Smash on Voobly

[Cobrevolution]

Vote Here->>> http://www.voobly.com/forum/thread/183986​

EDIT: PLEASE make an account and provide a verbal statement, if you can. one of voobly's goals is to gain new members, and the more feedback and responses they get, the more inclined they'll be. it's important to see evidence of a community willing to be present throughout the process.
http://www.voobly.com/forum/thread/15374

http://www.voobly.com/forum/thread/159424

http://www.voobly.com/forum/thread/166246

don't ask me technical questions because i don't know the answers to them. if i make a thread there, how many people would be willing to voice their support to get smash to voobly?

this is what the lobby system looks like

Spoiler

http://i1-games.softpedia-static.com/screenshots/Voobly_5.jpg

BACKGROUND INFORMATION ON VOOBLY/PERSONAL APPEAL​

i feel like it's inextricably linked to the aoe community (all inclusive: aoe1, ror, aoe2, aok, aom, etcetcetc). when msn zone went under in 2006, all of the aoe people were left without a place to play their games. there was a short lived endeavor called empireslegacy, of which i was a beta tester, and it was coded to look exactly like zone - unfortunately, there were abandonment problems and the project was scrapped. as a result, we all moved to gamespy arcade - a client that always lived in the shadow of zone for aoe. after a few months, we heard of another client being developed called peek (iirc) or pong or something, but that too died.

eventually, igzones came into fruition, and with it, a fully working anti cheat system, nat traversal (whatever that was, but i remember it was important) and all sorts of good ish. after a while, Voobly bought out igz (i believe) and went to work making aoe badass. their team has since provided all of the games with lobbies and modifications (larger maps, higher populations, hd features, dual screen capabilities, recording options, watcher options, talking in game, etc): a lot of the people who were involved with the project were former players themselves, and they didn't want to see their communities die out.

fact of the matter is, aoe came out before smash, and it's still being played and worked on. these guys are really dedicated to their project.

in the post linked above, you can see that voobly does want to increase its member base, and they want to add more games to their roster that will bring in more people - people who are looking for places to play their old games.

we are those people.

CURRENT STATE OF AFFAIRS​

i did make the thread and a couple people have responded, and i am grateful. i really do want more people to voice their support here, and to take a look at agent 21's post in this thread, as well as on the voobly thread with the poll.

what you're voting for right now is the opportunity to be recognized as a serious community who wants to play their beloved game on a better client - voobly's communities are comprised of nothing but those people. if we have the same kind of dedication to smash as a lot of their players do, they'll be more inclined to take a look at the project and consider working on it.

also, if you have any technical input or advice for voobly (because this would be a totally new endeavor for them, and i hope they would be eager to accept such a challenge), i urge you to respond in the above thread. notably players whom i name dropped, like a21, firo and owna. i would love to ask steve for input but he does so much for online players to play on console that i don't think it's fair.

 

[Skrlx]

I WIL POST IN THE THREAD

 

[MattNF]

What's the point? Looks like kaillera 2.0.

 

[Skrlx]

MattNascarFan, please go.

 

[Sedda]

that looks cool. would it really work better? i thought our problems were just with the servers? idk im not good at that stuff

 

[Gammelnorsk]

does it allow clans?

 

[Skrlx]

coolblade_1992 will live on no matter the medium/platform

 

[M!nt]

I don't know what any of that is, but i'll try it sure.

 

[The Star King]

What's the point? Looks like kaillera 2.0.

According to the testimony of cobr, it's a lot better. Or something.

I guess I'll post if needed.

 

[MrMarbles]

can you clarify what all this means cobr? like how would this improve stuff? what IS it exactly?

 

[Cobrevolution]

picture kaillera, but better, with a more stable server(s)

it's a gaming client, lobby system just like kaillera, but good

 

[rjgbadger]

i can see it now, tr3g moving to a new territory of online ssb, our multi-coloured foxes will dominate the region.

tr3g over cyberearth

 

[EggSelent]

So how do you plan on getting an emulator to work with noobly?

 

[Cobrevolution]

you tell me

if i had to explain my theory to someone it'd be awful

"both aoe and smash have start options and then you go to a mutual screen. WHY CAN'T THIS JUST BE MIMICKED ON ONE CLIENT"

 

[Cobrevolution]

http://www.voobly.com/forum/thread/183986
http://www.voobly.com/forum/thread/183986
http://www.voobly.com/forum/thread/183986
http://www.voobly.com/forum/thread/183986

GO THERE, VOTE, VOICE YOUR SUPPORT, CONCERNS, QUESTIONS, STATEMENTS! ANY FEEDBACK IS WELCOME.

remember, this would be a totally new endeavor for them.

 

[KnitePhox]

for FAST matches for VOOBLY and all

sacrifice to the black lines in game for SPEED
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Yvpp5RiV7Q

 

[Agent 21 iXi]

Asking Voobly to take on this project is unrealistic I agree. On the bright side, the good that could come from this still outweighs the bad. IF Voobly does decide to take on this project that would mean we can move to a more stable open source emulator (Mupen) than pj64, we will have more stable servers than FU or DCT, which means less fedex errors. Yes there will still be delay and lag, but what alot of people don't know is the majority of the problems we face on kaillera comes from bugs and bad coding under the hood of the emulinker server we use, the client and the emulator. I would know because I have seen the code of all of it and it's a mess that is not worth the time for me or Firo to clean up. It's a better idea to redo everything from the ground up which would not take alot of time with a small-medium sized team working on this. Assuming Voobly is capable of that, I ask the SSB 64 community this question: why not vote? If all else fails we will be right back on kaillera complaining about crappy it is anyway. Ty all.

 

[MattNF]

Let's start a kickstarter to hire someone to make a dedicated smash64 client.

 

[Sangoku]

We have all agreed that the kaillera client is a mess. However I have no idea what it would take to rewrite something from scratch and how better that would be (ie whether kaillera has already reached the theoretical limit for delay/lag). I assume it would be a huge work and I don't know how many 64 player would be capable of helping. The way I've seen it is: those who care don't have the knowledge and those who have it don't care about that game. So my question is would it be imaginable to have a team of smash players starting something? Who would be both capable and willing to? I bet we could even raise a found to motivate such a team.

 

[Agent 21 iXi]

We have all agreed that the kaillera client is a mess. However I have no idea what it would take to rewrite something from scratch and how better that would be (ie whether kaillera has already reached the theoretical limit for delay/lag). I assume it would be a huge work and I don't know how many 64 player would be capable of helping. The way I've seen it is: those who care don't have the knowledge and those who have it don't care about that game. So my question is would it be imaginable to have a team of smash players starting something? Who would be both capable and willing to? I bet we could even raise a found to motivate such a team.

I completely agree with this post, I honestly don't have the knowledge or time to create something from scratch. However, I do have the knowledge to steer someone in the right direction to create this project from scratch. I'm also willing to help fund said project.

 

[Shears]

I was thinking about writing a client from the ground up, for other reasons than having a better online play service. I've only just started using kaillera and I'm not too familiar with it but I'd be willing to work with some people in developing a replacement.

People can ***** about kaillera but I don't think most people realize the difficulty in creating these applications especially when they get bigger than anticipated and when different hands have been reaching into the same pot.

 

[MattNF]

You guys know about SSBM Online? Not the online through dolphin netplay, but the dedicated client that is (was?) being made by Internet Explorer.

I heard he was going to work on SSB64 after he finished his work on SSBMO and Project M.

But that would probably be a long way away....

 

[Sangoku]

I was thinking about writing a client from the ground up, for other reasons than having a better online play service. I've only just started using kaillera and I'm not too familiar with it but I'd be willing to work with some people in developing a replacement.

For what reasons would it be?

People can ***** about kaillera but I don't think most people realize the difficulty in creating these applications especially when they get bigger than anticipated and when different hands have been reaching into the same pot.

We criticize kaillera because we've always been told it was badly written. Of course it doesn't mean we don't realise how hard it is to write something like that. This is also why I said I don't know if kaillera is actually close to perfection (in terms of theoretical limitations).

You guys know about SSBM Online? Not the online through dolphin netplay, but the dedicated client that is (was?) being made by Internet Explorer.

I heard he was going to work on SSB64 after he finished his work on SSBMO and Project M.

But that would probably be a long way away....

Yeah I heard that as well, but seeing the pace of it, I'm not sure if it's a good idea to count on it too much. I mean, he's doing a great job and for free, so it's totally his right not to push himself too much. That being said, it still means things go slowly.

 

[KnitePhox]

dolphin netplay uses servers (somehow) now

iirc, IE and whoever his partners were gave codes or some other form of help to dolphin (JMC,Syrox,Upke ETC) guys out


i just have this hearsay knowledge, i am unsure if it actually happened (foggy memory on all this) but i was chatting with JMC and i BELIEVE that's what he told me

if any of this info helps voobly or future ssb64/n64 netplay, BEST

otherwise

 

[Shears]

I don't know too much about the inception of kaillera but I'm guessing its poor coding has less to do with logic and more to do with its disorganization, which does lead to bad logic. From what I've read there have been changes and additions made informally, so its a bunch of spaghetti code. That doesn't mean it was poorly done, it means it was poorly planned. The scope of its initial design probably wasn't to be what it is today so its current state is a bunch of people poorly stacking features on top. My guess is it doesn't have great error handling or optimization.

My interest in making it is more from a business standpoint. Having this kind of tool can lead to a lot of ideas and applications that can be profitable and it can be used outside of playing 64. It also gives me something else to do on my free time.

 

[Skrlx]

My man Shears.

 

[Han Solo]

I don't know too much about the inception of kaillera but I'm guessing its poor coding has less to do with logic and more to do with its disorganization, which does lead to bad logic. From what I've read there have been changes and additions made informally, so its a bunch of spaghetti code. That doesn't mean it was poorly done, it means it was poorly planned. The scope of its initial design probably wasn't to be what it is today so its current state is a bunch of people poorly stacking features on top. My guess is it doesn't have great error handling or optimization.

My interest in making it is more from a business standpoint. Having this kind of tool can lead to a lot of ideas and applications that can be profitable and it can be used outside of playing 64. It also gives me something else to do on my free time.

If you need any help with anything, I could help. I'm always looking for things to put on a resume.

 

[Madao]

So how do you plan on getting an emulator to work with noobly?

I'm wondering the same thing.

Also are you guys sure that kailera is the main problem? I hear that Mupen64k desynchs less than pj64k, so it seems that there are other issues. I don't know why you guys would use outdated emulators for netplay though. Anyone ever try 1964's netplay? That emulator seems pretty good although I didn't try it's netplay.

I agree with the people who suggested to make a new client.

 

[EggSelent]

I'd probably be willing to at least contribute a bit... I don't think I'll have the time or motivation to work on the core features, but I would be interested in doing things to help improve the user experience. For instance, I could design a GUI that doesn't look like it's from the 90s. Another idea would be to have a sort of user authentication system which could allow you to hog a nickname for yourself, keep track of your matches vs. opponents maybe, playtime, and other stats. That would be pretty easy to do I think.

 

[Agent 21 iXi]

So how do you plan on getting an emulator to work with noobly?

[2/21/2014 6:32:51 PM | Edited 6:34:55 PM] username: what needs to happen is:

- create server software from scratch
- create a client for the server software
- integrate the client's SDK into either Mupen or PJ64. (Notice I did not say pj64K.)
- patched ROM with automatic 5 stocks, no items, and automatically goes into the char select screen

EDIT: make all of the aforementioned open source
[2/21/2014 6:33:35 PM] username: Anything else is a plus.

As quoted by Near.

 

[MrMarbles]

[2/21/2014 6:32:51 PM | Edited 6:34:55 PM]patched ROM with automatic 5 stocks, no items, and automatically goes into the char select screen

i do not approve of this. practicing setup is very important for when u switch to console. if you can't setup in under 5 seconds you are a scrub

 

[Cobrevolution]

SUCK IT UP MARBLES

 

[Sangoku]

i do not approve of this. practicing setup is very important for when u switch to console. if you can't setup in under 5 seconds you are a scrub

That's probably the part of my gameplay that impresses the most my noob friends.

 

[Cobrevolution]

it's going well, guys. 51 yes and frequent, 13 yes and sometimes, 7 yes and won't play, 11 no's.

but i've seen a lot of posts by people that are already members of voobly, while they want lots of new members - so i urgeeee you to register for an account, vote, and give a small statement with your input or opinion.

and if you registered to vote and didn't say something, i'd appreciate it if you made a post.

 

[Madao]

I'd probably be willing to at least contribute a bit... Another idea would be to have a sort of user authentication system which could allow you to hog a nickname for yourself, keep track of your matches vs. opponents maybe, playtime, and other stats. That would be pretty easy to do I think.

I'd be willing to contribute as well. I could help with the stats and record part.

- integrate the client's SDK into either Mupen or PJ64. (Notice I did not say pj64K.)
- patched ROM with automatic 5 stocks, no items, and automatically goes into the char select screen

I've already patched rom. Only issue is the black lines. My way around that was to hack the crc check, but doing that makes most emulators display error messages with the message box. I went as far as removing the message box errors in pj64k . One last flaw with the patch is that it would break training mode. Hopefully someone here is good at programming and will be able to integrate netplay into pj64 / Mupen. I'd do it if I had more programming knowledge. I'm especially lacking in network knowledge.

 

[EggSelent]

I'd be willing to contribute as well. I could help with the stats and record part.

I've already patched rom. Only issue is the black lines. My way around that was to hack the crc check, but doing that makes most emulators display error messages with the message box. I went as far as removing the message box errors in pj64k . One last flaw with the patch is that it would break training mode. Hopefully someone here is good at programming and will be able to integrate netplay into pj64 / Mupen. I'd do it if I had more programming knowledge. I'm especially lacking in network knowledge.

Any idea how hard it'd be to hook into the emulator and automatically tally things like character selections, stage choices, number of times each move used, missed Z cancels, etc?

 

[Madao]

Any idea how hard it'd be to hook into the emulator and automatically tally things like character selections, stage choices, number of times each move used, missed Z cancels, etc?

Those are tough ones lol. Idk how you'd be able to count missed Z cancels. With some good logic, you'd be able to keep track of character and stage selection. You just have to have the program know when to do the tallying. I haven't figured out how the game determines what moves are stale yet, so the number of times each move will take time for me to figure out. So far I did find a variable that keeps track of the number of hits you've done on someone since the time of your last death.

I will probably look into how to find the number of times each move is used.

 

[firo]

Every so often there is talk about rewriting clients and the state of kaillera. Although there's always still plenty to learn I've spent a lot of time with Kaillera and figured I can offer some insights.

First, when we talk about "kaillera," there's really two things going on here - the server, which is emulinker, and the client, which in this case is Ownaclient. Voobly appears to be a business and I don't think they would take on smash64 and get involved with emulators. It also would not be open sourced which is a big deal.

Agent is correct in that the server code is not worth messing with, primarily because there is no nice source for it. However, I wouldn't say it is poorly written. The kaillera protocol was designed in the age of dial-up connections, and works well, all things considered, but is lacking some features that are common today. Kaillera isn't "bad," its just that technology and tools have advanced enough that current things are making kaillera seem worse and worse over time. Shears, I'm not sure what your background is, but I'd be happy to delve into the code and talk about some more technical aspects of things if you'd like.

Here's a list of things that can be reasonably expected if everything was to be rewritten with what's available today:
-Desync detection and ability to roll back to a save state
-Better lobby and username system
-Less lag outs, and system rejoining (if a user disconnects, they would be able to rejoin and load a save state so they could resume play)
-Easier 4-player p2p with NAT traversal (p2p without forwarding ports)
-Less server downtime
-Much better user experience and GUI using mupen64plus

Here's a list of things that most reasonably will NOT be improved by rewriting kaillera:
-Less desyncs (Mupen is probably better at this than pj64 so this may improve, but it is an emulator issue and not a netplay issue)
-Less input delay (p2p kaillera is as best as it can get)
-Better/more consistent ping times

Here's a list of things that can probably be done but may be outside the scope of the project:
-Cross platform play (Windows, Linux, OSX, Android, Wii, etc)
-Stat tracking

I've been involved with a couple projects to rewrite Kaillera but they all have died for one reason or another, which is common.

I have some time and I'd be willing to lead a development team to do what needs to be done to implement a new kaillera protocol. My area of interest in programming is networking and distributed systems so I think it would work well. If we wanted to do this, it would need to be composed of at least 2 other developers who are very committed to getting this done within a reasonable time. This would mean weekly scheduled skype calls, code reviews upon checkins, etc. We'd probably have something presentable come summertime if everyone involved put in atleast a few hours every week. I'd work mainly on the backend server code, and would want some people with experience/willingness to learn in the areas I know least about:

-Native Windows C++ and networking (interfacing with mupen)
-GUI frameworks (platform-independent if possible, e.g. Qt)
-Low-level memory/MIPS knowledge, to retrieve stats and synchronization variables

That being said the more people involved, the better. This would be a good way to get some experience developing stuff if that's what you are looking for.

 

[Sangoku]

Thanks a lot for that informative post. If you want to lead a project, feel free to make a new thread and see who would be interested/capable of helping. Unfortunately the red part is what I'd be most interested in seeing improved.

 

[EggSelent]

Every so often there is talk about rewriting clients and the state of kaillera. Although there's always still plenty to learn I've spent a lot of time with Kaillera and figured I can offer some insights.

First, when we talk about "kaillera," there's really two things going on here - the server, which is emulinker, and the client, which in this case is Ownaclient. Voobly appears to be a business and I don't think they would take on smash64 and get involved with emulators. It also would not be open sourced which is a big deal.

Agent is correct in that the server code is not worth messing with, primarily because there is no nice source for it. However, I wouldn't say it is poorly written. The kaillera protocol was designed in the age of dial-up connections, and works well, all things considered, but is lacking some features that are common today. Kaillera isn't "bad," its just that technology and tools have advanced enough that current things are making kaillera seem worse and worse over time. Shears, I'm not sure what your background is, but I'd be happy to delve into the code and talk about some more technical aspects of things if you'd like.

Here's a list of things that can be reasonably expected if everything was to be rewritten with what's available today:
-Desync detection and ability to roll back to a save state
-Better lobby and username system
-Less lag outs, and system rejoining (if a user disconnects, they would be able to rejoin and load a save state so they could resume play)
-Easier 4-player p2p with NAT traversal (p2p without forwarding ports)
-Less server downtime
-Much better user experience and GUI using mupen64plus

Here's a list of things that most reasonably will NOT be improved by rewriting kaillera:
-Less desyncs (Mupen is probably better at this than pj64 so this may improve, but it is an emulator issue and not a netplay issue)
-Less input delay (p2p kaillera is as best as it can get)
-Better/more consistent ping times

Here's a list of things that can probably be done but may be outside the scope of the project:
-Cross platform play (Windows, Linux, OSX, Android, Wii, etc)
-Stat tracking

I've been involved with a couple projects to rewrite Kaillera but they all have died for one reason or another, which is common.

I have some time and I'd be willing to lead a development team to do what needs to be done to implement a new kaillera protocol. My area of interest in programming is networking and distributed systems so I think it would work well. If we wanted to do this, it would need to be composed of at least 2 other developers who are very committed to getting this done within a reasonable time. This would mean weekly scheduled skype calls, code reviews upon checkins, etc. We'd probably have something presentable come summertime if everyone involved put in atleast a few hours every week. I'd work mainly on the backend server code, and would want some people with experience/willingness to learn in the areas I know least about:

-Native Windows C++ and networking (interfacing with mupen)
-GUI frameworks (platform-independent if possible, e.g. Qt)
-Low-level memory/MIPS knowledge, to retrieve stats and synchronization variables

That being said the more people involved, the better. This would be a good way to get some experience developing stuff if that's what you are looking for.

Interdasting.

If we're restricting the client to Windows we might as well use Visual Studio and all those m$ libraries. I'm positive I could design a reasonably sleek interface in Photoshop. I would definitely put in the time if I thought there were competent people I could learn from (say, you). The net statistics stuff would be easy from the server-side perspective if we used something like PHP + mySQL or Node.js + MongoDB.

I'm not entirely sure how the networking works on Windows. About five years ago I wrote an HTTP wrapper using Winsock using C++. Basically, it just consisted of a few classes that allowed one to do something like

httpWrapper* wrapper = new httpWrapper();
char* source = wrapper->request("GET", "http://smashboards.com");

and get the response data. It also automatically parsed and handled cookies, allowed the option to load / delete cookies, spoof referers, customize HTTP headers to adjust things like the user-agent header, etc. Again, that was five years ago, so it might take me a week or two to get back up to speed. I also know MIPS assembly (the basics at least, such as the 3 instruction formats, the registers, most the basic instructions, how the MIPS datapath works, etc) and C.

Somebody should make the Github repo(s) and start working on the foundations.