What you suggest in its self would require a mod allowing players to "fly" from server to server. This has only been done once before and only with moderate success. However, it was done on the first Quake engine and at a time when Modems were the standard for internet connections. Such a mod could work in freelancer, and provide character preservation when servers had to reformat their drives simply by flying your character to another server.

Actually, you MP player is located on the server side, not on your own system, so if you are worried about crashes/reformats go into your freelancer/exe dir and doubleclick on the file myflaccountid.hta this will bring up a nice little browser window that will give you the option to print off your ID code, print it and put it in a safe place... next, I do like the idea of being able to move your char from one server to the next, but there would need to be 3 people involved, you, the sysop of the server you are on and the sysop of the server you wish to join. You would have to talk to the first sysop, tell him you want to move and have him send your player account file from his my documents/my games/freelancer/accts/multiplayer/ dir to the new server sysop to put on his machine.
This can be done, I know that there are different dir in the accts dir for each player that has logged into the server, what I'm not sure of is if the gabblygoop dir names are the same codes as the account, if not there would need to be a way do do a search through the accounts to find the proper one for you as a sysop that has had a hundred or more players log in over a period of time will not want to spend a lot of time rooting through all of these to find yours...

There a few ways that this could be done. Users are distiguished by their product Id that Microsoft gives you when you first install the game. This number helps name the folder that ultimately saves your character in. Another way to distiguish users is by Mac address, but Mac address is only good on systems with a network card. Both methods involve work on the system admin's part at one time for installation.

1. A server/client app that transfers character info from one server to another. This would be a separate cient app that just goes to a server via a special port that is running some host software, grab the file and transfer over to another server running the same host software.

2. Server runs a website that you can do the file transfer through. The ip address is shown in freelancer, so just go to the website associated with the IP address. There are many free apps that you can use to upload/download files to and from a server. This would be a method where you can download your guy, to your own system and upload it to another system.

There are a few issues that arrise with any method to transfer characters:

Security - make sure that you don't copy over someone else's file, but this is where the Freelancer ID or Mac address come into play. A method would be needed to translate the folder names to the microsoft ID. There are other security issues with opening up the server to web requests or unknown client software requests, but we are just theorizing right now.

Cheating - There is nothing that would stop someone transfering their character to a system then editing and then transferring back. Of course I have seen some servers out there with mods that make cheating a moot point.

Why don't we just make the character file stored on the clients computer, or at least a back-up that they could choose to upload to another server.

Actually, what if (2) servers had a share point pointing to where the accts were stored? Then both servers would have access to current accounts.

Now the only issue I could see with this would be trying to login to one server while you are already on another. (Say you copied you account code to another machine).

This is currently being tried and with moderate to somewhat regular success with Neverwinter Nights.

Dayblade

I'm with captain_aries on this one. Make character files storable on the client side, in-game. Then choose to upload which file takes your fancy to whatever server. Much easier.

Why do things the hard way?

I don't think this will work simply due to the way MP accounts are handled/created. The account ID is generated via the server when the client initially pings the server. It morphs the client ID number with the server ID number to create a unique MP account ID. This account ID can only then be used in conjunction with the server that was pinged to create the ID in the first place. This Account ID can NOT be ustilized on a different server unless ALL MP account ID are transferred. Then the server that they were transferred from can not be run at the same time as the new server with the treansferred ID.

Clear as mud?

a bit clearer yes..
But why was this unique account ID implemented in the first place, without the ability to manage, tinker and personalise account files on the client side? the current system complicates things, and makes MP a bit user-unfriendly to some degree. It's probably why so many people are cheating, because they were not allowed to upload their own time honoured creations to any server, and have to start from stratch each time. It's long and laborious to say the least.



Edited by - Mercenary on 24-04-2003 16:51:51

The main reason this issue exists is because the MP portion of FL was never conceptualized to be anything more than "private persistent servers" run for groups of friends by a member of that group with the best connection hosting for everyone. Digital Anvil never envisioned the global servers would become what they are today...massive servers that cater to unknown entities. Call it a design flaw, call it a feature, but it is what it is.

If enough top notch coders put their heads together, this idea would become a reality. Me, myself I have very little experiance based around coding, so I wouldnt be any help. But the possiblities of having something like this, would surely add an element of replay value for most people.

So hurry up and get it sorted, you know its possible ;p

The slightest sanity within someone without sanity, is that faded voice in the back of their mind saying "help me"

Stinger, quick question. You mentioned that the account ID's on the server are created by both the server and the client, but that is just for the accounts themselves, so logically if the person transfering the char started an account on the new server and then asked to have the player file only moved, would that work, again it adds to the complexity of searching out the accounts as it it would need to be done by both sysops, the one you are moving from and the one you are moving to... I' m gonna check when I get a chance and move a char file from one account dir to another on my server and see if it works or not. Just have to make sure I have a way to tell which accounts I'm playing with... perhaps load 6 chars in one account and five in another (I'm sure no one plays that many chars on the server) I won't get a chance to do something like this till Tuesday, but I'll be sure to let everyone know if it works... going from there I'll maybe put together another box and put up a second server and see if it will work from one server to the next.... Unfortunately documentation on running a server is rather scarce, do you know if 2 servers will run off the same internet IP addy?

like someone mentioned above, having a single storage space for the account information would be able to work pretty well (over network, i.e: somewhere on the internet). But then at that point, why not go a step further and allow a whole bunch of servers to link up together, which would allow for even larger users on a single 'server network'.

Kind of like irc with nickserv services.

Certainly at that point servers will then have to take care of:

1) information going to and from users and server
2) information going to and from server and server network hub

And that would require a main hub that manages the flow of information, along with account information.

Leaf servers would most likely require to have a smaller player limit, but by combining so many together, the total amount of players really available becomes so huge. Imagine playing with 1000 users logged on. Imagine the clan wars

Unfortunately that would cause huge docking queues, and probably a lot of computers wouldn't even able to properly display a couple of hundred ships around manhattan... but hey it could still work

Stinger: The fact that player information is stored on the server actually makes such a mod easier to do. All you need do it to get a "group" of servers to share player information amongst themselves. When the player moves across the servers, the first server is polled for the updated info and that is transfered withthe player. Considering that the actual data flow is pretty small (the info would be stored client side otherwide) the player would not notice any difference.

Servers could also do automatic polling on a schedual to ensure all data is updated across the "server network" ona regular basis while players are logged off.
The only limitation is that Freelancer games operated across servers in this manner would have to have a definate boundry. Meaning that the "having to start anew on a new network" rule would still apply as it now does to individual servers.

Truthfully, such a mod would be well worth it and it could theoretically expand the FL universe thousand fold.

Edited by - Nog on 25-04-2003 18:01:57