Project Stealth

Forums => Public Discussion => Topic started by: Cyntrox on January 05, 2008, 09:04:50 PM

Title: Lobby chat via IRC?
Post by: Cyntrox on January 05, 2008, 09:04:50 PM
I just came up with this idea. How about using a free, public IRC server for hosting the PS lobby chat? The only way I can see it differ from other, "normal" lobby chats is that it'd be hard to limit the members of the channel to people who are playing PS - but is that really a drawback? One could just log onto IRC to check if there's anyone online!

What do you think?
Title: Re: Lobby chat via IRC?
Post by: Westfall on January 05, 2008, 09:20:02 PM
Its not a bad idea. I would hate to have to keep minimizing to see what was going on in the lobby.
Title: Re: Lobby chat via IRC?
Post by: Cyntrox on January 05, 2008, 09:24:53 PM
Minimizing? Why would you have to do that? If this is supported, PS would come with a built-in IRC client, so that it's part of the lobby interface. That rises the question, though: Is it possible to use basic socket commands in UT? Because as far as I know, that's all you need.
Title: Re: Lobby chat via IRC?
Post by: LennardF1989 on January 05, 2008, 09:48:02 PM
Ultimately, we can create a standalone app for server browsing and such.

Though, America's Army has an IRC system (Unreal Engine 2.5). But I think it's mostly harcoded, but as far as I understand, you can use C++ code within UnrealScript.
Title: Re: Lobby chat via IRC?
Post by: Cyntrox on January 05, 2008, 09:52:29 PM
Well, if you can use C++ it should be perfectly possible, and not very hard. I recommend reading RFC 2812 (http://ftp://ftp.rfc-editor.org/in-notes/rfc2812.txt) and 2810 (http://ftp://ftp.rfc-editor.org/in-notes/rfc2810.txt) for information on the IRC protocol. Making a simple client shouldn't be a problem :)
Title: Re: Lobby chat via IRC?
Post by: Farley4Fan on January 05, 2008, 09:53:30 PM
That sounds pretty good.
Title: Re: Lobby chat via IRC?
Post by: LennardF1989 on January 05, 2008, 09:57:12 PM
It seems Unreal Tournament (original, see UBrowser) has a full IRC chat. Looking through code now to see if it's hardcoded or not.
Title: Re: Lobby chat via IRC?
Post by: LennardF1989 on January 05, 2008, 10:02:09 PM
I see, it seems it all based upon an external website (textarea is actually based upon a regular webpage). I'm not sure if UT3 can open websites, but if soo, we might still have a global chat.
Title: Re: Lobby chat via IRC?
Post by: LennardF1989 on January 05, 2008, 10:05:00 PM
I'm afraid Ut3 no longer has support for opening webpages.
Title: Re: Lobby chat via IRC?
Post by: Cyntrox on January 05, 2008, 10:05:29 PM
But why communicate with a webpage that communicates with an IRC server if you can communicate directly with the IRC server?

And if you can use C++, pretty much everything is possible... Hell, you could even code a limited HTTP client capable of loading the particular text area without any big trouble. Or just copy it from some open-source browser.
Title: Re: Lobby chat via IRC?
Post by: LennardF1989 on January 05, 2008, 10:07:30 PM
Quote from: Cyntrox on January 05, 2008, 10:05:29 PM
But why communicate with a webpage that communicates with an IRC server if you can communicate directly with the IRC server?

And if you can use C++, pretty much everything is possible... Hell, you could even code a limited HTTP client capable of loading the particular text area without any big trouble. Or just copy it from some open-source browser.

Thats how the original Unreal Tournament did it (as far as I can see from the code) and I'm not sure about C++ code.

Edit: You guys are lucky bastards :P

http://64.233.183.104/search?q=cache:P1UR0Y3YDZQJ:www.experts-exchange.com/Programming/Game/3D_Prog./Q_21265193.html+C%2B%2B+in+UnrealScript&hl=nl&ct=clnk&cd=9&gl=nl

Unreal Engine automaticly looks for a DLL correspndending to a package, so say we would call a native function from a package called ProjectStealth, it would look for ProjectStealth.dll.
Title: Re: Lobby chat via IRC?
Post by: neth on January 05, 2008, 10:24:12 PM
there could be rules. If you play - change your nick to...
Title: Re: Lobby chat via IRC?
Post by: Overstatement on January 05, 2008, 10:24:54 PM
False hope for the win!

It's a mod, deal with it.
Title: Re: Lobby chat via IRC?
Post by: Cyntrox on January 05, 2008, 10:29:56 PM
Quote from: Overstatement on January 05, 2008, 10:24:54 PM
False hope for the win!

It's a mod, deal with it.
What do you mean? I see nothing hindering it, and it's not a lot of work.
Title: Re: Lobby chat via IRC?
Post by: LennardF1989 on January 05, 2008, 10:31:37 PM
It's impossible without public sources, sorry.

Trying something else ;)
Title: Re: Lobby chat via IRC?
Post by: Overstatement on January 05, 2008, 10:33:46 PM
As a general rule, in a mod, you can't do much outside of the game (before joining the game lobby where you wait for more players to join). Especially if it requires communication with an outside server.

I've said this a lot, it should be a sticky.