Proposal: Open Game Lounge System / Community

[Noya]

Hello everyone!

Today I'd like to present you an idea that is centered around free and open
source games. It was born via a discussion on mailinglists and IRC-channels
between people from Freedesktop-Games, freegamedev.net and GGZ [1] in the course
of the last two weeks.

The vision is an open, cross-platform game lounge system, used to play online
with people from around the world, browsing through and easily joining
multiplayer games. Its core elements will be:

 * a set of open standard protocols describing the communication between a
game-lounge-server, a game-server and a game-client
 * an open API for games implementing these protocols
 * a game-lounge-server including community features (user-database, statistics,
chatting, etc.)
 * a game-browser

The main goal of the project is to make the creation of an open community for
games and gamers eventually possible.

Most of you will certainly know services like Gamespy, Steam, Windows-Live,
Xfire and possibly more. It seems like there currently is no free and open
alternative to them, and this project aims to change that. Maybe we can change
that together.

A more detailed overview of how the system could look like, what the goals and
what the benefits are is available at:
http://apps.sourceforge.net/mediawiki/glou/index.php?title=ProjectOverview

Just a word about what this project is not: it is not a replacement for your
current lobby-system. It may be if you want, but it will be created in a way
that it can be used in parallel to your own system.

I have sent this mail (or forum-post, wherever you read it) to the most
influential [2] open source games. You can see a complete list here:
http://apps.sourceforge.net/mediawiki/glou/index.php?title=Projects

Ideally this project will be a cooperation between the major open source games
out there. But that's for you to decide. I invite you, game developers and
people interested in open source games, to the Glou (= Game LOUnge) mailinglist,
a place to join the efforts and discuss how this project should look like. You
can join the mailinglist here:
http://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/glou-devel

To hear from you would be great. As a starting point it would be interesting to
know...
 * what features the lounge system definitely should have
 * what features the current lobby system of your game has
 * if you feel the need for an open gaming community
 * if you would use the system in your game if it is done "the right way"
 * and what you think about the idea in general

For now that's everything. Thank you all for your attention and patience .
Hopefully we'll see each other on the mailinglist to shape the future of this
project together.

Best regards
- Sven Pfaller (aka Noya)

[1] http://freedesktop.org/wiki/Games
    http://wiki.freegamedev.net
    http://www.ggzgamingzone.org
[2] This is obviously subjective. Feel free to contact projects that may be
missing and add them to the list.

[Mattn]

I'm very interested in such a feature. Due to the nature of our game it's often hard for players to find opponents. It's not like a shooter where you can join the game and can already run around the map while waiting for other players. Our players has to open a server and need another player before they can start the match. The problem is, that i won't have the time to work out a protocol or stuff like that - i will for sure implement it (if i like the outcome of your work ) and we will use it in our game. The multiplayer part is the part of our game i would like to see a bit more played, too.

[Kildor]

May be just use XMPP as backbone?

[Noya]

I'm very interested in such a feature. Due to the nature of our game it's often hard for players to find opponents. It's not like a shooter where you can join the game and can already run around the map while waiting for other players. Our players has to open a server and need another player before they can start the match. The problem is, that i won't have the time to work out a protocol or stuff like that - i will for sure implement it (if i like the outcome of your work ) and we will use it in our game. The multiplayer part is the part of our game i would like to see a bit more played, too.

Really great to hear that Matt! It's perfectly okay that you can't afford to spent time on Glou - you better focus on UFO:AI . I would appreciate if you follow the development progress of Glou and give feedback and criticism on things that bug you, so we make sure that you like the outcome of the project . IIRC you already subscribed to the mailinglist, right?

May be just use XMPP as backbone?

Many people requested that by now. We're currently discussing the usage of XMPP as protocol foundation on our mailinglist. Maybe you (or anyone else intersted) would like to join our mailinglist and comment on that topic?

Thanks for your responses! Sorry it took me so long to answer, but I received so many replies in over 16 mailinglists / forums that it is kind of hard to keep up .

See you
- Sven