I had this idea to make a chat client built into the game iteself (similer to the lobby server deal only with chat client not game list) this way people can talk to one another without having to be in a game and such but anyways im here to offer support on this subject and thought maybe you would be interested in giving this a try on a new version of soldat =D[:-devil]

Basically we could use an existing IRC server for it.. some small network, I guess.

I could help Michal with the IRC protocol (pretty easy).
umm.. basically Soldat would connect to the server and join a channel (which will be hidden).. you can see a list of users, talk and message single users.

The only problem is.. which network allows that? Some admins might have a problem with a channel accessed by hundreds (?) of spammers..

One game has it there is much messages like:

JOIN MY GAME JOIN MY GAMEJOIN MY GAMEJOIN MY GAMEJOIN MY GAMEJOIN MY GAMEJOIN MY GAMEJOIN MY GAMEJOIN MY GAMEJOIN MY GAMEJOIN MY GAMEJOIN MY GAMEJOIN MY GAMEJOIN MY GAMEJOIN MY GAMEJOIN MY GAMEJOIN MY GAMEJOIN MY GAMEJOIN MY GAMEJOIN MY GAMEJOIN MY GAMEJOIN MY GAMEJOIN MY GAMEJOIN MY GAMEJOIN MY GAMEJOIN MY GAMEJOIN MY GAMEJOIN MY GAMEJOIN MY GAMEJOIN MY GAMEJOIN MY GAMEJOIN MY GAMEJOIN MY GAMEJOIN MY GAMEJOIN MY GAMEJOIN MY GAMEJOIN MY GAMEJOIN MY GAME


It would need somekind of flood protection (it has if its irc based) jjust for pre-warning

Hmm yea IRC would be pretty good and it isnt very hard but the network deal may be a prob -_- but yea it was just a crazy idea but i think it would be prtty neat :D

BTW drama i like your jazz jackrabbit Avatar =D

ty (old school games rock)

Why don't we all just run mIRC in the background? Hours of coding solved... :P

because noobs cant install it

lolz... but it must not be to difficult to make a chat in soldat...
but then you must have just a few channels ...with topics... not "made by player" channels...
in each channel must be a superuser or moderator... there must be people which will like to do that..( me!!)

I think it would be nice to have a built in chat-engine that could send messages to anyone who has the Soldat client open. For instance if someone is in-game, and someone else is in another game, you could message them from the other game. That way you could give your server details, or just share battle gossip. Then again, I think it may be a bit of a task to route messages from one server IP to another.. and may cause lag as well. If there would be a way to be bandwidth-efficient, as well as user-friendly; then this would be a good incorporation, I have found myself wanting this feature on several occasions.

there is chat clients even in php/asp/perl... cant be hard with deplhi

You should have made your avatar Spaz eating a bird :P
</offtopic>
This would be cool if you could turn on a private chat thing, then you could talk to people and keep track of them if you want to go to a different server or make your own one to duel on or something.

This sounds a bit like Battle.net :)

I love the idea.

Eeurh, aren't there sometimes 200+ players at the lobby??? Wouldn't be easy to follow a conversation there...
Or do you mean chat by server?

Jazzman, there would be different channels (rooms) on one server.
Maybe something like "General chat", "Clan spot", "Beginners", "Deathmatch games", "Team-games" etc.
You could actually use a buddy list... add someone's nick and see IF he's online and which room he is in.

An IRC-esque chat isn't really what Soldat needs. It would be more convenient if we could have the in-game chat and talk to anyone that is on the game at any time. For example, if you use the All-Seeing-Eye, you can see which players are in each server by selecting the server and looking at the "More Info" box at the bottom. If the ASE can read these packets and see what the player names are, and the Soldat game runs on the UDP packets; then shouldn't we be able to send packets to other servers, based on where the players are and if you want to send a message to that player name. Also; if we did that we would want to take into consideration the ease of changing names.. There are no registered player names for Soldat.. so you could be talking to a completely different person. However, if we were to make a registered name option for Soldat, rather than allow them to use any name they want, there would be chaos - mostly between the newer unregistered players -- But I think that all of the older veteran players would not mind, since they usually only use one name, anyhow. Either way, a chat mod for soldat, or even if we did IRC - would take a lot of planning out. By the developers of this chat mod, they want to do the IRC-type chat for Soldat, when in fact a lot of the other people may enjoy having in game chat. For instance a command in soldat "CMD: /chat Stealth Hey man what's up? Come play in my server "Stealth's Elite" Cya!"

Anyhow, take my words into consideration.

Thanks.

Who would provide a server for registering nicknames etc.? Nah.. I don't think that's going to happen.

Stealth, do you want to message a person PLAYING on ANOTHER server? that'd be pretty hard and unreliable.

The IRC-way (actually using an existing IRC server) wouldn't cost anything if we find a nice admin. The programming part would be quite easy and moderators aren't really necessary, although it couldn't hurt. Just have a look at the WormNet (worms world party, dunno about W:A etc.), they censor common stuff like [:-censored] [:-censored] [:-censored] (oh, see :d) and they have a flood protection too. A simple /ignore function would be neat (either ignoring the nick OR the hostmask).
Talking with someone who fakes the nick/identity? Oh, well that could happen on a game-server too and you'll have to live with it. Anyway, when you really want to talk with someone you'd use something like ICQ, MSN or IRC where you can be sure that you're talking to the one you want.
It'd be very nice for arranging games with special modes etc. like on WormNet

Maybe we should just wait some time until Michal has more time..

And a Registered only Lobby plz ... ;) That's cool but somehow a really good idea to prevent spam is needed. Look at Gunbound... That's horrible!

[some1] Selling Items!!!!
[some1] Selling Items!!!!
[some1] Selling Items!!!!
[some1] Selling Items!!!!
[some2] Will cyber for items!!!!!
[some2] Will cyber for items!!!!!
[some2] Will cyber for items!!!!!
[some2] Will cyber for items!!!!!
[some1] Selling Items!!!!

Like someone before said (don't remember the name and too lazy to look it up.)

You're right, b00sta. But it's just kind of tedious to have to alt-tab between a game and IRC; yet it's not bad if you can communicate with everyone. But, it would be easier if someone could develop a program to hook onto the Soldat client. I think Soldat was programmed in Delphi? If it was I'm not sure if you can hook a client. I know that you can hook other plugins onto C++ based applications; that run on the Win32 Coding API. Yet, I think Delphi requires Pascal-- Either way, all the technical jargon aside. If it was possible to hook a plugin onto Soldat while it still runs full-screen with small packet capability. It would be nice. Perhaps we could just hit a small binded key to make the IRC Chat client drop down into Soldat and we could send text to the irc server and still see what other people are saying. Since mIRC isn't laggy at all, it would be very efficient inside of the game. I kind of put down words as they come to my head, some of this might sound irrelevant or even out of context. But for the most part, bare with me and understand. b00sta I think you are a programmer, yes? You know what I mean by a client hook, right? - I think that would be a good option for a chat inside Soldat. This way, we could chat with everyone that connects to the IRC server. The plugin could automatically connect them to the IRC server. If they press the binded key to minimize the irc chat console in the game, it would put an away message beside of their name, noting (Stealth - IN GAME) And when they press the binded key to pring the chat console back up, it would bring them back to (Stealth). Anyhow, many possibilities.. if we can discuss further with Michal, if their would be a way to hook the client and still have it fullscreen, I've never tried it; I've only done windowed program hooks with C++.

Anyhow, think about it.

Nah, I don't know one compilable programming language.
Only mIRC and PHP scripting..

I'd just add another tab to the menu between "Join game" and "Options"..
Michal could use existing codes for IRC clients and adjust it for Soldat.
Why should I talk on IRC when I'm playing on a server right now? I'm not sure about that.. but when you join a game you should stay connected to IRC.

well its look al pretty simple but im sure it isnt.. anyhow i really like this idea.. iv seen it before in a game (Uplink) and i really liked it there it just adds a little bit more to it..
also it would lower the number of noobie questions and posts out here cuz then newer players..(satisfied Stealth?(n00bs..)) would ask them inthere.. which i think isnt such a problem since inthere the scroll by but here they keep showing untill the topics finally dies..

Sub

I don't really like the word "noobie" ; just because you sit in a chair doing something longer than they have, and they are just starting and have a question -- does not make you better. Why can't you just say "new-player" Noobie is rather offensive.

This would be a great idea, I just hope it doesn't LAG to many peoples computers.

How much lag have you experienced from a chat/IM client? Personally I have got NONE, unless it was loaded with emoticon flooding.

a good idea at all but a lot of hours with work will be filled with this and the possibily of more and more bugs implented with this increases. i think it will be a neverendind story :>