Chaos/Prem, EG, and Powerball shared arenas

[Corey]

I see this bug as a problem mainly as what Cerium pointed out. But then again, I'm just a player. What do I matter?

[Stag Shot]

Who knew this would generate so much heated discussion..As for the "bug," it is an unfortunate side-effect of the new feature. And yes fixing it would probably be trivial in subgame/fix.dll (I've added commands/features to SG, back when PB still ran it). But the zones hosted on prickt's box don't even have access to the binaries, so who knows whether any changes can even be implemented. I really don't have the drive to keep hacking up SG, most serious zones should've converted to asss by now (I understand hosting is the big problem). The BEST solution is to have prickt modify the few lines of code in fix.dll to fix this. And we know he is still "semi-active," as TW received a SG update as recent as September.

 

As for the philosophical debate, I don't care to get involved in it. It's a voluntary system, every zone controls whether they want in or out.

 

I wasn't aware of any *sendto problems..I know the ?redirect cmd in asss zones is unaffected.

[JoWie]

There are workarounds for the missing feature that would not require modifying subgame.

For example, you could write a directory client that uses the peer protocol to figure out the proper population.

[»Maverick]

What do you mean with peer protocol?

As I see it now, there is no reliable way to overcome the problem of population inflation caused by the new functionality. This is because subgame simply reports the total population as being higher then normal because of the subarenas.

The only possible fix is to query a bot for the population of the arenas excluding those of the other zones. But using a bot would be very unreliable.

[spidernl]

The real solution is to admit that these subarenas aren't there for the .1 millisecond of time they save people who want to switch zones, but that they are there to increase the population visible to the client to draw players to the zone. Once that's admitted, they can simple be removed. No 'fix' to subgame is necessary.

[Hakaku]

Personally, I think it's an interesting idea that's worth a shot, and it saves me over 2 minutes of wait time trying to connect to a different zone due to PriitK's biller, and it also entices me to check out zones I otherwise would ignore. Population statistics have been skewed in SubSpace for years, so I really couldn't care less. We all know the game is dead, there's no point in trying to claim that further skewing is somehow an attempt to gain population. If you believe this, you're living in the wrong reality.

[JoWie]

What do you mean with peer protocol?

As I see it now, there is no reliable way to overcome the problem of population inflation caused by the new functionality. This is because subgame simply reports the total population as being higher then normal because of the subarenas.

The only possible fix is to query a bot for the population of the arenas excluding those of the other zones. But using a bot would be very unreliable.

 

I assumed the zones were using this protocol (I have very little experience with subgame).

 

Snrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrub reverse engineered the peer protocol, it lets you

• list all players in the zone
  
• broadcast arena messages (like *zone)
  
• retreive the total player count, this count would report the actual numbers of players present on that server
  

 SubSpace Peer Protocol

Author: Sharvil Nanavati
sharvil.nanavati@gmail.com

The information contained in this document is based entirely off of my
own reverse-engineering efforts.

SubSpace game servers can communicate with each other via the SubSpace
Peer protocol. Unlike most other protocols in SubSpace, the peer
protocol does not make use of the SubSpace Control Protocol. Rather, it
uses lightweight datagrams and accepts packets based on a whitelist of
the datagram source's (IP, port) pair.

All packets have the following form:

00 01 <passwordHash (4)> FF <type (1)> <timestamp (4)> <payload>

The passwordHash is a CRC32 of the password in server.ini. The payload
depends on the type field and their formats are described below (type
values shown in blue).


Peer-to-Peer Protocol

------------------------------------------------------------------------

/01: Player List/

This packet is sent if SendPlayerList=1 and at least one player is in
the zone. It lists all arenas in the zone with a list of all players in
each arena. The list of players for a given arena is null terminated as
indicated by the 00 field below. The arenaID field is a random 32-bit
integer that is associated with each arena at the time of its creation.
An arena maintains its arenaID until the arena gets re-created or
manually recycled.


{

	<arenaID (4)>

	<arenaName (asciiZ)>

	{

		<playerName (asciiZ)>

	}

	00

} (repeated until end of packet)

------------------------------------------------------------------------

/02: Chat Message/

When a peer receives this packet, it broadcasts it as if it were a
zone-wide message (*zone).


<type:0 (1)>					- currently ignored by subgame, can
be anything

<message (asciiZ)>

------------------------------------------------------------------------

/03: Unknown/Unused/

The format of this packet is known but not the format of the message.
Perhaps the action associated with this packet is disabled in the
current release of subgame.


<unused (1)>

<message (asciiZ)>

------------------------------------------------------------------------

/04: Player Count/

This packet is sent if SendPlayerList=0 or there are no players in the
zone. The player count is the total number of players in the zone.


<playerCount (2)>

------------------------------------------------------------------------

He also made an asss module

[Avast]

Personally, I think it's an interesting idea that's worth a shot, and it saves me over 2 minutes of wait time trying to connect to a different zone due to PriitK's biller, and it also entices me to check out zones I otherwise would ignore. Population statistics have been skewed in SubSpace for years, so I really couldn't care less. We all know the game is dead, there's no point in trying to claim that further skewing is somehow an attempt to gain population. If you believe this, you're living in the wrong reality.

 

This is wrong, so I couldn't care less if that is wrong also. This is known as the fallacy called Two wrongs make a right. This is an illgoical way to make an argument. You may look this up in google. Plainly speaking just because people abused bots to gain 20+ populations doesn't mean it was the correct thing to lie to players, and it doesn't make it any more right to lie to players now.

 

Also if saving 2 milliseconds is all it took to entice you to try a new zone, that says a lot about what type of player you are. It means even if this idea does entice you to play another zone, you by your own admission would be a flake. So in reality this idea is not enitcing the right type of people to try zones, which means the enticing of players is a moot point and irrelevent since those players could care less about other zones anyway and are just their on a whim.

 

Someone who REALLY wanted to play another zone would ESC Q exit one zone, and enter another. People who wanted to try DSB would have done this ages ago. The fact remains 2 milliseconds or 30 seconds no one wanted to try DSB all these years, and no small features will entice them to do so now. They don't play DSB because the zone fails. Not because it took them 30 extra seconds to exit their zones and play there.

Edited November 16, 2011 by Avast

[»Ceiu]

The real problem here is that the people who implemented it aren't willing to admit that it's a ploy to bring in new people. As I've said before, there are options which provide the same "convenience" feature that is saving "over two minutes" (lulz, right) of time without completely destroying a core function of the game's protocol. The fact that these options aren't explored and people are, instead, looking for excuses as to why it can't be done speaks volumes for the actual reason behind it. To spell it out for everyone: The people who can fix this are dragging their feet because the inflated pop numbers makes them look better off than they are. Nothing more.

 

Those responsible need to take a step back and realize the damage they're doing. But, naturally, they won't because making excuses is easier than doing it right the first time.

[Dr Brain]

And subgame can just have the arenas, so you do "?go name" and it sends you. But won't list the arena with the population which is what the purpose is. It isn't for "boosting our zone's pops", but for treating our zones like normal sub arenas of each other for players to hop around where they please.

 

I guess this is the part that annoys me the most. The sysops claim that the main population isn't important, but at the same time they're not willing to settle for bots-in-arenas because it'd mess up the arena population display. At best it's hypocrisy and at worst it's a lie.

[Hakaku]

I'm not providing any excuses for anyone, I just said it's more convenient, for me.

 

Also if saving 2 milliseconds is all it took to entice you to try a new zone, that says a lot about what type of player you are. It means even if this idea does entice you to play another zone, you by your own admission would be a flake. So in reality this idea is not enitcing the right type of people to try zones, which means the enticing of players is a moot point and irrelevent since those players could care less about other zones anyway and are just their on a whim.

Saving 2 milliseconds isn't the same thing as saving 2 minutes, for me (Yes, it doesn't always take this long, but most of the time I connect during off-hours, it does). If it takes me 6 minutes to just check things out in 3 different zones (note: I never said anything about trying a new zone), I'm not going to even bother because it's a huge waste of my time. So what am I more likely to do? Ignore all other zones. The added functionality means that I can easily check up on what's going on in other zones and play immediately without having to exit completely, wait 2 minutes, check the zone, and risk the potential of having to wait another 2 minutes to get back in the zone I was originally in.

 

The rest of your argument here is incoherent. You cannot prove nor disprove that having this feature wouldn't tempt players to hop around a little more than they normally would. Which is why it's worth testing out for a bit and then reevaluating its impact.

 

Either way, I'm not justifying that "breaking" the population statistics is a good thing. That's a matter that needs to be addressed, and others have already voiced their concern. I'm not going to be a broken record and repeat this. I've simply stated that I personally don't care. I'm also not the one implementing this feature, and I don't have any intentions of doing so. And if you want me to add to the fire, then Hyperspace's reaction was completely childish and it's a shame. It also highlights the inherent problem of our community: lack of proper communication and lots of in-fighting.

 

But if you so desire for me to join your mob of anger, then I'd add that we needn't 'merge' the zones in a way that causes "detrimental damage". What we need is an alternative solution that explores ways to get players checking more of the entire game out, i.e. beyond the scope of a single zone. Further, we need to take a step back and evaluate the real cause for the more alarming demise of some zones over others. And lastly, if the problem with bot inflation is equally important and doesn't justify the current issue, maybe we should actually address that problem too. Instead of acting like it doesn't exist.

[»Ceiu]

Question: What good is that population display if it's broken?

 

Also: The bot nonsense is what it is. So long as you guys continue to run subgame, those bots are a necessity. Yes, there are people abusing them for population tricks, but that's a different problem entirely. Don't cloud the issue.

[Hakaku]

Cerium, who are you talking to? Who is "you guys"? I'm not even involved in any of the zones that implemented this feature; Devastation runs asss.

[Cheese]

lol @ jowie

A+

[Avast]

The rest of your argument here is incoherent. You cannot prove nor disprove that having this feature wouldn't tempt players to hop around a little more than they normally would. Which is why it's worth testing out for a bit and then reevaluating its impact.

 

Lets use Polix as an example. (it may not be true but serves the purpose of the examples)

 

If Polix for example hops around more. He was a player who already played in more than one zone. As you already stated. "If it takes me 6 minutes to just check things out in 3 different zones (note: I never said anything about trying a new zone)" Polix probably already plays Chaos and Powerball, and sometimes EG, so of course he will use this feature to travel between zones and play there ocassionally. This never had to be argued because it was obvious.

 

If Polix hops around more. He was a player who already had interests in other zones, for example because his position in the game requires him to be in more than one place. So he already travelled to EG or Powerball to check up on things way before this feature was implemented. However despite his curiosity the only zone he would ever play is the one that he likes and always played all these years. Which is Chaos zone.

 

So far the two groups I listed are different. One group of players always hopped around and always played many zones. Another group of players always hopped around, but only enjoyed one zone.

 

If Polix was a new player. Who just installed subspace yesterday. This is the only case where this feature will actually get people to try new zones. (since for everyone else zones are not new, and they know what to expect there) Since this is the only way for the feature to actually provide anything, it makes the feature pointless, because we only get one new player a week at best.

 

If Polix was a player who never hopped around. And always stayed in Choas zone. But now this feature was implimented. Would he hop around? That is the only question left. My answer is, if he wanted to be somewhere else, he would have done it before when we had ESC Q. No matter how much time he saves now, I doubt his motivation to be somewhere else would change. Even if it did, it is pointless, because you only enticed out of 150 players, a small percentage of that, to move between the same zones. This means one zone loses people, and another gains. But overall nothing changes. Again zones sharing arenas is only valid if you had new players in subspace. Which we don't.

 

We don't need to test anything if you had a brain to logically think about it. And besides it's been up for 1 - 2 weeks, and DSB still has 20 population. The reason is, no matter how conveniant it is to enter a zone, no one will want to be in the zone if the zone fails to them. And luckily for my example, Most everyone can agree DSB fails in some way or another.

 

I am not against this idea of sharing arenas. I am opposed to DSB doing it, because for them its a wrong method to get current subspace players into their zone. If they wanted people from EG to play DSB, they would first have to fix their zone to bring players there. Not try to bring players to a fail zone. DSB has alot of development, and work to do. They should focus on that, not on this shit. Aside from that arena sharing could be a good idea, but because it skewed the population stats, i am now against it and always will be until the populations display properly.

Edited November 17, 2011 by Avast

[»LtNirvana]

I'll throw my 2 cents in if anyone gives a piss.

 

I just came back to SS this week to see if it was dead yet, and noticed how bananas everything seemed. Someone told me you could hop to other zones through subarenas now and I naturally thought "Oh they must have set up bots in subs that just sendto, thats nice of everyone" but then realized all the subs were showing pops from different zones and totally fudging up the population counters for any involved. What the crap is the point of this if not to just put a population facade up for SS as a community? We're really going to make ourselves seem like a bunch of asshats like this.

 

Seriously... each one of these zones could just create a sub with the destination zone name and pop a high level bang bot in there to sendto the destination. Same desired effect without totally decimating the games built in population statistics. Only a few bots, big woop.

 

The problem here is not so much effecting players trying to get an accurate gauge on what zones have people in so they can ACTUALLY PLAY A GAME, even though thats definitely a friggin pain in the ass now, but moreso in us as a COMMUNITY looking like a bunch of jerks who are ashamed of what our game has become hiding behind bullshit trying to TRICK PEOPLE into playing SS.

 

We are better than this. The last thing we need right now is to look like a bunch of jerks. Tricking potential new players is not going to do us any good, it will only serve to infuriate people and they will just leave instantly after they feel like our elitist community has just taken a dump on them with fake population stats. We need to embrace our community, embrace the state of our game, and just enjoy it while it lasts. Either fix this bug (which will never happen) or just replace this goofball function with bots that sendto.

 

Also, that argument that this is a voluntary thing doesn't really fly, since the participants make up 3/4 of the population of SS at current. Makes it kind of mandatory to not isolate yourself from the community no?

[Cheese]

We're really going to make ourselves seem like a bunch of asshats like this.

 

 

too late

[»Ceiu]

And if they super absolutely needed the population of the other zone in the arena listing, what they could do is implement the population ping packet into their *sendto bot, and have the bot periodically change arenas to match the population. IE: EG_26 -> EG_35 and so on. Now the bot is doing exactly what they want it to do (sending them between arenas), they get their precious population listing in ?arena, and it's not completely fucking up the function.

 

Seriously. The current implementation is a terrible and short-sighted hack and it's sole purpose is to try to pull in people with fake population. As Brain already said, if that wasn't the case, then why is PB (which is running ASSS) also suffering from this "bug"?

[PoLiX]

This has been brought to Priit's attention, and we'll see what happens. He has been recently fooling with TW's subgame (broke a few things there anyways) so it is a good time to try and get him to tweak the feature and add a setting so we can disable the arenas adding to the total population. Really should not be that hard to add in a setting for that, so we'll see what he replies.

[Avast]

Why would he be willing to code something a few times a year, yet not willing to do more. You either care about the game or you don't. If you are going to code anything still, that means you care, so you might as well do everything you can. It's been like 10 years now. How long will he keep this charade. Too busy my ass. In my experience if you really want to do something you can be a fucking astronaught or president of the usa, and still find time to do something. Holding on to the code my ass. That reminds me of Calvin and Hobbes who owned Psirens. Plenty of good people wanted to revive Psirens, and use that squad name, even people who were still in Psirens, yet he lets the name go to waste due to nostalgia and some dumb sense of pride and attachment. Your squad is long gone. The people are long gone. You yourself are long gone. He doesn't even play anymore. Yet he holds this squad name hostage much like Priitk with his game. You either sell it. Allow it to grow, or make it grow yourself. Either way you will still have the rights to it as original creator. You don't hold it hostage becuase your a selfish peice of sh** Edited November 18, 2011 by Avast

[Dav]

well lets hope PriitK can find a nice solution to this.

 

I have not be weighing in on this thread because everything I would want to say has been said, but i agree somewhat with both sides. Nevertheless the current method is simply unsuitable.

 

In a nutshell it is a nice feature with poor execution. I suppose the current method is a nice way to test whether there is an appetite for this method of zone switching, but given the problems it needs to be changes ASAP. I would even go as far as suggesting it be disabled until a better solution can be found, this would also provide the motivation to fix it sooner rather then later.

[Stag Shot]

And if they super absolutely needed the population of the other zone in the arena listing, what they could do is implement the population ping packet into their *sendto bot, and have the bot periodically change arenas to match the population. IE: EG_26 -> EG_35 and so on. Now the bot is doing exactly what they want it to do (sending them between arenas), they get their precious population listing in ?arena, and it's not completely fucking up the function.

 

Seriously. The current implementation is a terrible and short-sighted hack and it's sole purpose is to try to pull in people with fake population. As Brain already said, if that wasn't the case, then why is PB (which is running ASSS) also suffering from this "bug"?

 

So a bot that interfaces with ping packets and switches arenas/names..and you call the current system a hack. I guess I should expect this type of reaction from so many years in the SS community. Yes, PB had nothing but malicious intent when implementing this feature..If you believe that, you don't know PB nor me. Why everyone is so protective of this population count is beyond me. The # has little fidelity anyways, EG/TW run tons of bots, and asss zones can manipulate at will.

 

The onus is on prickt to "allow" this to be fixed. Either he can change the 1-3 lines of code in fix.dll, or allow access to the binaries (in which case I will provide the binary patch). I want to fix this. And PB had no choice but to include the "peered" count, otherwise you're shooting yourself in the foot.

[JoWie]

I do not think it is a 3 line change, or else it would break the functionality of hosting a zone on multiple servers (you would only want a single directory listing).

 

I have heard trenchwars had used this in more glorious days (but do not quote me on this).

[»Ceiu]

So a bot that interfaces with ping packets and switches arenas/names..and you call the current system a hack.

 

Yes, what I suggested is pretty hack as well -- I won't deny that. However, my hack doesn't have the nasty side effect of breaking a fucking core metric used to gauge the population of a zone (or any other side-effects, for that matter). Not bad for something I thought up in the thirty seconds it took me to write it. Perhaps you should try putting it into perspective before you go making excuses and passive-aggressive attacks like a bad politician.

 

 

The # has little fidelity anyways, EG/TW run tons of bots, and asss zones can manipulate at will.

 

...

 

And PB had no choice but to include the "peered" count, otherwise you're shooting yourself in the foot.

 

This is my favorite part. So you subtly admit that you're purposefully implementing the arena bridge improperly because -- and I'm paraphrasing here -- if you don't, the other zones that do have an edge on you with their inflated population numbers. I'm no English major, but I'm pretty damn sure that's the definition of malicious (And, would you look at that, my dictionary agrees). To spell it out for you: You're purposefully doing something you know is dishonest. Yeah, you can come up a number of excuses and backwards justification for it, but it's all bullshit and you know it.

 

You (both as a collective and you as super-important PB dude) have options to do this correctly and you're choosing not to do it. Period. It's a pretty obvious to anyone who's used to dealing with this type of double-speak that you guys know what you're doing, have ulterior motives for doing it and, for whatever dumbass reason, simply aren't willing to accept/admit it.

 

So yeah. We're basically stuck at an impasse. You guys continue doing the jackass things you've been doing for years and the rest of who aren't part of your cool-kids-club will sit back and take it up the ass. All I ask is that you leave some cab fair for the ride home this time. Douche.

[Avast]

So a bot that interfaces with ping packets and switches arenas/names..and you call the current system a hack. I guess I should expect this type of reaction from so many years in the SS community. Yes, PB had nothing but malicious intent when implementing this feature..If you believe that, you don't know PB nor me. Why everyone is so protective of this population count is beyond me. The # has little fidelity anyways, EG/TW run tons of bots, and asss zones can manipulate at will.

 

The onus is on prickt to "allow" this to be fixed. Either he can change the 1-3 lines of code in fix.dll, or allow access to the binaries (in which case I will provide the binary patch). I want to fix this. And PB had no choice but to include the "peered" count, otherwise you're shooting yourself in the foot.

 

Ceiu basically got to you before I did. And he knows what he is talking about.

 

Why everyone else is so overprotective of the population has nothing to do with the argument. (the argument is, is arena sharing more benificial with population being misrepresented, or is it more benificial with populations being accurate) That is an actually good and valid argument. WHY EVERYONE else is overprotective is a fallacy called questioning the Motive. It falls under fallacies of irrelevence. Mainly being irrelevant to the topic. We are not even argueing if we should fix the population display, because no one would agree that it should just remain broken. and if you do, you and I both know you are on the end of a losing argument.

 

It may not be apparant to you why people want valid population counts. Perhaps you don't care. That doesn't mean everyone else should not care just because you don't. You didn't even ask why everyone wants valid population counts. There is no question mark after that comment you made. And this further proves you don't care what the community thinks. Yet you use the argument that this is for the benifit of the community? At least state its your personal desire. Make it more obvious than a post filled with anger that no one accepts "Your" idea. Because I don't remember this being discussed with zone population. And I am sure if it was discussed people would have expected the population of each zone to remain accurately listed.

 

The Onus does not rely on one person. Responsibility is actually universal. It actually works a different way, that is if you were not malicious, if Priitk can't fix this issue with the population or wont. Then the responsibility falls on you to take arena sharing down until you can impliment it without screwing up another part of the game. In fact the truly good way to handle things is to only impliment changes that do not harm or take away from another aspect of the game. Especially on such a large scale. This is no longer a matter of your zone. This falls into a matter of the whole Subspace community. You have no authority to harm the whole community.

 

Also again I have to say look up the fallacy two wrongs make a right. Just because bots ruined population stats before doesn't mean it's right to do it further, or worse, or ruin them because someone else did it etc. Basically beyond morality you are also being illogical, because two wrongs don't make a right.

Edited November 18, 2011 by Avast