Who was it that created the script to move players from one game to the next? I have an idea for a grand game but want to see what/how they did it. I thought I saw it around here somewhere but quick search turned up nothing.

Yeah, that was on Archy's server. I've wanted to go check that out myself sometime.

When I first heard of Jumpgate that's what I thought it was. Man was I let down

I had that running on my server for a while... but i scrapped it when i realised there was not enough interest in it.

I had 2 games running, 1 was locked. A server side admin script was running along with a bot script that sat in the unlocked game and allowed players to communicate with it. 1 of the functions it performed was to allow the players to buy access into the locked game. It would pass the details to the admin script which would create the account for the player under the same name as used in the unlocked game. Other functions allowed the player to pass credits and fighters back and forth between the 2 games.

The scripts used would probably need some work as they have not been tested with recent releases of the server (at least since 2.07.. maybe before)

Well, I love the creativity of that game, Archy. It's a shame you couldn't get people interested in it. Just not a lot of players to pull from, unfortunately.

I'm interested, but kinda busy right now. This summer would be a fun game to explore.

Haha I thought the same thing and had the same reaction. I envisioned starting in one galaxy then moving to a entirely different server/galaxy.

If I could get a copy, I'll give it a hack on mine. Looking for a way to smoke my Windows 2003 machine anyway (Need an excuse to buy a new one)

I always thought that would be a wormhole anyway. Whoosh you off to some unknown server kinda like Voyager. You'd spend the rest of the year trying to get back (lol)

Archy, are you willing to share your scripts and the set up you did? I could write them but don't want to re-invent the wheel if I don't have to.

Here is my idea for anyone that might be interested. This is a work in progress and it is a bunch of ideas that are swirling in my head.

This would be a 6 Game universe. The goal would be to conquer the final universe. Each of the sector maps would be exactly the same but the game settings for each universe would be different. For example. The 1st universe would be an unlimited game with no death delay and planets that stop at level 1 cits. Ships would be meant more for trading and making money. It would cost you x amount to move from 1st universe to the 2nd and it would cost x amount to move your planets. The 2nd universe would have a turn limit there. Planets would go to level 2 there or something range. New planets and ships would be introduced in each universe.

Each universe would have some advantage to spending time there. There would also be a % factor when transferring resources from one universe to another. For example if you have 1 billion credits in universe 1 by the time you transferred it to universe 6 it may only be 1 mil credits. These are jsut numbers I am throwing out there.

I still need a lot of work on the idea but I think it could be something very special once done. What do you think?

This could really get interesting with the new features that JP did with Botlink.

I really like the idea of multi-universes linked together. I think many of us thought when we first heard "Jumpgate" that it ment we could link not only universes, but also servers.

Any step/s in that direction sounds like fun! Keep brainstorming!

You are definitely on the right track with your idea. We have something similar on our server. Game A has 5000 sectors; Game B has 10k sectors; Game C may only have 1000 sectors; Game D has 20k sectors. Our server-side script monitors the games and runs everything according. When we move from one game to the next, our Ship/credits/rank/experience transfer with us and we can even send messages and credits to one another from one game to another (planets are the only thing that do not transfer). So as we slowly start in Game A, the server script creates the account to Game B and it is all ready for us when we "traverse". Specific sectors allow for "warping to the next game"only.

It was quite the extensive project and we are quite proud of the fun we have with it. If we were able to achieve this and run it successfully, you can definitely do it with your methods and ideas.

You guys got me thinking about this today. Obviously it can be done by creative gameops just using TEDIT, and with Botlink, it'll probably be a bit easier and maybe more options, plus you'll have the ability to integrate it better with the game, maybe with a special kind of port that will allow you to jump from game to game, for a price. But I was thinking about what I could do internally to make this more seamless.

I've always looked at this as needing to support an ability to share one large game world over multiple servers, and that's definitely a more difficult task. It could be done using the admin connection and TEDIT just like it's being done today, but it does add some complexity. But if you limit the goal to just running a multi-map game on a single server, there definitely are ways I could improve the situation. The most important thing to realize is that TW is linked to a game directory at startup. But there's no reason that the game needs to remain linked to that directory. If a game was defined with a primary game that provided most of its data (user file, ship file, most config settings, etc), and then a group of sub-games where a subset of data is stored (sector map, sector indexes, game events, etc), then it would be possible to swap out one set of game map data for another, basically jumping from game to game. This pointer to a game directory would be stored in your user file, so if you log out while in a sub-game, then log back in, you'd still be in that game. But then if you jumped back to the main game or to another sub-game, it would happen seamlessly, not requiring you to log out of the game and into another one.

I definitely think it's possible to do this. I would think I could prototype something in a day, though it would take longer to fully test it and work out kinks. But the basic mechanics of swapping out data sets wouldn't be too hard to implement and it would prove the concept. I'm definitely intrigued by the idea. Maybe I'll get a free day before long to experiment with it.

The tournament possibilities of this stagger the imagination.... And V'ger would go bananas

H

That is what we basically have done with the games- allowed the "jumping" only at a specific port and only if we have the set credits, etc. We have a comprehensive master script that controls everything, and it does take a lot of work when you start tracking more than 6 games. Now it is just two of us playing- it gets complex when you add 10+ outside players.



The idea comes from the Inter-BRE we played in the BBS days. It definitely opens some ideas and creativity for games and servers.