CnCNet 5, current bandwidth usage, need a web developer!

[hifi]

Heads up, Commanders!

 

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TL;DR

Switch to peer-to-peer mode in CnCNet settings or the kittens will die!

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CnCNet 5 is slowly on the way to address a few issues that rose from CnCNet 4. Back when CnCNet 4 was first launched, it was more than enough for this community. It tied together the tunneled mode that allowed anyone to play without forwarding any ports and the faster peer-to-peer mode that kept pro gamers happy.

 

However, we have come to a point where the current system can't support the amount of players, mostly in Red Alert.

 

There are the main problems that I see now:

 

* The LAN lobby is way too crowded in RA

* There is no way to moderate the lobby nor to control who joins your game

* CnCNet server runs on a single server (cncnet.org) and hogs way too much bandwidth because of the popularity

 

I would like to address all of these problems in CnCNet 5.

 

The main motivator for CnCNet 5 was that the RA LAN lobby is full and spammers cause problems. The networking protocol in RA also has problems coping with so many players in the lobby and that causes chat flood all over.

 

But, there is a bigger problem right now that affects everyone - we are going to go over our bandwidth cap this month and I can't do anything about it. Money wise, we have enough to buy whatever we need to get that bandwidth, but it breaks the current setup and when we reach CnCNet 5 it will no longer be a problem as I can distribute the tunnel services all over the world and leave the CnCNet web server alone.

 

So before going into CnCNet 5 details, I would like to ask all CnCNet users who are not using peer-to-peer mode to check if they can forward the CnCNet port and switch to peer-to-peer mode. It will be better for everyone if you are able to do that. It is also possible that the first time you launched CnCNet your firewall blocked the p2p checker and you just need to hit the [ Retest ] button once.

 

MNdakota contributed a motivation image for all of you without p2p:

 

If you don't switch to p2p mode, CnCNet and these forums will be unavailable around 29th to 31st when we run out of juice.

 

Now, about CnCNet 5. It will be a lot like the long buried CnCNet 3.1 or whatever I called it back then but more awesome. These are the highlights:

 

* Full web interface to chat and create game lobbies, no LAN lobby in between, you get in-game directly from your browser

* Big online map database to choose from, no need to download maps anymore

* Password protected game rooms & moderated chat - no more spammers!

* Less OOS problems with Red Alert because the game is freshly started for every game (rules.ini reloading problems in the game)

* C&C will get a full 6 player online support later from the same web interface

 

As you can see, CnCNet 5 is very much web and Red Alert oriented. I'm addressing the demand that I currently see in the community.

 

Because CnCNet was originally about C&C, I'm also putting a lot of work into getting full online support for it too.

 

So what about Tiberian Sun, Red Alert 2 and their mods?

They will be supported through CnCNet 4 until they gain CnCNet 5 support. It's not planned yet as I have limited time and resources.

 

In another news

CnCNet 5 is heavily web based, so it needs web developer(s). If you are or know a real good web developer, let me know! The required skill set would include:

 

* JavaScript with jQuery

* Object-oriented PHP 5.3+

* Strong relational SQL knowledge (SQLite and MySQL)

* Zend Framework

* MVC (with Zend)

* Years of experience in all of above, if you are a professional web developer, you should qualify

* Love for the games

 

I have strong requirements for this "position", but I want quality and I can only work with professionals. If no one pops up, it will just take longer.

 

UI designer would also be nice to work on UX.

[Guest ehy]

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[pichorra]

PLEASE add a way to run it wihout a launcher...

 

New CnCNet is not in C anymore?

[FunkyFr3sh]

PLEASE add a way to run it wihout a launcher...

 

New CnCNet is not in C anymore?

 

edit:

 

removed .. outdated

 

[hifi]

PLEASE add a way to run it wihout a launcher...

 

New CnCNet is not in C anymore?

 

It will be in four separate and invidual parts:

* Game modification that loads online/skirmish rules either from .ini file or command line arguments, the initial implementation is based on ini

* cncnet.exe that works as a safe local protocol handler (cncnet://) to download the "spawn.ini" and map file off cncnet.org

* cncnet.org that hosts the game lobbies and chat

* Tunnel services that can be used per-session and selected within the game lobby, user hosted tunnels should be possible

 

So no, it's not only in C anymore but consists of multiple components that are in Assembly, C or PHP.

[Gluk-v48]

I would very much like to CnCNet5 was the most integrated in the Ares.dll .

 

What did you think?

 

[hifi]

I would very much like to CnCNet5 was the most integrated in the Ares.dll .

 

What did you think?

 

 

That depends on the Ares team completely. I've already talked to them that RA2 modders/players probably want that and I will give all possible help and support to someone who does the port from TD/RA1 to RA2.

 

On a side note, the TD spawner code is starting to get shape and we had the first "successful" online game with it. It has some networking problems but I will sort them out soon.

[Tore]

Topic split, continue the discussion in here: http://cnc-comm.com/community/index.php?topic=2034

[Andy1991]

Hi, I'm a web developer, I have all the desired skills (except ZF), and a few more:

 

- PHP 4/5 - 7 years (2 commercially)

- MySQL - 7 years (2 commercially) (stored procedures/functions/views/data joins)

- CSS  - 7 years (2 comm)

- HTML 4.01/XHTML 1.1 - 7/2

- Javascript - 6/2

- jQuery - 2 years

- Ruby / Rails - 4 months

- CoffeeScript - 4 months

- SLIM (not the PHP framework) - 4 months

- NodeJS - I've done a project or two

 

I'd love to see CnCNet in-browser (http://www.adityaravishankar.com/2011/11/command-and-conquer-programming-an-rts-game-in-html5-and-javascript/ =]), anyway, you've got my email, feel free to contact me if you're interested.

[Matt]

Hmm, maybe reduce CnCNet to a simple http://master.open-ra.org/list.php and use IRC as a chat protocol. What you describe as a map repository already exists at http://content.open-ra.org/ Both https://github.com/OpenRA/OpenRAMasterServer and https://github.com/ihptru/OpenRA-Content-Website exist as Open Source projects. They might be tied to the needs of https://github.com/OpenRA/OpenRA though and of course OpenRA does not require legacy internet protocol workarounds. Small communities should avoid the not invented here syndrome.

[hifi]

Hmm, maybe reduce CnCNet to a simple http://master.open-ra.org/list.php and use IRC as a chat protocol. What you describe as a map repository already exists at http://content.open-ra.org/ Both https://github.com/OpenRA/OpenRAMasterServer and https://github.com/ihptru/OpenRA-Content-Website exist as Open Source projects. They might be tied to the needs of https://github.com/OpenRA/OpenRA though and of course OpenRA does not require legacy internet protocol workarounds. Small communities should avoid the not invented here syndrome.

 

And what would use the simple game list? Oh, I know, a client! How would that simplify anything? We still need a client and some code to wrap around the actual game. The web interface will work as our lobby and the game will be used only for games.

 

How do OpenRA maps help us at all? They are not compatible with RA.

 

OpenRA is not RA, so it can't be used as a "drop in replacement" for RA. Until OpenRA mimics RA completely (the WIP Classic mod or something), there is always a place for the original Red Alert and CnCNet.

 

I said today on IRC that I would gladly kill off CnCNet once there is a completely free and better written replacement client for TD and RA. I haven't seen any effort in that direction.

[Matt]

I just thought that you could re-use some parts of the existing code. OpenRA file formats are not that different. RA Classic - a Red Alert 1 inspired mod is currently dead in favor of https://github.com/Iran/PortableRA and OpenRA lacks a game lobby with central chat which CnCNet currently offers. We rely heavily on external IRC for match making although it is planned to add in-game IRC support one day. I think your modern http://battle.net and http://battlelog.battlefield.com like approach is a clever way to go. Good luck on that one. Can't wait to see a working prototype.