"COMMUNITY ADDON MANAGEMENT SYSTEM" (A vision)

[terox 316]

I have a vision which i would like to call the Community Addon Management system.

"COMMUNITY ADDON MANAGEMENT SYSTEM"

aka C.A.M.S

which utilises the

"COMMUNITY MANAGEMENT APPLICATION"

aka C.M.A

This is a dream I have for an application to make the life of players and admins easier within the BI Gaming community

I do not have the technical skills required to create such an application, but I believe I do have the vision for what is required and a possible overview for how it could work.

The application itself would be used for:

• The Management of addons and mods
  
  • Downloading
    Installing
    Loading
    Checking for updates
    Deleting unwanted files etc
    Uploading to the central repositoryu (for addon authors)
    

Launching of applications

• ArmA2
  Comms server (Eg Teamspeak, Ventrilo, Mumble)

Autoconnection to Servers

• Comms server
  Game server.

Server management

• "Add Server to Favourites"
  Allow a comments field that is displayed per server that the player can add his thoughts too, which he can later review (This is a clientside only function)

Primary design factor

• Ease of use for the novice gamer or PC Illiterate
  Quick setup and reconfiguration for server admins

and could ideally be designed in a way as described below

CLIENTSIDE USEAGE

Ideally the player would only need to select a server from a "Server List" which the C.M.A automatically generates by intercepting the broadcast to gamespy by the ArmA servers

The application would then read data from a config file hosted on the selected game server, which it could then use to populate the form fields within the C.M.A for that specific server.

The C.M.A would then check whether or not the client has the required addons to play and warn him if he does not. It would also allow him to automatically download and setup these addons in preparation for playing on that server if the player so wished

This config file would allow the C.M.A to define

• what addons it needed to download
  What mod folder structure to use
  In what order should those mod folders be loaded
  The connection settings for the servers, ArmA2 and voice comms
  and a useful comments field from the game server admins that could explain additional requirements or information that they deemed fit
  for example
  
  • Type of gameplay
    Scheduled gaming nights
    Website URL's
    Welcome message
    Requirements to play
    etc etc

C.A.M.S

ADDONS & MODS

For this to work, the storage and distribution of addons would possibly be organised in the following way

STORAGE

All addons and mods are held in a central repository. (For example ArmAHolics and or ArmedAssault.info)

The root folder for this repository has subfolders.

Each subfolder is named using the OFPEC Tag system.

Addons with that Tag are stored in that subfolder.

The author that owns that tag, has FTP Upload rights to his subfolder.

(This then allows for easier updating of addons and mods by the author)

DISTRIBUTION

Mirror sites can then clone the central repository or a user defined selection of it.

Lets call this the "C.A.M.S Mirror Network"

A game server or it's website for example could host the content that they use as part of the mirror network

The mirror network would allow the fair distribution of bandwidth useage by randomly selecting files from different mirror sites, or some other fair useage system

DOWNLOAD

Individual addons or mods can be download directly from the Mirror network by individual players using the C.M.A

or

A "pack" can be defined by a gaming community via the config file that the C.M.A reads that will allow the community member to download the required addons for an individual server (If he hasnt already got them on his hardrive in some other mod folder)

These addons will then be installed to either a custom defined mod folder structure, or the Addon "Authors" predfined mod folder structure

ADDON AUTHORS

A file in their Subfolder could define a predetermined mod folder structure for each addon that they upload

A similar file as the server admin file example shown below

This could then be automatically used by the C.M.A when installing that addon, unless the Game Server config file states otherwise

We could also create a community standard mod folder structure, which would be commonly used for storing individual addons, not mods.

For example

• @Islands
  @Equipment
  @Units
  @Weapons
  @SoundMods
  @Configs
  @Misc

SERVER ADMINS

They would create a config file such as the example below which lays out all the information that the C.M.A needs to set up the client correctly

< CMA_Config >
<GameServer>
	<Type>
		"ArmA2";
	</Type>
		"Teamspeak2"
	</Type>
	<IP>
		"1.2.3.4:9797"
	</IP>
</GameServer>

<Website>
	"http://www.mysite.com"
</Website>

<Info>
	"We play Coop,
	We are in Europe,
	Feel free to drop in and have a game."		
</Info>

<Foldername="@ZeusCommon">
	<Foldername="Addons">
		ABC_weapons.pbo";
		ABC_vehicles.pbo";
	</Foldername>

	<Foldername="DTA">
	</Foldername>

	<Foldername="Docs">
		"Readme_ABC.txt"
		"Readme_XYZ.txt"
	</Foldername>
</Foldername>

<Foldername="UserConfig">
</Foldername>
< /CMA_Config >

______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Obviously Yoma's addon sync goes a long way to providing this functionality, however a possibly more efficient system would be to use the rsync technology that the less user friendly Sickboy's Six Updater system uses.

I am also aware that Kelly's Heroes uses some form of mirror system to spread their network load across various sites.

So having started this thread off in the hope it will develop into something, I would invite anybody to comment/design/review or in any other way add constructive comments to this thread.

I would specifically invite Sickboy, Yoma, Bohemia interactive and the hosts of ArmAHolics & ArmedAssault.info to air their views and any assistance they would be willing to provide in creating such a system.

Thanks for taking the time to read this thread

Edited January 18, 2010 by Terox

[Binkowski 26]

I like this

[Yoma 0]

Of course i like the idea of doing something like this. Addonsync allready has a lot of the features mentionned. What it basically lacks at the moment is

-a centralised system.

-providing required/optional modstrings.

-MD5 checksum incorporated in filename.

-some webservice site thing that has full mods etc listed for download.

The xml thing you made looks nice but lacks checksums for starters.

Basically I could alter addonsync to download file x.pbo_MYMD5.7z

If then i had like this "massive mirror" service thing where i could ask "gimme file x.pbo_MYMD5.7z" it would be possible.

In my opinion the fairest and best option would be to go p2p for the "massive mirror" thing. That would mean that if everyone starts downloading the new version of addon X there would be no real congestion on the servers.

The nice thing about current implementations of P2P is that you can use a "normal" http server as "seeding server".

This way you'd have a network that's fair to both admins and users.