Author Topic: TODO list: the technical condition of the server and issues needing attention  (Read 14473 times)

Offline iL

  • Administrator
  • Ogre Mage
  • *****
  • Posts: 1653
    • View Profile
If and when the time comes to hire a programmer I'll help with the financial costs.
The problem for me is not money. The problem is time.

Well, for example:
1. fixing CPU savior will take, say, 3 evenings for me. I can spend these 3 evenings to look into the debugger and resolve the problem. Or i can spend some time to find some programmer on freelance exchange who can make it for $100.
I'm almost sure that will be longer for me to find programmer than to make that myself. After that i still have to make sure his code is working (so, i still have to install all possible windows: xp, vista, 7, 8, 10, both x86 and x64 to test. To do everything of that quickly, before paying him). After that i possibly have to dispute with him for bad job, then repeat my search again for new programmer.

If i have no time to make that myself, i will also have no time to hire somebody.

About to make that task myself and get $100 for that:
I have other projects that should bring me more than $100 for these 3 evenings. Switching to war2 will make me pause in other projects. I will loose potentially more than these $100.

2. About to resolve network issues requesting all the time:
You can give me $1 000 000 or $1 000 000 000 - i just have no idea how to do it. That network issues are being caused by Warcraft II and it's network protocols architecture.
I think there will be a very difficult task to find a programmer who technically can resolve "all the network issues" for war2. Even if you find the way to get the source code of war2bne from blizzard. So money will not help at all.

All we can do is to resolve some custom situations: say, to enforce some player to change his ISP or to buy VPN for himself.

If you have money you can buy pull of 10-15 VPNs, paying for them monthly and give them to anybody who have problems. Configuring that VPNs is task resolvable by a remote programmer/admin. I also don't see my part in that configuration as it's absolutely separate project from existing infrastructure.

3. To finish my antihack.
Will require, say, 1 month of full-time for me. That means i have to stop other projects and most likely loose them. I disagree to loose other projects for even $3000-$5000 single payment for antihack.

That's why i see such situation:
1. small issues:
maybe i can make something from time to time (as i spent 1 evening for d3d checker and affinity for observer). Most likely i'll release new combat soon (when get approves d3d checker works properly and resolve compatibilities with win10)

But i'd prefer somebody else to make such small things with minimum of my involvement.
You have money and desires? Hire the programmer, pay him, then test his project. Send that project to me with it's source code to keep the possibility to release updates/fixes, and i'll include it somehow to combat or anywhere else.

Of course, that code should look sanely. Tiny fix, like CPU savior that requires 100Mb of disk space and 3 installed frameworks will be thrown out.
Programming language is preferred C++ (visual studio) as most code is written on it. To future possible intergation.
I can make the detailed specification for programmer if required.

2. big issues: Firstly antihack.
In general, same way as for tiny issues: Hire the programmer, explain him what you want to get, pay and get that.
Source code is highly recommended to have (such project will definitely require maintenance in future). Also, professional style of coding is highly recommended also. (I mean, to hire experienced developer, not a student for such task as antihack).

3. unresolvable questions.
Network issues. We can not resolve them in general.
You can try to buy VPNs, to share them somehow, to make tests. That is absolutely forign task for current infrastructure. That is everything i can see as quite reasonable way.
Should help with conflicts, sometimes with latency, lagging, but sometimes it will make lagging worse.

4. i still care of war2.ru project and war2 game in general, so i'll try to do everything i can if it will require some reasonable time from me (like 1-2 evenings).
I can definitely release new combat if i have all parts to compile them together. I can make some small fixes for current infrastructue. But i offer someone else to find or hire remote programmer for secondary fixes not directly intergated to current infrastructure.
« Last Edit: November 15, 2017, 04:19:49 AM by iL »
Need help to translate War2Combat to German, French, Italian, Polish or another language: http://forum.war2.ru/index.php/topic,4728.0.html
Please, contact me if you are interested in that.

Offline Delete mine too

  • Death Knight
  • *********
  • Posts: 2652
  • http://meatspin.com
    • View Profile
    • http://meatspin.com
I think when the person installs it should give them a message like

"Notice: If you're using Windows 10 and the display in game is not optimal, run the DISPLAYWAR2 shortcut to try other available display settings"

and then they can run some little application that lets them choose all the different ddraws one at a time.  Like it would have a radio button where they could select a different ddraw at will to try everything out.
That's what I meant to say by support tool in the war2 folder.

Offline Paper_Boy

  • Grunt
  • ***
  • Posts: 131
    • View Profile
Would be nice to see 2on2 teams automatically logged under team ladder!! Then, you could designate who belongs to your clan on your team page featuring your icon & team logo whatever. Would be cool to see who the best 2on2 team is & overall team rankings as a group


These tiny changes people are asking for are nice, but war2 feels more than adequate with out them. Are biggest problem is lack of exposure makes it hard to get games during non peak hours. A fKey macro that streams twitch or makes it faster to convert war2vids to youtube might help.


Googles deep mind and Blizzard are working together using machine learning AI to try to beat the worlds best sc2 players… I feel like war2 is far more intricate with complexities that dwarf their current project. They’ve conquered GO but I doubt a computer could ever beat  Swift!  I would like to see Burnt beg or steal Blizzard for some machine learning API’s iL can use to develop war2 AI!!!!  Newbs could play the computer version of swift to learn =)


Realistically tho, for any real drastic changes we would have to pay for someone to reverse engineer war2. Then instead of issuing kinda functional patches we could build off a solid foundation! War2 with updated graphics, no conflict, more responsive, 3rd race, slight game balancing so every spell and unit is relevant. When is the last time u won a game with Exoricism, healing, skeletons or berserkers?  Maybe Jordan4358 can assist in the effort. I can get Terra to flash her tits for payment.. Might at least be worth getting a quote from a reverse engineer!

Offline ~ToRa~

  • Server Admin
  • Death Knight
  • *****
  • Posts: 3544
  • The General
    • View Profile
2. About to resolve network issues requesting all the time
I get now its not simply an issue of "hiring someone and fixing it" its more complicated than I could have thought.


If you have money you can buy pull of 10-15 VPNs, paying for them monthly and give them to anybody who have problems. Configuring that VPNs is task resolvable by a remote programmer/admin. I also don't see my part in that configuration as it's absolutely separate project from existing infrastructure.

@mousEtopher

Myself and mousetopher did try doing something like this not too long ago but it didn't work for whatever reason.  (I think she said it had something to do with utp packets or something like that)

3. To finish my antihack.
Will require, say, 1 month of full-time for me. That means i have to stop other projects and most likely loose them. I disagree to loose other projects for even $3000-$5000 single payment for antihack.

I understand your situation. I'll make a post in the admin section maybe there can be a way to get this done in the next year.


That's why i see such situation:
1. small issues:
maybe i can make something from time to time (as i spent 1 evening for d3d checker and affinity for observer). Most likely i'll release new combat soon (when get approves d3d checker works properly and resolve compatibilities with win10)

But i'd prefer somebody else to make such small things with minimum of my involvement.
You have money and desires? Hire the programmer, pay him, then test his project. Send that project to me with it's source code to keep the possibility to release updates/fixes, and i'll include it somehow to combat or anywhere else.

I would like some clarity here.
 Are you saying anything other than Hosing issues and Anti hack can be done by a 3rd party?

I can definitely release new combat if i have all parts to compile them together. I can make some small fixes for current infrastructue. But i offer someone else to find or hire remote programmer for secondary fixes not directly intergated to current infrastructure.

Looks like a lot of players are posting in this thread so we should be able to see what other minor fixes there are that need to be done.
war2 > war3

Offline Certified MENSA Genius Brain (smart)

  • "The Architect"
  • Global Moderator
  • Dragon
  • *****
  • Posts: 5384
    • View Profile
Rebuilt War2Observe with SetProcessAffinity.
Sets both war2 and observe to CPU0, same as war2insight. To prevent crash.
Version 2.0.2 (last was 2.0.1 as i remember)
Oh wow, this is a nice surprise.  8)
    

Offline iL

  • Administrator
  • Ogre Mage
  • *****
  • Posts: 1653
    • View Profile
Myself and mousetopher did try doing something like this not too long ago but it didn't work for whatever reason.  (I think she said it had something to do with utp packets or something like that)
If you still have vpns powered on, i can look into that. I have toughts about the reasons.
You are talking about the situation when it worked with other bneet-servers, but not server.war2.ru?

I would like some clarity here.
 Are you saying anything other than Hosing issues and Anti hack can be done by a 3rd party?
Almost so.
I think antihack can be done by a 3rd party, if that 3rd party is trusted person, but he have to do that from scratch most likely and we have some specific requirements for such project.

About hosting issues: i think it is a big task that need to be splitted to several small subtasks and some of that subtasks could be resolved.
And some tasks requires my involvement, some can be resolved by 3rd part.

I think there's a lot of minor fixes that can be released by 3rd part or anybody from our community.

I'd say 3rd party cannot release something closely intergated with server things. Like custom bnet /commands, custom bnet packets, some kind of intergation between server and foreign services. Nothing of that appeared in TODO list yet. If we will really ready to implement something like that, i'll try to help.

Looks like a lot of players are posting in this thread so we should be able to see what other minor fixes there are that need to be done.
Yes, i think such TODO list should at least help to collect issues and requests for new functional.
Need help to translate War2Combat to German, French, Italian, Polish or another language: http://forum.war2.ru/index.php/topic,4728.0.html
Please, contact me if you are interested in that.

Offline Certified MENSA Genius Brain (smart)

  • "The Architect"
  • Global Moderator
  • Dragon
  • *****
  • Posts: 5384
    • View Profile
Did Lance give you the source code for his hardware ban?  I think he said he did.  I think it could be ready to go, with "deployment" as the only remaining step of the project?
    

Offline iL

  • Administrator
  • Ogre Mage
  • *****
  • Posts: 1653
    • View Profile
Did Lance give you the source code for his hardware ban?  I think he said he did.  I think it could be ready to go, with "deployment" as the only remaining step of the project?
He gave me an idea only. Good idea, but i still didn't implement it. I plan to do it if i ever continue my work on antihack.
I implemented my own idea to check hardware id, it works ok. At least i can catch intersections for different accounts joined from the same computer or to find all the computers used by some person. Of course, only for connections with antihack.
Need help to translate War2Combat to German, French, Italian, Polish or another language: http://forum.war2.ru/index.php/topic,4728.0.html
Please, contact me if you are interested in that.

Offline Certified MENSA Genius Brain (smart)

  • "The Architect"
  • Global Moderator
  • Dragon
  • *****
  • Posts: 5384
    • View Profile
And the possibility to complete that anti-hack/hardware ban project right now is unknown?  As in, it is big enough to take some time, and you don't have any expectation of having the free time to do it, in the foreseeable future?
    

Offline iL

  • Administrator
  • Ogre Mage
  • *****
  • Posts: 1653
    • View Profile
And the possibility to complete that anti-hack/hardware ban project right now is unknown?  As in, it is big enough to take some time, and you don't have any expectation of having the free time to do it, in the foreseeable future?
To complete hardware ban without improving antihack? I even didn't think about that, but that could make sense...
Well, then we firstly need to make it impossible to join without antihack. And antihack is additional service now, if someone will happen with it, nobody can join.
Also need to implement some improvements to enforce hardware id protection.
But you definitely right: hardware ban and antihack are completely different things, there's no reason to make them together.
Need to think about what can be done quickly...

Another thing: i don't like an idea to close the server for ordinary clients. Somebody can randomly try to join and get error, think the server is dead, we will loose potential player...
Though, with original war2bne he have to add our server to gateway list then...
I saw "banned" players as those who can join but can't create/join games and probably muted and can't write messages.
Though, doesn't matter about my past ideas, i still have no time to implement them. Total ban will be much easier.
Need help to translate War2Combat to German, French, Italian, Polish or another language: http://forum.war2.ru/index.php/topic,4728.0.html
Please, contact me if you are interested in that.

Offline chayliss

  • Grunt
  • ***
  • Posts: 221
  • [quote author=KaNuKs~ link=topic=2345.msg40515#msg
    • View Profile
    • [quote author=KaNuKs~ link=topic=2345.msg40515#msg40515 date=1469984330] wazzup chay [/quote]
HD Remaster put that on the list
Quote from: KingHillBilly
I respect players like Chayliss
Quote from: Fast Luck
Top quality trolling Chayliss.  Hat tip to you
Quote from: Sparkz102
also in this post - special shout out to my boy chay
Quote from: CLAW
not bad at all, chayliss. Gooder then me expectoned

Offline iL

  • Administrator
  • Ogre Mage
  • *****
  • Posts: 1653
    • View Profile
There's another task could be probably made better by you than by me:
To get warcraft occult forum database from Axolotl.
We have an offline backup copy of first 3 pages on occult.war2.ru, but would be much better to restore the whole data.
I asked Axolotl by email on yahoo, he doesn't answer anymore. Maybe someone have contacts with Axolotl to find him and ask his database.
Tons of useful war2 information, would be sad to loose that completely.

HD Remaster put that on the list
I called that "improve graphics". Ok, adding...

-Ddraw bundling for Win10.  This is big for the future compatibility of the software with new computers
I still didn't understand: existing ddraws have some problems on win10 or not? As i understand, minimal works perfect on win >7. On 8, 8.1 and probably 10, isn't it?
So, our case:
- on winxp we don't use ddraw at all
- on vista/7 we use eighter test4 or test3 or test2 (i think test4 or test2, depend on my d3dchecker result).
- on win8/10 we use minimal.
Or i don't know something?
« Last Edit: November 16, 2017, 03:59:49 AM by iL »
Need help to translate War2Combat to German, French, Italian, Polish or another language: http://forum.war2.ru/index.php/topic,4728.0.html
Please, contact me if you are interested in that.

Offline Certified MENSA Genius Brain (smart)

  • "The Architect"
  • Global Moderator
  • Dragon
  • *****
  • Posts: 5384
    • View Profile
- on vista/7 we use eighter test4 or test3 or test2 (i think test4 or test2, depend on my d3dchecker result).

Maybe I was confused since I don't use win10 yet, but I thought the test2 test3 test4 were for windows 10.  but I don't really know... I mostly use an old machine with windows xp.  and the existing windows 7 fix usually worked for me

I definitely see this "minimal version" was for win8 and above:
http://forum.war2.ru/index.php/topic,1790.msg32593.html#msg32593
« Last Edit: November 16, 2017, 08:18:41 AM by eyyy im walkin here »
    

Offline Delete mine too

  • Death Knight
  • *********
  • Posts: 2652
  • http://meatspin.com
    • View Profile
    • http://meatspin.com
Myself and mousetopher did try doing something like this not too long ago but it didn't work for whatever reason.  (I think she said it had something to do with utp packets or something like that)
If you still have vpns powered on, i can look into that. I have toughts about the reasons.
You are talking about the situation when it worked with other bneet-servers, but not server.war2.ru?

I think that was my part. You tested it and said war2.ru don't respond back to such packets and you didn't plan on supporting it at that time. I can spawn many vpns with open ports

I will however not monitor the traffic but if someone would be to abuse the vpn such ass child porn, etc. I will turn in logs to authorities if needed.


Offline iL

  • Administrator
  • Ogre Mage
  • *****
  • Posts: 1653
    • View Profile
I think that was my part. You tested it and said war2.ru don't respond back to such packets and you didn't plan on supporting it at that time. I can spawn many vpns with open ports

I will however not monitor the traffic but if someone would be to abuse the vpn such ass child porn, etc. I will turn in logs to authorities if needed.
Yes, so that's what i remember then. I added kind of antiddos protection against some kind of uncommon trafiic and i think that is what can make a problem for your config.
I can:
1. try to switch it off (till acher/cloak don't make his attack) to make sure that's the problem.
2. turn my firewall back and try to change you vpn config to make it work with my closed firewall.
Need help to translate War2Combat to German, French, Italian, Polish or another language: http://forum.war2.ru/index.php/topic,4728.0.html
Please, contact me if you are interested in that.