Is matchmaking even possible on the Spring server?

One of the old matchmaking concepts was a room to which everybody would go. Then a bot there would redistribute people into other rooms.

After it was implemented it was ruled out and the current system has been adapted after awhile. Not sure what was the reason for that decision though.

No, it's not possible. I think much of the history of ZKLS and Uberserver is about matchmaking not being possible without server changes. The battleroom system does not work for matchmaking. You need a way to tell clients to connect to a battle without any hackyness involving rooms. You need to make sure that every lobby implements this protocol otherwise you'll have a mess. You need a way to ensure that clients have all the required maps and games for matchmaking.

You can probably hack something together for lobbies that respond to being forcejoined to rooms. However I expect it to be a lot of work, bug prone and not streamlined enough for something releasable.

And as a result, ZK now has a lobby that is actually presentable to present day players!

No it wasn't. At least not by most people.

quote: No it wasn't. At least not by most people.

Yea, just by the peoplers who almost released it on steam.

12345 where do you get your special insight about such matters? Who, exactly, almost released ZK on steam and when?

TheEloIsALie :
You have the history completly backwards.
First there was spring and within that system zero-K was formed, on the base of an already existing game.
"Base" not just in form of the technical files, but also "base" as in an the existing community.
Then zero-K slowly tried to pull in more players - but not from outside, mostly from within spring and often by dickmoves.

So the question is really what kind of sociopathic state of mind you need to be in to sabotage the work of people who invested their time and effort to allow your project to be born in the first place, for absolutely no gain but some bragging rights on forums and social media that you have put a game on steam. (but not even released yet)

> All 300+ of those players would have kept playing the same old games with about 0 new content in 4 years? I don't get it.
Nice strawman. It is that system of 300+ players where zero-K (and other games) were born!
Would you invest effort to create new content in this locked community with its 20 players? Surely not!
The original spring community did not twindle until greedy develobers ripped it apart. Clearly those develobers did not care about anything except wanting the biggest part of cake for himself! For some people cooexistance was appearently impossible because they only wanted THEIR game to have all the spotlight and players.
As result, now no game has any players.



GoogleFrog There have been so many posts where develobers wrote "we could release with current lobby" or named "weeks" and "months" to release.
When I look how many untested releases of eg zeroK-lobby were done, (with appearently nobody really aware it would happen), it seems quite possible that suddendly one night 1 or 2 devs decide to click the steam-button.
Or was it really your plan to wait three years with steam release? So far zero-K is only 'almost' released, but not quite yet.

quote: Nice strawman. It is that system of 300+ players where zero-K (and other games) were born!

Because "trying to get new players for a game" and "prevent a game on a 10 year old engine from dying out" is apparently "greedy developer hands trying to steal cake". Again, how did the future look like in your eyes? So far you're the one with a strawman for completely ignoring the question at hand.

quote: Because it are the excact things that develobers always hailed

Yeah, who doesn't remember the developers hailing accurate map star ratings?

quote: Would you invest effort to create new content in this locked community with its 20 players?

We've had several maps, plenty of widgets and gadgets and multiple AIs created since then. Evidently, the answer is "yes".

quote: Again, how did the future look like in your eyes?

I was quite happy with the PRESENT. 300+ players, many players, many develobs, new games got made etc. There was no need for drastic change to the system.

quote: But that's not the reality of what you draw in new players with. They don't come to check out your cool engine with all its quirky mods. They come to play a game. That's what ZK has been trying to (and arguably has) become.

Well, that is the age-old spring question: Should there be a plattform for many games, or only one game?
Had we discussed this some years ago then the facit would have been: 'We do not know what will be better.'
But now we can compare both systems and the original one was better, more players, more develobs, less lobsterish community etc.
So appearently players did indeed like to to check out the cool engine with all its quirky mods.
Ah, 'quirky mods' is such a dumb misleading term again too! Why do steamdreamers always imply that the existance of many games mean they have to be 'quirky'? Such bullshit fake arguement!

quote: Ah, so you'd also be vehemently opposed to saving money for later in life, or any kind of insurance for that matter. Because clearly the present is great, so why would you care about the future.

I prefer a steady income over losing all my moneys at gambling. And my families money too. And my friends money too. And then die alone in puddle of vomit as evolutionrts and zeroK did.