GSO.4.58.0611141533430.5403@sue>
Message-ID: <Pine.GSO.4.64.0611150100210.8516@shaka.acc.umu.se>

On Tue, 14 Nov 2006, William Balcerski wrote:

> I've come across 2 issues with the autogenerated INL gamestat script 
> that require someone more knowledgable than myself.  First, the old 
> statboys email address (statboys at csua.berkeley.edu), to which INL stats 
> are sent if both captains register, is bouncing messages.  Anyone know 
> who was/is in charge of this email address, and any thoughts on what 
> should be done about it?

That list was maintained by Holub. There weren't many on us on that list. 
It was me, Sven, Holub, maybe Jan Sandorf and maybe someone else (who 
never sent a message). I asked Tom to remove the list a couple of years 
ago (or so) because all the list was getting was spam.

Nothing needs to be done about it really, not outside the code at least. 
Not until we get a league going and we need somewhere to send the stats 
automatically.

In code, I guess you could just comment out the code sending a mail to the 
statboy's list. That function has no use anymore.

> The second issue is that when I am sending gamestats to the stat archive 
> at www.netrek.org/stats/, it is not creating a new folder for my server, 
> even though I debugged the script to make sure that servername was being 
> defined properly.  The game stats are being dumped into the unknown 
> folder.  I believe the problem is in the script on the other end (i.e. 
> not on my end), so I 'll need someone like Dave Ahn to look into this 
> one if he could :).

Ahn reads this list, maybe he will reply. If not, you can reach him at 
ahn at orion.netrek.org.

-- Niclas


From ahn at orion.netrek.org  Tue Nov 14 19:56:27 2006
From: ahn at orion.netrek.org (Dave Ahn)
Date: Tue, 14 Nov 2006 20:56:27 -0500
Subject: [netrek-dev] 2 issues with INL stat script
In-Reply-To: <Pine.GSO.4.58.0611141533430.5403@sue>
References: <Pine.GSO.4.58.0611141533430.5403@sue>
Message-ID: <20061115015627.GA24622@orion.netrek.org>

On Tue, Nov 14, 2006 at 03:39:25PM -0800, William Balcerski wrote:
> email address (statboys at csua.berkeley.edu), to which INL stats are sent

The above address is defunct and should no longer be used.

> The second issue is that when I am sending gamestats to the stat archive
> at www.netrek.org/stats/, it is not creating a new folder for my server,
> even though I debugged the script to make sure that servername was being
> defined properly.  The game stats are being dumped into the unknown
> folder.  I believe the problem is in the script on the other
> end (i.e. not on my end), so I 'll need someone like Dave Ahn to
> look into this one if he could :).

It took you 45 game stats to figure this out?  :-P

The stats archive is for servers open to the public for clue games.  If
your clue server is for this purpose, reply to this list with the
server's FQDN (as you have it set in the script), and I'll set up a
dedicated folder for it.



From williamb at its.caltech.edu  Tue Nov 14 20:59:06 2006
From: williamb at its.caltech.edu (William Balcerski)
Date: Tue, 14 Nov 2006 18:59:06 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [netrek-dev] 2 issues with INL stat script
In-Reply-To: <20061115015627.GA24622@orion.netrek.org>
References: <Pine.GSO.4.58.0611141533430.5403@sue>
	<20061115015627.GA24622@orion.netrek.org>
Message-ID: <Pine.GSO.4.58.0611141851490.9355@sue>

> > The second issue is that when I am sending gamestats to the stat archive
> > at www.netrek.org/stats/, it is not creating a new folder for my server,
> > even though I debugged the script to make sure that servername was being
> > defined properly.  The game stats are being dumped into the unknown
> > folder.  I believe the problem is in the script on the other
> > end (i.e. not on my end), so I 'll need someone like Dave Ahn to
> > look into this one if he could :).
>
> It took you 45 game stats to figure this out?  :-P
>
> The stats archive is for servers open to the public for clue games.  If
> your clue server is for this purpose, reply to this list with the
> server's FQDN (as you have it set in the script), and I'll set up a
> dedicated folder for it.
>
Hey it was only 15 attempts!  There were lots of broken things, had to do
some trial and error to finally get to the source.  In short, the end
tourney and auto archiver scripts, as well as the inl source file, were
written when all relevant files (inl executable, scripts, player database,
etc) were all in one directory.  They have since diverged into 2 different
directories, breaking cambot timestamping, preventing cambot files from
being automailed to stats archive, and preventing game stats from being
processed.  I fixed the cambot part, still working on the stats thing.
It's a mess.  Maybe someone else could help who actually wrote the thing,
if they are still around.

As for the server, yes it's public, I don't use net:domain since those
don't match the servername, instead I use:
my $servername  = 'netrek.warped.us';

Ports are 4566/4577 for player, and 4000/5001 for observer.  Oh and the
first clue game is scheduled for tomorrow at 6pm PST/9pm EST.

Bill


From quozl at us.netrek.org  Mon Nov 13 17:15:59 2006
From: quozl at us.netrek.org (James Cameron)
Date: Tue, 14 Nov 2006 10:15:59 +1100
Subject: [netrek-dev] MacTrek downloaded over 3300 times
In-Reply-To: <ecfa260c0611130924h2ac1854ke64159cf81c19688@mail.gmail.com>
References: <mailman.1.1162490402.30775.netrek-dev@us.netrek.org>
	<DF02F42C-1829-479D-B1BF-7FC29A1339A7@luky.nl>
	<20061112030424.GA9715@us.netrek.org>
	<ecfa260c0611122205r2065a959t8aba7441b1339b13@mail.gmail.com>
	<0qirhj4ltd.fsf@lanconius.mirror.to>
	<Pine.GSO.4.58.0611130502350.17544@blinky>
	<ecfa260c0611130924h2ac1854ke64159cf81c19688@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <20061113231559.GA9316@us.netrek.org>

On Mon, Nov 13, 2006 at 12:24:04PM -0500, Zach wrote:
> Same here. In past few weeks I have explicitly emailed Bob and James
> about this several times yet have not gotten a single response.

I've not recalled any such messages from you.  I've checked your 23
messages over the past two months and found none that ask for pre-t
robots.  Maybe you got hit by the spam traps.  Do they appear in the
mailing list archives?

I'm happy to enable pre-t robots.  No doubt the other purists will pop
out of the woodwork and abuse me for it.  They did last time I tried.
They were louder than the few asking for them to be enabled.

Bill, briefly, remind me what has to be done to enable it?  Just PRET=1
isn't it?

-- 
James Cameron    mailto:quozl at us.netrek.org     http://quozl.netrek.org/


From netrek at gmail.com  Tue Nov 14 23:37:30 2006
From: netrek at gmail.com (Zach)
Date: Wed, 15 Nov 2006 00:37:30 -0500
Subject: [netrek-dev] MacTrek downloaded over 3300 times
In-Reply-To: <20061113231559.GA9316@us.netrek.org>
References: <mailman.1.1162490402.30775.netrek-dev@us.netrek.org>
	<DF02F42C-1829-479D-B1BF-7FC29A1339A7@luky.nl>
	<20061112030424.GA9715@us.netrek.org>
	<ecfa260c0611122205r2065a959t8aba7441b1339b13@mail.gmail.com>
	<0qirhj4ltd.fsf@lanconius.mirror.to>
	<Pine.GSO.4.58.0611130502350.17544@blinky>
	<ecfa260c0611130924h2ac1854ke64159cf81c19688@mail.gmail.com>
	<20061113231559.GA9316@us.netrek.org>
Message-ID: <ecfa260c0611142137v2003f093gdec55c275f8d7965@mail.gmail.com>

On 11/13/06, James Cameron <quozl at us.netrek.org> wrote:
>
> I've not recalled any such messages from you.  I've checked your 23
> messages over the past two months and found none that ask for pre-t
> robots.  Maybe you got hit by the spam traps.  Do they appear in the
> mailing list archives?

Maybe. I've noticed other cases where mail from Gmail was marked
incorrectly as SPAM.

> I'm happy to enable pre-t robots.  No doubt the other purists will pop
> out of the woodwork and abuse me for it.  They did last time I tried.
> They were louder than the few asking for them to be enabled.

Cool. Some purists would rather have a 100% pure empty bronco server
too heh. Can't please everyone. My only goal is to see bronco pickup
return.

Zach


From narcis at luky.nl  Wed Nov 15 06:05:51 2006
From: narcis at luky.nl (Narcis)
Date: Wed, 15 Nov 2006 13:05:51 +0100
Subject: [netrek-dev] RSA in COW
In-Reply-To: <mailman.511.1151632173.12171.netrek-dev@us.netrek.org>
References: <mailman.511.1151632173.12171.netrek-dev@us.netrek.org>
Message-ID: <4748C1B9-3C79-4A38-995D-9C3864D7DC69@luky.nl>

Hi,

while making my way through socket.c i stumbled on

   /* replace the first few bytes of the message */
   /* will be the low order bytes of the number */
   data = packet->data;
   MCOPY(&saddr.sin_addr.s_addr, data, sizeof(saddr.sin_addr.s_addr));
   data += sizeof(saddr.sin_addr.s_addr);
   MCOPY(&saddr.sin_port, data, sizeof(saddr.sin_port));

just before creating the RSA response. But i can't figure out what is  
happening here...

can anyone enlighten me? it looks like the address (ip?) and port of  
the client (server?)
are used in the decryption of the rsa key.

regards

Chris
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://mailman.us.netrek.org/pipermail/netrek-dev/attachments/20061115/50a675ae/attachment-0001.htm 

From ahn at orion.netrek.org  Wed Nov 15 11:52:30 2006
From: ahn at orion.netrek.org (Dave Ahn)
Date: Wed, 15 Nov 2006 12:52:30 -0500
Subject: [netrek-dev] 2 issues with INL stat script
In-Reply-To: <Pine.GSO.4.58.0611141851490.9355@sue>
References: <Pine.GSO.4.58.0611141533430.5403@sue>
	<20061115015627.GA24622@orion.netrek.org>
	<Pine.GSO.4.58.0611141851490.9355@sue>
Message-ID: <20061115175230.GA26198@orion.netrek.org>

On Tue, Nov 14, 2006 at 06:59:06PM -0800, William Balcerski wrote:
> processed.  I fixed the cambot part, still working on the stats thing.
> It's a mess.  Maybe someone else could help who actually wrote the thing,
> if they are still around.

I wrote auto-archive.pl and probably also (re)wrote end_tourney.pl, but
I don't remember...maybe Tom Holub did that one.

All you need to do is update the full or relative paths in the scripts
relative to the CWD, which used to be ntserv/.  While you're at it, you
should probably make the "-register" option a no-op.  The register
feature dates back to when INL servers did not have a central stats
repository, and official INL game stats were manually added to the
sTaTbOy! archives.  The auto-archive feature made that obsolete.

> my $servername  = 'netrek.warped.us';

I've created a drop folder for your server.  Let me know if there are
problems.



From quozl at us.netrek.org  Wed Nov 15 18:14:37 2006
From: quozl at us.netrek.org (James Cameron)
Date: Thu, 16 Nov 2006 11:14:37 +1100
Subject: [netrek-dev] RSA in COW
In-Reply-To: <4748C1B9-3C79-4A38-995D-9C3864D7DC69@luky.nl>
References: <mailman.511.1151632173.12171.netrek-dev@us.netrek.org>
	<4748C1B9-3C79-4A38-995D-9C3864D7DC69@luky.nl>
Message-ID: <20061116001437.GA9291@us.netrek.org>

On Wed, Nov 15, 2006 at 01:05:51PM +0100, Narcis wrote:
> can anyone enlighten me? it looks like the address (ip?) and port of
> the client (server?) are used in the decryption of the rsa key.

Yes.  The first few bytes of the message are replaced with the unencoded
32-bit IPv4 address of the server, and the port number, both of which
were obtained using getpeername.

This may be a misguided attempt to increase the difficulty of
man-in-the-middle attack on the scheme, written in the days when it
wasn't trivial to do network address translation.

-- 
James Cameron    mailto:quozl at us.netrek.org     http://quozl.netrek.org/


From quozl at us.netrek.org  Wed Nov 15 19:40:03 2006
From: quozl at us.netrek.org (James Cameron)
Date: Thu, 16 Nov 2006 12:40:03 +1100
Subject: [netrek-dev] 2 issues with INL stat script
In-Reply-To: <20061115175230.GA26198@orion.netrek.org>
References: <Pine.GSO.4.58.0611141533430.5403@sue>
	<20061115015627.GA24622@orion.netrek.org>
	<Pine.GSO.4.58.0611141851490.9355@sue>
	<20061115175230.GA26198@orion.netrek.org>
Message-ID: <20061116014003.GD9291@us.netrek.org>

On Wed, Nov 15, 2006 at 12:52:30PM -0500, Dave Ahn wrote:
> All you need to do is update the full or relative paths in the scripts
> relative to the CWD, which used to be ntserv/.  

Dave, we ended up splitting stuff into libdir, localstatedir, and so
forth, e.g. /usr/lib/netrek for code and unchanging reference files, and
/var/lib/netrek for data.  So it just needs a few edits in the scripts,
yes.

-- 
James Cameron    mailto:quozl at us.netrek.org     http://quozl.netrek.org/


From ahn at orion.netrek.org  Thu Nov 16 09:45:20 2006
From: ahn at orion.netrek.org (Dave Ahn)
Date: Thu, 16 Nov 2006 10:45:20 -0500
Subject: [netrek-dev] 2 issues with INL stat script
In-Reply-To: <20061116014003.GD9291@us.netrek.org>
References: <Pine.GSO.4.58.0611141533430.5403@sue>
	<20061115015627.GA24622@orion.netrek.org>
	<Pine.GSO.4.58.0611141851490.9355@sue>
	<20061115175230.GA26198@orion.netrek.org>
	<20061116014003.GD9291@us.netrek.org>
Message-ID: <20061116154520.GA28411@orion.netrek.org>

On Thu, Nov 16, 2006 at 12:40:03PM +1100, James Cameron wrote:
> On Wed, Nov 15, 2006 at 12:52:30PM -0500, Dave Ahn wrote:
> > All you need to do is update the full or relative paths in the scripts
> > relative to the CWD, which used to be ntserv/.  
> 
> Dave, we ended up splitting stuff into libdir, localstatedir, and so
> forth, e.g. /usr/lib/netrek for code and unchanging reference files, and
> /var/lib/netrek for data.  So it just needs a few edits in the scripts,
> yes.

So, it just needs configure to set the full paths in the scripts; or,
have the robot send the relevant paths as parameters.  Seems like a
couple of lines of changes at most...



From netrek at gmail.com  Thu Nov 16 16:48:17 2006
From: netrek at gmail.com (Zach)
Date: Thu, 16 Nov 2006 17:48:17 -0500
Subject: [netrek-dev] pulsar server misrepresenting count
Message-ID: <ecfa260c0611161448s2e3f81d3nfb824ecc751e5b24@mail.gmail.com>

netrek.pulsar-zone.net is listing the bots in the number of players it
reports on the metaservers. there are 2 players on right now yet the
metaserver shows 10 there.

zach


From narcis at luky.nl  Thu Nov 16 17:03:29 2006
From: narcis at luky.nl (Narcis)
Date: Fri, 17 Nov 2006 00:03:29 +0100
Subject: [netrek-dev] Insight/side RSA
In-Reply-To: <mailman.1.1163700002.8588.netrek-dev@us.netrek.org>
References: <mailman.1.1163700002.8588.netrek-dev@us.netrek.org>
Message-ID: <6C64B54C-10C6-4D9E-B46A-526869A312F9@luky.nl>


> On Wed, Nov 15, 2006 at 01:05:51PM +0100, Narcis wrote:
>> can anyone enlighten me? it looks like the address (ip?) and port of
>> the client (server?) are used in the decryption of the rsa key.
>
> Yes.  The first few bytes of the message are replaced with the  
> unencoded
> 32-bit IPv4 address of the server, and the port number, both of which
> were obtained using getpeername.

okay so 66.11.161.166 would put 66 in byte 0, 11 in byte 1 etc

and the port 0x1234 would put 0x12 in byte 4 and 0x34 in byte 5?

> This may be a misguided attempt to increase the difficulty of
> man-in-the-middle attack on the scheme, written in the days when it
> wasn't trivial to do network address translation.

hmm i think it will be something like :

hostName = [ONHost hostForHostname:@"netrek.pulsar-zone.net"];
ONHostAddress *address = [[hostName addresses] objectAtIndex:0];
char *p = [[address addressData] bytes];

then copy the first 4 bytes.

should work unless it get's more then one interface returned for
the host. Which can only happen when you run the app on the server.

regards

Chris


-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://mailman.us.netrek.org/pipermail/netrek-dev/attachments/20061117/69241605/attachment.htm 

From jrd at gerdesas.com  Thu Nov 16 17:04:37 2006
From: jrd at gerdesas.com (John R. Dennison)
Date: Thu, 16 Nov 2006 17:04:37 -0600
Subject: [netrek-dev] pulsar server misrepresenting count
In-Reply-To: <ecfa260c0611161448s2e3f81d3nfb824ecc751e5b24@mail.gmail.com>
References: <ecfa260c0611161448s2e3f81d3nfb824ecc751e5b24@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <20061116230437.GS2417@legolas.gerdesas.com>

On Thu, Nov 16, 2006 at 05:48:17PM -0500, Zach wrote:
> netrek.pulsar-zone.net is listing the bots in the number of players it
> reports on the metaservers. there are 2 players on right now yet the
> metaserver shows 10 there.

	Yeah, I also noticed this approximately 60 minutes ago.




							John


-- 
"I'm sorry but our engineers do not have phones."
As stated by a Network Solutions Customer Service representative when asked to
be put through to an engineer.

"My other computer is your windows box."
                                     Ralf Hildebrandt
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: not available
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 189 bytes
Desc: not available
Url : http://mailman.us.netrek.org/pipermail/netrek-dev/attachments/20061116/0e3e220f/attachment.pgp 

From narcis at luky.nl  Thu Nov 16 17:22:19 2006
From: narcis at luky.nl (Narcis)
Date: Fri, 17 Nov 2006 00:22:19 +0100
Subject: [netrek-dev] netrek-dev Digest, Vol 21, Issue 7
In-Reply-To: <mailman.1.1163700002.8588.netrek-dev@us.netrek.org>
References: <mailman.1.1163700002.8588.netrek-dev@us.netrek.org>
Message-ID: <7700449D-CBCF-4F66-BE04-58D25717AB1D@luky.nl>

hmm,

got that in there, but now i see the server requesting SP_RESERVED.  
Isn't that the old encryption protocol?

help! what should i expect for RSA authentication?

regards

Chris


From akb+lists.netrek-dev at mirror.to  Thu Nov 16 17:48:57 2006
From: akb+lists.netrek-dev at mirror.to (Andrew K. Bressen)
Date: Thu, 16 Nov 2006 18:48:57 -0500
Subject: [netrek-dev] MacTrek downloaded over 3300 times
In-Reply-To: <20061113231559.GA9316@us.netrek.org> (James Cameron's message
	of "Tue, 14 Nov 2006 10:15:59 +1100")
References: <mailman.1.1162490402.30775.netrek-dev@us.netrek.org>
	<DF02F42C-1829-479D-B1BF-7FC29A1339A7@luky.nl>
	<20061112030424.GA9715@us.netrek.org>
	<ecfa260c0611122205r2065a959t8aba7441b1339b13@mail.gmail.com>
	<0qirhj4ltd.fsf@lanconius.mirror.to>
	<Pine.GSO.4.58.0611130502350.17544@blinky>
	<ecfa260c0611130924h2ac1854ke64159cf81c19688@mail.gmail.com>
	<20061113231559.GA9316@us.netrek.org>
Message-ID: <0qslgj2brq.fsf@lanconius.mirror.to>


James Cameron <quozl at us.netrek.org> writes:
> I'm happy to enable pre-t robots.  No doubt the other purists will pop
> out of the woodwork and abuse me for it.  They did last time I tried.
> They were louder than the few asking for them to be enabled.

Yay!

Can we also get the idle mode hack, or are they mutually exclusive? 

Also, can we get RSA off until the mac client supports it? 

I was on pulsar-zone for a bit today; I saw newbies trickling in and
out pretty steadily, plus a few regulars like yoda and jrd; had one or
two humans besides me for much of the last couple of hours. I suspect
an easier to play server would help draw folks in. 

  --akb



From jrd at gerdesas.com  Thu Nov 16 18:01:22 2006
From: jrd at gerdesas.com (John R. Dennison)
Date: Thu, 16 Nov 2006 18:01:22 -0600
Subject: [netrek-dev] MacTrek downloaded over 3300 times
In-Reply-To: <0qslgj2brq.fsf@lanconius.mirror.to>
References: <mailman.1.1162490402.30775.netrek-dev@us.netrek.org>
	<DF02F42C-1829-479D-B1BF-7FC29A1339A7@luky.nl>
	<20061112030424.GA9715@us.netrek.org>
	<ecfa260c0611122205r2065a959t8aba7441b1339b13@mail.gmail.com>
	<0qirhj4ltd.fsf@lanconius.mirror.to>
	<Pine.GSO.4.58.0611130502350.17544@blinky>
	<ecfa260c0611130924h2ac1854ke64159cf81c19688@mail.gmail.com>
	<20061113231559.GA9316@us.netrek.org>
	<0qslgj2brq.fsf@lanconius.mirror.to>
Message-ID: <20061117000122.GU2417@legolas.gerdesas.com>

On Thu, Nov 16, 2006 at 06:48:57PM -0500, Andrew K. Bressen wrote:
> 
> I was on pulsar-zone for a bit today; I saw newbies trickling in and
> out pretty steadily, plus a few regulars like yoda and jrd; had one or
> two humans besides me for much of the last couple of hours. I suspect
> an easier to play server would help draw folks in. 

	With regards to pulsar-zone: if there are more then 3-4 humans
	on that server the lag is too attrocious to play, even for me.
	
	Best case it's around 120ms, worst case, like a few moments
	ago, was > 500ms.

	This is /not/ the server we want n00bs to see for their first
	exposure to the game:  a) the aforememntioned lag issues; b)
	'bots cause higher then normal damage (getting tooled by a SC
	gets old real quick); c) the 'bots on that server are idiotic.

	Combine the 3 and you will turn n00bs off to the game very
	quickly.




							John

-- 
"I'm sorry but our engineers do not have phones."
As stated by a Network Solutions Customer Service representative when asked to
be put through to an engineer.

"My other computer is your windows box."
                                     Ralf Hildebrandt
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: not available
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 189 bytes
Desc: not available
Url : http://mailman.us.netrek.org/pipermail/netrek-dev/attachments/20061116/8867939c/attachment.pgp 

From netrek at gmail.com  Thu Nov 16 22:52:10 2006
From: netrek at gmail.com (Zach)
Date: Thu, 16 Nov 2006 23:52:10 -0500
Subject: [netrek-dev] pulsar server misrepresenting count
In-Reply-To: <20061116230437.GS2417@legolas.gerdesas.com>
References: <ecfa260c0611161448s2e3f81d3nfb824ecc751e5b24@mail.gmail.com>
	<20061116230437.GS2417@legolas.gerdesas.com>
Message-ID: <ecfa260c0611162052o59fd12d1ldd8f63db05e6e974@mail.gmail.com>

The pulsar server is still mispresenting the count. There are
presently 5 players logged in yet the metaserver count is 14. Please
have pulsar removed from the metaserver until the server god can
address this issue. Pulsar has relativly MUCH higher lag than sturgeon
and sturgeon has relatively higher lag than continuum - at least for
me and several others I've asked about it.

Zach

On 11/16/06, John R. Dennison <jrd at gerdesas.com> wrote:
> On Thu, Nov 16, 2006 at 05:48:17PM -0500, Zach wrote:
> > netrek.pulsar-zone.net is listing the bots in the number of players it
> > reports on the metaservers. there are 2 players on right now yet the
> > metaserver shows 10 there.
>
>         Yeah, I also noticed this approximately 60 minutes ago.
>
>
>
>
>                                                         John


From quozl at us.netrek.org  Fri Nov 17 00:22:25 2006
From: quozl at us.netrek.org (James Cameron)
Date: Fri, 17 Nov 2006 17:22:25 +1100
Subject: [netrek-dev] MacTrek downloaded over 3300 times
In-Reply-To: <20061117000122.GU2417@legolas.gerdesas.com>
References: <mailman.1.1162490402.30775.netrek-dev@us.netrek.org>
	<DF02F42C-1829-479D-B1BF-7FC29A1339A7@luky.nl>
	<20061112030424.GA9715@us.netrek.org>
	<ecfa260c0611122205r2065a959t8aba7441b1339b13@mail.gmail.com>
	<0qirhj4ltd.fsf@lanconius.mirror.to>
	<Pine.GSO.4.58.0611130502350.17544@blinky>
	<ecfa260c0611130924h2ac1854ke64159cf81c19688@mail.gmail.com>
	<20061113231559.GA9316@us.netrek.org>
	<0qslgj2brq.fsf@lanconius.mirror.to>
	<20061117000122.GU2417@legolas.gerdesas.com>
Message-ID: <20061117062225.GA18956@us.netrek.org>

PRET=1
SAFE_IDLE=1

On continuum.

Let me know if it has broken anything.

-- 
James Cameron    mailto:quozl at us.netrek.org     http://quozl.netrek.org/


From quozl at us.netrek.org  Fri Nov 17 00:35:26 2006
From: quozl at us.netrek.org (James Cameron)
Date: Fri, 17 Nov 2006 17:35:26 +1100
Subject: [netrek-dev] pulsar server misrepresenting count
In-Reply-To: <ecfa260c0611162052o59fd12d1ldd8f63db05e6e974@mail.gmail.com>
References: <ecfa260c0611161448s2e3f81d3nfb824ecc751e5b24@mail.gmail.com>
	<20061116230437.GS2417@legolas.gerdesas.com>
	<ecfa260c0611162052o59fd12d1ldd8f63db05e6e974@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <20061117063525.GA21110@us.netrek.org>

Ignoring player count from pulsar-zone, setting it to 1 if it exceeds 1,
until this is fixed.  On my metaserver only.

-- 
James Cameron    mailto:quozl at us.netrek.org     http://quozl.netrek.org/


From jrd at gerdesas.com  Fri Nov 17 00:36:35 2006
From: jrd at gerdesas.com (John R. Dennison)
Date: Fri, 17 Nov 2006 00:36:35 -0600
Subject: [netrek-dev] MacTrek downloaded over 3300 times
In-Reply-To: <20061117062225.GA18956@us.netrek.org>
References: <DF02F42C-1829-479D-B1BF-7FC29A1339A7@luky.nl>
	<20061112030424.GA9715@us.netrek.org>
	<ecfa260c0611122205r2065a959t8aba7441b1339b13@mail.gmail.com>
	<0qirhj4ltd.fsf@lanconius.mirror.to>
	<Pine.GSO.4.58.0611130502350.17544@blinky>
	<ecfa260c0611130924h2ac1854ke64159cf81c19688@mail.gmail.com>
	<20061113231559.GA9316@us.netrek.org>
	<0qslgj2brq.fsf@lanconius.mirror.to>
	<20061117000122.GU2417@legolas.gerdesas.com>
	<20061117062225.GA18956@us.netrek.org>
Message-ID: <20061117063634.GW2417@legolas.gerdesas.com>

On Fri, Nov 17, 2006 at 05:22:25PM +1100, James Cameron wrote:
> PRET=1
> SAFE_IDLE=1
> 
> On continuum.
> 
> Let me know if it has broken anything.

	Seems both player and observer ports are down at the moment,
	James.




							John

-- 
"I'm sorry but our engineers do not have phones."
As stated by a Network Solutions Customer Service representative when asked to
be put through to an engineer.

"My other computer is your windows box."
                                     Ralf Hildebrandt
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: not available
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 189 bytes
Desc: not available
Url : http://mailman.us.netrek.org/pipermail/netrek-dev/attachments/20061117/57b94267/attachment.pgp 

From quozl at us.netrek.org  Fri Nov 17 00:41:46 2006
From: quozl at us.netrek.org (James Cameron)
Date: Fri, 17 Nov 2006 17:41:46 +1100
Subject: [netrek-dev] pulsar server misrepresenting count
In-Reply-To: <ecfa260c0611162052o59fd12d1ldd8f63db05e6e974@mail.gmail.com>
References: <ecfa260c0611161448s2e3f81d3nfb824ecc751e5b24@mail.gmail.com>
	<20061116230437.GS2417@legolas.gerdesas.com>
	<ecfa260c0611162052o59fd12d1ldd8f63db05e6e974@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <20061117064146.GC21110@us.netrek.org>

Also, mail to Matthew Mondor is bouncing.

-- 
James Cameron    mailto:quozl at us.netrek.org     http://quozl.netrek.org/


From quozl at us.netrek.org  Fri Nov 17 00:45:09 2006
From: quozl at us.netrek.org (James Cameron)
Date: Fri, 17 Nov 2006 17:45:09 +1100
Subject: [netrek-dev] netrek-dev Digest, Vol 21, Issue 7
In-Reply-To: <7700449D-CBCF-4F66-BE04-58D25717AB1D@luky.nl>
References: <mailman.1.1163700002.8588.netrek-dev@us.netrek.org>
	<7700449D-CBCF-4F66-BE04-58D25717AB1D@luky.nl>
Message-ID: <20061117064502.GE21110@us.netrek.org>

On Fri, Nov 17, 2006 at 12:22:19AM +0100, Narcis wrote:
> got that in there, but now i see the server requesting SP_RESERVED.  
> Isn't that the old encryption protocol?

Just do what a client normally does.  I suspect there is a request for
SP_RESERVED in there as well.

> help! what should i expect for RSA authentication?

Read the code?  It is our specification.  This saves on having a
specification separate to the code, which would result in having to
update two things instead of one.  ;-)

-- 
James Cameron    mailto:quozl at us.netrek.org     http://quozl.netrek.org/


From jrd at gerdesas.com  Fri Nov 17 00:59:11 2006
From: jrd at gerdesas.com (John R. Dennison)
Date: Fri, 17 Nov 2006 00:59:11 -0600
Subject: [netrek-dev] pulsar server misrepresenting count
In-Reply-To: <20061117064146.GC21110@us.netrek.org>
References: <ecfa260c0611161448s2e3f81d3nfb824ecc751e5b24@mail.gmail.com>
	<20061116230437.GS2417@legolas.gerdesas.com>
	<ecfa260c0611162052o59fd12d1ldd8f63db05e6e974@mail.gmail.com>
	<20061117064146.GC21110@us.netrek.org>
Message-ID: <20061117065911.GY2417@legolas.gerdesas.com>

On Fri, Nov 17, 2006 at 05:41:46PM +1100, James Cameron wrote:
> Also, mail to Matthew Mondor is bouncing.

	What address are you using?

	Try "mmsoftware at pulsar-zone.net" if you are not already
	using that address.




							John

-- 
"I'm sorry but our engineers do not have phones."
As stated by a Network Solutions Customer Service representative when asked to
be put through to an engineer.

"My other computer is your windows box."
                                     Ralf Hildebrandt
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: not available
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 189 bytes
Desc: not available
Url : http://mailman.us.netrek.org/pipermail/netrek-dev/attachments/20061117/93a187b2/attachment.pgp 

From netrek at gmail.com  Fri Nov 17 01:14:58 2006
From: netrek at gmail.com (Zach)
Date: Fri, 17 Nov 2006 07:14:58 +0000
Subject: [netrek-dev] pulsar server misrepresenting count
In-Reply-To: <20061117065911.GY2417@legolas.gerdesas.com>
References: <ecfa260c0611161448s2e3f81d3nfb824ecc751e5b24@mail.gmail.com>
	<20061116230437.GS2417@legolas.gerdesas.com>
	<ecfa260c0611162052o59fd12d1ldd8f63db05e6e974@mail.gmail.com>
	<20061117064146.GC21110@us.netrek.org>
	<20061117065911.GY2417@legolas.gerdesas.com>
Message-ID: <ecfa260c0611162314v555cee44o82ff3425899c1644@mail.gmail.com>

On 11/17/06, John R. Dennison <jrd at gerdesas.com> wrote:
> On Fri, Nov 17, 2006 at 05:41:46PM +1100, James Cameron wrote:
> > Also, mail to Matthew Mondor is bouncing.
>
>         What address are you using?
>
>         Try "mmsoftware at pulsar-zone.net" if you are not already
>         using that address.

Hey John,

Where did you find that address? I tried mm_lists at pulsar-zone.net and
mmondor at pulsar-zone.net and both bounced. Will try the one you
mentioned.

Zach


From jrd at gerdesas.com  Fri Nov 17 01:29:06 2006
From: jrd at gerdesas.com (John R. Dennison)
Date: Fri, 17 Nov 2006 01:29:06 -0600
Subject: [netrek-dev] pulsar server misrepresenting count
In-Reply-To: <ecfa260c0611162314v555cee44o82ff3425899c1644@mail.gmail.com>
References: <ecfa260c0611161448s2e3f81d3nfb824ecc751e5b24@mail.gmail.com>
	<20061116230437.GS2417@legolas.gerdesas.com>
	<ecfa260c0611162052o59fd12d1ldd8f63db05e6e974@mail.gmail.com>
	<20061117064146.GC21110@us.netrek.org>
	<20061117065911.GY2417@legolas.gerdesas.com>
	<ecfa260c0611162314v555cee44o82ff3425899c1644@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <20061117072906.GZ2417@legolas.gerdesas.com>

On Fri, Nov 17, 2006 at 07:14:58AM +0000, Zach wrote:
> 
> Hey John,
> 
> Where did you find that address? I tried mm_lists at pulsar-zone.net and
> mmondor at pulsar-zone.net and both bounced. Will try the one you
> mentioned.

	I have no idea if that address is working or not; I didn't
	try it.

	I found it in under 5 minutes of poking around on the various
	links listed on http://netrek.pulsar-zone.net.



							John

-- 
"I'm sorry but our engineers do not have phones."
As stated by a Network Solutions Customer Service representative when asked to
be put through to an engineer.

"My other computer is your windows box."
                                     Ralf Hildebrandt
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: not available
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 189 bytes
Desc: not available
Url : http://mailman.us.netrek.org/pipermail/netrek-dev/attachments/20061117/21cd6c01/attachment-0001.pgp 

From netrek at gmail.com  Fri Nov 17 02:01:44 2006
From: netrek at gmail.com (Zach)
Date: Fri, 17 Nov 2006 08:01:44 +0000
Subject: [netrek-dev] pulsar server misrepresenting count
In-Reply-To: <20061117072906.GZ2417@legolas.gerdesas.com>
References: <ecfa260c0611161448s2e3f81d3nfb824ecc751e5b24@mail.gmail.com>
	<20061116230437.GS2417@legolas.gerdesas.com>
	<ecfa260c0611162052o59fd12d1ldd8f63db05e6e974@mail.gmail.com>
	<20061117064146.GC21110@us.netrek.org>
	<20061117065911.GY2417@legolas.gerdesas.com>
	<ecfa260c0611162314v555cee44o82ff3425899c1644@mail.gmail.com>
	<20061117072906.GZ2417@legolas.gerdesas.com>
Message-ID: <ecfa260c0611170001n17cbf83aj4b950f7a64d7ebe@mail.gmail.com>

On 11/17/06, John R. Dennison <jrd at gerdesas.com> wrote:

>
>         I have no idea if that address is working or not; I didn't
>         try it.
>
>         I found it in under 5 minutes of poking around on the various
>         links listed on http://netrek.pulsar-zone.net.

Haven't received a bounce messages, yet so hopefully it worked.

Zach


From akb+lists.netrek-dev at mirror.to  Fri Nov 17 13:31:56 2006
From: akb+lists.netrek-dev at mirror.to (Andrew K. Bressen)
Date: Fri, 17 Nov 2006 14:31:56 -0500
Subject: [netrek-dev] pulsar server misrepresenting count
In-Reply-To: <ecfa260c0611170001n17cbf83aj4b950f7a64d7ebe@mail.gmail.com>
	(Zach's message of "Fri, 17 Nov 2006 08:01:44 +0000")
References: <ecfa260c0611161448s2e3f81d3nfb824ecc751e5b24@mail.gmail.com>
	<20061116230437.GS2417@legolas.gerdesas.com>
	<ecfa260c0611162052o59fd12d1ldd8f63db05e6e974@mail.gmail.com>
	<20061117064146.GC21110@us.netrek.org>
	<20061117065911.GY2417@legolas.gerdesas.com>
	<ecfa260c0611162314v555cee44o82ff3425899c1644@mail.gmail.com>
	<20061117072906.GZ2417@legolas.gerdesas.com>
	<ecfa260c0611170001n17cbf83aj4b950f7a64d7ebe@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <0qveld27kj.fsf@lanconius.mirror.to>


matt mondor is pretty highly spam filtered and also pretty busy; it
took me a while to get thru when I corresponded with him a month or
two ago. the address that worked was the one zach cc'd on his earlier
message.

If we don't hear back soon, let me know; I might 
be whitelisted now. I also saw mail from him on
some netrek list, maybe this one, within the past
year or so. 

I notice, though, that pulsar-zone is out of metaserver 1's list
entirely now. 

By the way, the docs for newbies, and maybe the server login prompt,
should probably explicitly explain that logins are per-server; otherwise
I think we might have folks creating, say, a warped login, and then being
pissed when they can't get onto continuum with it. 

  --akb



From quozl at us.netrek.org  Fri Nov 17 16:41:03 2006
From: quozl at us.netrek.org (James Cameron)
Date: Sat, 18 Nov 2006 09:41:03 +1100
Subject: [netrek-dev] pulsar server misrepresenting count
In-Reply-To: <20061117065911.GY2417@legolas.gerdesas.com>
References: <ecfa260c0611161448s2e3f81d3nfb824ecc751e5b24@mail.gmail.com>
	<20061116230437.GS2417@legolas.gerdesas.com>
	<ecfa260c0611162052o59fd12d1ldd8f63db05e6e974@mail.gmail.com>
	<20061117064146.GC21110@us.netrek.org>
	<20061117065911.GY2417@legolas.gerdesas.com>
Message-ID: <20061117224102.GA3564@us.netrek.org>

On Fri, Nov 17, 2006 at 12:59:11AM -0600, John R. Dennison wrote:
> On Fri, Nov 17, 2006 at 05:41:46PM +1100, James Cameron wrote:
> > Also, mail to Matthew Mondor is bouncing.
> 
> 	What address are you using?

mmondor at pulsar-zone.net

> 	Try "mmsoftware at pulsar-zone.net" if you are not already
> 	using that address.

Thanks, tried.  Waiting for result.

-- 
James Cameron    mailto:quozl at us.netrek.org     http://quozl.netrek.org/


From quozl at us.netrek.org  Fri Nov 17 17:27:26 2006
From: quozl at us.netrek.org (James Cameron)
Date: Sat, 18 Nov 2006 10:27:26 +1100
Subject: [netrek-dev] pulsar server misrepresenting count
In-Reply-To: <0qveld27kj.fsf@lanconius.mirror.to>
References: <ecfa260c0611161448s2e3f81d3nfb824ecc751e5b24@mail.gmail.com>
	<20061116230437.GS2417@legolas.gerdesas.com>
	<ecfa260c0611162052o59fd12d1ldd8f63db05e6e974@mail.gmail.com>
	<20061117064146.GC21110@us.netrek.org>
	<20061117065911.GY2417@legolas.gerdesas.com>
	<ecfa260c0611162314v555cee44o82ff3425899c1644@mail.gmail.com>
	<20061117072906.GZ2417@legolas.gerdesas.com>
	<ecfa260c0611170001n17cbf83aj4b950f7a64d7ebe@mail.gmail.com>
	<0qveld27kj.fsf@lanconius.mirror.to>
Message-ID: <20061117232726.GC3564@us.netrek.org>

On Fri, Nov 17, 2006 at 02:31:56PM -0500, Andrew K. Bressen wrote:
> By the way, the docs for newbies, and maybe the server login prompt,
> should probably explicitly explain that logins are per-server;
> otherwise I think we might have folks creating, say, a warped login,
> and then being pissed when they can't get onto continuum with it. 

Good idea, noted in the COW TODO in CVS.

-- 
James Cameron    mailto:quozl at us.netrek.org     http://quozl.netrek.org/


From jjadeinc at hotmail.com  Mon Nov 20 11:53:32 2006
From: jjadeinc at hotmail.com (Joe Evango)
Date: Mon, 20 Nov 2006 11:53:32 -0600
Subject: [netrek-dev] Metaserver change?
Message-ID: <BAY128-F31C1C8D43EE256C80B46E8CBED0@phx.gbl>

Did something change on the metaserver?

It is only listing four servers and for some reason the hockey server is 
reporting the puck and announcer as players.  This pushes the hockey server 
to the top of the listing when there are no players on the other servers.

-Joe

_________________________________________________________________
All-in-one security and maintenance for your PC.? Get a free 90-day trial! 
http://clk.atdmt.com/MSN/go/msnnkwlo0050000002msn/direct/01/?href=http://clk.atdmt.com/MSN/go/msnnkwlo0050000001msn/direct/01/?href=http://www.windowsonecare.com/?sc_cid=msn_hotmail



From williamb at its.caltech.edu  Thu Nov 23 23:46:26 2006
From: williamb at its.caltech.edu (William Balcerski)
Date: Thu, 23 Nov 2006 21:46:26 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [netrek-dev] Discussion on new metaserver policy
Message-ID: <Pine.GSO.4.58.0611232140130.7968@clyde>

Below is the new metaserver policy as posted to
http://metaserver.us.netrek.org/

"Metaserver Restrictions
A restriction has been placed on the metaserver.us.netrek.org that will
avoid listing spare servers until the preferred server has at least 12
players.

At the moment, the spare servers are netrek.warped.us, netrek.hwy.com.au
and netrek.pulsar-zone.net, and the preferred server is
continuum.us.netrek.org."

I would like to know how others feel about this.  On one hand, we want to
encourage play on bronco servers, and the recent/ongoing addition of pre-T
bots to continuum is a good start.  On the other hand, I don't think it's
fair to have preferred/unpreferred status in the metaserver listing.
Servers with newbie-type bots are newbie friendly, especially if is off
hours and there aren't 12 players on continuum (which is the vast majority
of the day).  By cutting off these servers from being listed, I think it
does a disservice to netrek.  Secondly, I don't feel it's fair to unlist
a popular server (warped) because it's taking away players from the
"proper" type of netrek.  As the admin on warped, I would be willing to
take steps, such as reducing max players to 8, or having a vote for bronco
mode, that would alleviate the problem.  But I feel this tiered metaserver
system is, frankly, unfair.

I'm interested especially in what the metaserver2 admins feel, and whether
they would use this sort of preferred system in the future.  I have been
telling players, especially those fans of sturgeon, to use metaserver2.

Bill



From niclas at acc.umu.se  Fri Nov 24 10:50:59 2006
From: niclas at acc.umu.se (Niclas Fredriksson)
Date: Fri, 24 Nov 2006 17:50:59 +0100 (MET)
Subject: [netrek-dev] Discussion on new metaserver policy
In-Reply-To: <Pine.GSO.4.58.0611232140130.7968@clyde>
References: <Pine.GSO.4.58.0611232140130.7968@clyde>
Message-ID: <Pine.GSO.4.64.0611241734190.27798@shaka.acc.umu.se>

On Thu, 23 Nov 2006, William Balcerski wrote:

> Below is the new metaserver policy as posted to
> http://metaserver.us.netrek.org/
>
> "Metaserver Restrictions
> A restriction has been placed on the metaserver.us.netrek.org that will
> avoid listing spare servers until the preferred server has at least 12
> players.
>
> At the moment, the spare servers are netrek.warped.us, netrek.hwy.com.au
> and netrek.pulsar-zone.net, and the preferred server is
> continuum.us.netrek.org."
>
> I would like to know how others feel about this.

I'm not running a server nor do I have any say on what happens with the 
metaservers, but I'll say my piece anyway even though it may not hold much 
weight.

Personally I'm for everything that will get players back to our major 
bronco servers (continuum, maybe pickled), even if it includes hiding or 
shutting down your server.

It's clear the existence of your server has struck a deep wound in the 
netrek community. Before your server we had t-mode on continuum almost 
every night and then when you got your server up, the newbies went there 
to play and the non-newbies didn't feel like waiting on continuum for more 
people to show up and then we never got bronco t-mode. When they hid your 
server on the metaserver we suddenly got t-mode back on continuum. I think 
it's all great.

You might of course argue that you're entitled to run your own server and 
that you have certain rights, but in my mind I'd like to see your server 
shut down. I don't see that it does the netrek community any good what so 
ever. I think it's more about keeping the game alive than "being fair" to 
all the potential servers gods out there. If we go back to the times when 
we had no problems at all with getting t-mode (like back when we had both 
pickled and continuum full on any given night) I think it would be okay to 
get a "Bill's version of sturgeon" server back on the metaserver. But now 
we just can't afford it.

Make a "Bill's version of sturgeon" website where you can tell newbies how 
to connect with the -h switch so they can reach your server even without 
it being on the metaserver. Or you can distribute a shortcut with your 
client...

This is nothing personal. I like you as a person and we've been good team 
mates on the world's best team for ages (8-10 years?), but I really think 
your server is killing netrek as we know it. I know you've been working 
hard on your server and it much suck when people stop playing there 
because they no longer can find it when it was removed from the 
metaserver. It must seem very unfair.  Maybe there are things you can do 
to your server so that it won't kill bronco (and maybe hiding it from the 
metaserver is one of those things) but I really don't think it should be 
brought back to the metaserver.

Sorry Bill but that's my opinion.

-- Niclas


From akb+lists.netrek-dev at mirror.to  Fri Nov 24 15:41:41 2006
From: akb+lists.netrek-dev at mirror.to (Andrew K. Bressen)
Date: Fri, 24 Nov 2006 16:41:41 -0500
Subject: [netrek-dev] netrek xp mouse problem
Message-ID: <0qbqmwwmi2.fsf@lanconius.mirror.to>


I tried to fire up the netrek xp mod client yesterday,
since I was at a windows box and I hadn't seen it yet.

Problem:
the windows box I was using had a two-button mouse, 
with no way to generate a middle click. (no, pressing
both buttons at once didn't do it, nor any combination of
buttons + ctrl, alt, shift, windows, and startmenu keys). 

this means that I couldn't play very well because I couldn't
figure out how to make that damn "helpful tips" box go away!

it sat there in the middle of the screen, blocking part of the
tac view and part of the galactic, mocking me!

Can there be a way to turn that thing off, either a close
button to click on, or having it also close via a shift-click?

  --akb



From jrd at gerdesas.com  Fri Nov 24 16:10:27 2006
From: jrd at gerdesas.com (John R. Dennison)
Date: Fri, 24 Nov 2006 16:10:27 -0600
Subject: [netrek-dev] netrek xp mouse problem
In-Reply-To: <0qbqmwwmi2.fsf@lanconius.mirror.to>
References: <0qbqmwwmi2.fsf@lanconius.mirror.to>
Message-ID: <20061124221026.GA8393@legolas.gerdesas.com>

On Fri, Nov 24, 2006 at 04:41:41PM -0500, Andrew K. Bressen wrote:
>
> Problem:
> the windows box I was using had a two-button mouse, 
> with no way to generate a middle click. (no, pressing
> both buttons at once didn't do it, nor any combination of
> buttons + ctrl, alt, shift, windows, and startmenu keys). 

	Do you have a control-panel option (under Mouse) to
	enable middle-button emulation?

> Can there be a way to turn that thing off, either a close
> button to click on, or having it also close via a shift-click?

	You can edit your netrekrc file and turn it off in there; the
	appropriate line is:

	showHints: off




							John

-- 
"I'm sorry but our engineers do not have phones."
As stated by a Network Solutions Customer Service representative when asked to
be put through to an engineer.

"My other computer is your windows box."
                                     Ralf Hildebrandt
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: not available
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 189 bytes
Desc: not available
Url : http://mailman.us.netrek.org/pipermail/netrek-dev/attachments/20061124/b11d80f1/attachment.pgp 

From williamb at its.caltech.edu  Fri Nov 24 17:20:13 2006
From: williamb at its.caltech.edu (William Balcerski)
Date: Fri, 24 Nov 2006 15:20:13 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [netrek-dev] netrek xp mouse problem
In-Reply-To: <0qbqmwwmi2.fsf@lanconius.mirror.to>
References: <0qbqmwwmi2.fsf@lanconius.mirror.to>
Message-ID: <Pine.GSO.4.58.0611241515290.15059@sue>

> I tried to fire up the netrek xp mod client yesterday,
> since I was at a windows box and I hadn't seen it yet.
>
I would use XP 2006, XP mod is no longer being updated.  Of course I'm
biased on this issue.

> Problem:
> the windows box I was using had a two-button mouse,
> with no way to generate a middle click. (no, pressing
> both buttons at once didn't do it, nor any combination of
> buttons + ctrl, alt, shift, windows, and startmenu keys).
>
> Can there be a way to turn that thing off, either a close
> button to click on, or having it also close via a shift-click?
>
>   --akb
>
What John said about editing netrekrc is the best way.  The other way is
to open your options menu (shift-o), and then navigate to page 4, the info
menu.  Then click on the option for "Show hints window".  This will
disable hints window for your current session only, though.  Adding
shift-right click close functionality might be something I add, there are
a bunch of windows that should all be able to be closed in an easy
fashion..hint window, help window, ping window.  Shift-right click is
probably the way I will go, since I often hear complaints from people
without middle mouse buttons.

Bill


From carlos at jpl.nasa.gov  Fri Nov 24 17:54:53 2006
From: carlos at jpl.nasa.gov (Carlos Y. Villalpando)
Date: Fri, 24 Nov 2006 15:54:53 -0800
Subject: [netrek-dev] Discussion on new metaserver policy
In-Reply-To: <Pine.GSO.4.58.0611232140130.7968@clyde>
References: <Pine.GSO.4.58.0611232140130.7968@clyde>
Message-ID: <20061124235453.GA2912@carlos-desktop>

Quoting William Balcerski <williamb at its.caltech.edu>:

> I'm interested especially in what the metaserver2 admins feel, and whether
> they would use this sort of preferred system in the future.  I have been
> telling players, especially those fans of sturgeon, to use metaserver2.

I have always felt that the metaservers should be editorially
neutral.  It should neither endorse, nor punish servers based on their
content. It should be a list of servers, and not a "list of blessed
servers" because blessing can be fickle.  Who's to say that sturgeon
won't be the resurgence of netrek?  Or what if hockey becomes popular
again enough to draw players away from bronco?  Will hockey be on the
chopping block next?

Personally, I don't care for sturgeon all that much, and would rather
play bronco over sturgeon, but de-listing sturgeon servers is forcing
my opinion on others.  De-listing servers is a death sentence.  If it
is not on the metaserver, it doesn't exist.

I went along with the robot/human count correction with minor protest.
I went along because it had a technical point that made good sense. I
was convinced by James that robots aren't humans, and shouldn't be
counted as such.

Unfortunately I am going on holiday in a couple of days for 2 weeks,
with little to no access to e-mail. I won't be able to participate
in any discussions very well.

--Carlos V.





From niclas at acc.umu.se  Fri Nov 24 18:34:31 2006
From: niclas at acc.umu.se (Niclas Fredriksson)
Date: Sat, 25 Nov 2006 01:34:31 +0100 (MET)
Subject: [netrek-dev] Discussion on new metaserver policy
In-Reply-To: <20061124235453.GA2912@carlos-desktop>
References: <Pine.GSO.4.58.0611232140130.7968@clyde>
	<20061124235453.GA2912@carlos-desktop>
Message-ID: <Pine.GSO.4.64.0611250130150.27798@shaka.acc.umu.se>

On Fri, 24 Nov 2006, Carlos Y. Villalpando wrote:

> Who's to say that sturgeon won't be the resurgence of netrek?

We've already seen that is not the case. When Bill's sturgeon server 
appeared on the metaserver, bronco basically died. When it was removed 
from the metaserver, we started getting t-mode on continuum again.

Only newbies (and addison) play sturgeon. Even if Bill's server became ten 
times more popular than it was when it was on the metaserver, experience 
has shown that people tire of sturgeon about the same time as they learn 
how to properly play the game.

> Or what if hockey becomes popular again enough to draw players away from 
> bronco?  Will hockey be on the chopping block next?

I believe you're comparing apples and oranges here. To become a good 
hockey player you need to know how to play bronco. You might say that you 
can't play hockey until you've put down hundreds of hours on bronco 
servers and once you've done that you probably like bronco and will 
continue to play for as long as you think that netrek in general (bronco 
and hockey) is fun.

-- Niclas


From jimmyhua73 at yahoo.com  Fri Nov 24 19:34:34 2006
From: jimmyhua73 at yahoo.com (Jimmy Huang)
Date: Fri, 24 Nov 2006 17:34:34 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [netrek-dev] Discussion on new metaserver policy
In-Reply-To: <Pine.GSO.4.58.0611232140130.7968@clyde>
Message-ID: <722293.3619.qm@web35303.mail.mud.yahoo.com>

> "Metaserver Restrictions
> A restriction has been placed on the
> metaserver.us.netrek.org that will
> avoid listing spare servers until the preferred
> server has at least 12
> players.

Well, this explains why the meta-server always
displays such a short list of netrek servers.  I'm
sure there are more out there, and they should all be
represented and listed on the meta-server. Whatever
server is "alive" should be listed. Period. 

> At the moment, the spare servers are
> netrek.warped.us, netrek.hwy.com.au
> and netrek.pulsar-zone.net, and the preferred server
> is
> continuum.us.netrek.org."

I get bad lag on continuum. warped is much better
actually. :-P
 
Servers that should be de-listed from the meta-server
are those that are "cheating." The meta-server lists
the number of real players on a server. Robots don't
count. Servers that in-fract on this rule should be
de-listed until they are fixed. 

As far as I can tell Bill's server hasn't been doing
that. 

Sturgeon is popular now! Let's face it! 

Of course people go where the game is at. But if the
server isn't even listed, of course, people won't go. 

If what Niclas says is true, then naturally, people
will go back to the bronco servers once they get bored
of Sturgeon. Nothing needs to be done. Saving netrek?
It's a game, it doesn't need to be saved. 

Me? Well, I just got married in May 2006 and have been
mad busy. You probably won't see me for a couple more
years ;-P. 

Jimmy



From quozl at us.netrek.org  Fri Nov 24 19:26:38 2006
From: quozl at us.netrek.org (James Cameron)
Date: Sat, 25 Nov 2006 12:26:38 +1100
Subject: [netrek-dev] Discussion on new metaserver policy
In-Reply-To: <20061124235453.GA2912@carlos-desktop>
References: <Pine.GSO.4.58.0611232140130.7968@clyde>
	<20061124235453.GA2912@carlos-desktop>
Message-ID: <20061125012638.GA4875@us.netrek.org>

Like Carlos I had always felt that metaservers should be neutral, but I
have changed.  The change may not be permanent, but the results so far
have been spectacular.

It is difficult to endorse or punish via information flows, since there
is not a single metaserver.  The metaserver I'm running has changed
policy.  The policy is only effective while there are few players.  The
policy has limited long term impact, because:

1.  clients can be written to use both metaservers and merge the
results,

(the COW code on Linux does that with my UDP metaserver query mode,
added in 1999, which still hasn't hit the Windows client code base ...
I'm sure the current Windows clients can follow the trend),

2.  servers now respond to metaserver queries, and clients can be
configured to query them directly,

(again, code contributed by me, this time in February 2006, currently in
COW on Linux and the Vanilla source),

3.  players can learn how to avoid the restrictions, especially with
enthusiasts begging them on continuum to learn how to type "netrek -h
something", and spamming the message board with pro-sturgeon political
statements, or advertisements for clients,

4.  in the same way that players know to circumvent bans by changing IP
addresses, server owners know very well that they could change their
hostname or IP address to circumvent the policy.  (I was actually
encouraged by some to turn off the UDP solicit mode, te he).

Regarding the player count, or robots reported as players problem ...
before we opened the metaservers to allow anyone to list a server, we
were able to enforce some unwritten policies ... such as non-offensive
hostnames, servers that actually can be logged into, etc.  With the UDP
solicitation, we lack any of those controls, and so I feel a touch more
justified in exerting some control on "my" metaserver.

Regarding previous policy, a minor observation ... when RSA client
binary verification was first implemented, the metaserver followed suite
by reporting whether a server was compiled with RSA.  The metaserver
didn't restrict what servers were returned.  Now we learn that the R
flag doesn't identify whether the server actually demands verification
at the time.  Patches welcome.

-- 
James Cameron    mailto:quozl at us.netrek.org     http://quozl.netrek.org/
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: not available
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 189 bytes
Desc: Digital signature
Url : http://mailman.us.netrek.org/pipermail/netrek-dev/attachments/20061125/a7fc3fe9/attachment-0001.pgp 

From quozl at us.netrek.org  Fri Nov 24 21:53:14 2006
From: quozl at us.netrek.org (James Cameron)
Date: Sat, 25 Nov 2006 14:53:14 +1100
Subject: [netrek-dev] Server blogs enabled
Message-ID: <20061125035314.GA11784@us.netrek.org>

The new server blog feature is enabled on continuum and warped.

http://continuum.us.netrek.org/blog/
http://netrek.warped.us/blog/

Next step is to aggregate several project feeds into a section of
www.netrek.org, such as:

- server blogs,
- administrative blogs,
- source repository changes,
- wiki changes,
- bug tracking.

I'll be using rawdog to generate HTML which is then placed in either
frames or inlined using PHP.  If someone knows offhand how to place a
HTML stream inside an area of a page without using frames or include,
let me know.

-- 
James Cameron    mailto:quozl at us.netrek.org     http://quozl.netrek.org/


From netrek at gmail.com  Fri Nov 24 22:39:36 2006
From: netrek at gmail.com (Zach)
Date: Fri, 24 Nov 2006 23:39:36 -0500
Subject: [netrek-dev] Discussion on new metaserver policy
In-Reply-To: <722293.3619.qm@web35303.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
References: <Pine.GSO.4.58.0611232140130.7968@clyde>
	<722293.3619.qm@web35303.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <ecfa260c0611242039j4fb1b678ya81c96c378c5afe8@mail.gmail.com>

On 11/24/06, Jimmy Huang <jimmyhua73 at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>I get bad lag on continuum. warped is much better
>actually. :-P

My experience is the opposite. I consistently have been getting 250 to
300 on warped and
190 to 210 on continuum. It may not seem like much, especially if you
haven't played over
dialup in a long time, but playing at 200 vs 300 is like night and day
in may respects.

>Sturgeon is popular now! Let's face it!

One could argue it is popular because it was the only decent server
running bots which has
good enough lag. When I started playing netrek there were at least 2
paradise servers that were full virtually 24x7 but we had about half a
dozen bronco servers also nearly always full
to balance things out. As I've stated before this is, at least in my
experience, a historic
juncture for netrek in that for the first time we had a 2 month period
with literally zero
bronco games yet sturgeon was filled every night. As Niclas pointed
out before sturgeon
there was bronco games every night.

Newbies who've only played for a few months or even a few years do not
have the same
emotional investment in the game as those of us who've been playing
for over a decade.
I'm all in favor, in an ideal world, for a plurality of expressions of
netrek. I wish
we had a large and active enough player base to keep bronco, sturgeon,
hockey, chaos and paradise servers going 24x7; as an aside we could do
that with probably 1/1000th of the active  World of Worldcraft (WoW)
community ;-) However we must be realistic and like a surgeon who's
desperately working to save the patient's life some hard decisions may
need to be made.

The vast majority of the old timers and clue have spoken through their
absence and it seems clear they'd rather not play netrek at all rather
than play sturgeon style netrek.

Personally I find sturgeon to be a fun distraction and I do appreciate
Bill's hard work
and efforts in client and server development. However I don't love
sturgeon nor derive
the same satisfaction from it the way I do bronco pickup. On another
sad note we've
not had a single bronco clue pickup game in nearly 16 months. I think
those who've played
in clue games and especially organized league netrek will agree it is
the single most
satisfying form of netrek for clue and it's the most educational form
for newbies.

There's always been a very symbiotic relationship between the
popularity of netrek overall
and the health of league play. I personally know at least a dozen
established old timers
who told me they retired from pickup because there was no longer a
thriving clue game scene.

Empirically I have witnessed the truth of this myself and it is sad. I
believe that the way to resurrect netrek and ensure it's future health
is to:

1) Take measures to grow the player base:
   a) Client side development (some eye/ear candy)
   b) Healthy bronco pickup servers
   c) Variant servers that will get people interested but then direct
them to bronco
      to really learn how to play. If sturgeon is thriving yet bronco
is dead there will
      NOT be any possibility of bringing back tournament play since
most clue and old
      timers just do not find non-bronco games appealing. Some may
argue that you can
      have sturgeon "clue games" whilst most would probably find that
to be an oxymoron
      as much  as paradise "clue games".
  d) Promotional efforts. Joe is basically the only who has done much
on this and I
      appreciate his efforts.
  e) Also draft leagues were an important mechanism in helping players
mature from
      the newbie level of understanding to be ready for clue play. The
last draft league was
      years ago as was the last clue league (bronco).

2) Weekly or at the worst semi-monthly clue pickup games.

3) Eventually have healthy clue league(s).

I don't know what the correct solution is regarding sturgeon and I
sympathize with
the points that Bill and Carlos make however I feel that our primary
concern must be
to ensure bronco stays alive. If bronco dies netrek is dead and we
started to see
that happening.

Back to Allegri's "Miserere" :)

Zach


From netrek at gmail.com  Fri Nov 24 23:07:24 2006
From: netrek at gmail.com (Zach)
Date: Sat, 25 Nov 2006 00:07:24 -0500
Subject: [netrek-dev] Server blogs enabled
In-Reply-To: <20061125035314.GA11784@us.netrek.org>
References: <20061125035314.GA11784@us.netrek.org>
Message-ID: <ecfa260c0611242107n7e3858e0w2975e941aa2f3291@mail.gmail.com>

Cool. Can the timezone be included in the timestamp, "13:00" doesn't
indicate where the server is. 13:00 PST is 16:00 EST etc.. Or at least
use GMT designation.

Zach


From williamb at its.caltech.edu  Sat Nov 25 00:03:16 2006
From: williamb at its.caltech.edu (William Balcerski)
Date: Fri, 24 Nov 2006 22:03:16 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [netrek-dev] Discussion on new metaserver policy
In-Reply-To: <Pine.GSO.4.64.0611250130150.27798@shaka.acc.umu.se>
References: <Pine.GSO.4.58.0611232140130.7968@clyde>
	<20061124235453.GA2912@carlos-desktop>
	<Pine.GSO.4.64.0611250130150.27798@shaka.acc.umu.se>
Message-ID: <Pine.GSO.4.58.0611242150370.18783@clyde>

> Only newbies (and addison) play sturgeon. Even if Bill's server became ten
> times more popular than it was when it was on the metaserver, experience
> has shown that people tire of sturgeon about the same time as they learn
> how to properly play the game.
>
Wasn't/isn't just all newbies, there's a fair share of twinks and
semiclues :).  Which is about all that's left in netrek these days.

> I believe you're comparing apples and oranges here. To become a good
> hockey player you need to know how to play bronco. You might say that you
> can't play hockey until you've put down hundreds of hours on bronco
> servers and once you've done that you probably like bronco and will
> continue to play for as long as you think that netrek in general (bronco
> and hockey) is fun.
>
Hockey has always attracted a different crowd then bronco, at least half
of hockey clue were never regular bronco players, so I don't think they
are as interconnected.  Sturgeon and bronco are much closer in playstyle
and skillset than hockey and bronco.  Sturgeon, at its most basic, does
not have galaxy class ships, or modified AS's with more hulls or faster
scouts..those are local mods on warped.  Sturgeon is in fact highly
configurable via sysdef as to just how crazy you want the modifications to
get.  The number of upgrades is controllable, as is how fast they are lost
on death.  As is the ability for planet takes to generate free upgrades,
or extra kill credit based on number of upgrades the person has when you
kill them.  I'll probably put in an option to turn off special weapon
types (mines, nukes) too.  At it's minimal level, sturgeon is nearly
identical to bronco.  I however do not run at the minimal level.  While
bronco is clearly defined in many people's eyes, it's because the servers
have generally used the same settings...but it doesn't have to be this
way.  A bronco server could have 2v2 tmode, modified ship stats (bigbang
BB mods anyone?), variable pop rates, ping pong plasma (guiness server
anyone?), twarp on/off, different starting army counts, restrictions on
ship ranks (DD, SB), different 3rd space bombing rules.  I could go on.
In short, there are enough sysdef settings to make a pretty far out bronco
server, and I don't think saying sturgeon is totally different from bronco
is an argument that works on any level, seeing as bronco can have a
similar range of mods.

Bill


From williamb at its.caltech.edu  Sat Nov 25 00:16:25 2006
From: williamb at its.caltech.edu (William Balcerski)
Date: Fri, 24 Nov 2006 22:16:25 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [netrek-dev] Discussion on new metaserver policy
In-Reply-To: <20061125012638.GA4875@us.netrek.org>
References: <Pine.GSO.4.58.0611232140130.7968@clyde>
	<20061124235453.GA2912@carlos-desktop>
	<20061125012638.GA4875@us.netrek.org>
Message-ID: <Pine.GSO.4.58.0611242205540.18869@clyde>

> 1.  clients can be written to use both metaservers and merge the
> results,
>
> (the COW code on Linux does that with my UDP metaserver query mode,
> added in 1999, which still hasn't hit the Windows client code base ...
> I'm sure the current Windows clients can follow the trend),
>
In the works. :)

> 2.  servers now respond to metaserver queries, and clients can be
> configured to query them directly,
>
> (again, code contributed by me, this time in February 2006, currently in
> COW on Linux and the Vanilla source),
>
Ditto.

> 3.  players can learn how to avoid the restrictions, especially with
> enthusiasts begging them on continuum to learn how to type "netrek -h
> something", and spamming the message board with pro-sturgeon political
> statements, or advertisements for clients,
>
They can, but it puts extra burden on the user to find the game they want.
Netrekrc editting is not user friendly, so it's certain an uphill climb.

> 4.  in the same way that players know to circumvent bans by changing IP
> addresses, server owners know very well that they could change their
> hostname or IP address to circumvent the policy.  (I was actually
> encouraged by some to turn off the UDP solicit mode, te he).
>
Well you are actively admining, so any attempt to circumvent getting put
on the "spare" list would just wind that server up on the list again.
Shouldn't be a cat/mouse game between server admin and metaserver.  We
should be on the same team.  Putting up obstacles just serves to fragment
the community, I believe.  Over 50% of client connects to warped were from
my client, so I feel long term a large portion of players will have a
client that lists warped on the metaserver.  But having half the players
with 1 list of all servers, and the other half with a smaller list, could
create a situation where both bronco and bot/ship mod servers do ok..or it
could lead to an increase in players on both, or a decrase on both.  I really
can't predict.  But it will become a reality if the metaservers list
differently, and the future windows clients go from a 1 metaserver listing
to a composite listing.

Bill


From keyos at keyos.org  Sat Nov 25 09:56:44 2006
From: keyos at keyos.org (Stas Pirogov)
Date: Sat, 25 Nov 2006 17:56:44 +0200 (IST)
Subject: [netrek-dev] netrek xp mouse problem
In-Reply-To: <Pine.GSO.4.58.0611241515290.15059@sue>
References: <0qbqmwwmi2.fsf@lanconius.mirror.to>
	<Pine.GSO.4.58.0611241515290.15059@sue>
Message-ID: <Pine.GSO.4.63.0611251755290.3215@fcnep.argivfvba.arg.vy>

There's much simpler way - press the space (or whatever
key you remapped it to). It closes all "special" windows.

Stas.

On Fri, 24 Nov 2006, William Balcerski wrote:

> Date: Fri, 24 Nov 2006 15:20:13 -0800 (PST)
> From: William Balcerski <williamb at its.caltech.edu>
> Reply-To: Netrek Development Mailing List <netrek-dev at us.netrek.org>
> To: Netrek Development Mailing List <netrek-dev at us.netrek.org>
> Subject: Re: [netrek-dev] netrek xp mouse problem
> 
> > I tried to fire up the netrek xp mod client yesterday,
> > since I was at a windows box and I hadn't seen it yet.
> >
> I would use XP 2006, XP mod is no longer being updated.  Of course I'm
> biased on this issue.
> 
> > Problem:
> > the windows box I was using had a two-button mouse,
> > with no way to generate a middle click. (no, pressing
> > both buttons at once didn't do it, nor any combination of
> > buttons + ctrl, alt, shift, windows, and startmenu keys).
> >
> > Can there be a way to turn that thing off, either a close
> > button to click on, or having it also close via a shift-click?
> >
> >   --akb
> >
> What John said about editing netrekrc is the best way.  The other way is
> to open your options menu (shift-o), and then navigate to page 4, the info
> menu.  Then click on the option for "Show hints window".  This will
> disable hints window for your current session only, though.  Adding
> shift-right click close functionality might be something I add, there are
> a bunch of windows that should all be able to be closed in an easy
> fashion..hint window, help window, ping window.  Shift-right click is
> probably the way I will go, since I often hear complaints from people
> without middle mouse buttons.
> 
> Bill
> 
> _______________________________________________
> netrek-dev mailing list
> netrek-dev at us.netrek.org
> http://mailman.us.netrek.org/mailman/listinfo/netrek-dev
> 


From akb+lists.netrek-dev at mirror.to  Sun Nov 26 02:07:47 2006
From: akb+lists.netrek-dev at mirror.to (Andrew K. Bressen)
Date: Sun, 26 Nov 2006 03:07:47 -0500
Subject: [netrek-dev] Discussion on new metaserver policy
In-Reply-To: <Pine.GSO.4.64.0611250130150.27798@shaka.acc.umu.se> (Niclas
	Fredriksson's message of "Sat, 25 Nov 2006 01:34:31 +0100 (MET)")
References: <Pine.GSO.4.58.0611232140130.7968@clyde>
	<20061124235453.GA2912@carlos-desktop>
	<Pine.GSO.4.64.0611250130150.27798@shaka.acc.umu.se>
Message-ID: <0q1wnqwrzg.fsf@lanconius.mirror.to>


I think there's a notable point here that has not been covered.

It's not just bronco vs. sturgeon, 
it's bots vs. no bots. 

Repeatedly in the past few months I sat on continuum and watched a 
person log on, chat with me for five minutes, and log off. Then a few
minutes later someone else would come along. Without bots, critical
mass never got reached. Meanwhile, you could log onto sturgeon and
have t. 

I have no idea how much of the preference for sturgeon is people
who like twinky upgrades vs. people who just want to be in t-mode. 



From akb+lists.netrek-dev at mirror.to  Sun Nov 26 02:34:38 2006
From: akb+lists.netrek-dev at mirror.to (Andrew K. Bressen)
Date: Sun, 26 Nov 2006 03:34:38 -0500
Subject: [netrek-dev] Discussion on new metaserver policy
In-Reply-To: <ecfa260c0611242039j4fb1b678ya81c96c378c5afe8@mail.gmail.com>
	(Zach's message of "Fri, 24 Nov 2006 23:39:36 -0500")
References: <Pine.GSO.4.58.0611232140130.7968@clyde>
	<722293.3619.qm@web35303.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
	<ecfa260c0611242039j4fb1b678ya81c96c378c5afe8@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <0qwt5ivc69.fsf@lanconius.mirror.to>


I mostly agree with Zach.

I don't play sturgeon, and I'm concerned about its impact on bronco,
but I'm not willing to condemn it out of hand. I think the whole
sturgeon-bronco issue is a bit peripheral to the fact that we rather
desperately need more players. Bronco wasn't in great shape before
warped sturgeon went online; it'd been a year or two since I saw T on two
servers at once. 

I'd like to think the preferance for sturgeon was a preferance for t-mode,
even if it was twinky and had bots, over df-ing with one or two other
people. 

If the clients are soon to be able to make a composite list from
multiple metaservers, then the policy change doesn't matter, right? 
Or am I missing something? I assume the client distros would have
multiple metaservers built into their configs, yes?

> The vast majority of the old timers and clue have spoken through their
> absence and it seems clear they'd rather not play netrek at all rather
> than play sturgeon style netrek.

I'm not sure I buy this. Continuum used to have daily T and full games, 
then warped came, and it had daily T and full games while continuum 
didn't. This says to me that the player base was not markedly different
in size, though the bot/nobots issue does muddy things a bit. 

> the same satisfaction from it the way I do bronco pickup. On another
> sad note we've not had a single bronco clue pickup game in nearly 16
> months.

Has the new list not successfully generated a game? 
This week was only the second try, and it was the eve of the 
US thanksgiving holiday, which probably cut into attendance. 
Do we have any ways to find more former players and get them back?

> Empirically I have witnessed the truth of this myself and it is sad. I
> believe that the way to resurrect netrek and ensure it's future health
> is to:
>
> 1) Take measures to grow the player base:
>    a) Client side development (some eye/ear candy)
>    b) Healthy bronco pickup servers

including one with bots, so you can always play.  

>   d) Promotional efforts. Joe is basically the only who has done much
>      on this and I appreciate his efforts.

This should be first on the list!


  --akb



From williamb at its.caltech.edu  Sun Nov 26 14:40:35 2006
From: williamb at its.caltech.edu (William Balcerski)
Date: Sun, 26 Nov 2006 12:40:35 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [netrek-dev] Discussion on new metaserver policy
In-Reply-To: <0qwt5ivc69.fsf@lanconius.mirror.to>
References: <Pine.GSO.4.58.0611232140130.7968@clyde>
	<722293.3619.qm@web35303.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
	<ecfa260c0611242039j4fb1b678ya81c96c378c5afe8@mail.gmail.com>
	<0qwt5ivc69.fsf@lanconius.mirror.to>
Message-ID: <Pine.GSO.4.58.0611261234300.13165@inky>

> I'd like to think the preferance for sturgeon was a preferance for t-mode,
> even if it was twinky and had bots, over df-ing with one or two other
> people.
>
Yup as you said, always having T mode is a huge draw..which is why I don't
like that all the servers which always have t mode are now off the
metaserver.

> If the clients are soon to be able to make a composite list from
> multiple metaservers, then the policy change doesn't matter, right?
> Or am I missing something? I assume the client distros would have
> multiple metaservers built into their configs, yes?
>
Yes but it forces me to now work on the client enough to justify a
release, adding a new features to hope people will upgrade, then go beg
people to upgrade by advertising.

> I'm not sure I buy this. Continuum used to have daily T and full games,
> then warped came, and it had daily T and full games while continuum
> didn't. This says to me that the player base was not markedly different
> in size, though the bot/nobots issue does muddy things a bit.
>
Yup sturgeon had full games of humans, bots disappeared once human count
reached 12.  Since the delisting, continuum has had slightly more players
due to much more observers hanging out on continuum, that and there are a
few players who will play at continuum who refused to play at sturgeon.
But I've also seen regular sturgeon players who don't seem to be playing
on continuum.  Of course the players who happen to be some of the most
vocal whiners/complainers are in the first group, while the second group
is more newbies/semiclues who I'm guessing don't complain as loud.

> Has the new list not successfully generated a game?
> This week was only the second try, and it was the eve of the
> US thanksgiving holiday, which probably cut into attendance.
> Do we have any ways to find more former players and get them back?
>
No successful game yet, I'll keep calling em till we get one.

> including one with bots, so you can always play.
>
Ding ding ding we have a winner.

> >   d) Promotional efforts. Joe is basically the only who has done much
> >      on this and I appreciate his efforts.
>
> This should be first on the list!
>
Well Joe has done multiple advertising/banner campaigns, spending his own
money to do so..I haven't seen anyone else step up or come up with ideas
though.
Bill


From jjadeinc at hotmail.com  Sun Nov 26 17:40:28 2006
From: jjadeinc at hotmail.com (Joe Evango)
Date: Sun, 26 Nov 2006 15:40:28 -0800
Subject: [netrek-dev] Discussion on new metaserver policy
References: <Pine.GSO.4.58.0611232140130.7968@clyde><722293.3619.qm@web35303.mail.mud.yahoo.com><ecfa260c0611242039j4fb1b678ya81c96c378c5afe8@mail.gmail.com>
	<0qwt5ivc69.fsf@lanconius.mirror.to>
Message-ID: <BAY128-DAV7E6D8BBCFCCB751100CA2CBE70@phx.gbl>

> including one with bots, so you can always play.

Is this going to be implemented on continuum?  Would be nice to have pre-t 
bots on continuum to see if it helps keep new players in the game.  Gives 
new players something to do, something to practice against.  Having to orbit 
your home planet waiting for a game to start minutes after downloading the 
game I feel sends the wrong message and can be confusing for new players. 
New players downloading the game shouldn't be pushing Netrek aside due to 
boredom.

>>   d) Promotional efforts. Joe is basically the only who has done much
>>      on this and I appreciate his efforts.
>
> This should be first on the list!

So far, for the month of November:
--  Bills client has been downloaded 992 times from playnetrek.org and 101 
times from download.com.
--  The Tedturner client has been downloaded 37 times from playnetrek.org.
--  96 people clicked on the MacTrek link and 63 people have clicked on the 
Linux client link.

We have a steady flow of traffic, we need to focus on keeping it.  I think 
doing what we are doing now, having a civil discussion on the issue, is a 
key start to getting the game built back up.  The petty bickering seems to 
be dying down a lot on pickup games, which is very good, this seemed to be 
having a negative impact on the game and new players starting out.  The hate 
spam being spewed by certain people to the all board, I feel, is a definite 
turn off for new players.

> Do we have any ways to find more former players and get them back?

An announcement, or several, on rgn could help pull some of the older 
players back in.  I wouldn't make it sound negative, it should be a 
proactive and unbiased message talking about experimental improvements being 
put into place to help build the playerbase back up for ALL server types.  A 
lot of the older players still read rgn, they come out of the woodwork when 
certain announcements are made.

My opinion on the warped server...I have never seen it misreporting bots as 
players and there is a group of dedicated sturgeon players that have formed 
in the past several months that love playing on warped.  The server operates 
cleanly.  I like playing on it every once in a while just to mix things up 
and I get better ping times on warped then on any other server.  I think it 
is good to have such a great variety of options available to the community, 
as well as new players, and I feel it makes the game more interesting when 
people want a break from bronco and don't want to play hockey.  Bill has 
done a great job with warped and his client, the stats clearly show this.

Unfortunatley warped has had a negative impact on some of the older bronco 
players that have less time to sit on servers waiting for a game to start 
and refuse to play anything other than bronco.  While they are not a huge 
percentage of our playerbase, they are enough to make a difference in 
getting games going on a bronco server from time-to-time.  If only for a 
couple hours a day.

It doesn't seem right to shun either group from t-mode games but there 
currently doesn't seem to be enough players to support bronco if a sturgeon 
server is up 24x7.  The problem child here is bronco so I can understand why 
the priority is being placed on bronco servers on the metaserver.  As long 
as Bill keeps warped up there will always be a dedicated group of sturgeon 
players, I don't think this change will kill sturgeon.  Seems like what 
James is implementing with this metaserver change is a middle ground for all 
server types.  This will allow bronco games to build back up while at the 
same time giving visibility to other servers.  Will be interesting to watch 
things unfold.

I am hoping everyone can work through this change together over the next 
couple months to see how it effects the current playerbase.  If it has a 
positive impact and helps draw enough people into the game to satisfy all 
server types then the wait is worth it.  If it has a negative impact then at 
least we can say this is something that was tried and hopefully move on.  I 
do feel if something like this is in place, the limit to list spare servers 
should be set to 10 players instead of 12 until we can get more people in 
the game.  If a bronco game has 10 people in it before other servers show up 
on the metaserver list that is a pretty good jump.  Just my opinion.


-Joe 



From jrd at gerdesas.com  Sun Nov 26 17:55:08 2006
From: jrd at gerdesas.com (John R. Dennison)
Date: Sun, 26 Nov 2006 17:55:08 -0600
Subject: [netrek-dev] Discussion on new metaserver policy
In-Reply-To: <Pine.GSO.4.58.0611261234300.13165@inky>
References: <Pine.GSO.4.58.0611232140130.7968@clyde>
	<722293.3619.qm@web35303.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
	<ecfa260c0611242039j4fb1b678ya81c96c378c5afe8@mail.gmail.com>
	<0qwt5ivc69.fsf@lanconius.mirror.to>
	<Pine.GSO.4.58.0611261234300.13165@inky>
Message-ID: <20061126235508.GD2357@legolas.gerdesas.com>

On Sun, Nov 26, 2006 at 12:40:35PM -0800, William Balcerski wrote:
> >
> Yup sturgeon had full games of humans, bots disappeared once human count
> reached 12.  Since the delisting, continuum has had slightly more players
> due to much more observers hanging out on continuum, that and there are a
> few players who will play at continuum who refused to play at sturgeon.
> But I've also seen regular sturgeon players who don't seem to be playing
> on continuum.  Of course the players who happen to be some of the most
> vocal whiners/complainers are in the first group, while the second group
> is more newbies/semiclues who I'm guessing don't complain as loud.

	'Slightly more players...'?

	Fact: your server got delisted and playership on continuum
	went from none to having wait queues in a matter of roughly
	18 hours.

	And what does having observers on continuum have to do
	with active player slots?  Quick answer: nothing at all.

	And there are more then a 'few players' that will play
	on continuum but yet not go near sturgeon.

	The player base got split (for whatever reasons) when 
	sturgeon went online.  The player base is not large enough
	to be split and hasn't been for many years.

	Please note: this is not meant to be inflammatory, Bill;  I
	am simply stating facts.

	Do I necessarily agree with James' decision to de-list your
	server and the others?  No, not really.  I think it was a
	fairly draconian act to be done without any prior notice or
	discussion.  However, for those of us rallying to get
	bronco games going again the effect was positive and
	immediate.  

> No successful game yet, I'll keep calling em till we get one.

	Hopefully at some point it will catch on - I hope so,
	in any event.

> Ding ding ding we have a winner.

	It's not just 'having bots'.  It's having bots that are
	worth playing against while you wait for humans.  The 
	bots on continuum need to be tuned up, they are extremely
	weak.

> Well Joe has done multiple advertising/banner campaigns, spending his own
> money to do so..I haven't seen anyone else step up or come up with ideas
> though.

	As much as I hate to say this, I will: with the exception of the
	new Mac client the current client base has nothing to really
	offer newer players unless they are looking for a new retro
	game to play.  In this day and age most people expect more in
	the way of graphics and audio (as others have pointed out in
	this thread previously); areas that are seriously lacking.

	I will go on a PLATO advertising campaign and try to lure some
	of the current crop of Empire players over.  They are the
	single largest group I can think of that would be interested,
	considering that they are still playing the forerunner of netrek.
	
	Oh, I have said it while in the game, but I do not believe I
	have ever stated it here:  I personally thank Joe for what
	he has done as far as advertising and marketing for netrek;
	it has resulted in some new blood in the game and the fact that
	he did it on his own time with his own funds speaks highly of
	him.




						John

-- 
"I'm sorry but our engineers do not have phones."
As stated by a Network Solutions Customer Service representative when asked to
be put through to an engineer.

"My other computer is your windows box."
                                     Ralf Hildebrandt
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: not available
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 189 bytes
Desc: not available
Url : http://mailman.us.netrek.org/pipermail/netrek-dev/attachments/20061126/c35e80a2/attachment.pgp 

From quozl at us.netrek.org  Sun Nov 26 23:53:45 2006
From: quozl at us.netrek.org (James Cameron)
Date: Mon, 27 Nov 2006 16:53:45 +1100
Subject: [netrek-dev] Server blogs enabled
In-Reply-To: <ecfa260c0611242107n7e3858e0w2975e941aa2f3291@mail.gmail.com>
References: <20061125035314.GA11784@us.netrek.org>
	<ecfa260c0611242107n7e3858e0w2975e941aa2f3291@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <20061127055345.GD9187@us.netrek.org>

A prototype iframe with news positioned in a left column is available
for review and comment ...

http://quozl.linux.org.au/www.netrek.org/

Zach wrote:
> Cool. Can the timezone be included in the timestamp, "13:00" doesn't
> indicate where the server is. 13:00 PST is 16:00 EST etc.. Or at least
> use GMT designation.

No, I won't do this.  I don't see the need.  The RSS feed has the right
data, and that's the critical bit.  Patches welcome.

-- 
James Cameron    mailto:quozl at us.netrek.org     http://quozl.netrek.org/


From akb+lists.netrek-dev at mirror.to  Mon Nov 27 18:09:45 2006
From: akb+lists.netrek-dev at mirror.to (Andrew K. Bressen)
Date: Mon, 27 Nov 2006 19:09:45 -0500
Subject: [netrek-dev] Server blogs enabled
In-Reply-To: <20061127055345.GD9187@us.netrek.org> (James Cameron's message
	of "Mon, 27 Nov 2006 16:53:45 +1100")
References: <20061125035314.GA11784@us.netrek.org>
	<ecfa260c0611242107n7e3858e0w2975e941aa2f3291@mail.gmail.com>
	<20061127055345.GD9187@us.netrek.org>
Message-ID: <0qbqmsv3cm.fsf@lanconius.mirror.to>


James Cameron <quozl at us.netrek.org> writes:
> A prototype iframe with news positioned in a left column is available
> for review and comment ...
>
> http://quozl.linux.org.au/www.netrek.org/

I took a look. 

Minor quibble:
When I enter, the news frame is black with stars, 
which looks fine. When I follow a link, the frame becomes
the generic black text/blue links/white bg. This is fine, 
but the right margin isn't especially attractive; once the
frame turns white, it comes to within a few pixels of the
text to the right. If the text to the right could be indented
a tad more, it'd look better. 




From akb+lists.netrek-dev at mirror.to  Mon Nov 27 18:46:38 2006
From: akb+lists.netrek-dev at mirror.to (Andrew K. Bressen)
Date: Mon, 27 Nov 2006 19:46:38 -0500
Subject: [netrek-dev] building the player base
In-Reply-To: <BAY128-DAV7E6D8BBCFCCB751100CA2CBE70@phx.gbl> (Joe Evango's
	message of "Sun, 26 Nov 2006 15:40:28 -0800")
References: <Pine.GSO.4.58.0611232140130.7968@clyde>
	<722293.3619.qm@web35303.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
	<ecfa260c0611242039j4fb1b678ya81c96c378c5afe8@mail.gmail.com>
	<0qwt5ivc69.fsf@lanconius.mirror.to>
	<BAY128-DAV7E6D8BBCFCCB751100CA2CBE70@phx.gbl>
Message-ID: <0qac2cv1n5.fsf_-_@lanconius.mirror.to>


"Joe Evango" <jjadeinc at hotmail.com> writes:
> We have a steady flow of traffic, we need to focus on keeping it.  I think 
> doing what we are doing now, having a civil discussion on the issue, is a 
> key start to getting the game built back up.  The petty bickering seems to 
> be dying down a lot on pickup games, which is very good, this seemed to be 
> having a negative impact on the game and new players starting out.  The hate 
> spam being spewed by certain people to the all board, I feel, is a definite 
> turn off for new players.

Here here. Ditto on all counts. 

jrd wrote:
>	It's not just 'having bots'.  It's having bots that are
>	worth playing against while you wait for humans.  The 
>	bots on continuum need to be tuned up, they are extremely
>	weak.

I think if we're trying to build up the player base by attracting newbs,
the current bots are ok. I did like the bots some server had that would
take orders. 

>	As much as I hate to say this, I will: with the exception of the
>	new Mac client the current client base has nothing to really
>	offer newer players unless they are looking for a new retro
>	game to play.  In this day and age most people expect more in
>	the way of graphics and audio (as others have pointed out in
>	this thread previously); areas that are seriously lacking.

I'm not so sure. It's a very good game that looks and sounds a bit dull. 
There are plenty of games that look great and are boring to play. The
trick is to get people past the initial appearance. We do have
something to offer, but it's something that isn't obvious to the
casual shopper.

It also is a stylistically different game; no matter how popular
first-person or isomorphic rpg stuff is, some folks will always want
to do something different. Unlike evercrack, it costs no money. It has
a very high ceiling; you can play for years and still have stuff to
learn.

And the mac and linux clients should be a significant advantage.
Linux is very starved for games. Macs are better, but I suspect it
is still an under-served market. 

I think once the mac client is debugged and the server infrastructure
straightened out, we should start pushing the game and see what we
can get. 

Talk it up on gamer boards, especially mac-oriented and 
linux-oriented places. Talk it up to trekkies. See if we can get
more articles written. Put up some money and run some more ads. 
But it should all be synchronized; having people trickle in and see 
no-one playing will not work.

A key thing to remember is that we don't need very many people. Sure,
you can look and say "We look lame compared to Warcraft, we'll never
get players", but WoW sold a quarter of a million units the day that
it debuted. We only need a tiny tiny fraction of that to be totally 
set. 



From netrek at gmail.com  Tue Nov 28 00:43:56 2006
From: netrek at gmail.com (Zach)
Date: Tue, 28 Nov 2006 01:43:56 -0500
Subject: [netrek-dev] Server blogs enabled
In-Reply-To: <0qbqmsv3cm.fsf@lanconius.mirror.to>
References: <20061125035314.GA11784@us.netrek.org>
	<ecfa260c0611242107n7e3858e0w2975e941aa2f3291@mail.gmail.com>
	<20061127055345.GD9187@us.netrek.org>
	<0qbqmsv3cm.fsf@lanconius.mirror.to>
Message-ID: <ecfa260c0611272243t3ffeb477qe9cccba0138bcc61@mail.gmail.com>

On 11/27/06, Andrew K. Bressen <akb+lists.netrek-dev at mirror.to> wrote:
>
> I took a look.
>
> Minor quibble:
> When I enter, the news frame is black with stars,
> which looks fine. When I follow a link, the frame becomes
> the generic black text/blue links/white bg. This is fine,
> but the right margin isn't especially attractive; once the
> frame turns white, it comes to within a few pixels of the
> text to the right. If the text to the right could be indented
> a tad more, it'd look better.

I also noticed this, but didn't think it was worth mentioning.

Zach


From quozl at us.netrek.org  Tue Nov 28 00:04:42 2006
From: quozl at us.netrek.org (James Cameron)
Date: Tue, 28 Nov 2006 17:04:42 +1100
Subject: [netrek-dev] Server blogs enabled
In-Reply-To: <0qbqmsv3cm.fsf@lanconius.mirror.to>
References: <20061125035314.GA11784@us.netrek.org>
	<ecfa260c0611242107n7e3858e0w2975e941aa2f3291@mail.gmail.com>
	<20061127055345.GD9187@us.netrek.org>
	<0qbqmsv3cm.fsf@lanconius.mirror.to>
Message-ID: <20061128060442.GH9819@us.netrek.org>

On Mon, Nov 27, 2006 at 07:09:45PM -0500, Andrew K. Bressen wrote:
> James Cameron <quozl at us.netrek.org> writes:
> > A prototype iframe with news positioned in a left column is available
> > for review and comment ...
> > http://quozl.linux.org.au/www.netrek.org/
> 
> When I enter, the news frame is black with stars, 
> which looks fine. When I follow a link, the frame becomes
> the generic black text/blue links/white bg.

Ugh, not at all what I had hoped would happen ... I didn't test that.  I
had hoped it would just go to the page.  Maybe the link isn't even
needed, but I haven't figured out how to turn it off.

-- 
James Cameron    mailto:quozl at us.netrek.org     http://quozl.netrek.org/


From netrek at gmail.com  Tue Nov 28 01:20:01 2006
From: netrek at gmail.com (Zach)
Date: Tue, 28 Nov 2006 02:20:01 -0500
Subject: [netrek-dev] building the player base
In-Reply-To: <0qac2cv1n5.fsf_-_@lanconius.mirror.to>
References: <Pine.GSO.4.58.0611232140130.7968@clyde>
	<722293.3619.qm@web35303.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
	<ecfa260c0611242039j4fb1b678ya81c96c378c5afe8@mail.gmail.com>
	<0qwt5ivc69.fsf@lanconius.mirror.to>
	<BAY128-DAV7E6D8BBCFCCB751100CA2CBE70@phx.gbl>
	<0qac2cv1n5.fsf_-_@lanconius.mirror.to>
Message-ID: <ecfa260c0611272320s6985a5a7p4df0d7fe2b673ab1@mail.gmail.com>

On 11/27/06, Andrew K. Bressen <akb+lists.netrek-dev at mirror.to> wrote:
>
> I think if we're trying to build up the player base by attracting newbs,
> the current bots are ok. I did like the bots some server had that would
> take orders.

I think that was on some chaos servers. It is in Vanilla IIRC. You
could send a bot "ogg 2" or "escort 1" or even "exit".

> I'm not so sure. It's a very good game that looks and sounds a bit dull.
> There are plenty of games that look great and are boring to play. The
> trick is to get people past the initial appearance. We do have
> something to offer, but it's something that isn't obvious to the
> casual shopper.

Indeed. Chess has much less of an aesethetic appeal than netrek, yet
every day I see certain chess servers full with hundreds, sometimes
thousands of players. And to play chess at a very high level is much
more intellectually demanding so netrek wins on both counts of
asethetics and playability. Chess is a richer game in terms of
strategy than netrek though I think.

> It also is a stylistically different game; no matter how popular
> first-person or isomorphic rpg stuff is, some folks will always want
> to do something different. Unlike evercrack, it costs no money. It has
> a very high ceiling; you can play for years and still have stuff to
> learn.

Yup.

> And the mac and linux clients should be a significant advantage.
> Linux is very starved for games. Macs are better, but I suspect it
> is still an under-served market.

The Mac client looks really spiffy. Be nice if we can get the code
ported to Linux.
Several players have over the years expressed a desire that a GL
client might get a lot of attention for the game. Some have made some
GL efforts in Java but no Linux/Windows true GL client has ever been
written AFAIK. Even getting a 256 color pixmap client like Ted Turner
would be a step in the right direction. I just tried the Ted Turner
client from http://ftp.netrek.org  and the public servers won't allow
it to connect. Maybe someone could update the key? And on Windows
we've never had a 256 color pixmap client AFAIK.

> I think once the mac client is debugged and the server infrastructure
> straightened out, we should start pushing the game and see what we
> can get.

I concur.

> Talk it up on gamer boards, especially mac-oriented and
> linux-oriented places. Talk it up to trekkies. See if we can get
> more articles written. Put up some money and run some more ads.
> But it should all be synchronized; having people trickle in and see
> no-one playing will not work.

We had some efforts in the past but they were never coordinated. I
recall that /. posting from a few years back and the poster never
bothered to coordinate with the netrek community.

> A key thing to remember is that we don't need very many people. Sure,
> you can look and say "We look lame compared to Warcraft, we'll never
> get players", but WoW sold a quarter of a million units the day that
> it debuted. We only need a tiny tiny fraction of that to be totally
> set.

Yeah. Just look at PS3 and Wii and Xbox, players will shell out big
bucks ($90 USD a game + $300 USD or so for console unit) to play
games. Most new PC games go for $60 to $80 and lot make you keep
paying a monthly charge to use their networks (this used to be less
common back in the day sigh). So netrek must leverage it's strengths
which are the relatively low network overhead, ability to play the
game even with higher pings and latency (yes there are still millions
of net users on dialup like me hehe), the FOSS client/server codebase
(well most clients are open some are not), the dual  strategtic and
tactical gameplay, long time horizon to master the game, in-game is
more straight forward than in a lot of other games, relatively easy
controls, and you don't have to pay for the cilent or network usage.

Zach


From akb+lists.netrek-dev at mirror.to  Wed Nov 29 02:56:57 2006
From: akb+lists.netrek-dev at mirror.to (Andrew K. Bressen)
Date: Wed, 29 Nov 2006 03:56:57 -0500
Subject: [netrek-dev] 1 mac client quibble, 1 other weirdness
Message-ID: <0q3b82vdeu.fsf@lanconius.mirror.to>



I've noticed that when the mac clients exit, they always generate
a ghostbusted message. 

Also, tonight on continuum, I saw some incorrect stat behavior
that might be mac client related, although I wouldn't think so. 

A mac user (ie, blank hog call answer) was playing as username
"prey". Rank ensign. I'm pretty sure it was a first time user; didn't
play well and didn't stay too terribly long. But when I did an Info on
him, I saw a high number of play hours and stats that seemed
impossible for an Ensign. Corrupt db? Server returning bad values? 
Problem with my client?

  --akb



From netrek at gmail.com  Wed Nov 29 03:10:11 2006
From: netrek at gmail.com (Zach)
Date: Wed, 29 Nov 2006 04:10:11 -0500
Subject: [netrek-dev] 1 mac client quibble, 1 other weirdness
In-Reply-To: <0q3b82vdeu.fsf@lanconius.mirror.to>
References: <0q3b82vdeu.fsf@lanconius.mirror.to>
Message-ID: <ecfa260c0611290110n787a9b9dsc10f259020298d8a@mail.gmail.com>

This happens with Windows clients as well.

Zach

On 11/29/06, Andrew K. Bressen <akb+lists.netrek-dev at mirror.to> wrote:
>
>
> I've noticed that when the mac clients exit, they always generate
> a ghostbusted message.
>
> Also, tonight on continuum, I saw some incorrect stat behavior
> that might be mac client related, although I wouldn't think so.
>
> A mac user (ie, blank hog call answer) was playing as username
> "prey". Rank ensign. I'm pretty sure it was a first time user; didn't
> play well and didn't stay too terribly long. But when I did an Info on
> him, I saw a high number of play hours and stats that seemed
> impossible for an Ensign. Corrupt db? Server returning bad values?
> Problem with my client?
>
>   --akb
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> netrek-dev mailing list
> netrek-dev at us.netrek.org
> http://mailman.us.netrek.org/mailman/listinfo/netrek-dev
>


From quozl at us.netrek.org  Wed Nov 29 05:01:34 2006
From: quozl at us.netrek.org (James Cameron)
Date: Wed, 29 Nov 2006 22:01:34 +1100
Subject: [netrek-dev] 1 mac client quibble, 1 other weirdness
In-Reply-To: <0q3b82vdeu.fsf@lanconius.mirror.to>
References: <0q3b82vdeu.fsf@lanconius.mirror.to>
Message-ID: <20061129110134.GD11666@us.netrek.org>

On Wed, Nov 29, 2006 at 03:56:57AM -0500, Andrew K. Bressen wrote:
> I've noticed that when the mac clients exit, they always generate
> a ghostbusted message. 

Great.  Hope that gets fixed.  Have you logged it on
mactrek.sourceforge.net's bug list?

> A mac user (ie, blank hog call answer) was playing as username
> "prey". Rank ensign. I'm pretty sure it was a first time user; didn't
> play well and didn't stay too terribly long. But when I did an Info on
> him, I saw a high number of play hours and stats that seemed
> impossible for an Ensign. Corrupt db? Server returning bad values? 
> Problem with my client?

Reproduce it with TCP only?  Do a full update keystroke?

I've just reinstalled continuum again following some more IP address
handling changes.  Let me know if you see it again.

-- 
James Cameron    mailto:quozl at us.netrek.org     http://quozl.netrek.org/


From williamb at its.caltech.edu  Wed Nov 29 08:20:03 2006
From: williamb at its.caltech.edu (William Balcerski)
Date: Wed, 29 Nov 2006 06:20:03 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [netrek-dev] building the player base
In-Reply-To: <ecfa260c0611272320s6985a5a7p4df0d7fe2b673ab1@mail.gmail.com>
References: <Pine.GSO.4.58.0611232140130.7968@clyde>
	<722293.3619.qm@web35303.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
	<ecfa260c0611242039j4fb1b678ya81c96c378c5afe8@mail.gmail.com>
	<0qwt5ivc69.fsf@lanconius.mirror.to>
	<BAY128-DAV7E6D8BBCFCCB751100CA2CBE70@phx.gbl>
	<0qac2cv1n5.fsf_-_@lanconius.mirror.to>
	<ecfa260c0611272320s6985a5a7p4df0d7fe2b673ab1@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <Pine.GSO.4.58.0611290618010.22700@sue>

> it to connect. Maybe someone could update the key? And on Windows
> we've never had a 256 color pixmap client AFAIK.
>
NetrekXP 2006 uses 256 color bitmaps for planets, ships and weapons.  As
well as the bitmaps displayed on genocide, and the quit clock.
Bill


From narcis at luky.nl  Wed Nov 29 12:43:17 2006
From: narcis at luky.nl (Narcis)
Date: Wed, 29 Nov 2006 19:43:17 +0100
Subject: [netrek-dev] MacTrek ghosts
In-Reply-To: <mailman.1.1164823202.2210.netrek-dev@us.netrek.org>
References: <mailman.1.1164823202.2210.netrek-dev@us.netrek.org>
Message-ID: <2276BCBF-67BE-4FCB-9587-C205A07FFF04@luky.nl>

Hi

> I've noticed that when the mac clients exit, they always generate
> a ghostbusted message.

I'm not supprised, it simply terminates the socket. There is a fix in  
1.1.0
that allows you to press Q in game and it will send a CP_QUIT. the  
results are
different per server. Some put on the self destruct sequence, some  
simply close
the connection.
Please also log it as bug as it will still occur when someone  
disconnects from the
outfit page. And when command-Q is pressed which kills the  
application. I can try
to gracefully quit there too.

> Also, tonight on continuum, I saw some incorrect stat behavior
> that might be mac client related, although I wouldn't think so.
>
> A mac user (ie, blank hog call answer) was playing as username

Yep, sounds like MacTrek. next release will answer correctly.

> "prey". Rank ensign. I'm pretty sure it was a first time user; didn't

suitable name then :-) Though i spent too much time watching the  
debugger
to be any serious oponent myself :-(

regards

Chris

P.S.  I've reached a state where RSA is more or less in the code, and  
would
like to check it on some servers. Shall i post the generated  
MacTrek_Key file
here ?

P.P.S  There is also the issue of which features are regarded as  
"enhancement" and
which may be regarded as "borg" the matter is rather subjective, but  
i prefer the debate
before releaseing the RSA version :-) and have no problem with  
removing some
functionality that may not be available in other clients like COW or XP.
  e.g showing the army count in numbers  on the galactic?


From quozl at us.netrek.org  Wed Nov 29 16:33:03 2006
From: quozl at us.netrek.org (James Cameron)
Date: Thu, 30 Nov 2006 09:33:03 +1100
Subject: [netrek-dev] MacTrek ghosts
In-Reply-To: <2276BCBF-67BE-4FCB-9587-C205A07FFF04@luky.nl>
References: <mailman.1.1164823202.2210.netrek-dev@us.netrek.org>
	<2276BCBF-67BE-4FCB-9587-C205A07FFF04@luky.nl>
Message-ID: <20061129223303.GA7915@us.netrek.org>

On Wed, Nov 29, 2006 at 07:43:17PM +0100, Narcis wrote:
> I'm not supprised, it simply terminates the socket. There is a fix in  
> 1.1.0 that allows you to press Q in game and it will send a CP_QUIT.
> the results are different per server. Some put on the self destruct
> sequence, some simply close the connection.

This might be happening because of race condition ... see if you can
capture more data, such as network packets.  A connection reset can
cause loss of that CP_QUIT in the server buffer before it is read by the
server process.  I'm happy to help with that.

> P.S.  I've reached a state where RSA is more or less in the code, and  
> would like to check it on some servers. Shall i post the generated
> MacTrek_Key file here ?

Sure ... I could add it to inl.real-time.com's key list for you to test
with.

> P.P.S  There is also the issue of which features are regarded as  
> "enhancement" and which may be regarded as "borg" [...]

This doesn't worry me, but I'm not the one to approve the key for
distribution to all servers.  At minimum you should have the features
present, but disable them when the server asks for your key?  The best
solution is to define more FEATURE packets in the protocol, default them
to on, and leave it up to the server owners whether they respond to
demands to turn them off.

-- 
James Cameron    mailto:quozl at us.netrek.org     http://quozl.netrek.org/


From netrek at gmail.com  Thu Nov 30 03:15:04 2006
From: netrek at gmail.com (Zach)
Date: Thu, 30 Nov 2006 04:15:04 -0500
Subject: [netrek-dev] web folders status needs updating
Message-ID: <ecfa260c0611300115l5e2cdffcof5d52b235eb544f4@mail.gmail.com>

The folders "inl.real-time.com/", "netrek.crackaddict.com/ " and
"twink.crackaddict.com/" on http://www.netrek.org/stats/ need updated
and have their status changed to "Defunct" since they are either dead
or up but no longer netrek servers. I'd update it myself but don't
have access. Erik Heitbrik was given access but he got busy with  work
I think and hasn't any time to work on it. Could I be given his access
so I can work on the website?

Zach


From jimmyhua73 at yahoo.com  Thu Nov 30 04:37:27 2006
From: jimmyhua73 at yahoo.com (Jimmy Huang)
Date: Thu, 30 Nov 2006 02:37:27 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [netrek-dev] Discussion on new metaserver policy
In-Reply-To: <0q1wnqwrzg.fsf@lanconius.mirror.to>
Message-ID: <503763.34083.qm@web35311.mail.mud.yahoo.com>

> It's not just bronco vs. sturgeon, 
> it's bots vs. no bots. 

A while back, when quozl was experimenting with bots
on his server, I complained about why he was having
bots on continuum. 

The reason I did not want bots on continuum is that
they would ruin the stats, created mostly by real
people playing on continuum. 

I would not be against a "PRE-T" mode on continuum.
Where bots would be in the game to get a 4x4 game
going with planet taking and bombing. But the stats
should not be affected (well, except for kill ratio). 

When there's enough for t-mode. The bots should ALL
LEAVE. And t-mode begin. 

Then if there's not enough people for t-mode. There
should be a delay, say 5 minutes. then PRE-T
re-commence. 

Optionally (though slightly against this), there could
be a galaxy reset when switchng between PRE-T and
regular t-mode. So the game can really start with a
new foot. Maybe we should limit the galaxy resets to
once every 2 hours (if there was a galaxy reset < 2
hours ago, won't reset again). 

Jimmy

P.S. I have crappy stats on continuum. But I wouldn't
want to see them magically rise because a bunch of
bots keep t-mode up 24x7. 





From williamb at its.caltech.edu  Thu Nov 30 05:09:18 2006
From: williamb at its.caltech.edu (William Balcerski)
Date: Thu, 30 Nov 2006 03:09:18 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [netrek-dev] Discussion on new metaserver policy
In-Reply-To: <503763.34083.qm@web35311.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
References: <503763.34083.qm@web35311.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <Pine.GSO.4.58.0611300257230.6862@inky>

> The reason I did not want bots on continuum is that
> they would ruin the stats, created mostly by real
> people playing on continuum.
>
> I would not be against a "PRE-T" mode on continuum.
> Where bots would be in the game to get a 4x4 game
> going with planet taking and bombing. But the stats
> should not be affected (well, except for kill ratio).
>
Planets and bombing stats do not get counted unless there are 3 humans on
your opposing team, and in the case of planet takes, there must be 3
humans on each time.  See all the calls to realNumShips() in daemonII.c

> When there's enough for t-mode. The bots should ALL
> LEAVE. And t-mode begin.
>
Well the way pret mode works is the bots leave 1 by 1 until there are 8
humans, and thus no bots left.  As for not having t-mode, well, the whole
point of pret mode is so you can take planets and bomb armies even when
there aren't enough humans.  And to do that, you need t mode, even
artificial, non-stat counting t mode.

> Then if there's not enough people for t-mode. There
> should be a delay, say 5 minutes. then PRE-T
> re-commence.
>
Yes this is exactly how it works.  As soon as you get to less than 8
players, it starts a 5 minute timer, if 8 humans aren't reached in that
time, pret entertainment starts up again.  If you reach 8 humans, it
resets the timers, so if you gain t mode briefly then lose it, it will be
another 5 minutes before pret can start again.

> Optionally (though slightly against this), there could
> be a galaxy reset when switchng between PRE-T and
> regular t-mode. So the game can really start with a
> new foot. Maybe we should limit the galaxy resets to
> once every 2 hours (if there was a galaxy reset < 2
> hours ago, won't reset again).
>
On changeover from pret to real T, there is a galaxy reset.

Bill


From ahn at orion.netrek.org  Thu Nov 30 08:26:33 2006
From: ahn at orion.netrek.org (Dave Ahn)
Date: Thu, 30 Nov 2006 09:26:33 -0500
Subject: [netrek-dev] web folders status needs updating
In-Reply-To: <ecfa260c0611300115l5e2cdffcof5d52b235eb544f4@mail.gmail.com>
References: <ecfa260c0611300115l5e2cdffcof5d52b235eb544f4@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <20061130142633.GA1595@orion.netrek.org>

On Thu, Nov 30, 2006 at 04:15:04AM -0500, Zach wrote:
> The folders "inl.real-time.com/", "netrek.crackaddict.com/ " and
> "twink.crackaddict.com/" on http://www.netrek.org/stats/ need updated
> and have their status changed to "Defunct" since they are either dead
> or up but no longer netrek servers. I'd update it myself but don't
> have access. Erik Heitbrik was given access but he got busy with  work
> I think and hasn't any time to work on it. Could I be given his access
> so I can work on the website?

I just checked, and inl.real-time.com appears up.

I also brought back twink.crackaddict.com and netrek.crackaddict.com,
but they are running an older version of Vanilla.  I will probably keep
them at the older version unless there is a compelling reason (relevant
to clue games) to upgrade to the latest...?

I'm not sure what needs to be "worked on" on the stats archive unless
you want to improve the look and feel or want to do something
interesting with the statistics (like import them into a real database).
The current archive uses apache's built-in directory indexing with a
simple header/footer, so if you want to suggest a new look and feel, you
can email me a new set of html or script files.  The stats archive is
pretty much hands-off automated and doesn't really require active
maintenance aside from the addition or removal of new or defunct servers.


From narcis at luky.nl  Thu Nov 30 14:46:09 2006
From: narcis at luky.nl (Narcis)
Date: Thu, 30 Nov 2006 21:46:09 +0100
Subject: [netrek-dev] MacTrek ghosts (James Cameron)
In-Reply-To: <mailman.3.1164909602.27685.netrek-dev@us.netrek.org>
References: <mailman.3.1164909602.27685.netrek-dev@us.netrek.org>
Message-ID: <7A97DDBD-E7DF-4CCD-964F-6D0EA9A0B51A@luky.nl>

>>  Some put on the self destruct
>> sequence, some simply close the connection.
>
> This might be happening because of race condition ... see if you can
> capture more data, such as network packets.  A connection reset can
> cause loss of that CP_QUIT in the server buffer before it is read  
> by the
> server process.  I'm happy to help with that.

Race conditions? in my code? very likely :-) there are some points  
where i
just know i should have used locks. But in this case i don't know.  
Basically the
client only sends the CP_QUIT and remains in the game. The closing of  
the socket
on the server side or the explosion of the player will lead to the  
hiding of the game display
and the raising of the outfit menu.

>> P.S.  I've reached a state where RSA is more or less in the code, and
>> would like to check it on some servers. Shall i post the generated
>> MacTrek_Key file here ?

MacTrek_Key:ct=MacTrek:cr=Chris:\
    :cd=November 2006:ar=OSX-Tiger:\
    :cm=No-Comment:\
    :gk=359b0e6aee1a586b193b01cc8c7ddac88ba569fc63bc79ffdeced44771b228b3 
:\
    :pk=efb89fa2e04e4105b4727825a8f32dfdff3034dcc25cbcd5929b5d02b879995f 
:

The key will remain stable for now, the rsa_box files will not be  
released though
generating them on os x is not that easy. (i actually generated these  
on linux)

> Sure ... I could add it to inl.real-time.com's key list for you to  
> test
> with.

Sounds great, what is a inl.real-time.com key list ? (inl sounds like  
international netrek league,
but i never saw the server listed on the meta server, which would  
make it kind of hard to
test)

> The best solution is to define more FEATURE packets in the  
> protocol, default them
> to on, and leave it up to the server owners whether they respond to
> demands to turn them off.

So far i don't think many of the current features have been  
implemented at all. MacTrek
is probably less than JTrek, but with some other new things. Things  
like beeplite are in
the code but did not make it to the graphical layer yet.

#define FEATURE_LIST_FEATURE_PACKETS	 0
#define FEATURE_LIST_NEW_MACRO			 1
#define FEATURE_LIST_SMART_MACRO		 2
#define FEATURE_LIST_WHY_DEAD			 3
#define FEATURE_LIST_SB_HOURS			 4
#define FEATURE_LIST_CLOAK_MAXWARP		 5
#define FEATURE_LIST_SELF_8FLAGS		 6
#define FEATURE_LIST_SELF_8FLAGS2		 7
#define FEATURE_LIST_GEN_DISTRESS		 8
#define FEATURE_LIST_MULTILINE_ENABLED	 9
#define FEATURE_LIST_SHIP_CAP			 10
#define FEATURE_LIST_BEEPLITE			 11
#define FEATURE_LIST_CONTINUOUS_MOUSE	 12
#define FEATURE_LIST_CONTINUOUS_STEER	 13
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://mailman.us.netrek.org/pipermail/netrek-dev/attachments/20061130/84890508/attachment.htm 

From quozl at us.netrek.org  Thu Nov 30 14:53:46 2006
From: quozl at us.netrek.org (James Cameron)
Date: Fri, 1 Dec 2006 07:53:46 +1100
Subject: [netrek-dev] web folders status needs updating
In-Reply-To: <ecfa260c0611300115l5e2cdffcof5d52b235eb544f4@mail.gmail.com>
References: <ecfa260c0611300115l5e2cdffcof5d52b235eb544f4@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <20061130205346.GB5097@us.netrek.org>

G'day Zach,

inl.real-time.com is up, not defunct, unless defunct means something
that I don't understand.  I see no reason to remove it from the stats
page.

I'd like to see the www.netrek.org coded to provide a view of /stats
that isn't so inaccessible.  You have access to that, via darcs, with
commit approval by Stephen Thorne (Jerub) or myself.

-- 
James Cameron    mailto:quozl at us.netrek.org     http://quozl.netrek.org/


From quozl at us.netrek.org  Thu Nov 30 14:56:05 2006
From: quozl at us.netrek.org (James Cameron)
Date: Fri, 1 Dec 2006 07:56:05 +1100
Subject: [netrek-dev] [netrek] Recap and info: World vs world game on
	November 29, 2006
In-Reply-To: <ecfa260c0611300130o6bce112fkde361d48a057264@mail.gmail.com>
References: <ecfa260c0611300130o6bce112fkde361d48a057264@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <20061130205605.GC5097@us.netrek.org>

On Thu, Nov 30, 2006 at 04:30:27AM -0500, Zach wrote:
> You can use Netrek XP 2006 to view the cambot recording, by:
> netrek.exe -F cambot.pkt

This needs to be more automatic.  Bill, couldn't you add a file type
relationship on install that links pkt to the exe, and then detect if a
file name is provided on command line?

As for guesty, I don't recall seeing that problem.  May need some work
investigating it.

-- 
James Cameron    mailto:quozl at us.netrek.org     http://quozl.netrek.org/


From ahn at orion.netrek.org  Thu Nov 30 15:10:58 2006
From: ahn at orion.netrek.org (Dave Ahn)
Date: Thu, 30 Nov 2006 16:10:58 -0500
Subject: [netrek-dev] web folders status needs updating
In-Reply-To: <20061130205346.GB5097@us.netrek.org>
References: <ecfa260c0611300115l5e2cdffcof5d52b235eb544f4@mail.gmail.com>
	<20061130205346.GB5097@us.netrek.org>
Message-ID: <20061130211058.GA2898@orion.netrek.org>

On Fri, Dec 01, 2006 at 07:53:46AM +1100, James Cameron wrote:
> 
> I'd like to see the www.netrek.org coded to provide a view of /stats
> that isn't so inaccessible.

What do you mean by inaccessible?



From quozl at us.netrek.org  Thu Nov 30 19:13:43 2006
From: quozl at us.netrek.org (James Cameron)
Date: Fri, 1 Dec 2006 12:13:43 +1100
Subject: [netrek-dev] web folders status needs updating
In-Reply-To: <20061130211058.GA2898@orion.netrek.org>
References: <ecfa260c0611300115l5e2cdffcof5d52b235eb544f4@mail.gmail.com>
	<20061130205346.GB5097@us.netrek.org>
	<20061130211058.GA2898@orion.netrek.org>
Message-ID: <20061201011343.GB17022@us.netrek.org>

On Thu, Nov 30, 2006 at 04:10:58PM -0500, Dave Ahn wrote:
> On Fri, Dec 01, 2006 at 07:53:46AM +1100, James Cameron wrote:
> > I'd like to see the www.netrek.org coded to provide a view of /stats
> > that isn't so inaccessible.
> 
> What do you mean by inaccessible?

The trailing slash is required, and when it is provided the interface is
the conventional directory listing.  I'd like to have it more
accessible, such as via an RSS feed with automatically generated HTML
kinda like a news site.  I'm working toward this with the RSS feed in
the server ... but there's an opportunity to do it here too.

-- 
James Cameron    mailto:quozl at us.netrek.org     http://quozl.netrek.org/


From quozl at us.netrek.org  Thu Nov 30 19:16:46 2006
From: quozl at us.netrek.org (James Cameron)
Date: Fri, 1 Dec 2006 12:16:46 +1100
Subject: [netrek-dev] MacTrek ghosts (James Cameron)
In-Reply-To: <7A97DDBD-E7DF-4CCD-964F-6D0EA9A0B51A@luky.nl>
References: <mailman.3.1164909602.27685.netrek-dev@us.netrek.org>
	<7A97DDBD-E7DF-4CCD-964F-6D0EA9A0B51A@luky.nl>
Message-ID: <20061201011646.GC17022@us.netrek.org>

On Thu, Nov 30, 2006 at 09:46:09PM +0100, Narcis wrote:
> Sounds great, what is a inl.real-time.com key list ? (inl sounds like
> international netrek league, but i never saw the server listed on the
> meta server, which would make it kind of hard to test)

There are many such servers, and they are not listed on the metaservers.
You have to provide a way for your user to enter a server name.

http://www.netrek.org/stats/ has a current list of servers that have
existed, and still exist.  The port numbers are 4566 and 4577, instead
of the regular 2592.

I'm wondering if we should list them as a special type on the
metaservers.  On the other hand, we don't want people disturbing a game
by just dropping in.

-- 
James Cameron    mailto:quozl at us.netrek.org     http://quozl.netrek.org/