[High Treason]

I have been toying around with the idea for some time, but I have made a "Master Server" (of sorts) for the Client/Server multiplayer.

The program I have created is nothing brilliant at all and simply causes a list on my server to be manipulated and a profile to be created for each duke server whilst it is active. I will probably update the program over time, but my aim is to get more people online and encourage someone to write a better one than mine. The program relies on the command line interface and FTP client in Windows and is barely more than a script, it would be prettier, but this is early days, my coding is lame and Windows doesn't support ANSI anymore - but that's another story that I won't go into.

You can get the programs here; ftp://treason.dyndns.org/DukeMSNEW.zip

The Client and Server programs are rather self explanatory, but I shall give you a quick guide of them:

Extract the files to the EDuke32 directory, you must have EDuke32.exe in the same directory - also the program sometimes crashes if no log file is present, so you should probably have run EDuke in single player at least once, I will fix this later.

Making a Server
Run DukeServer.exe and fill in the required fields, these will be what a client sees when they look up your server from the list, the player name you type is passed to the game when it starts. Do not close the window while you are running Duke, as your server won't be removed from the list when you quit the game if you do, that'll be your problem more than mine, I can just remove it when I see it has been there a few days, but you might not be able to start a new server in that time if you closed that window.

Connecting to a Server
Run DukeClient.exe and wait, you will be passed a list of active servers, all you have to do is type the IP of the one you want, then it gives you a description and will let you connect or go back to the list. Despite what it says, the client launcher can be closed whilst running EDuke32, but leaving it open will do no harm.

Known Bugs/If you find a bug
> Windows might ask you about firewalls and permissions, the program will try to connect to my FTP Server, this is normal, but if you don't feel comfortable doing that, then don't use it.

> Sometimes the launcher just closes itself, no idea why, possibly a side effect of the following;

> Error messages appear where I should have put IF statements in the code, I will fix this later

> I've seen it log into the server and sit there waiting for you to do things, if it does this, type quit and press enter, also please tell me if this happens and don't mess with anything.

If you find a bug, please tell me about it quickly, as I'm probably causing a hole in security be running my server in such a way to start with.

I am currently hosting a server to test it out with this build; http://dukeworld.duk.../20100320-1619/ the game is not running though. But if you want a quick game on it, then by all means ask, and if I'm still around I will probably oblige.

[Jblade]

Nice work, having a server list is one of the main benefits of this whole new system

[Lunick]

Ok so there is a server on now, who's is it?

[LoWang]

hello it does not work because it cannot find getme.dat ftp script. Can you add it or tell me how to fix it? Thanks

[High Treason]

That's interesting, it is supposed to make the script when it starts and then remove it when it has finished, this was to increase security before I had any way of securing the Virtual Directories properly, I shall have a look later and see what is going on, but at some point the file has to have the IP address of the server you want inside it, which means I have no choice but to keep that part dynamically written.

I suppose it could be that the computer hasn't actually written the file yet when it tries to access it, I might try to add a slight delay there and an error handle as well to see what is going on. It could be unrelated to that file, as my ISP decided to cut my internet off for about 4 hours, and then some more while I was asleep.

Also keep in mind, that it will always print this error and usually carry on, this is just a place that I forgot to add an IF statement. Also, I don't think anybody has hosted a server using this program yet, so you likely won't see anything in the list.

Obviously for now I still reccomend people either pre-arrange a game so nothing like this is needed or use YANG, which I hope will have something like my app but better implemented at some point in the future. Which reminds me, if anyone does make something better than this but can't find a place to host it, you could always put it on my server, seeing as it's there already.

[LoWang]

it obviously fails to create that file in the game directory, but anyway I guess even if this works it won't help us with the other problem we have. Check the other topic please.