I'm seriously considering making a spiritual successor.

[Monika's_BFFEx0256]

Well maybe I'm only speaking for myself here, but I never once thought MS:S would actually happen. Ever. MS:C can hardly keep up with its original "MONTHLY PATCH" quota. No hard feelings, what so ever.

 

[Orochi]

Lucifer, I'm not sure if that's a compliment or an insult, heh.

Jelly, I'd like to think that getting peoples' hopes up for about 7 years would be grounds enough for that, unless the community here has somehow gotten more forgiving in recent years.

 

[Monika's_BFFEx0256]

Lucifer, I'm not sure if that's a compliment or an insult, heh.

If it hopes, I never had any doubts or qualms with you or anyone else running. Take it how you will. Without a dedicated team, and I mean a team that would -actually- work on it as a -you know, TEAM- it just wasn't going to get done.

 

[TheOysterHippopotami]

I think you should definitely stay in the dev group. Once a developer, always a developer I say. It's not like dogg or ewok aren't still listed as developers on this site.

 

[Orochi]

That's up to you guys, but I'll let someone more capable take the reins. I am clearly not cut out for it.

 

[Thothie]

Well, son of a bitch! ><

That's why I wrote this; I noticed this thread and realized "They're right, I'm rubbish at this" and promptly wrote up the above post.

See guys, this is why we can't have things! (Completely ignoring the fact he's probably referring to what I wrote.)

*sigh* This is largely my fault. I plopped the MSS lead on your lap when SuperSoup abandoned it, specifically because there was no one else capable of picking up the task at the time. It was a burden you inherited, but never asked for.

And yeah, I'd keep you on the dev list, if for no other reason than to aid future developer's attempts to track you down and ask you what the heck you were doing.

...and while I can (and will) archive the materials and take stewardship of the project until some new hero willing to take up the epic quest comes along... I can't draw that particular sword from that particular stone myself. Not only because I've barely had time for MSC, and the fact that I lack the coding skills (if not the experience), and the fact that I'm getting to that age where learning something new like that is slow going... But also because, traditionally, a lot of what's kept MSS going, is hatred for Thothie.

So, yeah, Xero... Like I said, I wasn't so sure you jumped the gun in regards to MSS, and sadly, it seems you were right.

Still, there's some pretty good artistic materials, in terms of mapping, and, while I've yet to see the code, maybe there's some interesting work done there. Beyond that, once you have some basic NPC/player interaction, you're not all that far from a framework you can build on for a real game. Still...

SOMEONE SAVE US!

 

[zeus9860]

I'm not surprised with this outcome, no bloody way would someone go nearly one man army and accomplish something like this on their free time. Thothie is somewhat capable of doing that, but one thing is working in an early project, which needs alot of work and dedication. Another thing is keeping an already released project alive.

It's time to get your butts back in ms:c! F*ck MS:S for now!

I hate to do this but i do agree with lucifer's last post. It's how it should have been when things got bad... People come and go all the time, the "leftovers" should have regrouped and planned something out.

I would suggest lurking around in the dev forums, maybe you could assist with minor tasks towards ms:c from time to time. That is, if you don't want to completly give up in this game along with MS:S.

 

[Xeropace]

D: I wasn't expecting all this, I'm sorry if this topic has caused some problems. I was only going off the information publicly available on the forums which I've tracked for various years. This may have been a bad move on my behalf as I had no idea what was going on behind the scenes.

Orochi, I wouldn't be so hard on yourself, I don't think the community is going to blame you or direct any hate at you and if they do, well, they're the ones with the problem, not you. Deving is no easy task and I probably shouldn't have posted this topic with the idea of remaking a MS:C style game without first making some progress myself. As currently I have nothing to show (except a log-in system...) either. The fact MS:S has gone through so many hands means it wasn't even your project to begin with, so don't feel like you abandoned it.

I would help with MS:C or MS:S but my output per time invested would be much smaller due to lack of experience with C++/GoldSrc/Source. I'd have to spend a lot of time learning the specifics, in a technology I wouldn't use in the future. I just work so much faster in Unity, I can fire out very basic prototypes in a couple of days, to anyone in the dev scene who hasn't tried it, I would recommend having a play with it. Though, like Orochi, finding the time is difficult. I can usually get 10-15 hours a week on a pet project if I try. Sometimes more, sometimes less, it depends what needs to be done that day.

At the moment, I am still working on some basic server architecture in Unity. Then after that, I have to play around with servers/client, syncing players/inputs/physics/etc, there's a lot of low level stuff to do before I even think about adding models/textures/etc. Maybe I'll get stuck or realise it's a bad or too large of an idea and work on MS:C/S instead. I can't make any promises as to that or even to delivering anything remotely playable in Unity.

 

[Jelly]

What are the chances of you keeping a dev-blog on the Unity project?
I'd like to follow. No pressure of course, I'm just interested in the whole Unity engine and a huge fan of C#.

 

[ceriux]

iv looked at unity , it seems kind of confusing. tons of stuff going on they have a demo project you can look at and it was even confusing.

 

[Xeropace]

Chances of me keeping a dev blog are pretty high, to be honest. I tend to post a lot of crap and quite often (provided I've done work). I have a couple for unrelated projects on TIGSource.

Most of my dev logs die because no one comments or reads it... I could start a dev blog on these forums if people want. Then the elitists over at TIGSource won't tear apart my project for no reason.

And Ceriux, it's not too bad. A bit confusing at first, but once you come to terms with the workflow for an Entity Component System, it gets a lot easier.

 

[Jelly]

I would definitely read, and maybe even comment (especially if interesting code is shown).

 

[Xeropace]

Okay, well once I get a bit further into prototyping and have some cool things to show, I'll see what I can do.

Was working on the auth server again yesterday, got a basic registration working. Form pops up asking for Email, Password, Confirm Password and Display Name. Provided all are present, email is valid, passwords match, etc, you'll be sent an email with a validation link to activate the account. I've used email as the account name because it makes the most sense to me, an email address is required for every account anyway, plus, it'll never be shown in game. Display name will be the name of your account to others (not the name of your character though, more details on that later).

Once the account is active you can log in. Not that there's anything to log in to, so you just get a blank screen.

Current server architecture:

User Client uses HTTPS (secure web requests) from the player's Unity game instance to send the user's registration/login data to the Auth Server.

Auth Server (a linux VPS running node.js, with a MySQL backend) validates registration/log in details and sends back any errors to the register/login panel via a JSON object. If the registration is successful, it sends an email via my gmail account. If the user was logging in, it instead generates a secure Token that the user will then use to ensure security when playing publicly. The player will carry this token with them and anytime something happens (they join a server, their character is loaded/saves, etc) the token is passed to the auth server to make sure the user is who they say they are.

Tonight I'll be working on what happens after you log in. Which most likely means creating the character database (unsure of specifics here) and getting a very basic way of saving/loading characters (at this stage, it will probably just be the fact you have a character and the characters name). After that, I'll be starting on a basic game server for the player to connect to, so more changes to server architecture, secure communications between game server and master server, etc. I'll probably have to use a whitelist/token approach like FuzNet, otherwise any body could send save requests and mess with characters. Probably thought too far ahead already though

 

[Skillasaur]

Remember you're all only volunteers, guys. Anything you do or don't do is purely from the goodness of your goody-good hearts you good people. <3

 

[Thothie]

creating the character database

One of the ideas MiB came up with, was to go back to client side characters, and turn the central character server into a database of a history of MD5 hash tags to verify their authenticity instead. So long as the character is modified while connected to an approved server, the MD5 would update and the character would be usable anywhere, but characters modified outside the system would be invalid. For buggary, the client would keep a backup copy of the character, last verified to take an MD5, that can be fallen back to, and some way of re-authenticating manually through an administrator, should everything go to hell, or the player need to restore his character from an external backup, due to HD failure or what not.

This would eliminate size limitations in character files without resorting to prolonged streaming, and keep the overhead of a central server fairly minimal.

I suppose if you wanted to reduce it even further, you could introduce a game mechanic such as save points, and/or only saving on spawns and exits.

PS. Holy shit it's Skillasaur...

 

[Xeropace]

...go back to client side characters... So long as the character is modified while connected to an approved server, the MD5 would update...

... This would eliminate size limitations in character files without resorting to prolonged streaming, and keep the overhead of a central server fairly minimal ...

I would strongly suggest against any form of client side character, to be honest. It's just asking for people to edit their character. The hashing idea may work but MD5 is basically obsolete now, so someone will edit their character and find a suitable collision that matches the hash they want Sure, we could use a more secure hash (SHA512 for example).

Plus, in terms of server security, you can -never- trust -anything- sent by a user. People do some real creative things to crash/hack servers, all input from them must be properly serialized, validated, escaped, etc. I wouldn't feel comfortable reading a file from a user at all to be honest.

As for size/overhead. I just created what I would consider a 'massive' character as a JSON object and it's not even 2kb. I think in todays day and age, in terms of storage, computational speed, average internet speed, bandwidth prices, etc, we can easily get away with it being all on the servers.

I'm funny of the idea of people even being able to host their own MS server too. I just wouldn't want to give them access to something so critical. I would happily let them rent a server through me, and give them access to admin commands to kick, ban, change level, etc, but I would be very uncomfortable giving them access to the server/game/code itself. Maybe I am over thinking it and ruling it with an iron fist or maybe I've spent too much time developing under strict rules (at my job, we handle a lot of sensitive information that we have to be very secure about, in terms of server design and our code).

Sure, on top of all this, we could have an offline/non-FN/non-regulated style, just like MS:C but hardly anyone played with LAN characters!

PS. Holy **** it's Skillasaur...

What's so elusive about Skillasaur ?

 

[Thothie]

As for size/overhead. I just created what I would consider a 'massive' character as a JSON object and it's not even 2kb. I think in todays day and age, in terms of storage, computational speed, average internet speed, bandwidth prices, etc, we can easily get away with it being all on the servers.

Well, we were looking at 50MB+ characters with some of our more elaborate meanderings on the project, and have gotten there, with some other MORPG's I've worked with more recently. The MSC characters are highly compressed and come up to ~15KB, despite being pretty much all numbers, but we keep tacking on strings, and they could be pushing 1MB by the end of this project, if we add everything we want.

MD5 is just an example though, it's simple enough to tweak up your own custom hash system. Main point is you keep your central character server, with minimal resources required to host it, and as dynamic as possible character system.

Alternatively, I suppose you could get a similar effect, by having the approved servers return an authentication string to the central server, tied to each character change.

I'm funny of the idea of people even being able to host their own MS server too.

Ya can't always depend on graceful fans like RKS to keep you afloat, and the game spreads fastest when folks can host their own listenservers yet keep their characters when they go abroad. It is true, however, if not for the rampant cheating, our FN servers would be open to the general public - as it once was - so we're down to an approved server list ourselves.

Frankly though, with all the trouble cheaters are, I'm really tempted to go the Borderlands route and say f*ck it - dealing with cheaters eats more time and resource overhead than anything else. (Don't get me started on our memory encryption system - though TBH, without that, there's just no point in even trying these days.)

By the gods man! His last post was in 2011!

 

[Orochi]

You don't need to apologize to me Xero; it's been all this time with next to nothing to show for it but hollow hype and words. Frankly I'm surprised people have been as forgiving as they have been.

 

[Thothie]

It's because we all have this feels:


We've all known there's been next to no progress for ages, but we all keep hoping it'll suddenly pick up.

MSC's primary purpose, for almost a decade now, has been to gather developers for MSS, because MSC is, eventually, gonna die. Granted, one woulda assumed that woulda happened long before now. Still... Needs new engine, badly.

 

[Skillasaur]

By the gods man! His last post was in 2011!

Huh, that must've been when I started university. Oh well. All done now!

 

[zeus9860]

By the gods man! His last post was in 2011!

Huh, that must've been when I started university. Oh well. All done now!

Maybe now we will get to see something new from skillasaur. Muahahaha!

 

[ner0sense]

It's time to get your butts back in ms:c! F*ck MS:S for now!

^ This.

 

[Xeropace]

I want to believe

Didn't expect an X-Files reference here

By the gods man! His last post was in 2011!

Huh, that must've been when I started university. Oh well. All done now!

Maybe now we will get to see something new from skillasaur. Muahahaha!

It's partly his fault I posted this topic, y'know. A week ago today we were talking about UT4 and how I could mod for it, then I said, "Wait, why am I talking about modding when I can make my own game", to which he replied:

Skilla: You should make a multiplayer medieval/fanstasy themed fps mmo

Me: wut, like Endless Ages?

Skilla: whut no.

It'd have skeletons

And orcs

And bosses

And skeleton bosses

Me: oh

Skilla: And all the weapons would level your stats

Me: You want me to go with my MS:C remake idea

it's tempting y'know

And here we are. Now I'm moaning at him every day to model stuff for me because it's totally his fault.

 

[zeus9860]

Well in that case, sounds like it, skillasaur is the one to blame!

 

[Xeropace]

Here's what there is so far. I'm now ready to work on the actual game server. Which will most likely just be a square with some cylinders moving around on it.