Volksjager

Well I am glad that Hifi finally cleared things up, so I was at least partially correct about Cncnet 2.0. Here are some responses in case interest is still shown (seeing that the title to this thread has now been changed.) That still does not deflect from the fact that many more people won't be able to read it; thus every effort to bring up this issue and engage in debates becomes more valuable, not less. About it being hacked is Herm's suggestion. Maybe others could testify about whether that line was there. How is debating about a specific user interface backwards? You seem to be on the line of "Kali is bad, anything else is better," which unfortunately defies all logic. The only thing discussed about is user interface, where we mostly have people with few exceptions craving for Mplayer or Kali and the rest wanting to stay with CNCNET4. If it's not this type of attitude I see from you then I could not have being so riled up in this debate about stuff that do not really matter. Whenever I make a statement that I am uncertain about, I try my best to qualify it or explain it afterwards whereas you make everything out as a fact but as we just saw from Hifi's post, you also got some things wrong as a matter of fact. In that case, do you really wish to apply your own accusations to yourself? I agree with you that Tunngle had new players but please do explain to me why Tunngle had a more user friendly interface (I really can't see that, considering it required almost the same login, etc and the user has to go through a huge list of games before going into RA.) Perhaps it is mostly because Tunngle is free but that did not prevent many from going into Kali due to the quality of service/ players there. Also, Kali was not being promoted as much while Tunngle became heavily promoted by a couple of players (including you) so that was also an issue (at which point you seem to be jarred by anyone who promotes Kali.) I guess the only way this is pertinent to the original discussion is if you think Tunngle has a better interface (please elaborate.) If Kali were free then I would not see any advantage of using Tunngle. Most of the people who play this game play on a come and go basis. They play the game whenever it is readily available then they abandon it and when their interest returns maybe they will pick it up again. Changing the user interface to something that people is unfamiliar with might 1) Keep ancient players from returning since they don't care enough to learn about the new interface or 2) Keep existing players from playing as often due to complications in starting up games, incompatibilities, etc. If the rhythm people developed for playing this game becomes distracted then perhaps some day they will just leave it and not return (which IMO is perhaps why we have so few players today (eg whenever WOL killed ladder games or when MPLAYER or Gamespy went down a lot of players just went away and never came back.)

I guess we are already making progress in straightening things out. Previous versions of CNCNET were updated *automatically* so seeing the past I had to make whatever objections I had to *before* the perceived launch (especially when it was being tested in *private* already.) Google translator is a bad excuse. If they can't read this forum to begin with then how would then know what's happening? How many times do you go to random foreign language forums and read it using Google Translator? (Well not sure about you but in my opinion most people don't do that.) P.S. It seems like we are having enough difficulty understanding each other as we are. I like to see you *try* translating this post into another language you know using Google Translate and compare the two. If Tunngle didn't come along but CNCNET did then we still would have just as many players since many CNCNET players didn't play on Tunngle. Games were happening on Kali the whole time so there would never have been a time without RA online even without Tunngle. Kali was not really a minority considering that new players also joined Kali and if all the Kali players suddenly disappeared then surely the skill level of RA would have been set back for years. You say Kali tried to steal players from Tunngle but it's the *other* way around. Even if Kali took TUnngle players it was Kali players trying to make mediocre players better. I really don't understand why you are so upset over people using Kali. If you didn't like Kali, that's fine, let's just leave this discussion. This was relying on some line on "ra1.me" about Tunngle being better than CNCNET so if that was not you then I apologize (I am open to Herm's suggestion that it may be hacked.) CNCNET was catering to many CNC players before the RA community grew and even cncnet.org states the existend of a Red Alert Online Project before 2009 though it didn't get much attention but I had no intention of making this stuff up so please do not take this personally. Well I have to agree with CNCNET being easier to use, etc which is why I advocated *not* changing it or keeping the easy to use interface. I really don't know how this debate spiraled down to this when the whole time I wanted to talk about the merits of CNCNET5 vs CNCNET4 (which I recall seemed to have happened when I made Kali an example. I guess talking about Kali really hits a nerve there ) That being said my previous posts talk about why I think the proposed CNCNET5 solution is not as good as the existing solution or some other possibilities. The openGL port example was not about the .dll driver but re-writing the RA engine into something that does not play as well as the original. My example here is to show that if we tinker too much with something fragile, we might break it (aka, "If it ain't broken, don't fix it.") I am not sure if this is just a misunderstanding or equivocation (look the word up.) This whole debate was about keeping CNCNET the way it is vs the direction we are moving to so you making this point (aka twisting my words into something I did not say) would potentially offend me as much as that "Tunngle vs CNCNET" bit offends you but I would take this as a simple misunderstanding instead of something malicious Despite the fact you accuse me of "lying," I only want to get the facts right, and since everybody makes mistakes, please excuse mine if I made some, which is why I asked for clarifications. Meanwhile all I got were ad hominem attacks that don't even pertain to the original topic; you misconstrue my framing of facts as personal attacks while you employ personal attacks as part of your argumentation.

Well time for my weekly reply if anyone still cares :laugh: (Also entertainment for the readers, aka Herm ) Only on points that I think stand out (and untrue): Well you two certainly were making the same argument by interest if not by agreement so it was merely a grouping for convenience. Absolutely rubbish. This is where we agree to disagree I suppose. If someone is proposing a change, it is HIS duty to inform everyone and have a vote on it, otherwise a vote carried out in the dark of night is a conspiracy. At least I told them more than you did and I suggested posting a message on the server, which was never done. You also ignore my comment about half the players not speaking English so it's not very easy for them to become informed. If you were on Kali more often you would've known: People visited both places while about 10-15 players played CNCNET exclusively. Tunngle lobby was definitely being emptied out during CNCNET 2.0 although my memory may be hazy. MOST players today did NOT play on Tunngle as most of them are completely new or played 10 years ago. Not sure how it was noob friendly since both required set up, log in and port opening (in fact that VPN business was pretty awkward.) Free,? Yes but so was Hamachi and both were bad software (which is why you don't see that many Hamachi RA players.) You were promoting it on Kali, essentially trying to grab players from Kali (which is the part I object, not so much against promoting Tunngle by itself.) Tunngle was mostly occupied by mediocre players at best (with exceptions of appearances of you and some others ) RA would not die w/o it since total Tunngle players never really exceeded total Kali players most of the time. Who are the players that still consistently play today? I see mostly the Kali players. CNCNET in its *current* form is what brought back players from the past and people who played locally around the world online (and I seem to recall that you were favoring Tunngle and bashing CNCNET during CNCNET 2.0) Final note: This debate has shifted from substance to argumentation over semantics and history. If I may summarize what I think are the important points we have agree on: 1) CNCNET will stay in its current form or will not be discontinued for now. 2) New release will be tested concurrently and incrementally. If spamming/ ignoring is still a problem that people demand urgently solutions for (which currently does not seem like the case) then the following point is made: From this I could see there is a vision for an ambitious expansion program. However, I am not even sure if such potentials exist, not trying to sound pessimistic (when number of players top 150 on a daily basis we will talk...) What is this idea of moving forward? Moving forward requires a vision that does not seem clear to me nor many other people. This whole community is about retro-gaming so it almost seems ironic that someone comes along and tries go forward. The danger that lurks here is that we might end up with a dissected game that neither preserves the past well nor "come to the present" (which seems an absurd goal to strive given that you are playing this game.) For example, take that RA for Open GL port. IMO that just ends up with a mediocre game that doesn't play well. Nobody who strives for the best in graphics is going to care enough and the new/ slow game engine alienates the players who like this game for what it is. Coming up with a new idea may give you some quick thrills for the moment but in the best case it could just end up as a superflous fad and in the worst case end up as something that finally kills the game; thus compatbility must be the top most priority and every step must be tread lightly and cautiously.

Sure but then again all this time the discusison was framed as this being a response to urgently needed features, to which I was trying to point out that it was not the case. True it's just you fronting this but Funky and Ehy certainly speak as if you guys were in on this together and try to shoot me down simply for disagreeing with change (or that just by chance you guys had the same opinion, which now I see is not quite the case as your understandings of what is needed may differ from each other.) Well login was something that was discussed earlier but I guess it's not mandated now, although how are you going to have personal maps repositories without logins seems puzzling to me. In the meantime, do you think it's possible to add an "/ignore" or "/ping" feature to the server by scanning and filtering all lobby packets and issuing server commands accordingly?

Well I had some problems with my computer but I am glad we have a better understanding of things now. :roll: Just to set some things straight: NOPE. Funky was the first person to call for vote since the proposed change to rules.ini. I always thought voting on some things are a bad idea but then I became more covinced that the odds are on my side, not less. Equivocation. I am talking about forced changes. When you are the only free service still in town it's hard to have choices isn't it? How do you expect them to know if they don't know this site exists? I asked you guys to post a message in server so people would know but that didn't happen. Half the players don't even speak English so I don't even see how they could know. Nope. I told them that "THE LOBBY" in RA will be gone and some of them got pissed. I told them all to go check the news but nobody cared enough even if they didn't like it. The problem IS that people aren't checking the news but it is irresponsible to say "We posted the note, you didn't check, the change is here, so it's your fault." Oops, sorry I meant "no login required" being the attractive feature. That summer people switched over to CNC in droves when 2.0 got faster. Before that CNCNET was terribly slow (even compared to Tunngle) and I bet that people just loved [sarcasm] that 1min login that Tunngle sometimes needed. OH yeah and P.S., back when people played on Kali you constantly tried to promote Tunngle even though it was much slower for most of the US players. It made me wonder if you had alterior motives?

I see. Although if possible I really wish we could start with a "CNCNET 5 lite" that allows compatbility so we still have the same number of players. I see what you are saying but I am calling for perhaps something that further aids this process ( for instance, allowing *all* new features to be accessible from a CONSOLE a la stdio with console commands (so no need for browser) and the GUI could be developed much later and /or improved independently of the new functions.) Thank you. I took at as my duty to point these things out since nobody else even bothered to read this or voice their opinion even if they had one. I am not sure why the argument should be dropped if we havn't weighed the merits and flaws of each solution completely. This is mostly for discussion's sake now since CNCNET 4 won't be dropped in the immediate future but I do want to point out that "Personal Map Depositories" could become a pain to manage (and potentially be exploited by malicious users.) We have had people who hid behind VPN's before, I just thought that a WEB based interface could be infinitely more exploitable and the more complicated it is, the harder it would be to restore a crash. My opinion is that if implementing this makes the game incompatible and does not seem urgently needed then it could be sidelined for now. I never said p2 sucks but I did say something along the lines of "I refuse to advocate the modification of exe files unless you have darn good reason." I am sure you could see the demons that accepting exe modding online could unleash upon the community (ie, if you can mod a exe, then why can't I? If modded exes exist, what prevents me from loading hacks that that are cheat?) I keep getting struck down by the argument of "but it works and fixes crashes!" so I had to point out that in fact it *didn't* fix the crash so whatever validity that arguement had before goes away.

This is funny because the only people really complaining about the current CNCNET are the Kali players. Yet you guys are changing CNCNET against the wishes of the CNCNET fans... Now you guys say it won't be forced but from all signs before I saw no indication that CNCNET 4 will be maintained (just like those previous versions right?) If you don't wish to alt-tab you can just play windowed (then go full screen when game starts ) and again I am saying you *could* make a compatible system so that people can play with lobby or with an alternate version but actual gameplay integration will be seamless. The reason I was calling this undemocratic because you guys keep using "democracy" and "voting" as a trump card when 90% of the players don't even know what is going on. You can't call a vote if the voters are uninformed about what they are voting for, which is why I am calling for more discussion (or post a message from the server so they see it in RA lobby.) People LONG abandoned Tunngle before CNCNET got rid of port forwarding. People switched over for very clear reasons: easy interface and now login required, which is something you are removing. Now about lobby sacredness and being "despearate." I really wanted to gauge the response of the general populace but the other day when you weren't here I also saw a lot of people complaining when I said the lobby will be gone. I do not wish to name names but I call talk to you in private about my assessment fo the situation so far.

Now that's not fair. He plays CNC where this whole problem with spam isn't an issue and as far as I see it you guys don't play much lately either

On the second issue: This is certainly not getting ridiculous. I have concerns about what I think are potential problems and I am glad things are finally being explained. Right now we have a stable platform. Switching to a new platform and then trying to fix the bugs afterwards is definitely not something we could afford to do (and may end up losing a whole bunch of players if things do go wrong.) What I do find ridiculous is that over half players don't know what's coming. Perhaps upload a server message to get them to read the forum? I am still not seeing why online map database is necessary or better. Maintainence and upkeep is a difficult job, which requires resources that we may not currently have. If the player has to sift through 300 maps to find his own then that is a trade off for maintaining local maps. In fact it may even be better to exchange maps *before* the game is launched so that the players can have the maps on local machines (and possibly create the temporary file alongside.) This could be done by p2p exchanges that do not have to require a server database. When you start RA and the game registers all the maps in your directory, sometimes maps are exchanged when all players have the same map while other times they are not (not sure about mechanics here) In the best case scenario we could have all players having the maps on their local machines and then no maps are exchanged during start up. In any case map exchange is not the most pressing problem we are facing (and only becomes one when connections are laggy and players press 'esc', which they shouldn't do.) About the crash: I am not sure how to reproduce this except to show it to you in 4 or 6 player games that build over unit limit. In many cases the game would not crash at first but it would be a long time before anything is buildable again even when only one type of unit reaches limit. In another case (I was using p2, not sure about others) the vehicle limit was reached but buildings were not buildable either and then the game spontaneously exited after a battle commenced (without additional units being built.) I am saying that if p2 doesn't fix the bug but instead introduces *new* unpredictable behavior then is it really worth having?

Not obsessed with Kali or else we would have gone back to it already. You keep saying it's democratic when hifi is almost unilateraly deciding the future of CNCNET without even 10% of the users making a discussion of it. What do you mean by "perfect Kali"? All I am saying is that the Kali approach makes more sense and in my opinion is a better solution *if* a UI is desired. Kali was not more popular just due to lack of CNCNET but rather you have to ask "WHY IS CNCNET POPULAR?" I can always say Kali lacks players due to fees and registration so it's not "sinking" because of its interface but due to pricing. However, there was also Tunngle. Why did people abandon that? I argue it's because of CNCNET's features a LACK of registration, NO external UI and simple "plug-n-play" style of usage. To me I am *not* opposing CNCNET5 because of nostalgia for Kali but because I think the CURRENT CNCNET is the best solution that we have (which could be improved by only minor tweaks.) However, since you really want to add a UI and essentially negating what made me chose CNCNET over Kali in the first place, I started advocating for the features that would make a good UI, aka the features from Kali. Basically, if I have to use a complicated/ bloated UI, is there still sufficient reason for me to continue using CNCNET over Kali? Remember, RA can run on really old computers. Why design CNCNET to the point that old computers can no longer run RA or that existing computers may be slowed down? (A web browser that takes 200MB of memory that must be opened certainly would affect some older computers, and people from ALL over the world play this game, including from third world countries that may not have the best ease of upgrade.) No one is threatening anything nor conspiring anything but I do want to get the word out to everyone (as most people are oblivious) and the response that I am getting (especially from some of the newer players who are returning to the game) is that they would be annoyed if the HAVE to give up their RA LAN lobby. Finally, regarding actual development for CNCNET5. If a new UI is desired, I am suggesting that we allow the UI to be an external component instead of being inherent. Whether this is by UNIX like text paramters or PC like return values we may implement ALL of our desired features in a Console box that could be controlled by command line and then people are free to develop whatever GUI they wish on top of this layer (or the lack thereof.)

Funky you do realize that in a real democratic system issues are supposed to be debated or at least discussed before calling for a vote? Lack of a turn out also de-legitimizes a vote (and just how many people/ which people must turn out to make this legitimate is not at all clear right now.) To me it seems like not enough people are reading about this and you want to dole out a vote of "do you wish to have spam, crashes, etc or do you wish to have *our* solution?" Not exactly a fair and unbiased polling system is it?

1) 3.03p2 DID NOT fix crashes in general cases. Building over unit limit makes the game *unplayable* as no more units or buildings of any sort could be built at that point and many times it still crashes. Modding the exe file is a HUGE price to pay especially when you get something that does not completely work. This is why I said when you violate a matter of principle you should seriously consider the benefits and harms before touching something "sacred." 2) To Funky: Why don't you put a vote to see whether people prefer the WOL interface or a WEB interface or make things stay the way it is? I am not against voting but then again WHO are the regular RA players? We get 30 people on average. How many of them play frequently? If the 10-15 most regular RA players don't care about this or are against it then what purpose do you serve by making a interface aimed towards the 20-40 "majority" players that may not even be here next month? 3) When there are 500 RA players then tell me about it. That is to say I am not against development of this new interface in the meantime. However, you *could* delay launching it when we ACTUALLY have that many people. RA LAN lobby ran w/o much problems the other weekend when we had record 92 players. Nobody is advocating a boycott but I am actually not convinced that the majority of people here will like what is in store for them. 4) Yes I see how this new interface is more useful for TD instead of just RA but is a unified interface even necessary? If 4.0 is stable enough w/o the need for updates for now then I could see the situation for RA being left as is. 5) PLEASE give me a detailed explanation about uploading maps online. This is a separate issue altogether. Even you convince me a web interface is good I am miles off from seeing why online map downloading is good. How will the maps be presented? If I see the list of 300 maps in the online data base, how should I differentiate between the 10 different versions of p4? Surely two files cannot have the same name in the online database if they are in the same directory. In that case if two people uploaded two different maps with the same names you have to rename, correct? 6) If Javascript and web interfacing are Hifi's area of expertise and there is not other option then that is all a good reason to adopt this but to argue that web interface is acceptable because it is 2012 then that is a terrible argument. This is the logic of "new is good, old is bad, and anything current must be acceptable." If that is the case then why the hell are we still playing RA1 and not RA3? This again goes to my argument about good engineering principle: a *minimalistic* approach to the interface is what made CNCNET popular. Why add overlay and new unnecessary burdens? Maybe we could get someone to volunteer for Windows interface design or keep it to a minimum for now and only implement the features of "ignore" (so people can play their private games, ban, etc) though a small command window that injects to CNCNET after it starts. :roll: 7) If WOL is really not feasible, I am not one to pursue it. I just thought we were close to completing it but I guess not. Nonetheless I still think what we had before is sufficient to allow private games when the lobby gets spammed and people decide to play by themselves on WOL. The people who complain about spam and want private games are probably smart enough to open ports, etc and do not constitute a majority. The ones who aren't are causing spam anyway. Finally, if anyone besides Hifi, Funky and me are reading this, PLEASE add your input. I wouldn't be here if I didn't feel that some people will have strong opinions about what is coming but we need more voice from *all* sides of the issue.

Now I must apologize that being caught up in all of this heat, I forgot to state something obvious. For the solutions to the problems we are facing, what about the solution where we use the WOL interface in 3.03? This fixes almost ALL of our problems (private rooms, banning, Aftermath support, etc) Furthermore, this solution was NEARLY working not too long ago and in fact so close that games worked under it! If we just tweak it about slightly, I could see that we could allow the current LAN lobby to run *as is* WHILE enabling the WOL interface so people who are pissed off about spammers or need private games could just "log on" into WOL 3 menu clicks away. Now if you are really up to it, perhaps we should make a poll on people favoring tweaking the WOL interface to make it working or implementing something completely new and foreign? :laugh:

Reposting this since my previous post seemed to be gone... No I am sure most people here in the US who cared about the game objected to a liberal modding of the game. Only you, ehy and Know Name explicitly supported that. The thing is also, you DIDN'T actually fix the game with p2. Sure the game doesn't crash but it also becomes unplayable and sometimes it STILL CRASHES. An UNPLAYABLE game is NO FUN. XD I actually downloaded p2 and tried it on Mississippi River with 8 players and we decided the problems still wasn't fixed. Nonetheless, the price of modding the exe file itself is too high to justify these modest gains. Modding the exe and changing game behavior is a matter of principle but I can live with it because it does not cause an incompatability. Again, why can't there be a solution like Kali? If I ignore all the spammers I can have the look and feel of a RA LAN lobby AND not have to deal with spammers and unwanted players. My point is not necessarily against software but I think TWO major principles made CNCNET popular: 1) It DOESN'T *require* an external interface. 2) It theoretically works with ANY valid RA I have and *does not* touch the game file in anyway. Does web interface require me to log in and open up my browser? If so that's already cumbersome and annoying. I may also have to enable scripts on my computer, which is invasive and requiring the end user to commit too much. Honestly I'd prefer a custom GUI than some web based stuff (no need to open up a 200MB browser for CNCNET.) You as a modder must SURELY realize that if you upload a map with a duplicate filename the server has to change it. Once it's changed, are you going to get the map back? Will it be untouched? Tell me *how* are you going to distinguish between 100 different versions of P4 that have MAP NAME on the server? Which one is yours? Are you actually going to show map content to distinguish the minor differences in rules? Will there be a preview feature? (But maybe the maps are similar terrain wise. Do I have to squint and sift through all that?) This is essentially denying the player the task of managing his own maps. Are you really willing to embrace the task of map management for ALL the maps that everyone could possibly submit? Kali was almost dedicated to RA. Tunngle had a terrible (and bloated) interface and took a long time to log on. Adding webinterface (and Javascript!?) seems to be pushing CNCNET into the path of Tunngle. Once again, the currently proposed solution is neither proven to be the best nor the only solution. Spam is only a minor nuisance right now. Changing the game so that people who are nostalgic can't find their way around start leaving may soon lead to an empty lobby that that would be hungry even for spam. Currently CNCNET draws some new players but many more old players that are coming back. This service should be allowed to grow and not let a radically new interface confuse/ turn old players away. I understand that the developers are perhaps more enthousiastic about the programming perspective than actually playing the game but why should the players have to bear the burden of experimentation? Bottom line: Whatever you do with the new interface, GURANTEE compatability with the game as it is.

Hifi, first I wish to thank you for all the efforts you have put into making this possible, without which we wouldn't have today. However, I feel like perhaps you are slightly detached from the general attitude of the players. The thing is, people prefer the current LAN lobby right now and they wouldn't care less for the WOL interface. I am not objecting to the possibility of a new interface that can also be used but to use it *exclusively* is too much too soon. I am quite sure I understand this. It is like launching games from WCHAT with maps selected directly into game. This actually sounds like a terrible idea. What if I just made a map that I wanted to test on the fly? I suppose I would have to upload that first and you probably would have to set the server up so that no duplicate filenames are done. There are at least 10 different variations of P4 with different names but same map. There are also many maps with the same name but different content. For may mods it's not simply a rules modification but also graphics, sounds modification, etc so the only sane course of action is for the players to download the 20MB file ONCE and not every time he launches the game. However, I do favor the possibility of on the fly custom rules loading (especially if the launcher *denotes* the mod used) so that it would be like WCHAT where you know the game type (Aftermath, Regular, etc) right away. Now this is actually a neat thing and maybe in the future we can even implement something like the World Domination Tour or Coop campaign games. Now I have actually seen that either in a readme file or on someone's website (ehy's or this one? I forgot but I definitely have seen something like that.) You have definitely missed the debates over the rules.ini fix and even the 3.03p series. The fact is that OVER HALF the people in the 20 something people in the lobby *vehemently* objected to updating rules.ini and the 3.03p patches may still be open to debate (on the side, currently my main objection to that is that although it doesn't make the game not crash anymore, the game actually becomes unplayable with broken builds, so it's not exactly a solution. IE someone could spam submarines or helis and max out units and then the game engine would be stuck.) The different thing about Kali is that it's a Chat and virtual Network interface. Once the game is launched the game runs like it's on a LAN. It doesn't strong hand the user into a new launcher. When you tout something as being better (which may or may not be true) and way of the future (a self fulfilling prophecy, since you develop ) I don't really see why these changes must be forced on (which may become the case if you start loading rules.ini that make the game incompatible with existing versions) My main objection to a web interface is: 1) Too complicated. CNCNET is used currently over other services like Tunngle, Kali because it doesn't require a launcher. I think despite early speed issues, the ease of interface is what really killed Tunngle. 2) It works with any version of Red Alert that the *client* chooses, and in this case the commonly used 3.03 that are compatible with each other, not anything special. The point I really want to bring forth is what prompted the development of version 5? The only people that complained about version 4 are pros who think new players and occasionally spammers ruin the game. The vast majority of players didn't actually think there is much wrong with the current situation. I wouldn't really object to any of this and would be glad to experiment if we work under the premise of not making the game incompatible with the existing versions, which I am not being assured of at all. With the possible exception of Ehy it seems like none of the people who actually regularly play this game in its classical multiplayer form are having any input or even getting involved with this development process. I am not exaggerating when I say there are many people who cringe at the idea that the game exe file is being modified but do not know enough about it. I would really welcome the idea of a third party interface (not necessarily web) that allows me to chat with the people in the RA LAN lobby and launch straight into the game (so that I do not have to open RA and then tab out) provided that it remains fully compatible with the existing game interface.

This might be the biggest objection for the people that prefers a Red Alert Lan Lobby. I am not shooting anything down but this idea is quite new and foreign so I am trying to clearly picture it in my mind first. However, when this was brought to the RA lobby there *was* a swarm of objections for the lack of a LAN lobby. This brings me to the *reason* on why I was suggesting the Kali like interface: This may achieve what we want (i.e., control over rooms) *without* having to resort to a new interface that some people may find objectionable... I suppose if you keep a separate map directory things will be made easier. Does RA still transfer maps using its own system whenever the game starts? From all this it sounds like this is actually a really great system maybe for C&C but maybe redundant for Red Alert. So I have heard about Heat.net doing something like this but how do you ensure game quits after it's finished? I must say it sounds like magic but does it have anything to do with the code used for quitting after an Internet game? Now wait a minute... updates to the GAME code? If you are actually talking about modifying the game itself then there might again be a whole swarm of objections from players who shudder at such an idea. This does seem to detract away from CNCNET's original motto of "CNCNET works with your game, not the other way around."

Can we make this more like Kali where there is a "main lan lobby" and private rooms can be created if needed? This way perhaps we could still launch games without having to use an additional interface (which requires installation of new programs and adds an overlay, which are burdens when running this on public computers.) Also the idea that you have to re-launch the game for every game you start may sound tempting but could be a disaster. With 50 or so maps in my RA directory, starting minira already takes 30 seconds. I would imagine someone using discs or fullra would have even more trouble. Once a game is over, are the players going to be thrown back into the lan lobby? If that is the case then allowing for a "main room" and private rooms seems to make more sense since the people who are playing with themselves can continue to do so without quitting the game. I could imagine (if possible) having the lobby messages connected into the custom interface so you could either stay in the RA lobby and chat or see those messages and chat outside. Currently not enough people are even aware of this so it would be good to spread the word.